Brand Personality and Brand Loyalty Relationship in Cosmeceuticals: Understanding the Moderating Influence of Brand Trust

This research analyzes the connections among brand loyalty and brand personality dimensions Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication, and Ruggedness of the cosmeceutical industry, and tests the moderating impact of brand trust. This study employed a quantitative method, and data was collected through purposive sampling from 328 cosmeceutical consumers. The findings show that Sincerity and Excitement significantly boost loyalty, which indicates that emotional attachment plays an important role in consumer commitment. On the other hand, Competence, Sophistication, and Ruggedness have a minimal impact on loyalty because they are less important for this industry. The findings also show that the moderating effect of Brand Trust was non-significant, meaning that trust is important, but it works independently, not increasing the impact of brand personality on loyalty. These results contribute to the existing literature by affirming the emphasis of emotional branding strategies within the cosmeceutical industry and contradicting the proposition that trust operates as a moderator in brand relational dynamics. For practitioners, this means that further engagement in authentic emotionally-appealing branding strategies to strengthen consumer loyalty while allowing for trust to be established through ethical and transparent practices is needed. Further investigation is urged to consider other possible moderating factors or to look at these relationships in other industries.