Brand marketing programs and consumer loyalty – evidence from mobile phone users in an emerging market
| Published date | 21 November 2016 |
| Pages | 651-662 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-04-2016-1141 |
| Date | 21 November 2016 |
| Author | Raphael Odoom |
| Subject Matter | Marketing,Product management,Brand management/equity |
Brand marketing programs and consumer
loyalty – evidence from mobile phone users in
an emerging market
Raphael Odoom
Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship, University of Ghana Business School, Accra, Ghana
Abstract
Purpose – The paper aims to examine brand marketing efforts and consumer loyalty among mobile phone users. By recognizing different levels of
loyalty, the study assesses the degree of importance of the brand marketing programs on high and low loyalty consumer segments within an
emerging market context.
Design/methodology/approach – The study uses a sample of 1,000 consumers of three mobile phone brands. Exploratory and confirmatory factor
analyzes were used in evaluating scale measures, whereas cluster analysis was used to create consumer loyalty segments. Analysis of variance was
conducted to evaluate the brand marketing programs within high and low segments before multi-group logistic regressions to assess the impact
of brand marketing efforts on consumer loyalty.
Findings – Four principal brand marketing efforts were identified from the data, with varying degrees of importance among high and low loyalty
consumer segments. Additionally, from the logistic regression analyzes, the brand marketing efforts exhibited various likelihood results on
brand-specific loyalties among consumers of the mobile phone brands.
Originality/value – The findings provide evidence to issues of potential research and managerial interest, with implications to the academic and
practitioner communities. Particularly for firms seeking to enter emerging markets, the findings presented in this study provide an understanding
of some consumer dynamics in such settings.
Keywords Branding, Brand loyalty, Consumer behaviour, Emerging market, Mobile phone users
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Much has been written on brand loyalty in the marketing
literature, from both business-to-consumer (Sirdeshmukh
et al., 2002;Kuikka and Laukkanen, 2012;Ferreira and
Coelho, 2015) and business-to-business perspectives
(Rauyruen and Miller, 2007;Russo et al., 2016). Findings
from such studies are varied across developed and developing
economy settings, with most authors typically prescribing a set
of brand marketing antecedents and/or predictors resulting in
loyalty outcomes (Chaudhuri and Holbrook, 2001;Møller
Jensen and Hansen, 2006;Lee et al., 2015). However, these
prescriptions are not universally generalizable, as consumer
tastes and preferences fluctuate across several contexts
(Bishnoi and Kumar, 2016) under various endogenous
conditions (Aksoy et al., 2015). With the nuances of consumer
behaviour varying across different economic settings
(Steenkamp and Burgess, 2002), marketing scholars recognize
the need to understand the dynamics of consumer loyalty from
diverse economic, socio-political and other environmental
perspectives.
Furthermore, extant literature has also done fairly little in
recognizing the existence of various degrees of loyalty (for
instance high or low) in several consumer-based researches on
brand loyalty (Krishnamurthi and Raj, 1991;Baldinger and
Rubinson, 1996). As a result, most loyalty studies scarcely
factor in such loyalty segments when testing and presenting
results on consumer brand loyalty. Again, most consumer
studies with loyalty outcomes have typically relied on
continuous weights/measures (Jacoby and Chestnut, 1978;
Yoo and Donthu, 2001). This however, may not present a
true state of loyalty among consumers in most cases under a
given set of predictors. The use of dichotomous/binary
measures could help reveal “true” loyalty instances. Until
further research is conducted with the objective of addressing
the forgoing issues among others, the marketing literature
continues to remain a tad porous. Also, without establishing a
clear understanding of context-based marketing issues,
academics and marketing practitioners may be deluded and
vulnerable to leaky idiosyncrasies.
With several consumer brands (with their variants)
springing up globally at a fast rate (Wan et al., 2012), it is
rational to think that the proliferations widen consumer
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on
Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/1061-0421.htm
Journal of Product & Brand Management
25/7 (2016) 651–662
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 1061-0421]
[DOI 10.1108/JPBM-04-2016-1141]
The author wishes to thank the two anonymous reviewers and DANIDA’s
Building Stronger Universities – Growth and Employment Platform
(BSU-GEP) for their support.
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