Does "Liking" Lead to Loving? The Impact of Joining a Brand's Social Network on Marketing Outcomes The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation John, Leslie K., Oliver Emrich, Sunil Gupta, and Michael I. Norton. "Does 'Liking' Lead to Loving? The Impact of Joining a Brand's Social Network on Marketing Outcomes." Journal of Marketing Research (JMR) 54, no. 1 (February 2017): 144–155. Published Version http://dx.doi.org/10.1509/jmr.14.0237 Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:32062564 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Open Access Policy Articles, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#OAP Does “Liking” Lead to Loving? The Impact of Joining a Brand’s Social Network on Marketing Outcomes Forthcoming, Journal of Marketing Research Leslie K. John, Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School email:
[email protected] Oliver Emrich, Professor of Marketing, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz email:
[email protected] Sunil Gupta, Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School email:
[email protected] Michael I. Norton Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School email:
[email protected] Acknowledgements: The authors are grateful for Evan Robinson’s ingenious programming skills and for Marina Burke’s help with data collection. The authors thank the review team for constructive feedback throughout the review process. 2 ABSTRACT Does “liking” a brand on Facebook cause a person to view it more favorably? Or is “liking” simply a symptom of being fond of a brand? We disentangle these possibilities and find evidence for the latter: brand attitudes and purchasing are predicted by consumers’ preexisting fondness for brands, and are the same regardless of when and whether consumers “like” brands.