Factors effective in increasing brand credibility from the point of view of Weltop mobile phone consumers (case study of Gilan province)

Dissertation for obtaining a master's degree

Field: Business Management Major: Internal Management

Abstract

Brand is an important relational tool in the company's customer relationship management set. Because brand credibility is defined as the believability of the product information contained in a brand, which requires consumers to perceive that the brand has the ability (in other words, expertise) and willingness (i.e., reliability) to consistently deliver what is promised. A brand's credibility reduces perceived risk because it increases consumer confidence in a company's product claims. Considering the importance of the topic, the present research tries to identify the effective factors in increasing the overall brand credibility among the consumers of Apple, Sony, and Samsung mobile phones and laptops. In this regard, 384 consumers of electronic devices were selected as a statistical sample. In order to survey the sample people, a researcher-made questionnaire tool was used. In this way, after designing and confirming its formal and content validity by professors and experts, distribution and reliability were confirmed experimentally in a sample of 35 consumers using Cronbach's alpha calculation method. After collecting all the mentioned questionnaires, the collected data were analyzed through SPSS 19 and Lisrel 8 software. The results indicated a significant effect of the image of the brand's country of origin on the dimensions of brand credibility. Also, the mediating role of variables such as perceived quality, loyalty, brand image and familiarity with the brand in the relationship between the image of the country of origin and the overall credibility of the brand was also confirmed.

Key words: brand, brand credibility, brand loyalty, mobile phone and laptop brands

Introduction

In today's world, many companies seek to attract the attention and opinions of their customers. One of the ways to achieve this goal is differentiation. In general, companies can differentiate their products from their competitors by focusing on physical (such as taste, design and fit) and non-physical (such as price, brand, and country of origin) characteristics (Zeugner-Roth et al, 2005). In many markets, the brand creates a special identity for a product and links it to a specific group of society. By buying a branded product, the customer believes that he has found something valuable for his money.

On the other hand, the mental image of the brand's country of origin is an important external sign associated with branded products. Studies have proven that consumers rely on the "manufacture" label when evaluating a product (Papadopoulos & Heslop, 1993). Therefore, knowing and understanding how to perceive the mental image of the country of origin in the target markets and how consumers communicate with it is of particular importance in global competitive markets.

In this chapter, the statement of the problem, the need for research, objectives, theoretical framework, questions and assumptions, definitions of variables and the scope of the research will be discussed.

1-2) Statement of the problem

The speed of transformation and innovation in various fields is high and the number of advertising messages broadcasted by various media to attract the attention of consumers is so confusing that they need a tool to help them identify the examples of interest and find shortcuts to their destinations. Brand[1] is like a shortcut. In other words, the brand is like a signpost that ranks and displays the valuable features of the products in a busy market. In this way, customers can buy the products they need with enough trust and confidence (Brown Tom, 2016).

A brand is defined from the point of view of consumers or from the point of view of its owners. In addition, the brand is sometimes defined in relation to its goals and sometimes by its characteristics. According to the definition of the American Marketing Association, a trademark is a name, term, sign, sign or design or a combination of all of these that is used to identify and distinguish the goods or services of a seller or a group of sellers and differentiates these goods and services from the goods and services offered by competitors. In other words, a brand is a part of a brand that can be performed.It means that it can be pronounced (Cutler Armstrong, 2017).

Trademarks are valuable for consumers for two reasons: (1) because they reduce the perceived risk of consumption and (2) because they save on decision-making costs. The basis of these statements is that the brand is an effective market sign that the company expands to take into account market information asymmetry (in other words, consumers know less about a company's product or service than the company itself, so they are at a disadvantage, which ultimately leads to consumer skepticism about the product. (Sweeney & Swait, 2008, 180).

Brand is an important relational tool in the company's customer relationship management suite. Brands are credible signs (in other words, believable and reliable): they make companies to be honest about their products and services. This concept of brand credibility is based on the initial research of Howland and others [2] (1953) about the credibility of the relationship by Erdem and Soweit [3] (1998 and 2004), Erdem and others (2002). It has been adapted.

According to this definition, brand credibility includes two main forms: trustworthiness (that is, the belief that the company is willing to fulfill its promises) and expertise (that is, the belief that the company has the ability to fulfill its promises). (Sweeney & Swait, 2008, 181).

Credibility is broadly defined as the believability of the goals and intentions of an independent entity at a specific time and it is assumed that it has two main components: trustworthiness and expertise. Therefore, brand credibility is defined as the believability of the product information contained in a brand, which requires that consumers perceive that the brand has the ability (in other words, expertise) and willingness (i.e., reliability) to consistently deliver what is promised. (Erdem & Swait, 2004, 192)

Brand credibility is a main element in Keller's customer-oriented brand value pyramid [5] (2001), which represents a mode of customer reaction to the brand. This is consistent with our notion of brand equity as representing a customer's relationship with a brand over time. It is also presented by Fournier [6] (1998), Blackstone [7] (2000) and Sweeney and Chow [8] (2002). (Sweeney & Swait, 2008, 181).

The importance of credibility stems from the fact that incomplete and asymmetric information causes consumer uncertainty about product features. Consumer uncertainty may exist even after effective information collection (for experiential attributes) or after consumption (for long-term experience or belief attributes). This leads to the perceived risk [9] of the consumer (Erdem & Swait, 1998, 138). A brand's credibility reduces perceived risk because it increases consumer confidence in a company's product claims. Credibility also reduces information costs, as consumers may use reputable brands as a source of knowledge to save on information gathering and processing costs. (Erdem & Swait, 2004, 192).

According to the importance of the issue and the influential role of the brand and its dimensions in different aspects of marketing, the present research seeks to identify the effective factors in increasing the credibility of the brand from the point of view of consumers, and in order to identify these factors, and to present a conceptual model appropriate to the topic of the research, from the combination of the models proposed by Acker [10] (1996), Brandt and Johnson [11] (1997) and Moradi et al. (2012) has been used. Consumers of mobile phones and laptops of all brands were selected as the statistical population and consumers of Sony, Apple and Samsung brands were selected as a statistical sample in order to answer the main question of the research using a survey: "Do the dimensions of brand credibility as mediating variables affect the name of the country of origin of the brand on the overall credibility of the brand?"

1-3) Importance and necessity of research

In today's business world, the brand is usually considered as a tool to achieve marketing goals such as developing market share or increasing repeated consumer purchases. However, brand strategy goes beyond marketing.