Brand Image and Brand Association

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Executive summary

This marketing research has been carried out to study the importance of brand image and relate it to brand association. Two major hypotheses have been formulated after extensive literature review following already preset objectives.

These hypotheses have been appropriately named H1 and H2, where H1 suggests that there is a correlation between brand image and brand association and H2 is based on the proposal that brand image and brand image influence how customers respond to a product in the market. A proper analysis of figures and facts collected has served to illustrate to prove the above hypotheses true.

Introduction

The importance of market research cannot be underestimated in today’s competitive business atmosphere. Information collected by the researchers comes in handy in helping the decision makers come up with functional strategies to help the business cut a niche in the market.

By identifying the customers’ needs, businesses can come up with creative ways to attract the attention of the public to a product that is targeted at addressing this need. In order to serve the purpose of market research, this essay seeks to underscore the value of both brand image and brand association in relation to how products and services are received by the public.

To this end, a proper literature review will be provided to study on common trends and influences of branding and specifically brand image and brand association.

Accompanying the literature review is a set of primary data collected from the public through questionnaires and analyses of the data collected alongside their interpretation. Finally, limitations of the two aspects of branding-brand image and brand association will be pointed out before recommendations are made.

Literature review

Brand imaging is by far the most important component of marketing that will help a company get its product off its stores and into the houses of the intended customers. According to Aaker (1991), the more a brand appeals to the customers the more they will develop the need to purchase the product.

In this way, the brand image adds to the value of the product. The definition of brand image has come to be the subject of debate amongst scholars and researchers in the field of marketing (Dobni & Zinkhan, 1990).

One of the most renown researchers in the field Kevin Lane Keller defined brand image as “perceptions about a brand as reflected by the brand associations held in consumer memory” (1993).

This definition has been supported by many of his peers including Andrew Mitchell who describes brand image as simply “all that a consumer can possibly associate with a particular brand” (1982). Studies have shown that consumers of a particular product when going out to purchase the product seek to also get the image associated with the product.

For instance, the various presentations of beer as making an individual tough causes many men to go for the particular drink that promises them the most power. They therefore consume the beer in the hope that it will make them appear tough in the eyes of other people.

The best brand images will instantly evoke response from the consumers and will stand out from other brands in the same market (Till, 1998). When conducting an analysis of the brand image for a particular product, the researcher basically seeks to find out the first thing that comes to the mind of consumers when they hear of or see the product. The brand image is complemented by other branding aspects such as packaging, customer service and advertising.

While the phrase brand image has come to be well developed to an extent that it has come to be regarded as an independent aspect of marketing concepts, there are many scholars who have categorically chosen not to use the words in their works, much as they may be studying concepts very similar to brand image.

These professionals totally agree that consumers of particular products generally pick them up based on their physical appearance (Stanton, Etzel, & Walker, 1994). This is basically what brand image is though these scholars would not use the word. Though this is just ‘calling a rose by any other name’ in the interest of professionalism, it is only prudent that these variants be given consideration.

Some schools of thought have chosen to focus on the symbolism associated to brands and products. As a result, in place of the words brand image, the scholars involved in this line have coined words such as perceived product utility and symbolic utility Some other scholars have chosen to emphasize the human characteristics in the concept of product acceptance and have adopted phrases such as “the social and psychological nature of products” (Nilson, 1999).

A third group that has chosen to disregard the words brand image have instead focused their attention on the meanings that consumers associate to the product. For instance, certain scholars have in the past used complex wordings such as “the psychological meaning of products” (Alreck, & Settle 1999) to describe the concept of brand image.

The methods for determining the levels of brand image are not uniformly applicable to particular cases. In the number of years that brand image has been generally accepted as a concept of marketing, various methods and tools have been developed and put into use in the analysis of the structuring of brand images.

A lot of studies have been carried out to establish various ways of assessing brand images with some groups chosing to measure individual aspects of a brand (Rooney 1995). Other individuals have come up with methods to do a wholesome analysis of the particular brand image. Though studies have been taking place to try and establish a method to qualitatively and quantitatively measure aspects of brand image (Kanwar, Olson, & Sims, 1981).

Brand association is the amount to which a particular brand is linked to the particular product it describes in the eyes of the consumer. In general brand association is the identity that individuals use to distinguish a product from similar products (Aaker,1991; Stanton et al.,1994). There are a number of ways in which the manufacturers of a given product can help customers develop an association to the product. These include:

Benefit to the customer

Consumer benefit is the particular requirement that taken care of by a product. For example, skin protection by a sunscreen cream is considered its consumer benefit (Fournier, 1995.). The benefit of a product to the customer may be guided by either rationality or emotions.

When rationality comes into play in determining the benefit to a consumer, it generally means that the value proposed by the brand is as close as possible to the benefit obtained from the product itself. If psychological and emotional associations are used to determine the value of a product, the benefit that the consumer gets from the product is not directly obtained from the functionality aspects of the particular product (Kassarjian, 1977).

For instance, the rational benefit of a car is the fact that it can help move from one place to another conveniently while the emotional benefit would be the prestige of owning a car.

Attributes of the product

The person in charge of marketing a particular product can choose to generally relate the brand that he is supporting to a particular usage or function (Calderon, Cervera, & Molla, 1997). For instance, coffee can be associated with couple out on date in a cosy restaurant, by a fireplace.

Consumer/customer

Brands can also be associated to particular consumers or users. Marketers of a certain product need to identify the target group before they release it to the public (Quester, Farrelly, 1998). For instance, some products may be associated to individuals who own offices as would be in the case of filing cabinets.

Celebrity

When a product is associated to an individual who has some credible perception in the eyes of the public, the value associated to it automatically goes up (Finlay, 1996). This is the reasons why we see celebrities being contracted to endorse certain products. For instance, if a popular wrestler endorses an off-road vehicle, the public learn to associate the car to the toughness of the individual.

Personality of the product

Just like human beings, product can be classified depend on characteristics such as trustworthiness, strength, youthfulness and so on and so forth (Schiffman & Kanuk, 1996).

Objectives

The Objectives of the research were to:

To analyze the relation between brand image and brand association
To establish the how brand image and brand association influence decisions made by customers in relation to product choice

Research Questions

What are the distinguishing and uniting factors of brand image and brand association?
How are brand image and brand association to the decisions that customers make in relation to choice of products?

Hypotheses

There is a correlation between brand image and brand association.
Brand image and brand association are the key determinants of how consumers respond to a given product.

Data collection instrument (questionnaire)

Quantitative method was used to collect data. This is a method which was developed in the natural sciences to study natural phenomena. It is positivist and objectivist as well as deductive: testing of theory.

The questionnaire is one of the main instruments for gathering data using a social survey design. It is completed by the respondent. The questionnaire, which is one of the quantitative survey methods, was used in this research in order to collect the primary data. The reasons for using a questionnaire are that compared with the interview, the questionnaire is cheaper to administer, quicker to administer and convenient for respondents

The development of questionnaire passes through three stages; planning stage, design stage and pilot stage. Therefore, the researcher has followed these stages for the questionnaire.

In this research, the questionnaire was designed in relation to the literature review: the questions were formulated as closed questions to answer the research questions. The questions considered illustrate the relationship between brand image and brand association.

Therefore questions 1 and 2 (as the opening questions) ask what the relationship is between the brand image and brand association, and which type of services they use. Question 3 explores how brand image influences choice of particular products while question 4 measures how decisions regarding the purchase of certain products are determined by brand association.

Question 5 illustrates customer preference and how it is influenced by brand image and brand association. Questions 6 and 7 measure the interaction between brand image and brand association, as well as customers’ expectations of a particular brand. Questions 8 and 9 measure customer loyalty to a particular product based on its brand.

Question 10 is a demographic question. However, all the questions have been formulated to measure (directly or indirectly) the customer preference and loyalty in the relation to brand image and brand association.

Furthermore, the layout of the questionnaire was designed by using some tactics in order to be clear as well as attractive for respondents. The researcher used the standard likert five point scales in the majority of questions to make it easer to collect the data (Crompton, nda).

Some experiments recommend that demographic questions should be at the end of questionnaires because the data is sensitive; therefore the current researcher has considered that in the design of this questionnaire.

In addition, ambiguous terms were avoided in the questions, and any long, repetitious, leading or double-barrelled items, and negative questions which could essentially reduce the effectiveness of the project.

Content validity of the questionnaire (pilot study)

Piloting is not only trying to ensure that survey questions operate well; it also has a role in ensuring that the research instruments as a whole function well. They add that a pilot study allows such a question to be identified. Also, it allows the researcher to determine the adequacy of instructions to respondents completing questionnaires. Moreover, it gives the researcher an idea of the questions: are they well phrased, or do they need modification?

In this research, existing questions were utilized especially in the demographic part of the questionnaire. In addition, the questionnaire was pre-tested before redesigning the final questionnaire. Therefore, the first draft of the questionnaire was revised by checking that the questions cover the entire main points in the literature review which are related to customer preference and loyalty.

The second draft was assessed by 10% of the sample (four people), two of whom are loyal clients of particular products and generally pick them based on brand image and brand association. The individuals were asked to comment about the layout, content, and language clarity of the questionnaire. They gave some observations about it before the final draft was made.

Sampling

The size of the sample in this research was 40 respondents, who were selected according to the objectives of the study which are to examine customer preference as influenced by brand image and brand association. Therefore, the sample section had to comprise customers loyal to particular products based on how they were branded. They were selected from outside stores, because and a majority were the consumers of household commodities

Data collection methods

As mentioned above, a questionnaires was used to obtain data from the study group. The survey method was utilized in the collection of primary data. The questionnaires were distributed by three methods:

Face to face

Some respondents were met on a one on one basis and requested to fill the questionnaires. The reasons for using this approach was that it was cheap and hastened the process of data collection. This method also allowed respondents to see the questionnaire forms and answer the questions easily. Getting individuals who would fit in the target group was however challenging.

Email

Most of the data was collected by email; a method that proved to be very effective in this research. The reasons for using this approach were that it was a cheap and quick method for collecting the data. It also allowed respondents to see the questionnaire forms and answer the questions easily.

Telephone

The third approach used in the collection of primary data was via telephone. This was however only used with a few respondents from the sample group. It was recognized that this is an expensive method of data collection, and it also came with the disadvantage of respondents not being able to see the questions; Its advantage was that was a very quick method of obtaining data and the answers received were also precise.

Limitations

This research was limited to a sample of 40.
The research was carried out within a limited period of time.
This study was limited in term of the honesty and thoroughness of the respondents in completing the questionnaires.

Managerial implications

Seeing that there is a direct correlation between product branding and customer preference and loyalty, it is only imperative that the company establishes strategies to help in enhancing the functions of selling the brand image and capitalizing on brand association.

Recommendations

The company should concentrate on service quality ensuring that it maintains and enhances the image of the product in the market. In addition to this, the company should concentrate on consumer loyalty by building a strong relationship with them through fulfilling their needs, preferences and expectations.

Conclusion

In this research, the literature review and the finding of the correlation test show that, there is a significant and moderate positive relationship between three variables in the branding, namely: brand image, brand association, customer preference and customer loyalty.

Reference List

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