Establishing and Deepening Brand Loyalty through Brand Experience and Customer Engagement: Evidence from Taiwan’s Chain Restaurants

Abstract

ABSTRACT Since prior works have overlooked the complexities of two broad constructs, i.e., brand experience and customer engagement, this study selects restaurant-specific dimensions, and examines how these detailed dimensions influence brand loyalty, particularly in chain restaurants. Secondly, while prior studies have discussed relationships among brand experience, customer engagement, and brand loyalty, the mediating mechanism(s) remain unclear, thus, this study examines how customer engagement mediates these relationships, based on 280 questionnaires collected from customers of Taiwan’s chain restaurants, and analyzed using Partial least squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). This study’s results are as follows: 1) Affective experience is a main driver of customer engagement; 2) Sensory experience has a significant impact on cognitive engagement, but not on emotional engagement; esthetical experience impacts emotional engagement, but not cognitive engagement; 3) Emotional engagement is a main driver of brand loyalty, followed by cognitive engagement; 4) Emotional engagement is a main mediator in establishing and deepening brand loyalty.