Brand relationships in wireless mobile environments: The mediating role of apps

Abstract

Brands use branded mobile apps to interact with users and to develop brand relationships in wireless mobile environments. These apps collect data about users and app usage, which are potentially helpful for brand relationship research. We aim to contribute to understanding the user-brand relationship (UBR) measurement mediated by branded apps, an area with very limited research, with a focus on leveraging these apps as a gauging context to measure the UBR strength. We propose a data-driven model to measure the UBR strength that combines metrics computed by using branded app data with close interpersonal relationship indicators. We conducted a computer simulation to test the proposed model. Our findings show that app usage time is the metric that most affects UBR strength measurement. The results suggest that time is essential for developing brand relationships in wireless mobile environments, much like in interpersonal relationships. The proposed model can be supplemented with other metrics to study new attributes associated with the UBR that might emerge in these environments.