|
|
|
|
GOR 2001 Homepage
Indices
Management - Staff only
|
GOR 2001 - contentThis is the http://kiwi.uni-psych.gwdg.de/congress/gor-2001/contrib/contrib/lam-scarlett-li/lam-scarlett-li Document. Main Author: Lam, Scarlett Li Co-Authors: Myers, John G.; Institution: Department of Marketing, University of California at Berkeley Contribution Title: Measuring Web Site Personas. Authors Email: scarlett@haas.berkeley.edu URLs:
Abstract German (version: 25/06/2002 - 07:47, size: 0) English: Many firms have spent millions of dollars directing customers to their sites, but few effectively manage their brands in the new electronic shopping environment. A major challenge is how to communicate a coherent brand identity both online and offline. Most Internet studies today classify sites by their functions or product categories. The social and affective dimensions of online brand identity are often neglected. In this study we propose a new construct, Web site personas, to classify Internet sites and evaluate their dimensions using a factor-analytic approach. Web site persona is defined as the set of human characteristics that comes to mind when consumers encounter or recall a site. Drawing from literature in psychology, marketing, and human-computer interaction, we develop and test a multi-item psychometric scale across seven heterogeneous Internet site categories (e.g., automobile, travel, computer, apparel), eight brands (e.g., Honda, American Express), three design orientations (utilitarian, hedonic, mixed), and different user populations (students, Web designers, general Internet users). Among our major findings are the following: (1) Consumers may form spontaneous Web site persona inferences based on their interactions with a site; (2) the 42-item Brand Personality Scale (Aaker 1997), a comprehensive and popular scale on measuring brand personality in marketing, may not be adequate in fully representing the diverse impressions that consumers form about brands online; (3) Web site personas may have structural dimensions analogous to the Big Five models in human personality. Results on the scale‘s content validity, test-retest reliability, construct validity, and generalizability will be reported. The antecedents of Web site personas will also be discussed. From a managerial perspective, the Site Personas Scale is useful for planning, communicating, and evaluating the consistency of a brand‘s online and offline identities. From a theoretical perspective, this scale provides a valid, reliable and generalizable metric to classify sites for theory development. Article preliminary article (version: 25/06/2002 - 07:47, size: 512) view preliminary article - edit preliminary article - upload an image(for authors only) |