Is one good enough? Gauging brand love using a visual single-item measure

Purpose: Though brand love is recognized as being an important marketing topic both for theory and practice, a gap still exists with regard to its operationalization. To bridge this gap, this paper proposes a single-item measure (SIM) that uses a visual rating scale (i.e., a rating scale combining verbal with nonverbal contents). Design/methodology/approach: Three studies covering over 700 respondents and examining three international brands over three product categories were conducted to test the new measure. Findings: Findings provide consistent evidence for the reliability and validity of the proposed measure. They also demonstrate that brand love, as gauged by the new SIM, is good in predicting positive word of mouth, willingness to pay a higher price, and willingness to forgive brand mishaps. Research limitations/implications: The paper focuses on brand love mainly from a measurement perspective. Practical implications: This paper provides a practical and parsimonious tool to measure brand love. Originality/value: Extant SIMs of brand love are less than ordinal, content invalid, of unknown reliability, and of untested concurrent validity. This paper provides academics and practitioners alike with a SIM of brand love that is ordinal, content valid, and tested in terms of reliability and concurrent validity.