IRJMSH Vol 10 Issue 6 [Year 2019] ISSN 2277 – 9809 (0nline) 2348–9359 (Print)

IMPACT OF BRAND AWARENESS AND BRAND LOYALTY OF VKC

PRODUCTS ON PURCHASE DECISION OF CUSTOMERS AND STRATEGIC
BRAND MANAGEMENT SUGGESTIONS – AN ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS

DEEPU.S* AND SREYA SURENDRAN.E.K.**.

*Assistant Professor ,Centre for MBA, Dr. P. K. Rajan Memorial Campus Nileswaram,
Puthariyadukkam PO, Kasaragod -671314,, Kannur University
** Post graduate student in the Centre for MBA.
Abstract
Brand holds great importance in consumer’s life and now a days it has become a status
symbol and customers all over the world now prefer branded products. The impact of brand
awareness and brand loyalty of VKC products on purchase decision of consumers was taken
into consideration in this organizational study. The study was also concentrated to find out the
variation in brand loyalty among customers across different income groups and to find out the
existence of any relationship between price sensitiveness and brand loyalty of VKC customers.
The primary data for the study were collected from the respondents by administering a
structured questionnaire, interview, discussion with the customers etc. The respondents included
males and females of different age group, marital status, income group, employment status etc.
The study revealed that VKC brand awareness was from online media and advertisement but
friends and family were the main purchase influence. Majority of the respondents were satisfied
with the brand and loyal to the VKC brand. Most of the customers felt that VKC brand is a
status symbol and identified themselves as brand loyal customers. Chi square analysis revealed
that there existed no significant relationship between brand loyalty & income level of VKC
customers. Spearman’s Rank correlation analysis established that there was not much
relationship between price sensitiveness and brand loyalty.

The strategic management suggestions developed based on the study are i) the company
needs to introduce brand ambassador for VKC product which can enhance the purchase
behaviour of the consumers and push more VKC products in the market and ii) the company
needs to strengthen the marketing wing to undertake more promotional activities to enhance
brand image of VKC products.

Key words: Brand awareness, brand loyalty, purchase behaviour, VKC brand products

INTRODUCTION
Brand holds a great importance in consumer’s life and now a days it has become a status
symbol and customers all over the world now prefer branded products. Products are made for

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consumers who buy different products according to their needs. According to Macdonald and
Sharp (2000) despite consumers are familiar and willing to buy the product, one of the important
factors that still influences the purchase decision is brand awareness. Whenever a customer is
willing to buy a good or service, the first brand name that clicks in his mind shows that this
product has higher brand awareness. According to Dodds et al. (1991) and Grewal etal. (1998) ,
higher level of brand awareness can influence the purchase decision of the consumers. This is
one of the reason that why a product having higher level of brand awareness will result in higher
share in market and superior evaluations of their quality which finally leads to the creation of
brand loyalty. Reichheld and Sasser (1990) and Barsky (1994) indicated that cost of attracting
new customer is higher than that of maintaining the customer loyalty .which means that less cost
will be incurred on the product with higher brand loyalty. Brand holds a great importance in
consumer’s life and it ensures a comparable quality when products are repurchased. There is no
confusion between branded products amongst consumers and branding makes price comparisons
for the marketer. Branding also gives legal protection to the seller and enables a seller to segment
the market . Brand loyalty protects a firm against competition. The distributors prefer branding
as an identification tool for vendors and as a convenient tool to handle the products. The brand
name is fundamentally important choice because it often captures the central theme or key
associations of a product in a very compact and economical fashion. Brand names can be an
extremely effective means of communication.
VeekesyPlastomers India Pvt Ltd. is registered as a private limited company and is one
of the largest producers of DIP footwear’s in Kerala. It is one of the associate concerns of
renowned VKC Group of Companies. The founder of Veekesy Plastomers India Pvt ltd is Mr.
V.K.C. MAMMED KOYA. The company is situated at KOLATHARA; KOZHIKODE .The
Company has been able to achieve a landmark in the field of footwear through the continuous
researches in footwear industry. The company manufactures Stile & Pride brand footwear having
PVC & PU sole with leather and synthetic leather upper. Veekesy Plastomers India Pvt Ltd
caters to extend its markets of Kerala, Karnataka, Tamilnadu, Andra Pradesh and certain
countries outside India. VKC Plastomers exports the footwear’s to countries such as Saudi
Arabia, Dubai, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar. Exports have shown a steady growth over the
years. The products have a high brand value in the minds of the people of Kerala because of the
quality and the affordable price of the product. The company assures the quality of the product
through the continuous quality checking in each and every stages of the production process. The
quality of the VKC products is unrivalled in the market. The Footwear introduced by the
company has been growing and evolving with the changing trends over the year. In recent years
the customers prefer the DIP Footwear’s than any other Footwear.

Products are made for consumers and consumers are those who buy different products
according to their needs (Gajjar, 2013). Consumer buying decision is a process that involves
different steps like the recognition of need, search for the information, evaluation of alternatives,

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selection and post purchase experience of the same product. There are lots of factors which affect
the consumer behaviour and those factors lead him towards purchasing. In this research paper
,the impact of branding on consumer behaviour, brand loyalty and the consumer response
regarding various factors which lead to influence the purchase behaviour with respect to DIP
foot wears of VKC brand were analysed. Due to the globalization, competition is increased and
every time innovation is needed for making the brands globally known and for maintaining their
status. For every brand to be successful, brand identity and recognition is very important as the
people perceive the brands as their recognition, achievement, and status symbol. On the other
hand consumers are emotionally attached to different brands of their choice. If the brand
ambassador of a brand is favourite celebrity of a consumer, he will buy that product because he
wants to look like his favourite personality. So celebrity branding is basically leads to emotional
purchase. In this study , those dimensions of consumer behaviour which influence them in
selecting a branded product and impact of brands on consumer loyalty were analysed. Based on
the study, an attempt was made to explicit the relationship between branding and consumer
buying behaviour, consumer loyalty etc. with respect to VKC brand of foot wears and tried to
analyse factors responsible for buying VKC branded products and strategic suggestions were
recommended for the company to enhance the consumer purchase behaviour of the product.

Objectives and scope of the study

. This study was aimed to analyse the impact of brand and brand loyalty on consumer buying
behaviour, brand awareness and various factors which influence purchase behaviour of
consumers with reference to VKC brand. The study was also concentrated to find out the
variation in brand loyalty among customers across different income groups and to find out the
existence of any relationship between price sensitiveness and brand loyalty of VKC customers.
Creative suggestions were also pointed out based on the study to enhance the purchase of VKC
branded products.

REVIEW OF RELEVANT LITERATURE

In the present day business world , the business’s objective is to enhance their sales as
well as their profits. For this purpose, organizations try to encourage people towards its products
and services for purchase and influences the customers to purchase over the life time period.
Brand awareness:
Brand awareness is the probability that, consumers are familiar about the availability and
accessibility of a company’s product and service. If an organization has a successful brand
awareness it means that the products and services of the organization have a good reputation in
the market and simply acceptable by consumers (Gustafson & Chabot, 2007). The awareness of
the brand plays a significant role in uniqueness of the product and enhances the confidence level
of consumers and encourages purchase decision. There must be a consideration of brand while

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making a decision to purchase a product or service, if there is nothing to be considered the

probability is that there is nothing to be chosen (Baker W, J, & Nedungadi, 1986). Brand
awareness creates a great association in memory about a particular brand (Stokes, 1985).
Creating a strong brand image in the consumer’s mind depends on create an optimistic brand
assessment, reachable brand approach, and a reliable brand representation (Farquhar, 1989). The
importance of brand awareness in the mind of the customers can be evaluated at various stages
(Aaker D., 1996). Brand awareness is very important because no communication and no
transaction will occur if there will be no brand awareness (Percy, 1987).
Brand loyalty:
Some of the consumers are particular to purchase only those brand which are famous in
the market (Keller, 1993). The customers can have enough knowledge about that brand, can
become loyal to the brand due to its uniqueness, its superior quality, comfort of use and also
feel confident while make a purchase decision .Brand loyalty is very important for the
organization to meet its objective so that the organization try to make its customers happy and
also resolve the problems if they feel related to their particular product and service. The brand
loyalty can be defined as; the degree of closeness of client to a specific brand, expressed by their
replicate purchase regardless of marketing stress created by the rival brands. It is the basic
objective of the organization which they set about their product and services. It is the preference
of the consumers to make purchase of a particular brand due to its attributes, image, quality,
features and price, and they normally committed to purchase and refer to other people. Due to
brand loyalty their occasional purchase becomes normal by increasing frequency of purchase.
Brand loyalty is very important for the organization to enhance their sales volume, to get
premium price, to retain their customers rather than seeking new customers. There is a
significant difference between replicate purchase and brand loyalty because replication purchase
is buying of brand frequently and loyalty is the result going on by actions (Bloemer, 1995).
Brand loyalty occur when clients have significant relation towards the brand expressed by
replicate purchase. Such loyalty will be beneficial for the firm because ultimately clients will be
agreed to purchase at premium and may also be involved in introducing new clients to the firm
(Reichheld, 1990).The customers who are brand loyal do not evaluate the brand, they just make a
purchase confidently on the basis of their experiences (Sidek, Yee, & yahyah, 2008).There are
two types of loyal customers. The behavioural and the emotional, the behavioural customers will
become loyal with brand but not emotional however the emotional customers will be emotional
with the particular brand in which they are interested (Jones et al., 1995-90). Some organizations
make the customers loyal forcibly due to their monopoly even they do not want to become loyal
and some organization make customer loyal by having low price and the other brand conscious
organizations make a lot of effort for customer’s satisfaction and to establish brand and they do
not have high loyalty (Grönholdt et al., 2000).

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Purchase decision:
Purchase intention of the customers depends on the brand awareness and brand loyalty of
a particular brand. Purchase intention of the customers consists on problem identification,
information search, evaluating the alternatives, make a purchase, analysing post-purchase
behaviour (Engel et al ,. J., 1995). International Journal of Business and Social Science Vol. 4
No. 5; May 2013 169 .Consumer’s feelings and impulsive situation may affect their purchase
intention. Consumer’s feelings consist on personal liking and impulsive situation express that
consumer’s purchase intention differ due to variation in a situation e.g. prices increase more than
the customers’ expectations (Kotler, 2003).Brand awareness increase the brand loyalty,
consumer’s confidence as well as consumer’s purchases intention (Aaker. D., 1990)
EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN/ METHODOLOGY/ APPROACH

Probability sampling method was used to obtain the sample from the whole consumer
population of the product in Calicut. In total 150 random sample respondents were approached
for data collection and data were collected using questionnaire method and received response
from 100 consumers. The primary data for the study were collected from the respondents by
administering a structured questionnaire and also through observation, interview and discussion
with the customers. The secondary data were collected from annual reports, company
documents, company websites & reports prepared by other students, journals, text books,
internet etc.
The analytical tools used for the study were graphical tools like bar diagram & pie
diagram and statistical tools like percentage analysis, Spearman’s rank correlation, chi square
test etc. for drawing conclusions.

FINDINGS, DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The randomly selected respondents belonged to different age groups so that the response
collected represented the opinion of all age groups. Twenty seven percentage of the respondents
belonged to the age group of 20-30 years, 51% to the age group of 30-40 years , 16% to the age
group of 40-50 years and the remaining 6% were above 50years old (fig.1).

Fig.1 Age group of respondents

% respondentse

100
20-30
50
0 30-40
40-50
Above 50
Age group (years)

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Similarly 57% respondents were males and 43% were females. Sixty percentage of the
respondents were married and 40% were unmarried respondents (Table-1). Even though the
selection was random, the representative respondents were of different age groups, sex group and
marital status.

Table.1 GENDER AND MARITAL STATUS OF THE RESPONDENTS

Sex of % of Marital status % of respondents

respondents respondents of respondents

Male 57 Married 60

Female 43 Unmarried 40

Total 100 Total 100

It is interesting to note that 79% of the respondents were employed and the remaing.21%
were students (fig.2). Most of the respondents belonged to the average monthly household
income range of rupees 10,000 – 50,000/-, but 11% of respondents were having less than
Rs.10000/-monthly house hold income. Twenty seven percentage of high income group (above
one lakh rupees per month) and 18% having income range between 50,000 – 1,00,000/- rupees
per month also preferred VKC brand (Fig.3). It is really worth to note that 39% of the customers
were influenced by the family to purchase the brand ,where as another 58% purchased the
brand under the influence of friends. Only a mere 3 % were influenced by the ads to purchase the
brand (Fig.4).

Fig.2. Employment status of respondents

% respondents

100 79
Working
50 21
0 0 Student
0
0 Retired
Self-employed
Others
Employment status

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Fig.3.Household income range of respondents

44
50

% respondents
40 27
30 <10000
18
20 11
10 10000-50000
0 50000-100000
>100000

Income range of respondents

Fig.4. Factor influences the purchase of VKC

brand
0
30
Family
39 friends
advertisement
58
self

The positive influence of VKC brand among customers was that about 60% of the
customers were brand loyal (fig.5) and would prefer VKC even if other brands are available
whereas 20% of the customers would prefer other brands if available, where as another 20%
maintained a neutral stand.

Fig.5 VKC brand loyalty of respondents

20 20
Strongly agree
agree

20 disagree
Neutral
40

From the response of the respondents, it was reflected that 25 % of the customers had a
strong brand equity of VKC because they had a willingness to try out newly launched product by
VKC (Fig.6) and 50% of the respondents had a neutral attitude where as the remaining 20%
were reluctant to try out a new product launched by VKC.

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Fig.6. Response regarding brand equity of

respondents
25 50
20

% of respondents
60 Strongly agree
40
20 5 0
neutral
0
Strongly disagree
agree

Attitude regarding brand equity disagree

Most of the respondents (50%) happened to know about the brand VKC through online
channels, where as another 25% heard about the brand through the conventional audio-visual
media ,another 20% through print media and the remaining customers through word of
mouth(Table.2).

Table.2. Source of brand awareness of the respondents

Brand awareness through No of respondents Percentage

TV or Radio 25 25
Online media advertising 50 50
Print media 20 20
Word of mouth 5 5
Total 100 100
It is interesting to note that most of the customers (57%) felt that more promotional
activities might influence them to purchase VKC brand repeatedly where as the another 30% did
not feel so. The remaining 13% of the customers maintained a neutral stand (fig.7).

Fig.7. ffect of promotional activity on purchase

of VKC brand
0
Strongly agree
30
Agree
45
nutral
Strongly disagree
13
disagree
12

It is really wondering to note that 58% of the respondents felt that an apt brand
ambassador can push more products in the market where as another 30% disagreed. The
remaining 12% were of neutral opinion (fig.8).

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Fig.8. Influence of brand ambassador on

purchase of VKC brand
47
50

% of respondents
40 20
30 11 12 Strongly agree
20 10
10
0 agree
nutral
Strongly disagree
disagree
Response of customers

From this study it was observed that 50% of the respondents were following social
networking sites and they were well aware about the brand and its merits and demerits whereas
the remaining 50% did not follow social network. Hence it is concluded that brand name will be
the single most important factor of shopping experience (Fig.9). Availability of the product did
not bother them much because very few respondents rated it as relevant factor.

Fig.9. Influence of brand name on purchase

13
20
Price
Trend
Brand name
40 27 Availability

Similarly, 93% of the respondents felt that brands were a status symbol where as the remaining
7% did not feel so (Table.3). It is evident that about 55% of the respondents approved the good
quality of VKC products where as another 10% disagreed. The remaining 35% maintained a
neutral stand.

Table.3. Response of brand as status symbol

Response of brand Percentage of Approval of good Percentage

as status symbol respondents quality of VKC of
brand respondents
Strongly agree 35 Strongly agree 35
agree 58 agree 20
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Neutral 7 Neutral 35
Strongly disagree 0 Strongly disagree 5
Disagree 0 Disagree 5
Total 100 Total 100

Apart from response survey, hypothesis formulation and testing using Chi square analysis
and Spearman’s Rank correlation analysis were also done. Chi square analysis was done to test
whether brand loyalty & income level were related in the case of VKC customers. The chi
square analysis of the primary data revealed that there existed no significant relationship between
brand loyalty & income level of VKC customers (table 4) Further, the Spearman’s rank
correlation analysis of primary data revealed that there existed only slight positive correlation
between relationship between customers price sensitiveness and brand loyalty (table 5).

Table. 4. Association between brand loyalty & income level of VKC customers.
Hypothesis Monthly average income (Rs.) Total
<10000 10000-50000 50000- >100000
100000
Strongly agree 4 12 4 8 28
Agree 2 10 5 9 26
Neutral 3 12 6 5 26
Disagree 2 10 3 5 20
Total 11 44 18 27 100
ꭕ value (0.05)
2
2.8423(NS)
Table.5.Association of price sensitiveness and brand loyalty of VKC product

Price sensitiveness in No of Brand loyalty and No of respondents

making purchase respondents purchase decision
decision
Very important 20 Strongly agree 20
Important 27 Agree 40
Neutral 40 Neutral 20
Unimportant 13 Disagree 20
Spearman’s rank correlation ρ (0.05) = 0.40 *
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

In a consumer driven society, where the ultimate motive of business products and services is to
satisfy the consumer’s expectation which makes them happy and remain loyal to the brand. The
consumer behaviour with respect to VKC brand has been taken into consideration in this study.
The primary data for the study were collected from the respondents by administering a
structured questionnaire, interview, discussion with the customers etc. The respondents included

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males and females of different age group, marital status, income group, employment status etc.
Even though the brand awareness was from online media and advertisement, friends and family
were the main purchase influence. Majority of the respondents were satisfied with the brand and
regularly purchase VKC brand even if other brands were available. Most of the customers felt
that brand is a status symbol and identified themselves as brand loyal customers. Chi square
analysis revealed that there existed no significant relationship between brand loyalty & income
level of VKC customers. Spearman’s Rank correlation analysis established that there was not
much relationship between price sensitiveness and brand loyalty.

Strategic management suggestions:

 Based on the study and opinion of the respondents , it is suggested that the company
needs to introduce brand ambassador for VKC product which can enhance the purchase
behaviour of the consumers and push more VKC products in the market.
 The company needs to strengthen the marketing wing to undertake more promotional
activities to enhance brand image of VKC products.

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

The paper is intended to study the effect of brand awareness and brand loyalty on purchase
intention of consumers. The paper mainly focused on footwear industry only and hence the
findings are limited to foot wear sector. Moreover we didn’t have adequate time and resources to
study the components of Brand awareness and brand loyalty in detail. Finally, it is obvious that
researchers didn’t have the access to top management which is needed to identify the type of
strategies adopted by the companies to enhance the purchase intention of their brands. However
the suggestions for strategic management based on available information’s were suggested.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors are grateful to the VEEKESEY PLASTOMERES, INDIA PVT. LTD, Kozhikode,
for providing facilities for conducting the study .

AUTHOR’S PROFILE

Corresponding author : Deepu.S. Assistant Professor, Centre for MBA,, . Rajan Memorial
Campus Nileswaram ,Puthariyadukkam PO, Kasaragod -671314,, Kannur University, Kerala,
India.

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