How do brand functions influence brand relevance in category (BRiC) using structural equation modelling

• Main Author: Guia, Junnell E.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2018
• Subjects: Brand name products; Branding (Marketing); Marketing
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/9537
• Institution: De La Salle University

Brand relevance in category (BRiC) has been defined as a construct that measures the overall roles of brand in consumer decision making in various product category. It was first introduced in the study of Fischer, Volckner and Sattler (2010), wherein the importance of brands and the extent of BRiC across product categories and countries have been explored. The brand functions such as risk reduction and social demonstrance were identified as drivers of BRiC and a BRiC framework has been proposed to be examined in a developing country. This objective of the study was to determine the influence of risk reduction and social demonstrance to BRiC across selected product categories in a local setting. The paper adopted and refined the questions from the study of Fischer et al. (2010), and the categories included were mobile network operators, mobile phones, computers/laptops and scheduled flights, which was based from the preliminary survey of a group of students with the same characteristics as the respondents. After the product category has been identified, the survey questionnaire was distributed to the 341 members of the student organization and 33.72% was the response rate. Structural equation modelling has been used for data analysis and a series of construct reliability, assessment of collinearity and path coefficients have been done to ensure the validity of the results. The findings of the study shows that brand functions have significant effects to BRiC with t statistics > 1.96 and p-values > 0.05 in four product categories. The structural models have high predictive power with R2 values ranging from 0.354 to 0.602 and R2 adj values ranging 0.342 to 0.594.The researcher therefore concluded that that when buyers have an option, they buy mobile phones, mobile network operators, laptops/computers and scheduled flights, that impose no threats to them over social demonstrance. This may only be true to the specific sample used in this particular study.