1. Introduction: 2. Research Objectives: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1. Introduction: Brands have been one of the major marketing tools for the marketer. In order to meet the challenges faced by brands, researchers and marketers have identified a role for the Brand Equity construct. Keller (1993) has defined Customer Based Brand Equity as the differential effect of the brand knowledge on the customer response to the marketing of the brand. Customer Based Brand Equity occurs when the customer has a high level of awareness and familiarity with the brand and holds some strong, favourable and unique brand associations in memory (Keller, 2/e, pp95).these studies on Brand Equity indicate that Customer Based Brand Equity is the current marketing focus of the marketer. Compared to the big multinationals originating from USA, Japan, Korea etc, the branding expertise among Indian firms is considered to be low. A typical Indian firm has to compete with powerful Global brands as well as its own Indian competitors. As Memon (2011, pp.4) puts forward that the Indian customer is very choosy in selecting the brands and the market is obsessed with international brands. After reviewing the Indian Customer market for both Durable and FMCG sector, it becomes very important to make a study to analyse the strength of Customer Based Brand Equity and examine the impact of different underlying constructs of Brand Equity. 2. Research Objectives: Firstly, this study proposes to evaluate the different brand building blocks for Global and Indian brand by applying Customer Based Brand Equity Model for both FMCG and Consumer Durables as proposed by Keller (2001). This study then tries to find the spill over effect of different branding elements in developing brand equity of Global and Indian brands for FMCG and Durable products. The third objective of this study is to assess the performance of Global brands and Indian brands for FMCG and Durable products. Further it examines the influence of demographic factors on consumer s Brand Preference and Loyalty for FMCG and Durable products. iii

2 3. Research Questions: Q1. Whether advertising creates any impact on Customer Based Brand Equity Model for FMCG and Durable products? Q2. How family branding helps in generating brand equity for individual brands in Durable markets? 4. Research Hypothesis: The research hypotheses stated for this study are as follows: H 1 : Brand Trust is positively related to both (a) Purchase Loyalty and (b) Attitudinal Loyalty. This should hold true for FMCG, Durable goods. H 2 : Brand Affect is positively related to both (a) Purchase Loyalty and (b) Attitudinal Loyalty. This should hold true for FMCG, Durable goods. H 3 : Global Brand Preference is positively associated with actual possession and purchase intentions rather than Indian brands. This should hold true for FMCG, Durable goods. H 4 : Non product related attributes will have positive impact on Brand Preference (packaging, price and user Imagery). This should hold true for FMCG, Durable goods. 5. Research Methodology: The current research examines Keller s (1993) model of building Customer Based Brand Equity and certain aspects of Chaudhuri and Holbrook s (2001) model. In these studies both qualitative and quantitative data are used. The sampling frame includes the consumer s and the marketing professionals of Guwahati city. Secondary data had been collected from company professionals of different brands used in this study and the primary data being collected by questionnaire survey. The quantitative analysis tries to measure the different brand building blocks of the Customer Based Brand Equity. The conceptual definitions of different authors been used for identifying the determinants of the underlying constructs of Brand Equity. Two sets of questionnaires for both FMCG and Durable goods containing (34+45=79) questions had been administered as the primary research tool. The first part of the questionnaire covers demographic profile of the customers. The second part of the questionnaire is related to Top of mind regarding Brand Awareness. The third part of the questionnaire covers Brand Performance and last part of the questionnaire covers Brand Loyalty. A sample iv

3 size of 250 each for FMCG and Durable was selected for the survey. Judgement sampling was used for drawing these 250 samples. For this study, detergent sector has been taken for FMCG and White Goods sector for Durable products.based on the market share of different FMCG (detergent) and Durable products (White goods) the following brands had been selected for the study: FMCG (Ariel, Surf Excel, Tide, Henko, Ghari, Nirma, Rin) and Durables ( L.G. and Godrej). The selection of brands was done based on their market share. 6. Major Findings: The following are the major findings of the research: (i) From the Objective 1, the values of Customer Based Brand Equity (C.B.B.E.) are shown as follows: Brand name Value of C.B.B.E. in Percentage L.G. (Durable) Godrej (Durable) Ariel (FMCG) Surf Excel(FMCG) Tide(FMCG) Henko(FMCG) Rin(FMCG) Nirma(FMCG) Ghari(FMCG) Which indicates that Customer Based Brand Equity is highest for L.G. (77.71%) under Durable sector and for FMCG Customer Based Brand Equity is highest for Surf Excel (59.83%) (ii) The second objective of the study finds the spill over effect of different branding elements in developing Brand Equity of Global and Indian brands for both FMCG and Durable sector. For the Global brand L.G., Brand Uniqueness, Brand Performance and Brand Loyalty are found to have spill over effect on Brand Resonance ( used to measure Brand Equity ) However no spill over relationships being found between Brand Imagery and Brand Resonance. Similarly for the Indian brand Godrej, the spill over model v

4 supports that Brand Loyalty and Brand Performance positively contributing towards Brand Equity. In case of FMCG sector, for the Global brand Ariel, only one construct, i.e. Brand Loyalty positively affects the Brand Equity, and for the Indian brand Surf Excel, this model supports two constructs, i.e. Brand Loyalty and Brand Performance positively affects the Brand Equity. (iii) For third objective, under Durable sector, both the brands are highly evaluated in a seven point rating scale under six parameters to measure the Brand Performance. L.G. scored more in all the attributes, the difference is minimum for Durability (0.08) and maximum for Offer (0.51).While comparing the market share; it has been observed that the Global brand L.G. score more than the Indian brand Godrej for both Refrigerator and Washing machine segment under Durable sector. For FMCG sector: While comparing the performance for the Premium segment, Surf Excel scored high in all the attributes, under Mid Price segment, performance of Tide is higher compared to Rin and Henko. And under Popular segment, performance of Ghari is more than Nirma except in case of Cleanliness where both the brands scored equally. While comparing the market share, similar picture gets reflected, in Premium segment Surf Excel is the market leader, in Mid Priced segment Tide is dominating the market and Ghari is the market leader for the Popular segment. (iv) For Fourth objective, under Durable sector: (a) The results of cross tabulation shows that, the relationship between Age and Preference, Income and Preference, Age and Loyalty, Income and Loyalty are insignificant for Global brand L.G, stating that Demographic factors do not have any significant impact on preference of L.G. (b) The results of cross tabulation shows that only the relationship between Age and Loyalty is significant for the Indian brand Godrej. (a) The results of cross tabulation for FMCG shows that, the relationship between Age and Preference, Income and Preference, Age and Loyalty, Income and Loyalty are insignificant for all the detergent brands, except Ariel, where Income and Loyalty relationship is found to be significant. vi

5 (v) Findings of Research Question 1: The correlation coefficient between impact of advertisement and strength of Customer Based Brand Equity are significant for all the brands in both FMCG and Durable sector. (vi) Findings of Research Question 2: The Research Question 2 examines the influence of family branding on Durable sector. It has been observed from the study that, 76.4% respondent agrees with the statement that the family brand name influences the consumer positively while taking the buying decision for the same brand. (vii) Findings of Hypotheses 1: For Durables: The first hypothesis examines the impact of Attitudinal Loyalty and Purchase Loyalty on Brand Trust. The result of multiple regression analysis shows that for both Global and Indian brands under Durable sector, the influence of Attitudinal Loyalty and Purchase Loyalty on Brand Trust have positive relation, thus supporting the hypothesis. Similarly for the FMCG sector, the first hypothesis examines the impact of Attitudinal Loyalty and Purchase Loyalty on Brand Trust for the seven detergent brands which are Global and Indian brand. The result of multiple regression analysis for all the brands shows that for both Global and Indian brand under FMCG sector, the influences of Attitudinal Loyalty and Purchase Loyalty on Brand Trust is positive, thus supporting our hypothesis. Except for the Global brand Ariel, where Purchase Loyalty is not significant with Brand Trust, and for the brand Ghari, no relationship exist between Attitudinal Loyalty, Purchase Loyalty with Brand Trust. (viii) Findings of Hypotheses 2: For Durables: The second hypothesis examines the impact of Attitudinal Loyalty and Purchase Loyalty on Brand Affect. The result of multiple regression analysis shows that for both Global and Indian brand under Durable sector, the influences of Attitudinal vii

6 Loyalty and Purchase Loyalty on Brand Affect have positive relation, thus supporting the hypothesis. Similarly for the FMCG sector, the second hypothesis examines the impact of Attitudinal Loyalty and Purchase Loyalty on Brand Affect for the seven detergent brands which are Global and Indian brands. The result of multiple regression analysis for all the brands shows that for both Global and Indian brands under FMCG sector, the influences of Attitudinal Loyalty and Purchase Loyalty on Brand Affect are positive, thus supporting the hypothesis. Except for the Global brand Henko, where Purchase Loyalty has no relationship with Brand Affect. (ix) Findings of Hypotheses 3: The hypothesis 3, examines, the interaction effect of Brand Preferences (Global and Indian brands) with Actual Purchase and it is being tested by using ANCOVA with special emphasis on the interaction effect. For Durables: Purchase Preference of L.G. is found to be significant (but insignificant for Godrej) implying that Brand Preference (for Global and Indian brand) is strongly affected by the Purchase Preference of L.G. For Premium segment, Purchase Preference of Surf Excel is found to be significant (but insignificant for Ariel) implying that Brand Preference ( for Global and Indian brand) is strongly affected by the Purchase Preference of Surf Excel. For Mid Priced segment, Purchase Preference of Tide and Rin are found to be significant (but insignificant for Henko). For the Popular segment, Purchase Preference for Global and Indian brands are found to be insignificant. The independent variable (Actual Purchase) being also found to be significant (p= 0.05) for all the brands for both Durables and FMCG sector. viii

7 (x) Findings of Hypotheses 4: The fourth hypothesis examines the impact of Non Product related attributes on Brand Preference. The Non Product related attributes packaging and price was measured in a seven point rating scale. User Imagery is measured by Income and Occupation of the respondent. The result of ANCOVA analysis shows that for the Global brand LG, only Income level has a positive impact on Brand Preference and for the Indian brand Godrej (Durable), both Income level and Product appearance have a positive impact on Brand Preference supporting our hypothesis partially. Similarly for the FMCG sector, the result of ANCOVA analysis shows that for both the Global and the Indian brands, only Income level has a positive impact on Brand Preference. ix