Drivers of Brand Commitment - a Cross-National Investigation - Essay Example

Journal article critique Name: Tutor: Course: Date: Drivers of Brand Commitment: A Cross National Investigation This topic mainly points to the management of brands, good customer relations and provision of innovative strategy of service. Globalization, effective marketing strategy, creativity and hierarchy that bring about innovation are also tackled. This book is written for global business teachers and marketing representatives at both highest and middle position, introducing culture as a value when trying to understand the significance of a certain good creativity with the intention to purchase it and adapting international belief in a product by commitment and unwavering attachment relationship. The author, Eisingerich show clearly that, inventing a brand and its ability to rely on itself, influence the way it is received on to the market and its commitment in the art, ideas and a way of life of a certain group of people. United Kingdom can be termed as short term oriented, separate and low on energy miles hence the greatest effect on the brand commitment. On the other hand, China is the exact opposite in that, it has a group of people from different areas hence, collective, long term oriented and high energy space, and so influence brand commitment because of the togetherness of people and customer orientation (Alsop, 2004, p. 26). In his investigation and findings, the author demonstrate the relevance of Eastern countries contributing to brand commitment through, brand innovativeness, orientation of the customer, ability of the brand to be self relevant and social responsibility. Individualism, eastern countries and the United Kingdom are just but some of the diverse cultures that affects brand commitment. So many firms around the world hire worldwide brand management policies for the effective coordination of the whole world activities. The working well of the coordination needs fostering worldwide brand control strategies to a cultural subtle distinction. The research asks questions to find out the influence of a way of life of a people and the impact of the uttermost keys of brand management in its simplest form. The four keys as stated earlier are Customer orientation of a brand, innovativeness of a brand; self-relevance and social responsibility on the commitment of a client to using a brand (Allport & Postman, 2006, p.56). My aim is to assemble a list of common practices to branding and to place them in a context of previous study. Brand innovativeness Products cannot talk, so by branding, they get purpose and meaning, branding is also used to show the name of a product. It acts as a mirror to reflect on the product. Good customer relations and a company performance in the market leading to brand commitment are developed by the crucial role played by branding. Each product, services and even companies just like human beings, must have identity. When a customer or a client comes in to contact with a certain product, there are some focal points either positive or negative that they consider on the first impression. In this case, creating a perspective that a certain product name is quality, special and unique is very important (Belk, 2008, p. 43). Culture has a greater impact on the loyalty of a consumer plan to purchase a product. The writer argues that marketing and presentational efforts are overshadowed by cultural brand and loyalty of a company. In this case, he means that marketing efforts should not be applied to brand a product, considering the fact that consumers have acquired genetic and a culture of loyalty towards a specific brand. Well, it might be true that culture plays a critical role to influence the buyer’s way of thinking, values and actions that forms the buyer’s attitude and habit. But the role of marketing cannot be overlooked because; consumers must be informed prior to launching a product in to the market about the advantages of the said product before urging them to purchase. Saying that marketing is meaningless can only be termed as ignorance. However, trusted a brand is, there must be a level of information about it to the public, hence marketing though advertisement (Ranchhod, 2004, p.64). Customer Orientation A business focusing on acquiring new customers, satisfying and retaining the existing customers has a higher achievement mostly in countries that have rich resources and very well placed economically. Meeting the demands of customers can be achieved by fostering this kind of approach. Providing a client, quality values for money and sustainability, ensure profit, investment return and maintaining the best performance of the company. This concept, if properly put in place, gives a company a designated standard of average performance and the psychological belief that designs a business strategy for consistent changing customer’s needs, challenges that are brought about by competition and a hope for the future systems surrounding market. Despite the overall acceptance of the capacity to produce an effect of a customer’s orientation, there are three major issues that cannot be overlooked, mainly: the environmental factors, that is the level at which environmental factors affect customer orientation, the effects of being in the world market and the resource concentration to bring about customer orientation. Whichever way we look at this, the fact remains that resolving this issues, positively affects the performance of the organization. At this point, I tend to agree with the author that, customer satisfaction is paramount to the running of a global business. A happy customer means free advertisement, that is, word of mouth advertisement is achieved by the business. Clients believe in the love at first sight factor, when this is not offered by the seller, disappointment follows and the consequences cannot be emphasized enough. To hold on to the current customers an office should stay abreast with the current affairs of their locality to find out what can be used to enhance the business achievements (Barone, Shimp & Sprott, 1999, p. 85). Having a feedback program can be used to enhance customer orientation in this situation clients feel valued and that their opinions matter to a firm. This builds trust between the organization and the customer who will never go anywhere else but the store that they are used to. Harassing customers, should be avoided at all cost. There are situations where a consumer would walking in to a store to buy something only to realize that they have misplaced their fund, this should not be interpreted as dishonesty, the staff in charge should be able to handle the situation professionally leaving both parties happy (Bem & Allen, 2004, p.142). Brand Self-Relevance This is mostly achieved by word of mouth. Most consumers prefer to give information about products that are relevant to conception than utility products. This mode of advertisement is not an official marketing but parties can evaluate products of a certain company and thus, creates awareness of a wide range of goods. Most people trust in recommended products from people they know and interact with. Though exaggerated advantages of a product might have positive result for the consumer, word of mouth is biased because; buyers only insist on the goodness of self concept items than utility goods. Another factor that was not considered in the findings is the fact that, customers can resorts to negative word of mouth if the purchased product disappointments. Many customers prefer not to tell others about a product because of the exhaustive involvement and so only motivated individuals pass information around. How about those people who dislike the idea of imitation from the rest of the people, will they tell people where they got their products from? Precisely no, every person wants to be unique in his or her own way and this can be a limitation to self relevance (Chaiken & Trope, 1999, p. 52). Does culture influence self relevance? Of course it does. Self relevance is practiced by individualistic society than in collective culture this is because, of the difference of self relevance practiced by this multitude. Western and Eastern have a behavioral difference; they have no common interests as individuals and as collective. In Eastern culture, the relationships that promote social unity is emphasized where as in western culture, standing out from the rest, being different and personalization are the core values (Panda, 2005, p. 85). Social Responsibility Every brand must have a sustainability, environmental and society law. This policies form an integral part in the good name of the company and relations to their stakeholders. This policies should be clearly indicated and the reasons for having them. The regulations should be different from other companies. For example, a company should not cite meeting standards and achievements because, that is what almost every company is doing (Hatch, 2008, p. 77). Companies usually, separate brands and social responsibility. This is according to my opinion is because; they see society relations and environmental issues as something they have to comply with rather than be part of. There is a need for capitalization on enlarging brand by telling people what is happening to hold crucial social features. How many times have we had companies facing the wrath of the community just because they failed to adhere to their social responsibilities systems? A close-knit policy Integration, aid in the differentiation of a brand name and it’s put in place social responsibility (Chen, Schechter & Chaiken, 2006, p.63). Implications of the author’s findings for international marketers The author insists that marketing is meaningless as long as a business brands its products; this puts the marketers in an awkward situation. If this research should be implemented then, advertisement agencies including media and outdoor advertisement and sales representatives will have no place in the job market; this can lead to lose of revenue to a state. In the same breath, marketers must work increasingly hard by targeting and influencing a wide group of customers. Studies have shown that consumers and sales people have different opinions concerning marketing values. Marketers should have convincing power to make them relevant in the field (Johnson, 1998, p. 87). Firms have invested heavily on the hiring of marketers, this has not yielded much, in his point of view; there should be a new strategy by first, employing a change in the management of brands action in different continents to ensure that consumers are committed to a specific brand a brand that they can identify themselves with it. He insists that, companies can avoid the wastage of resources by getting rid of characteristics that add no value to the concept of consumer’s attachment to a product. Investing in a name that does not influence the customer’s commitment in accordance with their surrounding society’s way of doing things may just leave the company losing out on benefits that can be achieved by enhancing this. Where does such a comment leave the today’s marketers, who are not willing to embrace this ideology and technique? Simple, they are left behind and without business (Chen, 2010, p. 74). He urges the brand facilitators, to take full advantage of culture difference by standing out and making a stronger customers brand identity and commitment of brands. Cross cultural relationship in brand commitment brings about increased unification of the world’s economic, also referred to as, “economic globalization” order through reduction of barriers to international trade, which in turn leads to preceding event that causes unlimited international relations. In this case, international trade is enhanced (Ferrell, 2004, p. 62). In this study, we realize that, this concept put emphasis on the marketers to make sure that the satisfaction of a customer’ demands are guaranteed. Highlighted also is the identification of a product. Consumers should be able to notice a brand before looking at the name of the company; this is the number one achievement of that brand. Every brand that is in the market and known for its good product gain brand recognition. When it rises to the highest degree to start having a large number of people critically reviewing with positive comments, then it is known to be a franchised brand. How much a brand is worth, is measured by the brand equity. The owner of the name should have a total value that shows the extent of the franchise brand. Brand identity is a sort of a Trade Mark that protects the rights of the proprietor; this is achieved by registration of the name. I must admit that the ideologies of the writer are quite smart and thoughtful; this is a good read for marketers who have intentions of taking their business to the next level. References Allport, G. W., & Postman, L. J., 2006. The Psychology of Rumor. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University. Alsop, R., 2004. Study of Olympics ads casts doubts on value of campaigns. Wall Street Journal, December 6. Barone, M. J., Shimp, T. A., & Sprott, D. E., 1999. Product ownership as a moderator of self- congruity effects. Marketing Letters, 10(1), 75–85. Belk, R.W., 2008. Possessions and the extended self. Journal of Consumer Research, 15(September), 139–168. Bem, D. J., & Allen, A., 2004. On predicting some of the people some of the time: the search for cross situational consistencies in behavior. Psychological Review, 81(6), 506–520. Chaiken, S., & Trope, Y., 1999. Dual-Process Theories in Social Psychology. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Chen, S., Schechter, D., & Chaiken, S., 2006. Getting at the truth or getting along: accuracy— versus Chen, I. (2010). The effects of product attractiveness, brand innovativeness. San Diego: Alliant International University. Eisingerich, A. & Rubera, G., 2010. Drives of Brand Commitment: A Cross National Investigation. Journal Of International Marketing, 18 (2): 64-80. Ferrell, R. W., 2004. Customer-oriented planning. New York: American Management Association. Hatch, M. J., 2008. Taking brand initiative: how companies can align strategy, culture, and identity through corporate branding. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Johnson, M. D., 1998. Customer orientation and market action. London: Prentice Hall. Panda, T. K., 2005. Branding-Paradigms And Prognostications. New York: ICFAI Books. Ranchhod, A., 2004. Strategic Marketing in Practice. New York: Routledge. Upheavals: Mark Di Somma's blog. Thoughts and opinions on business and brands: Connecting your brand and your social responsibility policies. Reterived from http://markdisomma.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/connecting-your-brand-and-your-social- responsibility-policies/ Read More