The impact of brand relationship and perceived quality on brand loyalty in the emerging market context of Vietnam

Abstract

Brand loyalty is critical to business and marketing strategy as it provides competitive advantages for companies. With marketing shifting its emphasis from marketing mix to relationships, research on brand loyalty has focused on approaches to build consumer""brand relationships that are conducive to fostering brand loyalty. However, as consumer""brand relationships are complex and research into this phenomenon proliferates, the task of building and managing brand relationships for marketers is challenging. Little attention has been paid to consumer""brand relationships in emerging markets. Given its enormous market opportunities and intensified competition, Vietnam presents an opportunity for research on consumer""brand relationships that will provide marketers with insights into developing effective relationship-building strategies aiming at fostering brand loyalty. The purpose of this research therefore is to examine empirically the relevance of various dimensions of brand relationship in the context of an emerging market. Based on a review of related literature, a theoretical model was developed to examine the impact of brand identification, brand trust, brand relationship quality, and perceived quality on brand loyalty. This research employed both qualitative and quantitative methods, with the latter being the dominant approach. The qualitative stage used in-depth interviews to determine the relevance of existing constructs in the theoretical model in the context of Vietnam. A mall-intercept survey was conducted in the two largest cities in Vietnam, with 400 consumers who gave responses to the constructs' measurement scales in relation to clothing brands bought in the last six months. The measurement scales used in the survey were assessed and refined, and then the theoretical model and hypotheses were tested. The results indicated that brand trust and brand relationship quality are the two important antecedents of brand loyalty, with brand trust showing the largest effect. In addition, the effect of brand identification on brand loyalty was mediated mostly by brand trust or by brand relationship quality. The results also showed that the effect of perceived quality on brand loyalty was mostly mediated by brand trust. The findings emphasised the importance of brand identification and perceived quality in brand loyalty. The mean scores obtained from descriptive statistics also suggested that for clothing products, Vietnamese consumers are not very emotionally attached to their brands. The current research contributes to the literature on consumer""brand relationships and emerging markets with empirical evidence from Vietnam. The results have practical implications for marketers in Vietnam, suggesting that they should focus not only on standard marketing mix strategies to enhance positive perceptions of a brand, but also on building strong consumer""brand relationships. It is suggested that the interpretation of the results should take into account limitations in terms of the design and setting of this research. More research is required to address the limitations of this research as well as to extend the body of literature by considering longitudinal designs and replicating the tests in different categories of consumer product and service as well as in different emerging and transitional markets.

Date of Award	2016
Original language	English