NIS Clock

Nis World News

Nis World News

Nis Time

Nis Time

Tuesday 20 May 2014

Literature review on factors influencing Brand preference

UA-29869588-1

 Literature review on factors influencing Brand preference
Bibin Thomas
Introduction
A brand can be a label of ownership, name, term, design, or symbol. Further brand can be product, service or concept. Brand preference is measure of brand loyalty in which consumers will choose a particular brand in presence of competing brands (http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/brand-preference.html). Also it can be defined that the degree to which consumers prefer one brand over another (http://www.answers.com/topic/brand preference). Brand has a great importance in the competing world. “All our factories and facilities could burn down tomorrow but you’d hardly touch the value of the company; all that actually lies in the goodwill of our brand franchise and the collective knowledge in the company” (Roberto Goizueta, the late CEO of Coca-Cola). A brand saves people time, and this is worth money. A brand is a storehouse of trust that matters more and more as choices multiply. People want to simplify their lives (Niall Fitzgerald, chairman of Unilever). Companies must work hard to build brands (David Ogilvy 2014). The aim of branding, according to one cynic, “is to get more money for a product than it is worth.” A greater brand loyalty among consumers leads to greater sales of the brand (Howard and Sheth, 1969). Brand loyalty leads to certain marketing advantages such as reduced marketing costs, more new customers and greater trade leverage (Aaker, 1991). Quality and personal habits thus influence this situation because consumers prefer risk reduction in familiar products not as in a trial (Nilson, 1998). Hence analysing the brand preference of consumers is an interesting area for the marketers to develop the marketing strategies for their brands.
The literature review aims to find out the factors that majorly influence the brand preference. Brand preference can be defined as degree of customers’ engagement with the brand, from simple brand awareness to brand loyalty. (Ove Haxthausen and Pankaj Kumar, 2014). By reading the relevant literature, various factors have been found, based on which the consumer prefer brands. The previous researches provide a range of variables which affect the brand preference. Theories related to brand preference (Rogers, 1995; Tornasky and Klein, 1982; Mason, 1990; Cherney, 2003) emphasize on the importance of complexity, compatibility, observability, triability, relative advantage, risk, cost, communicability, divisibility, profitability, social approval, and product characteristics on brand preference. The relative importance of each factor depends on the nature of goods/services under consideration, culture and social characteristics of the consumers of the different brands.

Literature review
Ho-Shui Li and Jack E. Houston (1999) apply stepwise logistic regression to identify significant socio demographic factors (such as gender, age, and others) which influence the choice of each of the six major types of food markets and to identify the promotional factors which positively or negatively influence consumers' preferences for the most often used market. Female consumers have almost four times higher odds of frequently using traditional vegetable markets in the past year. The unmarried, divorced/widowed, and/or those who had higher family monthly incomes demonstrate lower odds of frequently using traditional markets. For purchases of fresh foods, female respondents, older consumers, and/or those living in northern Taiwan have higher odds of choosing traditional vegetable markets as the most frequently used market.
Gilpatrick D. Hornsby (2005) says that the country of origin has the great influence on brand preference. The study also find outs the other factors that influence brand preference. The study included 516 responses with 40 unusable surveys leading to a 57% usable response   rate. Results were gained through descriptive statistics and organized by scenario situation. The factors are Price, Appearance, and Country of Origin.
Karjaluoto et al (2005) conducted a research to find out the factors influencing consumer choice of mobile phones. The study uses focus group interview with 79 graduate students followed by a survey of 196 respondents. Price, brand, interface, and properties are the factors which affects purchasing behaviour of mobile phones in Finland.
Gihan Wijesundera et al (2008) try to find out Factors Influencing the Demand of Beauty Soap among Female Consumers in the Greater Colombo Region. Purpose of this study is to explore how the marketing mix & demographical factors influence the brand preference & purchasing behaviour of beauty soap among the female consumers in the greater Colombo region. Sample consisted of 91 female consumers in greater Colombo region. Data were gathered by administrating questionnaires. The independent variables are 4Ps, Age, Income Level, Education, Marital status, Occupation, skin type, social factors, substitute products & dependent variable is the brand preference. Analysis was done using the Chi-square method at the significant level of 0.05. The results indicated that there were statistical relationships between price, product, education, occupation and band preference and there was no statistical relationship between place, promotion, age, income level, marital status, skin type, social factors, and substitute product with the brand preference.
Bikash et al (2010) studied the factors influencing purchasing of Nano cars. This study attempts to find the factors, which are important for choosing the revolutionary car ‘Nano’ launched by one of the leading Indian automobile industry called ‘Tata Motors’. The report published by Cygnus research ranked Indian automobile sector to be number one on the basis of sales growth and Profit After Tax (PAT) growth during October- December 09 over October- December 08 over other 14 manufacturing sectors. The paper considers 22 factors, which may be important in the customer decision-making process. The factors are price is a affordable, because of Tata product, many love the name "Nano", available in attractive colours, style/look, high fuel efficiency, financing option, interior design, comfortable, space inside, value for money, environment friendly, running cost, warranty, power, status / prestige, safety features, resale value, accessories available, performance
Sääksjärvi and Samiee (2011) examined the relationships among brand identity, brand image, and brand preference in the context of cyber and offline-based extension retail brands over time. They examined a conceptual model with survey data collected over three time periods and found out that offline-based extension brands had an advantage over cyber brands when it came to translating a brand identity into a successful brand image, especially in the early Internet stages.
Zeenat Ismail et al (2012) find out the Factors Affecting Consumer Preference of International Brands over Local Brands. This study was conducted in order to determine the consumer preferences of global brands instead of local ones. The research was conducted in Karachi and the samples selected included 200 people of age 16-24. The data collected for the research was through a questionnaire and was conducted in two popular shopping malls of the city and two universities since the target audience was largely the youth. Calculations were then analysed and interpreted using a percentage of respondents and through frequency distribution tables and charts. There are a number of factors affect the consumer purchase decisions. The results suggest that most important factors that influence a consumer’s final decision are the price and quality of the product in question. Since the consumers usually associate the price of the brand with its quality, a brand priced too low is generally perceived as a low quality product. Similarly, a product priced too high may not be affordable by many. Other factors that have an impact on the consumer preferences are: consumer ethnocentrism, country of origin, social status, price relativity with the competing brands and family and friends.
Azad et al (2013) present an exploration study to detect important factors influencing car accessory market. The proposed study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale consists of 16 questions, distributes it among 200 experts and analyses it using factor analysis. Cronbach alpha and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy are calculated as 0.823 and 0.863, which validate the overall questionnaire. The results indicate that there are three influencing factors including brand capability, brand characteristics and consumers’ believe.
Prasanna et al (2013) conducted a study to find out factors influencing customers’ brand preferences of the economy segment SUV’s and MUV’s. A total of 143 respondents were included among which 98 met the target group criteria set for the study. The data collection was made through direct interaction and customer intercepts survey using printed questionnaires. Descriptive Analysis was used to transform data into understandable format and factor analysis was used for identification of factors influencing customer preference. Friedman’s test was used to identify the prominent emotions customers associated to the utility vehicle. The study identified the six factors that influence brand preference they are Product reliability, monetary factor, trendy appeal, frequency of non-price promotions offered, trustworthiness and customer feeling or association towards brand.
Malviya et al (2013) said about brand preference on the basis of research conducted on the Factors Influencing Consumer’s Purchase Decision towards Smartphones in Indore. The basic purpose of the research is to identify the key factors which have a dominating effect on the consumers’ minds while making a purchase of Smartphone. The collected data were analysed and interpreted using chi-square, reliability analysis, Factor analysis, Confirmatory Factor Analysis. It was found that data is reliable for factor analysis. The measurement model suggested four factors price, brand preference, social influence and features having a dominant influence on the purchase decision of consumers in Indore.

Conclusion
Consumers are potential purchaser of products and services offered for sale (Davis et al 2002). Consumers are rational and logical problem solver, (Holbrook and Hirschman, 1982). Consumer’s taste and preference changes at all time. It is difficult to find out certain definite behaviour of consumers. The above researches try to find out common factors which influence brand preference of consumers.  The marketing mix elements, brand equity, Advertisements etc. will influence brand preference. But these researches lack social, personal, Psychological, and cultural factors which influence the brand preference.