5 Types of Emotional Brand Connection, and Why Brand Love Isn’t Everything

And why brand love might be overrated.

Most marketers think of brands as assets, logos, or campaigns. But the most powerful brands are emotional triggers. They spark memories. Stir pride. Shape identity. Sometimes they even make grown adults cry in a room full of plastic bricks.

In The Economist, a recent article explored LEGO’s Vault, a secret archive of every LEGO set ever made. More than 10,000 boxes of coloured bricks, neatly shelved in chronological order. Visitors don’t just admire the display. They get emotional. Some even tear up. Why? Because the room doesn’t just hold products, it holds personal memory. The article also cited research from Baylor University identifying five types of emotional brand connection. It got me rethinking a common marketing habit: Are we all chasing ‘brand love’, when the real win is understanding and shaping the emotional role we actually play?

Emotional brand connection describes the psychological relationship people form with brands through experience, memory, identity and repeated interaction. These relationships can take different forms and levels of intensity, meaning brand love is only one possible type of connection.

The 5 Types of Emotional Brand Connection

Based on research by Claudio Alvarez, Meredith David, and Morris George (Baylor University), here are the five core types of emotional connections, relevant for both consumer and B2B brands:

• Brand Love – Deep emotional attachment and passion

• Brand Hate – Intense rejection tied to experience or identity

• Brand Addiction – Habitual, even compulsive engagement

• Brand Friendships – Consistent positive feelings, built over time

• Communal Relationships – Shared values and mutual care

LEGO? Interestingly, it doesn’t quite fit “brand love.” According to the researchers, it behaves more like a childhood friend, distant but emotionally imprinted. That’s not just an academic distinction. It’s a strategic one.

Emotion Is the Hidden Growth Engine

We often treat emotional branding as optional, something for splashy B2C campaigns, lifestyle brands, or nostalgic toys. But neuroscience tells us: emotion drives decision-making. The limbic system, responsible for emotion and memory, plays a central role in choice, often before logic even kicks in. Emotion drives action, whether for a pair of sneakers or a seven-figure software contract. Every business decision is made by a human first.

Emotions create behaviour.

Behaviour creates habits.

Habits create growth.

The Real Question for Marketers

Not: How do we get customers to love us?

But:

What emotion are we already triggering—and is it the right one for our brand, product, and context?

And beyond that:

Can we actively shape the type of emotional connection we want to build, or is it set by our category? (Spoiler: it's both. Your category might give you limits. But your story, tone, community, and experience define what you do with them.) 

Chasing love when your brand is better built for trust, memory, or community can create misalignment — in tone, spend, and strategy. Sometimes, the smarter move is knowing what not to reach for. So if brand love isn’t the only, or even the most effective emotional goal, how should we think about emotional strategy more broadly? Here are five questions that help clarify the kind of connection a brand can create and how to start designing around it with more intention.

Five Questions to Shape Your Brand’s Emotional Strategy (for B2C OR B2B):

1.       Map the Emotional Spectrum:

Are your customers driven by loyalty, nostalgia, belonging, utility, or even avoidance? What emotional role do you actually play—and what do you want to shift toward?

2.       Design for Story, Not Just Sale:

Even in “rational” categories, emotion drives action. What legacy or belief does your brand offer that makes customers feel something real?

3.       Think Beyond Transactions:

Brands aren’t just used—they’re experienced together. Are you fostering shared belonging through advocacy, events, community?

4.       Tune in to Emotional Risk:

Strong emotions amplify both love and backlash. Are you listening to criticism with the same care you give praise?

5.       Redefine Retention as Emotional Connection:

Addiction isn’t loyalty. Lock-in isn’t love. Are your customers staying because they have to—or because they want to?

What’s in Your Brand Vault?

Every brand—whether selling toys or technology—is really building a vault of moments and memories. Some brands are building habit. Some are building pride. Some like LEGO are building memory. The question is: When someone opens your brand’s vault years from now, will they feel anything?

Not every brand needs to be loved. But the ones that endure make people feel something. What emotion does your brand truly own? 

Curious to hear how this shows up in your world.