The Antecedents of Interactive Loyalty

Anthony Palomba

doi:10.29333/ojcmt/2550

Abstract

Brand loyalty towards video game consoles may have several antecedents. Gender, genre of video games and network externality may impact brand loyalty, mediated by perceptions of video game console brand personalities. This study investigated these relationships by conducting a principal component factor analysis and testing a structural equation model. The seventh generation of video game consoles was selected as the focal concept. The video game consoles examined included Nintendo’s Wii, Microsoft’s XBOX 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3. The findings suggest that consumers perceive all video game consoles as competent in nature, and that genre has a tremendous impact upon brand loyalty, perceptions of brand personality as well as network externality. For brand managers and industry practitioners, this study provides demonstrates which variables may influence how consumers create brand personalities of video game consoles and cultivate loyalty toward them. This also furthers and introduces the concept of brand relationship theory into the video game industry.

Highlights

As consumers interact and engage video game consoles, which may be defined as stationary video game devices that rely on a connection to a television screen, they may cultivate a relationship with them, and realize certain brand personality traits from them
Data Analysis To test for model fit, Bagozzi and Yi (1988) suggest using The Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Normed Fit Index (NFI), and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) among other tests
This study sought to explore the antecedents of aggregate seventh generation video game consoles brand personality perceptions and its impact on aggregate seventh generation video game console brand loyalty

Summary

Introduction

As consumers interact and engage video game consoles, which may be defined as stationary video game devices that rely on a connection to a television screen, they may cultivate a relationship with them, and realize certain brand personality traits from them. This study is interested in exploring the latter concept further, by examining the antecedents of aggregate video game console brand personality perceptions such as gender, how often consumers play video games socially or alone (network externality), as well as consumers proclivities toward certain video game genres (See Figure 1). Video game brand loyalty is impacted by consumer experience with as well as attitudes toward video game brands (Kwak, McDaniel, & Kim, 2012). Consumers distinctly perceive brand personality traits in each seventh generation video game console, as well as aggregate video game console brand personality traits across all seventh generation video game consoles (Palomba, 2014). There are mixed findings regarding whether or not females are more brand conscious than males (Fournier, 1998; Guest, 1964; Nair & Mohandas, 2012)

Results

Discussion

Conclusion