Rethinking Net Promoter Score: Metaemotions and the Path from Brand Loyalty to Advocacy

Metaemotions, Consumer Decision-Making, Brand Loyalty, Net Promoter Score (NPS), Brand Relationships

Consumer research has established that emotions influence judgment, choice, satisfaction, loyalty, and word of mouth. Most marketing models, however, remain centred on first-order emotions: consumers' immediate responses to marketplace events, such as delight, gratitude, anxiety, guilt, regret, anger, or disappointment. This emphasis leaves a consequential second-order process undertheorised: metaemotions, or emotions about one's own emotions. Consumers do not merely enjoy, fear, regret, or resent a brand encounter; they may feel proud of their enjoyment, reassured by their anxiety, ashamed of their attachment, frustrated by their anger, or relieved that their concern was justified. This conceptual article develops a metaemotional pathway connecting marketplace encounters and first-order emotions with consumer decisions, consumer-brand relationship quality, brand loyalty, advocacy, and Net Promoter Score (NPS). Integrating appraisal theory, emotion-regulation research, customer-experience scholarship, consumer-brand relationship theory, and word-of-mouth research, the framework distinguishes metaemotion assessment from regulation of metaemotions. It proposes that consumers evaluate whether their first-order emotions are appropriate, authentic, controllable, identity-consistent, morally acceptable, and socially shareable; these assessments then shape how emotions are sustained, reinterpreted, suppressed, justified, concealed, or communicated. Seven propositions explain how this process affects decision confidence, post-purchase justification, attachment, recovery after failure, loyal behaviour, and public recommendation. The article positions NPS as an advocacy-oriented downstream indicator rather than a comprehensive loyalty measure. It concludes with a qualitative research programme using critical-incident interviews, digital diaries, netnography, and longitudinal customer-journey designs, and derives implications for customer-experience management and emotionally intelligent NPS programmes.