Personality, person-brand fit, and brand community: An investigation of individuals, brands, and brand communities

Brand communities have received considerable and warranted attention from marketing researchers and practitioners. Brand communities can be important sources of information for both the firm and other customers, and they play an important role in building and maintaining strong brands. Nevertheless, the antecedents of brand community identification, such as individual differences across consumers in the propensity to connect with brand communities, are not as well understood. We hypothesise that the enduring personality traits extraversion and agreeableness predict identification with the [brand] community, which in turn, and along with product attachment, will be related to brand trust and brand loyalty. Product attachment itself is hypothesised to be a function of person-brand congruity, the perceived fit between the person and the brand. Those relationships are tested and supported in data from a sample of 662 car enthusiasts attending a large brand community meeting or 'brandfest'.