Literature Review

Brand image strategy: segmentation, differentiation and positioning

Reputation of a company does not only improve the worth of business

representation (Fombrun, 1996) but also has an outcome on the brand

marketing (Goldberg & Hartwick, 1990). This subject is mainly significant in

the basic product promote because the risk of the brand name attractive

used in a general style is always at hand, and so a corporation should take

ladder to struggle to keep away from this event.

Low and Blois (2002) stated that attaining the suitable conclusion regarding

a company’s reaction to the use of its brand name in a broad manner is

difficult. Predictably, there are many arguments or assumptions are made on

this topic. Low and Blois (2002, p. 391) also argued further:

“[E]ven a large firm, which might have the resources to carry out a

thorough assessment of the costs associated with each policy and the

likelihood of their being successful, will still have to reach a decision on the

basis of a high degree of uncertainty. For a small firm with limited resources,

the decision will necessarily be based almost entirely on managerial

judgment for the cost of even the simple market survey may be too great for

it to be undertaken.”

Therefore, in the market of consumers, whether it’s a brand or a product the

owner assumes the branding tactic is related to the business strategy or

company decisions. According to the argument mentioned above, the

management of business reputation not only redevelops a brand (Gotsi and

Wilson, 2001), but the company reputation also has an impact on its brand

image ultimately (Biel, 1993; Christensen and Askegaard, 2001).

No. 2

Literature Review
The limited resources accessible to a retailer are the space of shelf (SS) that must be assigned to
a variety of products. The retailers as well as the manufacturers have felt that there is a strong
connection between the space given to a certain product and its sales.

Therefore, retailers occasionally operate area of a shelf to spread their revenues along with their

sales. Meanwhile many supermarkets locally and internationally demonstrate self-service that is,
clients get the product but the support for sales lacks.

The choice of retailer that he made and how efficiently he attains his limited space of shelf (SS),
are extremely important for the retailer. This is due to the choices that they make are important
factors for his profits and costs involved to the store. Having a faulty space while facing the
issues with new as well as old products, struggling with space limitation, the retailers should put
an effort and adjust his proceeds through an active distribution of the restricted space. This space
of shelf (SS) distribution further impacts the overall operational cost for the store as many types
of merchandise have opposing obtaining costs. Sometimes, the cost involved is contrary wise
linked to the allocation of the product and its placement. Products that have a limited space
allotted will certainly face higher cost and a larger occurrence of swapping the product
(Coestjens&Doyl, 1981).

Quantity of space for the shelf allotted to a particular product in a specific store comes with an
excellent substitute, whose information will let the retailer to figure out and come up with the
most profitable space allocation in comparison with other products that struggle for their stricted
space of shelf (SS) of the store.
The space of shelf can also be restrained as some kind of promotional, whereas, produces are
situated on the highest level of purchasers’ concentrations representing the recognition level. The
space may also influence the product’s demand by dropping the customer’s cost of searching.
The sale of a particular product relies on the quantity of space of the shelf that is allotted to the
product that also includes the features such as the location of that space.[ CITATION Mar96 \l
1033 ].

Competitors want to take the advantage so that they obtain highest space of shelf (SS) to
cover the space in their store. A retailer is someone who controls the sales mix promotions to
accessible keeping in mind the price motivations that producers offer, special offers on brands as
compared to the brands that their competitors have and then they decide how all these space of
shelf will every manufacturer would be settling in[ CITATION Gui06 \l 1033 ]

In the past many researches have been found that it has proved that consumers incline to take an
optimistic visual alertness when shelf spacing is being pondered upon, as it affects the sales of
certain products. Further, if a product is at the ideal location in the store.

Product location is a key factor to deliberate that the demand of any product will be affected.
Furthermore, the location of the shelf plays a very important role while looking at this link. The
tactic allocations or to elaborate, the most profitable locations for shelf spaces are following:

1. Shelves must be at the entrance of the stores

2. Shelves must be at end of the passageways or at the turns of the corridors
3. Shelves must be at the eye level. If they are on the eye level, the buying chances are
higher[ CITATION Rui05 \l 1033 ].

Looking at the central shelves serves as less of an exertion as compared to an eye level look
where several customers are interested to look at the shelves at the mid-level or at an eye
level[ CITATION Val09 \l 1033 ].

The most less important considerable shelve are top and bottom. The best way to place a product
is in order to increase sales is a hip height. It has been confirmed that it results in lots of
benefits. Top as well as the bottom positions are not likely to be considered as an ideal position
because later their discernibility becomes unclear in comparison with the middle ones. The price
of a product that is placed in the middle position serves as advancement while manufacturers
recompense an added amount to get this portion of the shelf[ CITATION Die04 \l 1033 ]

This fast-growing environment of competition also sheds light on retailers that play an important
role to play so that their revenues are exploited. They typically rely on increasing their product
sale by managing the presentation of their stores. Nevertheless, they should regularly dependent
on shifting their product display because, this action is very important since, each product has its
limited life cycle (Corstjens& Doyle, 1983).

In this conducted study by[ CITATION Wal09 \l 1033 ]there is a strong connection amongst the
consciousness or alertness level of many consumers as well as an individual’s choice of making
their choice for a certain product that heavily relies on how well the product has been settled.
Uncertainty, if the product is not being found by them then the customers may they change their
preferences or choose different brand or buy any substitute product which they can see on the
shelf. Another choice is to alter the outlet, where they make their purchase from and they would
rather go for it to get what they like.

One significant element to be engaged under debate is the topic of shelf space and product
placements. As per the producers, these two major concerns play quite a significant role. The
only chance vendors have is experiencing direct involvement with the consumers, and because of
this direct experience they are given the chance to compete for shelf spacing and their preferred
placements.

The responsibility of the producers is to maintain the status of the space of shelf (SS), by
dividing the spaces efficiently and pool in better looking appliances, making them seem
attractive for the retailers.

Unplanned buying is also known an impulse buying (IB). This is where the shopper has no plan
to buy any product. Impulse buying (IB) has four categories:

1. Pure impulse purchases (PIP) – there is where a consumer purchases a product

accidentally which does not resemble the similar purchase.
2. Reminder impulse buying (RIB) –this is when a consumer remembers that he/she has to
buy a product again when he looks at it in the superstore.
 3. Suggestion impulse buying (SIB) – when a customer first time look at the product and
has not purchased it in the past. The consumer will purchase it to try it out.
4. Planned impulse buying (PIB) – when a consumer visits a super store thinking that he/she
might purchase a product without planning it. This happens due to some promotions on
the products, sales offer, discounts on the products etc.[ CITATION Haw62 \l 1033 ]

No. 3

LITERATURE REVIEW

Literature Review

This chapter is based on the literature review of the whole research with regards to Influencer
Marketing. The research consists of primary and secondary research and covers the theoretical
framework. The chapter begins with a discussion on what is Influencer marketing and how the
micro-influencer has been successful enough through the social media platform of Instagram.
Instagram and its most major figures are described in this literature review. They will explore
how brands and advertisers can use this platform as a marketing tool, and how they use their own
Instagram profile.

2.1 What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing is a social media platform that is used by many ordinary people to
influence others through their lifestyles. According to one of the research, these influencers are
also considered as opinion leaders (Melisa Albano, 2017).

An opinion leader is those people who carry the ability to influence someone's decision. The
reason opinion leaders are also considered influencers because the outcome for both of them is
the same. They convince the user to change their decision based on their (influencer's) lifestyle
by using the products of the brands/companies in their daily life showing off the product through
pasting pictures, stories, etc. The brands and companies sponsor the influencer to put their
products in the market.
The influencer is chosen, whose activities on social media are related to the product. For
example, the brand from Europe will sponsor an influencer in Asia to introduce its product in the
Asian market. In particular, new companies and brands work with different / multiple micro
(Small Scale) influencers to introduce their product to the market, for example (YouTube): Kove
speaker is an emerging U.S. speaker brand, Kove speaker began promoting new and small You
Tubers and selling their product by showing you more successfully using their products and from
there the views / followers are interested and encouraged to buy the product..

The term influencer marketing has also been defined as a form of marketing which is been used
by a marketer to approach the right kind of consumer through an influencer who would be able
to promote the brand's existing and new product and can generate revenue for the brand.

Influencer Marketing started in 2006 where a person called Murphy started a website called
PayPerPost. This platform had a basic aim of bringing in all the influencer’s on one platform and
the marketer could approach him or her for the advertisement of his or her product. This website
PayPerPost works when influencers post their product on the website of any platform the paying
one as per the views, likes and share the influencer get for the picture/post done on for the
product. This idea nowadays is used in almost all the platforms in social media advertising such
as YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, etc. and as the influencer grows, even more, the pay gets
better. [ CITATION Cap19 \l 1033 ]

The influencer needs to keep up the image and content to be noticed by the brands and the
companies. The influencer needs to have a great trust of their followers, to convince their
audience to purchase the product. The influencer can do this by using the product in their daily
life. The influencer needs to maintain the image they created to gain more followers and to
convince the existing ones. In today's world influencer's have not just been limited to the
PayPerPost site but have been widespread on many other platforms like Instagram, Face book,
LinkedIn, YouTube, blogging, and Twitter. Our research would be more focused on Instagram
influencers. These social media platforms have been divided on several bases that consumers
follow.

One of the research (Rakuten marketing, 2019) has narrowed it down to the common factors that
consumers follow the most. The most influencing platform followed by consumers is entertainer
47%, beauty 43%, and celebrity 43%, and fashion 39%. This analysis was done on a global basis
with countries like the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, and
Germany.

2.2 The Importance of Influencer Marketing.

Influencer marketing can be explained in various ways and has importance in today's World.
Influencer Marketing and the advertisement market has been considered as an opinion leader
means that they do carry an importance to the consumer decision making by using the product in
their daily life and showing the results of the product to the follower, viewers that influences the
users to buy the product. It either can convince a user to buy something or can change the
consumer's mindset completely on product perception.

The basic benefit that the marketers are receiving from these influencers is less cost or
sometimes even free because the influencer work for the brands just to get fame in the industry
and to gain more following and get recognized in the industry by being promoted by the brand
itself. Micro-influencers as being on a minor level, unlike celebrities, typically do not charge for
the promotion of a marketer's product and can be persuaded by the advertisers either by the
product offered to them as a sample to promote it on their website, blog, etc. The influencers do
it for their benefit just to get famous and promote them self at the same time. Prior research
studies do also indicate that these influencers have been very productive in promoting,
advertising and influencing the viewers/audience and convincible to their audience to promote
the product (Johan, 2018).

Moreover, influencer marketing is a kind of Electronic-Word-of-Mouth on affecting the user in a

more visualized manner. Influencers use the social media platform as Instagram helps them not
only by providing a detailed review of a product, but also by sharing images that help generate a
picture in the mind of the viewer. This also allows the marketer / brands to promote the function
of receiving feedback from the public as the feedback is generated with the posts that the
influencers share on their accounts. (Johan, 2018).
The focus of a brand is always on understanding the requirement that its users need to generate
the right kind of product and make revenue. Managing a brand image in the audience's mind in
today's fast-growing media society where things get viral with a short period these influencer's
play a vital role. This is where using the right kind of influencer's who can generate a good worth
of mouth through posting on their social media pages can grab the attention of the consumers
either in a good or bad perspective.

Glucksman (2017) the influencer needs to keep up the image and content to get noticed by the
brands and the companies. The influencer needs to have a great trust of their followers, to
convince their audience to purchase the product. The influencer can do this by using the product
in their daily life. The influencer needs to maintain the image they created to gain more followers
and to convince the existing ones.

2.3 Macro and Micro Influencers.

Considering today's world where everything has been based on technology internet consumers
have been more interested in going ahead with online shopping then compared to visiting a store
as of a busy lifestyle. Trying to save time. The importance of macro and micro-influencers in a
consumer's purchasing behavior does reflect a lot as these influencers influence them. As
marketers have also understood the importance of social media to gain attention to their brand,
they use these micro and macro-influencers. (Bijin, 2017)

Micro influencers

These influencers were having a limited kind of followers of a certain range do influence the
consumer in a manner because of the influencer's involvement with their followers which gives a
reflection to the consumer that the influencer is giving his own time to respond the query.
According to some researches done these Micro-Influencers have a follower of around 1000 –
10,000 based on a limited fan following these influencers interact with their consumers by
replying to their comments and assist them with better options. (Wissman, 2018).