After Korea joined OECD and the domestic financial market went through financial crisis, the government opened its market to other countries by signing the Free Trade Agreement between Korea and the U.S. and foreign financial companies entering the do...
After Korea joined OECD and the domestic financial market went through financial crisis, the government opened its market to other countries by signing the Free Trade Agreement between Korea and the U.S. and foreign financial companies entering the domestic market has increased. For this reason, the competition for attracting customers among financial and insurance companies is becoming fierce by gradation and financial needs of customers are diversifying. But in the fierce financial market, it is hard for financial and insurance companies to differentiate themselves from competitors, since competitors provide similar intangible goods or services, too. In this background, financial and insurance companies are focusing on brand cultural spaces for enabling customers to experience their brand values. Financial and insurance companies can get more positive brand images and furthermore, form continued relationships between brands and customers by providing differentiated experience to customer, who enjoy emotional and cultural consumption, using brand cultural spaces.
This study was conducted to examine brand experience by comparing domestic cases of brand cultural spaces provided by financial and insurance companies and to verify the effect of brand experience in cultural spaces on the consumer-brand relationship. Ultimately, this study aims to suggest a method of invigorating brand cultural space management of financial and insurance companies for active brand experience of customers, based on the implications obtained from case analysis and empirical analysis. To achieve this purpose, five elements of brand experience: sensory experience, affective experience, intellectual experience, behavioral experience and relational experience, and brand experience design elements in cultural spaces were extracted from the previous studies and for verifying the customer-brand relationship, a theoretical consideration on brand attitude and brand loyalty was conducted.
The two research methods are as follows.
First, analysis parameters were extracted from the previous studies and then a space brand experience design matrix(BX Design Matrix) was produced for case analysis. Second, according to the result of case analysis, cultural spaces with strong brand experience and weak brand experience were chosen and a survey with customers visiting these two spaces was carried out to verify the brand-customer relationship.
The study findings are as below.
First, among diverse brand experience design elements in cultural spaces, program contents providing psychological and cognitive experience had the biggest affect on brand experience. This means that there was a positive brand-customer relationship when experience flow of customers in cultural contents provided in brand cultural spaces increased. But combining a variety of design elements, in addition to program contents for complex experience will form a stronger brand-customer relationship.
Second, when brand experience in cultural spaces became stronger, brand attitude and brand loyalty improved. This shows that brand experience in cultural spaces had a decisive influence on brand attitude and brand loyalty.
Third, in case analysis, all of sensory experience, affective experience, intellectual experience, behavioral experience and relational experience were revealed and especially intellectual experience had the biggest effect. In empirical analysis, also, there was a significantly positive relationship between brand attitude and brand loyalty in cultural spaces with strong intellectual experience, behavioral experience and relational experience. This means that sensory experience and affective experience maximized intellectual experience and an organic connection between behavioral experience for reflecting experience in cultural spaces in individual lifestyles and relational experience for forming social relationships, based on this constant interest led to favorable brand attitude and brand loyalty.
Based on these findings, for strong brand attitude and brand loyalty in brand cultural spaces, this study presented the potential of intellectual experience, behavioral experience and relational experience as a means of strategical brand management, among the five elements of brand experience, which are organically linked to various design elements(space design, information design, product design and cultural programs) in cultural spaces and it is anticipated that this will strengthen brand competitiveness for experience satisfaction of customers. Considering that there has been an absence of existing studies on brand experience in cultural spaces, this study has significance by making a contribution to theoretical and practical development through quantitative and qualitative research.