Brand is an influential tool to focus the consumers to buy the particular products. Some people named it as equity because it adds values to the products. This study explains the factors that contribute to brand equity and the consumers’ buying behaviour which is based on the four aspects of brand equity namely brand awareness, perceived quality, brand loyalty and brand association.

The study has involved the qualitative study of branding where the secondary data has been analyzed. For that, this research has collected various literatures given by other researchers. Their literature has been reviewed and analysed.

The findings were that branding can be used give the positive results. Branding activities affect the consumer’s buying pattern. It is important that the values that are used are credible. However, more emphasis should be placed on the marketing strategies such as rewarding customer loyalty with a view to enhance the sustainable development of the brands.

Table of Contents

Signed Declaration i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

Table of Contents iv

List of figures and tables vi

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Research Background: 1

1.2 Importance of research: 1

1.3 Research questions and Research objectives: 2

1.4 Scope and Purpose of Research: 3

1.5 Research Limitations: 3

CHAPTER 02: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

2.1 Introduction: 4

2.2 Brand: 4

2.2.1 The characteristics of successful brands: 5

2.3 Brand Equity: 6

2.3.1 Brand Loyalty: 7

2.3.2 Brand Awareness: 7

2.3.3 Perceived Quality: 7

2.3.4 Brand Associations: 8

2.4 Consumers’ buying behaviour: 8

2.4.1 Models of Consumer behaviour: 9

Chapter 03: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 11

3.1 Research Design: 12

3.1.1 Exploration: 12

3.1.2 Description: 12

3.1.3 Explanation: 12

3.2 Research Approach: 12

3.2.1 Qualitative Research Approach: 13

3.2.2 Quantitative Research Approach: 13

3.3 Research Strategy: 13

3.4 Data Collection: 14

3.5 Data Analysis: 15

CHAPTER 04: ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 15

4.1 Introduction 15

4.2 Analysis 15

4.2.1 Effect of brand equity on consumer’s buying behaviour: 16

4.2.2 Importance of brand equity: 17

4.3 Findings 18

Chapter 05: Final discussion and overall conclusion 20

5.1 Final discussion 20

5.2 Overall Conclusion 21

5.2.1 Implications: 22

5.5 Recommendations for further research 22

Chapter 06: REFERENCES 23

List of figures and tables

Figure 1: A conceptual framework for brand equity 7

Figure 2: Schematic model of consumer decision process 9

Figure 3: Validity and reliability of the research 11

Table 1: Relevant Situation for different strategies 14

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Research Background:

The study of product and the brand equity was begun in the early 1960s. There were a few researchers who have investigated the relationship between brand and the consumer’s behaviour. Due to lack of common theory these researchers has to suffer. The researchers like Birdwell (1964) were interested in the relationship between the customers’ self-concept and their perception. This perceived personality was measured using a list of bipolar items. Later, Dolich (1969) adopted human personality scales in order to study the product personalities of four products (beer, cigarettes, bar soap and toothpaste) and their relationships between consumers’ actual and self-image.

Aaker (1997) realized this limitation and he developed the brand personality scale (BPS) model. He considered five human personalities: excitement, sincerity, competence, sophistication and ruggedness. Since then, the brand personality dimensions have been applied to various setting across different cultures to gauge consumers’ symbolic consumption and their effects on behaviour (Aaker, Benet-Martinez and Garolera 2001, Supphellen and Gronhaug 2003). As a result, some dimensions of human personality might acts as a mirror in brands whereas others might not (Aaker, 1997).

1.2 Importance of research:

Now a day’s consumers are highly advanced and they are modernized also. They choose the brand and want to establish a multifaceted holistic relationship with those brands. Because of this reason consumers expect the brand to give them positive and protective roles in their lives. Thus the brand equity plays forge strong and meaningful affective bonds with the consumers and hence result in change in their buying behaviour and change the part of their life in their social networks. There are many such well-known brands who adopted emotional-branding strategies over the past few years such as Apple, Nike, Lexus, IBM, Sony Vaio etc. Brand equity helps to show a kind of self-expression or symbolic function and high reputation in the minds of the consumers. Various products such as credit cards, gold, watches or prestige items tend to think themselves that they are different from others.

Brand equity helps to create a set of unique and favourable links in consumer memory. The well established brand influences consumer favourite and investment and develops a very strong trust and loyalty with the brand. Such brands were used with the objectives of personal satisfaction and to fulfil the exploit of richness of the personality associated with them.

There is the great relationship between the human characteristics (consumer’s behaviour) and the performance of the brand (brand equity). That is why now a days, the brand equity is an appealing concept in the field of marketing. Aaker (1996) described it as one of the core dimensions of the brand identity and as the closet variable to the consumers’ buying decisions making process.

1.3 Research questions and Research objectives:

Aaker’s (1997) proposed tha “additional research is needed to determine the extent to which these brand personality dimensions are stable across different products”. The questions has arises about the brand equity and how the consumers are stable or change their buying behaviour according to the different products (brands).

With the devoted interest of brand equity some questions may arise which are as follows:

What is brand equity?