Title: Customer satisfaction and loyalty with corporate multi-brand websites in an era of social media and misinformation

Authors: Meriem Agrebi; Jean Louis Chandon; Judith Lynne Zaichkowsky

Addresses: CEROS, University Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, France; Higher School of Commerce – Tunis, Manouba University, 2010, Tunisia ' International University of Monaco, Le Stella, 14 Rue Hubert Clerissi, 98000, Monaco ' INSEEC, Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University, 500 Granville Street, Vancouver, B.C. V6C 1W6, Canada

Abstract: In the age of social media, are brand websites still relevant? Confronted by social media, multi-brand companies face a challenge to control their brand image and advertising content. Building an interactive website, as a common umbrella to their many brands can produce a successful customer experience leading to satisfaction and brand loyalty. This paper investigates e-loyalty toward multi-brand websites that aggregate, on a single website, brands and products belonging to the same parent company (corporate brand). Using a quasi-experiment on two major corporate multi-brand websites, the study uncovers a positive multi-brand experience effect coming from the benefits of having multiple brands on the same site. The multi-brand experience on e-loyalty is stronger for first-time visitors compared to repeat visitors and e-loyalty increases with the number of brands purchased before visiting the website. The study provides strong evidence to support a positive effect of multi-brand websites on e-loyalty.

Keywords: multi-brand websites; e-satisfaction; e-loyalty; website content features; online brand experience.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIMA.2022.123164

International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising, 2022 Vol.16 No.4, pp.394 - 421

Received: 08 Jul 2020
Accepted: 09 Oct 2020
Published online: 01 Jun 2022 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article