The logo must be soundly designed and look good. The aesthetic appeal of a logo, or any piece of art or design for that matter, is subjective and relative to a person’s mood when they view the logo. Logos are the most important marketing pieces for a company because it must represent that company in many different contexts and still get the message across. A logo may be seen on the web, in a brochure, on a t-shirt, or on glassware. It could be used on dark backgrounds, on light backgrounds, on textured surfaces, or could be used in various sizes like on an awning or on a postcard. It’s important to know that simplicity does not mean that the logo is missing anything. In fact, to aid in functionality, the logo must be simple. A great logo must have the ability to be printed or used in all of the contexts mentioned above and still represent the company effectively. A few things that are important when talking about functionality are the simplicity, scalability, color and depth.
Moreover, as Muslim consumer interest in new flavors and products continues to grow, so does the specialty food market as for Muslims, their food traditions are becoming mainstream as Kosher broke away from ethnic as a trend of its own with the first wave of fear over mad cow disease. Halal certification, the Muslim equivalent of kosher, is finally grabbing at the same brass ring. The religious oversight of food encompasses food safety, health and wellness, ethnicity and spiritualism with one stamp. In the past year or so, the growth of religious adherence among boomers is seeing the combining of kosher and organic. Kosher/halal isn’t just about meat, although the timing couldn’t be better with meat sales jumping.
Branding makes a product three-dimensional. It captures and expresses the product’s qualities, it brings confidence, it communicates differentiators, and it clearly states the key messages. It is consistent, memorable and convincing. Branding is a holistic approach that includes tangibles as package design, logo, and slogan as well as intangibles as image, emotion, and value. Selecting an effective brand name and strategically positioning that brand in the market helps build loyalty, awareness and perceived quality among your target and actual buyers. Effective branding is particularly important, as the company has an ethical responsibility to ensure that the purchaser is not misled.
We live in a global society as any products that could come to market, whether in the future, should be identified in the scope of work issued to the branding firm. The branding firm should determine the key elements of the brand that will translate across cultures. Muslim regions may be famous for its religious manners and beliefs but the Muslim consumers are not that particular in terms of brand labeling as long as the process is halal free. Until recently, producers invested little effort to develop a name or product image. A brand creates a differentiated image that surrounds a company and its products. This image affects the way customers feel about a product, the “brand personality” they prefer and how they experience a product. The best brand images totally engage the consumer and prompt an automatic purchase response. Today, Muslims sell branded products as if they were bulk items, assuming that products will sell themselves based on their merit and consumer need. But as competition and disposable income increase, effective branding will be the difference between success and failure in Islamic countries as potential exporters must understand cultural characteristics when considering brand management in the Muslim market because the Muslim consumers continue to favor names that convey goodness, luck, happiness, long life and prosperity, it is sometimes difficult to translate a Western brand name into such language the Muslim knew.
In the world’s expanding urban marketplace, businesses must effectively design brand names that convey appealing images to which consumers can relate. Because Muslim places remains an enigma in many people, identifying such images and then successfully marrying them to a particular product brand is far from easy. For the Muslim food products, there could be a similar brand name and logo often with no meaning, identifies the product for the consumer as many imported food products were labeled exclusively in the country of origin’s language. Effective branding means more than Muslim character labeling. A brand image manifests itself in many ways: a memorable brand name and logo, attention-getting packaging, attractive advertising, brand communications and a well-designed, contemporary retail environment. A Muslim brand uses an integrated, holistic communications approach although possibly unaware of a particular product or brand, the Muslim shopper quickly discerns value and quality in products. In supermarkets, consumers read product contents and compare quality and prices. Muslim region’s lack of infrastructure and countrywide distribution channels hampers national campaigns for many imported brands (1995, 1998, 1999; 1994; 1996; 1999, 1999).
There are theories that see brand equity as being anchored in consumer awareness, as intangible assets of companies, or as a theoretical construct which is functionally dependent on brand management (, 1996; 1993, 1998). Consumers perceive brand equity as the value added to a product by associating it with a brand name and other distinctive characteristics. Customer-based brand equity, then, depends on the degree to which consumers are familiar with products and “hold some favorable, strong, and unique brand associations in memory” ( 1993: ). Considering the matter from a financial perspective, companies view brand equity as the net present value of the future profit stream that can be attributed to the price premium of the brand. This conception has gained importance in several countries by the admission of brand equity as a depreciable asset on balance sheets ( 1992). The necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of brands is held to be the higher awareness that consumers have of certain products independently of their being able to explain from which any real differences such higher brand awareness arises (1997:). This implies that brands are not products of a particular nature but “essentially a seller’s promise to deliver a specific set of features, benefits, and services to the buyers” ().
High consumer awareness may coincide with a much weaker role of this awareness in determining purchase decisions, which calls into question the overriding role of awareness in determining the success of branding or in constituting brands in the first place. Moreover, packaging or design is here not consistent and therefore not constitutive of the brand. In the case of champagne, brand idealism would imply that the fight marketing mix could persuade consumers to accept wines as champagnes that, as a matter of fact, do not come under the umbrella of this ‘natural’ brand. Rather, their belonging to a particular species of wines, a particular production process and their origin in a particular cultural region characterize certain wines sufficiently to make them champagnes, regardless of the degree of awareness consumers may have of them and irrespective of any corporate brand name ( 1998). The products often retain a higher value even if they have become ‘de-branded’. This explains the value of Lacoste shirts without the Lacoste label, or of Rolex watches stripped of the Rolex name: “They are worth more than counterfeit imitations, because the brand is present even when it cannot be seen. In contrast, though the brand may appear on an imitation, it is actually missing” (, 1992.). This phenomenon can only be explained by assuming that even the former presence of a brand somehow transforms a product. But this precludes brands from being reduced to a simple external sign such as a name or label (1996: , 1997).
The stronger a brand – the more it is a ‘master brand’ – the smaller tends to be its extendibility ( 1992). The difference in plasticity of brands, however, cannot be due only to the application of a particular set of marketing tools but must also be explained by structures of the underlying reality of product space that permit extension in some but not in other cases. Brand names alone affect the demand for a product, and by implication brand equity, less than is often assumed (1998). Brands are not properties of a mysterious entelechy of products, i.e. of an immanent capacity of some products to become brands. What constitute brands are properties of products themselves. Brands are determined by and are dependent upon properties of product space, without being reducible to these ( 1993). “A true brand is one whose image is embodied in the product characteristics” (1992). An advertising practitioner has best described the brand concept: “A brand is more than a product; it’s both a physical and perceptual entity. The physical aspect of a brand can be found sitting on the supermarket shelf. It is mostly static and finite (1995:).
The conditions for branding need not even reside in presently perceived or existing properties of products: “every product has more attributes than meet the eye” (1996:). Branding strategies cannot be based only on the particular taste, shape, consistency or perceived quality of a product but they must relate also to real possibilities – to the dispositional properties – of products to enable certain uses or to permit certain transformations that have not yet been undertaken (1982:). Applied to consumer behavior and to the domain of brands, the realist accepts such product properties do not depend on consumer wants or attitudes since these wants manifest themselves only “after production decisions have placed opportunities before consumers” (1973).
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
Research Design
This study will identify factors that affect the Muslim consumers’ preference of brand name and brand logo as product label. Thus, causal-comparative method will be applied to test the cause and effect relationship of the attributes of Muslim consumers and the intervening variables to their preference of brand label. Analysis of co-variance will be used to evaluate the results of the study. The study calls for non-probability approach of sample selection for convenience to the researcher. One hundred fifty Muslim students, in varying ages, will serve as sample for the study. These will include secondary, tertiary and graduate level students. The more disperse the characteristics of samples, the more attributes and intervening variables could be analyzed. Primary and secondary data will be used in the study.
Primary data will be consisted the answers to the questionnaires of the samples while secondary data will be consisted the research done by the researcher including interviews held to compile pertinent information about the problem of the study. Quantitative and qualitative data will be analyzed. Quantitative will be sourced to the primary data gathered and will be undergone into compilation, frequencies, percentages and determination of relationships under the SPSS program. Qualitative data will come from the open-ended questions in the questionnaire that will reflect the personal opinions of respondents not included in the selection. This data will be significant when quantitative data is discovered to have deviations from the hypothesized variables.
Participants
For convenience, students will be the sample of the study. The data gathering will be conducted in the classroom. A total of 150 students in different school levels will participate in answering the questionnaire. It is also important to include working students, probably those in the graduate studies, in order to obtain responses from a group who has a regular experience in buying not only commodities but also luxury goods.
Instruments
The survey questionnaire will be used as the primary instrument in the study. The researcher will include initial questions as to determine the attributes of the samples. The questionnaire will also include questions pertaining to the factors that affect the preference of the Muslim respondents in brand labeling. Intervening variables will also be indicated in the questions in order to prevent misapplication of the relationship of dependent and independent variables. For example, a 17 year old respondent may answer that she prefers brand logo to be indicated in the purchased product that the 26 year old who prefer to see a brand name instead. In such situation, intervening variables like the product being a commodity or a luxury good and the fact that the respondent is not familiar to the product should be dealt with proper controls. Likert scale will be used in the study to determine the strength of the responses especially the degree of agreeableness of disagreeableness of the selection of answers. The unit of measurement will indicate the importance of the attribute in question and its relation to the preference of brand name or logo.
The respondents of the research study were Muslim college students from a prestigious University. (1999) support the use of students as subjects within consumer research and confirm its acceptance by stating that 86 percent of the articles published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin used students as their human subjects. (1995) defends the use of students in that they are more homogenous as a group than non-students, thus resulting in less “extraneous variation” (, 2001). As a key Muslim consumer target regarding preferences of brand labeling in brand name and brand logo is between 17-25 years, a convenience sample of students is justified within the exploratory study. To achieve the research aims, a mixed-method approach was adopted as qualitative and quantitative. (2004) justifies the adoption of a mixed-method to achieve an in-depth insight into consumer behavior and preferences in terms of brand impact and importance that will affect Muslim students’ choice of the product also, affecting their buying habits respectively. Here, the qualitative stage facilitated the development of a survey questionnaire. Qualitative research techniques are accepted as an exploratory mechanism to gain information (1994;2000). Two focus groups (n=2×12) were carried out to explore the credibility of brand labeling initiatives and the type of “consumer value” ( 1999) derived from specific valued products. The focus groups were primarily concerned with identifying a set of beliefs, in relation to the areas of preferences and behavior.
n (1980) suggest that the first five to nine beliefs should elicit the most “salient” beliefs and facilitate sufficient insight into why an individual holds a certain attitude towards an object. Data analysis was interpretive and iterative, using pattern coding and analysis to identify emergent themes (1994). The themes identified from the focus groups were then used to construct a questionnaire designed to elicit respondents’ information seeking right behaviors in relation to brand consumption, perceptions of Muslim students regarding brand name and logo of certain products and related purchase behavior. The same locations were used in the quantitative study. A random sampling technique was used to select respondents from a range of undergraduate business, language and leisure degree programs. The pre-test and pilot questionnaire was distributed to seven percent of the final sample size, with six percent equally distributed to such University locations. Respondents who participated in the pre-testing of the questionnaire were not included in the final sample. This number was not pre-determined, but continued until respondents did not require further clarification on topics, questionnaire instructions or layout. The questionnaire incorporated a priming section, which provided information about attitude and adapting to various brand names and logos for instance, about McDonald’s and KFC. It is also considered that both McDonald’s and KFC’s above-the-line advertising campaigns acted as a “natural” primer for students (1998).
The use of priming for this study helped to facilitate increased accessibility of information present in students’ memories ( 2002). The final response rate of 40 per cent (n=100) resulted in a ratio of 52:48 between Muslim working and non-working students as respondents. Participation in the study was voluntary as students were invited, over a one-week period, to complete a questionnaire at the end of core lectures. These were self administered and collected in drop-off boxes, there was a prize draw for a leading marketing textbook was offered to students as an incentive. The questionnaire was analyzed using SPSS, Version 11.5, where descriptive, cross-tabulation and factor analyses were conducted. Explanatory factor analysis was used to investigate whether a large number of variables such as attitude statements could represent a smaller number of dimensions like the central attitudes. As the qualitative results played a facilitation role to the quantitative stage, a series of salient belief statements were developed from the themes arising from the focus groups and measured via a five-point Likert scale. The value of providing respondents with only five choice positions is that it tends to avoid responses converging on the middle response. On the other hand, too many scale positions such as seven-point scales tend to confuse respondents (2000).
A questionnaire is one of the three primary ways of collecting needs assessment information. The other two ways are interview and focus group.
Some of the advantages of questionnaires are:
Questionnaires are especially useful when the respondents must remain anonymous. They can be distributed and returned in ways that respondents can feel confident that their identities are secure. Questionnaires can be an efficient means of collecting information from the point of view of the respondents. Questionnaires should be brief so that respondents spend no more than ten to fifteen minutes completing them.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA ANALYSIS, DISCUSSION
AND PRESENTATION OF RESULTS
The data gathered will be tallied by the researcher and will be encoded in the computer. Hard copy will be printed to ensure that files are kept including the questionnaire responses of the sample. Frequencies will be computed into percentages and will be presented through graphs, tables and textual arrangements. The latter will clarify the graphs and tables. Data will also undergo to the SPSS program to determine the causal relationships of the predetermined independent and dependent variables. Such data will form the heart of the findings of the study and will indicate the applicability of the research. Given the role of product familiarity in the accumulation of product-related experiences and objective knowledge (Johansson et al., 1985; Alba and Hutchinson, 1987), there assessed BORA scores adjusted for brand familiarity as the scores were higher ([M.sub.BORA(US)]=68%; [M.sub.BORA(F)]=33%) and, importantly, the ratio of BOR[A.sub.US] to BOR[A.sub.F] scores remained about the same as the unadjusted scores.
Moreover, if product-level experience has an influence on brand name and logo, Muslim consumers would be expected to know brand origins of brands that they do not favor or would use as opposed to possessing information only about products that they report as having purchased, used, or somehow experienced. The differences in chi-squares for all pairs of constructs were significant at P=0.05, thus establishing discriminant validity. The procedure is more conservative: pairs of constructs have discriminant validity if the shared variance between the two constructs which is the squared correlation between the two constructs is lower than the shared variance between each construct and its indicators. Some of the Muslim students were given a questionnaire with the appearance of a generic label and other students were given a questionnaire with the appearance of a national brand label. The questionnaires included a rating scale consisting of twenty two questions to be answered after the subjects are grouped to answer. Fifteen were behavioral based questions used to control for limiting factors and other fifteen questions were used to rate brand label in terms of brand name and brand logo relating to the consumer preferences of brands.
Results
Focus groups
A significant theme from the focus groups was one of skepticism about the motivations underlying brand name and brand logo initiatives, with respondents classifying them as no more than marketing strategies aimed at increasing company profits. A lengthy debate took place about whether brand outlets promoted over-consumption and if they should be held responsible for individual customers’ levels of consumption. Support for the latter was significant, as both focus groups included individuals who had worked where they had been trained specifically to encourage sales of larger portions. However, the groups did not reach agreement as to whether this was normal or unethical business practice. Participants also reinforced the familiar convenience-healthfulness dichotomy, describing the choice of branded products as convenient but can be unhealthy. McDonald’s products were judged as enhancing the personal status of student consumers, but not of adults as no similar observation were made in relation to KFC products. Some students commented that there was a confusion of values signaled by restaurants. In particular, the product range structure was confusing, thus undermining the “fast” and uncomplicated value implied by the term “brand labeling stigma”. Furthermore, the pressure felt to consume in excess of what the customer really wanted tended to weaken the implied straightforwardness of the brand choice experience.
Questionnaires
Most respondents (75 percent) regularly purchased fast food from one of the companies; purchases were mostly impulsive (50 percent) or routine (22 percent). The respondent profile to the questionnaire, matched the global target market with 76 percent aged between 17-25 years. The location split was more or less equal with 52 percent from UAE and 48 percent from other parts. In terms of respondent origin, 85 percent were from the UAE, 11 percent from other countries in UAE and 4 percent from other countries. The gender split was 53 percent male and 47 percent female. The majority of students (44 percent) lived at home with their parents, 24 percent lived in shared accommodation and 22 percent lived in University Halls of Residences. Some 10 percent of students owned their own home, 72 percent were working part-time, with 34 percent working between 10 hours per-week of the respondents, thus enabling over a third of respondents to use other brand option for buying. Skepticism was again identified from respondents, as 53 percent believed that such brand could not be trusted to tell the truth about their products. Subjects were marginally more skeptical 48 percent and 41 percent.
A total of 61 percent of respondents stated that they intended to buy only healthy foods, yet 22 percent of these felt sufficiently under pressure at the point of purchase for them to increase the size of the product ordered. Motivations for purchasing such products were predominantly speed and convenience (77 percent), value for money (61 percent) and quality of the brand name and logo (61 percent) as with value for money and quality identified as clear motivators for consumers preferences, it is no surprise that 70 percent used durable but quality brands as a cheaper option for buying and purchasing. Similarly, respondents’ awareness of company’s promotion of its brand quality and labeling ways were higher as example 55 percent and 31 percent. There was a strong positive correlation between respondents who intended to buy branded goods in the future and who expected brand companies to commit to better brand initiatives. Although 73 percent expected information to be made publicly available, only 17 percent and 11 percent used such product services web sites, respectively, to obtain company and best possible brand information. Exploratory factor analysis enabled a large number of variables to be represented as a smaller number of dimensions.
The empirical study results produced four factors explaining 52 percent of the variance in brand purchase behavior and were labeled in accordance with the attitudes revealed within each:
Ø Brand value
Ø Name and Logo value
Ø Ethical value
Ø Brand quality
The relationship between of the factors is as follows. Factor 1 included significant attitudes relating to the integrated brand communications directed at each fast food company’s target audience. Examples include marketing communications and subsequent positioning strategies must communicate more with the general public and offer good value for money. Factor 2 included significant attitudes relating to brand name and logo impact to the Muslim students in terms of choice process as factor 3’s attitudes related to ethical value of the brand name, for example, KFC or McDonald’s cannot be blamed for rising obesity rates in the UK and that animal welfare refers mainly to chicken production as other meat products are not allowed for the Muslim culture.
Therefore, this factor was titled ethical value involving attitudes related to aspects of brand quality and included attitudes such as the Muslim respondent always try to buy products that are halal free and have the assurance having a good indicator of better brand label quality. Alpha values were also calculated for the four factors to measure the degree of cohesion within each category. In terms of internal reliability, the results showed clear coherence within each category with F1 possessing an alpha value of 0.80 (six items); F2 – α=0.76 (four items); F3 – α=0.71 (four items); and F4 – α=0.74 (six items). These alpha values are more than sufficient as the widely accepted cut-off point is confirmed as 0.70 ( 2001). The factors indicate the central attitudes responsible for influencing brand purchase behavior. Overall, the principal attitudes offer a logical combination and acceptable fit with regard to Muslim students consumer preferences of brand labeling between brand name and brand logo and possible activities. The research process permits informal inferences to be made from consumers’ salient attitudes towards brand behaviors (2001).
Discussion and Findings
Explanatory factor analysis pinpointed both positive and negative attitudes towards brand labeling retailers and their regimes. The principal attitudes held by the target group members related perceived value of the brand itself; the brand name and logo value of the products; the ethical principles underpinning the brand and the overall brand quality of the products being sold. Regarding brand value perceptions, most purchases occurred as a result of impulse decision-making. Consequently, subjects were likely to be tempted into over-consumption at the point of purchase. It is the impulse element that may explain why consumers patronize better companies whose marketing communications they do not really trust – on reflection. It is not uncommon in fact for attitude-behavior attitudes to occur, in relation to ethical purchase actions. For example, in the context of animal welfare friendly food production systems, individuals can hold two distinctive and not necessarily compatible, views; on the one hand they may think as citizens influencing societal standards, and on the other, as consumers at the point of purchase (2004).
It is worth speculating, given the prominence of convenience among the different types of consumer value that such behavioral inconsistencies are in this particular context. The complexity of consumer value that can be realized through a better brand name and logo of the product by an individual consumer in a given context is enormous. In addition, the issue of communicating specific product and/or brand benefits along distribution channels is intrinsically difficult. Henceforth, salient types of value represented by label may need to be recognized and understood before they can be communicated. Consumer value inherent tends to include convenience, consistency and reliability. The results show that the value offering of brand companies must be integrated, with particular emphasis on convenience, reasonable prices and quality products. Thus, of the respondents, 36 percent were customers who are really brand conscious both the focus group discussions and the questionnaire results reaffirmed a useful research views to be applied. Ethical attributes in a brand label context may be seen as “implied” quality attributes (International Standards Organization, 2000), where consumers assume a minimum acceptable standard present in commercially available brand products (2002) and details of which consumers generally do not want to think about at the point of purchase.
As the market for ethical consumption expands, companies need to continually monitor the strategic role of corporate ethics in their respective sectors. If current trends continue ( 2001; 1998), consumer expectations of brand-related standards may increase and become applicable as reflected. Some perceived a sales culture that promoted over-consumption by encouraging customers to brand name and logo portions and produced dissonance when set against labeling initiatives. However, some members of the focus groups took the commercial point of view, namely that customers should expect to be actively sold to and that it was up to them to make the correct choice as there was a certain lack of trust, like in companies talking honestly about the products. This is clearly an issue that organizations subscribing have to address and resolve ( 2004).
Branding is more than one of those buzzwords that the high-powered marketers drop into conversation so that Muslim consumers think they’re clever as the process of good branding is a very important part of unique brand name and logo promotion. The goal of branding is to end up with the name of a product, service or website foremost in everyone’s mind spending an obscene amount of money in trying to become the dominant brand – simply sell the brand and try to create brand awareness within the presence of indelible logos so as to establish an inseparable link between the product and the provider doing a good job of impressing consumers to various brand labels into people’s minds as it can be seen that the power of brand might even be more important than the quality or price of the product. There may be many factors which affect Muslim consumers own choice of brand name but keep foremost in mind the need to produce a name that will be easy for others to remember and which won’t be confused with similar products, services or websites in such market sector. The Logo leads the consumers to one of the most important components of the brand – the way it looks. The most common representation of a brand is its logo. Just like brand names, the most effective brands have very simple, easily identified logos. A simple rule of thumb is that if a person can’t look at a logo for just 10 seconds then draw it with pen and paper – it’s too complex and if the consumers can’t remember as to what a certain logo looks like, they won’t recognize it and they won’t remember any brand form, logos can simply be the brand-name itself, usually rendered in a tasteful font using contrasting colors.
In fact, the whole process of designing the shape and color-scheme for a logo can be so critical that you might want to fork out good money to pay an expert to do the job. It is said that all business boils down to sales. Few, if any, organizations can survive for long without a clear emphasis on, and tangible delivery of, sales. In particular small organizations, those where staff members often wear several hats and find themselves taking care of more than one particular job function, value sales as life. The best entrepreneurs are the best sales people, according to popular thought. However truly successful firms understand that it is much deeper than simply being committed to the act of sales. Sales as the primary business activity are a growing corporate reality. In order to facilitate sales, the organization will allocate portions of its finite resources to such things as an advertising campaigns, promotional tools and customer benefit programs. The core concept behind branding is that if you put a positive message about your company in front of enough people for enough time, they will think about you when it comes time to make a purchase. ()
Branding is built around the principals of repetition, leverage and recall over time and conditioned associations. By continuously delivery a message of quality and professionalism, an organization can begin to benefit from its audience’s preconceived perceptions. The human mind is such that repetition does work; almost any message, delivered enough times, will begin to resonate consciously and sub-consciously, impacting purchase decisions. In order to establish a great brand, one must understand the building blocks of branding strategy: A brand is more than simply a logo; it encompasses the entire experience that a person has with a company. More simply, the brand is the immediate image, perception or message that Muslim consumers experience when they think of a brand product integrated in the following points:
Brand association: The attributes that people think of when they hear or see a brand name.
Brand name: The actual words) by which a company or product is known. An effective brand name gives a good first impression and evokes positive associations, emotions and pre-conceptions.
Brand personality: The emotional connotations of a brand. This is the intangible identity of a brand.
Logo: A textual and/or graphic image that identifies a company or product while also communicating the brand. Sometimes the logo becomes more than just letters or shapes and is actually inseparable from the brand association.
Positioning: Position is determined by a company’s core business or product offering, the benefits it provides to consumers and society and the advantages it has over its competition.
Tag line: A catchy, memorable phrase or sentence that expands on the logo concept to further describe the company or product brand. Successful tag lines are so catchy that people can recognize the company by the tag line alone, without a name or logo (think of “Just do it” or “Don’t leave home without it”).
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Diagrams related to Brand Labeling
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Source of the above Diagrams: (2006) Models, Diagrams and Theories
The impact of brand labeling can be an influential factor when deciding which product people think has the better quality. As a Muslim consumer looks at a label he or she can be positively or negatively persuaded to judge in a particular manner. That’s why throughout brand labeling can operate as having a placebo effect by giving consumers brain – an expectation of the product being good or bad ( 2006). It could be said that the sensory portion of the brain is being persuaded. This potent impact of expectancy is what leads many individuals to continue in their buying habits or as other researches may consider it to be elements of brand equity that is the impact brand knowledge has on the consumer which is an influential component of consumer response (1993). Brand equity is defined as the differential effect of brand knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of the brand (1993). According to (1993), brand recognition is the consumer’s ability to differentiate a certain brand when given the brand as a cue. Brand image is the consumers overall brand associations with a particular product (2005).
Muslim consumers can actually have a personal memory from childhood or other triggers that can influence them to purchase the product or not to purchase the product this is another way of explaining brand image. Brand loyalty perceptions can be learned through experience. Consumers may have the belief that price and packaging is an accurate predictor of quality (1992). Other forms of brand equity are found in antecedents such as slogans, jingles, packaging or symbols. Due to the national brands having access to more funds to promote advertising on a more consistent basis consumers perceive national brands as having superior quality compared to store brands items. This was observed when consumers were asked to rate the store brand with the same ingredients as the national brand. With brand equity national brands hold a level of equity and image, over and above quality, that is not offset by the lower price of store brands. Regardless of product rating consumers perceive the national brand more favorably due to brand equity and brand image (2005).
Thus, attractiveness on labels is linked to persuading consumers to refer to their product as better or of a higher quality. Marketers direct commercials to attract the attention of children in hopes that they will persuade their parents to purchase the item or in hope that when the children are adults they will associate that product with feelings of comfort and purchase the product as they reach adulthood. Physical attractiveness has an effect of being pleasing and therefore may elicit positive effects, which can lead perceivers to think that more attractive labels possess a better tasting product (1989). This is due to the promotion of attractiveness and stereotyping occurs within almost ever fiber of culture; things, labels and people can be perceived as being of greater quality although the true test comes when the product is evaluated. Media and marketers display a misconception of if it looks good on the outside it must be even better on the inside (1989). Fixed schemas may result in the consumer having a general positive perspective with price and quality or poses a negative relationship between price and quality (1989). For example, consumers who rate quality based on perceptions of product categories when the national brand is thought of as having better quality as opposed to the generic brand thought of having poorer quality, price has been a poor indicator of product quality for durable goods (1989).
If Muslim consumers rely on price to be the indicator for quality they will continue to make erroneous errors in their buying habits, such as spending money on marketing instead of quality or quantity ( 1989). For example, the consumer will buy products based on what other consumers see as having the most popularity based on labeling, packaging and advertising. In addition to preferences, consumers may be influenced by products in the way they are displayed in the marketplace. Items don’t just appear on shelves or racks based on the first letter of the title. For example, in the cereal isle store and other less popular brands are located in areas where the consumer’s eye is not trained to focus. These non-brand name items are usually in the top corners or located on the ends of the isle because most individuals approach the grocery isle by going to the center to make their choices and then work their way outward (2005). Brand recognition and brand image make it more convenient for the buyer to make shortcuts in decision making while shopping. This is a place were brand equity has paid off for food and other retail industries (2005).
Researchers (1996) disagree with the stigma attached to store brands, stating that private labels are of higher quality and more consumers are choosing the private labels over the competing national brands. Researchers are indicating there is no longer a stigma attached with buying private labels (1996). This is due to store brands being regarded as comparable in terms of quality to national brands. Consumers perceive store brands as being just another brand in the marketplace. There is still are marginal difference in consumer preference in terms of purchasing national vs. store brand labels which is due to private label suppliers having less market power in contrast with national brand manufacturers (2005).
Preferences of Muslim Consumers
The scale of commodities that a person consumes is built up in a more or less haphazard manner. Some of the commodities are acquired by a trial-and-error method. The consumer comes to expect a certain amount of satisfaction from a commodity from his previous experience with it. For example, many of the items of apparel are uncomfortable and if left to ourselves we would not choose to wear them; but in order not to appear conspicuous we comply with the whims of society. There is no common quality of goods that makes them desirable as desirability is solely in the reaction of the individual to the good and depends upon the individual and his environment rather than upon the good itself. Moreover, since environment is changing the individual, a person’s desires at any one time may be quite different from those he has at some other time. There is not even any satisfactory unit of measurement by which an individual can compute the absolute amount of satisfaction that he derives from certain goods. This means that we cannot even sum up or total the satisfactions that a person derives from his income. A person calculates this satisfaction in terms of other goods. Thus it is impossible for one to tell another the satisfaction he derives from the consumption of a piece of candy or even to calculate it himself except in terms of other goods.
Many psychologists and economists object vigorously to the notion that individuals are at all rational in their attitudes toward goods that they make conscious choices among goods on the basis of the utility which they have for them. Human behavior, according to these men, is not rational but is determined largely by the environment or circumstances in which man happens to be placed. It is a product of an unstable, irrational complex of reflex actions, impulses, instincts, habits, customs, climate, and fashions. Muslim consumers do not make fine and precise calculations respecting the probable satisfactions to be obtained from the purchase of various goods. They are influenced rather by suggestion, advertising, accident, and many other factors, their choices and price offers are determined more by custom than the relative utility of goods. They hold true within considerable ranges of our expenditures, and in consequence the notion of the comparison of utilities cannot be pushed very far. There is one group of exceptions to this general proposition where commodities are complementary. In such cases the consumer in using more of one good also uses more of the other. For most commodities the consumer may use more of one and less of another as he wishes. If the consumer can substitute one commodity for another, then he can find several combinations of the two commodities, such a situation extended to include a number of combinations of these two goods is shown in by the line labeled the assumption of continuity is added for convenience.
As suggested, the consumer is interested in deriving the largest possible satisfaction from the expenditure of his income. If he spends an excessive amount on one thing, he derives less satisfaction than if he had spent a portion of it for other things; for, as he expands his consumption of this particular thing, its relative significance per unit decreases and his dollars, in consequence, buy less satisfaction. He discovers that if he spends too much on this one particular line, he will not have enough to spend on other lines and he will feel quite definitely the lack of these goods. He learns with some definiteness the approximate amounts that can be spent on each thing. If a person has a fairly regular income, he is taught by this experience the possibility of buying a certain amount of satisfaction in the market from each dollar that he spends. A little reflection will show that in order for the consumer to have correctly expended his income the marginal rates of substitution for all goods must be identical with their price ratios in the consumers’ market.
Muslim Consumer Buying Habits
The goods that the consumer purchases fall quite readily into three classes when considered on the basis of his buying habits. These are called convenience goods, shopping goods, and specialty goods. Convenience goods are those which the consumer purchases in the most convenient manner possible. Convenience may be related to one’s home or one’s place of work as it may not be in terms of proximity but in terms of easy accessibility by motorcar. For example, one consumer may be a connoisseur of bread or of cheese, say, and may not be satisfied to purchase such items at the nearest store; rather, he goes to some store which he has found carries the quality of item he likes, even though it be a considerable distance from his home or place of work. On the other hand, some individuals buy radios on a shopping basis, comparing prices and qualities in any number of establishments before deciding which one to buy.
In classifying an article according to the foregoing three-way classification one means that the item is predominantly of a certain type, and not that every single individual buys it in the same manner.
Consumer buying habits have a very important bearing on the lines of merchandise handled by various types of retail institutions. Among the several factors influencing the merchant’s selection of lines to carry (including the availability of adequate space for display and storage, financial requirements involved, servicing required of merchandise after sale, the markup one may expect in relation to costs of doing business, the suitability of the store’s location for the sale of such merchandise, the first probably is that of consumer
expectations. It is desirable that the beginnings that have been made in consumer protection be extended much further. Where consumers are unable to judge the qualities of goods, they are open to exploitation in two ways: through the adulteration of products and through the misrepresentation of the
powers or services of a particular good by those selling it. The Muslim consumer can be protected under such circumstances only by the development of standards, together with their enforcement and a dissemination of knowledge of the precise meaning of the standard in relation to the performance or character of the good concerned.
Standards should be worked out from the viewpoint of the consumer and the brand labeling of goods in terms of these standards required for as many things as possible. This would not only offer the consumer much needed protection in the goods that he purchases but would also greatly facilitate the solution of his problem of what to buy and thus ensure a better satisfaction of his wants. It would make it unnecessary for him to be an expert judge of the qualities of many of the products that he purchases. He could find that a certain grade would fulfill his particular requirements and he would be able to call for that particular grade or quality without the expert knowledge required to determine whether the article fell into that grade or class. This would result in a great saving of time and effort and leave the consumer more time and energy for recreation or for work in his special field. Moreover, it would eliminate the competitive advantage of the quality cutter and give a greater advantage to the producer who could supply goods of standard quality at the lowest price.
Furthermore, standardization and grading of consumers’ goods has made slow progress because of the complexity of the problem and because it runs counter to important business interests. Manufacturers of high quality branded articles who have established a reputation for their product do not wish the consumer to discover that there are non-branded or less well-known articles which would be graded in the same class. The value of the brand name would be lessened. Producers of low-quality products also object to grading because it would
disclose the low quality of the product and increase difficulty of sale.
These two factors have been responsible in large part for the violent
opposition to consumer grades by certain business groups. The term grade labeling refers to a system of labeling consumers’ goods according to broad quality groups based on definite standards or tests. Brand labeling, in contrast, is the use of a name, picture, and/or emblem to differentiate a product from that of other producers; such name, picture, or emblem is designed to be retained in the buyer’s mind in order to encourage repeated selection of that producer’s product rather than some other.
One thing that should be kept in mind from the outset is that grade labeling does not, as some seem to think, enable the consumer to know precisely the quality of product he is acquiring. The fact is that, for natural products such as fruits and vegetables, not only are quality differences gradual, but two products having the same grade may be composed of quite different combinations of qualities since grades are based upon not one, but several criteria. The consumer merely obtains from grade labeling the knowledge that, according to a scoring system presumably based on factors having a direct bearing on product quality, offerings in the market are rated from high to low on a scale so that she may have an idea of what the product quality is before buying and compare the prices of offerings of similar quality. Brand knowledge represents the personal meaning about a brand that consumers have stored in memory, and includes all descriptive and evaluative brand-related information (2003). In addition to basic brand awareness, this information includes brand attributes such knowledge can be conveyed by marketers in their efforts to link brands with positive country images or can be acquired by the consumer independently of marketers’ conveyances as a matter of marketplace experiences and word-of-mouth flows or first-hand brand information acquisition and regardless of the source, for any given brand, the consumer may or may not know its CO, or may even confuse the brand as being from a country other than its actual origin.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
Branding is an integral component not only to bringing a product to market but, just as importantly, to sustaining it in the market. A well-planned branding strategy begins as early in the drug’s development process as possible, and it sets the stage for product differentiation, value, and ultimately profitability. Thus, strong brands take a stand they don’t try to be all things to Muslim consumers but developing emotional connections with consumers ensuring that Muslim consumers respect the brands even if they don’t agree with everything it advertises to the public like, building brand satisfaction, there needs to have a sturdy brand foundation of rational brand attributes illustrating competence and credibility.
A Muslim customer is the one who has ownership of the brand image, because it is the representation of the brand in the consumer’s mind. The brand image is created through marketing communications, but ultimately through the consumer’s experience with all the brand touch points the experience includes the synergistic or atrophic effects that individuals have with other users of the brand. Now, when Muslim customers buy brands, they buy value chains, not products and they want to examine those value chains at multiple levels: at a product level, at a process level, at a people level and at a purpose level. Finally, once they have made their assessment, they will be ruthless and evangelical about their verdict and one solution is a wholesale commitment to brand integrity across the whole value chain. For, the consumers the integrity of brand name and logo matters because of the following:
Ø Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code
Ø The state of being unimpaired; soundness
Ø The quality of being complete
Ø Adherence
Ø Soundness
Ø Completeness
If customers demand an increase in integrity and if brands exist to serve customers, then integrity should be a key competitive battleground. More than that, integrity is a source of value that is based on broad competencies, products, people and process as the purpose is not just a dissociated image. Value-chain integrity is a lasting source of brand differentiation. Many brand owners stand to see a real upside from building their value-chain integrity. For positive branding to occur, a company must consider every way it touches Muslim perspectives and current customers including advertising, public relations and customer service for a new brand label to break through the clutter.
In conclusion, certain preferences of Muslim consumers regarding brand labeling really matters in putting an impact to some leading global brands for years such as McDonald’s and KFC, but the underlying values of their target consumers and audiences have changed as it will no longer rely solely on convenience and product consistency as unique selling points. It is clear that a strong brand label emphasis on consumer quality and brand initiatives must be incorporated.
New advertising campaigns alone are not sufficient to communicate changing brand names and logos in lieu of its values. If Muslim retailers wish to maintain and attract new customers, the overall brand labeling and packaging must be re-defined for students and consumer groups such as the Consumers Association. Inevitably, brand names and brand logos initiative have become a valuable strategy for responding to challenges of brands. Brand labeling in names and logos needs to be protected and should achieved more as the brand quality policy and strategy are aligned with the values of the consumers. Additionally, other studies could benefit from the adoption of preferences in terms of brand labeling techniques to facilitate confirmation of brand name and logo influences on Muslim students consumers’ buying behavior.
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