Augmented reality marketing and consumer‒brand relationships: How closeness drives brand love

Rauschnabel, Philipp A.; Hüttl‐Maack, Verena; Ahuvia, Aaron C.; Schein, Katrin E. Article — Published Version Augmented reality marketing and consumer‒brand relationships: How closeness drives brand love Psychology & Marketing Provided in Cooperation with: John Wiley & Sons Suggested Citation: Rauschnabel, Philipp A.; Hüttl‐Maack, Verena; Ahuvia, Aaron C.; Schein, Katrin E. (2024) : Augmented reality marketing and consumer‒brand relationships: How closeness drives brand love, Psychology & Marketing, ISSN 1520-6793, Wiley, Hoboken, NJ, Vol. 41, Iss. 4, pp. 819-837, https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21953 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/293951 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Received: 18 January 2023 | Accepted: 1 December 2023 DOI: 10.1002/mar.21953 RESEARCH ARTICLE Augmented reality marketing and consumer‒brand relationships: How closeness drives brand love Philipp A. Rauschnabel 1,2 |Verena Hüttl‐Maack 3 |Aaron C. Ahuvia 4 | Katrin E. Schein 5 1 College of Business, Universität der Bundeswehr München, Neubiberg, Germany 2 Otto‐Friedrich‐Universität Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany 3 Department of Marketing & Management, University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany 4 University of Michigan‐Dearborn, Dearborn, Michigan, USA 5 Reutlingen University, Herman Hollerith Research Center, Böblingen, Germany Correspondence Philipp A. Rauschnabel, College of Business, Universität der Bundeswehr München, Neubiberg, Germany. Email: [email protected] Abstract Marketers use augmented reality (AR) to place virtual brand‐related information into a consumer's physical context. Grounded in the literature on AR, brand love, metaphor theory, and closeness as interpreted by the neural theory of language, the authors theorize that branded AR content can reduce the perceived physical, spatial distance between a consumer and a brand. This perceived closeness subsequently drives the closeness of the emotional relationship in the form of brand love. Two empirical studies validate this framework. Study 1 shows that using an AR app (vs. non‐AR) increases the perceived physical closeness of the brand, which in turn drives brand love (i.e., relationship closeness). Study 2 replicates this finding in a pre‐/post‐use design. Here, high levels of local presence (i.e., the extent to which consumers perceive a brand as actually being present in their physical environment) drive perceived physical closeness, which leads to brand love. We also find that AR's power to generate brand love increases when the consumer is already familiar with the brand. We discuss managerial implications for AR marketing today and in a metaverse future in which AR content might be prevalent in consumers' everyday perceptions of the real world. KEYWORDS augmented reality, brand love, closeness, consumer‒brand relationships, metaphor, metaverse, spatial computing, spatial distance 1|INTRODUCTION When consumers use augmented reality (AR), they have a hybrid experience consisting of the real physical environment around them and virtual objects that appear to have been placed within that world (Flaviàn et al., 2019; Peddie, 2017). The main distinctive factor between AR and other digital presentation formats is contextual embedding (von der Au et al., 2023), which means that the virtual content is integrated into the user's physical environment (Rauschnabel, Felix, et al., 2022). For instance, Pokémon Go users perceive virtual creatures sitting on their streets, IKEA Place users explore virtual couches in their living rooms, and car enthusiasts can experience virtual cars as if the vehicles were in their driveways using the Mercedes Benz cAR app. The growing importance of AR marketing has been reflected in an increase in academic publications. However, as recent bibliographic analyses by Du et al. (2022), Jayaswal and Parida (2023), and Kumar (2022) reveal, only a few studies have tackled issues in brand Psychol Mark. 2024;41:819–837. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/mar | 819 This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2023 The Authors. Psychology & Marketing published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. management. Such studies typically focus on how AR can drive cognitive brand attitudes (e.g., Gatter et al., 2022; Zanger et al., 2022) or brand engagement and advocacy (Kumar et al., 2023b). What has not been sufficiently considered in relation to AR marketing is the potential to enhance brand love or other aspects of consumer–brand relationships (Scholz & Duffy, 2018). The present research is among the first to establish a link between AR marketing and brand love. Brand love is a concept of high managerial and theoretical interest. Theoretically, brand love is a specific form of consumer‒ brand relationship with unique characteristics. As a complex, multidimensional construct (Batra et al., 2012), it shares similarities with interpersonal relationships (Ahuvia, 2022). Research has also established a strong link between brand love and various variables on which marketers tend to focus, such as increased loyalty and advocacy, intensified consumer‒brand relationships, decreased price sensitivity and long‐term profitability (e.g., Khamitov et al., 2019; Nguyen & Feng, 2021). Thus, it is not surprising that managers have a keen interest in finding ways to create and manage brand love. However, in contrast to attitude‐based measures (e.g., brand liking), brand love is predominantly influenced by more experiential variables rather than (solely) by more utilitarian factors such as product quality or price. Because brand experiences play a fundamental role in building brand love (Joshi & Garg, 2021), AR may have the power to positively impact brand love. To test this assumption, we develop a framework by incorporating findings from the AR marketing discipline, metaphor theory (Ahuvia & Adelman, 1993; Thibodeau et al., 2019), and the neural theory of language (Lakoff, 1993). More specifically, we theorize that experiencing branded AR content in one's physical environment increases the level of perceived physical closeness between a consumer andabrand(i.e.,thefeelingthatabrandisactuallyphysicallycloseto them), which subsequently increases a consumer's sense of being emotionally close to the product, thus boosting brand love. We tested our framework in two complementary empirical studies. Study 1 used an experimental design in which consumers experienced an automotive marketing app either in AR or not. Study 2 is based on a survey design in which all respondents used a makeup app. Rather than manipulating the use of AR versus non‐AR, respondents evaluated the level of “local presence”(in other words, how convincing and realistic the AR effect was; Rauschnabel, Felix, et al., 2022). In both studies, we reveal AR's ability to increase perceived physical closeness (i.e., spatial distance) between a consumer and a brand. In Study 1, we show that respondents in the AR group perceive the brand as actually being closer to them as respondents in the non‐AR group; in Study 2, we show that AR's effect is based on the quality of the contextual embedding (i.e., the perceived local presence). Furthermore, both studies reveal that perceived physical closeness drives brand love, even when controlling for prior levels of brand love (measured several days before the AR use). Our results contribute to the literature streams on AR and branding by establishing a connection between AR and brand love. We identify a new mechanism and demonstrate how AR enhances brand love by first, enhancing the perceived physical closeness to the brand, and second, enhancing emotional closeness, which is a core component of brand love. Our findings also provide important practical implications. Because branding is a core objective of AR marketing in many firms (Rauschnabel, Babin, et al., 2022), insights into how AR might increase brand love can potentially have a significant influence on marketing practice. The remainder of this article is structured as follows: We first introduce the central concepts of AR and brand love and discuss them in light of prior research. Second, we develop a theoretical framework and hypotheses. Next, we present two complementary empirical studies that tested the proposed framework. Finally, we discuss our findings and outline the contributions to research, the implications for practitioners, and avenues for future research. 2|THEORY AND PRIOR RESEARCH 2.1 |Augmented reality Although not uniformly defined, in general, AR integrates virtual content into a consumer's perception of the real world using digital technology, such as a smartphone, tablet, or AR glasses (Flavián et al., 2019; Rauschnabel, Felix, et al., 2022). Unlike virtual reality (VR), in which consumers are isolated from the real world and immersed in a purely virtual environment, in AR, consumers still perceive their physical surroundings (Hilken et al., 2022). Thus, AR enables the coexistence of both realities—the real and virtual (i.e., physical and digital)—in the same space (Ibáñez‐Sánchez et al., 2022), allowing hybrid “phygital”experiences (Rauschnabel, Babin, et al., 2022). For example, as illustrated in Figure 1, a virtual car is placed on a consumer's physical driveway. Consequently, the most important feature of AR is contextual embedding (von der Au et al., 2023)—in other words, the fusion of virtual content with a physical context (Flavián et al., 2019; Hilken et al., 2022; Peddie, 2017; Rauschnabel, Felix, et al., 2022). 2.1.1 |Contextual embedding and the role of local presence The concept of local presence (Verhagen et al., 2014;Vonkeman et al., 2017) is defined as the extent to which a person using AR (or similar) technology experiences digital objects that have been inserted into their visual field as “actually being there”(Vonkeman et al., 2017, p. 2). In a simplistic AR app, the inserted object may seem obviously fake or disconnected from the real objects in the image, leading the user to experience the inserted object as having a low level of local presence. However, the quality of the AR app is just one of several influences on the degree of local presence experienced by the user. Rauschnabel, Felix, et al. (2022) proposed the xReality framework, which states that AR experiences can be positioned on a continuum of local presence, ranging from assisted reality (low) to mixed reality 820 | RAUSCHNABEL ET AL. (high). Pure text content or simple 2D graphics are usually perceived as artificial and represent a low level of local presence. In contrast, at the highest level of local presence, virtual content can be so realistic (Chen &Lin,2022; Chen et al., 2022) that it is indistinguishable from real physical objects (Dwivedi et al., 2022), thus allowing for “deeper experiences”(Spangenberger et al., 2022, p. 246). Because not all AR experiences are equally compelling or realistic, local presence is central to AR research (von der Au et al., 2023; Chen & Lin, 2022;Daassi& Debbabi, 2021;Rauschnabel,Babin,etal.,2022;Schein,2022;Smink et al., 2020). 2.1.2 |Augmented reality marketing and brand management Common AR marketing objectives include branding,inspiring, convincing,andkeeping, as stated in the BICK FOUR framework (Rauschnabel, Babin, et al., 2022). Most AR marketing articles have focused on the later stages of the customer journey, such as purchase intentions, product evaluations, or willingness to pay (Du et al., 2022;Kumar,2022;Kumaretal.,2023a). However, surveys of managers indicate that today's AR marketing practices usually target consumers in the early stages of the customer journey and involve goals such as building stronger brands (e.g., Boston Consulting Group, 2018; Rauschnabel, Babin, et al., 2022). The studies on AR and branding that are most closely related to the present research are shown in Table 1. For example, Zanger et al. (2022) and Rauschnabel et al. (2019) showed that AR can trigger inspirational thinking, which has a positive impact on brand attitude. Javornik (2016)foundthatARcanleadtoflow experiences,whichinturndeterminebrandevaluation.Scholz and Duffy (2018) conducted an ethnographic study and found that engaging with a brand in one's own personal areas can foster an intimate relationship with it. Past research on AR in consumer marketing has often focused on brand attitude. Brand attitude was a logical place to start research on AR in marketing because attitude measures capture positive and negative evaluations from a wide range of sources. Now that AR's ability to impact brand attitude has been established, it is an appropriate next step to look at other dependent variables that are of theoretical and managerial interest. Brand love includes having a positive attitude toward a favored brand but also includes other psychological features that increase its impact on a consumer's behavior. Furthermore, brand love—and other forms of consumer–brand relationships—tend to be better predictors of various managerially relevant outcome variables than attitude‐based measures (Batra et al., 2012;Khamitovetal.,2019; Park et al., 2010). These findings also highlight the need for such insights from a managerial perspective. 2.2 |Metaphor theory While metaphors were once seen principally as a stylistic flourish used by authors and poets, they are now recognized as a fundamental tool that underlies much of our everyday thinking (Lakoff & Johnson, 2013; Thibodeau et al., 2019). To review the basics of metaphor theory, we will use the example of social relationships as being “close”or “distant.”Metaphors have a source domain (in this case, the spatial distance between objects in the physical world) and a target domain (social relationships). Metaphors work by mapping some aspects of the source domain onto the target domain, so in this example, a relationship between two individuals, like the placement of two objects, is seen as being either close together or far apart. The source domain is usually something—such as the space between objects—that is clear and concrete. The target domain is usually something, such as social relationships, that is harder to understand because it is abstract and complex. Metaphors allow the brain to FIGURE 1 Principles of the Mercedes cAR app (sketched as used in Study 1). RAUSCHNABEL ET AL. | 821 process abstract concepts by thinking about them in more concrete and familiar ways; for example, the huge number of nuanced feelings, beliefs, and behavioral dispositions that compose a complex social relationship are summarized in an easy‐to‐understand metaphor of a relationship being either close or distant. Remarkably, many common metaphors are widely shared across cultures. These similar metaphors are believed to arise in many different cultures because they are based on the observation that, for example, pairs of things frequently interact in ways that are stable across cultures (Lakoff & Johnson, 2013).Forexample,whenyouaddwatertoabowl, the water level goes up, and when you add more stones to a pile, the height of the pile goes up. Thus, in many cultures, height becomes a general metaphor for quantity, such as when we say “her income went up,”even though the amount of her paycheck is not directly related to height (Lakoff, 1993). Seeing social relationships as “close”is another such common metaphor. Research on what makes a relationship “close” has found that people in close relationships tend to spend a great deal of time together engaging in a wide range of activities (Berscheid et al., 1989). It is plausible that the reason relationships are seen as being “close”or “distant”is that people in metaphorically close relationships areoftenphysicallyclosetoeachother. The relevance of this “closeness”metaphor has previously been noted in the marketing literature. Fournier and Alvarez (2013) measured the closeness of a person–brand relationship by showing participants an image on a computer screen of a person sitting on a park bench. The participants were told to imagine that they were the person on the bench and were asked to place the logo for a brand on the same bench. The researchers found that participants who felt they had a close relationship with the brand placed the brand logo close to the person on the bench. One of the most important changes in our understanding of metaphor has been the development of the neural theory of language, which applies brain science to linguistics (Feldman, 2008). Metaphor, in particular, has been found to easily map onto how the brain processes language (Lakoff, 1993). Although a review of the neuroscience of metaphor is beyond the scope of this paper, it is worth noting that regardless of whether we are talking about an object that is close to us or a friend with whom we feel close, the word “close”will activate “the TABLE 1 Augmented reality marketing and branding: Prior research. Study Objective Core brand construct Methodology Core findings Javornik (2016) Understand how perceived augmentation drives flow and affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses and intentions Brand attitude (post usage) Regression analyses (N= 60) Augmentation drives flow, which leads to higher levels of brand attitude (mediation) Scholz and Duffy (2018) Understand how consumers use branded apps in their intimate spaces and this creates relationships with the brand N/A Qualitative research (ethnographic) Engaging with AR can lead to close and intimate relationships Rauschnabel et al. (2019) Understand the role of inspiration and AR app attitudes in shaping brand evaluations Brand attitude (pre‐ post comparison) Survey data (N= 201), SEM Inspiration (but not attitude toward the brand) drives brand attitude, while controlling for prior brand attitudes Javornik et al. (2021) Understand the deployment of AR by luxury brands from a company perspective N/A Qualitative interviews (N= 17) brand managers of luxury brands and AR experts Luxury brands apply AR marketing to build specific luxury attributes Zanger et al. (2022) Understand how AR triggers affective responses, which subsequently determine cognitive and behavioral consequences Brand attitude (post usage while controlling for prior brand attitudes) Experimental data (N= 231 and N= 251), SEM AR leads to higher levels of inspiration, which subsequently drives brand attitude, while controlling for prior brand attitudes Kumar et al. (2023b) Understand how AR can foster customer brand advocacy Customer brand advocacy Survey data (SEM) (N= 502) High levels of AR brand experience can lead to customer brand advocacy through brand attachment and engagement. This study Understand perceived closeness as a mechanism to drive brand love on AR Brand love Two studies (N= 155, cars; N= 173, make‐up), SEM AR leads to consumers' perceptions that a brand is actually close to them in their physical environment; this, in turn, drives brand love 822 | RAUSCHNABEL ET AL. same node in the same frame circuitry”in the brain (Lakoff, 1993, p. 14). One outcome of this is that hearing the phrase “she grasped the idea” activates the region of the brain associated with hand motor movement (Boulenger et al., 2012). If a word used metaphorically activates the same node or localized area associated with its source meaning, one would expect that feelings and beliefs connected with that source could also become activated (and thus become associated with the metaphor's target). Although neurolinguists study many different metaphors, it is fortuitous for our purposes that several studies have looked specifically at using spatial distance as a metaphor to describe social relationships between individuals and groups. For instance, Kerkman et al. (2004) asked Americans about their attitudes toward Mexicans and Canadians and also asked how far away major cities in Mexico and Canada were. The more negative people's attitudes were toward each nationality, the further away they estimated their cities to be. In another study, Matthews and Matlock (2011) gave participants a map showing their starting point, destination, and the position of some other people in cars along the way. They told half of the participants that the people in the other cars were friends of theirs, and they told the other participants that the people in the other cars were strangers. They then asked the participants to draw the route they expected a taxi would take from the start to reach their destination. When participants thought the other cars contained their friends, they imagined that the taxi driver would drive closer to those other cars than did the participants who imagined those cars contained strangers. In a similar way, there may be a link between how close a person perceives a product to be from them and how emotionally close they feel toward that product. 2.3 |Brand love Brand love is simply love when the object of that love is a brand, product, or service (Ahuvia, 2022). As the brand love literature developed beyond its initial stages (Ahuvia, 1992,2005; Albert et al., 2008; Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006), brand love has been shown to be a complex hierarchical construct with six main dimensions: consumers (1) have a positive attitude toward the things they love, (2) behave passionately toward them, (3) feel a positive emotional connection with them, (4) usually have a long‐term relationship with them, (5) integrate the things they love with their identity, and (6) feel that if the love object were to go away, it would be terrible (Bagozzi et al., 2016; Batra et al., 2012). This description of brand love has emerged from research that looked holistically at consumers' love for brands as well as the products and services from those brands that had touched their lives (Ahuvia, 2005; Batra et al., 2012). This six‐ dimensional description of brand love also includes both brand passion (Albert et al., 2013) and gentler forms of brand love. There are important commonalities and differences between brand love and interpersonal love. Watanuki and Akama (2020) conducted a meta‐analysis of neuroscience studies on the differences among brand love, romantic love, and parental love. They found that all three types are associated with positive emotions (Maxian et al., 2013; Schmid & Huber, 2019). Likewise, all three types of love strongly activate parts of the brain associated with the self. This strong neurological connection between love and one's self‐concept supports work on both interpersonal love (Aron & Aron, 1996; Aron & Tomlinson, 2018; Branand et al., 2019; Fromm, 1956; Sprecher & Fehr, 2010) and brand love (Ahuvia, 2005; Ahuvia et al., 2009,2022; Albert et al., 2013; Huang, 2019; Reimann & Aron, 2009), which finds that a primary psychological mechanism underlying love occurs when a person integrates a love object into their self‐concept. However, Watanuki and Akama (2020) also found differences between interpersonal love and brand love. Compared with parental love, brand love creates a stronger activation in the parts of the brain used to judge quality, suggesting that brand love is more dependent than parental love on the person making positive judgments about the love object. The levels of passion, longing, and craving were also found to be far higher in romantic love than in brand love. This suggests that while passion for a brand can be powerful (Albert et al., 2013), brand passion is nonetheless far less powerful than the passion individuals feel for romantic partners. Past research has demonstrated the managerial importance of brand love. Brand love is positively associated with brand trust (Kaufmann et al., 2016), skepticism about negative brand information (Batra et al., 2012), positive word of mouth (Batra et al., 2012), willingness to pay a price premium (Bagozzi et al., 2016), brand forgiveness (Hegner et al., 2017), commitment to a brand community (Kaufmann et al., 2016), and willingness to engage in brand co‐ creation (Kaufmann et al., 2016). Perhaps most significantly, a meta‐ analysis of research on predictors of brand loyalty concluded that love and attachment are the predictors that “are most strongly linked to customer brand loyalty”(Khamitov et al., 2019, p. 450). Due to brand love's managerial importance and theoretical interest, many studies have investigated its antecedents (for an extended discussion, see Ahuvia, 2022). Consumers have been found to love brands when they perceive them to be high quality and prestigious (Bairrada et al., 2018), highly involved (Bügel et al., 2011), identity expressive (Ahuvia, 2005,2022; Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006), innovative (Bairrada et al., 2018), unique (Bicakcioglu et al., 2016), hedonic (Sarkar, 2014), sensual and mysterious (Rodrigues & Rodrigues, 2019), credible (Bairrada et al., 2018), caring (Bairrada et al., 2018), anthropomorphic (Ahuvia, 2022; Rauschnabel & Ahuvia, 2014), and communal or social in nature (Ahuvia, 2022). We aim to build on this growing literature by showing that perceived physical closeness can also function as an antecedent of brand love. 3|HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT: AUGMENTED REALITY, CLOSENESS, AND BRAND LOVE 3.1 |Augmented reality and perceived physical closeness We argue that when using an AR marketing tool, such as the Mercedes cAR app (as shown in Figure 1), consumers experience the RAUSCHNABEL ET AL. | 823 the product or brand as being physically closer to themselves than they would if they were looking at the product with a conventional app. While there is no AR research on closeness at the brand level, a few studies have looked at similar concepts in XR from different theoretical angles. For instance, Finken et al. (2021) showed that viewing products in AR increases psychological proximity to those products. That is, products viewed in AR (vs. controls) feel closer to consumers, which in turn positively affects psychological ownership and subsequent consumer reactions. A recent study furthermore showed that meetings in VR made people feel closer to other members in these meetings compared to traditional video conferencing (Aliman et al., 2023; Sostmann & Dalton, 2023). There are two reasons for hypothesizing AR's influence on closeness perceptions of a brand: setting and local presence. Setting refers to the background against which an advertised product is placed. In Figure 1, the setting for the car is the consumer's driveway. Depending on the particular AR marketing tool and how it is used, the exact distance between the user and the inserted image will vary. For example, in Figure 1, the car image is positioned directly in front of the consumer, but it might also have been positioned across the street from the consumer. That said, because most of today's AR devices use cameras to capture the consumer's immediate surroundings and place the product in those surroundings, the product will always be placed close enough for the consumer to see it. In contrast, the settings for typical car ads are situations such as winding country roads or well‐designed dealer showrooms—all of which are typically experienced by the consumer as outside of their current location. Even if the product is depicted against a blank (presumably neutral) background, it is still not in the same location as the consumer. This difference in the product's setting will lead a person using AR to feel physically closer to the product than they would when viewing a conventional app for the product. The idea that consumers will perceive a product or brand logo as close to them when it is presented as being in their immediate physical environment is not only very intuitive, it can also be supported by theory. When the background for a product image is the user's physical environment, consumers process the product and brand together with the other objects around them, such as furniture, buildings, or trees, that happen to be nearby. When these stimuli are processed together, information integration theory suggests that the assessments of these stimuli converge (Anderson, 1981). Because people know that their furniture and other things depicted in the AR image are, in fact, close to them, it is likely that they adjust the closeness assessment of the product presented alongside those elements. In addition, due to the importance of contextual cues for consumer evaluation processes (e.g., von der Au et al., 2023;Meyers‐Levy & Tybout, 1997; Pfaff & Spann, 2023), we argue that the common processing of cues in the physical context (e.g., driveway and garage) with the virtual content (e.g., a branded car) leads to a coherent hybrid experience (Rauschnabel, Felix, et al., 2022). In other words, consumers tend to look through their screen in AR into their actual, local physical environment (as if it were a window rather than a projected image). In contrast, when looking at conventional branded content on a smartphone or tablet, consumers experience the content on their screen (rather than metaphorically looking through it). Thus, unlike in AR, contextual cues of the environment are not part of the experience. In non‐AR settings, it is therefore unlikely that consumers will perceive the product or brand logo as “being here.” Thus, we proposed the following: H1a. Seeing a product or brand through AR (vs. non‐AR) will increase its perceived physical closeness. We have just explained that when comparing AR content to conventional digital content, the objects in AR will feel closer to the consumer than they will in the conventional image, but not all AR apps are created equally. When comparing two AR images, the quality of the AR implementation can also impact the consumer's sense that the product is physically close to them. This can occur when the two AR apps differ in their degree of “local presence” (Chen & Lin, 2022; Chen et al., 2022; Rauschnabel, Felix, et al., 2022). In addition, people differ in how they perceive AR content and the extent to which they tolerate when the AR experience does not feel sufficiently real. Against this background, local presence reflects the extent to which users feel that the inserted AR object is realistically integrated into their real‐world environment. Put differently, it reflects the perceived quality (or convincingness or intensity) of the AR experience. To clarify the difference between local presence and perceived physical closeness, consider two different AR experiences. In the first experience, an app creates the image of a car resting on the palm of somebody's hand, but the individual feels that the image is not convincing. In a second experience, an AR app is better designed and creates a more convincing impression that a car is parked on the other side of the street. In the first experience, the consumer will score the perceived physical closeness higher because the car is depicted as being in the palm of their hand rather than across the street (i.e., lower spatial distance). However, in the first experience, the consumer will score local presence as lower because the image appears less realistic and convincing than in the second experience. Although local presence and perceived physical closeness are different, they are interlinked. We argue that when comparing two AR experiences, higher levels of local presence lead to higher levels of perceived physical closeness. Why would this be the case? AR enables the coexistence of two realities—physical and digital—in the same space (Azuma, 1997). As a result, using AR presents the brain with conflicting information. When the user focuses on the AR device, the product appears to be right there, near the consumer. However, when the consumer's eyes stray from the device, it is clear that the object is not present. This leads to the subjective experience of the object being “sort of there.”Unlike conventional reality, where objects are either present or not, in AR, an object's “sort of”presence is a matter of degree. (This is reflected in the measurement items of local presence, such as “Everything I saw in the display appeared to be real.”). 824 | RAUSCHNABEL ET AL. An analogy can be drawn from research on anthropomorphism. One might think that people categorize things as either a human or object. However, research shows that we categorize human‐like objects (e.g., talking products or cars in which the front of the car resembles a human face) as being partway along a continuum from person to object (Touré‐Tillery & McGill, 2015), depending on the extent and convincingness of the human‐like attributes. Similarly, Gong (2008) found that a computer's anthropomorphic qualities are a matter of degree, and that people treat a computer in more human‐ like ways, the more anthropomorphic qualities it has. Following this pattern, we expect that consumers will see virtual objects in AR as being partly here, and the more local presence the consumer experiences an object as having, the more “here”they will feel it to be. Thus, when virtual AR objects have high levels of local presence, consumers will experience them as physically present and close. In contrast, objects with low levels of local presence will be seen as “not really here,”causing more distant perceptions. This is quite different from the issue of the setting in which a virtual object is embedded. With the setting, a virtual object depicted as being one meter away will naturally be seen as closer than a virtual object depicted as being three meters away. However, with regard to local presence, the issue is not that the object is perceived to occupy a physical space that is further away; rather, it is that the object ceases to be seen as an integral part of the environment. An object that is experienced as “really existing”one meter away will be perceived as closer than an object that is seen as “somewhat existing” at the same distance. Thus, we proposed the following: H1b. The perceived level of local presence will be positively related to the perceived physical closeness of a brand. 3.2 |Physical closeness, relationship closeness, and brand love As discussed above, past research has shown the power of metaphors in influencing behavior (Thibodeau et al., 2019). The notion of a close relationship relies on the application of a spatial metaphor to the relational domain. We theorize that through metaphoric thinking, when consumers perceive a brand to be physically close to them, they will also see themselves as having a close relationship to that brand—as described above with regard to metaphor theory. In addition, we argue that consumers will be affected by a propinquity effect (Festinger et al., 1950), which, in essence, describes the phenomenon in which people tend to form close relationships with other people who are physically close to them. The term “propinquity”means nearness in space (Cambridge Dictionary, 2023). It has often been used to explain the formation of relationships in work environments and workplace interactions. A study among teachers, for example, has shown that, in addition to similarity, the mere physical closeness of their classrooms was positively related to their emotional attachment with each other (Reagans, 2011). Although the idea that closeness (i.e., low spatial distance) increases liking and fosters relationships in an interpersonal context was initially presented decades ago (Festinger et al., 1950; Nahemow & Lawton, 1975), unambiguous causal evidence has been presented more recently. Shin et al. (2019) showed that spatial distance has a direct effect on how much individuals react with an approach reaction, such as liking, toward a target object. The propinquity effect is related to the mere exposure effect, which posits that people tend to develop a preference for things or individuals to which they are frequently exposed (Fang et al., 2007). For the present research, the propinquity effect provides further support for the notion that perceived physical closeness enhances emotional closeness and relationship closeness with a brand. To test this theory, we needed to measure both perceived physical closeness and the relationship closeness between a person and a brand. This presented a practical difficulty because if we asked about both physical closeness and relationship closeness, the fact that both measures used the word “closeness”may lead to hypothesis guessing and other biases that would weaken the validity of the results. It was advantageous, then, to use a measure of relationship closeness that approached the underlying construct without specifically using the word “closeness.”The brand love measure put forward by Bagozzi et al. (2016) could function as such a measure of closeness because love and relationship closeness have such a high degree of overlap that they are, as normally studied and measured, two different terms for the same concept. Empirically, in their classic papers, Aron et al. (1992) presented a theory of relationship closeness identical to their widely used theory of love. Later, Aron and Fraley (1999) created a scale that is used both as a measure of interpersonal closeness and love. Thus, because perceived physical closeness strengthens relationship closeness and relationship closeness is a form of brand love, we arrived at the following hypothesis, which we test in Study 1 and replicate in Study 2: H2. The perceived physical closeness of a brand will be positively related to relationship closeness as measured through brand love. 3.3 |The moderating role of brand familiarity Brand familiarity has been defined as the degree to which a consumer has had a set of direct and indirect experiences with a brand (Alba & Hutchinson, 1987). Consumers with stronger brand familiarity have more and stronger mental associations with a brand (Fazio, 1986; Keller, 1993; Simonin & Ruth, 1998). We argue that brand familiarity moderates the effect of local presence on the perceived physical closeness of a brand, as described in H1b and tested in Study 2, such that the effect will be stronger at higher levels of consumer brand familiarity. Several arguments support this proposition. First, the mere sense of familiarity can create a mild positive feeling, which is something people typically accept rather than avoid (Jones et al., 2011;Zajonc& RAUSCHNABEL ET AL. | 825 Markus, 1982). As outlined above, the objective or physical degree of closeness between the consumer and the app does not vary. Nonetheless, we argue that from a participant's perspective, they will accept a brand more when they are familiar with it and hence experience it as closer. In addition, it has been argued in the literature that the positive affective value of familiarity is based on its ability to signal the harmlessness of a situation (Winkielman & Cacioppo, 2001). In contrast, when people have the impression that a stimulus is unfamiliar, perceptions of higher risk occur, and people tend to keep their distance (Song & Schwarz, 2009). Linking these considerations back to the research question, we argue that when assessing perceived physical closeness after an AR intervention, this perception will be enhanced as people will desire, or at least accept, more closeness compared with when confronted with a completely unfamiliar object. In addition, we can provide a cognitive explanation for the moderating role of familiarity. Existing knowledge of past experiences becomes activated when an individual is involved in a realistic AR intervention, which makes the whole experience more meaningful and more easily memorable (Keller, 1993,2003). In turn, when evaluating perceived brand closeness, it is likely that consumers will perceive it at a higher level when the brand possesses meaning from their perspective. Thus, we proposed the following: H3. Familiarity will moderate the effect of local presence on perceived physical closeness (H1b) in a way that the effect will be stronger (vs. weaker) when consumers have higher (vs. lower) levels of brand familiarity. To close the theoretical considerations, we briefly summarize our assumptions and hypotheses and present an illustration of our framework (see Figure 2). When consumers use AR technology, its embedding capabilities increase the consumer's perceived physical closeness to the brand (H1). This effect may be stimulated by the mere use of the AR (i.e., compared with an app usage situation without AR features), which is tested in Study 1 with H1a, or by the perceived quality of the impression that the AR technology is really placing the brand in the consumer's environment (i.e., “local presence”; Study 2, H1b). We further theorize that perceived physical closeness drives relationship closeness in the form of brand love (H2). In addition, we assume that the strengths of the effects will differ based on the level of brand familiarity (H3), because this will determine the strength of the brand associations a consumer can generate based on the knowledge they have stored in their memories. 4|STUDY OVERVIEW We conducted two studies to assess the proposed hypotheses (see Table 2). In Study 1, we began with a procedure based on an AR present‐versus‐absent comparison to establish the causal effect that, if an AR app is projecting an object in one's environment, it becomes closer and is loved more intensely. To this end, we applied an experimental two‐cell between‐subjects design in which consumers were randomly assigned to either the AR or non‐AR version of a car brand's AR app (an in‐room AR). 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Beyond the Gimmick: How affective responses drive brand attitudes and intentions in Augmented Reality Marketing. Psychology & Marketing,39(7), 1285–1301. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21641 How to cite this article: Rauschnabel, P. A., Hüttl‐Maack, V., Ahuvia, A. C., & Schein, K. E. (2024). Augmented reality marketing and consumer‒brand relationships: How closeness drives brand love. Psychology & Marketing,41, 819–837. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21953 APPENDIX A I. Descriptive statistics of Study 1 and Study 2. Study 1 Brand love (M= 3.184, SD = 1.430, AVE = 0.560, C.R. = 0.884, Cronbach's α= 0.882) (taken from Bagozzi et al., 2016; short scale) Owning a Mercedes would say something “true”and “deep”about whom I am as a person. I feel myself desiring to drive a Mercedes. I feel emotionally connected to Mercedes. I believe that I will be using products of Mercedes for a long time. Supposing Mercedes were to go out of existence, I would you feel anxiety. My overall feelings and evaluations towards Mercedes are positive. Perceived physical closeness (M= 3.561, SD = 1.546, AVE = 0.780, C.R. = 0.913, Cronbach's α= 0.909) (adapted from Balcetis et al., 2015; Chae, 2016; O'Leary et al., 2014) The app allows the brand to get “closer”to me. I perceived the brand as being close by when I used the app. I had the impression that the brand was close to me during the experience. χ 2 = 54.259; df = 26; p< 0.001; CFI = 0.965; TLI = 0.952; RMSEA = 0.084; SRMR = 0.045. Study 2 Brand love (M= 3.158, SD = 1.291, AVE = 0.574, C.R. = 0.889, Cronbach's α= 0.888) (taken from Bagozzi et al., 2016; short scale) Using Sephora says something “true”and “deep”about whom I am as a person. I feel myself desiring to use Sephora products. I feel emotionally connected to Sephora. I believe that I will be using products of Sephora for a long time. Supposing Sephora were to go out of existence, I would you feel anxiety. My overall feelings and evaluations towards Sephora are positive. Local presence (M= 3.915, SD = 1.587, AVE = 0.789, C.R. = 0.937, Cronbach's α= 0.937) (adapted from Javornik, 2016; Rauschnabel et al., 2019) 836 | RAUSCHNABEL ET AL. Study 2 I had the feeling that the Sephora products actually existed in my face. It seemed as if the beauty products had shifted from the tablet onto my face. Everything I saw in the display appeared to be real. I perceived the virtual make‐up as being real. Perceived physical closeness (M= 4.189, SD = 1.541, AVE = 0.774, C.R. = 0.911, Cronbach's α= 0.907) (adapted from Balcetis et al., 2015; Chae, 2016; O'Leary et al., 2014) The app allows the brand to get “closer”to me. I perceived the brand as being close by when I used the app. I had the impression that the brand was close to me during the experience. Brand familiarity (M= 4.101, SD = 1.764, AVE = 0.708; C.R. = 0.826; Cronbach's α= 0.811; r= 0.685) (adopted from Kent & Allen, 1994) (Continues) Study 2 The brand Sephora is well known to me. I know a lot about the Sephora brand. χ 2 = 197.662; df = 84; p< 0.001; CFI = 0.938; TLI = 0.923; RMSEA = 0.088; SRMR = 0.061. II. Correlation tables. STUDY 1 Brand love Brand love Perceived physical closeness 0.368 STUDY 2 Brand love Perceived physical closeness Local presence Brand Love Perceived physical closeness 0.476 Local presence 0.313 0.495 Brand familiarity 0.542 0.086 0.133 RAUSCHNABEL ET AL. | 837