Paper Example on Exploring Experiential Marketing, Consumer Purchase Behaviour, Value, and Positivism

Introduction

As indicated by Brodie et al. (2013), this research is exploratory because it examines the relationship between experiential marketing, consumer purchase behaviour, experiential value, and consumer value. The study mirrors the philosophy of positivism, and was critical in creating and validating the reliability of the data collected from the respondents through statistical analysis. Age (2011) defines positivism as operating with a noticeable social certainty, and that the final product of such study might be law-like simplifications related to the products produced by natural and physical scientists. An authentic understanding of experiential marketing, purchase behaviour, experiential value, and consumer loyalty is used for hypothesis generation and definition of research strategy for this research. The nature of research approach is regarded as deductive because it requires the researcher to be independent of the outcomes being identified and since it is based on existing theories in developing hypotheses. Additionally, the deductive approach indicates that the conceptions are operationalized so that they are measured quantitatively.

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Therefore, quantitative study is appropriate in this research. The deductive approach begins from an existing pattern and assessed against various observations (Burney, 2008). Creswell (2003) indicated that the deductive approach primarily focuses on the quantitative approach that deals with the numerical type of data. This approach is often used to assess attitudes and behaviours among the study population. Consequently, quantitative research is critical in predicting and explaining human behaviour and attitudes in the social sciences. A quantitative approach is important in explaining regularities in casual relationships among variables. The study utilized a cross-sectional survey to examine relationships between dependent and independent variables i.e. experiential marketing, experiential value, customer loyalty and purchase behaviours among BPC brands in the UK. Questionnaires were used to collect the primary data while secondary data gathered from external sources outlined in the reference page.

Research Design

The researcher used survey with the primary aim of investigating the relationships between experiential marketing, consumer purchase behaviour, customer loyalty and experiential value. Initially, the literature review explored the gap in the research and create an understanding between the independent and dependent variables.

Experiment Design

The research aims to study the effectiveness, appropriateness and relevance of experiential marketing by establishing relationship between experiential marketing factors. The present study uses self-administered survey questionnaire method that were distributed online to the target respondents. This data collection method allows the respondent to give satisfactory information. Moreover, the method is fast and versatile; self-administered data collection techniques often result to high response rates since participants do not need to disclose their identity.

Measures

Previous studies were considered when adopting measurements to test the research hypothesis. All the measurement scales were adopted from existing published research and assessed on a 5-point Likert scale. Each variable had several items, where participants were asked to the extent, ranging from 1 – strongly disagree, 2-Diasgree, 3-Not sure, 4-Agree and 5 – Strongly agree.

Experimental Procedures and Sampling

The study included a total of 150 respondents, primarily customers, sales staff as well as corporate customers. The inclusion criteria were customers of the brands who have been expending for more than three years towards the BPC in the UK. The simple random technique was used in selecting customer while purposive sampling was used to get sales staff and corporate customers respondents. Primary data was acquired through online surveys, which is more effective in reaching more people compared to other methods. The researcher intended the survey to be widespread in the UK, hence, online surveys were more effective and exponentially more accurate compared to telephone or face-to-face. The researcher distributed the survey questionnaire to the staff and corporate customers through emails. This was done to give the researcher the ability to decide the broadness in the questionnaire distribution efforts. Subsequently, a direct link to the survey was shared over the social media and collecting information, that was key in gathering opinions and thoughts from the respondents. Moreover, the researcher connected with three social media influencers to assist “spread the word.”

The adopted survey instrument has two sections. The first section consists of questions concerning the demographic profile of the population such as the age, gender, race and education level. The second construct of the survey measured the different variables of experiential marketing in the beauty and personal care industry in the UK. The second part of the survey was adopted from Schmitt's (1999) constructs and modified to attain the objectives of this research. Although experiencing a value variable in this research is a mediating factor to customer loyalty, which is in tandem with the scale adopted by in et all. (2009). The dependent variables that include customer loyalty, purchase behaviour, experiential value and experiential marketing will be measure on a Likert five-point scale.

Ethics

The survey was conducted by following the ethical guidelines offered by name of the university. Before conducting the research, the four fundamental ethical values were considered. The research did not harm any participant. They were consented prior to carrying out the study. Also, a disclaimer was indicated before beginning the study indicating that the participants involved in completing the questionnaire have agreed willingly to engage in the survey and could leave at their will. The disclaimer also displayed the aim of the study to avoid deception situations. Additionally, the survey did not invade the respondents’ privacy because the recorded information was anonymous and confidential. All the individuals who filled the questionnaires were above eighteen years.

Pilot Study

Any testing of a questionnaire is better than no testing. Further, he states that many people think they do not have time for testing surveys since it takes long and consumes part of the time one should take in collecting the actual data. As a general rule, it is important to pre-test a survey with at least 10 people. The survey questionnaire was tested among 36 respondents to ascertain the consistency of the measurements. The respondents were requested to indicate their agreement levels in a Likert five-point scale having a value from 1 - 5 i.e. strongly disagree to strongly agree. Moreover, the pilot questionnaire contained demographic information variables such as age, race, gender as well as income information that may affect customer behaviour in the beauty and personal care brands.

Data Analysis

Preliminary analysis

Data obtained from the respondents was organized, sorted and corded using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) to ascertain the quality and minimize errors during analysis. Data consistency was verified through the use of Cronbach’s Alpha. The Cronbach’s alpha was computed by correlating the scores of each variable and compare it to the variance of the individual scores. When α coefficient is close to zero, the variables were entirely independent to each other while a high variance close to 1 indicated that the scale items shared a covariance and have an impact on experiential marketing.

Statistical Techniques

Data was organized according to the research questions to meet the objectives. Frequency tables were generated to show the test qualities while correlations were used to show the relationship between different variables.

References

Burney, A., 2008. Inductive and deductive research approach. University of Karachi, DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.31603.58406

Creswell, W. 2003. Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approach. Sage publications.

Age, L.J., 2011. Grounded theory methodology: Positivism, hermeneutics, and pragmatism. Qualitative Report, 16(6), pp.1599-1615. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ956234.pdf

Brodie, R.J., Ilic, A., Juric, B. and Hollebeek, L., 2013. Consumer engagement in a virtual brand community: An exploratory analysis. Journal of business research, 66(1), pp.105-114. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2011.07.029