Patrick-Ralhan, Vanessa M.2019-11-07August 2012019-08August 201Portions of this document appear in: Zhang, Zhe, and Vanessa M. Patrick. "Call Me Rollie! The Role of Brand Nicknames in Shaping Consumer-Brand Relationships." Journal of the Association for Consumer Research 3, no. 2 (2018): 147-162.https://hdl.handle.net/10657/5286Brand nicknames (e.g., Big Blue for IBM, Chevy for Chevrolet, Rollie for Rolex) are a common marketplace phenomenon. Marketers, however, hold polarized views about whether a brand should adopt or restrict the use of brand nicknames, and little academic research has shed light on this debate. With two essays, this dissertation investigates (1) the effects of brand nickname use on forging the consumer-brand relationship, and, (2) brand nickname use as a linguistic cue to signal brand attachment in a social environment such as online reviews, and its influence on perceived information authenticity of the marketing information. This dissertation contributes to the marketing literature by highlighting the importance of brand nickname use in the marketplace and extends the concept of brand attachment to the domain of consumers’ social interaction. It also offers insights into brand trademark loss and the management of brand social media profiles and online reviews.application/pdfengThe author of this work is the copyright owner. UH Libraries and the Texas Digital Library have their permission to store and provide access to this work. UH Libraries has secured permission to reproduce any and all previously published materials contained in the work. Further transmission, reproduction, or presentation of this work is prohibited except with permission of the author(s).Brand NicknamesBrandingBrand Relationship2019-11-07Thesisborn digital