Experiential marketing : The relationship among brand experience, brand personality and customer satisfaction - A case study of Starbucks in Ho Chi Minh City
Abstract
With the aim of studying the relationship among brand experience, brand
personality and customer satisfaction, this study focused on brand experiences
offered by Starbucks, as a case study to examine how the array of values from
experiencing at Starbucks impact on the way customer perceive Starbucks
personalities, which might influence customer satisfaction promoted products and
brands offering customer add-values by experience.
The research model in this study is adapted from sixth study in Journal of
Marketing Vol. 73 (May 2009), 52-68 of J. JoskoBrakus, Bernd H. Schmitt and
Lia Zarantonello. The conceptual framework is proposed with 1 brand experience
dimension, 1 brand personality dimension and a dimension of customer
satisfaction. Quantitative method was applied by distributing questionnaire for
more than 300 respondents who is over 18 years old and they have experienced at
one of Starbucks stores in Ho Chi Minh City at least 1 time.
After collecting, data was carefully analyzed in order to explore current situation
and new customer insights toward experiences at Starbucks. As a result, through
data analysis, the finding indicated that customers perceive array of value from
experience through sensory, affective and behavioral as well as sincerity and
excitement personalities of Starbucks. On the other hand, this study also provided
a new problem that the survey is conducted at a particular brand - Starbucks and
in the case of Viet Nam. Thus, even though traditional values of Starbucks still
bring to Starbucks a particular success in Viet Nam at the beginning, it seems that
Starbucks has not been as successful as it has in other countries, especially in
Western countries. Despite experiences at Starbucks are good themselves as they
were, there still have the unsuitable aspects between Starbucks tradition and Viet
Nam culture and society.
Based on these practical findings, conclusion emphasized new insights for
marketing managers to catch up with factors leading to changes in customer
satisfaction. Some recommendation came up with more appropriate experiential
sstrategiesto help Starbucks improve their brand experience effectiveness andclaim special brand personalities to customers better. In detail, Starbucks should
continue using experiences with the brand as an effective tool due to multi-value
of brand experience and focus on creating much more experiences and fixing
some that have not applicable to Vietnamese style. This can lead customers to
highly and deeply appreciate added Starbucks personality from valuable
experiences with Starbucks and win customer satisfaction.