Effect of brand love on brand defense mediated by customer brand engagement: The moderated mediation role of regulatory focus

In an era where negative word-of-mouth escalates and spreads rapidly on social media, understanding the psychological mechanisms of brand defense is of critical importance. Expanding on literature that establishes brand love as a strong predictor of pro-brand behaviors in offline settings, this study investigates the psychological process that transforms this emotion into defensive behaviors in the high-visibility and high-risk environment of social media. This study advances and tests a moderated mediation model, specifying that customer brand engagement (CBE) mediates the brand love-brand defense relationship. This study also investigates how this process is contingent upon individual differences in motivational orientation, proposing that regulatory focus plays a pivotal moderating role. Drawing on a sample of 389 Chinese new energy vehicle customers, the PLS-SEM results reveal that brand love has a significant positive influence on brand defense, and this effect is partially mediated by CBE. As predicted, regulatory focus moderates the first stage of this process: a promotion focus amplifies the influence of brand love on CBE, while a prevention focus weakens it. At the same time, this moderating effect extends to the indirect relationship between brand love and brand defense via CBE. The findings offer significant theoretical and managerial implications for emotion-based brand defense, highlighting the pivotal roles of customer engagement and motivational psychology.