Abstract
Consumers’ brand-switching behavior, or the non-sustainability of consumer loyalty to a brand, brings huge losses to affected companies. Thus, the investigation of factors behind consumers’ brand-switching is very important. The study analyzes the mechanism and configuration of brand-switching intention in order to provide guidelines for increasing brand competitiveness. Using empirical analysis (SEM) and qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), this study elucidates the motives and mechanisms in operation when customers decide whether to stay with a particular brand or switch to an alternative. The data was collected in August 2017. The results of SEM showed that the attractiveness of an alternate brand had a negative influence on current brand image recognition and brand value recognition, which could produce negative emotions that then lead to a brand-switching intention. The fsQCA uncovered six combinations or configurations of variables that could lead to brand-switching. This study has both theoretical and practical outcomes for competitive branding.
Highlights
An increasing number of consumers switch from one brand to another, and a loss of customer base can damage the long-term development of a new company as well as decrease its profits
It shows that alternative attractiveness can influence negative brand image recognition and negative brand value recognition, and negative brand recognition has an effect on negative brand emotion which can lead to a brand-switching intention
From the outside, it shows that alternative attractiveness influences both negative brand image recognition and negative brand value recognition, which expands upon the study of brand-switching intention considering only inside factors [34]
Summary
An increasing number of consumers switch from one brand to another, and a loss of customer base can damage the long-term development of a new company as well as decrease its profits. The complexity of consumer brand-switch intentions equates to a relatively complicated formation path for brand conversion intentions; most research has directly addressed the factors influencing brand-switching [4,5,6] rather than systematically analyzing the internal influencing mechanism and effective formation path of brand conversion intentions. To fill these gaps, our study utilized cognition theory in order to explore the mechanisms and configurations of brand-switching intention.
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