The Role of Brand Experiences in Online Brand Communities: Examining the Effect of Brand Experience on Purchase Intention Through Brand Relationship

Sammanfattning: Thesis Purpose: To better understand the influence that brand experience in Online Brand Communities (OBCs) has on purchase intention while clarifying the underlying mechanism of such relationship through brand relationship constructs. Moreover, to discover if there is a difference between consumer-run and company-managed OBCs in terms of brand experience. Theoretical perspective: We combined ideas from the brand community, brand experience, and brand relationship stream. Some of them are based on sociological and psychological perspectives (e.g., the notion of community, attachment theory, interpersonal relationship theory, commitment-trust theory). Methodology/Empirical Data Collection: A deductive approach and quantitative research method has been used. A non-probability sampling was used to gather responses through a web survey (n=107). We then used PLS-SEM to analyze the relationships simultaneously by running a path analysis to examine if the hypotheses showed statistically significant results. Findings/Conclusion: Brand experience in an OBC directly and positively predicts consumers’ intention to purchase from the brand related to the particular community. With this finding, we contributed to one side of the academic discussion on whether brand experience influences purchase intention. We also concluded that the context in which the relationship was studied is essential in determining whether the two concepts significantly relate to each other or not. Furthermore, we found that brand relationship, composed of brand trust, brand attachment, and brand commitment, does not explain the underlying mechanism of the relationship between brand experience in OBCs and purchase intention. Such results challenge past research affirming that the brand relationship constructs closely relate to brand experience and purchase intention. Lastly, we found that brand experience in OBCs is influenced differently depending on if the community is run by consumers or by the company. In our case, an OBC managed by a company positively relates to the brand experience in the OBC while such result is negative for those run by consumers. Practical Implications: With our findings, we can advise marketers to focus on creating favorable brand experiences for their consumers through the support of OBCs to generate purchase intention. Furthermore, if marketers want to create strong relationships with their consumers, they need to build and support memorable brand experiences. They are also advised to create and manage OBCs for their company as the company-managed OBC showed to generate stronger brand experiences than those run by consumers.