Brigitte Muller

The Impact of Visiting a Brand Website on Brand Personality

What are the effects of forced exposure to the brand website on perceived brand personality? An experiment with random assignment to exposure vs. control (nonexposure) groups for ten websites is analysed. Three covariates are included to test their impact on brand personality after website exposure: product type (utilitarian/ functional vs. auto-expressive), enduring involvement with the product category and attitude toward

The branding Impact of Brand Websites: Do newsletters and consumer magazines have a moderating role?

ABSTRACT The internet offers both growth and loyalty opportunities for brands. To this end, in recent years, companies have accelerated the development of their websites, including richer and more interactive content as well as relationship tools such as email newsletter and consumer magazines. Using the example of a leading French manufacturers website, the present research demonstrates that visitors satisfied with their overall website experience are more inclined to revisit and recommend the site and in turn develop more positive attitudes toward the brand as well as higher purchase intent. These relations are stronger for consumers that are members of the website email newsletter program and those that receive the brand consumer magazine.

The impact of a World Wide Web site visit on brand image in the motor vehicle and mobile telephone industries

During recent years the number of World Wide Web (WWW) sites and visitors has increased very rapidly. WWW site evaluation has focused more on click‐through rates than on brand effects. Nevertheless, there are few studies on the effects of WWW site exposure on brand image. The aim of this research was to illustrate brand association changes after a WWW site visit. More precisely, the paper describes the effect of a forced visit on the global brand image of two bricks‐and‐mortar companies. The results indicate that some positive brand associations increase significantly after the visit and that attitude towards the WWW site has an impact on attitude towards the brand.

Consistency between brand image and website image: Does it matter?

This research examines how the perception of consistency between brand image and website image affects brand attitude. With the massive development of the internet, most of the brick-and-mortar companies created their own website. Two prevailing strategies emerged: some companies transposed their brand with the corresponding name, image and values to the website and others created a new brand name to exist on the net. As the representation of a brand on the internet is limitless, it is not sure that brand image perceived by website visitors is consistent with their prior brand image. Results provide empirical evidence of a moderating effect of perceived consistency on the relation between website and brand attitude.