According to the theory of social identity people exhibit a cognitive need for positive differentiation which means that persons or their social group are favoured over others or other out-groups. Brands, being aware of that and supported by their marketing communication activities, are therefore trying to focus on consumer identity. Thus, they aim to achieve a high degree of consumers' identification and, at the same time, cast a damning light on their rivals. As a result, rivalries appear among brands and their groups. Although they are obvious, their perception among consumers has not been researched very often in the branding literature. This thesis focuses on the relationship of the iPhone brand fans towards the iPhone brand, its rival brand Android and both brands' consumer groups, respectively. Its goal is to assess the correlation between the brand and group identification and their related concepts – brand and group disidentification and glory out of reflected failure (GORF). The findings of my empirical research using survey data reveal that the degree of glory out of rival brand's reflected failure increases when individuals feel a higher degree of identification with their loved brand and also a higher degree of disidentification with the rival brand. The same applies to their relationship towards the brand group, which they belong to, and towards the rival group.
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