Brand Experience and Consumers’ Willingness to Pay (WTP) a Price: Exploring the role of Brand Credibility, Perceived Quality, Perceived Uniqueness, And Social Image in A Comparative Analysis of Automobile and Mobile Phone Industries of Karachi.

Abstract

Many companies and brands are using experiential marketing to boost up the brand image, goodwill, and to gain the confidence and trust of the people. This study develops a conceptual framework thereby modified the Dwivedi et. al. (2018) model, which investigates how the Brand experience may influence consumers’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) a price premium as mediated by brand credibility, perceived quality, perceived uniqueness, and social image. The brand experience was further broken down into behavioral, emotional, intellectual, and sensory. For this purpose, a comparative study is conducted between automobile (high involvement) vs mobile phone (low involvement) industries’ consumers in Karachi, Pakistan. Empirical validity was established by conducting a survey using a close-ended questionnaire. Data was collected from 355 adult consumers from Karachi and analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structured equation modeling. The outcomes found both the automobile and mobile phone industries are different in terms of consumers’ spending low vs high involvement and secondly it was found that results are dissimilar for both industries in terms of consumers’ WTP a price premium. The results suggested that for mobile phones, all forms of brand experience such as behavioral, emotional, sensory, and intellectual cues have a positive and significant effect on willingness to pay a premium price. Whereas for automobiles, only intellectual cues seem to have a positive and significant effect. Similarly, behavioral, sensory, and intellectual experience seems to have a positive effect on brand credibility in both mobile and automobiles. sensory, and intellectual experience also seems to positively affect perceived quality and uniqueness in both markets. Additionally, Emotional cues also seem to affect automobile products’ perceived quality and uniqueness. Apart from emotional, all other experiences also seem to affect social image positively for both the cases. Lastly, all four factors i.e. brand credibility, perceived quality and uniqueness, and social image also have a significant positive impact on the WTP a price premium. Hence, the analysis reveals that brand experience affects the consumers’ WTP a price premium directly as well as indirectly through brand credibility, perceived quality, perceived uniqueness, and social image in both industries low vs high involvement.

Keywords: Brand experience, experiential marketing, brand credibility, perceived quality, perceived uniqueness, social image, and willingness-to-pay a price premium