“An evaluation How branding can motivate customers buying behaviour: case study of Primark.

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Introduction

The brand tells why products exist, where they come from and where they are going. It also
sets their guidelines. A brand is not a fact set in stone. It must be able to adapt to the times
and to changes in buyer’s behaviour and technology. Brands have been important ever since
advertising for mass produced products began. As Stephen Kint said, “A product is made in
a factory. A brand is bought by a consumer”.

As mentioned by Rayport and Jaworski (2003), the purchasing processes can be divided into
three stages, namely pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase. Each stage is of equal
importance that can alter the consumer buying decision. Once consumers make a purchasing
decision, consumers may need to recognize their personal needs, read product information,
decide which and where to buy, determine whether to buy again from the same retailer,
choose the buying modes, show satisfaction to the services or product quality and finally be
loyal to the brand.

Primark is the brand name of selling clothes at the budget end of the UK clothing sector. The
company's success is based on sourcing supply cheaply, making clothes with simple designs
and fabrics, only making them in the most popular sizes, buying stock in huge bulks and
varieties and not advertising. There were issue towards branding and reputation such as at
how Primark positions itself in the context of web era in order to build firm relationship with
its stakeholders as well as to protect its reputation whilst enhancing its brand image and
value. The spread of information across the web feeds traditional media channels and reaches
larger audiences potentially damaging reputation and thus tarnishing the brand. There
indicate social web and social media utility tools to communicate their social responsibility
(Jones, Temperley and Lima, 2009). The Marketing strategy of Primark focuses on the
innovation and the building of brand relationships as there are view of Godin (2008) in which
the proponent noted that, organization have to be “remarkable” to succeed in the marketplace
today, which comes down to getting “talked about virally” both online and offline.

These highlight the complication of buying processes and the potential impact a brand could
impose in between them. In accordance with Delong et al. (2004), consumers appear to rely
on the brand image as long as they have little knowledge about the brand. In this way,
managing brand image is of utmost importance. In order to differentiate one brand from
 “An evaluation How branding can motivate customers buying behaviour: case study of Primark. “

another, marketers would develop retail brands with unique image so as to continue to gain
popularity and market share (Abend, 2000; Ailawadi, 2001; Corstjens and Lal, 2000).The
importance of brand image has inspired many marketing scholars and practitioners to begin
researching the concept of ‘brand equity’ (Aaker, 1991, 1996; Keller, 1993, 1998, 2003).
Under this concept, brands are regarded as valuable assets which can help the companies
generate lucrative revenues.

In this paper, the concept of brand equity would be utilized as a theoretical framework, which
would be illustrated in the following chapters.

The UK has transformed from an industrial country to a well-developed country in the recent
decades. The differences in their economies have triggered the interest of my study towards
their consumer buying behaviour in the clothing sector

Consumer behaviour refers to the activities in which people acquire, consume and dispose products
and services (Blackwell et al., 2001). Owing to the proliferation of brands in the recent decades, there
is a growing number of research conducted in the field of consumer buying behaviour. However, most
of them concentrate on a single country study, regardless of the importance of cross-country
comparisons which will inspire innovative ideas for understanding the fast-changing consumer habits.
This dissertation is going to investigate the differences of British and Chinese in purchasing clothes
under the influence of brand image.

In this chapter, the literatures concerning the roles of brand and brand equity are to be reviewed so as
to provide a theoretical framework for the a forementioned analysis.

Brand serves a pivotal role for distinguishing goods and services from those of the competitors
(Aaker, 1991; Murphy, 1998). The emergence of brand equity underlies the importance of brand in
marketing tactics and hence provides

useful insights for managers and further research (Keller, 2003).