Sense and sensibility: consumers and technological brand experience

In the brand management field, studies on brand experience—considering cognitive and behavioral dimensions—analyze consumer relations with brands. The current paper analyzes consumer brand experiences aiming at identifying whether the consumption of technological brands was different than that of non-technological brands. A quantitative analysis was conducted, and data was analyzed by Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Variance Analysis (ANOVA). Four dimensions of brand experience were tested: sensorial, affective, behavioral, and intellectual. Ten selected brands were analyzed, among technological and non-technological ones. The population for this study was composed of 230 university students from the business area of a Brazilian university. Results indicate that consumers perceive a difference in their experience with technological and non-technological brands, which is primarily based on the performance of the sensorial dimensions, regarding feelings, and that of intellectual ones, regarding cognitive capacity, creativity, and problem-solving performance, which are stronger in the experience with technological brands.