The need of related study was raised due to growing importance of the brand of airlines, the representative service providers and its contribution to core customer-based brand equity.
By examining the effect of the factors of marketing communicati...
The need of related study was raised due to growing importance of the brand of airlines, the representative service providers and its contribution to core customer-based brand equity.
By examining the effect of the factors of marketing communication, this study strives to identify the effect of airline marketing communications on brand knowledge, brand knowledge on core customer-based brand equity, the mediated effect of brand knowledge in marketing communications on core customer-based brand equity, which is essential to gaining competitive edge. This can strengthen the competitiveness of airline brand and help efficient marketing strategy implementation through marketing communications. Also, this study is to research on the effect of various types of marketing communications such as internet site, email, and word-of-mouth communication on brand knowledge and core customer-based brand equity, focusing on the mediated effect of brand knowledge.
The surveys were conducted of 800 customers in Korea who had experienced foreign large airlines. Of the 800 respondents, 730 questionnaires were collected. Excluding invalid responses, 655 questionnaires were analyzed using SPSS 18.0 Ver. and AMOS 7.0 Ver.
A frequency analysis, a descriptive, a factor analysis, a reliability analysis, a correlation analysis were conducted on marketing communications, brand knowledge and core customer-based brand equity, and then a structural equation model were conducted to test research model and hypothesis testing. Also
the mediated effect of brand knowledge on marketing communications and core customer-based brand equity was analyzed. By studying control effect, the degree of influence of respondents' general characteristics on the purpose of travel and the way of ticket purchase was also analyzed additionally.
After verifying the models, it is found that each marketing communication type has different effects: the advertising has effects on brand image and awareness, e-mail on brand awareness, word-of-mouth on brand image respectively.
Among brand knowledge, brand image has impact on core customer-based brand equity, brand awareness merely on perceived employee service quality and perceived value.
Among marketing communication types, advertising alone had influence on perceived in-flight service quality, website on perceived airport/flight service quality and reuse intent, and e-mail on perceived value and reuse intent.
In addition, the result of analysis on the mediated effect of brand knowledge shows that brand image has partially mediated effect on the relations between the advertising and perceived in-flight service quality and e-mail and reuse intent. Also, it shows that the advertising has fully mediated effect on the relations between advertising and perceived airline/flight service quality, perceived employee service quality, perceived values, reuse intent, and word-of-mouth and core customer-based brand equity. Brand awareness had fully mediated effect on the relations between advertising and perceived employee service quality, perceived value, and e-mail and perceived employee service quality, as well as partially mediated effect on the relations between e-mail and perceived value.
Finally, the additional analysis result of control effect on the purpose of travel and the way of ticket purchase shows that difference exists between on-line and off-line ticket purchasers as well as those who travel with a specific purpose and those who travel for sightseeing.