Toronto, March 13 (IANS): Worried that you could be in a car accident? Afraid you would lose your children to drunk driving? According to a study, when a person-to-person support system is not available in a fearful situation, brands can act as a replacement source of emotional attachment.

When consumers are scared, they would reach out to an available brand for comfort.

“In this act of reaching out to share the experience, brands help relieve a consumer's sense of fear. In turn, this shared experience leads to stronger emotional attachment,” said Lea Dunn from University of British Columbia.

“We looked at how fear can impact evaluations of a new brand,” added JoAndrea Hoegg, also from University of British Columbia.

“Our research shows that not only does fear have positive outcomes for brands, the presence of brands that provide support for consumers can allow them to successfully cope with fear itself,” they noted.

The researchers conducted a series of four laboratory studies in which participants experienced fear in the presence of an unfamiliar brand.

The authors specifically measured emotional brand attachment, a form of brand evaluation that is tied to the emotional connections consumers have with brands.

In one study, participants were asked to watch a movie and drink a new brand of sparkling juice.

Movie choices were horror, action or a documentary.

Participants were asked to drink the juice during the movie, asked to wait, or given a choice to drink at leisure.

The results showed the most increase in emotional attachment to the juice in participants who viewed the horror movie and who were allowed to drink at leisure or asked to wait until the end of the movie.

The exposure to fear resulted in a positive emotional brand attachment.

They also demonstrated that a person's level of emotional attachment to a brand can increase without ever consuming or touching a product, said the study published in the Journal of Consumer Research.