What is to be expected? Optimizing the operationalizationof consumer–brand relational norms

Consumers relate to brands in ways analogous to how they relate with people. And, just as consumers have norms that guide their interpersonal relationships, they alsohave norms that guide their relationships with brands. While such relational normsare essential in determining brand value, extant literature offers no measure toeffectively operationalize the framework that governs consumer–brand relation-ships. Preliminary work offers important insight but suffers from several methodo-logical shortcomings, rendering subsequent empirical applications problematic andhindering theoretical and practical advancements. In seven studies (ntotal = 3121), werevisit seminal work on the consumer–brand relational norms construct to refine andvalidate its measurement. Our findings reveal a unidimensional set of items thatdisplay strong psychometric properties, offering a parsimonious measure thatpromotes consistent operationalizations of the construct across studies and enablescomparison and integration of empirical results.