The impact of brand loyalty on website usage

Received (in revised form): 14th July, 2003

HELGE THORBJRNSEN
is an associate professor of marketing at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration in Bergen. He is also associated with Carat Branding in Oslo and Gosu in Bergen. His primary research interests are internet marketing, mobile commerce and brand management.

MAGNE SUPPHELLEN
is an associate professor of marketing at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration in Bergen. He is also associated with Carat Branding in Oslo. His research focuses on market research methods and brand management issues. He is head of the Department of Strategy and Management at the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration.

Abstract
A number of previous studies have investigated determinants of brand website usage. Variables such as internet experience, goal-directedness and type of motivation (entertainment/information) have been found to inuence consumer behaviour on a given web page. This study focuses on websites for well-known brands. For such websites, it is hypothesised that brand loyalty is a major determinant for website usage. Affectively loyal consumers sense a relationship to their favoured brands and should be motivated to visit websites for such brands more frequently than non-loyals. Effects of brand loyalty on duration of visits could, however, be negative, because loyals are well updated on the contents of the sites and nd less news when visiting. These issues were addressed in a study of 534 visitors to a national Pepsi website. The results show that brand loyalty is a much stronger determinant of website usage than conventional determinants, such as internet experience and type of motivation for the visit (information/entertainment). As expected, it was found that brand loyalty is signicantly positively related to frequency of website usage, but negatively related to visit duration. Moreover, the results show interesting effects of brand loyalty and motivation for visits on the frequency of visits. The results have important implications for development of brand equity.

INTRODUCTION
The internet and the World Wide Web are becoming increasingly important elements of the marketing mix for most commercial companies. The vast majority of brands and vendors have a website on the internet, and both online sales and advertising spending are increasing. Regardless of whether brand websites are supported by advertising (such as Yahoo!), sales revenue (such as Amazon) or are primarily used for leveraging brand equity (such as McDonalds), they are all more or

Helge Thorbjrnsen Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Breiviksveien 40, N-5045 Bergen, Norway Tel: 47 5595 9535 Fax: 47 5595 9430 E-mail: helge.thorbjornsen@nhh.no

less critically dependent on attracting consumers to the sites. The increasing competition for consumer attention and loyalty online has motivated a stream of research on website effectiveness,1 including issues such as determinants for attracting users, how to develop favourable attitudes towards websites and how to obtain continued website patronage. Most of the early research in this area focused primarily on attributes of the site or of the medium itself.2 5 More recently, researchers have
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turned their attention to the effects of individual variables such as consumer motivation, experience and knowledge on brand website attitudes and behaviour.69 Specically, a recent study by Supphellen and Nysveen10 found corporate brand loyalty to be a strong predictor of both attitudes towards the site and intentions to revisit the site (Scandinavian Airline System SAS). These ndings are important for several reasons. First, they put renewed focus on the competitive advantage of existing (ofine) brands over internet newcomers when establishing and developing websites. Secondly, these ndings imply that, to a large extent, motivation for website patronage may stem from traditional advertising and media. This knowledge is important to brand managers when deciding on the relative allocation of marketing resources on the internet versus traditional media. This study extends previous research on the effects of brand loyalty by investigating how this variable inuences website behaviour. Supphellen and Nysveen11 found that brand loyalty had a positive impact on attitudes towards websites and on intentions to revisit. Brand loyalty may not necessarily inuence website behaviour in the same manner, however. For example, Baldinger and Rubinson12 showed that, for consumer goods, brand-loyal attitudes do not always lead to brandloyal behaviour. Moreover, there are different kinds of behavioural variables, such as frequency of website visits and duration of visits. The authors expect that brand loyalty will affect these variables differently. In the following, information-processing theory is used to develop hypotheses on the effects of brand loyalty on website behaviour.
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The hypotheses are tested on the data from a survey of 534 visitors to a national website of Pepsi Cola. The results offer important managerial implications for brand management and for future research in this area.

HYPOTHESES
In order to understand the relationship between brand loyalty and consumer behaviour on the internet, theories of information processing provide useful input.13 The integrative AMO (ability, motivation and opportunity) model14 is a general and widely used model that offers valuable insights into how variations in ability, motivation and opportunity inuence the levels of information processing, which in turn inuence behaviour. In this model, the motivation to process (brand) information directly inuences the level and capacity of information processing. This relationship is in turn moderated by consumers ability to process brand information. Below, the potential impact is discussed of these two antecedents of information processing on the relationship between brand loyalty and website behaviour (the third antecedent, opportunity, is related to contextdependent features that may distract or inhibit the consumer from processing information, for example, background music, noise, multi-tasking and so on; this antecedent does not contribute to this discussion of brand loyalty effects on website behaviour). A conceptual model of expected relationships is shown in Figure 1.

The motivation effect

In line with Park and Mittal,15 MacInnis and Jaworski16 and others, motivation is

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Motivation
+

to

(H1) + Frequency of website visits

process brand website information

Brand loyalty

(H2)

Ability

to

process brand website information

(H3)

Duration of website visits

Figure 1

Conceptual model of expected relationships between brand loyalty and website behaviour

dened here as goal-directed arousal. Here, the object of motivation is to access and evaluate information on the brand website. Thus, the most dominant predictor of processing is the relevance of this information to the activated needs. Consumers will process information in greater detail to the degree that this information is congruent with the consumers inherent need and interests.17 Brand involvement and brand loyalty would be considered strong motivators for processing brand information (see Figure 1). Moreover, brand loyalty leads to high brand awareness. Accordingly, loyal consumers more easily come to think of the brand, and thus its website, while surng on the internet. The most straightforward outcome of this would be high frequency of visits to the brand website. H1: Brand loyalty has a positive effect on the frequency of brand website visits. Over time, however, the motivation to process brand website information will also be inuenced by the novelty of the information. The more often a con-

sumer visits the brand website, the less novel and relevant become the content and information displayed on the site. Accordingly, frequency of use may be expected to be negatively related to the perceived novelty of the information, thus also negatively related to visit duration. A consumer is not likely to spend much time browsing a site in which most information is already known. The strength of this negative relationship between frequency of use and visit duration is naturally moderated by how frequently the content of the website is updated. An online newspaper (such as www.ft.com) updates much more frequently than an information/entertainment website (such as www.pepsi.com). Nevertheless, the relationship between frequency of visiting and visit duration will be negative. H2: Frequency of website visiting will be negatively related to visit duration.

The ability effect

While motivation to process information is almost uniquely tied to
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the personal relevance of information for each individual consumer, the mechanisms underlying consumers abilities for processing are more complex. The ability to comprehend and interpret information is inuenced by prior experience and knowledge, intelligence, education, as well as message difculty.18,19 Lack of abilities implies that knowledge structures necessary to perform a given operation either do not exist, or cannot be accessed.20 No matter how motivated consumers might be for processing information, this is irrelevant if they lack the necessary resources to access, interpret and make use of the information. In the context of online brand information processing, it is useful to distinguish between two forms of knowledge: domain knowledge and process knowledge. Domain knowledge in the context of this paper would be closely tied to knowledge about the brand and the product category itself. Process knowledge pertains to the consumers prociency and experience in using the website and managing various information formats. Both types of knowledge are essential for the consumers ability in accessing, interpreting and understanding brand website information. A consumer with a high degree of brand experience and knowledge would be more able to efciently process brand information than a consumer with no or little knowledge of the brand (or the product category). Thus whereas motivation to process information positively inuences the frequency of visits, abilities of information processing will mainly affect the duration of visits. Brand loyalty is positively related to brand knowledge. Consequently,
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higher levels of brand loyalty would normally entail higher levels of ability to process information about the brand (domain knowledge). With greater ability to process information, less time is needed to browse and search the sites. Also, according to H1, brand-loyal consumers visit the brand site more frequently, and thus possess higher levels of process knowledge (abilities in utilising and navigating the site); see Figure 1. Again, the effect is lower visit duration. H3: Brand loyalty has a negative effect on visit duration for brand websites.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND MEASURES

In order to target visitors to the relevant site, participants were recruited by means of a so-called pop-up request when entering the Pepsi website. When visitors agreed to participate, a onepage questionnaire emerged on the screen. Consequently, as compared to the Supphellen and Nysveen21 study, the authors used the same method but tested a different brand. A total of 534 visitors responded to the questionnaire. Forty-one per cent were female. Unfortunately, age was not recorded, but visitors to the site are usually relatively young, and include a large proportion of teenagers. Eight measures were included in the questionnaire in addition to demographic questions, three dependent variables (intentions and behavioural variables) and ve independent variables. Intention to revisit the site was measured by a single question: How likely is it that you will visit this site again? (a ve-point Likert scale was used with anchors

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very likely to not at all likely). The frequency of visits measure referred to the total number of visits during the last month: About how many times have you visited this website during the last month? Duration of visits was measured in terms of a subjective estimate of the average number of minutes spent on the site: When visiting this website, about how many minutes do you spend on the site on average? The brand loyalty measure was similar to that of Supphellen and Nysveen.22 This measure contains one indicator of affective brand loyalty:23 I feel that I have a relationship with Pepsi, and one item tapping respondents tolerance for price competition: I prefer Pepsi even when other brands offer lower prices (a ve-point Likert scale was used with anchors strongly agree to strongly disagree). In addition to brand loyalty, four other potential determinants of intention and behaviour were included. Two of them referred to different motivations of consumers for using the internet: information motivation (I usually use the internet in order to search out information) and entertainment motivation (I usually use the internet in search of entertainment). Another measure was included to capture the extent to which participants were goal-directed when using the internet (When surng the internet, I usually look for something specic). Finally, a two-item measure of subjective experience with the internet (I have more experience with the internet than most people I know and I am a relatively experienced internet user) is included. For all these measures a ve-point Likert scale was used, with anchors strongly agree to strongly disagree.

ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

Some correlations between the ve predictor variables were signicant, but none higher than 0.20. Since it was also intended to test the effect of interactions between brand loyalty and search motivation, however, all variables were mean-centred in order to reduce potential problems with multicollinearity.24 A check for multicollinearity in the nal analyses indicated no problems of this kind. Ordinary least squares regressions were performed with intentions to revisit, frequency of visits and duration of visits as dependent variables, and brand loyalty, information motivation, entertainment motivation, internet experience and goal-directedness as predictor variables. Standardised coefcients and explained variance are shown in Table 1. First, brand loyalty is found to be a very strong determinant of intentions to revisit the website ( < 0.455, p < 0.01). This result replicates the nding by Supphellen and Nysveen25 that brand loyalty plays an important role in obtaining continued website patronage. Interestingly, the effect of brand loyalty in this study of the Pepsi website ( < 0.455, p < 0.01) is stronger than the effect observed for the SAS website in the Supphellen and Nysveen study26 ( < 0.229, p < 0.01). This difference is plausible. The SAS site is a more functional site where consumers can order tickets and learn about schedules, ticket prices and so on. Thus, other motives than brand loyalty will play a dominant role for such a site. Nevertheless, the fact that brand loyalty has been found to affect revisit intentions for two very different sites indicates that brand loyalty probably is an important determinant of
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Table 1 Determinants of intentions to visit and of behaviour on the site Behaviour Intention to revisit 0.455*** 0.020 0.060 0.157*** 0.038 0.041 0.012 0.224*** Frequency of visits 0.424*** 0.104** 0.069 0.126*** 0.037 0.070* 0.090** 0.210*** Duration of visits 0.505*** 0.030 0.068* 0.104*** 0.056 0.006 0.011 0.271***

Predictor Brand loyalty Internet experience Information motivation Entertainment motivation Goal-directedness Brand loyalty information motivation Brand loyalty entertainment motivation R2 adjusted Standardised regression coefcients (n 534) *** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.10

patronage for many different kinds of brand websites.

Test of H1
According to H1, brand loyalty should have a positive effect on the frequency of visits to the website. Table 1 shows strong support for H1. The coefcient for brand loyalty on frequency of visits is high and signicant ( 0.424, p < 0.01).

tively. The effect of brand loyalty on visit duration is shown in Table 1, third column. Again, the hypothesis is strongly supported. Brand loyalty has indeed a very strong negative effect on visit duration ( 0.505, p < 0.01), in fact a much stronger effect than any other variable in the equation.

Other findings
Several other interesting effects are also observed in Table 1. In particular, variables other than brand loyalty also have differential effects on frequency and duration of visits. Information motivation has a positive, but only marginally signicant effect on duration ( 0.068, p < 0.01). No such effect is observed for frequency of visits. Entertainment motivation has a negative effect on duration ( 0.104, p < 0.01), but a positive effect on frequency of visits ( 0.126, p < 0.01). One interaction is signicant for frequency of visits only: brand loyalty entertainment motivation ( 0.090, p < 0.05). Thus, brand loyalty seems to affect frequency of visits both directly and

Test of H2
Hypothesis 2 postulated that the frequency of website visiting would be negatively correlated with visit duration. To test this expectation, the Pearson correlation between the two variables was computed. The correlation was negative and signicant (r 436, p < 0.01). Thus, H2 is also supported by this data.

Test of H3
The nal hypothesis focused on the duration of visits. Brand loyalty was expected to inuence duration nega204

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indirectly by strengthening the effect of entertainment motivation.

IMPLICATIONS FOR BRAND MANAGERS

From a managerial point of view, the results yield several important insights on how to accommodate loyal website users and develop brand equity online. First, these ndings suggest that motivation for website patronage to a large extent is indirectly created by the traditional advertising and media channels. Brand loyalty was found to be the most important determinant of frequency of visits in this study. Brand managers should thus be resistant to dramatic increases in budgets on the internet at the expense of the traditional media. On the other hand, the nding that loyal consumers frequently visit brand websites underscores the need for careful construction and management of websites for well-known brands. The content and structure of the brands website is not a peripheral issue that can be delegated to the rms IT department. Loyal consumers are the banner carriers of the brand. A poorlooking or boring brand website could seriously downgrade brand associations in this important group of customers and thus hurt brand equity. The brand website is a new media channel through which brand managers can reinforce brand relationships within the sub-group of customers that are most important to brand equity. Consequently, brand managers should not neglect conventional brand-building in the traditional media, yet put substantial effort into the construction of brand websites that communicate ef-

fectively with customers. The question is which role the brand website should be assigned within an integrated communication perspective. The broader range of brand-building activities should be considered: where and how can the website contribute more effectively than other elements of the communication mix? When combining the ndings of the present study with previous research, it is possible to suggest some answers to this important question. The ndings of this study indicate that loyal consumers are frequent guests at the brands website, yet spend less time on each occasion, the more often they use the site. There may be several explanations behind this nding. One potential explanation is the expected correlation between visit frequency and process and domain knowledge. In addition, more frequent website users may be more instrumental in their website behaviour, and less inclined to browse the site or simply visit the website to check out if anything new has happened. The additional nding, that the effect of entertainment motivation on frequency of visits is strengthened by brand loyalty, indicates that loyal consumers are driven by entertainment motives. The effect of information motivation on frequency of visits also tends, however, to be strengthened by brand loyalty ( 0.070, p < 0.1). Taken together, these ndings suggest that brand-loyals are frequently visiting the brands website simply to look for news of any kind, be it information or elements of entertainment. The straightforward implication is that brand websites should be frequently updated and new content added in order to accommodate the increasing information-processing
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abilities and motivation to process new information of brand-loyals. This is not without costs, of course, but there are good reasons to prioritise frequent updates. The internet is a pull medium where the consumer is in charge of the processing of information and can pick and choose between alternatives. This is not the case with push media like radio and TV.27 One important effect of the unique possibility of consumer managing the ow of information on the internet is deeper processing of selected information and more effective learning.28 In order to build brand equity, however, this learning has to strengthen relevant brand associations or enhance positive emotions for the brand. Two approaches are discussed here. First, brand communities can be an effective means of keeping a constant ow of relevant and new information on the brands website. The mere presence of a community may also in itself contribute to increasing the stickiness of the website for brand-loyals, since brand-loyal consumers are believed to more frequently contribute in such communities as compared to nonloyals.29-31 Moreover, a study by Muniz and OGuinn32 indicates that online brand communities can enhance quality perceptions, brand loyalty and brand awareness. In order, however, to become a forum for exchange of positive information that is relevant to brand equity, there have to be a signicant number of brand-loyal members. If other consumers dominate the community, there is a risk that the community becomes an arena for negative word-of-mouth. For example, the community could reject marketing efforts or product change.33 Consequently, brand managers should keep
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an eye on the discussions on their brand communities and actively, although in a subtle way, manage what topics are being discussed. Another means of relevant update on the brand website is the use of online contests. In particular, contests are very well suited for directing customers attention to specic information about the brand that the manager wants them to learn. For example, a contest could refer to specic aspects of a current TV commercial for the brand (questions about the main character, the way the product is used in the commercial, and so on). Notably, such contests would contain both an element of information search and entertainment and would most likely increase the visit frequency of loyal customers. Most importantly, stronger effects of the commercials could be expected among the participants in the contest due to higher advertisement awareness. Alternatively, visitors could be asked questions about the nature of the products or the company, if this kind of learning is important to the development of brand equity. Winners could be awarded coupons for free samples of the brand or brand-related material. In summary, brand websites could play an effective role within the communication mix in two ways: rst as an independent tool for effective learning of brand associations and enhancement of brand effect among brand-loyal consumers, and secondly as a tool for reinforcing the communication effects of advertising in the traditional media, such as TV, radio or magazines. The ndings also suggest some directions for how to maximise the effect of banner advertising on websites for well-known brands. Because brand-

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loyal users seem to be frequent visitors who quickly detect new information on the site, they will tend to overlook old information and turn their attention to new elements. Hence, banner advertisements aimed at loyal consumers should be linked to the new information when sites are updated. Non-loyal consumers visit the site less frequently, are less informed about its content and are less goal-directed in their behaviour on the site. For this group, banner advertisements will probably be more effective when linked to the generally most attentioncatching elements of the site.

IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

From a research point of view, the observation of a negative correlation between website frequency of use and visit duration revealed in this study is important to the interpretation of both future and past studies of website effectiveness. Some studies have focused on determinants of the total length of time spent on a brands website over a given period. Such measures may result in misleading conclusions. The total amount of time may be divided into a series of frequent, but shorter, website visits, or fewer and more durable visits. Because frequency and duration of visits are negatively correlated and have different determinants, collapsing the two in a general measure of time spent on the site would be misleading. Future research should also consider the feedback effects of consumer website patronage on brand loyalty. Past research indicates that brand website usage positively inuences overall brand loyalty.34,35 An interesting avenue for future research is to

identify whether, or under which circumstances, brand-loyal behaviour (online) primarily stems from ofine or from online marketing efforts. Also, future studies should apply additional behavioural measures such as response to advertisements, response to contests and so on when investigating the determinants of website behaviour. Other and more elaborate measures of brand-loyal attitudes and behaviour are also needed. The results of this study have several implications for approaches to increasing the frequency of visits to brand websites. Less was learned, however, about how managers can increase visit duration. Frequency of updates and type of updates, as well as presence of online communities, are all elements that have the potential to increase visit duration. Still, more research is needed to identify how brand managers can increase the time consumers spend on each visit to brand websites.

NOTE
The order of authorship was determined arbitrarily, reecting an equal contribution from each author.
References
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(17) Zaichkowsky, J. L. (1985) Measuring the Involvement Construct, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 12, pp. 341352. (18) MacInnis and Jaworski, ref. 14 above. (19) Balabanis and Reynolds, ref. 6 above. (20) Alba, J. W. and Hutchinson, J. W. (1987) Dimensions of consumer expertise, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 13, pp. 411453. (21) Supphellen and Nysveen, ref. 7 above. (22) Ibid. (23) Bloemer, J. and Kasper, H. (1995) The complex relationship between consumer satisfaction and brand loyalty, Journal of Economic Psychology, Vol. 16, pp. 311329. (24) Neter, J., Wasserman, W. and Kutner, M. H. (1989) Applied Linear Regression Models, 2nd edn, Richard D. Irwin Inc., Homewood, IL. (25) Supphellen and Nysveen, ref. 7 above. (26) Ibid. (27) Barwise, P., Elberse, A. and Hammond, K. (2002) Marketing and the Internet, in Handbook of Marketing, Weitz, B. A. and Wensley, R. (eds) Sage, London, UK, pp. 527558. (28) Ibid. (29) Hagel, J. and Armstrong, A. G. (1997) Net Gain: Expanding Markets Through Virtual Communities, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA. (30) Holland, J. and Baker, S. M. (2001) Customer participation on site brand loyalty, Journal of Interactive Marketing, Vol. 15, pp. 3445. (31) Mathwick, ref. 8 above. (32) Muniz, A. M. and OGuinn, T. C. (2001) Brand community, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 27, pp. 412432. (33) Barwise et al., ref. 27 above. (34) Thorbjrnsen et al., ref. 9 above. (35) Holland and Baker, ref. 30 above.

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