چگونه ارتباطات بازاریابی یکپارچه شده و تاثیر فناوری پیشرفته می تواند ارزش ویژه برند مبتنی بر مشتری خلق کند؟ شواهدی از صنعت مهمانداری

As the most recent approach of communication management, the integrated marketing communication (IMC) programmes, enhanced by the advancements in information and communication technology (ICT), are considered an important contribution to the brand equity building. However, hardly any research has been done on the role of this new communication practice in the hospitality industry. Moreover, previous studies have mainly focused on managers’ opinions, overlooking customers’ perceptions of both marketing communications and advanced technology. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to examine, from the customer perspective, the impact of integrated marketing communications on hotel brand equity, considered as a multidimensional construct composed of brand image, perceived quality, and brand loyalty. In addition, the moderating role of advanced technology on these relationships is tested. While the findings show positive relationships between the studied constructs, the moderating role of technology is not corroborated.

Changes produced in the market have led to changes in the practice of marketing and communication management, as one single marketing communication tool could not achieve marketing communication purposes by itself (Kitchen et al., 2004). Accordingly, the integrated marketing communications (IMC) approach appeared as a more efficient and sophisticated communication discipline that quickly responds to the increasingly changing market conditions (Kim et al., 2004). Although the idea of integration and coordination has a long history, what is new about IMC is that technological developments have made possible to put this idea into operational practice (Kliatchko, 2005). In fact, advancements in information and communication technology (ICT) are considered as one of the most significant background factors of IMC (Kitchen et al., 2004, Gurău, 2008 and Kliatchko, 2009). The unique ability of the advanced technology to provide two-way, customised, one-to-one, database-driven communication programmes enabled firms to move towards the IMC paradigm (Kim et al., 2004). Thus, owing to advanced technology solutions, IMC programmes are able to capture precise data on customers. This means that database management is of crucial importance for the IMC approach, as it centres on a well-defined target (Kliatchko, 2005). Whereas the acceptance of IMC is growing rapidly (Edmiston-Strasser, 2009 and Kitchen and Schultz, 2009), the literature suggests that further contributions are needed to consolidate the concept (McGrath, 2005). In particular, the research on IMC is pretty neglected within the hospitality industry (Šerić and Gil-Saura, 2011, Šerić and Gil-Saura, 2012a and Šerić and Gil-Saura, 2012b), where the need for integration has proven to be as necessary as in other industries (Hudson, 2008). In addition, it seems that consumers’ perceptions of marketing communications are often forgotten in IMC research (Gould, 2004). This might be surprising as IMC advocates for an “outside-in” approach, meaning that it is first looking at the integration from the customer or prospect view, rather than a traditional inside-out perspective (Schultz, 1993, Anantachart, 2004, Kliatchko, 2005 and Kliatchko, 2009). In this sense, Shultz (1994) pointed out that consumers’ perceptions of the integration of marketing communications need to be considered in order to measure efficiently the return on investment of IMC campaign. Actually, the great change in the communication process refers to the fact that the consumers are currently taking control of it, as they decide whether and when to receive the message (Gurău, 2008, Kliatchko, 2009, Keller, 2009 and Kitchen and Schultz, 2009). In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the effectiveness of marketing communication considered as a key benefit of building a strong brand (Keller, 2009). Accordingly, the literature has emphasised the importance of research of customer-based brand equity concept, as it represents the result of marketing communication activities (Duncan and Moriarty, 1997, Reid, 2002 and Keller, 2009) and a key driver of business's success (Prasad and Dev, 2000). However, as Keller (2009) stated, these marketing communications activities have to be integrated to deliver a consistent message and accomplish the strategic positioning. Thus, academics and practitioners in the field of marketing and branding have supported the notion that IMC plays an important role in building and maintaining stakeholder relationships, and in leveraging these relationships to create customer-based brand equity (Keller, 1993, Duncan and Moriarty, 1997, Reid, 2002, Reid, 2005, Anantachart, 2004, Madhavaram et al., 2005, Baidya and Maity, 2010, Kerr and Drennan, 2010, Delgado-Ballester et al., 2012 and Šerić and Gil-Saura, 2012b). If we focus on the hospitality industry, three brand equity dimensions were found significant in this specific context: (1) brand image, (2) perceived quality, and (3) brand loyalty (e.g., Kim et al., 2003, Kim and Kim, 2005 and Kayaman and Arasli, 2007). Although there has been considerable research on these dimensions and their inter-relationship within the hotel sector, scholars have paid hardly any attention to the role that IMC might play in the creation of customer-based hotel brand equity (e.g., Šerić and Gil-Saura, 2012b). Thereby, in this study, we intend to fill the existing gap in the literature by empirically testing the impact of perceived IMC on creation of brand equity, specifically on the dimensions of customer-based brand equity that were found significant within the hotel context. In addition, the relationships between the three customer-based hotel brand equity dimensions are considered, as well as the moderating role of advanced technology on the relationships between IMC and brand equity.

This paper makes several important contributions. First, the role of IMC in brand equity building is studied in the hospitality industry. Second, three significant components of customer-based hotel brand equity are identified (i.e., brand image, perceived quality, and brand loyalty), and the inter-relationship among these dimensions is examined. Third, a moderating role of advanced ICT on the relationships between IMC and brand equity dimensions is analysed. Fourth, the model is tested from the guest perceptive, confirming thus the importance of consumer opinions and perceptions as an integral part of business and marketing strategies. Finally, a contribution is made to the hospitality industry, specifically to the Italian hotel context. However, some limitations of this study should be considered as opportunities for the future research. First, the results of this paper concern only the Italian high-quality hotel segment, which imposes caution for their generalisation. Therefore, we suggest future research to approach upscale hotels in other countries. To increase generalisation of the findings, mid priced or budget hotel could also be included in the study. In addition, the role of IMC could be considered in other service companies. Moreover, some other variables could be included in the model. We did not analyse brand awareness, as previous research showed that it is not a significant dimension of hotel brand equity. However, future studies could consider this variable as one of brand equity dimensions. In addition, satisfaction could be examined separately, and not as an integral factor of brand loyalty, as customer satisfaction and brand loyalty are two distinctive constructs. Finally, in this study we used three different versions of the questionnaire (English, Italian, and Spanish) to collect data. To detect any cultural biases that might affect the linguistic equivalence of different questionnaire formats, we suggest that future research considers pretesting the questionnaire among different bilingual subjects.