225 Copyright © 2018, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Chapter 13 DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-2921-7.ch013 ABSTRACT In the past decade, emotional branding has been emerged as an extremely infuential brand management paradigm and is widely heralded as a key dimension to marketing success. Branding of emotions focuses upon the consumer and not the product at the very forefront; it examines how brands can communicate with consumers in a more rational and humanitarian manner and afect people deeply at the varying degree of the feelings and senses. Due to the steadily growing competition in the international market, brands have become an important component. Therefore, the objective of marketers is to understand the people’s emotional desires and increase the consonance of the brand personality for their brands with the self-image of their target customers. The purpose of the chapter is to recognize the potential nature of emotions in creating strong brand attachments between consumers and brands, and promote active participation as it leads to customer loyalty. It also articulates the efects of interactive features that enhance emotional branding elements in a virtual community. INTRODUCTION Over the past decade, emotional branding has emerged as a highly influential brand management para- digm (Zaltman, 2003). Emotional branding is a consumer-centric, relational, and story-driven approach to forging deep and enduring affective bonds between consumers and brands (Roberts, 2004). Proponents of emotional branding proclaim that this high degree of consumer passion is seldom, if ever, cultivated through rational arguments about tangible benefits or even appeals to symbolic benefits, such as height- ened self-esteem or status (Gobe, 2001). Rather, these persuasive consumer brand linkages classically Emotional Branding as a Strategy in Promoting Customer Loyalty Chandra Sekhar Patro GVP College of Engineering (Autonomous), India Madhu Kishore Raghunath Kamakula NIT Warangal, India