Brand Hate as a Mediator: The Study of Brand Image and Brand Relationship Quality in Virtual Brand Communities

Abstract

The goal of this study is to look at the relationship between the independent variable brand image, mediated by brand hate, and the dependent variable of brand relationship quality (BRQ) in a virtual brand community. This study adopts a quantitative design using the random stratified sampling method to select 340 Xiaomi cell phone users in China to fill out a questionnaire to collect empirical collection and analyze the interrelationships between the constructs based on PLS-SEM. The results show that of the three dimensions of brand image (functional, symbolic and experiential) in relation to BRQ, only symbolic image has a non-significant relationship with BRQ. Brand hate played a significant mediating role in the relationship between brand image and BRQ. The theoretical and practical contributions are explained for insight enhancement toward the variables involved and further support existing literature. Brand image composition and brand hate composition are closely related to BRQ. In particular, this study aims to determine the factors that affect BRQ in the virtual brand community (VBC) according to the VBC characteristics. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the maintenance of brand image, reduce brand hate, and improve the BRQ in the cell phone VBC.