Consumer brand preference is an essential step to understand consumer choice behaviour, and has therefore always received great attention from marketers. Brand preferences reveal the type of attributes a brand possesses, to strengthen its position and increase its market share. Moreover, it forms a critical input in developing a company’s successful brand strategy, and gives insight for product development. However, the shift to experiential marketing broadens the role of the brand from a bundle of attributes to experiences. Experiential marketing also considers both, the rational and irrational assumptions of consumer behaviour. The technological advancement helped increasing the similarities between the brands attributes and product commoditisation. Consequently, consumers cannot shape their preferences among brands using rational attributes only. They seek the brand that creates experience; intrigue them in a sensorial, emotional, and creative way. Companies’ competitiveness in such market has, therefore become increasingly difficult. Their survival requires building their competitive advantage by delivering memorable experiences, which would influence consumers’ brand preferences, and consequently stimulate consumers’ purchase decisions. In the marketing literature, the traditional models are uni-dimensional, and addressing the brand preferences by consumers’ cognitive judgement of brand attributes on a rational basis. The role of experience is limited to the impact of its type on shifting preference level. Most of prior studies are partial and focusing on one or two antecedents of brand preferences. In addition to these drawbacks, the studies also ignore consequences determining the consumer purchase decisions. Based on these limitations in the literature, a lack of understanding of how consumers develop their brand preferences was identified. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to develop a model that provides an understanding of how brand knowledge and brand experiences determine brand preferences and to investigate its impact on brand repurchase intentions. In this model, the brand knowledge is defined by attribute-based beliefs, referring to consumers’ salient beliefs about the brand intrinsic cues, and non-attribute beliefs, reflected in the price, appearance, brand personality, and self-congruity. Therefore, the relative importance of brand knowledge factors contributing to brand preference is determined. Furthermore, the model addresses the interactions between the brand knowledge and brand experience in shaping brand preference. Thus, addressing how the experiences reflect embedded value in the brand offerings influencing consumer preferences. To achieve the aim of this study, a sequential mixed-method methodology combining both qualitative and quantitative research was adopted. The aim of the first qualitative phase is exploratory, using focus groups, to refine the proposed model and generate items for questionnaire development. The second phase, quantitative research, is the survey conducted using self-administrated questionnaires. The structural equation modelling (AMOS) software is used to analyse the data. The findings confirm that brand knowledge and brand experience are key sources of brand preferences. In addition, all the factors of brand knowledge have a direct positive impact on brand preferences. However, the role of brand personality on brand preference is realised through brand experience. The findings also support that the impacts of the general brand attributes and appearance on brand preference are partially mediated by brand experience. Furthermore, brand preference positively impacts repurchase intentions. The ultimate contribution of this study stems from revealing that both cognitive information processing and experiential responses form the bases of developing brand preferences, which form the link to future psychological reactions. Methodologically, the study measures the multi-dimensional constructs, brand experience and brand personality, at the aggregate level. In addition, it validates the “big-five personality” as a measure of brand personality. Pragmatically, the study suggests three levels for building brands of technological products to win consumer preferences. At the first level lies the brand functional attributes, at the second level, are the brand symbolic attributes reflected in the imagery associations and aesthetic appearance while at the third level is the brand experience. Noteworthy, these experiences are private in nature and cannot be commoditised. This model extends the notion of brand experience on preference development and can be extended in future research to build long-term consumer-brand relationship.

The purpose of the research study was to build a deeper understanding of negative brand experiences for consumers at the Bottom of the pyramid segment. The research took an approach of looking at a negative brand experience from end to end, by focusing on elements such as brand contacts, triggers and customer response across different experience dimensions. The literature asserts that for companies to succeed at the Bottom of the Pyramid they need to forego existing assumptions, companies must realise that low income consumers are brand conscious in order to build successful brands. Building successful brands at this market involves offering more than just a functional offering but creating an emotional bond through positive experiences. Such experiences are created each time one is in contact with one of the brand touch-points. The qualitative study showed that consumers value being treated with respect in addition to the provision of a product or service. It also shows that negative brand experiences can happen at various points for both products and services irrespective of whether a product is regarded as hedonic or utilitarian. The nature of negative word of mouth within this segment needs to be explored further as the study showed that there are other factors that influence one to spread negative word of mouth. The research study also shows that consumers are sensitive to brands that demonstrate not to care or those that break trust as such experiences lead to strong negative emotions. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

The study presented here delves into the integration of Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) content into fashion marketing strategies, with a specific focus on the renowned luxury brand Hermès. ASMR is a perceptual phenomenon characterized by tingling sensations and feelings of relaxation triggered by certain audio visual stimuli. This research investigates how luxury brand enthusiasts perceive and engage with ASMR content within the context of Hermès' marketing communications. By delving into the interplay between sensory experiences, brand perception, and consumer engagement. The introduction introduces the concept of ASMR and its parallel with synesthesia in terms of individual variability. It also addresses scepticism toward non-universal experiences like ASMR and highlights people's divergent reactions towards it. The relevance of studying ASMR in the marketing context is outlined, with an emphasis on the challenge of integrating personal ASMR experiences into branding strategies.

Consumer marketing scholars keenly emphasize a proposed paradigm shift toward interactive relationships and lived brand experiences. Yet, little has been done to investigate the link between the two. Until now. This study is an attempt to measure the effects of lived brand experiences on consumers’ perceived relationship with a brand, through testing an academically established brand relationship quality model onto the concept of experiential event marketing. Susan Fournier’s (2000) brand relationship quality scale was chosen as the construct to be tested in the experiential event marketing context. It was through a theoretical argumentation hypothesized that the experiential event intervention would produce positive direct effects within the scale, but that these would decline with time. This was consequently tested through a repeated measurement study, set at an experiential food truck event hosted by the Swedish FMCG brand Santa Maria. Respondents were to rank their perceived brand relationship quality with the brand on three different occasions; directly before, directly after, and two weeks after being exposed to the experiential event. This way, not only the immediate effect, but also the effect over time, could be measured. It could be concluded that all but one constructs produced positive direct effects, but only half of them were significant. In all cases but one this effect declined significantly when being measured two weeks afterwards, and went in several cases back at approximately the same level as in the initial measurement. These findings have important implications for both academics and practitioners. Most notably, we argue that the link between lived brand experiences in form of typical FMCG experiential events and strengthened longer-term brand relationship quality can be invalidated.