Brand Experience, Engagement, and Relationship Quality as Antecedents of Brand Equity: A Systematic Review

Purpose: Brand equity is a multi-dimensional, multi-faceted, and contextually determined construct, oscillating from branding to experience, engagement, trust, and relationship. As antecedents of brand equity‚ experiential‚ relational‚ emotional/affectual‚ psychological‚ health‚ and self-expressive dimensions have not yet been integrated into a single model‚ the branding literature is fragmented․

Methods: The study performed a systematic literature search based on the PRISMA checklist. Researchers identified‚ screened‚ and extracted articles from 2000 to 2025‚ resulting in the inclusion of 184 peer-reviewed articles․ All bibliometric analyses were conducted using Biblioshiny and VOSviewer.

Findings: Research on brand equity antecedents is increasing at an annual rate of 9․37%․ Five intellectual clusters are identified from the brand equity antecedent literature: brand experience, brand trust, brand love, brand relationship quality, and branding in digital and social media channels. The network analysis suggests that brand trust is the most central bridging construct that connects brand experience and relational antecedents to brand equity outcomes.

Implications: The study has a theoretical contribution in the form of the Brand Experience-Equity Model (BEEM)‚ which introduces experiential‚ relational‚ and emotional constructs into a full model․

Originality: First, this study conceptually and systematically explores the antecedents of brand equity in terms of brand experience, brand engagement, and brand relationship quality. Second, it addresses the role of two thematized constructs, brand trust and brand love.

Ultimately, the research develops a unified theoretical framework and recognizes areas for future research to overcome the fragmentation in the literature.