4. Brand Loyalty: Aaker (1996) defined brand loyalty as the attachment of a customer to a brand. According to the attitudinal perspective, brand loyalty is defined as a deeply held commitment to re-buy a preferred product or service consistently in the future despite situational influences and marketing efforts having potential to cause switching behavior (Oliver, 1997).From the behavioral perspective Odin, Odin and Valette-Florence (2001) suggested that the customer who buys the brand systematically is considered loyal to this brand. Authors may differ in defining the brand loyalty but they all agree on the importance of focusing on loyal customers and trying to increase their number and their loyalty. Managers know that loyal customers do buy more with willingness to spend more, are easier to reach and act as an advocate for the brands’ firms (Chaudhuri and Holbrook, 2001; Odin, et al., 2001; Oliver, 1997).
Brand Equity and the Signaling Theory
Erdem and Swait (1998) criticized the work of Aaker (1991) and Keller (1993) as they neglected the
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Years ago firms used to depend upon popular bloggers and celebrities to create much notice for their brands but nowadays the effect of “everyday” consumers could have even larger impact on the equity of their brands (Wong, 2014).
WOM is defined as the “informal communication behavior about the experiences with specific services, products or the characteristics of the providers that the consumers exchange among each other” (Kiss and Bichler, 2008, p.2). The power of WOM could be positive or negative according to the degree of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the consumer with the product/brand, and this positive power could have a positive impact on sales and market share (Kiss and Bichler,
Thus, companies seek to strengthen customer loyalty. Brand loyalty is considered to tilt the consumer to purchase the package / product specific brand (Jacoby and Chestnut, 1978). Later, Oliver (1997) defined loyalty as "a deeply held commitment to REBUY or repatronize preferred product / service consistently in the future, thereby causing repetitive same-brand or same brand set purchasing, despite situational influences and marketing activities, which would result in causing switching behavior "(p. 34). This conceptual definition covers two different aspects of loyalty: the behavioral. This is consistent with an integrated conceptual framework proposed by Dick and Basu (1994), that customer loyalty is regarded as a "power relationship between the relative position of the individual and repeat
Furthermore, the publication suggests that the brand loyalty is correlated with market share. So, the bigger the company is, the more loyalty among its customers. And, this is true because the more people get to know the company, its services, and its products, the more brand identity it will form among current customers. Also, large companies benefit from having more loyal customers because they engage in word-of-mouth activities which can potentially attract more customers. So, there are many ways in which a company can increase their loyalty levels. But, when it comes to increasing market share, a better way could involve the increase in revenues among consumers. This can be done by opening more stores, offering products online, and by offering volume discounts. And, as a result, the company may be able to increase revenues and potentially increase its market share. Eventually, it could lead to an increase in the amount of loyal customers overall. Moreover, it can be said that loyalty programs and other related marketing activities can only make a difference in the long-run because the result are hardly noticeable in the short-run due to the fact that it takes time for a buyer to become an actual loyal customer.
From an organisations point of view, especially in the short term, it would seem more appropriate to concentrate on behavioural loyalty because this is reflected in sales behaviour. Such behaviour is easily measured compared to components of attitudinal loyalty and matches key managerial performance indicators. Attitudinal measures may also not reflect consumer’s actions when the consumer is confronted with real choice. However, from a longer term view and especially from a CRM viewpoint, it is also vitally important to measure attitudinal loyalty. Attitudinal loyalty is composed of commitment and trust in the brand and/or organisation which will have impacts on sales both in the short and longer term. This type of loyalty is more likely to be an indicator of the potential longer term relationships that will be possible with given customers. Attitudinal loyalty is also likely to have influence on word of mouth and customer advocacy which may lead to indirect impacts on longer term sales or on costs of servicing
Simplified brand loyalty describes a status in which consumers determine their selves in; out of it they become committed to a brand. Thereby they continue purchasing products or services of a specific brand. At this point consumers rather spent more money on a product of a specific brand than buying from multiple suppliers within the same category. Mainly brand loyalty is a result of consumer’s behavior, which is enforced through a company’s measurements regarding branding. Branding is a process that a company runs through in order to establish a new brand. The ambition here is to strengthen a unique name and image for a product in
Brand loyalty is “when a consumer display a steadfast allegiance to a brand by repeatedly purchasing is”. (Text Book pg. 316) Every industry in the world benefits from brand loyalty because without consumers there is no industry. It is tremendously important for Aline Polo to identify areas in its brand that can improve and create loyalty with their consumer. The changes can be simple with little cost to the company. For example, a change in the current return policy from 20 days to 30 days can create peace of mine with the consumer. Comscore.com is a global media measurement and analytics company states; “consumer now expect free returns with 82% respondents saying they would complete the purchase if they could return the item to a store or have free return shipping, and 66% said they view a retailer’s return policy before making a purchase”. Aline Polo is a website based company with no physical store location. Frist time customer can be hesitant in purchasing product because they cannot physically touch the marital and become even more hesitant because of the return policy. When a company is attempting to create brand loyalty with consumer they must be aware and sensitive to their consumers' concerns. By adapting key aspect in the company that eases their consumers concerns they are able to make a relationship with the company and consumers who are brand-loyal typically exhibit less sensitivity to
Brand loyalty is the ‘Holy Grail’ to all marketing organizations. Marketing practitioners are consumed by it. They search. They try. They dream. They want to achieve the ultimate in brand loyalty, making it so airtight that no competition can lure their consumers from their brands of products. Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fit-all methodology. Competition is dynamic. There’s no way to accurately anticipate what the creativity of their competitors can bring to the marketplace, which can lead to
In general, brand loyalty is understood to describe the characteristics of those consumers who have a strong commitment to a brand, because they view that brand as being more satisfactory than the alternatives and this evaluation is reinforced through repeated use (Jonna, 2001). The literature is quite clear on what brand loyalty means; however, there are differences of opinion on its measurement. The instrumental conditioning perspective views behavioral measures such as actual purchase patterns as being the best indicators of brand loyalty. This line of research maintains that brand loyalty develops from the positive reinforcement received from trying a brand and being satisfied with it, which leads to repeat purchase (Jonna, 2001). The problem is that behavioral measures cannot distinguish between actual brand loyalty (i.e., affect for the brand) and “spurious” repeat purchase patterns that may result from convenience, availability, inertia, or other factors. The cognitive school proposes that only measures of a consumer’s mental processes and beliefs can make the distinction between actual brand loyalty and spurious behavior (Day, 1969; Lutz & Winn, 1974). From this perspective, brand loyalty is the result of the consumer’s search and attributes evaluation process, which leads to beliefs of brand appropriateness or superiority and repeat purchase. An example of this is the
Brand loyalty is when customer purchasing behavior is repetitive and customers become committed to a certain brand over a long period. Customers can become loyal to a type of brand regardless of pricing and other factors contributing to the success of a business such as location and convenience. Businesses use loyalty programs such as loyalty rewards programs to encourage loyal customers.
Brand loyalty, long a central construct in marketing, is a measure of the attachment that a customer has to a brand. It reflects how likely a customer will be to switch to another brand, especially when that brand makes a change, either in price or in product features. As brand loyalty increases, the vulnerability of the customer base to competitive action is reduced. It is one indicator of brand equity which is demonstrably linked to future profits, since brand loyalty directly translates into future sales.
From the above definitions of customer loyalty, I can say that it is related to attitude or behaviour of the customers over a product or service resulting in repeat purchasing or patronizing. It is also said that loyalty is also closely related to commitment but is different from its reciprocity because it is usually applied for customer-seller relationship (Pritchard, 1999). In addition, customer loyalty consists of not only building but maintaining a relationship with one’s customer (Chow & Holden, 1997). According to Mitchell & Sanders (1995), that customer loyalty has been described as a connection and commitment to seller’s offering over the long term. Furthermore, Jones and Sasser (1995) discovered that one of the key element of securing customer loyalty is through customer satisfaction.
According to Aaker (1991), “brand equity is the set of brand assets and liabilities that is linked to a brand, its name, and symbol that add to or subtract from the value provided by a product or service to a firm and/or to that firms customers”. Some academics have given the components of brand equity. It consists of “perceived quality, brand associations, brand awareness and brand loyalty “(Aaker, 1991; Baldauf et al., 2003; Keller, 1993; Selase Asamoah, 2014), and this is the first version of components of it; regarding it as the “consumer 's behavior” toward a make, Keller (1993) proposes two elements: “brand awareness and brand knowledge”; Kim et al.(2008) argue that strong brand equity boosts “consumer satisfaction, repurchasing intent, and degree of loyalty”. Thus, past
A successful brand is the most valuable resource a company has. In fact, one authority speculates that brands are so valuable that many companies include a “statement of value” addendum to their balance sheets to include intangibles such as the value of their brands. Brands are used as external cues to taste, design, qualify, prestige, value and so forth. In other words, consumers associate the value of a product with the brand. For example, the value of Kodak, Sony, Coca-cola, Toyota and Microsoft is indisputable. One estimate of the value of Coca-cola, one of the world’s most valuable brand places it at
The term “Brand Loyalty” also called as “Customer Loyalty” has been in the business industry since a very long time as a model to be used in conducting business. But it wasn’t until the mid to late 1900’s that the term was actually given its due importance by making it a vital part of advertising and marketing. The concept of marketing evolved substantially from being focused on sales of a product to having Customer satisfaction to be its focal point. Studies further revealed that there was a positive correlation between customer satisfaction and Brand Loyalty.
The relationship between customer satisfaction and brand loyalty has proven its role and importance in Management as well as in marketing. Throughout previous decades, Marketing researchers have acclaimed the advantages of satisfaction and loyalty, and have mentioned them as directories of an organizational competitive benefit. On the other hand, brand loyalty is one of the most important constructions in marketing, due to its final effect on customers’ repeated purchases, and in fact, those loyal customers who purchase repeatedly are
Three conceptual perspectives have been suggested to define customer loyalty: the behavioral perspective, the attitudinal perspective, and composite perspective (Bowen and Chen, 2001; Zins, 2001). Firstly, the behavioral perspective looks at repeat purchase behavior based on the customer’s purchase history. This approach assumes that preference structure of the customer is reflected in the customer’s behavior (Ehrenberg, 1988). In contrast, the attitudinal perspective allows gain in supplemental understanding of loyal behavior (Zins, 2001). Attitude signifies the degree to which a customer’s deposition towards a service is favorably inclined. (Grembler and Brown, 1996). Some examples of operational measures in attitudinal perspective are preference, buying intention, supplier prioritization and recommendation willingness (Fournier and Yao, 1997). The third perspective combines both attitudinal and behavioral definitions of loyalty. The composite perspective is considered an alternative to affective loyalty that increases the predictive power of loyalty (Pritchard and Howard, 1997).