مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

Brands play a critical role in consumer decision making and choice behavior (Erdem and Swait, 2004). In markets where quality is not easily observable, consumers generally make their purchase decisions amid feelings of uncertainty (Kim et al., 2008), which can make them reluctant to buy. To solve this problem, companies may use brands as signals to effectively convey information about quality to consumers (Erdem et al., 2002). The credibility signaled by a brand is considered important because it decreases consumer uncertainty and economizes decision-making cost (Akdeniz et al., 2013). As such, credibility is considered the most important characteristic of a brand signal (Erdem and Swait, 1998; Spry et al., 2011). Brand credibility refers to the believability of product or service position information contained in a brand (Erdem and Swait, 2004).

The constructs of consistency, brand investment and clarity are antecedents of brand credibility (Erdem and Swait, 1998). The credibility of a brand is established through consumers’ past experiences with it, either directly or indirectly (Kim et al., 2008). Thus, brand credibility can be created and shaped by marketing mix consistency over time, by brand investment (e.g., brand image advertising), and through the clarity (i.e., lack of ambiguity) of the information contained in a brand (Erdem et al., 2006).

Despite its acknowledged importance, brand credibility and its effect on consumer response has received little attention in service literature (Baek and King, 2011), including literature on airline service. Because services are often intangible, there may be a high level of uncertainty surrounding them, and thus consumers cannot readily evaluate service quality before making a purchase (Berry, 2000), indicating the key role brand credibility plays in service purchase. This issue is particularly relevant for airline companies because of the high level of consumer uncertainty involved in airline service purchases (Boksberger et al., 2007). Consumers of airline services usually experience uncertainty around the safety and reliability of the airline, the punctuality of flights, the reliability and safety of baggage handling, or the speed of baggage transport (Wu and Cheng, 2013). Given the strong impact of brand credibility on consumer choice when there is high uncertainty (Erdem and Swait, 2004), the credibility of a brand can provide significant benefits to both consumers and airline companies. For consumers, purchasing services from a credible airline brand assures quality. For airline companies, a credible brand means that marketing efforts will be more cost effective because of the high likelihood of message acceptance, thus bringing companies increased sales.