The relationship between perceived e-service quality and brand equity: A simultaneous equations system approach

Using the data collected from the online banking users in Taiwan, we build a hierarchical model of e-banking service quality and investigate the relationships among e-service quality, trust, satisfaction, loyalty, and brand equity. Moreover, the simultaneous equations system approach is also applied to transfer the traditional satisfaction-loyalty path into the simultaneous relationships between trust and loyalty, and between satisfaction and loyalty. As the structural form coefficients demonstrate the direct relations between our research constructs, the reduced form estimates further disclose the total impacts of the quality of e-banking service on trust, satisfaction, loyalty, and brand equity, respectively. The results indicate that the perceived quality formed through interaction with an online banking service positively affects customer trust and satisfaction, which in turn influence loyalty and brand equity. The significant simultaneous relationships between trust and loyalty, and between satisfaction and loyalty, are confirmed by our data, implying that these relationships must be determined simultaneously, rather than sequentially.     

Brand interactions and social media: Enhancing user loyalty through social networking sites

This paper aims to investigate how user loyalty can be achieved and maintained through social networking sites. More specifically, we intend to test the relationships between brands, user loyalty and social media. The research thus provides insights into user-brand relationships through social media and argues how loyal customers can be through social networking websites. Although there are considerable numbers of studies about loyalty; there exists very limited work studying user loyalty through social networking websites. This research presents clearly the reasons for engaging with brands online and examines user behaviors and loyalty. Research provided strong evidence that majority of the social network users follow brand fan pages via social media, even though they have different reasons to do so. The study also measures users’ behavioral and attitudinal loyalty behaviors. Their level of trust to the information they obtained about brands through social media is also established. The hypotheses tested show that brands and customer satisfaction are both positively related to users’ behavioral loyalty.     

Testing an extended model of consumer behavior in the context of social media-based brand communities

Due to the benefits of brand community initiatives and the potential advantages of social media, many marketing managers made significant investments in building brand communities based on social media. A noticeable issue is how to measure the success of such investments in ways that are understandable and comparable to other marketing initiatives. To address this issue, it is essential to understand how social media-based brand communities influence customers' perceptions and behaviors. The purpose of this article is to develop and estimate an extended model of how different aspects of customers' relationships with such communities influence their perceptions and behaviors. The paper describes a way a customer's identification with a brand influences relationships with brand community elements, brand community markers, and ultimately brand relationship quality and brand loyalty. Then using a large sample of brand community members in social media and structural equation modeling, the authors estimate how social media-based brand communities influence brand relationship quality and brand loyalty. Managerial implications are discussed.     

Can consumers be persuaded on brand microblogs? An empirical study

Building upon the persuasion theory in the social psychology literature, this study investigates how companies can use microblogging services to influence consumers’ participation and brand loyalty. We develop and empirically test our research model using an online survey in China. Our findings show that persuasion factors, including information quality, perceived similarity, and source credibility, increase community commitment. Perceived similarity and source credibility exhibit bias effects on information quality. Community commitment affects participation and brand loyalty, which is also influenced by participation. We expect that this research can contribute to the existing literature and provide marketers with important practical suggestions.     

Website design: place for luxury brands in cyberspace?

A great challenge for luxury marketers is how to harness Internet’s incredible influence on customers while still maintaining and adhering to the customer-based brand equity (CBE) of luxury brands. This study aims to investigate the effect of website design on the CBE of luxury brands. Integrating the research on aesthetic design and luxury branding, we develop and empirically validate a research model, specifying that two aesthetic design dimensions (aesthetic formality and aesthetic appeal) can stimulate a strong sense of luxury, which in turn leads to a positive evaluation of CBE. Furthermore, the effect of aesthetic design on the sense of luxury is contingent upon brand familiarity prior to the exposure of a luxury brand website. The research model is validated with a survey study involving 201 participants. The paper includes implications for website design to deliver online brand experience and develop CBE with specific online consumer groups. As an early attempt to examine the website design effect on online branding experience and brand equity, this study contributes to both literature of website aesthetics and online luxury branding.     

The effects of social media based brand communities on brand community markers,value creation practices,brand trust and brand loyalty

Social media based brand communities are communities initiated on the platform of social media. In this article, we explore whether brand communities based on social media (a special type of online brand communities) have positive effects on the main community elements and value creation practices in the communities as well as on brand trust and brand loyalty. A survey based empirical study with 441 respondents was conducted. The results of structural equation modeling show that brand communities established on social media have positive effects on community markers (i.e., shared consciousness, shared rituals and traditions, and obligations to society), which have positive effects on value creation practices (i.e., social networking, community engagement, impressions management, and brand use). Such communities could enhance brand loyalty through brand use and impression management practices. We show that brand trust has a full mediating role in converting value creation practices into brand loyalty. Implications for practice and future research opportunities are discussed.     

The Mechanisms through Which Certain Variables Influence Customer Loyalty: The Mediating Roles of Perceived Value and Satisfaction

This study surveyed 123 bank users who experienced problems with their banks’ online banking services, with the aim of understanding the mechanisms through which certain variables influence customer loyalty. Principally, the possible mediating roles of value and satisfaction on the relationships between recovery and loyalty and between ISO 9001 and loyalty were scrutinized. The dimensionalities of the scales were assessed using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Thereafter, structural equation modeling and multiregression analyses were used to test the proposed model. The overall results showed that service recovery can be used to enhance customers’ satisfaction and perception of value and, therefore, customer loyalty. This study also confirmed the partial mediating roles of customers’ satisfaction and perception of value in the relationship between service recovery and loyalty. In contrast, ISO 9001 has no influence on perceived value, satisfaction, and loyalty; the mediating roles of both perceived value and satisfaction were not supported in the relationship between ISO 9001 and loyalty. In practice, even though ISO 9001 appeared to offer few extras to satisfy and retain customers, its use is still advisable because of the other potential benefits that it provides.     

Brand marketing for creating brand value based on a MCDM model combining DEMATEL with ANP and VIKOR methods

When consumers purchase products, they will consider the brand first, because it indirectly leads consumers to associate the products with the quality, functions, and the design. Based on the smiling curve, it showed enhancing the marketing or R&D will create value-added to the products or brands. Thus, this study intended to use brand marketing to create brand value. However, there are many criteria among the strategies, and they are interrelated. Therefore, this study utilized the MCDM model combining DEMATEL with ANP and VIKOR methods to clarify the interrelated relationships of brand marketing and find the problems or gaps; then, evaluated the situation to reduce the gaps in order to achieve the aspired levels and rank the priorities in brand marketing strategies, we also evaluated the customer’s satisfaction of brand marketing by three electronic manufacturing companies in Taiwan. As the empirical results, value pricing is the most important factor, followed by consumer’s price perception and perceived quality while showed the highest satisfaction of brand marketing was in F2 company. The results of this paper will provide the enterprises with a reference for planning brand marketing.     

Style synthesis and analysis of car designs for style quantification based on product appearance similarities

Understanding how similar design appears is a key element to understanding companies’ design strategies. However, it is difficult to evaluate companies’ design strategies with conventional style measurement methods since they only taxonomically measure whether a specific characteristic is included in a specific style. This study numerically measured car design similarities to synthesize and analyze car brand styles, thereupon discovering the design trends among car brands for strategic design positioning. This paper aims to find methods for quantifying style differences and identifying unique design elements of car designs among 23 automobile manufacturers based on design similarities of a large quantity of car designs (N = 119). To achieve this goal, a hybrid style quantification methodology – a mixture of Fourier decomposition, eye tracker, and shape grammar – was created to evaluate similarities, visual significance, and combinations of 19 car design elements. Fourier decomposition was incorporated to find the quantifiable values of design similarities of car design elements. Visual significance analysis was also conducted for each car design element through eye tracker to measure the importance of certain design elements for weighting factors. Then, each combination of design elements was compared with car design elements of other cars for similarity calculations. Finally, car design alternatives were synthesized, and transitions of design positioning were analyzed based on the similarity values weighed by the visual significance results. Using the suggested methods, alternate designs can be synthesized while preserving brands’ design styles, and design trends can be analyzed for strategic evaluation.     

An app a day keeps a customer connected: Explicating loyalty to brands and branded applications through the lens of affordance and service-dominant logic

The rise of mobile apps is compelling ambitious companies to rush to market their own branded apps in hopes of building customers’ brand loyalty. By applying service-dominant logic, the lens of affordance, and two brand perceptions (brand competence and brand warmth), this study explores critical determinants of app continuance intention and brand loyalty among app users. Five affordances of branded apps are linked to value-in-use, which contributes both directly and indirectly to the two loyalty-related outcomes, through either brand competence or brand warmth. Data collected from 634 app users support all proposed hypotheses. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Crowdsourcing innovation challenges: How participants react when their ideas are rejected

Although crowdsourcing challenges as tools for generating high levels of innovation have received much attention, little research has investigated the impact on participants when their submissions are rejected. This research is aimed at gaining a better understanding of the consequences of rejection for participants' relationships with the brand engaged in the crowdsourcing activity. To investigate these issues, two quantitative studies were carried out with participants whose challenge proposals had not been selected. The results highlight positive effects on participant–brand relationships, especially on brand attachment, proselytism, brand commitment and brand loyalty. A confirmatory, interview-based qualitative study then identifies managerial perspectives and marketing strategies for brands and crowdsourcing platforms following the announcement of challenge results. This paper contributes to both the co-creation and crowdsourcing literature by extending academic knowledge and provides opportunities for further research.     

Mobile social commerce: The booster for brand loyalty?

In view of the deficiencies in current literature, this study seeks to examine if mobile social commerce continuance usage influences brand loyalty among customers, and assessed the inhibitor role of privacy concern in mobile social commerce usage intention. Privacy concern was measured by using concern for social media information privacy (CFSMIP). Therefore, this study proposes and empirically validated a model that combines CFSMIP, brand loyalty, and Expectation Confirmation Model, in the Asian context. The results suggested that users' CFSMIP does not inhibit them from the continuous usage of mobile social commerce, and influences their perceived usefulness on mobile social commerce positively. Moreover, all the paths in the baseline model of Expectation Confirmation Model have been reconfirmed in this study. Besides, users' continuance usage and satisfaction on mobile social commerce are proven to be boosters for brand loyalty. Relevant managerial implications are then discussed.     

Exploring the effect of user engagement in online brand communities: Evidence from Twitter

Social media such as forums, blogs and microblogs has been increasingly used for public information sharing and opinions exchange nowadays. It has changed the way how online community interacts and somehow has led to a new trend of engagement for online retailers especially on microblogging websites such as Twitter. In this study, we investigated the impact of online retailers' engagement with the online brand communities on users' perception of brand image and service. Firstly, we analysed the overall sentiment trends of different brands and the patterns of engagement between companies and customers using the collected tweets posted on a popular social media platform, Twitter. Then, we studied how different types of engagements affect customer sentiments. Our analysis shows that engagement has an effect on sentiments that associate with brand image, perception and customer service of the online retailers. Our findings indicate that the level, length, type and attitude of retailers' engagement with social media users have a significant impact on their sentiments. Based on our results, we derived several important managerial and practical implications.     

Discovering patterns of online purchasing behaviour and a new‐product‐launch strategy

Spurred by rapid development of computers and Internet technology, online shopping is gradually overtaking in‐store shopping, because of advantages such as convenience, more choice of products or services etc. Online stores must devote a great deal of time and resources to locating and attracting new customers. Growing a customer base requires first understanding customers and then providing the products or services they need, thus encouraging customers to purchase more. This paper develops a system to analyse customers’ purchasing behaviour and track shifts in their interests. Customers’ purchasing behaviour is measured using proposed standard product loyalty status and standard brand loyalty status. Using these metrics, together with the preference map established for each customer, a marketing specialist can easily locate potential customers to target when a company launches a new product. The new‐product‐launch strategy proposed in this paper can be used to create a list of potential customers for a product being launched under a variety of conditions. A prototype system has been built to test the feasibility of the proposed new‐product‐launch strategy. The result shows almost 40% of potential customers respond to the recommendation positively.     

Antecedents and consequences of trust in a social media brand: A cross-cultural study of Twitter

This study extends brand relationship theory to the context of the microblogging platform Twitter. The authors investigate the impact of Twitter trust on users’ intentions to continue using the platform and to “follow” brands that are hosted on Twitter (the trust transfer phenomenon). They also explore the role of perceived self-Twitter personality match in strengthening trust towards the Twitter brand. A cross-cultural American–Ukrainian sample allows to identify potential culture-based differences in brand personality and brand trust concepts. The results show that the positive effect of trust in Twitter on its users’ patronage intentions is robust across two cultures with diverse history and ideology. An important novel finding is the influence of trust in Twitter on patronage intentions towards the businesses hosted on Twitter. However, this relationship reaches statistical significance only in the Ukrainian sample, signaling potential differences in the trust transfer processes in different cultures. The study confirms the role of similarity in personality traits between Twitter users and the Twitter brand in engendering trust in Twitter. The salience of different personality traits in the “personality match – Twitter trust” link for different cultures suggests important implications for global marketers.     

Ontology-based data mining approach implemented on exploring product and brand spectrum

In physics, a spectrum is, the series of colored bands diffracted and arranged in the order of their respective wave lengths by the passage of white light through a prism or other diffracting medium. Outside of physics, a spectrum is a condition that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary infinitely within a continuum. In commerce, an effective visualization tool, especially for stakeholders or managers, is a brand spectrum diagram highlighting where the company’s brands and products are situated compared to other competitors. This paper investigates the research issues on product and brand spectrum in the beverage product market of Taiwan, which proposes using the Apriori algorithm of association rules, and clustering analysis based on an ontology-based data mining approach, for mining customer and product knowledge from the database. Knowledge extracted from data-mining results is illustrated as knowledge patterns, rules, and maps in order to propose suggestions and solutions to beverage firms for possible product development, promotion, and marketing.     

A persuasive-based latent class segmentation analysis of luxury brand websites

Based on the development of the use of websites by brands, the purpose of this paper is to identify and describe different groups of luxury brands bearing in mind the persuasiveness of their websites (informativeness, usability, credibility, inspiration, involvement and reciprocity). The data for this study were collected from 197 luxury websites through content analysis methodology. Then, latent class cluster analysis was employed to identify the segments obtained in this study. The results confirm the existence of three segments of luxury brands according to website persuasiveness: “exclusive websites”, “transparent and accessible websites” and “old-fashioned websites”. This study helps luxury brand managers to evaluate the degree of persuasiveness of each group, determines how attractive the websites in each group are and suggests the measures necessary to improve their websites.     

Role of social media community in strengthening trust and loyalty for a university

As the increasing internationalization of higher education creates competition among the universities, many institutions are making use of social media communities to attract and retain students. We surveyed 206 users of a university Facebook page to investigate how it may be related to their identification with the university community and the university brand. We further investigate how this identification is associated with the trust and loyalty to the institution and is likely to be linked to positive behaviors such as promoting the university to their peers as an active member of the university community. Our results show that the perceived strength of the Facebook community is related to the identification with the university community and the university brand which in turn are related to trust and loyalty. Higher loyalty is linked to citizenship behaviors such as increased contribution to the educational process labeled in-role behaviors and providing positive word of mouth about the university labeled extra-role behaviors. With the challenges of a diverse and global student body which is expected to continue increasing, universities can benefit from use of social media in developing identity, loyalty and trust.     

The role of aesthetic,cultural, utilitarian and branding factors in young Chinese consumers' repurchase intention of smartphone brands

Despite the exponential growth of smartphone consumption, to date, very few studies have investigated the factors that influence consumers' repurchase intention of smartphone brands. China has become the world's largest consumer markets for smartphones, therefore understanding young Chinese consumers' repurchase intention in the smartphone market is of crucial importance to smartphone companies. A preliminary qualitative study based on 30 face-to-face interviews has led to the development of a new conceptual framework including aesthetic (design appeal), functional (perceived quality), brand value (brand popularity), social (subjective norm) and cultural influences (mianzi). The newly developed framework has been tested through partial least squares structural equation modeling with a sample of 321 young Chinese smartphone users. The results show that young Chinese customer's smartphone repurchase intention is mainly determined by mianzi, perceived quality, brand popularity, and design appeal. Furthermore, findings also highlight that subjective norm, perceived quality and design appeal affect Chinese people's mianzi.     

The Effects of Social Networking Sites on Consumer–Brand Relationships

In the era of a vastly changing marketing communications environment, social media and social networking sites (SNS) have become an attractive outlet for brand promotions and advertising. As traditional media such as television, radio, and newspapers prove ineffective in establishing a valuable rapport with consumers, it is social networks which are expected to build bonds and engage online users into an amusing dialog, play, and intercourse with brands. This study applies an experimental design to assess the effects of SNS on the relationship between brands and consumers. Customer-based brand equity is adopted in this study as a reflective measure of consumer–brand connection. In order to evaluate hypothesized interactions, the linear mixed effects models are used. The results show very little (if any) impact of SNS on brand equity. Relevant explanations are discussed and further research directions are indicated.