IT製品體驗類型이 브랜드 관련 槪念에 미치는 差別的 影響에 관한 硏究

Abstract

In today's business environment, companies seek to retain many customers with high loyalty by forming a long-term customer-company relationship. Accordingly, they must have competitive advantages over the competitors, which are obtained through differentiation of brand from the brands of other companies. Although companies must form long-term relationships with customers through brand differentiation, it is not easy to achieve brand differentiation only through products and services nowadays. The reason is because there are hardly any differences in the technologies and services of companies from the advancement in IT technologies these days. Accordingly, new marketing strategies must be introduced to differentiate brand from the competitors, strengthen the customer-company relationship and obtain customers with high loyalty through customers satisfaction since it is not easy to achieve brand differentiation only through products and services. To strengthen the customer-brand relationship, trust for the brand, attachment to the brand and affection towards the brand are required and, accordingly, the place of meeting between the consumers and brand is most important. As for the role of the location, companies inform their brands to the consumers and the consumers gain knowledge and form trust on the products by directly experiencing products of particular brands. Accordingly, IT companies of today are implementing experience marketing for the customer-brand relationship and brand differentiation. The reason is because the preference level by consumers on their products as well as the brand loyalty can be enhanced through experience. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of the direct experience of IT products on brand reliability, brand attachment and brand affection that are important elements for maintaining long-term consumers-brand relationship. To examine the effects of IT product experience at experiential type store on the brand reliability, brand attachment and brand affection that are the essential elements for maintaining long-term consumers-brand relationship, the Internet survey and field survey were conducted for the consumers that are directly experiencing IT products at experiential type store during the period of October 28-November 10, 2010 by distributing 355 copies of the survey questionnaire among which 352 copies were collected. Among the collected survey questionnaire, 340 copies were used as the final analysis data of this study upon excluding 12 copies that contained insufficient and incomplete responses. As Professor Schmidt stated the main two classifications of individual experience (sense, emotion, cognition) and socio-cultural experience (behavior, relation), they were further classified into the five factors of sensory experience, emotional experience, cognitive experience, behavioral experience and relational experience in this study for closer examination in order to understand the effects of increasing satisfaction level on IT product experience on the brand reliability, brand attachment and brand affection. The summary to the study result is as follows. [Analysis Result of Hypothesis 1] It was revealed that the increasing satisfaction level of sensory experience, cognitive experience and relational experience has positive effects on brand reliability. In addition, it was found that the increasing satisfaction level of cognitive experience enhances the brand reliability more so than other experience elements. [Analysis Result of Hypothesis 2] It was revealed that the increasing satisfaction level of sensory experience, cognitive experience, behavioral experience and relational experience has positive effects on brand reliability. In addition, it was found that the increasing satisfaction level of relational experience enhances the brand attachment more so than other experience elements. [Analysis Result of Hypothesis 3] It was revealed that the increasing satisfaction level of sensory experience, cognitive experience and relational experience has positive effects on brand affection. In addition, it was found that the increasing satisfaction level of cognitive experience enhances the brand affection more so than other experience elements. The following suggestion points can be obtained in this study. First, it was revealed through this study that increasing satisfaction level of sensory experience, cognitive experience and relational experience at IT product experience store that applied the five experience elements (sense, emotion, cognition, behavior, relation) has positive effects on brand reliability. Accordingly, it can be said that the significance of this study is in conducting this study in the midst of situation in which there were hardly any studies that measured the effects of experiential elements on brand reliability. Second, it was found that the cognitive experience and relational experience among the IT product experience elements (sense, emotion, cognition, behavior, relation) at experience type store especially have significant effects on brand reliability, brand attachment and brand affection. This suggests that companies need to strengthen IT product experience elements for causing consumer interest and curiosity and revitalize the gatherings of IT product consumers to strengthen the relational experience element. Third, it has revealed that the emotional experience among the elements of IT product experience at experience type store does not have effects on brand reliability, brand attachment and brand affection. It has also revealed that the behavioral experience does not have effects on brand reliability and brand affection. This suggests that companies need to supplement the emotional experience and behavioral experiential element by developing and implementing marketing strategies.