Brand loyalty is a focal point of interest for marketing researchers. From past research stated that loyal customers spend more than non-loyal customers in purchasing. Much of the research over the past three decades looks into consumer loyalty from two perspectives which are behavioral loyalty and attitudinal loyalty (Bandyopadhyay & Martell, 2007; Dick & Basu, 1994). Behavioral loyalty means the frequency of repeating the purchases. Which attitudinal loyalty refers to the psychological commitment that a consumer makes in the purchase, example like intentions to purchase and intentions to recommends.
Implications of the Study Brand loyalty is an important concept which is eagerly noticed by manufacturers, marketers, and buyers. Since, brand loyalty indicates the close associations between the product and the users, it is essential to study the brand loyalty. Packaged food market is highly competitive which has enormous number of varieties. Hence, it is indispensable to study brand loyalty of consumer packaged food category. Though these types of studies customer brand desires can be identified.
In fact, the definition of brand loyalty necessitates the absence of switching the behavior (Jacoby & Robert, 1978). This is because of the sake of variety rather than dissatisfaction. For example, the variety seeking types of products are cookies and crackers. The consumers have their own favor and taste in their mind on what they want to choose. However, when the new brand or exist brand pack in different way with others, this will attract some of the consumers to take a look or buy it.
Customers are one of the important and paramount parts of an organization. Without the customer, the company has nowhere to take their goods and services. Notably, a company’s customers include individuals, organizations, and companies. As a result, a company is forced to create a promotion strategy in which the company attempts to create awareness of its new products in the market, an improvement on an existing as well as any changes in the organization processes that may be of interest to the customers. A promotional strategy widely focuses on raising customer awareness of a product or brand, generating sales and creating brand loyalty.
CHAPTER – III CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF THE STUDY 3.1 Introduction Brand loyalty implies that consumer have a good attitude towards a particular brand over other competing brands. Brand loyal consumers may be willing to pay more for a brand because they perceive some unique value in the brand that no alternative can provide (Oliver1993) . Brand loyalty, long a central construct in marketing, is a measure of the attachment that a customer has to a brand. It reflects how likely a customer will be to switch to another brand, especially when that brand makes a changes, either in price or in product features. As brand loyalty increase, the vulnerability of the customer base to competitive action is reduced.
These attitudes can be assessed by identifying how many customers like the store, have commitment to it, would recommend to others, and have good opinions and feelings about it. The summary of research conducted by Ahluwalia et al. (1999) shows that attitudinally-loyal customers have much attention to negative rumors about the store comparing to non-loyal customers. As a result, customers with positive attitude towards the store, suggested to form a relationship with their favor stores. Fournier (1998) says that positive attitude will be stronger when it is sustained by other members of the loyalty program.
Aaker (1991) defines brand loyalty as the attachment that a customer has to a brand that leading to consistent purchasing of the brand over time. Two different approaches to the study of brand loyalty have been in the centre of marketing literature. The first, behavioural approach to brand loyalty is, consistent purchasing of one brand over time is an indicator of brand loyalty measuring by the continuance or proportion of purchases. Repetitive buying behaviour is assumed to reflect enhancement and strong link with the brand loyalty but such behaviour may lack commitment to the brand and reflect repeat buying based on apathy. The second approach in the marketing literature is cognitive approach to brand loyalty.
PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITIES Promotion refers to all activities concerned with involving consumers about an organisation’s offerings, persuading them to buy it, and reminding them about it from time to time (Kruti Shah, 2009). According to McCarthy (1964), promotion refers to raising customer awareness of a product or brand, generating sales, and creating brand loyalty. It is one of the four basic elements of the market mix, which includes the four P 's: price, product, promotion, and place. Promotional planning is the planned application of marketing resources to achieve sales promotion objectives (Gelder & Woodcock, 2003). Promotional mix elements include advertising, public relations, sales promotions, personal selling, direct marketing and online
Sales promotion are short-term promotional activities firms use in addition to advertising, public relations, and personal selling in order to sell a product. (Tanner, & Raymond, 2010, p. 237). There are several types of sales promotion tools used to target consumers and other organizations. The sales promotion tools used to target customers include sampling, coupons, point-of-purchase displays, premiums, contests, loyalty programs, and rebates. Three sales promotion tools used in my country to target customers are sampling, coupons and loyalty programs.
Researches have identified may such hedonic goals occurring before and after consumption (Arnould and Price 1993; Celsi, Rose, and Leigh 1993; Holt 1995; Joy and Sherry 2003). These experiences are utilitarian product attributes. Apart from these, a consumer also experiences various specific brand-related stimuli, like design (Mandel and Johnson 2002), colour (Bellizzi and Hite 1992; Gorn et al. 1997; Meyers-Levy and Peracchio 1995), shapes (Veryzer and Hutchinson 1998) and slogans (Keller 1987).Such Brand related stimuli are referred to as Brand Experience. Brand Experience may be positive or negative, may occur spontaneously and short lived or deliberately and for a long time duration.