Beer style subcategories: persuading consumers to become loyal

Purpose: Beer style consumers identify themselves more with a beer style, craft or national, rather than with brands. Tribal brand researchers have suggested that beer style consumers feel an intense sense of belonging to a beer style tribe, which may not lead to loyalty to their beer style. The purpose of this paper is to test whether public commitment to defend or spread positive word-of-mouth (WoM) about their beer style influences the development of loyalty among beer style consumers toward their beer style. Design/methodology/approach: The authors surveyed 400 beer style consumers and used the structural equation modeling approach to examine the loyalty relationships between beer style consumers and their beer style. The authors followed Oliver’s cognitive-affective-conative loyalty framework to test these relationships. Then, the authors tested whether a verbal commitment to defend or spread positive WoM about their beer style strengthens loyalty between beer style consumers and their beer style. Findings: Satisfaction of beer style consumers toward their beer style does not lead them to be willing to pay a premium price for their beer style. However, by including a public commitment to defend or spread positive WoM about their beer style, beer style consumers are more willing to pay a premium price for their beer style even in the presence of an intense sense of belonging to a beer style tribe. Originality/value: Soliciting public commitment influences the development of loyalty among tribal consumers, which may also influence nontribal consumers. In addition, the inclusion of public commitment to Oliver’s loyalty framework, i.e., cognitive-affective-public commitment-conative, extends the use of Oliver’s model to consumer tribes. Finally, this study also suggests that the relationship between having a sense of belonging to a consumer tribe and willingness to pay a premium price can be influenced by a public commitment without first establishing brand satisfaction by consumers.