The Role of Consumer Experiences in Building the image of brands: A Study in Airlines

Abstract

Studies on brand and consumer experience gained emphasis from the twentieth century, however the relationship between these themes still has gaps. Therefore, this study examines the role of consumer experiences in building the brand image through the identification of thoughts, feelings and actions arising from consumer experiences with airlines, and the types of associations that the consumer makes such marks. Therefore, a variation of qualitative critical incident technique was used, considering those remembered experiences that have excelled in consumer perception, interviewing ten users of air services, based on a two parts semi-structured form: description of experiences with airlines and information about the image of the brands of airlines. The analyzed data have revealed that thoughts, feelings and actions arising from consumer experiences become important elements in shaping the perception of brands of airlines. Through the consumption experience, consumers mainly use the service attributes to build their perception of the marks of the airlines. These attributes are used either directly as to support other types of associations such as those related to company size.