A Study On The Relationship Between Brand Experience And Consumer Purchasing Intention In Smart-phone Industry

The innovation and development of science and technology bring with huge challenges and opportunities for hi-tech companies, especially for the smart-phone industry, which is paid lots of attention during recent years. The companies fight for market share and profits as much as possible, by technology innovation, advertising, price war and so on. The competition is very fierce. There is a contradiction between product homogeneity and brand share imbalance in smart-phone market. A few brands occupy more than a half market share, which is similar to other industries. So it is worth being studied. Some researchers declare that the key factors, which affect the consumers’ decision, are changing from quality or price to brand. The interaction between brand and consumers promotes the brand purchasing. Therefore, the influence between brand experience and consumer purchasing intention attracts more and more attentions from theorist and practitioner. Although brand experience was mentioned in1980s, it is firstly defined by Brakus and Schmitt as an academic word in2009. It have not reached the agreement on the definition and dimension of brand experience. It lacks of empirical research and measure tool. Some researchers focus on the relationship between brand experience and brand loyalty, but neglecting to forecast consumer behavior. We are going to reveal the internal mechanism between brand experience and consumer behavior.This study is based on the smart-phone industry, and makes the consumers as the research object. It explores the mechanism of brand experience on consumer purchasing intention by literature review. In order to make the study comprehensive, thorough and innovative, there will be three points in the following work.First, on the basis of literature review and depth interview, this study defines the conception of brand experience:In the whole interaction process, including brand information collection, product purchasing, after-sales service and so on, the subjective, internal, personalized responds from consumers to brand. The brand experience is divided into five dimensions. We design and develop the brand experience measurement scale, and prove the reliability and validity to be good.Second, according to theory of reasoned action (TRA) and theory of planned behavior (TPB), combined with the self-concept literature, this study empirical tests the influence of brand experience on consumer purchasing intention through self-concept, brand attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control. The result shows that self-concept, brand attitude, subjective norm and PBC affect the purchasing intention directly. And brand experience indirectly affects the purchasing intention. Cognition experience and broadcast experience positively affect self-concept. Five dimensions positively affect brand attitude. Broadcast experience and relation experience positively affect subjective norm. Broadcast experience positively affect PBC. Brand attitude has the biggest influence on purchasing intention. Broadcast experience has the biggest influence on self-concept, subjective norm and PBC. Cognition experience has the biggest influence on brand attitude.Third, review the related literature of involvement, this study defines the conception, category and measure of involvement. Based on the theoretical model we designed, it proves that the theoretical model is universality in different samples and the moderating effect of involvement between brand experience and purchasing intention. It analyses the path differences and significance between the two samples. The result shows that higher the involvement is, more significant the influences of brand experience on self-concept, brand attitude, subjective norm and PBC are, meanwhile more significant the influences of self-concept, brand attitude and PBC on purchasing intention are. However, higher the involvement is, less significant the influence of subjective norm on purchasing intention is. Besides, there is no significant influence of product experience on brand attitude.The innovation points of this dissertation are:(1) Based on the literature review and depth interview, the dissertation firstly defines the conception and dimensions of brand experience in smart-phone industry, then develops a reliable and valid measure scale with the data of smart-phone consumers.(2) Based on TRA and TPB, combined with related literature of self-concept, the dissertation builds and tests a theoretical model in which the five dimensions of brand experience indirectly affect purchasing intention through self-concept, brand attitude, subjective norm and PBC. The model provides broader perspective for the behavior intention causes and traditional TPB model.(3) The dissertation divides the consumer samples into two parts according to the brand involvement, and empirically tests the difference significant between the two parts. It proves that brand involvement has the moderating effect on the relationship between brand experience and consumer purchasing intention.