Antecedents and consequence of consumer brand identification

Results from study show that brand-self similarity has no influences on consumer-brand identification; brand social benefit and brand prestige-distinctiveness have positive relationship

-

Luu Kien Quoc

ANTECEDENTS AND CONSEQUENCE OF CONSUMER-BRAND IDENTIFICATION

MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honours)

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2014

-

Luu Kien Quoc

ANTECEDENTS AND CONSEQUENCE OF CONSUMER-BRAND IDENTIFICATION

in the end Thank you so much for giving me chances to correct my mistakes during the project and teaching me many new things I really appreciate your quick action whenever I need your advices and instructions, your direction in writing our articles and also your day and night correction for my thesis So thanks you again, Madame!

I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Nguyen Dong Phong, Professor Nguyen Dinh Tho, Dr Tran Ha Minh Quan for their valuable time as the members of the proposal examination committee Their comments and meaningful suggestion were contributed significantly for my completion of this research

My sincere thanks are given to all of my teachers at International Business School – University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City for their teaching and guidance during my Master course

Best regard,

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this research is to extend consumer-brand identification into social identity literature in Vietnam smartphone market We do this by developing a conceptual model showing how predictors effect on consumer-brand identification and influence of consumer-brand identification on brand loyalty The model was tested using cross-sectional data; 166 respondents were students of university of Science Results from study show that brand-self similarity has no influences on consumer-brand identification; brand social

benefit and brand prestige-distinctiveness have positive relationship with consumer-brand identification The positive influence of consumer-brand identification with brand loyalty was also confirmed

Keywords: Social identity theory, consumer-brand identification, brand loyalty, brand-self

similarity, brand prestige, brand distinctiveness, brand social-benefit

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 1

ABSTRACT 2

Abbreviation 3

LIST OF FIGURES 6

LIST OF TABLES 7

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 RESEARCH BACKGROUND 1

1.2 RESEARCH PROBLEM 4

1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES 6

1.4 RESEARCH SCOPES 6

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 6

1.6 THE STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY 7

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES 8

2.1 SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY 8

2.2 CONSUMER – BRAND IDENTIFICATION 9

2.3 BRAND LOYALTY 11

2.4 ANTECEDENTS OF CBI 12

2.4.1 Brand-self similarity 12

2.4.2 Brand prestige 13

2.4.3 Brand distinctiveness 15

2.4.4 Brand social benefit 16

2.4 THE RESEARCH MODEL 18

2.5 SUMMARY 18

Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY 19

3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN 19

3.2 MEASURES OF THE CONSTRUCTS 19

3.3 RESEARCH PROCESS 21

3.3.1 Qualitative research 22

3.3.2 Quantitative research ……….23

3.4 DATA ANALYSIS METHOD 25

3.4.1 Cronbach’s alpha 25

3.4.2 Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) 26

3.4.3 Multiple regression 26

3.5 SUMMARY 28

Chapter 4 DATA ANALYSIS 29

4.1 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTIC 29

4.2 RELIABILITY ANALYSIS 30

4.3 EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS (EFA) 33

4.3.1 EFA for all variables 33

4.3.2 Correlation analysis of all variables 36

4.4 REGRESSION ANALYSIS 37

4.4.1 Multiple regression analysis 37

4.4.2 Simple linear regression 40

4.5 DISCUSSION 42

4.6 SUMMARY 44

Chapter 5 CONCLUSION 45

5.1 CONCLUSION 45

5.2 MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS 46

5.3 LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH 48

Reference 50

APPENDICES 60

Appendix A: Guidelines for In-depth Interview Respondents’ information 60

Appendix B: Questionnaire (English Version) 66

Appendix C: Questionnaire (Vietnamese version) 69

Appendix D TABLE 71

Appendix E PLOT AND DIAGRAM 73

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE 2 1 Proposed research model……… 18 FIGURE 3 1 Research procedure……… 27 FIGURE 4 1 Refined research model……… 355

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE 3 1 Brand personality framework (aaker, 1997) 20

TABLE 3 2 Qualitative research for reducing brand-self similarity variable 23

TABLE 3 3 Result of collecting questionnaires 24

TABLE 4 1 Sample characteristics 30

TABLE 4 2 Reliability test result 31

TABLE 4 3 Reliability test result of brand-self similarity after deleted item similarity5 322

TABLE 4 4 Reliability test result of brand-self similarity after deleted item similarity5, and similarity1 333

TABLE 4 5 Rotated component matrix 344

TABLE 4 6 Reliability test result of brand prestige distinctiveness 366

TABLE 4 7 Correlations of all variables 366

TABLE 4 8 Coefficients BS, BPD, BSB – CBI 388

TABLE 4 9 Model summary 388

TABLE 4 10 ANOVA 399

TABLE 4 11 Coefficients of CBI - BL 41

TABLE 4 12 Model summary 41

TABLE 4 13 ANOVA 41

TABLE 4 14 Summary of hypotheses testing result 444

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 RESEARCH BACKGROUND

In early of the 21st century, the mobile phone market experiences the boom of

smartphone with the significant increasing of smartphone and changing in market share of many mobile-phone companies Agile manufacturers with advantage of smartphone reach a miracle development and dominate regular phone manufactures For years, smartphones as the new experiences and advanced utility of consumer which has brought massive profit for manufacturers may be peaking Robert (2013) predicts the possibility that smartphone market has reached the high point sales and now slowing growth The prediction is

strengthened by the lowest smartphone sales growth in nine years of European in 2013, as 12% Additionally, over half of people who own a cell phone in US have a smartphone, and filling rate of the rest is much slower These situation poses out a batch of problems that the administrators need to be concerned to maintain growing trend in saturated period Smartphone as a small brand of device in the past are now become the most important sector of every mobile phone manufacturers

The contrary with developed countries is emerging markets that Vietnam is a typical example in South East Asia With GDP growth rate of about 5.42 percent in 2013 (GFK, 2013), Vietnam become a potential market for both international and domestic brand

(Nguyen et al., 2011) In mobile phone areas, Vietnam is the fastest-growing market for smartphone in South-east Asia in the first-three quarter of 2013 and the values from January

to September are more than double those of the same period in previous, this report

additionally posits that half of all handset sold are now smartphones (GFK, 2013) Notably, GFK forecasted that the ratio of smartphone users will increase fast from 23% in 2013 to 25% in 2014 and contributes around 82% of the total revenue of the market in 2014, and now in September 2014, the ratio of Vietnamese smartphone owner is much higher with

33% Those data point out the central of mobile-phone competition is shifting from regular cellular phone to smartphone

In that context, brand acts as an important role for building relationships with

consumers that could assure for long-term business success of a smartphone manufacture Assael (1991) proof that, when a customer decide to consume brand and satisfied, they tend

to keep consume product from that brand in the future, combined with recommendation it to others, and become a loyalty customer Moreover, brand is also play an important role to reduce perceived risk from creating brand identity and image in consumer’s mind (Nandan, 2005) Unfortunately, although the concept of brands and branding have appeared for years

in Vietnam and become one of the most growing bodies in marketing sector, branding practices in Vietnamese market in general are still underdeveloped, especially in

comparisons between marketing approach of Vietnamese firms and foreign companies in Vietnam, according to Nguyen et al (2011)

As mention above, act as the central goal in branding practice is the formation of brand loyalty of customer Jacoby and Kyner (1973) have described brand loyalty as a behavioral response and as a function of psychological processes of consumer Baldinger and Rubinson (1996), add that brand loyalty includes affective loyalty and action loyalty Especially, Reichheald (1996) interprets the advantages of brand loyalty as follow: create long-term and cumulative profit, reduce of marketing cost by eliminating or minimizing costs from loyal customers, decrease operating cost, provides competitive advantage The comments above show the important role of creating and maintaining brand loyalty for long term business

Since the crucial role of brand loyalty, its antecedences and consequences are studied deeply and summarized for years (Tepeci, 1999; Taylor et al., 2004) Highlighted in his work, Aaker (1991) propose awareness is the first step toward loyalty and introduce the construct brand-self similarity with fifteen “facets” as measurement scale to describe brand image and self - image The work of Rogerson (1983), suggests that the rising of reputation

by selling high-quality products and providing premium prices, develops brand loyalty A

strong brand image and its benefit are stressed in the work of Shiffman and Kanuk (1991), Berry et al (1988) Promotion and perceived quality is also highlighted by Grover and Srinivasan (1992), Aaker (1991) and Elliott (1996) Innovation remains brand’ product up

to date and attracts customer by its superior and exceed customer needs (Nowlis & Simonsen, 1996; Aaker & Keller, 1990)

Consumer-brand identification (CBI) is emerged from social identity theory and examines in consumer behavior and brand management context as the antecedence of brand loyalty (Escalas & Bettman, 2003; Lam et al., 2010; Stokburger-Sauer et al., 2012; Papista

& Dimitriadis, 2012; Donavan et al., 2006; Kuenzel & Halliday., 2008) While a

comprehensive sense for what creates CBI is of considerable importance to both marketing academics and practitioners, these issues have been examined from many diverse

perspectives, causing the fragmented understanding (Stockburger-Sauer et al., 2012) While conceptualization of CBI is rooted in social identity theory, it is related to the construct of self-brand connections proposed by Escalas and Bettman (2003), defined as the extent to which an individual has incorporated a brand into their self-concept On the other hand, the work of Lam et al (2010) view CBI as a formative construct composed of three

dimensions The cognitive dimension of their construct is similar to the notion of cognitive organizational identification in the work of Bergami and Bagozzi (2000)

However, much is insufficient understood about the drivers of CBI- what factors cause it, and its consequences The literature also provide set of antecedents of CBI that includes three primarily cognitive variables (brand-self similarity, brand distinctiveness, and brand prestige) as well as rich brand-related factors (brand social benefits) (Donavan et al., 2006; Kuenzel & Halliday., 2008; Lam et al., 2010; Stokburger-Sauer et al., 2012) Becerra and Badrinarayanan (2013) suggest that brand identification influences positive and oppositional brand referrals The work of Stokburger-Sauer et al (2012) states the positive relationship between CBI and its outcome: loyalty and advocacy, which lead to the need of maximizing CBI in marketing management for the outcome-brand loyalty Moreover, CBI

demonstrates as a powerful predictor of consumer behaviors by generates supportive

behaviors like repurchase intention, word-of-mouth (Kuezel & Halliday, 2008)

Notably, most of studies in CBI are carried out in developed country and less

research about CBI in developing country Especially there is the lack of research out CBI

of repurchase (Kuenzel & Halliday 2008), positive word of mouth (Del Rio et al., 2001) and predict brand extensions’ success or failure (Viot, 2011)

Through prior studies offer important insights into consumer identification process and related construct, future research could still bridge important gaps in this scholarly inquiry Firstly, whist much research deal with concepts that relate to consumers’

identification with a brand in the literature, there is little attempt to empirically document the factors that affect consumer-brand identification and to relate the concept of consumer-brand identification with other variable such as brand loyalty Secondly, the branding

literature mostly focuses on the concept of brand prestige and brand distinctiveness

(Kuenzel & Halliday, 2008; Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003; Jones & Volpe, 2010) and less on

the concept of brand social benefit generally housed within the relationship marketing literature Especially, although the concept of brand-self similarity is used widely in foreign studies, but it still not presence in the context of Vietnam, therefore the number of items from this scale and the analyzing method for this scale should be considerate sufficiently

Finally, from reviewing literature, we find out the lack of study and examine CBI and it’s both antecedents and consequence in the case of Vietnam Previous researches focus on brand performance and its antecedents as ethics and corporate social responsibility (Luu., 2012), the positive relationships between perceived quality and brand loyalty

(Nguyen & Leclerc, 2011), brand equity (Nguyen, Nguyen & Barret., 2003; Luu., 2012), brand associations (Phan., 2012), effect of national identity and perceived values of foreign products with local brands (Le et al., 2013) This gap may lead to misunderstanding of brand identification and its mechanism in affecting on brand loyalty Moreover, knowledge from revealing CBI and its affects can contribute to providing new tools for marketers and managers in order to improve competitiveness

In order to fill the gap, we place the study in case of smartphone owners in Vietnam market to discover the factors affect the CBI of Vietnamese customer Our study also

investigates CBI in order to contribute a deeper understanding of drivers of CBI and its consequence Moreover, the result of study may be useful for manager and other

researchers in marketing sector

As a dynamic economy, Vietnam is a visual evidence of success and failure of many smartphone brands To improve the competitiveness and maintain the growth rate of

domestic smartphone enterprise, beside product quality and premium price, elements that relate to consumer-brand identification which are created from branding practice should be considered adequate In the period of global economic crisis in combination with the

fluctuated of Vietnam’ economy, a fulfill understanding of consumer-brand identification has become even more important for brand management to maintain and to improve

competitiveness of domestic company in competition with foreign company

Due to the limitations of research funds and times, the scope of this research is

limited to smartphone users in Ho Chi Minh City The target respondents are students of university of science who age from 16 to 24 years old This target group which is optimistic and open to new technologies, as the strongest growth body in Vietnamese smartphone users

The author used Microsoft Excel to inject data from collected survey and analysis data with SPSS Cronbach’ alpha coefficient is used to test the scale reliability, EFA

analysis is taken to find meaningful patterns within data and certain groups of questions seem to cluster together, this stage also simplifies data and allows for the development a neater presentation of the data Finally, we use linear regressions to check the relationship between independent variables and dependent variables

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Research results will determine the factors affecting consumer-brand identification, and the relation between consumer-brand identification and brand loyalty of Vietnamese smartphone owners Since then, the study provides an adequate understanding of CBI for the marketer in not only mobile phone sector but can also applying on the other areas to contribute into developing strategies, promoting products and maintaining brand loyalty from consumers

1.6 THE STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY

This thesis is organized into five chapters:

 Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter presents the research background of the study, research problems,

research objectives, research scopes, the significance of the study, and the research structure

 Chapter 2: Literature review and hypotheses

This chapter reviews theories and related literature with definition of each concept, then formulates the research hypothesis and model

 Chapter 3: Research Methodology

This chapter provides the research design, research methodology and demonstrates the data analysis process as well as conducting the research

 Chapter 4: Data analysis and results

For this chapter, the author statistic and analyzes the collected data and conduct the result of research in connection with theory

 Chapter 5: Conclusion, implications and limitation

The author performs the results of research, the contribution of research in marketing theory and practice This chapter also provides the limitation of study and potential way for improvement

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES

The following literature review encompasses four sections The first is an overview

of brand loyalty theory in regard to its development The second the author reviews the social identity theory, focusing on consumer-brand identification, central to the present study The third is an overview of the antecedences of consumer-brand identification and discussion of brand-self similarity, brand distinctiveness, brand prestige and brand social benefit After reviewing relevant literature, hypotheses are presented in the end of each section to hypothesize the relationship between constructs Finally, research model is

shown to demonstrate the overall relationship between those constructs

2.1 SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY

Understand psychological and behavioral of customers in order to control factors that affecting on brand loyalty is central of branding practice In essence, the goal of branding is

to establish favorable consumer attitudes towards one’s brand, that is, need to understand consumer-brand identification which can predict brand loyalty Consumers have a variety of different needs and wants that drive their consumption behavior patterns One important consumer need is the consumption motivator self-expression and enhancing self-image Consumer at time purchase brands that communicate a particular image or social role

Social identity theory emerges in the early 1970; the concept of social identity has long been studied by psychologists and sociologists Then, the theory began to attract

international attention and became the most influential theories of group process and

intergroup relations (Hornsey, 2008) A social identity is the portion of an individual’s concept derived from perceived membership in a relevant social group and the sense of unity constructed between individuals (Ashforth & Mael, 1989) and it occurs when an individual is identified with a particular group As originally formulated by Tajfel and Turner in the 1970s and the 1980s, social identity theory introduced the concept of a social identity as a way in which to explain intergroup behavior, and individuals attending in a

self-group define themselves in relation to this self-group and distinguish themselves from the

others Several researches have been conducted in the field of consumer behavior,

especially the psychological link between individuals and brands (Founier, 1998;

McAlexander et al., 2002)

Social identity theory is based on the notion that people will be motivated to attach themselves to those who are perceived to be similar in values, preferences or various shared group characteristics Social identity is developed through the value and emotional

attachment that an individual derives from membership in a particular group (Lam et al., 2013) Social identity theory states that people define their self-concept by their connections with social groups or organizations, to enhance their self-esteem and individuals describe themselves beyond personal identity and talk about social identity (Tajfel & Turner, 1985) They classify themselves in a specific social classification; they create their own social identity In the organizational context, social identity is a basis for individuals to define themselves and the organizational features are used to do (Dutton et al., 1994) Social

identity theory is best described as a theory that predicts certain intergroup behaviors on the basis of perceived group status differences, the perceived ability to move from one group to

another (Escalas, 2004)

2.2 CONSUMER – BRAND IDENTIFICATION

Recent researches have based on social identity theory and the consumer-company identification framework (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003) to explain the mechanism of the connection and sharing the self-definitional attributes between consumers and brand

(Donavan et al., 2006) According to this theory, Kim et al (2001) define level of

consumer-brand identification as the degree to which the brand expresses and enhances consumers’ identity Researchers posit that the consumer identification process has a

significant impact on behaviors such as: brand preferences (Tildesley & Coote, 2009), loyalty (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003), psychological commitment to the brand (Casaló et al., 2008), satisfaction and a higher possibility of repurchase (Kuenzel & Halliday, 2008) Moreover, numerous researches yield that identification with a company lead to higher

product utilization, increase collecting company-related collectibles and passing a word of mouth (Ahearne et al., 2005; Bagozzi & Dholakia, 2006)

There are two types of identification, namely personal identification and social

identification (Del Rio et al., 2001) Social identification involves a brand’s function as communication instrument that allows a consumer to blend in or separate himself/herself from group of individuals that make up his/her closet social environment On the other hand, personal identification function involves degree to which a consumer identifies with a brand and develops feelings of positive toward it Carlson et al (2008) further suggest that personal identification depends on degree of overlap between individual self-schema and schema he/she perceives about the brand Self-schema or self-concept is also made of

values held by an individual, this implies that brand identification is influenced by degree of overlap between an individual’s set of values and the brand’ set of values (value congruity)

Stokburger-Sauer et al (2012) root concept of CBI in organizational identity, and suggest CBI as a consumer’s perceived state of ones with a brand, is a valid and potent expression of our quest for identity-fulfilling meaning in the marketplace of brands On another hand, Tuskej et al (2013) define consumers’ identification with a brand as the perception of sameness between the brand (signifying an object with symbolic meanings) and the consumer Specifically, in the research about dynamics of CBI antecedents, Lam et

al (2013, p.235) define consumer brand identification as “a consumer’s psychological state consisting of three elements: perceiving, feeling, and valuing his or her belongingness with

a brand” This conceptualization is not only in line with the original tripartite

conceptualization in social identity theory (i.e., cognitive, affective, and evaluative aspects; see Tajfel and Turner 1985), but also consistent with define of identification of Ashforth and Mael (1989) as the perception of oneness with or belongingness to a social referent and experiencing its successes and failures as one’s own

Since the consumer-brand identification includes affective attachment to the brands, customer who are identified more effectively, evaluate the value is not associated with brand identification directly In other words, the brand identification provides a deep and

significant relationship and the organization’s reputation is associated with the brand

identification (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003) Understanding in antecedents and consequences

of CBI is important for brand management, especially CBI with new brand In case of launching a new brand, a deep understanding in CBI could inform the manager how to

manage brand investment (Lam et al., 2013)

2.3 BRAND LOYALTY

Brand loyalty is described as a behavioral response and as a function of

psychological process (Jacoby & Kyner, 1973) Brand loyalty includes some degree of commitment toward the quality of a brand that is a function of both positive attitudes and repetitive purchases (Tepec, 1999) Hence, brand loyalty is the most important factors to explain consumer brand choices, thus, the concept of brand loyalty attracts interesting of researchers in field of marketing and consumer behavior Brand loyalty is the result from non-random, long existence behavior response and it is a mental purchase process formed

by some certain decision units who considered more than one brands (Jacoby & Olson, 1970) Brand loyalty express through behavioral loyalty as the number of repeat purchase and attitudinal loyalty that a consumer have when they intent to purchase or recommend brand to others (Nam et al., 2011) Jensen and Hansen (2006) represent firms with large groups of loyalty customer will also have large market share, higher rates of return on investment

Researchers have identified several factors affecting brand loyalty, including trust (Harris & Goode, 2004; Morgan & Hunt, 1994), customer satisfaction (Garbarino &

Johnson, 1999), and perceived value (Peterson et al., 1997) It should be noted that most of these studies have been conducted with respect to economical aspect of brand and are based

on B2B framework (Arnett et al., 2003) Bhattacharya and Sen (2003) argue that customers reflect and reinforce their identities through brand identification and the relationships that are built along with it Therefore, when customers highly value the quality of a brand and competitors can easily imitate and copy the firm products, the necessity of creating a strong brand identity to gain brand equity seems highly important and desirable

Develop from social identity theory, consumer-brand identification become one of the most attracted construct which can predict brand loyalty In the work of Stokburger-Sauer et al (2012), the positive relationship between CBI and its outcome brand loyalty are posed This view is consistent with a study of Kuenzel and Halliday (2008), which shows the positive relationship between CBI and repurchase behaviors Especially, study of

Shirazi et al (2013) supports the substantial role of consumer-brand identification in brand loyalty process and also its mediation between brand identity and brand loyalty

In the Vietnam context, different factors that predict brand loyalty have been

identified However, these researches have not investigated the effect of CBI on brand loyalty In order to fill the gap, we first analyze the effect of consumer-brand identification

on brand loyalty in Vietnam as a research contribution and propose CBI as the driver of brand loyalty

H1 Consumer-brand identification has positive effect on Brand loyalty

2.4 ANTECEDENTS OF CBI

2.4.1 Brand-self similarity

Through consumption behavior, consumer intends to construct their self-concepts and personal identity (Ball & Tasaki, 1992; Richins, 1994) On this stand point, consumers build their image and introduce themselves to other through their brand choices based on the congruency between brand image and self-image Aaker (2000) describe construct self-expressive benefit as a media to proclaim a particular self-image; and then people prefer brands whose image is close relate to their own self-image (de Chernatony & McDonald, 2001) Keller (2008) explain the important of self-expressive benefits as the abilities to offer discriminant points at the highest level of Maslow pyramid and enable customer to express themselves through the brand In addition, McCraken (1989) suggest that the

meaning and value of a brand is not just its ability to express the self but its role in helping consumers create and build their self-identities by forming connections to brands

Furthermore, researchers have emphasized the role of the perceived congruity on the

affiliations of consumers with brands (Grubb & Grathwohl, 1967; Sirgy, 1982)

The study of Lam et al (2013) is also consistent with this view, by proposing brand similarity satisfies consumers’ higher-order needs, self-brand congruity illustrates a positive effect on CBI In marketing context, the association between customers and their brands can reflect and reinforce theirs self – identities (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003) Papista and Dimitriadis (2012) view CBI as a cognitive self-categorization process with the

self-attributes of specific brands serving self-defining needs Moreover, according to

Bhattacharya and Sen (2003), Business-to-consumer companies may benefit more because they have better known to public and provide direct consumption with simultaneous

opportunities for self-expression In study of Escalas and Bettman (2003), they also suggest that consumer use a brand to meet their self-verification or self-enhancement and forging a connection between the consumer and the brand Consistent with this notion, study of

Donavan et al (2004) claim that people tend to be attracted to organizations with the similar values

Drawing on this research, we hypothesize brand-self similarity as the driver of CBI

H2 Brand-self similarity has positive effect on Consumer-brand identification 2.4.2 Brand prestige

In marketing context, brand prestige is defined as the relatively high status of

product positioning associated with a brand (Steenkamp et al., 2003) A prestigious brand is

a type of brand that will be used not only due to its quality, but also because of its status, especially for conspicuous consumption (Kirmani et al., 1999)

In another point of view, brand prestige is the perceived states of consumers, who consider that the organization or brand is well regarded, respected, admired, or well know (Bergami & Bagozzi, 2000) Therefore, brand prestige is essential in building brand identity and provide a perceived of credible by the consumer (Aaker, 2002) and forming belief in

brand identity and communications from the brand (Kotler, 2006) Moreover, a prestigious brand image can create a feeling of belonging to the upper classes by inducing the

psychological experience and then provide a willingness to accept high price of a

prestigious brand because of its embody of social status (Steenkamp et al., 2003)

Prestige leads people to create bond with prestigious organizations/brands to increase their self-esteem (Campbeel et al., 2004) This view of prestige is consistent with Kunda (1999) research self-concept, which suggests that people need for self-enhancement, which requires the affirmation and maintenance of positive self-views, which lead to increased levels of self-esteem Self – enhancement is made when consumers believe that focal brand

is reputable and has a good prestige Researches show that the corporate reputation affects the brand-customer relationship (Bahattacharya & Sen, 2001) and it is assumed that

external prestige affects the individuals being identified by an organization (Fuller et al., 2006)

Many studies have agreement with the state that prestige of the organization leads to the identification of an individual with it (Arnett et al., 2003; Ahearne et al., 2005; Bergami

& Bagozzi, 2000) By using and create link with a prestigious brand, consumer can show the wealth or power through social image, create a strong connection to self-concept

(O’Cass & Frost, 2002) Besides that, Dutton et al (1994) suggest brand image is perceived

as prestigious by consumers, successful and well-known, this may also enhance their pride

in identifying with a prestigious brand Contrary to previous research, study of Jones and Volpe (2010) poses that organizational prestige was not significantly associated with

identification except when moderated by strong relationships

Drawing from this research, we implicate brand prestige as an antecedent of CBI

H3 Brand prestige has positive effect on Consumer-brand identification

2.4.3 Brand distinctiveness

Distinctiveness is one of the core principles of marketing theory and practice and the marketers should determine to point out the specific characteristic for their brand to stay desirable to their customers Marketing literature emphasizes that brand should be perceived

as different by customers from product feature to symbolic, emotional meaning (Kotler et al., 1996) A brand provides an attractive and strong identity when its identity is more

distinctive and prestigious in comparison with other brands (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003; Dutton et al., 1994) Therefore, when the role of brands is distinguishing products by

creating value for the brand owners, brand distinction is regarded as an underlying and critical concept in contemporary competitive markets

A distinctive brand identity enables the consumers to fulfill their self-definition needs for being unique (Berger & Heath, 2007) Various individuals have different levels of motivation and needs to distinguish their identity Therefore, a brand with a more

distinguishable identity can be assumed as an advantage to attract customers The study of Stokburger-Sauer et al (2012) also point out brand distinctiveness as the perceived

uniqueness of brand’s identity in relation to its competitors Specifically, Tepper et al (2001) states concept of need for uniqueness is 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 Various individuals have different levels of motivation and needs to distinguish their identity (Tian et al., 2001) Therefore, a brand with a more distinguishable identity can

be assumed as an advantage to attract customers

On the social context, Tajfel and Turner (1985) indicate that people strive to

distinguish themselves from others From this view, Brewer (1991) suggests that people attempt to solve the fundamental conflict between the need to be similar to others and the need to be different In the study of perceived brand differentiation, Romaniuk et al (2007) summary the important of brand distinctiveness as a key to win market share, to maintain market share in the competition from other brands by create a perception of its customer

about the brand Especially, study of Romaniuk et al (2007) has placed distinctiveness at the center of brand strategy that a brand creates unique features to make it more easily identifiable Hence, established brands need to be maintained their point of difference in order to keep the desire from their consumers and the different does not only a material feature but also a symbolic, emotional values (Gershoff, 2003) Differentiation theory

suggest that a brand must be perceived as different in order to win market share, to maintain market share and their customer base is more loyal and less sensitive to actions of

competitors (Romaniuk et al., 2007)

Based on this prior literature, we propose that Brand distinctiveness is a determinant

devotion to a brand (McAlexander, Schouten & Koenig, 2002) Through communities, people share essential resources that may be cognitive, emotional, or material in nature Moreover, researchers suggest that social and culture meaning can be transmitted by

individuals who consume a brand (Diamond et al., 2009; Holt, 2005)

Besides that, Escalas & Bettman (2003) suggest that people intend to buy products of brand, which is used by their reference group, to maintain and improve the commitment with reference group On another point of view, the work of Stokburger-Sauer (2010)

describes brand as a mean for linking individual to others The study of Muniz & O’Guinn (2001) also support this point of view by portray brand community as a non-geographically bound community that build on social relationships among the fans of a brand Finally,

customers also value their relationships with their branded possessions and with marketing agents and institutions that own and manage the brand (McAlexander et al., 2002)

In another aspect, by purchasing a product luxury brand, an individual establishes a high status self-image and create a higher advantage in social communication For example, people do not honk as quickly when the traffic turns green if the car ahead of them is more expensive (Doob & Gross, 1968) One of the reasons may be the aggressively reaction from the people in more expensive cars when being honked at (Krassnig & Lorenz, 1996)

Finally, recent study show that people could be cautious in confront with a person who displayed high status (Fennis, 2008) Based on previous studies, we suggest that consumers are intending to identify with brands that help them to connect with important others,

groups, communities We expect brand social benefits to be a driver of CBI

H5 Brand-social benefit has positive effect on Consumer-brand identification

2.4 THE RESEARCH MODEL

Base on the review of previous study and hypotheses presented, we proposed the research model

Figure 2 1 Research model

2.5 SUMMARY

In the context of Vietnam mobile-phone market, the researchers point out the issues in branding practice Then, social identity theory was adapted as a basis for this research because of its contribution to the development of previous researches The new construct consumer-brand identification which wasn’t examined in Vietnam context was also presented and evaluated its relationship with Brand loyalty and its determining factors The following construct have been stated as factors affecting consumer-brand identification: brand-self similarity, brand prestige, brand distinctiveness, brand-social benefit Literature review of those constructs is presented in order to provide a review of background

knowledge

Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents detailed information of research methodology of this study and including: research design, research scale, sample size, data collection procedure and data analysis method

3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN

This study utilized a survey to assess the relationship between brand-self similarity, brand distinctiveness, brand prestige, brand social benefit on consumer-brand identification, and consumer-brand identification to brand loyalty Questionnaires translation involved two stages of adjustment and pre-test with a group of 40 respondents of target group to ensure a clear and well-meaning transfer Refined questionnaire was official and recorded the data result The data was refined and checked for error, demographic data was also recoded Then, data was analyzed with SPSS 20.0, reliability scale, EFA and multiple regressions were taken Finally, the research conclusion, limitation and implication were presented

3.2 MEASURES OF THE CONSTRUCTS

Based on the literature review, the researchers adapted scales that have already valid

in previous research All construct were measured by a 7-item Likert scale developed for this study

Consumer-brand identification was measured by 5 items borrowed from scale of Stokburger-Sauer et al (2012):

o I feel a strong sense of belonging to brand X

o I identify strongly with brand X

o Brand X embodies what I believe in

o Brand X is like a part of me

o Brand X has a great deal of personal meaning for me

Brand loyalty was measured with three items taken from literature review

(Chaudhuri & Holbrook, 2001; Coulter et al., 2003) as cited in Stokburger-Sauer et al

(2012):

o I stick with brand X because I know it is the best for me

o I will buy brand X the next time I buy

o I intend to keep purchasing brand X

Brand-self similarity

Aaker (1997) developed a set of “trait” for measuring Brand Personality with file sub-scale, each sub-scales were subdivided into facets to describe each brand’s personality The result of Aaker’ study evidenced that Brand Personality framework and its scales are reliable, valid in brands and consumer segments

Table 3 1 Brand personality framework (Aaker, 1997)

BRAND PERSONALITY Sincerity Excitement Competence Sophistication Ruggedness

Reliable Intelligent Successful

Upper Class Charming

Outdoorsy Tough

Based on Brand Personality Framework, we assessed both brand personality and respondent self-personality with 15 items Respondents were asked to determine the degree

of agree with their own characteristic and their own perception on their smartphone’ brand

The brand-self similarity measure of each facet was computed by reverse-coded of the discrepancy scores between self and brand personality This method also consistent with

discrepancy score in study of Parker (2005) and CBI growth trajectories of Lam et al

o Brand X stands out from its competitors

Brand prestige was measured by 3 items as the scale of Bhattacharya and Sen (2003)

o Brand X is very prestigious

o Brand X is one of the best brands of …

o Brand X is first-class, high quality brand

Brand social benefit was measured by 4 items from scale of McAlexander et al (2002) as cited in Stokburger-Sauer et al (2012):

o Brand X offers me the opportunity to socialize

o I feel a sense of kinship with other people who use brand X

o I gain a lot from interactions with other customers/users of brand X

o Being a customer of brand X makes me feel like I belong to a special group

3.3 RESEARCH PROCESS

In chapter 1, research problem was identified; research objectives and research scope were also defined In chapter 2, the literature review was conducted by reviewing relevant theories to clarify a suitable model for testing consumer-brand identification and its antecedents and consequence in case of smartphone owners in Vietnam By considering questionnaire from related research, we adapted and developed a set of questions Research design stage was divides into 2 parts

3.3.1 Qualitative research

Based on previous studies, the author presented five hypotheses which were proposed in Chapter 2 and selected the preliminary scale for questionnaire part After that, researchers translated set of questions from English to Vietnamese in cooperation with a group of 3 Overseas Vietnamese in US, who had higher education and time of living overseas was over 10 years The respondents were asked for describe the meaning, feeling and the context of phrases or sentences in original questionnaire Then the researchers recorded the meaning in Vietnamese and translated back to English in order to make sure adequate understanding of contexts, grammars from original questions (See Appendix A)

In next step, we took in-depth face to face interview with a group of 10 university post graduate students who worked in marketing and technology major Each interview in this stage took 10-40 minutes for each respondent and then, we adjusted some minor changes to make the questionnaire easier to understand in the context and semantics of Vietnamese During the interview, the authors received some significant feedback and suggestion to improve the official questionnaire (See Appendix A)

On the other hand, brand-self similarity variable includes of 15 “facets” which are need total 30 questions to evaluate owners’ self-image and their smartphone’s “facets”; the author have to reduce number of items that belonging to brand-self similarity by paper questionnaire This process is important to reduce the length of questionnaire which may cause boring for interviewers; and keeping focus on the most affective “facets” in case of this research context Eighteen respondents who belong to target group were asked to choice 5 most important characteristics that could demonstrate their smartphone characteristics best and arrange 5 “facets” into rating scale From correspondents’ feedback, the number of brand-self similarity items reduced from fifteen to five as show below in table 3.2 Five most important “facets” are: intelligent, charming, innovative, up-to-date and down-to-earth Those “facets” are transformed into five couple sentences with informal stylistic in order to measure the discrepancy score between brand characteristic and

smartphone owner’ self-image Charming have a same number of voting with Cheerful but has higher total score of rating

Finally, 5 “facets” were transform into sentence with structure of “I am ….” and

“brand X is …” In this stage, 10 sentences need to adjust to make it easier to make sense (See appendix A)

Table 3 2 Qualitative research for reducing Brand-self similarity variable

Item Number of voting Item Number of voting

demographic questions The survey collected data in Ho Chi Minh City through a direct paper survey at two campuses of University of Science Ho Chi Minh City In order to create convenience sampling, the authors select random days and a variety of crowded locations for data collection such as class room, hall and stadium The respondents were asked for attending a marketing survey before delivering questionnaires to ensure the cooperation The process of quantitative was showed below:

- Step 1: The researcher designed questionnaire:

Questionnaire was designed in English from previous studies and was translated into Vietnamese before widely conducted with respondents (See appendix B and

appendix C)

- Step 2: The researcher defined the sample size the study:

For Multiple liner regression analysis, the number of sample is recommended by Tabachnick and Fidell (1996) should be N > 8m + 50 (where m is number of

independent variables) There are 6 independents variables Therefore the minimum sample required to run multiple regressions in this study is 98 observations

In another hand, according the Hair et al (2010), the sample size should be 100 or greater 5 times of number of items, so the number of observations for this study should be larger 28 items * 5 = 140 observations

- Step 3: The researcher received questionnaires and checked results

Table 3 3 Result of collecting questionnaires

Number of questionnaires were delivered 260

Number of questionnaires from respondents didn’t have smartphone 64

Data collection was conducted after 1 week The author delivered 260 questionnaires

to respondents and collected 253 answers From received questionnaires, 64 questionnaires were stopped at filtering question because the respondents did not have smartphone; 23 questionnaire were invalid because lack of information or insufficient answer as well as unrealized answer There were 166 valid responses and satisfied for data analysis with minimum requirement was 140 observations

3.4 DATA ANALYSIS METHOD

The IBM SPSS software version 20.0 was used for analyzing collected data Collected data was checked Frequencies to remove missing variables Cronbach alpha (Measurement scale reliability) was taken to validate for all items scale Then EFA was analyzed to extract items into their specific groups In this phase, new variables were created and checked again with Cronbach Alpha, new model was also given After that, multiple regressions was used to test hypotheses Then, CFA analyzed the model fit and validity of measurement model

3.4.1 Cronbach’s alpha

We first ran Cronbach Alpha Reliability Analysis to test the reliability of measurement scales Cronbach’s alpha is the most common measure of internal consistency, and usually uses for multiple Likert questions that form a scale and we need to determine the reliability of the scale Many researchers agree that Cronbach’s alpha from 8

to nearly 1 demonstrating a strong measurement scale, from 7 to 8 is acceptable On another point of view, Cronbach’ alpha above 6 can be accepted with new concept or unfamiliar with respondent in the context of research (Peterson, 1994; Slater, 1995) When the Cronbach’s alpha is very high (.90 and above) it probably means that the items are repetitious or existence of any items are really necessary for reliable measure of the concept (Leech et al 2005)

Beside evaluated Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient, the authors also consider Corrected Item- Total Correlation for evaluating the correlation between items Leech et al., (2005) posit the range of correlation from 40 and above is accept, the items is probably correlated with most of the other items and make a good component for its scale In the opposite, if the item’ total correlation value is too low (less than 30), it mean questionnaire had wording problems and need to modify or delete such items

3.4.2 Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

According to Nunnally (1978) as cited by Williams et al (2010), factor analysis is a multivariate statistical approach commonly used in psychology, educational, economic research etc The researchers used factor analysis for reducing a large number of variables into a smaller set of variables, then establishing underlying dimensions between measured variables and latent constructs, and finally provide construct validity evidence of self-

reporting scales Thus, factor analysis offers the possibility of increase a clear view of data and using the output in subsequent analyses (Field, 2000) Hoàng Trọng and Chu Nguyễn Mộng Ngọc (2008) posit that KMO value need to be larger 5 and less than 1.0 to sufficient

of factors Correlations between variables were also taken to make sure the discriminant of variables

3.4.3 Multiple regression

Multiple regressions were used to test the relationship between several independent variables and dependent variables The authors analyze multiple regressions for evaluating effect of brand-self similarity, brand prestige-distinctiveness and brand social benefit on consumer-brand identification Then the authors analyze multiple regressions for the effect

of consumer-brand identification on brand loyalty Finally, the hypotheses were tested as the effect between variables Besides that, according to Leech et al (2005), the multiple regression analysis requires many assumptions as below:

- The independence of residuals

- Linear relationship between each of the predictor variables and dependent variables

- Residual or the error is normally distributed and no multicolinearity

Figure 3 1 Research procedure

Literature review

Preliminary scale

Qualitative research

To qualify the scale by interviewing with 7 respondents

To reduce number of items in brand-self similarity variable

To set the final questionnaire for the official survey

Quantitative research Deliver questionnaire and collect data

Data refining Recode and input data

Data analysis (hypotheses testing) Cronbach’s Alpha test for scale reliability

Exploratory Factor Analysis Multiple Linear Regression

Conclusion Conclude the achievement of study Implication and limitation of study

3.5 SUMMARY

In this chapter, the authors presented the research design, measurements of constructs and research process Collected data was refined, removed invalid cases and analyzed with SPSS 20.0 The demographic information was summarized first to describe the sample In analysis process, Cronbach’ Alpha was used to test the reliability of scale; exploratory factor analysis was adapted to arrange items in to groups with Varimax method Finally, multiple regression and simple linear regression was used to determine relationship between variables

Chapter 4 DATA ANALYSIS

In this chapter, the authors used SPSS 20.0 to analyze data collected follow these step: Cronbach’s alpha test, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), multiple regressions After analyzing data, result of testing hypotheses was discussed

4.1 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTIC

The author delivered 260 questionnaires to respondents and collected 253 answers From received questionnaires, 64 questionnaires were stopped because the respondents did not have smartphone, 23 questionnaire were invalid because lack of information or insufficient answer There were 166 valid responses and satisfied for data analysis with minimum requirement was 140 observations

The respondents were mostly uniform of age, education level, but diversify of smartphone’ brands There is three majority brands accounted for over 63% of smartphone user in this questionnaires, the other in the rest has low contribution to the percent of user

It remarkable, there is an over 71.1% smartphone user had used their brand over 6 months and 46.4% user had used their brand over 1 year

Table 4 1 Sample characteristics

Description Frequency

Percentage (%) Gender

Male Female

92

74

55.4 44.6

Age

18-25 26-35 Over 35

157

9

0

94.6 5.4 0

Time of using smartphone of

brand X

< 6 months

6 - 12 months Over 12 months - 2

Education level

High school College - University Post graduate

2

160

4

1.2 96.4 2.4

Brands of smartphone

Samsung Nokia Apple

LG HTC Sony-Ericson OPPO Lenovo MobiStar Asus FPT Q-smart Q-mobile Black Berry Huawei Sky

4.2 RELIABILITY ANALYSIS

Internal consistency of measures is evaluated by calculating Cronbach’s alpha

Table 4 2 Reliability test result

Observed

Variable

Scale Mean if Item Deleted

Scale Variance

if Item Deleted

Corrected Total Correlation

Item-Cronbach’s Alpha

if Item Deleted Brand prestige (BranPres): Alpha = 823