The importance of brand cues in intangible service industries: an application to investment services

Purpose – The puprose of this study is to empirically test the suggestion that branding is more important for services than for physical goods and that there is a direct relationship between the level of intangibility and the importance of branding.Design/methodology/approach – An exploratory study is employed using a scenario‐based repeated measures ANOVA design, wherein the degree of product intangibility is varied from high (mutual funds) to medium (hotels) to low (computers) through a survey distributed to 101 respondents.Findings – The results support the position that intrinsic brand cues are more important for highly intangible service purchases (mutual funds) than for purchases that are more tangible (hotels and computers). The results also reveal that extrinsic brand cues are less important in purchase decisions of highly intangible services.Research limitations/implications – This study answers a call for additional empirical research into the dynamics of services branding and its effects on con...

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