The effect of brand equity on consumer purchasing behavior Case study: Food famous brands in Mashhad Industrial Town

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1 The effect of brand equity on consumer purchasing behavior Case study: Food famous brands in Mashhad Industrial Town Elham Heidarian 1, Amir Kariznoee 2, Monireh Bijandi 3 1 Graduate of Business administration-markrting, Semnan University,Iran 2 Young Researchers and Elite Club, Mashhad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Mashhad, Iran 3 Graduate of Accounting, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad,Iran. (Author for Correspondence: Amir.kariznoee@yahoo.com) Abstract Today, the brand identity as capital creates value for the company and its products, hence it is imperative to study the corporates brand. Brand s success depends on the acceptance and assessment of the brand s consumers; thus, the aim of this research is to study the factors affecting consumers' attitudes and purchasing behavior, has special value within brands raised in the food industry. In this research the consumers of food products were in Mashhad, 165 samples were used that to obtain them simple random sampling method and the formula of unlimited society were used. Data were collected by standardized questionnaire, the Cronbach s alpha was used for reliability coefficient. Also in this study for data collection, library and field methods have been used. This study is functional on the base of its aim and also on how to obtain the required data, is a descriptive and correlational research. The questionnaire data were analyzed in inferential statistics by Kolmogorov Smirnov tests and confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling which were in the statistical software packages. Results indicate that the experience of the brand, brand image, brand perceived relevance, brand satisfaction, brand trust and brand loyalty, would impact significantly on the purchase intention of the consumers for brand development. While the impact of two factors, brand s experience and satisfaction, was higher compared to other factors. Keywords: consumer purchasing behavior, brand, brand image, brand equity Introduction Brands today have entered in the many aspects of human life. Brands effect on the lifestyle and culture and sometimes represent them. Brands influence the lives of individuals who may have values and beliefs, policies, and even the spirit of the people. The brand is identifying the vendor or manufacturer. The brand is an image of the products on the market. People who are concerned with the brand are following a particular quality or characteristic that makes it special or unique (Ries, 2002). The necessity of the customer's perspective on branding is important of to the extent that massive psychological issues would be conducted. For example, an effective psychological approach in understanding the client's perspective is asking them to create a combination of pictures and words to express their ideas about the specified brand. The objective is presenting people's perceptions and attitudes about the brand without the use of borrowed words from anthropology and psychoanalytic perspectives and this indicates the importance of the perceptions and attitudes of customers that we want to understand them. Here just imaginations are important that the brand creates in their minds (Sardari et al, 2011) Brands can lead to the creation of new ideas about products and services of the company. Brand is a commitment generated by an organization's to support its customers (Lakvin, 1993). By definition of Aaker and Keller 1990, consumer familiarity with the main brand can lead to entering new product and helps rapid spread of a new form of market sectors (Ghorbani, 2009). If the corporate considers the brand just as a name, will not understand the profound marketing application of this. Brand image on customers' perception of the quality and reliability of products and services has an impact on customer s perception and loyalty (Mirveisy, 2009). In fact, the brand is a part of the operational and emotional characteristics that the customer attributes to a product or service and a helpful tool for customers for decision making and buying (Madani and Roosta, 2010). 335

2 In this way, the objective is establishing long-term relationships between interest groups and, most importantly costumers to retain more customers and miss lower clients so that the long-term benefits is acquired, which results in increased market share and profitability of the company (Noel Kapferer, 2006). Usually, people are more likely to buy a new product with available brand names, because of recognized brand names are such as the guarantee that the new product has the same quality similar to other brand products (Cohen & Basu, 1987). In this regard, the present study sought to examine the impact of brand s specific value on consumer buying behavior. Brand Brand is a name, phrase, symbol, sign, design or combination of them, which aims to introduce a product or service that a seller or group of sellers are presenting and thereby distinguishing them from competing companies to make their products.dimensions are added to a product or service by the brand to distinguish the product or service from others (Kotler and Keller, 2006). Defined by the American Marketing Association (AMA) brand is a commercial name, term, sign, logo or design, or a combination of these that identifies the goods or services the seller or group of sellers and to distinguish of these goods or services. In short, the brand would identify the vendor or manufacturer. In fact, the brand is a permanent commitment of a vendor to provide a set of features, benefits and special services to buyers (Inter Brand Group, 2011). A brand name can contain up to 6 different meaning: - Features: The brand evokes in the mind of specific characteristics - Advantages: A brand is nothing more than a set of qualities. Customers don t buy property but to seek advantage. Attributes should be operational or emotional benefits. - Benefits: The brand provides the articles about the benefits that are worth for mentioning. - Culture: The brand may represent a particular culture. - Personality: The brand can envisage the certain character. - Users: Brand shows the type of consumer who buys goods or uses it. If the audience can see the six dimensions of brand, that brand has necessary depth, otherwise the brand would be shallow (Kotler, 2011). However, the brand development to create consumer acceptance of a new product, help by bonding the new product with a known brand or company name, but a bad brand development can be observed invocations cause damage that may be difficult for the company to overcome them (Ries & Trout, 1986). The brand development strategies seem useful because of marketing functions such as reduced consumer costs and producing new goods and increasing success chance, (Keller,1998). The research s necessity From the customer's perspective, reducing the perceived financial and non-financial risks and research s costs are key benefits. A key issue for brand owners is the ability to offer better prices than the rivals, the ability to gain more market share, the ability to retain customers by building brand loyalty and reduce the costs of marketing in the service sector, taking into account cognitive aspects of the brand and measurement of its special value, almost is a new topic in the service marketing concept compared with product marketing that should be considered in (Chen, 2010). A good brand orients its consumers select as in a very complex market space, same brands, create shortcuts in consumer decision-making process. Brand enhance customer loyalty. Since most customers choose names which know, it is inferring that customer loyalty about the approval corporate brands is more. Strong brand makes it possible to inter into new markets, likely companies with strong brands are much more successful to enter a new market (Raj, 2000). It should be considered that these are people who give life to brands not companies, brands should not be discovered neither in factories and studios, nor in the balance sheets, but the mind of the customer, employee, manufacturers and other stakeholders are the location of brands. As Paul Feldwick says: the brand is a collection of images and perceptions in the mind of the consumer. In this regard, Stephen King states that good is the thing which manufactured in a factory, but brand is the thing which purchased by customer (Oliver, 1997). Brand is a part of emotional and operational characteristics that the customer of a product or service and a helpful tool for customers to decide and buy (Madani and roosta, 2010). Identifying and evaluating of the 336

3 impact of brand equity on consumer buying decision is an important issue that this research investigate it to determine the most important aspect of customer purchase decision making and branding investment priorities in the food industry. Literature Review Baumgarth (2009) Using the Shine organizational culture framework, explained the internal trend structure of brand. From a behavioral perspective, the characteristics of the brand are the importance of domestic leverage brand equity (mission, vision and values). Living Idea of brand has a strong link with the concept of a business orientation. Bik and King (2009 ) concluded in a study that the credit of a brand have a strong effect on purchase intention through increasing perceived quality, perceived value, saving information costs and with increasing perceived risk across service categories. Buniker Hoff and Dressler (2006 ) in a study " identify and rank the most important factors in enterprise brand loyalty by using Multi Criteria Decision Making " found the results that three groups of factors ( physical environment, confidence and competence of staff ) had a significant relationship with the customer brand loyalty. Monga and John (2006 ), in their study, considering that consumers perceive of brand value through proportionality development, notice this aspect of the evaluation that cultural differences can lead to differences in consumers' perceptions of appropriateness and thus differences in their assessment of the development and found that consumers with a comprehensive view and Western culture, higher perceived fit and therefore more positive evaluation of the brand value compared with consumers in Eastern cultures and analytic perspectives. Kim and John (2008), demonstrated in their study that the level of consumer s blatancy is working as a mediating variable in the relationship of consumers' perceived appropriateness of development and their response to the development. Xie (2008) showed in his paper that consumer s innovation, strongly affects the brand value held by consumers. Venkatewarlu & Lye (2000), in their study, which was conducted at the national level, proved that the brand kind (prestige-oriented and functional-oriented) and development class are important variables in shaping consumer attitudes to brand development. Voit (2001), investigated the role of internal and social dimensions of brand image on consumers' evaluation of brand development and found that if the internal dimensions of brand image and social be well- understood, brand value is assessed more positively by consumers. In the study of Boo and colleagues (2009), which conducted by a customer -based brand equity model and its application to multiple targets in the United States; in this study, experimental data are used to develop a brand model using customer -based brand equity model, and the validity and reliability of the model are explored. The results of this study support the concept of customer -based brand equity and brand awareness and moreover, show that awareness has a positive effect on brand value but can t have a direct effect on customer loyalty to the brand. In other words, a tourist who has a positive experience maybe not to be a loyal customer. According to that different researches, each one separately and dispersed investigated the effect of one dimension of brand equity on the attitudes and behaviors of consumers; as a result, this research studies the impact of branding on consumer purchasing behavior in an integrated manner. Research hypotheses 1. Brand experience has a significant impact on consumer buying behavior. 2. Brand Image has a significant influence on consumer buying behavior. 3. Perceived relevance has a significant impact on consumer buying behavior. 4. Brand satisfaction has a significant impact on consumer buying behavior. 5. Brand loyalty has a significant influence on consumer buying behavior 6. Brand trust has a significant influence on consumer buying behavior The research conceptual model 337

4 For the analytical model, the researcher can end in two different ways that there is no difference between them: either at first formulates the theories and then deals with concepts or passes the reverse path (Khaki, 2011 ); So, given the above argument, defined hypotheses, the supervision of experts in the field of marketing and branding and also based on the theoretical foundations of conceptual modeling of the study adopted form Shahin and others ( 2011) and Martinez and Pina (2010) has been designed and developed with the following. Materials and Methods Figure 1: The research conceptual model This research is functional in purpose, descriptive and surveying in the aspect of collecting data. To collect data library studies and a field study within consumers of food products are used in Mashhad. In the study the population society were from consumers of three food products brands in Industrial Estate of Mashhad in In this study, taking into account that the population size is infinite, simple random sampling and sampling formula for infinite population has been used that will be discussed in continue. If quantifying these variables is allowed (for example, we can define 1 to 5 values for Likert Spectrum ) the following equation can be used for estimating SD. max xj min (xj) σ = 6 And this formula is used for calculating the sample size. n = za/2 σ In this equation, z is the values of the standard normal probability (based on a table of standard normal probabilities); α is level errors; σ is the standard deviation and ε is researcher s expected accuracy that here SD is and standard normal probability according to table is 1.96 and the expected accuracy of the researcher is equal to 0.1 (Momeni and Fa al Ghayoumi, 1389). In the study according to the Likert Spectrum, standard deviation is given by: σ = 5 1 = And the desired sample size of this study is as follows: n = = Therefore, by the determination of sample size, 250 questionnaires were distributed to the target population, which 172 questionnaires were collected and 165 questionnaires analyzed. In the present study, a standard questionnaire consisting of fifty questions about the factors affecting consumer purchase behavior in relation to the dimensions of brand equity, based on Likert Spectrum (completely disagree, disagree, not agree and not disagree, agree and completely agree) has been acquired. In the present study, Cronbach's alpha coefficient is used for each variable to assess the reliability of questions of each variable and reliability of the whole of the questionnaire. The questionnaire have Cronbach's alpha reliability of 0.831that it is relatively well accepted. 2 The results of the data analysis To test the main hypothesis of the study the research s conceptual model and the pose of significant coefficients, has been used. In this case, if the T-Value be higher than 1.96 or lower than -1.96, the null 338

5 hypothesis is rejected and the hypothesis 1 is confirmed. However, previously using of Kolmogorov Smirnov test, data normality was confirmed. The first hypothesis test that was conducted using structural equations model, indicates that the structural model was fitted relevantly for to the test. Also through this test, a significant relationship between brand experience and consumer buying behavior was confirmed. The correlation coefficient is 3.28 and is significant because of the number is higher than It can be said that this is a fairly strong relationship. In the second hypothesis test, the relationship between brand image and consumer buying behavior is confirmed. The significance coefficient of this relationship is Similarly, the relationships between perceived proportion of the brand and consumer buying behavior, with a significance coefficient of 2.24, the relationship between brand satisfaction and consumer buying behavior, with a significance coefficient of 3.84, the relationship of brand loyalty and consumer buying behavior with a significance coefficient of 2.47 and a relationship of brand trust with the buying behavior of the consumer with a significance coefficient of 1.98, was confirmed. Discussion and conclusions Obtained results from this study showed that dimensions of brand s special value namely brand experience, brand trust, brand satisfaction, brand image, perceived fit and brand loyalty is effective in buying behavior of consumers. Among the variables studied in this research, brand satisfaction and brand experience respectively have the greatest impact on consumer purchasing behavior, other variables also significantly affect the buying behavior of consumers, therefore, the need for proper planning to increase the positive impact of these variables on the consumers' attitude on investigation of brand development is also essential. According to that the analysis of the hypothesis of this research has been conducted using Lisrel Software, Also note that if the path coefficients for each path in the T-Value is higher than 1.96, it can be generalized to the entire complex, We can use this model to assess consumer behavior in other industries too. This research helps active companies in the field of food products by focusing on variables that have the greatest impact on consumer buying behavior, to be Able to achieve a distinctive competitive advantage among their competitors. Although research such as the works of Aaker and Keller (1990 ), Battemly and Dileh (1961), Batemly and Haddon (2001) and Park et al (1991), examines different special dimensions of the brand on consumer attitudes but none of these dimensions are generally not reviewed on consumer buying behavior that in this study were examined. Given the importance of the brand satisfaction, the industry owners is recommended to invest on this dimension though sometimes it is perceived that consumer satisfaction is enough and no more, but it should be noted that customer satisfaction leads to his intentional or unintentional advertisement and this affair helps very much in improving brand image and attracting more loyal customers. References Aaker D.A. (1990). Brand extensions: The good, the bad and the ugly. Sloan Management Review, 31, Aaker D. & Keller K. (1990). Consumer Evaluations of Brand Extensions. Journal of Marketing, 54(1), Beristain J.J. & Zorrilla P. (2011). The relationship between store image and store brand equity: A conceptual framework and evidence from hypermarkets. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 18(1), Bhat S. & Reddy S.К. (2001). The impact of parent brand attribute associations and affect on brand extension evaluation. Journal of Business Research, 53, Boo S. Busser J. & Baloglu. (2009). A model of customer-based brand equity and its application to multiple destinations. Journal of Tourism Management, Chaudhuri A. & 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, 65 (2), Cobb-Walgren C.J. Cynthia A.R. & Naveen D. (1995). Brand equity, brand preference, and purchase intent. Journal of Advertising, 24(3),

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