Online corporate brand image, satisfaction and loyalty

The personification approach (eg customers view company name as a person) has been commonly used to understand corporate brand image. Studies in the past using this approach were conducted, however, in the ‘bricks and mortar’ environment. Since the virtual environment differs from that of bricks and mortar, particularly in the absence of buildings and people, recent literatures question whether existing measures are still applicable in this context. The present study thus uses this approach to understand the corporate brand image in a strictly online setting. The research enquiry seeks to address explicitly whether a company that exists only in a virtual environment could indeed be seen as a person. The research investigates the corporate brand image of a book retailer that sells exclusively online. The research is informed by 511 responses from experienced customers of the bookstore. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to identify the brand images. The findings show that while the 'Informality" dimension has been commonly found as a weak factor in an offline context in the past, it has been indicated as a strong dimension in the present research setting. Furthermore, the previous research has consistently shown that the corporate brand image in a bricks and mortar environment is more likely to relate to consumer behaviour (loyalty) via consumer satisfaction. Interestingly, the present research discovers that corporate brand image can also have a direct positive relationship with consumer loyalty. © 2008 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.