This paper deals with the relationship between two issues: ethnicity and its impact on everyday life; and the relationship of brand affinity to perceived ethnic origins. The fieldwork was conducted by means of an Internet survey and the results are examined in the context of studies on acculturation and brand loyalty.
This story begins to indicate how brands work, and why the brand has become such a central concept in marketing. The brand name, or mark, is at its simplest a badge of origin. In most societies this identification is protected by trademark law. The buyers of goods or services develop associations with the mark which help them make their purchase decisions. Some brands will be associated with consistent quality, some less so. They may be associated with specific performance benefits, cleaning power or good taste. A brand thus offers reassurance, which not only helps the buyer make a safe decision, but actually adds value by creating good feelings of security and anticipation. Without brands, every purchase would be a gamble.
The paper describes how research may be used to assist program developers in transferring brand appeal and loyalty from established brands to new brands, while avoiding the potential pitfalls of weakening existing brand equity or associating a new brand with undesirable qualities. The results are based entirely on qualitative techniques (focus groups, individual observations and interviews) with the target audience.
The complexities of differentiating between Brand and Store Loyalty are best documented in FMCG - and in particular Packaged Groceries. This paper addresses that industry but its findings are also relevant to all other product areas which involve separate companies for manufacture (in its loosest possible sense) and retailing to the end consumer. The paper examines developments in the past - what were the key factors which have influenced relationships between manufacturers and retailers. It then examines the role played by research today in those relationships, before concluding how they are likely to change and how research (and researchers!) must change to keep pace.
This paper reviews the wide range of influences on farmers' choice of products and discusses the dynamics of brand switching for a number of product categories of relevance to the agricultural sector.It is hoped that this paper will encourage closer consideration of farmers' brand switching behaviour, and perhaps learn much from the consumer markets regarding the means of researching and reacting to an increasingly competitive marketing environment.
The number of people who buy two particular brands in a given time period does not depend on the brands as such but only on the numbers of people who buy each brand and on a general constant. The constant varies by product-field and by the length of the analysis-period, the correlation between buying any two brands being positive in relatively long periods and negative for shorter periods.