Impact of Brand Image on Consumer Buying Behavior †Free Samples

Question: Discuss about the Impact of Brand Image on Consumer Buying Behavior. Answer: Introduction All thriving businesses in the entire world do have a bigger role that is common to them all; to strengthen their brand image. Several companies are facing brand war in the world. Consumers are influenced by the brand image when making their decisions on which product to buy. For instance, the electronics industry has a stiff competition since there are several manufacturers of similar products. The only different in the products is packaging, brand name ( the company producing) and sometimes the size. This is exactly what is happening in the phones industry. Apple brand is competing with other companies like Samsung and LG which have all adopted the Android platform. What should the manufacturers of the iPhone do to sale in the market? Having the knowledge that consumers buying decisions are affected by the brand image, it will be of great help to invest much in improving the image of the Apple Brand. Through creating the brand image, companies try to build different ways from which the consumer will perceive the product. The customers perception of the brand is referred to as Brand Image. The perception can either create a positive or negative image on the product. People will decide to buy a firm's product due to the reputation it has or avoid buying them. The brand can either demolish a companys sales or boost them. This has a direct effect on the organizations mission and vision statements. From different studies, consumers have the tendency of attributing certain products with certain characteristics thereby generating an image connection which will be associated with the product. This symbolic identification is what makes people buy goods or services from particular manufacturers. For instance, in the phones industry, some individuals will prefer to buy an iPhone just because they have attributed it to certain qualities like security, long lasting and the best quality. It is hard to change the minds of such individuals even if one comes with a product that might be of superior quality than the one they value. The question remaining is, how well do they trust your products? Brand image is all about trust with the potential clients. When companies make their sales, it is good to ensure that on their first approach to the market, it i mpresses the consumers. The consumer first impression is crucial; it is what will make the consumer to stick with the companys products for a long time. Problem statement Brand image is the process of making an impression of the products or services held by an individual company with the aim of drawing the attention of the consumers. The brand image can be generated by the techniques which the company will employ in making sure that the potential clients are well aware of their existence and the existence of their products. Brand image has several effects on the company and consumer decisions. The effects in the company come as a result of the consumer decisions. It is evident that firms produce because of the existence of a market. Without a ready market, why would an individual decide to engage in production? Some of the effects include an increase in the companys sales if the image is well maintained, a drop in the companys sales if poorly done, expansion of the organization, fall of the company among several others. Both big and small companies are affected by the brand image. More especially with current competition in the market where there are several similar manufacturers, companies sell because of their brands. When an individual goes into a shop to purchase a car for instance, what comes to his mind? Several questions will influence his buying decision. They include: Which brand has the best quality? Which brand sales at lower prices? For instance, most clients might opt to go for the Toyota brand they have had a tremendous buying experience over time. Nevertheless, Toyota specializes in differentiation, a process which pleases many because of the several products made available. How do the other car manufacturing companies like Ford react to this? In this scenario, the Ford Company should come up to identify what the major problem is. Once they realize that the consumers prefer Toyota because of the brand, they should also employ the necessary measures to create a good reputation of their brand to withstand the market competition. If action is not taken in time, Ford is likely to suffer an economic downturn. The marke ting strategies that a company employs have a lot to do with image. Marketing will either boost image or lower it if wrongly done with people who do not have adequate skills. Large companies, like for instance multinational corporations are likely to suffer huge losses if the consumers degrade their brand image (Liu, 2015). Take for example a company like Coca-Cola which is a soft drink company that supplies over two hundred (200) nations in the world, what will happen if in one of the occasions its brand image is degraded by some people who might be their competitor? What will happen if the returns inwards are not sufficient to sustain the companys activities? It is such painful to have a bad brand image. Creating, developing and maintaining a brand image is vital for the existence of a firm which aims to endure the prevailing market conditions, more especially with technology round. Research objectives/ questions The primary aim of this project is to find out how the brand image affects the consumers behavior in the buying decision-making process. Nevertheless, to discover the impacts of these decisions to the firms. In the course of finding this out, the research will also seek to answer the research questions below: How does the brand image affect the consumers decisions on the product to purchase? What are the effects suffered by the consumers as a result of the brand image? How do companies respond to the issue of brand image to attract more potential clients? What are the factors that contribute to the creation of a good brand image to an organization? These research questions will help in finding answers as to how the brand image influences the consumer buying behavior. The consumer buying behavior is crucial to understand since it is what determines what a company sells. Justification of the project The brand image is something that is a reality currently. Most companies are competing in selling products or providing services that are almost similar. Some of those goods are very close substitutes. This gives the consumers a wide range of products and services to choose from. The remaining question is, from whom will they buy this goods or services? Why? Brand image is a serious issue which should be put into consideration. From statistics, consumers in different parts of the world behave differently. For instance, in the US, you will find a given section of the population love using the Apple brand in their daily activities. This explains why you will find a given part of the community using the iPhone while another section using the Android phones. It is just a matter of brand image. In the process of conducting the research, feedback from various consumers will provide the specific things they put into consideration when deciding what brand to buy. Nevertheless, by getting fee dback from the companies experts, the research will provide answers as for how the companies are affected by the brand image they have. There are several benefits of conducting this research. They include the following: This research will help individuals who wish to start and manage businesses the significance of building a good brand image. Understanding how to manage the brand image is vital to the managers. It will help them to come up with the best strategies available to ensure that the brand makes the largest sales possible in the market. Managers can take advantage of this research to strengthen the image of their product. Strengthening image will help them to gain trust from the potential clients and consumers in the market. The results of this research can be used by different managers currently and in the future in the decision-making process. For instance, through this research, the human resource management will have a better understanding as to why hiring employees with skills in the marketing department is relevant. It is vital to remember that the decisions of the human resource management in any organization matter a lot. Hiring unskilled/less skilled employees or less competent employees will lead to underperformance in the organization. For new ventures into the market, the research will serve a great purpose. It will help them to know the significance of the producer-client relationship. Knowing that the market is competitive, they will formulate ways of improving their brand image to shine in the competition. Expected research outcome The research outcomes will be of great use to most companies which aim to increase their sales. Due to the prevailing market completion, most firms look for ways of making massive sales. One of the major ways being brand image reputation, there is very high possibility to have companies relying on the outcome of this research. Though the brand reputation varies from firm to firm, the final result of this research can be relied on by any company, be it small or big, multinational or local and so on. From the competitions in the market, there have been several strategies which companies try to adopt in order to strive. In the past decade, the use of technology in business was not as wide as it is currently (Safko, 2013). Most businesses have moved into using different media platforms to inform the customers of their existence. Some of the expected outcomes include: The influence the social media on the brand image. Most organizations use the social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to carry on their advertising policies. This is proving to gain many audiences since most people are on the social media (Wynne, 2013). What organizations are doing in the human resource sector to improve the brand image. Workforce is of major importance to an organization. Every process relies on the initiative process on labor. The kind of employees a firm will have will determine the reputation of the firm. For firms with good brand image, the advertisers or people in charge of marketing are well-skilled to handle all the tasks allocated to them (Halligan et al, 2015) Another expected result is the downfall or development of organizations due to brand image. The brand image proves to be the determining factor for most operations in the company. Conceptual framework and research hypothesis The creation and maintenance of brand image are important for all organizations. From the past years, companies have been striving to find out ways of how to increase their sales. The brand image began long ago. During the industrial revolution, several companies came into existence thereby leading to an increase in competition in the market. It has been the trend even to the present. With the improvements in technology in the 21st century, several firms have emerged up. These firms deal with lines of products which are almost similar. How will they exist in the environment with the stiff competition? Regardless of these factors, firms like the Apple Company which was started in the year 1976 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak still perform well despite their high-end products as compared to their competitors like the Android Company. The reason behind this from several types of research is the brand image. Apple products like the iPhone smartphone, Macintosh computers, and the iPads ha ve had a good user experience for the consumers (Solomon, 2017). Most people prefer them over others due to their durability, ability to process information faster and store data safely. Nevertheless, the company has provided clients with different products each year, like currently, the iPhone 7 is trending in the market. Despite the high prices, so many people have purchased the iPhone 7. Unlike other phone manufacturers, it is difficult to find counterfeits of the iPhone. This is probably one of the reasons why most people love the brand thereby promoting the companys brand image. Several crises have occurred as a result of brand image in the world. For instance, in the year 2012, the Dominos crisis affected the supply of Pizza by the company (Lukusa, 2014). In the event, two individuals posted on YouTube video clips which lead to the destruction of the companys brand image. This affected the way people started perceiving the company. As a result, the sales of Pizza and other products from the same company went down in the year 2012. It took the company a very long time to recover from this crisis. Reestablishing the brand image has proved to be the most difficult thing over time. Once you destroy the image of your company, you break the trust of the potential clients. It becomes a big challenge to win them back as compared to starting a new company (Wheeler, 2017). For the Dominos crisis of 2012, the CEO came up with a good strategy to recover, after three days the video had been posted, the CEO posted another video to apologize for the inconvenience provided to them by the two guys who were just trying to have fun on the premises not knowing what they were doing. The use of YouTube and Twitter helped to solve the Dominos Crisis. The brand image has strong relationship with strategic planning, resource allocation, marketing and other parts of the entire organization. Without the image of the brand, all other sectors of a firm will come to a standstill. The diagram below illustrates this relationship. Areas of the organization affected by the brand image.. Methodology In this research, the main objective is to find out the effect of brand image on the consumer behavior (Woodside, 2016). To get a better understanding of the issue, useful information, the best methods include conducting interviews with the customers who have had experience with a variety of products in the market. Interviewing Carrying out interviews with the managers of some companies will help to obtain reliable data which will help the audience to know much how the brand image affects the decisions (Vogt, 2010)., making process in the firm (Hirsch, 2013) For instance, when we go to the footwear industry, it is good to obtain individuals who have had to make decisions in coming up with different footwear collections in their stores. In this case, retailers can serve as the best subjects for our interviews. Retailers usually analyze the brand that sells a lot in their shops. We can use these statistics for the research (Glynn Woodside, 2017). Observation Another method we can employ in the research is observation (Dane, 2014). From observing the way clients make their purchases in different areas like for instance in the supermarket, we will be able to tell which brands are moving at a very first rate. After that, we will analyze different reasons as to why people will, for instance, prefer to use Nivea products rather than using what the Nivea competitors offer through interviews and discussions (Deege, et al, 2014). The interview and observation methods will be used simultaneously in the research. Discussions can be held later. These two methods are cheap since they do not require a lot of funds to be applied like other methods like surveys (Mullings, University of Sheffield University of Sheffield, 2014). Nevertheless, the data obtained is firsthand. Tabulation and graphical presentations To analyze the obtained data, methods such as tabulation and graphical presentations will work out best. It is easy to read graphs and tables thereby drawing out conclusions easily. Graphical presentations provide one an opportunity to compare and contrast different statistical data (Fisher, 2016). The height of the graphs can tell the extent to which a given set of data goes to. The interviewing and questionnaires will both be informative and normative. There is need to make the audience have a better understanding of the whole branding image issue. Literature Review The literature review will also serve best in our research. From analyzing the numerous information collected by several individuals, we will be able to tell the untold and under-told stories in the brand image concerns. This will be helpful to avoid repeating similar mistakes that the previous researchers did. Reducing errors in this research will be of significant by reading the various sources from our library. Nevertheless, literature review gives people an idea of what they will be looking for in the research. The method is cheap, provides wide access to information, and it is time-saving. One does not need to move around looking for information more especially with the introduction of e-learning. Organization of the study This research study will have five chapters and is to be organized as follows: In chapter one, the research proposal will be relevant. Chapter two will provide an in-depth analysis of the brand image and how it affects the consumer buying behavior (Lessig, 2016). In the third chapter, the research will cover the statistical methods employed. That will entail both data collection and data analysis methods. The data collection methods include the observation, interviewing, literature review and questionnaires. The data analysis will include tabulation and graphical presentations. The report analysis and findings will be on chapter four of the research. The significant findings will be summarized in chapter five. Which will be the last chapter of this research. Gantt chart The timeline needed for the whole project to be completed will be as follows. Name of task Start day End day Duration (Days) Proposal of the project 3/6/2017 10/6/2017 7 Literature review 12/6/2017 20/6/2017 8 Data collection 22/6/2017 30/62/2017 8 Data analysis 1/7/2017 12/7/2017 11 Final report submission 14/7/2017 28/7/2017 14 Project Budget and Budget Justification The budget for this proposed research is approximately $3000 for it to be completed by 28th July 2017 as indicated by the Gantt chart. This budget is to be distributed as follows: The literature review will take approximately $900 for the online and print media. Data collection will take approximately $15000 due to the transport costs, analysis materials, conducting interviews and printing the questionnaires for our respondents. Accessing the government statistics regarding the performance of various companies will cost us approximately $600. This information can be summarized as follows: Purpose Estimated amount to be spent in US dollars. 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