Role of Brand Personality in Purchase Intention

Question: Discuss about the Role of Brand Personality in Purchase Intention. Answer: Brands of the companies are responsible for providing the customers with experiential benefits and emotional benefits. The benefits are required to build the strong brand equity. The companies must have a deeper understanding of the core dimensions of the image of the brand while building strong brand equity in the market. It is known as brand personality. It can be said that brand image consists of various facets such as occasion image, user image, salience, brand personality and product image. Brand personality is considered as an important concept in terms of brand differentiation that significantly influences the purchase decision-making process of the consumers (Lin and Sung 2014). The set of human characteristics that are associated with a brand is known as brand personality. Brand personality has a vital importance that is responsible in creating a set of favourable and unique associations in the minds of the consumers. In this way, the brand equity is increased. The research will prove that the consumers of Australia are depended on brand personality more than that of any attributes while purchasing things from the market. The dimensions of brand personality have proven to be the creator of significant influence on the choice of brand regardless of any product type (Su and Tong 2015). Research Aims and Objectives The aim of the research is To determine the factors that will influence purchase decision of consumers To determine the nature of the influence of the brand personality in the consumers mind Hypothesis of the Research Hypothesis of a research is essential in order to find out the solutions of the identified research problem regarding the research topic. The hypothesis selected for the research is described below: H0: Brand personality has a positive role in the purchasing intention of the consumers. H1: Brand personality does not have a role in the purchasing intention of the consumers. In the research, H0 will be proved in the section of the data analysis. Data will be collected from the various sources based on the topic chosen for the hypothesis of the research. Findings will be done on the basis of the data collected for conducting the research in the Australian target market. Scope of the Research Brand personality is a popular topic that is researched earlier by many researchers and companies. The scope of this research will be beneficial for both the earlier researchers and the people who will be conducting future research regarding the factors or initiatives taken by the companies in order to improve brand image and equity in the minds of the customers. It can be said that the research will not only provide an insight of the buying trends of Australian customers but also it will describe about the factors and various attributes of brand personality that will increase the sales of the company as well as increased reputation in the target market (Su and Tong 2015). Literature Review Brand Personality and Purchase Intention According to Rose et al. (2016), brand equity is positively related with brand image and brand attitude. However, brand personality is considered as the most important aspect of marketing. The reason behind this is the brand image that has been already created in the minds of the customers and the purchase decision of the products is based on that brand image rather than the original characteristics of the product. As a result of it, strong brands are responsible for creating a positive image in the minds of the customers. Brand personality is considered as a component of the brand imagery. It is a soft attribute that will help in creating brand equity. As per Bang, Odio and Reio (2014), the brand personality of the product and the brand personality of the company are acting as a variable between purchase intention of consumers and the company-product brand personality. It can be said that the degree of negative and positive attitude of consumers towards a particular brand is responsible for the profitability of the company as well as market reputation of the brand. Personality dimensions are positively related to the brand attitude. The dimensions of personality that are defined by author in the article are sincerity, competence, ruggedness, sophistication and excitement. These attributes are considered as the significant predictors of satisfaction, brand preference and loyalty. Linking of Brand Trust to Brand Personality Flanagin et al. (2014) stated that employees are responsible for linking the brand trust to brand personality. Effective branding of the company helps in gaining the competitive advantage in the market. Employer branding of the company usually address the image of the companys proactive management which is perceived by the public in a lesser degree. The area of employer brand attractiveness is explained in the perspective of various functional attributes such as advancement opportunities or career opportunities. It can be said that the personality traits of the employees can be characterised as the employers brand image. Brand personality of a particular company is measured in the five dimensions scales such as excitement, sincerity, sophistication, competence and ruggedness. The antecedents of the brand personality are product characteristics, communication variables, consumer brand experiences, consumer psychographics, and consumer demographics. The dimensions of the brand personality are related to the brand loyalty and brand preference of the customers. Brand personality is deeply related with the trust of the consumers related to the brand (Liu, Liu and Lin 2015). Relation Between Brand Affect, Brand Trust and Brand Personality Brand trust, brand loyalty and brand affect are related to the brand personality. Brand affect is defined as the potential of a brand while eliciting a positive emotional response. Emotional response is vital scope for the decision making while guiding behaviour in general. Brand trust is perceived in terms of the willingness of the customer while having confidence in terms of honesty and reliability in the perspective of a specific brand. Emotions related to the brand are included in the brand decision of the consumers when it comes to the purchasing decision (Strizhakova and Coulter 2015). Purchase intention of consumers depend on various attributes of brand such as brand personality, brand loyalty, brand equity, brand image, etc. Purchase behaviour can be a cause of the purchase intention. If the desire of purchase intention is greater, then chances are there the consumer will have a greater choice of purchasing the products or service. Research has pointed out the fact that every brand in the market is trying to create a position in the market and an image in the minds of the target customers. Purchase intention is depended on the marketing activities of the companies (Das 2014). Research Gap The research gap found by conducting a review of literature from the peer reviewed journals and scholarly articles are the factors that are responsible for increasing the brand personality of the brands of a company that are responsible for creating an urge of purchasing behaviour of the consumers. There are many factors and approaches that companies across the world has opted for improving brand personality as well as the brand equity in terms of increase of profitability and sales (Strizhakova and Coulter 2015). The research has not focused on the company initiatives for the improvement brand image in the consumers mind. It can be said that, there are competition in the market regarding the brand war while capturing the minds of the customers. It enhances the word of mouth marketing promotion of the particular target market. In this perspective, Australian target market is considered. The target market has few particular trends of consumers, which the companies have to focus in ord er to promote their brand in the market (Su and Tong 2015). Research methodology Research methodology is defined as the systematic representation that is used by researcher in order to conduct the research. The research methodologies that will be used for conducting the research on brand personality are primary research methodology as well as secondary research methodology. Both primary research and secondary research are essential in order to validate the data that are collected from the sample respondents. The consumers of Australia are to be surveyed while gaining a deeper understanding of the factors of brand personality in their mind (Flick 2015). Apart from that, their shopping attributes along with their purchasing intention are also need to be understood while conducting the research. The need of conducting secondary research is to find out miscellaneous factors that are important for carving the consumers mind while making a purchasing intention towards a certain brand. After collecting the data, quantitative research methodologies are to be used for ana lyzing the data collected from the credible sources (Mackey and Gass 2015). Action Plan This section will describe the period that the researcher will take in order to conduct the whole research. However, it is hard to determine a proper time of completion of the whole research, but it can be said that an estimation of 12 weeks is assumed for the completion of the research. 1 to 3 weeks 4 to 6 weeks 7 to 9 weeks 10 to 12 weeks Research objective Primary data collection Secondary data collection Data analysis Finding and Conclusion References Bang, H., A. Odio, M. and Reio, T., 2014. The moderating role of brand reputation and moral obligation: An application of the theory of planned behavior.Journal of Management Development,33(4), pp.282-298. Das, G., 2014. Linkages of retailer awareness, retailer association, retailer perceived quality and retailer loyalty with purchase intention: a study of Indian food retail brands.Journal of Retailing and Consumer services,21(3), pp.284-292. Flanagin, A.J., Metzger, M.J., Pure, R., Markov, A. and Hartsell, E., 2014. Mitigating risk in ecommerce transactions: perceptions of information credibility and the role of user-generated ratings in product quality and purchase intention.Electronic Commerce Research,14(1), pp.1-23. Flick, U., 2015.Introducing research methodology: A beginner's guide to doing a research project. Sage. Lin, J.S. and Sung, Y., 2014. Nothing can tear us apart: The effect of brand identity fusion in consumerbrand relationships.Psychology Marketing,31(1), pp.54-69. Liu, C.R., Liu, H.K. and Lin, W.R., 2015. Constructing customer?based museums brand equity model: The mediating role of brand value.International Journal of Tourism Research,17(3), pp.229-238. Mackey, A. and Gass, S.M., 2015.Second language research: Methodology and design. Routledge. Rose, G.M., Merchant, A., Orth, U.R. and Horstmann, F., 2016. Emphasizing brand heritage: Does it work? And how?.Journal of Business Research,69(2), pp.936-943. Strizhakova, Y. and Coulter, R.A., 2015. Drivers of local relative to global brand purchases: A contingency approach.Journal of International Marketing,23(1), pp.1-22. Su, J. and Tong, X., 2015. Brand personality and brand equity: evidence from the sportswear industry.Journal of Product Brand Management,24(2), pp.124-133.