The objective of this paper is to explore the antecedents of brand loyalty in the chocolate market.
A large sample of 808 effective responses was collected through an online questionnaire that was posted on the Facebook wall of a Finnish confectionery company. A model of four antecedents (brand satisfaction, brand equity, brand value, brand trust) leading to two aspects of brand loyalty (behavioral loyalty, attitudinal loyalty) was constructed. The moderating effect of consumers' hedonic value in the model was tested. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to validate the constructs and multigroup structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.
The results suggest that brand satisfaction is the most significant factor for brand loyalty within the chocolate market, followed by brand value and brand equity. The findings suggest that brand trust is the least significant factor for brand loyalty since it was only marginally related to attitudinal brand loyalty and no effect for behavioral brand loyalty was found. The moderator effect of hedonic value shows that the effect of brand satisfaction on attitudinal loyalty is significantly stronger among consumers with high hedonic value compared to consumers with low hedonic value. No other moderating effects were found.
The findings provide more insight into consumer brand loyalty and the role of hedonic value research among hedonic consumable goods.
