Brand Personality Orientation to its Brand

Loyalty: A Case Study on KILLER’s

Mueksh MishraSoumendra Kumar Patra

ABSTRACT

Although a considerable amount of research in personality

psychology has been done to conceptualize human personality.

There seems to be lack of studies to clearly establish the

relationship between the brand personality dimensions and

brand loyalty. The examination of brand personality will

advance the research in marketing, especially the growing

area of brand-consumer relationship. In this empirical

study, an attempt is made to understand the relationship

between brand personality dimensions and brand loyalty. The

conceptual model proposed in this study examines the

determinants of brand loyalty with respect to brand

personality dimensions such as sincerity, competence and

ruggedness and an important brand-consumer relationship

variable for a popular clothing brand in India.

Key words: Brand Loyalty, Sincerity, Excitement, Ruggedness, Competence.

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Mukesh Kumar Mishra: Senior Lecturer, Regional College of

Management (Autonomous), Under AICTE, UGC, Bijupattnaik

University of Technology, Bhubaneswar, Orissa, email id:

mukesh26672@yahoo.co.in, 09668747470.

Soumendra Kumar Patra: Assistant Professor, Regional College

of Management (Autonomous), Under AICTE, UGC, Bijupattnaik

University of Technology, Bhubaneswar, Orissa,

get2rabi2003@yahoo.co.in, 9090080826.

1. INTRODUCTION

Brand differentiation is now becoming an important tactic

for combating competition in the hostile marketplace. A

viable solution for establishing the distinctiveness of a

brand is through brand personality. Attaching personalities

to brands contributes to a differentiating brand identity,

which can make brands more desirable to the consumer. Brand

differentiation is now becoming an important tactic for

combating competition in the hostile marketplace. A viable

solution for establishing the distinctiveness of a brand is

through brand personality. Attaching personalities to brands

contributes to a differentiating brand identity, which can

make brands more desirable to the consumer. Jennifer Aaker

developed a specialized brand personality scale, the five

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dimensions of the scale being sincerity, excitement,

competence, sophistication, and ruggedness.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW:

Brands are sets of differentiating promises that link a

product to the consumer through a bundle of identifiable

attributes, physical marks, emotional markers and triggers

to memories of prior product experience or the assumed

experience based on the reputation of the product, provider

or service (Ahmed and Zairi, 1999; Agres and Dubitsky, 1997,

de Chernatony and Dall’Olmo Riley, 1997). Plummer (2000)

identified three core uses for brands - identifiers for

attributes, functional characteristics and portrayal of

brand personality. Brand personality represents the

anthropomorphisation of the brand as a quasi-human entity as

perceived by the customer (Keller, 1998; Aaker, 1997;

Freling and Forbes, 2005). Much of the contemporary

development of brand personality as a marketing concept is

attributed to the seminal work of Aaker (1997) who defined

brand personality as a set of human characteristics

associated with the brand, and refined a scale measurement

of brand against five dimensions of sincerity, excitement,

competence, sophistication and ruggedness.

To examine how the relationship between brand and human

personality may drive preference, Aaker (1997) indicates

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that two types of brand personality scales can be used. The

first type is ad hoc scales, typically composed of a set of

traits ranging from 20 to 300 in number. However, though

useful, these scales tend not to be theoretical in nature

often having been developed for the purposes of a specific

research study. As a result, key traits may be missing from

such scales. Furthermore, the traits that are selected often

are chosen arbitrarily, which casts doubt upon the scales’

reliability and validity. The second type of brand

personality scales are those that are more theoretical in

nature, but are based on human personality scales that have

not been validated in the context of brands (e.g., Bellenger

et al., 1976; Dolich, 1969 as cited in Aaker, 1997). Some

dimensions (or factors) of human personality may be mirrored

in brands whilst others might not. As a result, the validity

of such brand personality scales often is questionable,

leading researchers to argue that “if unequivocal results are to

emerge (in the literature on the symbolic used of brands)

consumer behaviour researchers must develop their own definitions and design

their own instruments to measure the personality variables that go into the

purchase decision” (italics in original, Kassarjian 1971). It

was against this setting that Aaker (1997) developed a brand

personality scale by isolating these distinct dimensions,

further treating brand personality as a ‘unidimensional

construct’ and demonstrating how different types of brand

personalities can be distinguished. This has resulted in the

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perception that there are multiple ways in which the brand

personality construct can influence a consumer’s preference,

and has provided investigators with tools so that these may

be better understood

Research in the area of brand personality has indirectly

rather superficially suggested about the outcome of specific

brand personality with respect to brand loyalty. There seems

to be lack of studies to clearly establish the relationship

between the brand personality dimensions and brand loyalty,

and its relative importance.

3. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY:

In this empirical study, an attempt is made to understand

the relationship between brand personality dimensions and

brand loyalty. A popular clothing brand in India is examined

to test the impact of its brand personality dimensions on

brand loyalty.

The study is expected to be of significance to both

academicians and practitioners. from the practicener`s

perspective, this study emphasizes the marketers to

understand brand personality dimensions in the relationship

perspective and develop the long term relationship with

consumer through image differentiation.

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4. RESSEARCH METHDOLOGY

4.1 Sampling Method

The population for this study consisted of all the households

in Bhubaneswar City. The sample for the study was selected

from the population by systematic sampling method.

4.2 Determination of Sample Size

A pilot study was conducted among 50 Killer brand users and

the standard deviation of the items was found to be 0.376.

Hence the sample size was determined to be 189*.

4.3 Model Development and Hypothesis

This section discusses the proposed conceptual model of

brand loyalty with respect to brand personality dimensions

sincerity, excitement, competence and ruggedness and a

consumer-based relationship variable, namely, relationship

length. It also highlights the rationale for the proposed

model and indicates the resulting hypotheses.

4.4 Model of Brand Loyalty

Figure 1 presents the proposed conceptual, model of

determinants of brand loyalty. The brand personality traits

– sincerity, excitement, competence and ruggedness with

which the customer relates himself – impact brand loyalty.

The relationship characteristics such as length of

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relationship (period which customer has been associated with

the brand) enhance brand loyalty.

Sincerity

It can be defined as down to earth, family-oriented and

genuine. The relationship might be similar to one that

exists with a well-liked and respected member of family. If

an individual feels the brand to be like a member of family,

he/she will be committed to the relationship. Hence,

Hypothesis 1 (H1) is: Sincerity brand personality dimension will lead to

brand loyalty.

Excitement

Excitement means spirited, young, up-to-date and outgoing

personality. If an individual feels himself/ herself having

a spirited, young, up-to-date, and outgoing personality,

he/she would like to associate with such brand that provides

these personality characteristics. Although ‘excitement’

personality relates to youth, it does not mean that only

young people would like such brands. Old people would also

have such personality and continuously buy such a brand.

Hence, Hypothesis 2 (H2) is: Excitement brand personality dimension

will lead to brand loyalty.

Competence

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It manifests the expertise power of the individuals’

personality. If an individual is competent, people rely on

him/her on the basis of his/her competence. Hence,

Hypothesis 3 (H3) is: Competence brand personality dimension will lead

to brand loyalty.

Ruggedness

‘Ruggedness’ means athletic and outdoorsy personality. This

personality dimension manifests in an individual who can

withstand any situation. If an individual thinks

himself/herself having a rugged personality and if there is

a brand that manifests such a personality, the individual

would be willing to buy it regularly. Hence, Hypothesis 4

(H4) is: Ruggedness brand personality dimension will lead to brand loyalty.

Relationship Length

Loyalty grows over time, as the customer gets familiar with

the product. The customer would have got positive

experiences with the product, which might also be the reason

why the customer buys the product again. If the customer’s

relationship length is higher, it shows that the customer is

loyal. Hence, length of relationship will also have impact

on brand loyalty. Hence, Hypothesis 5 (H5) is: Relationship

Length will increase brand loyalty.

Figure 1 :

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(Conceptual Model of Brand Loyalty with respect to Brand

Personality)

5. METHDOLOGY

This section presents the methodology used to test the model

and the research hypotheses presented in the previous

section. The measurements of the variables, the sampling,

the data collection method and the methods of statistical

analysis are discussed here.

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Sincerity

Relationship length

Ruggedness

Competence

Excitement

Brand Loyalty

5.1 Measurement of the Variables

The majority of the constructs were measured using multiple

items, where the respondents were asked to indicate their

agreement on a scale of 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly

agree).

Brand Personality

Aaker (1997) measured brand personality on five dimensions

and 42 traits scale. The five dimensions were sincerity,

excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness. In

this study, only four dimensions, namely sincerity,

excitement, competence and relationship length are included

to suit the nature of the brand name.

Demographics and General Information

The basic demographic information such as age, gender,

marital status, size of family and income were also included

in the questionnaire.

5.2 Sample and Data Collection Method

A survey was carried out to test the model and research

hypotheses. Brand name of a popular fabric company was used.

Since in India the chosen company’s customers are the

typical urban customers, the respondents selected for this

study were customers from Bhubaneswar city. A total sample

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size of 350 was planned to enable the statistical analyses

required for this study and convenience sampling sampling

method was used for data collection.

5.3 Sample Characteristics

A total of 189 respondents from Bhubaneswar city were

contacted for the study. The demographic characterisitics of

the respondents were shown in Table 2. As many as 93.70% of

respondents were males. The respondents are well distributed

among all age groups. If we consider educations level, out

of total samples 1.10% of population belongs to Matriculate,

College level 21.20%, higher education 20.10% and

Professional is 57.70% which is high out of total sample.

Out of total population majority is unmarried i.e 83.10% and

married is, 16.90%. The family size with less than five was

dominant with 86.20%. More than half of the respondents had

an annual income of above Rs 1, 00,000.

Table 2 : Characteristics of Respondents

Frequency PercentGender Male 177 93.70 Female 12 6.30

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Age 18 - 25 141 74.60 26 - 32 27 14.30 33 - 40 16 8.50 41 and

above5 2.60

Education Matriculate 2 1.10 College

level40 21.20

Higher

education38 20.10

Professional

education109 57.70

Marital Status Married 32 16.90 Single 157 83.10Family Size

0-5 163 86.206-9 23 12.2010 & above 3 1.60

Monthly IncomeLess than Rs

1000028 14.80

Rs 10000 - 15000 48 25.4015000 - 20000 52 27.50More than 25000 61 32.30

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6. VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY ASSESSMENT:

6.1 Reliability Analysis

The reliability of each scale was assed via ‘item to total

correlation ( a method used to understand the reliability of

a particular measure wherein the responses of individual

item in the measure and the sum total of the responses of

all the items in the same measure are tested for

correlation) and Cronbach coefficient alpha.. The results of

the reliability analysis are provided in Table 3. All the

items of every measure except ruggedness used in this study

exceeded the cut-off point of 0.3. In Ruggedness measure all

the item fall below the cut off point 0.3, the measure i.e

frequent washing gives –ve value which indicates it is not

reliable or does not have any influence on ruggedness.

Table 3: Reliability Analysis ResultsScale Items Item-to-

total

Correlat

ion

Scale

Mean

Scale

Variance

Coeffici

ent

Alpha

Sincerit

y

Quality

Comfortab

le

Durabilit

0.456

0.428

0.349

0.501

18.02

17.93

18.06

18.18

7.766

7.856

8.066

7.563

0.540

0.549

0.577

0.522

13

y

BenefitsExciteme

nt

Style

Special

Occasion

Feeling

Feeling

Different

0.301

0.384

0.502

0.444

9.90

10.71

10.41

10.71

5.995

4.833

4.668

4.878

0.622

0.576

0.481

0.527Competen

cy

Fashionab

le

Reliabili

ty

Affinity

Faithfuln

ess

0.449

0.480

0.444

0.461

11.64

11.40

11.88

11.50

2.668

3.390

2.895

3.241

0.610

0.594

0.606

0.596

Ruggedne

ss

Rough &

Tough

Frequent

Washing

Outdoorsy

0.119

-0.031

0.118

6.35

7.56

6.47

1.611

1.875

1.740

0.018

0.404

-0.111Brand

Loyalty

User

feeling

User’s

Personali

ty

Consumer

0.460

0.443

0.459

6.94

6.69

7.40

2.491

2.865

2.251

0.528

0.560

0.537

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Preferenc

e

6.2 Factor Analysis

As the first step in examining the validity of each measure,

explanatory factor analysis was employed using SPSS17.0. All

the items of all the measures were factor analysed together

to test convergent and discriminate validity of the

measures. The items were subjected to principal component

analysis (with Varimax Rotation). The factor loading

represented the correlation between the items with the

construct (Hair et al, 1992). In component analysis, only

the factor having Eigenvalues greater than 1 was considered

significant (Hair et al, 1992). A minimum value of 0.50 was

used to indicate the loading of any factor. The results of

factor analysis are presented in Table 4.

Table 4: Factor Analysis for Validity Testing1 2 3 4

Quality 0.619 0.141 -0.424 0.062Comfortabl

e

0.548 0.155 -0.363 0.383

Durability 0.492 0.177 -0.377 -0.395Benefits 0.536 0.135 -0.408 -0.160Style 0.531 0.242 0.537 0.161

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Special

Occasion

0.477 -0.379 0.067 0.503

Feeling 0.549 -0.500 0.160 -0.032Feeling

Different

0.550 -0.525 0.062 -0.201

Fashionabl

e

0.540 0.395 0.327 0.054

Reliabilit

y

0.500 0.420 0.273 0.208

Affinity 0.691 0.176 -0.174 0.029Faithfulne

ss

0.540 0.363 0.228 -0.413

User

Feeling

0.675 -0.162 -0.079 0.024

User’s

Personalit

y

0.571 -0.286 0.329 -0.361

Consumer

Preference

0.662 -0.234 -0.037 0.142

Eigen

Values

4.858 1.461 1.323 1.022

% of

Variation

32.387 9.741 8.821 6.811

Cumulative

% of

Variation

32.387 42.128 50.949 57.760

*Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis

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**4 Components extracted

By factor analysis, the factors are reduced to only four

components. The component one leads to affinity and its

value is 0.691, component two leads to reliability and its

value is 0.420, but its value is below 0.5. Component three

leads to style and its value is 0.537. Component four leads

to special occasion and its value is 0.503 respectively.

These entire four components have Eigen values more than one

i.e. 4.858, 1.461, 1.323 and 1.022 respectively.

7. HYPOTHESES TESTING:

All hypotheses were first tested using multiple regression

and least squares estimation (Pedhazur, 1982). To test all

the hypotheses in the study, a multiple regression was

carried out with five independent variables – sincerity,

excitement, competency, ruggedness and relationship length

and brand loyalty as the dependent variable. The results of

the multiple regressions are discussed here.

Brand Personality

Table 5 provides the results of hypotheses H1, H2, H3, H4 and

H5. All these hypotheses were tested using multiple

regression with the help of SPSS 17.0. If the company

promotes these personalities in their advertisement

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campaigns, they will lead to loyal customers. There were

other factors which were also considered during the study

like sincerity, excitement, ruggedness and length of

relationship, which have positive impact on brand loyalty.

All these hypotheses were tested using multiple regressions

with the help of SPSS 17.0.

Table 5 provides the results of hypotheses H1, H2, H3, H4

and H5. These hypotheses indicate how brand personalities

and length of relationship can lead to brand loyalty.

Table 5: Results of Hypothesis TestingHypotheses Independen

t Variable

P Value F Value Hypotheses

SupportedH1 Sincerity 0.139 1.639 YESH2 Excitement 0.374 1.068 YESH3 Competency 0.007* 3.686 NOH4 Ruggedness 0.648 0.551 YESH5 Length of

Relationsh

ip

0.098 2.130 YES

8. CONCLUSION:

This study examined the factors, which will lead the

customers to brand loyalty. A survey was conducted in

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Bhubaneswar city. The survey was aimed at knowing the Brand

personality lead to Brand loyalty of the customers.

Trends come and go in the ever-changing world of fashion.

Staying in touch with the latest and striving to keep at the

forefront is one way of staying ahead in this competitive

field. Clothing is one form of self-expression. The brand

Personality that a company has plays a very important role

and to some extent it also leads to customer loyalty. From

this research it is found that the company having a brand

image of sincerity, excitement, ruggedness and length of

relationship. Thus, a company should think of enhance its

sincerity, excitement, ruggedness and length of relationship

personalities in the forefront.

Many companies are already promoting these personalities

through ad campaigns, which show them as untainted,

committed and trustworthy. This image can be promoted by

taking some real life examples where people show their

commitment and their loyalty to the company.

Here competency is another brand personality which we have

taken as hypotheses doesn’t lead to brand loyalty of the

customers. Ruggedness is another variable which also

influence the brand personality. Ruggedness means outdoorsy.

This brand personality manifests as today’s customers’

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fashion needs and can be built through collections that

highlight by bringing new styles, comfort and coolness.

The company should think in the way in which it can promote

these personalities. At the same time, the company should

distinguish these two personalities and the target

customers. By doing this, the company can retain all its

customers who belong to different groups and whose tastes

are totally different. So, the company should be cautious in

using these dimensions of brand personality. It said that if

a customer has been buying a fabric from a certain company

for 25 years, he will be considered a loyal customer of that

company. But in this research it was found that relationship

length of does not have any impact on customer loyalty. If a

customer buys a company fabric for many years, it doesn’t

mean that he/she is loyal to the company, it may also be

because he/she does not have any other option.

9. LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH:

The main objective of this research was to measure the brand

personality dimensions of the Killer brand using the Brand

Personality Scale suggested by Jennifer Aaker. A validity

check of the scale using factor analysis was carried out

which indicates that the number of dimensions of brand

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personality is 4 and that about 10 items of Jennifer Aaker’s

Brand Personality Scale are not applicable in the Indian

situation. The applicability of this scale to the Indian

situation was not checked because it required an exploratory

study to identify the dimensions of brand personality in the

Indian situation. A study of Japanese and Spanish brand

personality constructs revealed that sincerity, excitement,

competence, and sophistication are common to both USA and

Japan. It also revealed that there were culture-specific

Japanese. (Peacefulness) and American (ruggedness)

dimensions.

The findings in the context of Spain yielded brand

personality dimensions common to both Spain and the United

States (sincerity, excitement, and sophistication), plus the

non-shared Spanish (passion) and American (competence and

ruggedness) dimensions. Hence, identifying the Indian brand

personality construct can be undertaken by future

researchers. Also, this research tried to identify the brand

personality in India which implies that researchers can

identify brand personality for service, retail, and consumer

durable brands. This research was conducted in the largest

city in Orissa and therefore future studies can be conducted

in other parts of India to improve the reliability of the

study.

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***

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