دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی شناسایی برند - مصرف کننده: چارچوب شناسایی برند، رضایت مشتری و تصویر قیمت - اشپرینگر 2017

ABSTRACT

Consumer--brand identification has received considerable attraction among scholars and practitioners in recent years. We contribute to previous research by proposing an integrative model that includes consumer--brand identification, customer satisfaction, and price image to investigate the interrelationships among these constructs as well as their effects on brand loyalty and positive word of mouth. To provide general results, we empirically test the model using a sample of 1443 respondents from a representative consumer panel and 10 service/product brands. The results demonstrate that identification, satisfaction, and price image significantly influence both loyalty and word of mouth. Moreover, we find significant interrelationships among the constructs: Identification positively influences both satisfaction and price image, which also increases satisfaction. By disclosing the relative importance of three separate ways of gaining and retaining customers, this study helps managers more appropriately choose the right mix of branding, pricing, and relationship marketing. From an academic point of view, our research is the first to explicitly examine the effects of the concept of identification for price management and to integrate variables from the fields of branding, relationship marketing, and behavioral pricing, which have separately been identified as particularly important determinants of marketing outcomes.

DISCUSSION

Our main research purposes were to propose and empirically test a model that integrates consumer–brand identification with customer satisfaction and price image and to examine the interrelationships among these latent variables and their effects on brand loyalty and positive WOM. By doing so, we help to explain the different but interrelated ways to retain and gain customers. Overcoming insufficient considerations of the relationship between identification and satisfaction (Homburg et al, 2009) and clarifying contradictory findings on the direction of the relationship (Boenigk and Helmig, 2013; He et al, 2012), we show that consumer– brand identification substantially influences customer satisfaction. Moreover, our comprehensive integration of identification and satisfaction into a framework of determinants of brand loyalty and WOM extends previous findings from Kuenzel and Halliday (2008). In their study on the direction between satisfaction and identification, the authors assume that either identification completely mediates the effect of satisfaction on brand loyalty and WOM or that satisfaction completely mediates the effect of identification on both target constructs. Above, we pointed out that the effect of identification on customer loyalty does not necessarily have to be mediated by satisfaction, but could also be a direct effect (e.g., loyal football fans who are dissatisfied with the team performance; fans of a mobile phone brand who stay loyal even in times of product failure). By considering this additional direct link in our conceptual model, we demonstrate the fundamental role of identification for brand relationships and brandrelated behaviors.