CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1       Background to the Study

Personality is perceived as a basic factor in building strong relationship among human beings. By this they are sure of winning each other’s trust and affection through activities that fall in line with their personalities. This is also true of product and brand offerings which should characterize personality that appeals to consumers in order to take a decision to purchase them (Nofle & Shaver, 2006; Pollalis, 2011).  The concept of brand personality has reached the level of great importance when it comes to successful brand management. With the intention to satisfy and meet customer’s needs, firms decide to position their brands with unique personalities (Weis & Huber, 2000). Looking at the field of relational marketing, brand personality stems up and is perceived as a set of human characteristics associated or attributed to a brand (Aaker, 2004).

The idea of brand personality offers a major advantage to firms as they are able to apply their personality if positive to their brands so as to win over the heart of their customers from competitors. This then gives insight into the study of brand personality as a veritable tool to improving the stand of firms in the mind of their customers (Gouteron, 2008)). An important observation that needs to be made is the fact that brand personality helps a firm to exert action on consumer behaviour. This implies that brand personality is used as a vehicle to express functional benefits of a brand, it also serves as a reflective symbol of the consumer and as a medium to establish consumer-brand relationship (Ahmad & Thyargaraj, 2015).

Brand personality creates a long-term relationship between the customer and the brand on the one hand and distinguishes it from other existing brands on the other hand (Kumar, Lemon, & Parasuraman, 2006). Brand personality is a potential marketing strategy to increase customers' loyalty towards a specific brand. Many customers are interested in a brand due to the similarity between their own personality and the brand. Brand personality is effective on sales volume and customer loyalty improvement (Lin & Huang, 2012; Vallete et al., 2011).

Brand personality has provided a strategic tool for executive marketing managers through which the relationship between the brand and consumers will be reinforced (Achouri & Bouslama, 2010), because consumers often intend to choose a brand that is closer to them in terms of personality and shows their own personality (Park &John, 2011). Thus, strong emotional linkages will be created among the customers and the brand that will finally lead to the customer’s commitment and loyalty to that brand (Arora & Stoner, 2009). A brand which does not have a clear and strong identity is like a ship which has lost its path (Aaker et al., 2004).

Customer loyalty is becoming more complex to achieve as a result of increased competition. Companies are trying hard to keep their customers loyal and avoid means of making room for competitors to grab these customers (Abubakar, 2014). Businesses require customers to be particularly loyal to their brand of products because it contributes greatly in reducing costs thus improving brand as well as company’s profitability (Tiele &Mackay, 2001). For instance a company will gain profit when loyal customers provide free advertisement through positive word of mouth. Satisfied and happy customers recommend stores, products or services to their family and friends. Hadiza (2014) revealed that each satisfied customers tells nine or ten people about their happy experiences and 13% of dissatisfied customers tell more than 20 people about how bad the company or products are.

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