國際市場營銷留學生碩士畢業dissertation范文參考：The Important Factors Influencing Brand Loyalty through Consumers’ Perspective: An Empirical Investigation of Liquid Milk Consumption in China

 

Introduction

The ending of 20th century declares the beginning of information age and network society after the industrial civilization. Global economic integration and economic internationalization are causing a profound change in the field of marketing. Brand loyalty has been discussed for a long time in many different perspectives. The focus in this thesis is to investigate the critical important factors in brand loyalty influencing the consumption of liquid milk, especially the main contribution to a specific market of which liquid milk consumption in China. A wide range of prior research outcome defines brand loyalty in different perspective based on its uniqueness and dominant role in marketing for each firm in the global and local competitive business environment. Marketers have to consider brand loyalty coming from the target group and the main task is to take advantage of the reliable resource in order to position the competitive marketing strategies based on the study of brand loyalty in each marketing process. Brand loyalty is the one of most important factors explaining consumer brand choices, as well as the concept of brand loyalty has aroused an increasingly interest within researchers and practitioners in the field of marketing and consumer behavior (Jensen & Hansen, 2006). Nowadays, a prestigious brand can win the competitive advantage for the enterprise as it fails to thoroughly surpass its competitors with the old competitive factors such as high quality, possession of resources and techniques.

 

From enterprises’ brand-building we can see that even they have preliminary set up a kind of brand cognition after market research in the early stage, but most of these enterprises haven’t taken a shape in loyal consumers group, whereas those multinational brands with advanced marketing concept, rich marketing experience and strong brand management ability have an obvious advantage in the loyalty management of brands (Allan et al., 1997). From the perspective of consumers, the increasing rational purchasing behavior makes the consumers shift from passive position to initiative position in the purchasing acts. Customers have a set of standard in choosing brands. It is difficult for the enterprises to take an effective marketing method without understanding the consumers. From the perspective of the media, various media transmissions bring the consumers more and more information about brands as of which improve the information dissemination frequency of each enterprise. The consumers improve individual skills in judging the purchasing factors such as quality, price, buying channels and so on. It eliminates the phenomenon of admiring one brand blindly because of information shortage (Lee, 1993).

 

The above situation raises a lot of challenges in building and maintaining consumers’ brand loyalty. Understanding the factors influencing consumers brand loyalty becomes the key point of building and maintaining the customers brand loyalty. To make the marketing more effectively, reduce the marketing cost, allocate the resources efficiently, and improve the efficiency and effect of loyalty marketing, the only way is to understand the factors of brand loyalty firstly. Based on the point of view, this thesis is meaningful for the researchers and practitioners to better understand the important attributes regarding to brand loyalty which influences the consumption of liquid milk in China.

 

Research background

China, as a big nation with a population of 1.3 billion, its current annual per capita milk consumption is less than 7 kilo grams, which means the average level of milk consumption in China is extremely lower than the world average’s level that is 100 kilo grams in average (Guangming Daily, 2001). In recent years, huge market potential has led to a rapid development in Chinese milk industry. Meanwhile, a large number of milk enterprises such as YILI and MENGNIU in Inner Mongolia, GUANGMING in Shanghai, SANLU in Shijiazhuang, and SANYUAN in Beijing, etc. have sprung up. At the same time, the high profit in milk industry has attracted investors from other industries, such as packaging, drinks, condiments, wine, and breeding, etc. The number of milk processing enterprises jumps to 1600 at the end of 2001, while in 1998 the number was only about 700 (Guangming Daily, 2001). Apart from this, the world’s top 20 milk enterprises have all entered the China market. Four of the World-wide milk giants have set up factories in China. International companies such as Nestle in Switzerland, Morinaga in Japan, and Parmalat in Italy have built their own milk source base and production base in Heilongjiang Province one after another. These foreign-owned enterprises control the local milk source indirectly in the form of joint venture, purchase, lease, and manufacturing consignment and so on (China Daily, 2006). 

 

The liquid mile consumer per capita increase fast In China. In 2012, the liquid mile consumer per capita was 27.65Kg, which was more than 22 times compare to 1980. According to the forecast of Dairy Association of China (2012), the number of consumers of milk, especially of the liquid milk will increase substantially in the coming three years. It is expected that the annual growth rate will reach to 30 kg per person, and the total output 40 million tons.

      Figure 1.1: The liquid milk consumer of China

 

 Data resource: National Bureau of Statistics 

  The huge consumption potential in milk market has led to the increasing competition among the milk enterprises. Most of the milk enterprises are facing these two problems: the transfer and lots of consumers, and continuous decline of market share. Facing to fierce market competition, how to prevent the transfer and lots of consumers, and how to make the allocation of corporate resources efficiently and cultivate loyal consumers group becomes the urgent concerns to many milk enterprises. Then the understanding of the influencing factors in brand loyalty becomes the first imperative. Under this kind of industry background, this paper is to research the influencing factors in consumers brand loyalty.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

Problem statement

  As the rapidly development of Chinese economy and the continuous improvement of living standards of Chinese residents, more and more customers in China are interested in consuming liquid milk. The study of brand loyalty influencing the consumption of liquid milk in China becomes urgent in daily competitive business environment. For each firm in marketing liquid milk in China, it is necessary to investigate the Chinese consumers’ shopping behavior and brand loyalty in order to better target the customers and to be more competitive in the extensively emerging market.

 

Research question

This paper mainly studies the influencing factors in consumers brand loyalty. To counter the influencing factors, the author will bring up several theoretical hypotheses, use the survey data of liquid milk consumption in Beijing area to make an empirical analysis on the influencing factors, and propose management recommendations based on analysis results. 

 

Currently, there is no uniform view on consumers brand loyalty in the academic world (Alsop, 1989). This paper is going to sum up previous views and describe the consumers brand loyalty from different aspects. Based on the problem statement, author defines the research question in this part. The main issue in this thesis is that important factors in brand loyalty influencing consumption of liquid milk with a specific focus on Chinese market. So the research question is:

What are important factors in brand loyalty influencing liquid milk consumption in China?

 

Purpose

  The main purpose in this thesis is to describe and analyze the different important factors in customers’ brand loyalty influencing consumption of liquid milk in Chinese market. Moreover, the thesis provides researchers and practitioners in the relative study field with useful knowledge towards managing the customer relationship and maintaining competitive advantage.  

 

Target group

  As mentioned in the previous part, brand loyalty is one of the most important factors influencing consumers’ brand choice. As the universality and generality of brand loyalty, it doesn’t make sense to analyze overall aspects of brand loyalty in a master thesis. So it is necessary to define the target group in order to narrow down the research and make sense of the thesis. Based on this point of view, author conducts the thesis by narrowing down target group with a focus in Chinese market which aims to outline the important factors influencing Chinese customers’ brand loyalty towards the consumption of liquid milk in China.

 

Literature review

In this chapter, the author will present the relative literature as the fundamental knowledge to guide the thesis in order to better answer the research question. There are two main dimensions for this part which are the prior research about brand loyalty. It consists of the definition of brand loyalty, and measurement of brand loyalty.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

Definition of brand loyalty

The overseas scholars have given different description on the definition of brand loyalty. The first concept about brand loyalty, Brand Continuity Theory, has been brought up by Copeland in 1923, which proposed that consumers have a kind of evident continuity towards different brand purchasing modes (Assael, 1993). Oliver (1999) claimed that brand loyalty means a strong insist on a priority of purchasing the same product or service all the time and promise to always purchase it in the future , which due to repeat purchase on the same one brand, regardless of the environment change or marketing efforts’ influence. According to Berry et al. (1996) consider that, brand loyalty, an attempt that consumers try every best to get some relationship with the target brand through series of behaviors, which includes allocating a high share to the specific brand suppliers, disseminating the public's praise and repeat purchasing. Some scholars in China are inclined to describe brand loyalty from emotional aspect. According to Qu (1996), brand loyalty is a measurement of consumers’ emotion towards brand, which reflecting the possibility of turning to another brand. Some scholars describe brand loyalty from two aspects: behavior and emotion that the focus is to think that brand loyalty should consist of two kinds of content: behavior loyalty and emotional loyalty. Behavior loyalty means consumers purchase the specific brand product in the practical action, this kind of action can be caused by the inherent favorable impression that the consumers have with this brand. It also can be caused by some other factors which have nothing to do with emotion, such as the promotion activities, transferring cost or the higher market coverage rate. The emotional loyalty means the characteristics of the brand are in accordance with the consumers’ life style and value opinion, so they have a good impression of this brand and express the purchase intention as well (Ji & Chen, 1999). Domestic scholars have made a deep research on the consumers brand loyalty’s definition, measurement, and level, as well as its significance to enterprise. The emphasis is the establishment and maintenance of consumers brand loyalty. Many of research outcome refer to the discussion of influencing factors, but few concerns about the direct depth analytic demonstration on the consumers brand loyalty influencing factors. There are few researches on the proposal of relevant management suggestion. 

 

In one word, brand loyalty is a kind of behavior process as well as a kind of mental decision assessment process (Walgren et al., 1998). It is a multiple expression of biased (not random) behavior (purchasing) towards one specific brand in one purchasing decision unit.

 

Measurement of brand loyalty

Overseas scholars have deeply studied the measurement on brand loyalty. It refers to some strong operational measurement indexes and proposes a specific research mode. This offers reference to the research in this paper. In the book of Consumer Behavior and Marketing Activity, Assael (1993) thinks there are some good methods for measuring the brand loyalty in the marketing literature: First, starting from consumers’ actual purchase activities, people takes the consumers’ purchasing of one certain brand in uncertain period as the measurement standard of brand loyalty. For example, based on the data of brand purchasing in the past, use the probability model to predict the probability of purchasing the same brand again, and the probability shows this consumers’ loyalty degree to this brand. This has been defined as a method “Probability Model of Consumers Behavior”. The other method based on cognitive theory. For example, predict the probability of purchasing the same brand through the combination of attitude measurement and behavior measurement, and take this probability as the consumers brand loyalty degree. This method is called “Decision Mode of Consumers’ Choice”. Most scholars support the second view, they think that the real brand loyalty consumers will not only repeat purchase the same brand but also have a predilection for this brand (Day, 1969).#p#分頁標題#e#

 

The majority of domestic scholars suggest using the behavior-index to measure the brand loyalty. In the book Brand Marketing, Qu (1996) advices to apply repeat purchase probability, purchase percentage, and brand purchase quantity to measure consumers’ brand loyalty. According to Wang et al. (2002) proposed several measurement methods for brand loyalty in the book The Creation and Development of Strong Brands, suggest using the repeat purchase probability and purchase percentage index. Qiu (2003) thinks that the variable of quantized consumers’ brand loyalty includes repeat purchase rate, transfer effect and transfer cost, etc. Of course, there are some scholars who prefer to use emotion-index. But it still stays at the theory investigation phase due to its weak operability. For example, the emotion measurement index, which Luo (1995) once mentioned includes the cognition about branding, the position of brand loyalty in consumers’ mind, and the introduction and recommendation from this consumer to others.

 

Influencing factors of consumers’ brand loyalty

They are many experts research the influencing factors of consumer’s brand loyalty, and found some important conclusions. Andrews and Manrai(1998)found the acknowledge was a important factors ,affect the brand loyalty, even affect the decision of consumers. Ratchford(2001)found the acknowledge can affect the brand loyalty, when consumers buy the productions repeat, they will increase the acknowledge of production, then maybe has brand loyalty to this production. 

Bloemer.J.M and Hans.D.P Kasper(1994)research the brand loyalty, and found the satisfaction may affect the brand loyalty, the more satisfaction of consumer, they will have more loyalty to the brand. Hooman Estelami (2003)the satisfaction can affect the brand loyalty, the mood of consumer will also affect the relationship between satisfaction and brand loyalty. Holbrook(2001)http://www.ttc-switch.com/Thesis_Writing/Marketing/  research the effect of confident to the brand loyalty, and found the confident can promotion the brand loyalty of consumers. Chaudhuri(2001)found the behavior of consumer can affect the brand loyalty. Shimp(1997)research the influence factors of brand loyalty, and found marketing can affect the brand loyalty of consumer, which includes the pricing, production, channel and promotion. William J.Allender and Timothy J.Richards(2012)research the relationship between price promotion strategic and brand loyalty, and found retailers promote strong brands shallower ad more frequently compare to brands with weak loyalty, and highlight the important of carefully modeling wholesale prices when testing behavioral models on retail pricing. Stephannie Huber(2006)research effect of self-image congruence to the brand loyalty, and found the paramount important of self-congruity in predicting brand loyalty, the emerging of brand relationship quality into self-congruity theory. Tim Oliver Brexendorf, Silke Mühlmeier Torsten Tomczak, Martin Eisend(2010)research the impact of sales encounters on brand loyalty, and found the perceptions of both the customer and the salesperson regarding the impact of sales encounter performance on satisfaction. Sales encounter satisfaction, in turn, leads to brand loyalty by enhancing brand attitude and salesperson loyalty. Fujun Lai , Mitch Griffin, Barry J. Babin(2009)research how quality, value, image, and satisfaction create loyalty at a Chinese telecom, and found both customer satisfaction and value are significant determinants of loyalty. Frank(1968), Ding Ji(2000),Azize Sahin etc(2011)found the characteristics of consumer can affect the brand loyalty, which includes age、gender、education、income and so on.#p#分頁標題#e#