Giving and Receiving Brands as Valentine's Day Gifts

Abstract

This study outlines the relationship between giving and receiving brands as gifts on Valentine's Day. The occasion is a traditional time for declarations of love, adoration or intent that are expressed through a ritual of giving and receiving gifts or greeting cards. The exploratory research here attempts to remedy the shortcomings in the literature concerning brands and gift giving. The development of Valentine brand evaluation measure, when giving or receiving gifts is based on a factor analysis of 214 responses to a series of items in a survey completed by second year marketing students. Overall, the study contributes to the broad literature relating to consumer behaviour and increases the current understanding of the gift-giving phenomenon in general, and brands evaluation in particular. There is a significant, but small difference between giving and receiving brands as Valentine's Day.