TO STUDY THE ANTECEDENT OF EMOTIONAL BRANDING & ITS

IMPACT ON BRAND LOYALTY: WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO

INDIAN FMCG SECTOR

SYNOPSIS SUBMITTED TO BANASTHAL VIDYAPITH IN PARTIAL

FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN MANAGEMENT

Research Scholar
Peeyush Mittal
Supervisor
Dr. Peeyush Bangur (Ph. D.)
Associate Professor, FMS- WISDOM
Banasthali Vidyapith

FACULTY OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES

Women’s Institute for studies in Development Oriented Management
BANASTHALI VIDYAPITH
(Rajasthan, India)

(Re-accredited at ‘A’ Grade by NAAC; Category ‘A’ & All India 29th Rank – MHRD, and All
India ‘Rank 17’- Nielsen 2015)
Mar, 2018

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 CERTIFICATE

May 02, 2019

This is to certify that Peeyush Mittal has enrolled in Ph.D. programme in Management at
Banasthali Vidyapith.

The candidate Proposes to pursue research on the topic ‘To Study the Antecedent of Emotional
Branding & Its Impact on Brand Loyalty: With Special Reference to Indian FMCG Sector’ under
my supervision.

To the best of my Acquaintance, the topic is suitable for doctorate research, the proposed work is
original, useful for world of business and academics and little work has been carried it till now.
The synopsis is enclosed for necessary action.

(Dr. Peeyush Bangur)

1.1 Introduction
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Today’s market is both complex and diverse, not just from the point of view of marketers but
consumers also. Consumers are flooded with multiple choices in one category of product, which
is although good for the customers but it becomes complex for them to make a right choice. In
this cutting edge cut throat competitive market keeping customers loyalty towards the particular
brand is the most complex task for the organizations and their marketing think tanks. Due to
rapid internet penetration, even in the remotest territories, customers are well informed about the
product, its features and uses and the offers available. You cannot fool your customers for long
these days or hold them to your outdated products for long. BPL, Nokia, and many other failures
are the burning examples, whose products have been rejected by the Indian consumers. These
days customers may have a preference towards one or two product of a company, but may reject
the other ones; for example In India, Samsung has good strong hold in Mobiles, Refrigerators,
TV’s, but they cannot claim the same for their Laptops, Washing Machine etc. Another example
is SONY, Consumers have full trust while purchasing their Televisions, Handycam, Play Station
but not in the mobile phones category. Emotions can a big reasons behind it. Emotional
attachment can be one of the important traits of keeping brand loyalty long for a company from a
particular set of customers. Marketers should know how their brands viewed by target market &
based upon that articulate a clear-cut brand identity. Today marketers have been called upon to
expect the unexpected; to understand the world where change is an ongoing activity. The concept
of continuous perceived value implies a readiness of consumer to live with flexibility,
spontaneity, and unpredictability. If we look back, we used to find a big one globe, but now the
whole globe shrinks in size due to the evolution of information technology; which can be
considered as the era of globalization. Globalization of business, liberalization, increasing
integration of the economies within the global economies, the evolution of the internet, and the
emerging technologies have redefined the way business is being done. As globalization is closely
related to business and corporate, it has a direct impact on the corporate world. While more
companies are opening across topographical and social boundaries, and are adapting to the global
realism in their operations, many are laggard in developing the fitting marketing strategies and
policies, structures and services that support globalization.

Marketers should know how their brand viewed by customer & based upon that, accordingly
articulate a clear-cut brand identity. Advertising, loyalty cards, discount offers, brand

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performance etc. are not the only factors, which affect the customer's purchase decisions, but
they also help to create a relationship between brand & customer. There are several other factors
i.e. the word of mouth, customer service, ratings at social networking & business websites and
how well the marketers answering the needs of customers, helping them in solving their problem,
fulfilling the aspiration & adapting to their ever-changing needs to take a competitive advantage
in today cut-throat competitive world.

These days’ marketers use the emotions of the customer for creating a strong brand recall value
in the consumer's mind. As we, all know that emotions have a very high impact on customer’s
loyalty, satisfaction towards product brand. A “people place” fosters community rather than the
rat race. An ethnocentric approach to branding has been adopted by researchers to solving
managerial problems. (Cayla &Arnould (2008).

Today’s Marketers needs to realize that emotional aspects are involved while a consumer selects
& buys a particular product brand for a long time which can be termed as brand loyalty also.
These days customer do not buy their goods and services just as they need, in fact, their shopping
based on various factors. Sometimes even the stimuli created by marketer help to understand the
need or to maintain their social status makes them buy goods or opt for particular services from a
service provider. It’s now the job of the marketer to not just make the purchase happen through
various promotion strategies, but to create a bond with the customer, which does not just end at
simply one purchase to fulfill the need at the particular time, but go beyond that. Create an
emotional, sentimental relationship which creates brand loyalty, not in just mind, but makes a
house in heart and stays longer more than the competitor’s product. Brand loyalty created
through emotional approach towards product brand can reap fruitful rewards in the long run and
make a customer a brand ambassador in his/her own community, peer group or social circle. If
we closely look at products, similar products of different companies, finding a substantial
difference in terms of product uses, features are becoming difficult for customers. Most of the
companies are offering products which are identical in looks, features, and uses; it’s the
connection between the products and consumer which make the purchase happen. Emotion and
values tied to a brand can increase sales.

1.2 Emotional Branding and Brand Loyalty

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Emotional branding developed and arose as an extremely influential brand management
example for years. (Gobe 2001) Emotional branding, is a story focused method for structuring of
profound and lasting emotional promises among shoppers and products as well as consumer-
centric & relational approach.

It is a broadly used term, along with marketing communications, which focus on the building
brands by way of connecting a brand to the people's emotional need and aspirations. Emotional
branding strategy is something which relies on binding the thoughts & feelings of the customer
to the brand make the obvious choice in the heart of them.

Brand Loyalty a psychosomatic process function and considered as biased response by behavior
and expressed over a time periodbacked by decision-making unit with respect to alternative
brands from set of brands. (Jacob & Chestnut (1978). Brand Loyalty is considered a contributor
to build and maintain brand equity.

Emotional branding can help marketers to forge a long-term relationship with consumers that
bring the brand loyalty of consumers towards a particular brand. Consumers expect an
unprecedented level of emotional commitment and honesty from the brands they trust, support
and buy. Any Brand to be successful in this emotional economy, Marketers needs to create and
build emotional loyalty. Brand Managers have to build and brace customer relationships linking
on a sentimental level with its consumers.

Emotional attachment level (high or low) depicts the emotional dependency of customer on a
brand, higher the attachment, ultimately lead to increment in emotional dependency on brand.
(Park et al 2010).

Emotions of consumers can be incited with a view to enrich relationship of consumer and
product, thereby devised as a single mindedness objective of emotional branding.

In The Hidden Persuaders, Vance Packard's speaks to the emotional response of consumers to
advertising. It states, “In the shopping for state of affairs, the buyer usually acts showing emotion
and obsessively, subconsciously reacting to the pictures and styles that area unit related to the
merchandise."The notion that feeling isn't solely related to compulsivity and unreason however

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may be a subconscious reaction, is that the framework that drives emotional stigmatization
theory.

Today’s successful companies are engaging customers in personal conversations to know and
mitigate their wants.

Marketers are also creating strong emotional bonds with the help of their brands by connecting
with the customers.

According to Barbara Green states “You have to own a relationship with the consumer-flirt with
them, give that titillating buzz. Once that sexy relationship becomes a deep relationship, then
you've got a significant whole.”

Emotional branding creates a personality for the brand in whole. In an article published in Brand
week, original source Emotional Branding by Marc Gobe, the difference between identity and
personality is stated: Identity is recognition. Temperament is regarding character and charisma!
Whole identities categorical a degree of distinction within the competitive landscape--but that is
simply the primary step and personalities area unit special: They evoke emotional response.
Yankee Airlines contains a sturdy identity, however, Virgin Airlines has temperament.” The
whole personality of brand is crucial in emotional branding exercise.

1.3 Antecedent of Emotional Branding

Role of emotions as a leveraging force in the attachment of consumers is recently in focus.

Emotional content can create, communicates, and delivers brand values for development of
strong consumer & brand relationship. Emotions can lead to a long term relationship between
consumer and brand can base on various aspects i.e. brand attitude, content in advertisements,
brand value and purchase intention, brand attachments etc.

Brand meanings is the focal point of emotional branding in a way that it deals with life of
shoppers, their life stories , memories as well as understanding.

Main Focus of emotional branding is on brand meanings, as it’s interact with shopper lives and
inspire desire, life stories & memories, and understandings i.e. experience.The actions of

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consumers and managers are alike and emotions are central point to them. (Bagozzi, Gopinath,
Nyer, 1999).

Roseman (1991) describe 16 unique emotions in his appraisal theory as shown in Below Figure
1.

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 Figure 1. Roseman’s Appraisal theory of Emotions (1991)

The point of emotions i.e. Pride, Liking, Dislike, Anger, Fear, etc., can be the backbone for long
term relationship or breakup between consumer and brand. Marketers should take these into
account while preparing strategies to build a long lasting relationship with customers.

The crucial point of emotional branding for firms is in getting into the mess through product &
services while clamming unique links in extremely flooded market atmosphere, where they are
differentiated from each other on technological, causal and benefit parameters. (Akgun, Kocoglu,
Imamoglu, 2013).

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Jawahar and Maheshwari (2009), suggest emotional attachment which includes 1) Affection 2)
Connection and 3) Passion, as the antecedent of emotional branding. Carrol and Ahuvia (2006)
as mentioned, Brand love as a satisfied consumer's emotional attachment to a particular brand
which is interpreted as an emotional branding strategy.

Grisaffe and Nguyen (2010) identify the antecedents of emotional attachments to brands as;

1) Sentimentality / Emotional memory (i.e. people. places, situations)

2) Socialization (i.e. family, social group)
3) Traditional Customers Outcomes (i.e. value satisfaction, differentiation)
4) Superior Marketing characteristics (i.e. product, place, price, promotion, services)
5) User Derived Benefits ( i.e. sensory pleasure, self-oriented goals, socially oriented goals)

These studies are regarded as building the framework for determining the antecedents of
emotional branding.

2.1 Literature Review

As suggested by Watzkawick et al., (1967), it is the emotional content which creates and
communicates brand values through the development of strong brand relationships. Hence, firms
ought to concentrate on the emotional bonding between brands and consumers who live and store
the brand experience as a relationship-building factor in branding strategy.

The benefit-driven methods of emotional branding, where it central entitlement was essentially
to create a pure, steady, and unique advantage spot in the memory of the customer, has been
challenged by emotional branding experts many times. (Aaker 1996; Ries and Trout 1981).

The beliefs and unintentional Significances of emotional branding appeared in the end of 1990’s,
as a self-proclaimed corrective to the shortcomings of the conventional benefit motivated tactic
to branding.

Proponents of emotional disapproval proclaim that this high degree of client passion is rarely if
ever, cultivated through rational arguments regarding tangible edges or perhaps appeals to
symbolic edges, like heightened vanity or standing (Gobe 2001).

According to Marc Gobe, “consumers today not only want to be romanced by the brands they
choose to bring into their lives, they absolutely want to establish a multifaceted holistic
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relationship with that brand, and this means they expect the brand to play a positive, proactive
role in their lives.”

From a traditional whole management point of view, the central question regarding these whole
parodies and social criticisms whether or not, they really hurt a whole and whether a firm ought
to take action to combat them (Earle 2002).

Even complete management paradigms originally premised on psychological feature theories of

shopper data formation, currently incorporate several ideas and suggestions that square measure
characteristic of the emotional-branding paradigm (Keller 2003a, b).

Among marketing practitioners, this relational, communal, participatory, sensory, and emotive
view of consumer– brand relationship is increasingly heralded as a central pillar of market
differentiation and sustainable competitive advantage.

Branding literature is recently specializing in the role of emotions as an investment force within
the attachment of customers to brands (Yoo and MacInnis, 2005).

In contrast, classical approach of emotional stigmatization emphasizes on whole meanings which

act on lives of clients and promotes their memories, experience, passion and life stories.

As opposition typical advantages driven whole approach, emotional stigmatization focuses on

whole meanings that act with client lives and encourage their passion, life stories, memories, and
experiences.

It has been historically understood and it was matter of continuous review with regular
disapproval over the roles by brands in building connections. Earlier, in the entire process of
Marketing & Sales communication, brands were considered just as a step in strategies. But, there
has been dramatic shift seen within the last decade in the central concern of building brand name.

In order to succeed in highly competitive environment, it is important to build strong brands and
this strategy has been widely used in brand management, an area of marketing research.

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The importance of building strong brands as an imperative strategy to succeed in highly
competitive environments has been increasingly emphasized in the brand management field of
the marketing research.

Building a powerful leadership as whole brand needs that firms follow 5 principles. First, they
need to try to the fundamentals of leadership – like setting strategy and grooming talent – well.
Second, they need to make sure that managers interiorize external constituents’ high expectations
of the firm. Third, they have to gauge their leaders in line with those external views. Fourth, they
need to invest in broad-based leadership development that helps managers hone the abilities
required to fulfill client and capitalist expectations. Finally, they ought to track their success at
building a leadership whole over the future (Ulrich & Smallwood, HBR 2007).

Emotions play a crucial role in cognition, action and social behavior, which leads to defining
emotion “as a state of physical and mental readiness that involves valence (directional force),
evaluative appraisal, a target (or object or stimulus) and behavioral tendencies” (Morrison and
crane, 2007).

Emotional branding can be explained as connecting consumers with the product or brand for
long run, which is above all the satisfaction derived from the benefits provided by the product
itself and a special relationship which is based on trust through holistic experiences emotionally.
(Morrison and Crane, 2007).

According to social scientists, emotion leaves a blueprint in the human brain which facilitates the
recognition and anticipation of subsequent emotional cues and reactions (Kay and Loverock,
2008). The emotional linkages between consumers and the brand result in increased commitment
(Grisaffe and Nguyen, forthcoming), customer satisfaction (Bagozzi et al., 1999), loyalty, and
repurchase intention (Ersoy and Calik, 2010)

There is an opportunity for brand differentiation in applying a branding strategy which encourages
relationships of brands with customers based on experience and brand playing a central role in the lives of
customers. It has been particularly observed that deep psychological bonds also known as emotional
connections of consumers with the brand results in competitive advantage and increased firm
performance. (Malar et al., 2011).

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Recognizing the fact that brands achieve the opportunity to differentiate from other brands in an
exponential scale, through adopting a branding strategy where they promote experience-based
relationships with their customers, placing their brands to a high centrality and importance into
consumer’s lives. It is extremely evident that intense psychological bonds with the whole
referred as emotional brand connections, cause higher levels of firm performance and
competitive advantage (Malar et al., 2011).

3. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

There are only a few studies on the impact of antecedents of emotional branding on brand loyalty
in India. A valid framework needs to be developed which shows the interrelationships between
antecedents of emotional branding and brand loyalty in the presence of mediating factors. Such a
framework would be a helpful management tool for managers since it can be used as a basis for
decision-making and the determination of brand strategies.

4. PROPOSED OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

 To study the impact of emotional branding Antecedents on brand loyalty

 To weigh the relevance of mediating factors of brand loyalty
 To study the extent of influence of emotional Branding on mediating factors.
 To develop a framework analyzing the relationship between Emotional Branding and
Brand loyalty.

5. PROPOSED RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

 The study will be based on primary data collection among the sample of respondents.
 The respondents shall be Indian Consumers.
 The sampling method will be Non-probabilistic sampling. Questionnaire survey method
will be used to verify the hypotheses.
 Likert’s scale shall be used to measure the respondent’s opinion.
 Structural equation modeling (SEM) will be applied to verify the research framework.

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5.1 SAMPLE SIZE AND PROCEDURE

The size of the sample would be 750 people, which will be collected from different states cities
and areas as research requirement. For that, researcher will do the self-administered fieldwork as
it will help in maintaining the quality of data, sampling control, selecting right respondents and
reducing cost and time as well as researcher will collect data through mails.

6. TENTATIVE CHAPTER PLAN:

Thesis will be divided into five chapters namely: Introduction, literature review, research
methodology, data analysis and findings, conclusion and implications. A brief overview on the
proposed chapterisation is mentioned below-

1. INTRODUCTION: It will provide an overview of the thesis content starting with

background to the research, proceeds to research topic and its motivation, justification for
the research, main contributions, and proposed scheme for thesis outline.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW: This chapter consists of an overview of the previous research
work done and theories proposed by various researchers and eminent academicians in
their field. The researcher will attempt to inter-relate emotional branding antecedents to
find out the relevance of them in forming brand management strategies. At the end the
chapter will provide a research gap with the help of review of literature.
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: This chapter includes objective of the study. The
empirical research design will describe and will also include sources of data collection,
sampling techniques, methods and procedure of the analysis.
4. ANALYSIS OF DATA AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA: This chapter starts with
the discussion of issues regarding validity and reliability of the study, followed by
detailed data analysis and its presentation from primary collected data.
5. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION: This will include the summary of the
research work. It includes discussion of overall findings, limitations and opportunities for
future research.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY:

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Associates, New York, NY.
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3. Abratt, R. and Kleyn, N. (2011), “Corporate identity, corporate branding and corporate
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behavioral Consumer loyalty”, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 24 No. 7, pp. 395-
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