La construcción de tipologías desde la perspectiva atributiva

Before conducting the survey and determining the sampling framework, decisions should be made on selecting an appropriate market sector and choosing suitable online brands that fit the purpose this study. In this thesis, online brands developed by telecommunication companies to improve their consumer-brand relationship and brand loyalty are selected. In other words, the selected online brands, in this study, provide the consumers – of the telecommunication company—with exclusive offers, price discounts, and information.

It is suggested that the selected online brands, which operate as a loyalty programs in the daily deal sector, are a good fit for this research for the following reasons. Firstly, they are pure online brands and focus on consumers-brand relationship. This is in line with identified gaps in the literature, which called for further research on brand equity in the digital context (Keller, 2016).

Secondly, there are new reports such as eMarketer (2016 a) which show that consumers prefer SMS as a communication medium to receive loyalty offers. Hence, the online brands in this research fit the purpose of the research because; (I) they are designed to improve the consumers’ loyalty to the telecommunication companies. (II) Telecommunication companies collaborate with online brands to use SMS as a communication tool to send advertisements and forward available offers to consumers.

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Telecommunication market is the leading sector focused on mobile communication evolution (Steinhour, 2014). In a survey conducted by Adobe, Steinhour (2014) explained that the strategic marketing priority of telecommunication companies is on digital marketing and is reflected in the higher marketing budget allocations in comparison to other sectors. She showed that while 48% of the marketing budget is allocated to digital marketing in telecommunication sector, about 38% is allocated for other sectors. Furthermore, IAB (2015b) explained that as a result of new technologies and methods for engaging with consumers, telecommunication companies can find better opportunities to exploit such advancements with their consumers using digital advertising. They maintained that technology and telecommunication companies are big spenders in digital advertisements and investments in digital advertising is expected to grow in future.

Hence, one of the ways that telecommunication companies differentiate themselves from their competitors is by improving bonds with customers with offers of exclusive access to online brands (that are being examined in this research). Associated telecommunication companies use SMS advertising as a form of communication to send offers from the online brands to their customers to create brand loyalty. These online brands are landing pages and mobile applications that provide a variety of services/products. These online brands use SMS and other mobile communication tools to connect to customers and update them about available services, events, and discounted products and services such as books, sports gear, and cinema tickets. Thus, the fact that online brands remain active in daily deal sites sector and use SMS advertising to update consumers about their offering makes them suitable for the purpose of this study.

Furthermore, the online brands collaborations with other retailers (more than 3000 retailers in the UK) allow for higher diversity of the text messages (i.e. text messages about those retailers) that the online brands could forward to their customers; this is another reason for selecting the

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specified online brands. The online brands co-operate with other sectors (i.e. retailers) to send interesting SMS promotions to customers. These collaborations produce text message advertisements that are more diverse compared to receiving messages from only a single brand. While it is difficult or even irritating for a brand to send promotional text messages continuously, this diversity allows selected online brands to send SMS advertisements more frequently (i.e. consumers are promised to receive maximum one message per day). Therefore, studying the selected online brands are deemed more insightful when it comes to investigating factors such as attitude toward using SMS advertising and incentives assessments.

Finally, the online brands linked in telecommunication sector are selected in order to make conducting the survey more efficient. It is harder to find customers of specific brands in other sectors (i.e. online restaurants or daily deal sites such as Groupon). However, it is easier to find customers of telecommunication companies, because students are likely to be registered with at least one of these brands. This helped with saving time and costs by asking the students if they had received marketing text messages from the selected online brands.

Based on consumers’ prior behaviours, interests and geo-locations; online brands use real-time insights to send targeted advertisements and sales promotions via mobile phones (i.e. using SMS advertising and mobile apps) to generate unique experiences for the telecommunication companies’ consumers . In order to fulfil this objective, online brands operate in daily deal market and send promotions in collaborations with third-party brands. This is beneficial for both brands; as well as for the online brands consumers who receive benefits by staying connected to such brands (i.e. promotions from both online brands and third party brands). For the third party brands, it is also fruitful as they can target customers who have opted-in to receiving text messages as new marketing leads.

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elected brands among the industry

Since the purpose of this study is to examine the effect of SMS advertising on online brand equity (for loyalty programs active in daily deal sites), selection of online brands associated with the telecommunication companies is justifiable as explained in previous section. Unfortunately, accurate data on the market shares of daily deal sites in the UK and the market share for each brand are unavailable.

Initially, seven telecommunication companies with the largest market shares in this sector were selected (comprising 81% of the whole market in 2013) (Statista, 2013). Three of the brands were removed from the survey due to low number of respondents. Although among these three brands, two of them were expected to have fewer respondents, for the third brand, it was rather surprising. However, this was attributed to the high price of the third brand and the fact that the respondents were students. Students are generally ranked among the lower income groups and this partly explains why the third brand showed lower response rate.

Out of the remaining four companies, two of them were excluded because they had not practiced SMS advertising, and were thus unsuitable for the purpose of this study. The remaining two brands comprised almost 40% of the market (Statista, 2013). Subsequently, the online brands associated to each telecommunication company were selected for this study. Based on a report from Marketing Week in 2014, among the consumers who were registered with online brands providing similar services, it is shown that the two online brands include 75% of the subscribers to mobile incentive schemes.

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Furthermore, these two were considered comparable because:

1- Both brands had specific online landing pages for the SMS marketing messages sent out (i.e. when a new offer was sent to consumers via text advertisements, consumers could check it online on the specific pages for those brands).

2- Both brands were extensions of parent brands, which were active offline and online in telecommunication industry.

3- Both brands had similar products and offers, as a mother company and as an extension. 4- Both selected brands were only available online and did not have offline shops.

5- Both brands had mobile applications as well as online pages.

6- Both brands advertised their own products as well as sponsoring other brands.

[XX]: Fancy a break from all the Christmas cooking? Get 35% off when you spend £35 online with Domino’s Pizza. [blank] Just open the [XX] app to get your code. Offer ends 4 January. Terms apply. To stop text call [phone number]

[XX]: Scents you’ll love at a massive saving. Get £10 off a £20 spend the body shop in- store and online. [Blank]. Open the app here [Link]. Terms apply. To stop texts call, [phone].

Here’s to ‘More than 12 days of Christmas’. Win daily prizes until 29 December. Today’s bundle is a PlayStation 4, a LG G Watch R, a Bluetooth gaming keyboard, wireless headset and charging case. See the prizes [link- includes XX name]. To enter, buy an app using charge to Mobile. To stop texts, call [Phone number]. Terms apply.

[XX]: Want 5 good reasons to consider the New Galaxy S5? Here they are [Link]. Terms apply. To stop [XX] text stop to [phone number].

[XX]: Have you enjoyed your thank you treat from [xx] yet? Don’t hang around. We’d hate for you to miss out. Open the app and head over to [xx] section to see what it is. Terms apply. To stop texts call [phone number].

[XX]: Have a gift on us. It is our way of saying thanks for being with us for 2 years this month. Argos or Debenhams vouchers what will you choose? Visit your [xx] app to claim yours. Make sure you have the latest version though. Terms apply. To stop texts call [phone number]

Hi Mehran. You get tons of benefits just for being with [xx]. Make sure you make the most of them, check them out now [link]

Mehran, rent the latest films for just £1 with [xx], win FA Cup final tickets and loads more. Take a look [Link]

Mehran, get tickets to events you’ll love, plus lots of more entertainment and great offers. See for yourself [link – includes xx name]

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In addition to similarities of the brands, the content of text advertisements were also examined. It was found that both brands used similar messages in their promotional mix i.e. sales promotion and advertising. Table 4-1 shows a sample of text marketing messages sent by both brands.

In clarifying the nature of the online brands under study, it should be noted that each brand has its own specific online webpage (landing page) and mobile application for offering exclusive premium services such as discount vouchers and other services to consumers. Furthermore, when consumers are targeted via SMS advertising, they are directed to these brands’ landing pages or mobile applications.

The brand equity of these online brands are suggested to be different from the telecommunication service company due to the following reasons:

- Although these online brands are formed to increase consumers’ retention rate and loyalty to the telecommunication brands, the online brands have their own identity (i.e. their own specific website and mobile applications).

- In the assigned websites’ landing page or mobile application, only information about exclusive services, gifts, and promotions are available and these online brands do not focus on providing information about the telecommunication companies’ products or services.

- As the focus of this study is on brand equity, the distinction between the online brand and the telecommunication company becomes even clearer when the dimensions of brand equity are compared between two brands.

o Firstly, with regard to the brand awareness, it is suggested that while the consumers of the telecommunication company are aware of its brand, they may

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not be aware of the online brands that offer exclusive services to that telecommunication company.

o Secondly, when it comes to associations and brand equity dimensions such as perceived value and loyalty, the factors that influence the perceived quality and associations of the telecommunication company are mainly different to the ones that affect the online brands.

o Finally, with regard to brand loyalty, it is clear that online brands are formed to increase the loyalty among the consumers of the telecommunication brand, because loyalty to online brands means that consumers need to remain with telecommunication companies to be granted access to these exclusive services. However, on the other hand, the loyalty to telecommunication brand may not necessarily translate to loyalty to online brands, as consumers may not be aware of the online brands.

In summary, this thesis suggested that the brand equity of the specified online brands are different from those of the telecommunication company. It is justifiable because; online brands have their own identity, and the online brand equity dimensions such as brand value and brand loyalty for online brands are different from telecommunication brand.

Figure 4-2 shows samples of the mobile applications and webpage similar to online brands under study.

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Figure 4-2 Online brands