A brand preference and repurchase intention

model: the role of consumer experience

Article  in  Journal of Marketing Management· May 201
by Reham Ebrahim, Ahmad Ghoneim, Zahir Irani & Ying Fan

P RES E N TE D BY – P RA N AV N I J H AWA N ( P H D 2 11 0 )
Some Important Terms
Brand Preference - The degree to which a consumer is inclined to use a particular brand's
product instead of a competitor'
Brand Experience - Investigates consumer responses/feelings to the symbolic, aesthetic,
imaginative, information processing and fantasy meanings of the product, raising the role
of multi-sensory experience aspects
Brand Knowledge - Symbolic/emotional, utilitarian and economic associations. A
consumer's understanding and recall of a brand and its products
Attribute Perception - Consumers’ salient beliefs about a brand’s intrinsic cues, including
product-related attributes and associated functional features
Appearance - Symbolic, aesthetic value that affects consumers’ product evaluation
Brand Personality - A set of human characteristics assigned to a brand
Self – Congruity - Self-congruity refers to the degree of congruence/resemblance between
the brand image and the consumer’s image
 Research
Questions/Hypothesis
H1. Brand experience will have a direct positive effect on brand preference (H1a) and
repurchase intention (H1b)
H2. Attribute perception will have a positive effect on brand experience (H2a) and brand
preference (H2b).
H3. Price perception will have a positive effect on brand experience (H3a) and brand
preference (H3b)
H4. Appearance perceptions will have a positive effect on brand experience (H4a) and
brand preference (H4b)
H5. Brand personality will have a positive effect on brand experience (H5a), brand
preference (H5b) and repurchase intention (H5c).
H6. Self-congruity will have a positive effect on brand preference (H6a), and repurchase
intention (H6b)
H7. Brand preference will have a direct positive effect on brand repurchase intention
This study seeks to develop a model that provides an understanding of how brand
knowledge and brand experience determine brand preference and to investigate its
impact on brand repurchase intention
 Significance of Study
Provides various insights to consumer preferences for brand with regard to the product
type
This model combines the objective and subjective meanings of brand and holistic
consumer experience
Functional, utilitarian attributes are not the focal interest- Other symbolic and aesthetic
associations are important
Transfer brand personality to symbolic meanings, which thus enhances consumer
preference – Self Congruency Theory
The study suggests three levels for building high-tech brands –Cognitive brand attribute,
Symbolic and aesthetic, brand experiences
Brand experience is revealed to be a significant direct antecedent of brand preference in
addition to its mediating role

The study suggests balance between the functional, hedonic and symbolic attributes of
mobile phones that enhance consumer preferences by shaping their brand experiences
Critiquing the Paper
 Introduction
TITLE ABSTRACT

The title reflects the important terms

discussed in the study, but could have been
more elaborative in order to include The abstract rightly tells the purpose and the
product/service under consideration so that objective of the study but the research
the reader could get an idea in regards to its methods used and the key results obtained
classification and type – Low involvement could have been more clearly stated
Product, High involvement (Utilitarian
Product), Hedonic Product, Service etc.
Relevance of research
This research expands the role of the brand from a bundle of attributes to
experiences.
It also considers both the rational and irrational aspects of consumer behaviour

Its novelty lies - Empirical studies about brand preferences in the past long
been explained using traditional models, which largely focus on consumers’
cognitive judgement of brand attributes on a rational basis. This study thus
includes emotional and holistic components
Research seeks to provide a better understanding of brand preference development by
providing answers to three questions: first, what is the impact of different brand
knowledge factors on consumer brand preferences? Second, how do brand experiences
affect consumer brand preferences, and how do they interact with brand knowledge
factors in shaping consumer preferences? Finally, how do consumer brand experiences
and brand preferences motivate repurchase intention?
 Literature Review
The literature review lists down and
explains the definitions of the
concept/constructs in an elaborative way
with proper citations and references to
some of the seminal work done in the field.
The study also clearly states down the the
Theoretical and practical implications and
thus contributing to the theory in an
efficient manner and takes an innovative
approach
Even though the researcher position
themselves in relation to other researchers,
a better synthesis could have been carried
out in respect to past work in the field
A more critical evaluation mentioning the
strengths and weakness of the resources
and previous research in the field could have
been carried out and more current research
to the topic could have been included
 Research Method and Design
A thorough rational has been provided in regards to the flow/importance of the
hypothesis and discussed research questions

A proper theoretical framework in the form of research model has been identified

Predictive modelling and path measurement based on SEM has been used in the study,
linking findings strongly to the literature review previously discussed

In order to develop the variables in order to measure the construct a combination of

qualitative studies and its interpretative nature and subjective comprehension – Focus
group discussions with the users and previous established scales based on literature
review have been used

The sample size taken – 325 valid responses is found to be adequate

The required ethical considerations were taken

Research Method and Design
The sample taken for the study based on convenience sampling – thus external validity and
generalizations of the result could be an issue

The filling of questionnaires done in a mall – Questioning accuracy of responses in regards to

paucity of time

In view of the nature of the study a demographic classification of the sample should have been
carried out depending on the socio-economic status and age

No information provided in regards to participants – Focus group discussions and also experts used
in order to carry out face validity

The questionnaire was translated directly into Arabic from English – Although a pretesting of the
questionnaire was carried out
Validity and Reliability of Research
Instruments
RELIABILITY VALIDITY

In addition, a face validity exercise was carried out with the experts – Evaluation of items
Validity and Reliability of Research
Instruments
Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used with principal component analysis (PCA) and VARIMAX orthogonal
rotation for item reduction. The items with low commonality of less than 0.5 or loads on two or more factors
with values exceeding 0.4 were candidates for deletion
Composite reliability of each construct was more than 0.7 (Hair et al. 2010) and thus acceptable though
Cronbach alpha for the entire scale hasn’t been mentioned
The load of items on seven factors, which account for 69.8% of the total variance which is more than 60% as
prescribed in social sciences research (Hair,2005)
The validity of the measurement model was assessed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), maximum
likelihood estimation technique and AMOS (v.18) software. had an acceptable fit with chi-square being 523.60
and 314 degrees of freedom, at a significant level of p < 0.005.
Convergent validity test hasn’t been explicitly mentioned
Discriminant validity was assessed by comparing the average value extracted with squared correlation estimate
– although no standard value but generally should be less than 0.85 (Hamid,2017)
Assessment of a common method variance method was done and testing of mediation was also carried out
In addition several procedures were used to reduce method bias, which can occur, due to relativism and
subjective nature of the constructs as opposed to traditional models based on cognitive factors
Presentation of Results
As discussed appropriate inferential statistics are used, though more
information in regards to descriptive statistics could have been presented

Taking the significance level p<0.05 of the 13 hypotheses, 10 were supported

while 3 were rejected, but the table of results (SEM) could have been
summarized in a better/simple way by adding a column that hypothesis either
accepted/rejected

Accordingly, brand preference-repurchase model should have been modified

Conclusion/Recommendation
The study published in Journal of Marketing Management (I.F.- 3.048, A rated journal) with
number of citations, 141 – Shows the quality of research
Study should be carried out in regards to comparison between 2 countries – Developed and
Developing – thus should incorporate geographic and consumer demographics and avoid
cultural biasness
Brand experience, Brand preference and Brand knowledge very subjective constructs
leading to issue of constructive pluralism and relativism and some intermediating variables
like Brand loyalty, Brand equity, serviceability, customer relationship etc. absent that may
modify the result
Important aspects in regards to Brand experience – Place, Promotion, Brand and corporate
credibility, skill of sales person etc. ignored in the study
A class of products should be included in order to get better generalized results and also result
obtained should be compared with pure services
In addition, Weighing methods like MCDM techniques could be used in order to establish the
relative importance of one aspect over the other
Thank You