BUSINESS RESEARCH METHODS

Business Research Methods



Business Research Methods

Assignment 1

Introduction

Brands are not just names. ternm, symbols. designs or combinations of these, although it is true to say that such things can differentiate certain products and companies from others (Balabanis 1999, 361-385). The additional constituents that makes a successful brand is personality. Today's leading brands are personalities in their own right and are well known in all societies and cultures as film heroes, cartoon characters. spoils stars or areat leaders. Brand extension categories are often chosen based on shared attributes with the family brand (Anderson 1988, 238-246). Therefore, the extension's performance on these shared dimensions is likely to be at least moderately diagnostic or informative for the family brand, regardless of category similarity. Similarly, the extension information is likely to be at least somewhat accessible for the family brand evaluation, given our focus on situations ;vhere the extension has the family brand name. While some factors (e.g.. large time gap) may make the extension information inaccessible, focus is not laid on the latter scenario because its implications are fairly intuitive inaccessible information will not be used in the judgment. Therefore. our research examines at least moderate levels of both accessibility and diagnosticity. which are not only realistic but also have important iniplications for the branding area. It can be concluded that the previous studies on feedback effects of brand extensions has ignored the role of accessibility and oversimplified the notion of diagnosticity. By addressing the effects of accessibility and diagnosticity. the research framework accounts for some of the mixed frndings in the literature and addresses when and why feedback effects are likely to vary across different extension categories. (Bagozzi 1994, 35-67)

Purpose

The business reasons for going with this research are presented as follows:

Research in brand image can provide insights to the companies on deciding on the appropriate brand strategy for increasing the brand strength of the product and making it a strong purchase criteria for the consumer.

We will like to identify the factors and conditions that can make the brand image so strong that it becomes the sole criteria for the purchase decision for the products.

We will also try and understand the factors that are behind the creation of brand image and the factors that help in sustenance of the same.

We will also try and observe whether brand image has the potential of influencing the purchase decision more than the actual quality and the performance associated with the product

The personal reasons behind going for this research are as follows:

Understanding of branding is one of the most important aspects of understanding marketing management. This can give a person quite a lot of boost to ahead with a professional marketing career

Marketing is becoming an essential function in the modern day organizations. Understanding of branding, an important aspect of marketing is hence an important criterion for understanding the functioning of an organization.

Research questions/hypothesis

The research questions and the corresponding research objectives are presented as follows:

RQ 1: What are the factors which determine the brand strength and ...