Title: Emotional brand associations: a new KPI for e-retailers

Authors: Bill Merrilees, Dale Miller

Addresses: Department of Marketing, Griffith Business School, Griffith University, PMB 50 Gold Coast Mail Centre, 9726, Queensland, Australia. ' Department of Marketing, Griffith Business School, Griffith University, PMB 50 Gold Coast Mail Centre, 9726, Queensland, Australia

Abstract: Aaker|s (1997) brand personality constructs have been applied to Australian e-retailing in the context of an online department store, dstore. A confirmatory study has been designed to test the relative roles of functional and emotional brand associations in an e-retailing context. Within the limits of the study, empirical support was given to the Aaker concepts. In particular, |excitement|, |authenticity|, |competence|, and |rugged| were found to be very relevant to the online department store, dstore. The study concludes that e-retailing is primarily a functional activity, with pre-eminent roles for interactivity, web atmospherics, and navigability. However, users| perceptions of functional attributes are rooted in emotional associations, such as excitement or authenticity. Emotional brand associations can be utilised by e-retailers as KPI benchmarks, to improve future performance.

Keywords: e-retailing; brand associations; emotional associations; functional associations; e-performance; brand personality; online shopping; internet marketing; e-tailing; benchmarking; key performance indicators.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIMA.2005.007747

International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising, 2005 Vol.2 No.3, pp.206 - 218

Published online: 10 Sep 2005 *

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