Narrative Processing: Building Consumer Connections to Brands

This paper proposes that narrative processing creates or enhances self-brand connections because people generally interpret the meaning of their experiences by fitting them into a story. Similarly, in response to an ad that tells a story, narrative processing may create a link between a brand and the self when consumers attempt to map incoming narrative information onto stories in memory. Our approach rests on the notion that a brand becomes more meaningful the more closely it is linked to the self. We conceptualize this linkage at an aggregate level in terms of self-brand connections, i.e., the extent to which consumers have incorporated the brand into their self-concepts. The results of an experiment show that narrative processing in response to a narratively structured ad is positively related to self-brand connections, which in turn have a positive relationship with brand attitudes and behavioral intentions.