Antecedents and outcome of consumer brand identification empirical evidence from viet nam

The conceptual model includes three drivers of CBI brand distinctiveness, brand warmth, and memorable brand experiences, a moderator product category involvement, and one outcome brand a

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Truong Thi Phan Thiet

ANTECEDENTS AND OUTCOME OF CONSUMER BRAND IDENTIFICATION:

EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM VIET NAM

MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honours)

Ho Chi Minh City, Year 2014

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business -

Truong Thi Phan Thiet

ANTECEDENTS AND OUTCOME OF CONSUMER BRAND IDENTIFICATION:

EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM VIET NAM

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratefulness to my supervisor Dr Nguyen Thi Mai Trang for her professional guidance, intensive advice, valuable support, continuous encouragement that she gave me during the time doing this research

Secondly, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to ISB Research Committee (IRC) The critical comments and suggestions of committee have contributed significantly for

me to complete this research

My truly thanks are also given to my ISB classmates as well as all people I know who participated in filling the questionnaires and provided the valuable information for this study

Last but not least, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all professors at ISB for their teaching and guidance during my last two-year master course

Truong Thi Phan Thiet

November 2014

ABSTRACT

The concept of consumer-brand identification (CBI) mentions the way brands help consumers articulate their identities Based on prior researches in foreign countries, this study proposes and tests an integrative theoretical framework of the antecedents and consequence

of CBI in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

The conceptual model includes three drivers of CBI (brand distinctiveness, brand warmth, and memorable brand experiences), a moderator (product category involvement), and one outcome (brand advocacy) are posited and tested with survey data from a sample of

523 consumers in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

The results show that there are only two antecedents merged from items of three proposed drivers at the beginning: brand distinctiveness and memorable brand experiences The study confirms the positive influence of two new drivers to CBI, as well as the positive relationship between CBI and its consequence - brand advocacy Further, this research find that product category involvement do not have moderate role in the effect of each antecedent

to CBI Finally, theoretical and managerial significance of the findings are discussed

Key words: Consumer-brand identification, Brand advocacy, Brand distinctiveness,

Brand warmth, Memorable brand experiences, Product category involvement

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT i

ABSTRACT ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

ABBREVIATION vi

LIST OF FIGURES vi

LIST OF TABLES vi

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 RESEARCH BACKGROUND 1

1.2 RESEARCH PROBLEMS 4

1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES 5

1.4 RESEARCH DESIGN 5

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 5

1.6 THE STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY 6

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES 7

2.1 THE CONCEPT OF CONSUMER–BRAND IDENTIFICATION 7

2.2 ANTECEDENTS OF CBI 9

2.2.1 Brand distinctiveness 9

2.2.2 Brand warmth 10

2.2.3 Memorable brand experiences 11

2.3 OUTCOME OF CBI: BRAND ADVOCACY 12

2.4 PRODUCT CATEGORY INVOLVEMENT AS A MODERATOR 12

2.5 THE CONCEPTUAL MODEL 13

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 16

3.1 RESEARCH PROCESS 16

3.2 MEASURES OF THE CONSTRUCTS 19

3.2.1 Consumer-brand identification 19

3.2.2 Brand distinctiveness 19

3.2.3 Brand warmth 20

3.2.4 Memorable brand experiences 20

3.2.5 Product category involvement 20

3.2.6 Brand advocacy 21

3.3 QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN 21

3.3.1 Qualitative research 22

3.3.2 Quantitative research 23

3.4 DATA ANALYSIS METHOD 24

3.4.1 Tests for reliability 25

3.4.2 Tests for validity 25

3.4.3 Tests for main effects 26

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND DATA RESULTS 28

4.1 SAMPLE CHARACTERISTICS 28

4.2 THE RELIABILITY TEST: THE CRONBACH’S ALPHA TEST 29

4.3 EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS (EFA) 30

4.3.1 Results of EFA for independent variables 32

4.3.2 Results of EFA for dependent variables, mediate variable and moderator variable 34

4.3.3 Correlation analysis of new dependent variables and independent variables 37 4.4 REGRESSION ANALYSIS 37

4.4.1 Multiple regression analysis 38

4.4.2 Simple linear regression 40

4.4.3 Assessment the moderator impact by Hierarchical Multiple Regression 41

4.5 EXPLANATION FOR THE FINDING RESULTS OF THE HYPOTHESES 44

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS, AND LIMITATIONS 48

5.1 CONCLUSIONS 48

5.2 MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS 48

5.3 LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH 50

References 52

Appendix A: Guideline For Qualitative In-Depth Interview 57

Appendix B: Bilingual Questionnaire English – Vietnamse 58

Appendix C: Results of Total Variance Explained 66

Appendix D: Scatter Plot, Histogram & Standardized for Multiple Regression 67

Appendix E: Scatter Plot, Histogram & Standardized for Simple Regression 70

ABBREVIATION

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 Conceptual framework 14

Figure 3.1 The research process 18

Figure 4.1 Refined model 33

LIST OF CHARTS Chart 4.1 Scatter Plot Multiple Regression 67

Chart 4.2 Histogram Multiple Regression 68

Chart 4.3 Standardized for Multiple Regression 69

Chart 4.4 Scatter Plot Simple Linear Regression 70

Chart 4.5 Histogram Simple Linear Regression 71

Chart 4.6 Standardized for Simple Linear Regression 72

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1 Coding of Consumer-brand identification item scales 19

Table 3.2 Coding of Brand distinctiveness item scales 19

Table 3.3 Coding of Brand warmth item scales 20

Table 3.4 Coding of Memorable brand experiences item scales 20

Table 3.5 Coding of Product category involvement item scales 21

Table 3.6 Coding of Brand advocacy item scales 21

Table 3.7 The results of collecting questionnaires 24

Table 4.1 Sample Characteristics 28

Table 4.2 The results of Cronbach’ alpha 29

Table 4.3 Pearson Correlations of all variables 31

Table 4.4 Result of KMO and Bartlett's Test 31

Table 4.5 Total Variance Explained of Independent Variables 66

Table 4.6 Rotated Component Matrix of Independent Variables 32

Table 4.7 The results of Cronbach’ alpha for new variables in Refined model 34

Table 4.8 Total Variance Explained of CBI 66

Table 4.9 Component Matrix of CBI 35

Table 4.10 Total Variance Explained of Brand Advocacy 35

Table 4.11 Component Matrix of Brand Advocacy 36

Table 4.12 Total Variance Explained of PCI 36

Table 4.13 Component Matrix of PCI 37

Table 4.14 Pearson Correlations of dependent and independent variables 37

Table 4.15 Model Summary - Multiple Regression 38

Table 4.16 Residuals Statistics - Multiple Regression 39

Table 4.17 ANOVA - Multiple Regression 39

Table 4.18 Coefficients - Multiple Regression 40

Table 4.19 Model Summary - Simple Regression 40

Table 4.20 ANOVA - Simple Regression 41

Table 4.21 Coefficients - Simple Regression 41

Table 4.22 Correlations - Hierarchical Multiple Regression 42

Table 4.23 Model Summary - Hierarchical Multiple Regression 43

Table 4.24 ANOVA - Hierarchical Multiple Regression 43

Table 4.25 Coefficients - Hierarchical Multiple Regression 44

Table 4.26 Summary of hypotheses testing result 47

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 RESEARCH BACKGROUND

From the early 2000s, Vietnam has applied sequenced trade liberalization, a two-track approach opening some sectors of the economy to international markets while protecting others In July 2006, Vietnam updated its intellectual property legislation to comply with TRIPS, and it became a member of the WTO on 11 January 2007 At a result, more and more international brands enter to the domestic market The customers have more options when making purchase decision

Besides, the explosive growth in internet use is fundamentally changing Vietnam’s economy and society Internet surpassed newspapers and radio to become popular media in Vietnam, according to Net Index survey in 2011 (Sem Vietnam, 2011) Accordingly, e-mail (60%) and text messaging (73%) are two means of connecting online vogue Seeing news online, accessing the portal home page and searching via engines are three online activities most common in turn accounted for 97%, 96%, and 96% of the participants (Sem Vietnam, 2011) Sem Vietnam (2011) also reports the number of users participating in social networks increased from 41% in 2010 to 55% in 2011 The Vietnamese, especially the youth, now can easily approach the information of products, and interested in the concepts “brand” and

“personal identification” more than ever This matter is clearly indicate when Vietnamese people making purchase decision for high-involvement products

For tangible products, when the information tends to digital and online from universities to offices, there is a tendency of increasing rapidly in need of high-tech devices such as laptop in Vietnam Laptop becomes one of important and popular devices for both academic and business purposes However, since 2009, sales of laptop have been influenced greatly from the powerful explosion of smart mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets Results of the survey research firm NDP are conducted in the end of 2012 recorded a spectacular growth of tablet devices and smartphones, and this has contributed to the pressure that makes the number of laptops in global decrease This tendency is not exclusive of Vietnam The narrower the laptop market is gradually narrow due to the sharply increasing

of smart phones and tablets, the competition between laptops manufactures is fiercer In 2013,

this fight in laptop market even more decisive

For services, to adapt with integration trend, the need to learn and improve foreign languages in general, and English in particular is rising dramatically At a consequence, the language center, especially in big city as Ho Chi Minh City race to catch up the growing up trend According to the Department of Education and Training in Ho Chi Minh City, in 2009, the city had 207 foreign language training institutions, accounting for 41.24% of the total number of training institutions hours culture of the city By 2010, this number had increased

to 217 (Nam Tu & Nguyen Tuan, 2010) However, in contrast to the amount of development, the quality of teaching has exposed many shortcomings of concern There still no formal assessment of the quality of teaching in these language centers, people who need to study usually search references in the individual posts on the internet

According to Nielsen Research Company, although the index of consumer confidence Vietnam increased in the first quarter of 2013, including significant demand for technology products; nevertheless, choosing the products that align finance ability still the mainstream of customers The development of the internet in Vietnam creates for consumers the easier approach to market information, reliable research results, and expert opinion Basing on this facilitation, consumers could make decision deliberately and wisely Thus, competition becomes harsher and the role of brand becomes more important

From the early decades of the 21st century, in generally Vietnam enterprises have certain awareness of the importance and significance of branding issues and its role for the development of the corporation Branding is one of the important determinants of corporate positions, which contribute significantly to improving efficiency competitiveness However, the concept of the corporate brand in Vietnam remains largely derived from short-term goals, immediate benefits, under the pressure of sales, lack of long-term vision, and even contains emotional nature In fact, many businesses are not fully aware of the need to build and brand development, wasting a lot of time and may miss many good opportunities benefit due to there are no explicit brand strategy Besides, Vietnam corporations still not appreciated the contribution of elements related to customer identification in branding

During the last decade of 20th century to first ten years of the 21st century, many

researchers have confirmed that one of fundamental aspects of the human condition is striving for a sense of self (Belk, 1988; Berger & Heath, 2007; Brewer, 1991; Kleine, Kleine, & Kernan, 1993; Tajfel & Turner, 1985) Furthermore, what a person buy, own, and consume define himself or herself to others as well as to ourselves, or we can say succinctly as Belk (1988, p 160), “we are what we have” In this domain, brands have the ability to embody, inform, and communicate desirable consumer identities (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003; Escalas, 2004; Escalas & Bettman, 2003, 2009; Fournier, 1998, 2009; Lam, Ahearne, Hu, & Schillewaert, 2010; Levy, 1959; Strizhakova, Coulter, & Price, 2008; Tsai, 2005) Just as brands create functional and emotional value for consumers (de Chernatony et al., 2011), brand advocacy is one form of value creation by customers in this way Consumers become

“brand advocates” when they are highly involved with a brand, and offer invaluable positive

word of mouth (WOM) about the brand to others (Wragg, 2004) This is the way to enhance

competitive edges for businesses

Besides, a growing body of studies has focused on what it means for consumers to identify with brands and the implications of such consumer-brand identification for both consumer behavior and effective brand management (e.g., Chernev, Hamilton, & Gal, 2011; Escalas & Bettman, 2003, 2009; Lam et al., 2010) In other approach, Stokburger-Sauer et al (2012) have defined the antecedents and consequences of consumer-brand identification

In the context of the Vietnamese economy, with a population structure that the young people accounts for more than half, whom in the rapid development of e-commerce as well

as social media networks have better understanding of the brand, the struggle in competition for corporation is more diversified and competing to maintain the commitment of customers Therefore, acknowledge of consumer-brand identification could bring considerable significance and contribution in evaluating marketing strategy as well as brand development

of a business

1.2 RESEARCH PROBLEMS

In Vietnam, the customers’ awareness about brand grows more and more with the entry

of worldwide brand The crucial role of brands in the construction and maintenance of consumers' identities is not new (Keller, 1993; Levy, 1959) However, during the first decade

of the 21st century, the researches about identification of customer with a brand conducted in Vietnam context still scared Therefore, the manager in the Vietnamese corporations had lacked of the vision about applying consumer-brand identification in building brand advocacy for creating advantage competition

In order to fulfill this gap, this study is going to be examined the antecedents and outcome of consumer-brand identification, which had several reliable studies in abroad (Escalas & Bettman, 2003; Lam et al., 2010; Nicola et al., 2012; Papista & Dimitriadis, 2012; Donavan et al., 2006; Kuenzel and Hallyday, 2008; Stokburger-Sauer et al., 2012) According

to these studies, a brand can effect customer identification through key elements come from the unique, distinctive of product or service Besides, the positive impressions and emotions about a brand also have the significant contribution to customer-brand identification The studies mentioned above also propose there is a relationship between experiences customer had when using a product or service with the way customer identified themselves with their brand In the context of the Vietnamese economy, with the explosion of information technology, social network and the speedy entry of worldwide brands, among factors that these researches recognize as drivers of consumer-brand identification, there are three prominent factors are brand distinctiveness, brand warmth, and memorable brand experiences

Based on the discussions about the consequence of consumer-brand identification from these researches, this study also assesses the effect of consumer-brand identification to important outcome - brand advocacy In addition, this research also considers the moderate

of product involvement factor for an insight view about consumer-brand identification and brand advocacy in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

The overall objective of this study is to examine the impact of three factors (brand distinctiveness, brand warmth, memorable brand experiences) on consumer-brand identification as well as the effect of consumer-brand identification on brand advocacy in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

In additional, it examines the moderating effect of product category involvement on the relationship between each of three antecedents and consumer-brand identification,

All items in this study are measured by a seven-point Likert scale from “1 = strongly disagree” to “7 = strongly agree” This study uses convenience sample, self-administered survey method The sample size at 523 observations, 1080 questionnaires is delivered to participants via email or hard copy Data was analyzed with SPSS 22, Cronbach alpha were used to examine the reliability, EFA were used for test the validity; and Regression Analysis (Linear, Multiple, and Hierarchical) was taken for test hypotheses

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Through assessment the effect of brand distinctiveness, brand warmth and memorable brand experiences to consumer-brand identification then impact to brand advocacy, we can approach more effective branding strategies, which recognize the importance role of consumer-brand identification in Vietnam context In addition, the study provides specific tactics for managers in Vietnamese corporations in order to control and consolidate antecedents of consumer-brand identification Besides, based on the results of this study, we can define the direction to apply consumer-brand identification in building brand advocacy

Thereby, Vietnamese corporations can enhance and maintain sustainable competitive advantages from competitors

1.6 THE STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY

This paper includes five chapters:

* Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter presents the research background of the study, research problems, research objectives, research scopes, and methodology The significance of the study, and the research structure also be mentioned

* Chapter 2: Literature review and hypotheses

In this part, the author refers the fundamental theories and definition of each mentioned concept Besides, the authors make comparison prior researches to discuss more deeply about the relationship between construct Based on these foundations, the author presents theoretical modeling as well as proposes hypotheses and the conceptual model of the study

* Chapter 3: Research Methodology

The content of this chapter details about the research design, methodology and illustrate the process of conducting the research The measurement of constructs, the questionnaire design, sample, and chosen data analysis method are discussed in details

* Chapter 4: Data analysis and data results

For this chapter, the author summaries the characteristics of collected samples and presents the results of the research after analyzing collected data, both for measurement model and structural model From that result, the author draws the conclusions for the research hypotheses proposed in Chapter 2

* Chapter 5: Conclusions, implications and limitations

This chapter performs the main results of the research, the contribution of the study in management theory and practice as well as the limitations of the study for future research

direction

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES

In this chapter, the researcher presents the literature review, proposed hypotheses, and conceptual framework of the research Firstly, this chapter discusses the construct consumer-brand identification Secondly, three antecedents of consumer-brand identification are presented deeply Thirdly, the authors consider the outcome of consumer-brand identification The chapter continues with discussion about the moderate role of Product category involvement Finally, the author summarizes all proposed hypothesis and illustrated them through the conceptual model

2.1 THE CONCEPT OF CONSUMER–BRAND IDENTIFICATION

As Levy (1959) mentioned a brand can be recognize as carrier of symbolic meanings When a person consider to brand of the product when making purchasing decision, it means that person not only buy that product, but also the value contained in its brands In that way, own a product can help consumer satisfy their desires for reveal or confirm their identity at a certain level Hence, the self-identity has a relationship closely with brand of product, in the other approach that is the organization identity This opinion is supported by organizational behavior literature, wherein identification typically has been mentioned as a perception of oneness with or belongingness to some human aggregate (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Bergami

& Bagozzi, 2000; Bhattacharya et al., 1995; Mael & Ashforth, 1992; Stuart, 2002) Stokburger-Sauer et al (2012) defined consumer-brand identification as a consumer's perceived state of oneness with a brand, is a valid and potent expression of our quest for identity-fulfilling meaning in the marketplace of brands

This idea also persistent with study of Tajfel & Turner (1985) about social identity theory, which declared through the connection of an individual with social groups or organizations, that person defines his or her self-concept to enhance self-esteem Bhattacharya and Sen (2003) in the research about consumer-company identification also state identification with a company as an active, selective, and volitional act motivated by the satisfaction of one or more self-definitional needs However, state of consumer-brand identification is not exactly the same with the process of comparison of self-identity with

brand identity It could be considered as an aspect of self-brand connection

Escalas and Bettman (2003, 2009) define the construct of self-brand connections as the extent to which an individual has incorporated a brand into his or her self-concept Besides, the constructs in related researches such as brand-self connection of Park et al (2010), self-connection from Fournier's study (2009) provide narrower notions about consumer-brand identification Comparing with Escalas and Bettman (2003, 2009), these author excludes the potential motivations guiding such self-brand connections, which could not really contribute to consumer-brand identification in their studies

In a different approach, Lam et al (2010) definied consumer-brand identification as a customer's psychological state of perceiving, feeling, and valuing his or her belongingness with a brand (p 130) Accordingly, these authors considered consumer-brand identification

as a formative construct composed of three dimensions:

(1) The cognitive dimension which similar to the notion of cognitive organizational identification in the study of Bergami and Bagozzi (2000),

(2) The emotional consequences of brand usage serve,

(3) “Evaluative consumer-brand identification”, defined as “whether the consumer thinks the psychological oneness with the brand is valuable to him or her individually and socially” (Lam et al., 2010, p 137)

However, Stokburger-Sauer et al., (2012) do not agree that brand partner value as part

of the construct of identification These authors respect that the social benefits of a brand can actually influence brand identification, thereby serving as an antecedent to the construct rather than being an integral part of it Bergami and Bagozzi (2000) argue that the emotional consequences of identification must be kept separate from the state of identification Consistent with the theory of Park et al (2010); Bergami and Bagozzi (2000); and Stokburger-Sauer et al (2012), this paper view consumer-brand identification primarily as a cognitive representation, albeit one that can have an abundance of emotional associations More generally, this paper regard consumer-brand identification as different from the pure emotional bond, that is embodied in the concepts of emotional brand attachment (Malär, Krohmer, Hoyer, & Nyffenegger, 2011) and brand love (Batra, Ahuvia, & Bagozzi, 2012;

Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006)

2.2 ANTECEDENTS OF CBI

The need for identification is thought to be motivated by one or more higher-order definitional needs (Brewer, 1991; Kunda, 1999; Tajfel & Turner, 1985) The need for uniqueness is the outstanding among them This type of needs are likely to drive identification

self-in the consumption domaself-in are that for self-distself-inctiveness (Berger & Heath, 2007; Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003; Chernev et al., 2011) Based on this drivers, the identification with

a brand is related to the extent to which a person perceives the brand to have the distinctiveness

Besides, many theories of social identity and identification based on self-definitional needs mainly focus on the cognitive construction of the self Hence, these theories do not fully recognize for the nature of the factor that glue consumers to brands Meanwhile, brands are things that we consume, often over time and repeatedly, thereby implicating aspects of the consumption experience itself as integral to why we identify with some brands and not many others (Escalas, 2004; Escalas & Bettman, 2003; Fournier, 1998; Holt, 2005; McAlexander

et al., 2002; Thompson et al., 2006; Thomson et al., 2005) Therefore, Stokburger-Sauer et al., (2012) consider the phenomenology of consumers' interactions with brands and proffer additional antecedent factors of consumer-brand identification These antecedents include to which consumers (1) feel that interactions with a brand help them connect with important social others, (2) perceive a brand warmth, and (3) have interesting memories of brand experiences In summary, this study is focus on three antecedents: brand distinctiveness, brand warmth, and memorable brand experiences

2.2.1 Brand distinctiveness

People strive to distinguish themselves from others in social contexts (e.g., Tajfel & Turner, 1985) Snyder and Fromkin (1977) submit the theory of uniqueness positions, which consider the need of distinctiveness as a key component of people's drive to feel good about themselves (i.e., self-esteem) Brewer (1991) has developed this theme further in the theory

of optimal distinctiveness, which suggests that people attempt to resolve the fundamental tension between their need to be similar to others and their need to be unique by identifying with groups that satisfy both needs

Tepper Tian et al (2001) has talk about the expression of distinctiveness in the consumption realm is perhaps reflected in the labeled as consumer's “need for uniqueness” This construct defined as “an individual's pursuit of differentness relative to others that is achieved through the acquisition, utilization, and disposition of consumer goods for the purpose of developing and enhancing one's personal and social identity” (p 50)

Therefore, this study posits the brand distinctiveness is a key precursor to a consumer's desire to identify with that brand (see also Berger & Heath, 2007) The research of Thompson

et al (2006), which has documented that consumers often seek to affirm their identities via

consumption of brands that are perceived as being the polar opposites of mass-production, mass-consumption brands, provides further support for this argument

Stokburger-Sauer et al., (2012) say, all else being equal, brands with identities that set them apart from their rivals will be more likely to be identified with, provided, of course, that the basis of this distinctiveness is not perceived as entirely undesirable or negative Hence, brand distinctiveness can be defined as the perceived uniqueness of a brand's identity in relation to its competitors It means the more a consumer perceives a brand to be distinctive, the more the person will identify with that brand

H1 There is a positive relationship between brand distinctiveness and

consumer-brand identification

2.2.2 Brand warmth

Research in the person's perception area provides a similar dichotomy by theorizing that the content of people's stereotypes can be organized with two key perceptual dimensions,

“warmth” and “competence” (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002)

Stokburger-Sauer et al., (2012) suggest that a similar warm versus cold distinction can

be applied to brands Based on a brand's product category, its positioning via marketing communications (e.g., Apple vs Dell; Rathnayake, 2008), and its salient or differentiating

attributes, the brand's personality can come across as relatively warm or cold (Aaker, 1997; Fournier, 1998; Keller, 2004) Furthermore, the warm-cold distinction as applied to brands is relatively independent of perceptions of brand quality, reliability, and functionality in the case

of person perception (Fiske et al., 2002) Therefore, a brand is perceived in warm, emotional terms rather than in cold, rational ways is a key determinant of consumer-brand identification

This conception is expressed by research on brand love, the passionate attachments that some consumers form with brands, which is associated primarily with hedonic brands (Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006) Accordingly, warm brands are properly stronger and more meaningful candidates for identification than cold brands, and consumers will have more intense feelings about warmer brands and the role of those brands in their lives than they will about colder brands (Fournier, 1998; Park et al., 2010)

H2 There is a positive relationship between brand warmth and consumer-brand

identification

2.2.3 Memorable brand experiences

Brands vary in the extent to which they provide their consumers with memorable experiences (Stokburger-Sauer et al., 2012) Park et al., (2010) say, some brands do not occupy a salient position in memory in spite of frequent usage, while other brands, even when infrequently used, can leave an indelible, affectively charged mark on the consumer's consciousness Hence, these brands make the consumer periodically relives the positive experience

The work of Arnould and Price (1993) documents the nature of such emotional as well

as memorable brand experiences stemming from an extraordinary consumption activity Escalas (2004), Sujan et al (1993) also give further supported for the role of memorable brand experiences is by consumer research on autobiographical memories and narrative processing

Accordingly, memorable brand experiences is an antecedent of consumer-brand identification, which defined as the extent to which consumers have positive, affectively charged memories of prior brand experiences Such brands are more likely to play a defining role in a person's sense of self due to increased co-mingling of brand-related thoughts with

self-related thoughts (Davis, 1979; Moore & Wilkie, 2005) Additionally, such experiences are often likely to result from narrative rather than discursive processing, as the former has been found to build stronger connections between the consumer and the brand (Escalas, 2004)

H3 There is a positive relationship between memorable brand experiences and

consumer-brand identification

2.3 OUTCOME OF CBI: BRAND ADVOCACY

Advocacy, in other words, the promotion of the identified-with organization or company is one of the key consequences of identification (e.g., Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003) and can take place both socially and physically Socially, advocacy includes the recommendation to others or the defense of the company when it is attacked by others (Stokburger-Sauer et al., 2012) Physically, advocacy can involve buying and using company merchandise that displays the company logo or name, collecting memorabilia, apparel, or even acquiring tattoos (Katz, 1994)

Accordingly, Stokburger-Sauer et al., (2012) suggest that CBI produce brand advocacy, at least in the social sense of the brand's promotion to social others Park et al (2010) also report a strong influence of brand attachment on such promotion behavior Furthermore, the research of Ahearne et al (2005) shows that customer-company identification affects customer extra-role behaviors, which was measured in part through company recommendation Therefore, this study expects CBI has positively related to brand advocacy

H4 There is a positive relationship between consumer-brand identification and brand

advocacy

2.4 PRODUCT CATEGORY INVOLVEMENT AS A MODERATOR

Product category involvement (PCI) is generally understood as the perceived relevance

of a product category to an individual consumer based on his or her inherent values, needs, and interests (Zaichkowsky, 1985) There are two reason for expecting PCI as a moderate

factor in the relationship between the various antecedents and CBI

First, as Bloch & Richins (1983) suggests, product categories are more enticing to people when they associate them with important higher-order goals, such as value satisfaction Second, people are more motivated to systematically process information pertaining to categories with which they are more involved (Chen & Chaiken, 1999)

Stokburger-Sauer et al (2012) document: “All else being equal, consumers' knowledge structures regarding high (vs low) involvement product categories are more likely to contain deeply processed and highly elaborated beliefs regarding brands' abilities to meet self-definitional needs To the extent that judgments of a brand's standing with regard to each of the six posited antecedent variables, and an assessment of the implications of these perceptions for identification, require cognitive resources and effort, these influences are more likely to materialize in product categories where the consumer is highly involved That

is, high (vs low) PCI should enhance not only a brand's perceived ability to meet a consumer's self-definitional needs but also a person's motivation to process relevant information in that regard”

H5 The higher a consumer's involvement in the product category in which a brand

belongs, the stronger the relationship between (a) brand distinctiveness and consumer-brand identification, (b) brand warmth and consumer-brand identification, and (c) memorable brand experiences and consumer-brand identification

2.5 THE CONCEPTUAL MODEL

Based on the review of the previous literature and hypotheses presented, the following conceptual model is proposed

Figure 2.1 Conceptual framework

In summary, this chapter mentions about definition and theoretical background of each concept in the model From previous literature, there are three antecedents affect consumer-brand identification: brand distinctiveness, brand warmth, and memorable brand experiences Besides, brand advocacy is the outcome of consumer-brand identification The research also considers Product category involvement as a moderator factor There are seven hypotheses in this research as following:

 H1: There is a positive relationship between consumer-brand identification and brand

Consumer- Brand Identification

H 2 (+) Brand Warmth

H 3 (+)

Memorable Brand

Experiences

 H5a: The higher a consumer's involvement in the product category in which a brand

belongs, the stronger the relationship between brand distinctiveness and brand identification;

consumer- H5b: The higher a consumer's involvement in the product category in which a brand

belongs, the stronger the relationship between brand warmth and consumer-brand identification;

 H5c: The higher a consumer's involvement in the product category in which a brand

belongs, the stronger the relationship between memorable brand experiences and consumer-brand identification

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter mentions the research methodology applied to examine the research framework developed in prior chapter At first, the author introduces research process, present measurement scale, and generates surveyed questionnaires Next, data collection methods and sampling design are discussed Finally, the author presents data analysis methods using for report the research data

3.1 RESEARCH PROCESS

After determining the research problem, in order to find the answer for research questions, the author reviewed previous literatures to find out relevant constructs associated with the research objective as Based on the foundation of these notions, the author proposed the research model and hypotheses The prior chapters presented these steps in details Continuously, the author dressed a design for research to define unit of observation and analysis, resources of data, data collecting methods, measurement scale, sample, and data analysis methods

According to research design, this research used primary data that collected from consumers have experienced using high involvement products In Vietnam context, the high-tech devices and education service are high involvement products As Chapter 1 mentioned, with the explosive growth in internet use, information tends to digital and online from universities to offices As a result, the need of using high-tech devices increasing rapidly, laptop becomes one of important and popular devices for both business and private purposes

Besides, for adapting the integration trend, need to learn and improve foreign languages especially in English is rising dramatically The language centers, especially in big city as Ho Chi Minh City race to catch up the growing up trend Consequently, the customers have more choices, and through the support of internet, customers became wiser in making decisions, which center are the most suitable with their need

Therefore, the author selected laptops to represent for high involvement tangible product, and chose English courses of language center in Ho Chi Minh City as representative for high involvement service in context of HCMC, Vietnam to conduct survey A

questionnaire survey design for both these products was used as the data collecting method Draft questionnaires included the measurement scales borrowed from previous studies, were designed and translated into Vietnamese After revising according to the comments and advices of researcher’s supervisor, the draft questionnaire was launched to respondents Each participant was asked if they used product before answer Panel members were asked via email or hard copy questionnaires

The research process comprised two phases: a pilot survey and a main study The pilot study was conducted by qualitative method and a main survey by quantitative method In the pilot study, the in-depth interview was conducted to adjust the measurement scales Continuously, in the main study, the final questionnaire was used in to collect data for data analysis process (reliability analysis, validity analysis and hypotheses testing) Based on the analysis results, conclusions and recommendations were discussed to complete the research Figure 3.1 illustrated the whole process of the research

 Deliver the questionnaire

 Data collecting and cleaning

 Data set preparation

Report the results and conclusion

Figure 3.1 The research process

3.2 MEASURES OF THE CONSTRUCTS

Based on the literature, the researcher set up the survey instrument, using scales that were already validated in previous studies All items used in the survey involved 7-point from completely agree to completely disagree Likert scales

3.2.1 Consumer-brand identification

Measurement of consumer-brand identification was based on scale of Nicola Stokburger-Sauer, S Ratneshwar, and Sankar Sen (2012) Consumer-brand identification scale items for this study are symbolized by CBI, included five items as in Table 3.1

Table 3.1 Coding of Consumer-brand identification item scales

I feel a strong sense of belonging to brand X CBI1

Brand X has a great deal of personal meaning CBI5

Brand X creates warm feelings among its users BW1

Brand X is emotional rather than rational BW3

3.2.4 Memorable brand experiences

Table 3.4 presented the coding of three items used for measurement the construct memorable brand experiences These items were taken from scale of Gladden and Funk (2001)

Table 3.4 Coding of Memorable brand experiences item scales

I have had a lot of memorable experiences with brand X MBE1

Thinking of brand X brings back good memories MBE2

3.2.5 Product category involvement

Product category involvement was assessed with four items based on prior research (e.g., Mittal & Lee, 1988) The coding and content of each item were shown in table 3.5 In the questionnaire, the word “product category” was replaced by the name of particular product

of service This study conducted for one tangible product and one service; therefore, there are two questionnaires with the different in the name of product category

Table 3.5 Coding of Product category involvement item scales

I am very interested in anything related to [product category,

Which brand of [laptop/English course] I buy matters a lot PCI2

I value [laptop/English course] as an important part of my

life [Laptop/English course] mean a lot to me PCI3

3.2.6 Brand advocacy

Brand advocacy was measured by three items from previous research (e.g., Brown, Barry, Dacin, & Gunst, 2005) These scale items for this study are symbolized by BA, detail content in Table 3.6

Table 3.6 Coding of Brand advocacy item scales

I like recommending brand X to other consumers BA1

I love to talk about the good points of brand X to people I

I have managed to convince other people to buy brand X BA3

All items of six constructs were initially developed in English by Stokburger-Sauer et

al (2012) then translated into Vietnamese and finally translated back into English to verify vocabulary, idiomatic, grammatical, and syntactical equivalence (Steenkamp, ter Hofstede,

& Wedel, 1999) Based on feedbacks after in-depth interview with eight participant, the questionnaire is adjusted some minor changes in the wording of the items

3.3 QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN

Based on literature review in literature review about (i) the impact of consumer-brand

identification to brand advocacy; (ii) the effect of three antecedents (brand distinctiveness, brand warmth, and memorable brand experiences) to consumer-brand identification, the researcher proposed hypotheses that were presented in operation model Figure 2.1 After that, the author selected the preliminary the scale for questionnaire of the study The original transferred questionnaire was in English, and was translated into Vietnamese by the author in the first time for survey After receiving the feedback from supervisor and consultants, the author adjusted the semantics of Vietnamese version, adapting for each product (laptop and English course) Therefore, a back-translation by an author and some consultants was also carried out to ensure equivalence of meanings

Each questionnaire included three parts: (A) screening question, (B) measurement scales using a seven-point Likert scale to ask respondents choose one item that ranged from (1) completely disagree to (7) completely agree; (C) was some general demographic information of the respondent Both bilingual versions (Vietnamese and English) of the questionnaire for laptop and English course are showed in Appendix B

3.3.1 Qualitative research

When finishing the preliminary questionnaire, the researcher conducted the in-depth interviews with eight people in Ho Chi Minh City, from different majors with excellent English skills, and had experiences using laptop and English course When undertook the in-depth interview, each member was ask to answer the questionnaires and comment to the researcher to make the questionnaire appropriated and more understandable in the context of studying The researcher recorded significant feedbacks and suggestions from the interviewees to revise the content of these items in the context of Vietnamese consumers, review the content for meaning of words used in the initial measurement scales, and modify them to be more suitable and comprehensible After finished the in-depth interview, the author adjust the measurement scales, and improve for the official questionnaire (see Appendix A)

3.3.2 Quantitative research

After the qualitative research, the author revised the questionnaire for more suitable with Vietnam context and more comprehensible When the author considered that the questionnaire was designed properly, the main survey was conducted widely by using convenience sample, which collected from consumers in Ho Chi Minh City The process of the quantitative research followed below steps:

- Step 1: The researcher defined the sample size of the research:

According to De Coster (2004), a general rule, the minimum sample for appropriate use for statistical analysis is equal to or greater than five times of the number of independent variables, and not less than 100 for generating reliable result

The formula for sample size calculation is: n ≥ (5 ÷ 10)*k (N: the sample size; k: the

number of variable)

The model in this study had six variables with 20 scales so that the minimum sample size should be N > 20*5 = 100 observations

For applying standard multiple regression analysis, the required sample is

recommended by Green (1991), Tabachnick and Fidell (1991) should be n > 50 + 8m

(where m = number of independent variables) This study had three independent variables Thus, the minimum sample required is n > 50 + 8*3= 74 observations

The author used the sample size at 523 observations Therefore, the sample size was appropriate for both EFA and multiple regression analysis After that, sampling was conducted based on convenience sampling All respondents were asked

if they had experiences in using laptop/English course before answering the questionnaire

- Step 2: The researcher issued the questionnaire to the interviewees

The researcher issued questionnaires to respondents who live in Ho Chi Minh City at the time the research was deployed by delivering directly hard copy to respondents Besides, to facilitate respondents, the questionnaires were also broadcasted via the internet by Google docs By this channel, the author sent the survey link directly to respondents via email and social network such as Facebook

The respondents answer the survey by clicking the link, enter their answers and submitting the link to the researcher Data collection was conducted for two weeks The author delivered 500 questionnaires from online channel and out of 580 questionnaires in hard copies The respondents rejected 277 online questionnaires and returned 235 hard copies In total, the author collected 568 answers

- Step 3: The researcher received the questionnaire and checked again for suitable

Number of received responses

Number of valid responses after cleaning data

After this step, data were reviewed for completion, coded and input the raw data in IBM SPSS Statistic version 22 with the scale as mentioned in part 3.2

3.4 DATA ANALYSIS METHOD

The SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) software version 22.0 was used for data analysis in this research Moreover, in order to statistic the sample, compare the results, other main tools of SPSS version 22.0 and Microsoft Excel were used for sample description For the next steps, the reliability and validity of measurement scales were evaluated by using Cronbach’s alpha and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) After that, the author used multiple

regression analysis to test the relationship between independent variables with intermediating variable, and simple regression analysis for testing the effect of intermediating variable to dependent variables Finally, hierarchical multiple regression was used to analysis moderate role according to proposed hypotheses

3.4.1 Tests for reliability

According to Pallant (2005), Cronbach’s alpha is used as only one criterion for judging instruments or scales It only indicates if the items “hang together”; it does not determine if they are measuring the attribute they supposed to measure Therefore, scales also should be judged on their content and construct validity

As Leech et al (2005), the acceptable value of Cronbach’s alpha for reliability is above 0.7 However, it can reduce to 0.60 – 0.69 range, especially if there is only a handful

of items in the scale When the Cronbach’s alpha is very high (greater than 0.90), it probably means that the items are repetitious or there are more items in the scale than are necessary for a reliable measure of the concept (Leech et al., 2005)

Beside of evaluating the value of the Cronbach’s alpha, the Corrected Item – Total Correlation is also important to consider According to (Leech et al., 2005), if this correlation

is quite high or high (equal 0.40 or above), the item is probably correlated with most of the other items and make a good component of this summated rating scale If the item – total correlation is negative or too low (less than 0.30), it is necessary to consider the item for wording problems and conceptual fit by modifying or deleting such items

3.4.2 Tests for validity

Norris and Lecavalier (2010, p.9) declared that “EFA is based upon a testable model and can be evaluated in terms of its fit to the hypothesized population model; it indices can

be generated to help with model interpretation” On other hand, EFA method is used to identify which of a large set of items go together as a group, or are answered most similarly

by respondents (Leech et al., 2005)

3.4.3 Tests for main effects

Firstly, the multiple regression analysis is used to test the hypotheses and predict one outcome measure from several independent variables (Leech et al., 2005) According to Leech et al (2005), the multiple regression analysis requires many assumptions but it is better

to focus on the major ones that are tested easily with SPSS The assumptions include:

1 The independence of residuals (errors)

2 A linear relationship between each of the predictor variables and the dependent variable

3 Residual or the error is normally distributed

4 No multicollinearity

Secondly, the Simple Liner Regression is applied to examine the effect of mediating variable CBI to dependent variable Brand Advocacy Thirdly, the Hierarchical Regression Model is used to test the moderate role of Product category involvement

Hierarchical multiple regression is effectively the comparison of multiple regression models in condition that all the assumptions are qualified Hierarchical multiple regression allows to add sets of variables to a regression equation and determine how much each set of variables uniquely adds to the prediction of the dependent variable, usually expressed as the increase in R2 (the variance explained in the dependent variable) Thus, the research will make the comparison about the effect of dependent variables to customer-brand identification after and before product category involvement enter to model

In summary, this chapter presented the research design, measurement scale of the constructs, research process and research method used to analyze the collected data The author described clearly research process that included two phrases: qualitative research and quantitative research On qualitative research, the author conducted in-depth interview with six respondents to check if the meaning as well as the semantic of words using in the scales were easy to understand and suitable with research context After qualitative research, the researcher revised the questionnaire for more comprehensive On quantitative research, the author mentioned five steps from composing questionnaire, the way of defining the sample size for this study, the method of delivering questionnaires to respondents, cleaning collected

date to be usable for analyzing to coding data for input into SPSS software The author applied both a paper questionnaire and online questionnaire via Google docs to distribute to respondents After collecting and cleaning the data, the sample size could be used for final analysis included 523 questionnaires Finally, the author introduced the method that the researcher applied to analysis the collected data The next chapter presented data analysis results of the main survey

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND DATA RESULTS

In this chapter, the author reported the result of the research Firstly, the descriptive

of the collected data was presented Next step, the author tested the reliability and validity

of the scales by Cronbach’s alpha reliability and Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) After checking the validity of the scales measurement, the model was evaluated by multiple regression analysis

4.1 SAMPLE CHARACTERISTICS

The sample of this study had 523 respondents include 186 men (occupied 36 percent) and 337 women (occupied 64 percent), aged from 18 to over 45 years old with majority being

in the age group of 18 to 25 years old (about 438 respondents, occupied 84 percent) In terms

of education level, most of respondents in the group had College or Bachelor Degree who accounted for 49 percent of the sample, followed by the group of respondents who graduated from high school Besides, there are 61% respondents had experiences with laptop while 39% respondents had experiences for learning in English course (each respondent answered for only one product) Table 4.1 summarized the characteristics of sample

Table 4.1 Sample Characteristics

College/Bachelor Degree 254 48.57%

4.2 THE RELIABILITY TEST: THE CRONBACH’S ALPHA TEST

It is obligated to test the Cronbach’s alpha of scales for each construct in order to make sure that all items in one scale were reliable in measuring the research concept Table 4.2 summarized the results of Cronbach’s alpha test for each construct

Table 4.2 The results of Cronbach’ alpha

Variable

Reliability Statistics Item-Total Statistics

Cronbach's Alpha N of Items Item

Scale Mean if Item Deleted

Scale Variance

if Item Deleted

Corrected Item-Total Correlation

Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted

The Cronbach alpha helps to delete unreliable scale or unsuitable scales As theory, the value of Cronbach’s Alpha should be above or at least equal 0.6 to qualify internal reliability (Nunnally & Burnstein, 1994) Moreover, if the correlation of each specific item with total of the other items in the scale (Corrected Item-Total correlation) is moderately high

or higher 0.3 (Nunnally & Burnstein, 1994), the item is probably at least moderately correlated with the most of the other item and will make a good component of this summated rating rate On the other hand, if the item of total correlation is negative or too low (less than 0.3), it is required to check again the words used in questionnaire, take a look on the meaning between each item and modify the item if it is necessary for conceptual fit

The results in Table 4.2 performed that all scales had the result of Cronbach’s alpha above 0.6, the highest was 0.901 (MBE) and the lowest was 0.751 (BW) Moreover, the corrected item-total correlation of each item is above 0.3 This indicates that all scales fit the requirement for reliability As a result, these measures were used in establishing the main survey to test the study hypotheses

4.3 EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS (EFA)

After testing the Cronbach’s alpha, the author evaluated the measurement scales by conducting exploratory factor analysis (EFA) The purpose of EFA is to define which set of items go together as a group or are answered similarly by respondents (Leech et al., 2005)

In this study, EFA was run through the Principal Axis Factoring with Varimax rotation method

Firstly, the author tested the correlation of all variables Table 4.3 showed the

Pearson correlation was run to determine the relationship between all variables All

correlations had positive Pearson’s r and < 0.85, it means there was no statistically

significant correlation between two couple of variables Therefore, the measurement model had discriminant validity