International Journal of Information Technology and Business Management 29 th April Vol.58 No JITBM & ARF. All rights reserved

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1 THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG BRAND AFFECT, BRAND TRUST AND BRAND LOYALTY A CASE OF VIETNAMESE APPAREL INDUSTRY Kunchung Cheng Huyen Trang Tran MBA Dep, Da-Yeh ABSTRACT The paper clarifies the relation between brand effect on consumer behavior and marketing management, specifically in retail management. The reason for this is to explore the effects of elements on consumers brand loyalty in service setting. The goal is to consider. According to purpose, the study empirically tests a model which proposed that brand affect and consumers brand trust have influence on consumers brand loyalty. The researchers administer a survey to 300 consumers. Using the data, the researchers test the hypothesis and model with structural equation modeling. The results indicate these factors have an effect on consumers brand loyalty. In additions to the findings confirm the indirect effect on consumers brand trust on brand affect and consumers brand loyalty relationship. Managerial implications and future research directions are also discussed. Key words: Brand Loyalty, Brand Trust, Brand Affect. INTRODUCTION In an environment of increasing capabilities, the brand becomes most valuable, strategic and important assets of the company. It received significant attention (Martin et al., 2005). The brand is one of the main tools for marketers to reduce the sensitivity of consumer prices (Helmig et al., 2007). Consumers tend to spend an extra amount for a familiar brand since they feel a great value in that brand without changing any competitor can offer (Jacoby & Chestnut, 1978). Hence, the brand managers have been trying to solve this problem by creating strong brands (Keller, 1993). A commonly used strategy is to create strong brands that generate brand trust between businesses and consumers. Brand trust provides a lens through which can check and assess the response of consumers. Similarly, brand affect has a significant position in the relationship between businesses and consumers. This connection is developed from the basis of the brand affect (Berry & Parasuraman, 1991). Brand affect can also be treated as the cause of brand loyalty as consumers intend to repurchase (Morgan Hunt, 1994). Many researches focus on the role of brand trust and brand affect from the perspective of enterprise supply (Chio & Droge, 2006; Tümer et al., 2011). But this study will inspect the connection between the brand affect and brand trust, from the connection between businesses and consumers in a reasonable framework. In this study, the goal was to focus on two issues:(1) How brand trust and brand affect influence brand loyalty? (2) Does brand trust mediate the connection between brand loyalty and brand affect? CONCEPTIONAL FRAMEWORK This study purposed the connection between brand trust, brand affect and brand loyalty. The affected relationship among variables is psychological safety. Therefore, the conceptual framework of the research is proposed as follows: 41

2 Figure 1. Research Framework Brand Affect Brand affect is studied widely in marketing literature. Chaudhuri and Holbrook (2001) define brand affect as brand s potential to elicit a positive emotional response in the average consumer as a result of its use. We may also interpret it as customers sentimental reaction about a brand after experiencing the brand. Thus, we propose that brand affect arises base on close connection with brand. Similarly, literature proposes that satisfactory and positive feelings are related to elevated degree of brand loyalty (Chaudhuri& Holbrook, 2002). Brand loyalty is illustrated to be better in the event of positive emotional affect that encourage customers to increase positive attitudes towards a brand (Dick & Basu, 2004). The fact that brand affect plays an important role in creating brand loyalty has been empirically proved by many articles (Chaudhuri & Holbrook, 2002; Sung & Kim, 2010). In line with this discussion we propose the following hypothesis. H1: Brand affect has a positive effect on brand trust H2: Brand affect has a positive effect on brand loyalty Brand Trust Brand trust and brand affect are closely related dimensions. They are abstracted as an important elements in the success of the firm (Morgan & Hunt, 1994). Chaudhuri and Hol-brook (2001) define brand trust as the willingness of the average consumer to rely on the ability of the brand to perform its stated function. Brand trust begins after customers assessment of firms offerings. Brand trust will be generated subsequently in the event of companies delivering beliefs of safety, honesty and reliability about their brands to customers. (Doney& Cannon, 1997). In other word, brand trust is generated and developed by customer s direct experiences via brands. The key difference between brand trust and brand affect is while brand trust is regarded as a long process happened by thought and consideration of customer experiences about store, brand affect is comprised of spontaneous emotions that could be formed impulsively (Chaudhuri& Holbrook, 2001). Thus, brand trust could be considered as a cognitive component (Casalo et al., 2007) which may cause emotional response, namely brand affect. In contrast, it is brand trust that leads brand loyalty (Delgado-Ballester & Munuera-Alemán, 2001). As a 42

3 result of the ability to create greatly valued connection of brand trust (Chaudhuri & Holbrook, 2002). It indicates that brand loyalty is part of the persistent process of valued and significant relationship which is generated by brand trust. Furthermore, many articles propose that brand trust is a determinant of loyalty Wu et al., 2008; Berry, 1983). We suggest the following hypothesis on the basic of literature review; H3: Brand trust has a positive effect on brand loyalty. H4: Brand trust mediate the connection between brand affect and brand loyalty. RESEARCH METHOD Editing of the data was carried out with the intention of ensuring the omission, completeness, and consistency of the data. Editing is regarded as a part of the data processing and analysis stage. Succeeding Table 1 Demographic Characteristics of Sample (n=300) the proposal of Sekaran (2000), this thesis comprises of all respondents in the analysis completing at least 75% of questionnaire answers; while exclude questions of those with more than 25% unanswered. Since the description in chapter 3, the responses of this research were collected from customers buying in all Gen Viet Shop at Ha Noi city in Vietnam. Data collection began in December 2014 and completed in February The conducted survey was distributed to 350 customers, having 300 surveys were returned. Fifty surveys had more than 25% of the items unanswered. This represented an effective response rate of 85.71%. The demographic characteristic of the sample is presented in Table 1. Respondents consisted of 35.7% male and 64.3% female. In terms of age, 43% of the respondents were between years old. Most of respondents (49%) had USD monthly income. Measurements Gender Age group Marriage Categories Frequency Percent (%) Male Female Under Over Single Married Level of Education Senior high school College University

4 Master or higher Income of a year Under 2000USD ~4000USD Over 40000USD MEASUREMENT To measure all constructs, we use five-point like type scales with anchors 1-strongly disagree and 5- strongly agree. Our measure of brand trust is summarized from Lau and Lee (1999) study and includes ten items. We use seven items to measure brand affect (Izard, 1977; Mano & Oliver, 1993; Richins, 1997). Brand loyalty is measure by six items (Lau & Lee, 1999; Zeithaml et al., 1996). Validity and Reliability of Measures This study also checked reliabilities, validities of the three-factor measurement model. The composite reliability scores are ranging from 0.78 to 0.88 and alpha coefficients are ranging from 0.77 to 0.87 (Fomell & Larcker, 1981). Table 2 Measurement Items and Reliability and Values Construct Standardized loadings Cronbach s Alpha Brand Affect.868 Ba1.512 Ba2.744 Ba3.758 Ba4.675 Ba5.512 Ba6.549 Ba7.758 Brand Trust.886 Bt1.496 Bt2.808 Bt3.711 Bt4.700 Bt5.126 Bt6.678 Bt7.823 Bt8.496 Bt9.808 Bt

5 Brand Loyalty.856 Bl1.865 Bl2.130 Bl3.671 Bl4.915 Bl5.622 Bl6.865 ANALYSIS RESULTS Figure summarized results of the data analysis. From the statistic results, the representation of observed variables for talent variables is significant. Figure 2. The mediation of Brand trust on the relationship between Brand affect and Brand loyalty CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS Large stream of literature underlines the significance of brand affect and brand trust impact creating brand loyalty (Iglesisas et al., 2011). In the similar vein our results show that brand affect and brand trust take a critical part in forming brand loyalty. Both of these constructs have an impact on consumers brand loyalty. Brand affect and brand trust conducts a certain marketing benefits for example lowering marketing cost, getting more new customers, granting great trade leverage, performing favorable word of mouth and resisting among competitors marketing efforts. Therefore, if marketing managers want to maintain continuity of both of these constructs, they can justify promotion expenditures. Moreover, they can concentrate on their communication and merchandising strategy to produce long term impacts on their customers to generate profitable brand outcomes. It is essential to understand that brand affect and brand trust is generated through customers experiences with brand. Customers do not form any subjective perceptions about brands before consuming them. Therefore, companies ought to concentrate on creating unique experiences between their customers and brands. Companies can induce customer experience with brands by the appropriate coordination of marketing communication elements for example advertising, price, packaging, symbols, logos, slogans, store location. Our study offers plenty opportunities for future research. Firstly, there should be a direct instruction to explain some questions, which are complex and 45

6 poly-semantic. Further research also should a make interview protocol be developed, it will be vital that it is carefully vetted concerning brand affect, brand trust and brand loyalty. Second, the results of this study have surely provided evidence concerning the importance of Brand trust as a mediating factor between Brand affect and Brand loyalty. Further investigation provide even greater detail with regards to what leads to increase potential Brand trust and Brand loyalty base on understanding about Brand affect. Third, further researches should take into consideration of different product category characteristics (ie. hedonic, symbolic and utilitarian products) influence on brand loyalty. Moreover to generalize our findings; future researches would be focus on different product categories, services and brands such as luxury goods, hotels etc. REFERENCES 1. Anderson, J.C. and Gerbing, D.W. (1988) Structural equation modeling in practice: a review and recommended two-step approach. Psychological Bulletin, 103, Berry, L. L. (1983). Relationship marketing. In L. T. Berry, G. L.Shostack, & G. D. Upah (Eds.), Emerging perspectives on service marketing (pp ). Chicago: American Marketing Association. 3. Berry, L. L. and. Parasuraman, A.A. (1991). Marketing Services: Competing Through Quality. New York, NY: Free Press. 4. Caceres, R. C. and Paparoidamis, N. G. (2007).Service quality, relationship satisfaction, trust, commitment and business-to-business loyalty. European Journal of Marketing, 41(7/8), Casalo, L. V., Flavian, C. and Guinaliu, M. (2007).The influence of satisfaction, perceived reputation and trust on a consumer s commitment to a website.journal of Marketing Communications, 13, Chaudhuri, A. and Holbrook, M.B. (2001). The chain of effects from brand trust and brand affect to brand performance: The role of brand loyalty. Journal of Marketing, 6, Chiou, J. S. and Droge, C. (2006). Service quality, trust, specific asset investment, and expertise: Direct and indirect effects in a satisfaction-loyalty framework. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 34(4), Delgado-Ballester, E. and Munuera-Alemán, J. L. (2001). Brand Trust in the Context of Consumer Loyalty. European Journal of Marketing, 35, Dick., A. S. and Basu, K. (1994). Customer Loyalty: Toward an Integrated Conceptual Framework. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 22, Doney, P. M. and Cannon, J.P. (1997).An Examination of the Nature of Trust in Buyer- Seller Relationships. Journal of Marketing, 61, Escalas, J. E. and Bettman, J. R. (2003). You are what they eat: The influence of reference groups on consumers connections to brands. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 13, Fornell, C. and Larcker, D.F. (1981).Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18, Helmig, B.; Huber, J.A. and Leeflang, P. (2007).Explaining behavioural intentions toward cobranded products. Journal of Marketing Management, 23(3), Iglesias, O., Singh, J. J. amd Batista-Foguet, J.M. (2011).The role of brand experience and affective commitment in determining brand loyalty. Journal of Brand Management, 18 (8), Izard, C. (1977) Human Emotions.New York7 Plenum. 16. Jacoby, J. and Chestnut, R. (1978). Brand Loyalty Measurement and Management. New York: John Wiley & Sons. 46

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