Marketing Communications in the Sharing Economy: Is the Brand of the Car Important to Car-Sharing Users?

This study focused on examining the impact of the sharing economy on the content of car-sharing marketing communications. In the traditional economy, product manufacturers usually communicate their brand and its features to induce customers to buy. The question that arises is whether in the sharing economy, P2P platforms will focus their marketing communication on the brand of the shared assets.  We found that customers in the sharing economy will prefer different parameters for car sharing than brand. The research focused on three generations of respondents (X, Y, Z) to determine whether preferences for car-sharing attributes would differ. We found statistically significant differences across generations concerning car-sharing brand, price, equipment, appearance, propulsion, gearbox, consumption, maintenance and insurance, carefree parking, and availability only in some variables. We rated availability and price as the most important attributes of the car sharing. The brand of the car is the last attribute that car-sharing users care about. It means that the platforms must adapt their marketing communication and try to attract customers in the sharing economy by using attributes other than a car-sharing brand. This study contributes, academically and practically, to other important insights related to the impact of the sharing economy on marketing communications. This case changes the current approach to branding from a marketing perspective and shows that the car-sharing brand will be insignificant to customers. We used the Kruskal–Wallis test, CHAID analysis, and descriptive statistics to evaluate the research. We conducted the research from December 2021 to March 2022, and 694 respondents were participated.