Antecedents of brand preference for mobile telecommunications services

Purpose - This paper aims to report on a study into the antecedents of consumer brand preference, in the context of telecommunications service brands in Jordan. Design/methodology/approach - A questionnaire-based survey was used to gather attitudes towards brand preference and its antecedents in the context of mobile telecommunications service providers in Jordan. The questionnaire was distributed, in Arabic, to university students in Jordan, a group selected as being active users of mobile phone services; 648 completed questionnaires were received. Data were entered into SPSS. Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to identify the antecedents of brand preference. Multiple regression was conducted in order to investigate the relative impact of the identified factors on brand preference. Findings - Factor analysis identified 11 antecedents of brand preference; these can be theoretically clustered into three groups: awareness antecedents (controlled communication (advertising), and uncontrolled communication (publicity, word of mouth)); image antecedents (service value attributes (price, quality), provider attributes (brand personality, country of origin, service (employee + location)), and corporate status (corporate image, corporate reputation)); and, customer attribute antecedents (satisfaction, perceived risk, and reference group). Multiple regression showed the contribution of each of these antecedents to brand preference. Originality/value - This paper contributes to theorise by proposing and testing one of the first holistic models to integrate consideration of many of the antecedents of brand preference.