Conceptualization of Immersive Brand Experience (IBX) Measurement Scale of Emotion

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Abstract The airlines industry is an important sub-sector in transportation and service industry. Since repeat business is critical to sustaining airline organizations, many have invested in various marketing strategies to entice customer loyalty. Customers’ travel experience may influence their commitment toward airline brand. Brand experience primarily emotional experience creates value in consumer buying behavior. Studies on Brand Experience (BE) in recent years have unravelled some gaps that exist in customer loyalty literature. For example, loyal customers are deeply involved and preoccupied with the brand. Their physical and emotional state of mind is engaged with the brand at every touch points along their consumption journey. Hence, brand experience contributes to business sustainability and growth. Therefore, in formulating branding strategy, marketers must focus on efforts to create an immersive brand experience (IBX) that drives brand attachment and engagement. Despite its importance, there is still limited empirical evidence to address this emerging concept. It could be speculated that lack of established reliable and valid scale to conceptualize and operationalize BE is one of the main contributing factors. Against this backdrop, this study attempts to develop a theory-based IBX conceptual framework by using established PAD Theory. Rigorous methodologies will be used to identify the factorial structure of IBX and subsequently the scale's psychometric properties of dimensionality, validity, and reliability will be determined by confirmatory factor analysis. The proposed new dimension, spirituality (S) will be integrated with PAD Theory, which then will be known as PADS. Finally to develop a theoretical framework, the nomological validation will be conducted between IBX construct and brand resonance. A mixed research methodology that includes in-depth interviews, focus group discussion, quasi-experiment, and consumer survey will be employed to achieve the research goals. The research findings shall contribute a new scale (IBX) to the marketing literature that could be utilized to formulate a winning branding strategy for airline brands.