Brand Experience

interruptive and unappealing advertisements. On Instagram, brands and users enjoy the same privilege. Brand’s Instagram profile is the same with user’s Instagram profile. There is a follower relationship. Only when your Instagram profile is being followed, that your posts would appear on these followers Instagram feed. However, when a friend tagged the brand with tags or hashtags, users can link to the brands’ Instagram page or the database with user generated content about the brand. Consumers would not be forced to receive advertisements;

instead, they have to be willing to connect with brands and take action by searching for brands, connecting to brands through tags or hashtags, or “follow” the brand to receive brand contents.

Instagram is still a new social network environment for consumers in Taiwan.

However, there is a gradual increase of Instagram adoption among younger people. This study seeks to understand how brands’ Instagram content influence senior high school students. Explore whether Instagram advertisements would contribute to a more positive brand experiences or advertisement effectiveness.

2.3 Brand Experience

Brand experience is conceptualized as “subjective, internal consumer responses (sensations, feelings and cognitions) as well as behavioral responses evoked by brand-related stimuli that are part of a brand’s design and identity, packaging, communications and environments”

(Brakus, Schmitt, & Zarantonello, 2009, p. 53). In other words, brands provide experiences to consumers through brand-related marketing materials, and this brand-consumer interaction evoked consumers’ sensory, affective, intellectual, and behavioral responses. The research of Brakus et al. (2009) on brand experience was refined from Schmitt’s (1999) five experience modules, which consists of Sense, Feel, Think, Act, and Relate. In contrast to Schmitt’s experiential marketing (1999), brand experience by Brakus et al. (2009) focused mainly on brand-stimulated experiences. Brakus et al.’s brand experience is the most recent and comprehensive theory that covers aspects of brand experiences. Therefore it was chosen as the main theory for this study.

Brand experience occurs when consumers are interacting directly or indirectly with the brand through brand-stimuli (Brakus, Schmitt, & Zarantonello, 2009). Brand-related stimuli can be brands’ names or slogans, their visual identities, characters, or other verbal, visual, and sensory stimuli (Schmitt, Brakus, & Zarantonello, 2015). According to Brakus et al. (2009), the stronger the brand experience, the more positive the prediction of brand

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outcomes. Brand experience is positively related with consumer satisfaction, brand loyalty, and brand association (Zarantonello & Schmitt, 2010). When consumers experienced a more positive brand experience, it will be more likely for them to have higher brand satisfaction and brand loyalty (Schmitt, Brakus, & Zarantonello, 2015; Zarantonello & Schmitt, 2010).

The valence of a brand experience does not affect positive outcomes of brands, the intensity of a brand experience does (Phillips & McQuarrie, 2010). According to Brakus et al. (2009), the influence of brand experience on consumer’s satisfaction and loyalty is mediated directly and indirectly by brand personality. After consumers received impressive brand experiences, they would have a better idea of the brand’s personality, and the impression of brands enhanced brand satisfaction and brand loyalty. The brand experience provided by strong brands is always positive. Brands that fail to impress consumers were remembered according to the price, promotion, and functionality. Strong brands will be remembered through consumer’s sensory, affective, cognitive, behavioral, and social experiences (Brakus, Schmitt,

& Zarantonello, 2009).

Brakus et al. (2009) constructed a “Brand Experience Scale” (Table 1) to measure brand experiences. The scale consists of 12 items with four experiential dimensions, they are:

sensory, affective, intellectual, and behavioral experiences.

Table 1

The Brand Experience Scale

Sensory dimension refers to the brand-stimuli from visual, auditory, tactile, gustative, and olfactory experiences (Zarantonello & Schmitt, 2010). Brand may present sensory stimulation through look, color, shape, design, appealing audio sound, the aroma, the texture, or the taste to stimulate consumers’ senses. In sensory dimension, Simon et al. (2013) defined it as the aesthetic and sensory qualities of the brand page, including the visual distinctiveness

Sensory

This brand makes a strong impression on my visual sense or other senses.

I find this brand interesting in a sensory way.

This brand does not appeal to my senses.

Affective

This brand induces feelings and sentiments.

I do not have strong emotions for this brand.

This brand is an emotional brand.

Intellectual

I engage in a lot of thinking when I encounter this brand.

This brand does not make me think.

This brand stimulates my curiosity and problem solving.

Behavioral

I engage in physical actions and behaviors when I use this brand.

This brand results in bodily experiences.

This brand is not action oriented.

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that catches consumer’s attention, the dynamic animations, contrasting colors and pictures.

These are the sensory attributes that appeal to consumers’ senses; Affective dimension refers to the consumer’s positive emotions, feelings, sentiments, and emotional bond evoked by brand (Brakus, Schmitt, & Zarantonello, 2009; Simon, Brexendorf, & Fassnacht, 2013;

Zarantonello & Schmitt, 2010). Contents such as nostalgic old pictures, or videos of touching humanitarian stories belong to affective dimension. Intellectual dimension refers to the brand’s ability to encourage consumers to think, and engage with them intellectually (Zarantonello & Schmitt, 2010). Brands would engage with consumers through providing information, education, intellectual stimulation, and curiosity (Simon, Brexendorf, &

Fassnacht, 2013; Zarantonello & Schmitt, 2010). They would encourage consumers to use their creativity for problem solving (Gentile, Spiller, & Noci, 2007). Creative contests and competitions such as treasure hunt that requires consumers’ cognitive effort are examples of cognitive dimension (Simon, Brexendorf, & Fassnacht, 2013). Behavioral dimension refers to bodily experiences, lifestyles, and interactions with brands (Zarantonello & Schmitt, 2010).

Gentile et al. (2007) distinguished lifestyle as an experience component that resides in people’s value and belief system, and a consequence of people’s lifestyle and behaviors.

Conceptually, this lifestyle component is relevant with behavioral dimension. Contents that affirm people’s values and personal beliefs, or contents that encourages consumers to engage in physical activities falls into this category.

Experiential attributes can appear on products, ads, shopping environment, or background of websites…etc. (Brakus, Schmitt, & Zhang, 2014). A brand’s Instagram account also represent the brand, therefore, it’s possible to induce these brand experiences.

There is one brand experience dimension, the relational dimensions, which was originally proposed by Schmitt (1999) and yet excluded in Brakus et al.’s (2009) brand experience scale due to semantic similarity with other experiential dimensions. Therefore, in this research, only the most frequent and relevant brand experience dimensions will be studied. They are sensory, affective, Intellectual, and behavioral dimensions.

With the proliferation of social media, there are more mediums and settings that would evoke consumer’s brand experience (Schmitt, Brakus, & Zarantonello, 2015).

Consumers are taking an active role in product information gathering. They can search for information online; consult friends for product reviews or evaluation of brands. Social media is a platform that combines search and friend circle. With increased adoption of social media, it has become a crucial place where consumers can obtain brand experience. Brands that incorporate social media as their marketing strategy have a better chance to promote their

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brand and build familiarity with consumers (Naylor, Lamberton, & Patricia, 2012).

Consumer’s brand experience would increase when they are more acquainted with the brand (Naylor, Lamberton, & Patricia, 2012). Brands that are committed in building relationships with consumers on social media will be perceived as more attractive, and develop a more positive brand experience (Edosomwan, Prakasan, Kouame, Watson, & Seymour, 2011).

Brand experiences in different settings are also increasing, for example, in mobile environment. More people are now accessing media through mobiles instead of desktop (Perez, 2014). It is important to understand how brand experiences manifest on mobile settings. Consumers’ brand experience will impact their decision making process (Maghnati, Ling, & Nasermoadeli, 2012). By examining the brand experience in a popular social app, Instagram, this study seeks to explore how to prime the right brand experience in mobile settings to help promoting brands.