Sustaining the brand idea in electronic environments

In addition to the functional value of a brand, the academic branding literature also emphasises the symbolic function of a brand. The importance of emotional values is often stressed by the necessity to create strong customer-brand relationships for building brand equity. Since the brand is a universal concept regardless of its setting, the need for achieving emotional attachment also holds for e-brands. In the upcoming e-branding literature, however, this aspect of emotional bonding is often neglected. The paper analyses how the electronic environment has an influence on the affectivity of brands to show what challenges companies have to overcome in order to successfully build emotional e-brands.