Purpose
Reaching customer satisfaction and brand loyalty in a business-to-business setting is still an area of rising interest to both researchers and practitioners. Compared to consumer branding, there is notably very little known about the success factors of industrial branding and how to convince buyers rationally and emotionally in business-to-business markets. Therefore, this paper aims to examine the success factors of branding in a business-to-business setting and analyze their performance impact on customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 258 buyers of mechanical and plant engineering companies participated in an online survey. Data analysis was performed by using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling.
Findings
The results reveal that rational brand quality consists of the three dimensions, product quality, service quality and distribution quality, whereas consistent advertising style, brand image, country-of-manufacture image and salesperson’s personality are dimensions of emotional brand associations. All dimensions positively influence customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.
Originality/value
This study offers a certain value compared to the relevant literature mentioned in literature review. Compared to a large majority of the papers, the integration of rational and emotional factors in an integrative and complex model implies novelty. For example, Davis et al. (2008) and Baumgarth and Binckebanck (2011) focus on specific exogenous factors in their studies, namely, brand awareness and brand image, respectively, sales force impact combined with product quality and non-personal communication. In contrast, Van Riel, Pahud de Mortanges and Streukens (2005), Chen et al. (2011) and Chen and Su (2012) conceptualized a more complex model but did not separate rational and emotional factors. Jensen and Klastrup (2008) were the only authors who made this separation, but they did not include well-known emotional success factors such as brand image or country-of-manufacture image in their research model. Furthermore, an endogenous causal chain representing an observable consumer behavior is missing. This paper fills this gap.
Die zunehmende Verbreitung des Internets in Kombination mit einem verstärkten Vernetzungsbedürfnis der User haben zur erheblichen Bedeutung von Innovationen wie dem Web 2.0 oder Social Media beigetragen. Mit zunehmender Internetnutzung steigen sowohl die Mitgliedschaften privater Nutzer als auch die Anzahl von Unternehmens-Kampagnen in Social Media. Der Beitrag beschreibt die wichtigsten sozialen Medien und stellt anschließend sowohl deren private als auch kommerzielle Nutzung durch Unternehmen dar. Darüber hinaus wird die internationale Dimension betrachtet.
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