Abstract

China has entered the mobile internet era. It is a country with the largest number of mobile internet users in the world. In China, the quantity of mobile internet users accounts for more than 80% of all the internet users. Under the background of mobile internet, information and communication technology upgrading faster and consumers' media habits are more diverse, which innovates brand communication and management.

As a tool of brand communication and management, online brand community is widely used by brand owners and managers. It plays an important role in delivering brand value, carrying out brand communication activities and building strong brand. Both of Chinese and foreign scholars have launched research on brand community. But there is still no study to explain that how perceived characteristics of online brand community influence consumers' brand relationship quality when they use brand community. This study will explore this research question and find the mechanism, in order to provide implications to carry out brand construction practice and fill the theory gap.

At the same time, brand community in the environment of mobile internet is no longer like that in the traditional internet era. In the past, consumers only can access to visit brand community when they turn on the computer in the room, but now they can visit brand community through the phone, tablets and other mobile devices at anytime and anywhere. The situation that they use brand community has changed. Especially the mobile internet terminals have some unique features. For example, they are mobile, social, and locatable. These features influence consumers' habit of using media. Moreover, mobile internet users form a large group, which should be paid the attention in the research. Therefore, this project will focus on exploring what factors impact consumers'using behavior with online brand community in the mobile internet environment and how these factors influence consumers' brand relationship quality. This is the mechanism what this research will explain.

Through a series of empirical research, under the guidance of this overall research framework, there are three structural equation models that are established in this project. They will reveal the above mentioned problems in a scientific and meticulous way. This research content is divided into the following eight chapters.

The first chapter narrates the background of this project, research objectives, the research value in theory development and in practice, technology roadmap and innovative points, etc.

The second chapter is the part of theoretical basis and literature review. This paper conducts empirical research with the constructed model, which is not a castle in the air, but based on the study of the theory of extant research. Here two core theories are introduced and they are technology acceptance model theory and theory of use and gratification. In addition, the core concepts of brand community and mobile Internet environment are defined, and the related literature of brand community is reviewed.

The third chapter is about research design and mainly introduces basic train of thought in this project. Also, it proposes the overall research framework and describes the research procedures. Moreover, the measurement scale used in the empirical study is designed and explained.

The fourth chapter is mainly about collecting data and sorting data. After completion of the data collection, it briefly describes the sample group. In this part, according to the requirement of statistics, the scale of each variable is tested from the perspectives of reliability and validity, in order to make sure the scale is scientific and accurate.

The fifth chapter mainly studies the mobile internet users' continuance intention with brand community in the environment of mobile internet. The study finds that perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, and perceived interactivity positively influence consumers'continuance intention in the context of mobile internet when they use brand community.

The sixth chapter mainly discusses the mechanism between perceived characteristics of brand community and consumer-brand community relationship in the environment of mobile internet. Research results show that in the environment of mobile internet, the higher consumers' perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and perceived interactivity, the better relationship between customers and brand community is formed. Also, brand community satisfaction, brand community identification and brand community loyalty is higher.

The brand community is a medium between consumers and brand relationship. The seventh chapter mainly analyzes how the relationship of consumer-brand community influences consumers' brand relationship quality in the environment of mobile internet. It is found that the brand attachment as a mediator, mediates consumers' relationship in the online brand community and consumer-brand relationship offline. And they are positively related.

The eighth chapter is the last chapter in this book. It mainly summarizes the research results in this project and provides implications for carrying out the practice of brand communication and management. Finally, the limitations of this research and the research prospects are mentioned.

Keywords: Mobile internet user; brand community; brand communication;mobile terminal; new media