AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF BRAND IMAGE TOWARD CONSUMERS DECISION MAKING

Law Lik Wang, Norhayati Zakuan, Ahmad Jusoh, Mohd. Shoki Md Ariff and Ahamad Zaidi Bahari Dept. of Management, Faculty of Management and Human Resource Development, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Skudai, Johor, Malaysia Email: norhayatimz@utm.my Muhamad Zameri Mat Saman Dept. of Manufacturing & Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Skudai, Johor, Malaysia

Abstract. The aim of this research is to find out what is the perception of customer regarding the airline service providers brand image. Therefore, the purpose of the research is to identify what elements will affect the airline service providers brand image in order for the airline service provider to gain more market share. The customers decision making will be analyzed base on the influences of brand image. In order to carry out this research, a qualitative research was carried out. A set of questionnaire was developed and randomly distributed to 200 respondents in Senai Airport, Johor Bahru. Reliability analysis, Pearson correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis was being used to analysis the data. The result of this research suggests that satisfaction and trust of customers to a brand is the most important dimension that affects the customers decision making. However, based on this research, it shows that there is a relationship between brand satisfaction to brand image and brand trust to brand image. Keywords: Brand image; brand satisfaction; brand trust; decision making; AirAsia.

1.

INTRODUCTION

AirAsia Berhad is the low-cost airline service provider in Malaysia. Airasia is operating scheduled international flights and domestic. Besides, Airasia is the largest low-fare, no-frills airline in Asia region. Airasia was the first airline in Asia region to implement fully ticketless travel. The main base of Airasia is Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) at Kuala Lumpur. Therefore, its affiliate airlines Thai AirAsia have hubs at Suvarnabhumi Airport, Thailand and Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Indonesia, respectively. Airline industry in current market become more competitive compared to last

decade. This is because of the existing new competitors no matter in local or international airline service. With this competition among the airline service providers, each of the company needs to be very concern towards consumers needs and wants. This is important for the companies to create a great and effective brand image or identity no matter from internal and external sources. Therefore, all the competitors are willing to do so because the brand image has the direct impact to generate consumer satisfaction value. If a company failed to provide the positive brand image, it may directly or indirectly affect the consumers decision making on choosing the airline service. Consumers may shift to the other competitors which offered better experience.

Nowadays, Airline services are becoming more competitive comparing last decade ago. Now, the most familiar airline service providers include Malaysia Airline, AirAsia, Jetstar and so on. Those airline services are most probably providing the air transport services for passengers.

2.3

Brand Satisfaction and Brand Trust

2. 2.1

LITERATURE REVIEW Brand

Brand means a specific product, service, or business identity. Brand love, or love of a brand, is an emerging term encompassing the perceived value of the brand image (Keller, 2003). A name, term, sign, symbol, design, a good or service which are identifying the sellers to distinguish them from their competitors. Watkins (2006), Aaker (1991), Doyle (1994) and Kotler et al. (1996) adopt this definition. In order to achieve goals of product and brand management, it is important to build a strong brand. Strong brands will result in higher profit stream, either in long term or short term (Aaker al.et, 1991). Pearson (2005) explains a brand is constructed by features, customer benefits and values. A brand is invented when the marketing is adding value to a certain product within the process to distinguish the similar features and benefits from the other products.

Based on the commitment-trust theory, in order to maintain a long term relationship, trust is a significant variable in the development of an enduring desire such as brand (Hunt and Morgan, 2004). Trust and satisfaction are different roles in the forecasting the future intentions for high and low relational consumers (Johnson and Garbarino 2007). They also found satisfaction to be keying for occasional customers, while trust was more important for consistent customers. Doney and Cannon, (1997) suggest that trust is the dominant antecedent of repurchase intentions. Then, Ranaweera and Prabhu (2003) found both trust and satisfaction to have strong positive effects on customer retention. Finally, Delgado-Ballester et al. (2003) suggest that satisfaction affects loyalty both directly, as well as through trust.

2.4

Decision Making

2.2

Brand Image

Brand image is defined by Keller (2003) as a strong, favorable with unique brand association in recognition, which will result in positive attitude, perceived quality and positive affect in overall. He also states that brand image has been widely accepted in literature that is the perception existing in the memory of the customer. When a customer or consumer can recognize a product brand, it means that they had combined the symbolic value and the willing to own the product as well. Keller also states the high level of brand awareness and positive brand image will increase brand choice probability of consumer, lead to increasing consumer loyalty and lower the damaging of market action.

Sproles and Kendall, 2006 states that Consumer decision-making style could be defined as a mental orientation characterizing a consumers approach to making choices. Decision making can be regarded as the mental processes (cognitive process) resulting in the selection of a course of action among several alternatives. The final choice will be produced by every process of decision making. The output may be either an opinion choice or action. There are eight decision styles which are (1) quality conscious, (2) brand conscious, (3) fashion conscious, (4) recreational and hedonistic orientation, (5) price conscious, (6) impulsive and careless tendencies, (7) confused by alternative options and (8) brand loyalty.

2.5

Brand Image toward Consumers Decision Making

Engel et al., (1986) indicates that the factors that influence the consumption and use of a good or service are the marketing and consumer behavior like availability, advertising, image and consumer characteristic. Besides, based on Hankinson and Cowking (1993), in order to achieve the brand acceptance, the

relationship between the customer and brand perception of customer to brand is needed. The customers psychological and physical needs and the brands symbolic values and functional attributes will be reflect by the strong relationship between customers the brand.

are brand satisfaction, brand trust and brand attachment. Finally, section D allows respondents to give some suggestions and opinions that are not being asked in previous research. Based on the Table 1, it summarizes the purpose of each section. Table 1 Content of Questionnaire Section Section A Section B Section C Section D Content Demographic information about the respondents Criteria of choosing Airasia Airasia brand image, brand satisfaction and brand trust Respondent self-opinion towards Airasia

3. 3.1

METHODOLOGY The Sample

According to Levin and Rubin (2000), population refers to the people or item that being chose for the research purpose. Hence, the population in this research was the AirAsia customers and passengers at Senai International Airport. There are a lot of passengers travels to local states or oversea through Senai International Airport, so the population for this research is very big. So the convenience sampling was used. This sampling technique was being categorized as non-probability sampling. The reason to select or use this convenience sampling method is because of more convenient and easier to identity the research sample. Then, questionnaires will be distributed to a sample of 200 respondents who had traveled by AirAsia, conveniently selected in and around Senai Airport by enumerators. The respondents selected at the Senai Airport are those waiting for their flight.

All the dependent and independent variables in section B and C will be measured by using five point Likert scale ranging from (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = moderate agree, 4 =agree and 5 = strongly agree)

4.

DATA ANALYSIS

3.2

Research Instrument

A set of questionnaire was developed to gather the data for this research. The questionnaire was divided into three different sections. In section A, the questions will be asked in this section including the age, gender, marital status, race, and income range. In section B, the questions to be asked are the frequencies of respondent were travelling by selecting Airasia, and the criteria they are looking for them to choose Airasia. Then, in section C, it will ask about the perception of brand image to the respondents in order to gauge the respondents point of view regarding the influenced by brand relationship element which

Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 16 for window is used to analyze the data collected. The reliability statistics used in the Cronbachs Alpha, which determines the internal consistency or average correlation of items in a survey instrument to measure it reliability. In reliability analysis, the higher the score, the more reliable the generated scale is. Referring to Table 2, Nunnally (1994) has indicated 0.7 to be an acceptable reliability coefficient, so this means that the instrument of this research is reliable. Another statistical method used is Spearman Correlations to examine the relationship between brand satisfaction and brand trust towards brand image. Therefore, the multiple regression method will be used to identity which factor will be the dominant factor to influence the consumers decision making on selecting their airline service provider (Airasia). Table 2 Cronbach alpha for all variables

No. 1. 2. 3. 4.

Variables Airasia brand image Airasia brand satisfaction Airasia brand trust Overall

No. of Item 5 9 5 19

Cronbachs Alpha 0.754 0.905 0.842 0.936

with brand image. The relationship is significant with correlation coefficient (r) is 0.677. Besides, this value indicates that there is a moderate positive relationship between brand satisfactions and brand image. Therefore, the correlation coefficient between the brand trust and brand image is r=0.609. This value shows that there is a moderate positive relationship between them. Then, both significance between each other at p=0.000. Table 4 Result of Spearman Correlation Analysis Correlations Brand Brand image satisfaction Spearman's rho 1000 .667** Brand Image .000 Correlation 114 114 Coefficient Sig. (2-tailed) N Brand Satisfaction Correlation Coefficient Sig. (2-tailed) N Brand Trust Correlation Coefficient Sig. (2-tailed) N According to model summary presented in Table 5, it shows that the R Square value is 0.304. This means that 30.4 percent of the variance in choosing Airasia in future was explained by the contribution of reliable brand, perceived best price offered, strong and capable organization, perceived service quality and wellrecognized brand. Table 5 Model Summary Mode R R Adjuste Std. .609** .000 114 .814** .000 114 1.000 114 .677** .000 114 1.000 114 .814** .000 114

By referring to the result in Table 3, the average mean score 3.85 can summarize that the perception of Airasia customers were at the agree level. The highest brand image perception is well-recognise at the mean 4.14. It means that Airasia has the positive brand image toward consumers. Most of the people are agreed with the statement of Airasia brand is known by most of the people in Malaysia. It means that Airasia brand is very famous in Malaysia as well as aboard. The second highest brand image perception measurement is perceived best price offered by Airasia at the mean 4.03, which shows that customers agreed Airasia has offered the best price among airline service providers. Table 3 Analysis of Airasia Brand Image Perception Level Measurements Mean Standa rd Deviati on 0.832 0.814 0.765 0.834 0.819 Level R an k 4 2 3 4 1

Brand trust .609** .000 114

Reliable brand Perceived offering the best price Strong and capable organization Perceived service quality Wellrecognized brand Average Mean Score

3.64 4.03 3.74 3.68 4.14 3.85

Agree Agree Agree Agree Agree Agree

Table 4 is shown a significance level of 0.01 level (p<0.05), the correlation between the two important aspect which are brand satisfaction and brand trust with the brand image. The first relationship is between the brand satisfactions

l1 1 a.

Squar e

dR Square

b.

0.551(a 0.304 0.272 ) Predictors: (Constant), Reliable brand, perceived best price offered, strong and capable organization, perceived service quality and well-recognized brand Dependent Variable: Select Airasia in future

Error of the estimate 0.699

willing to put efforts in increasing the level of brand satisfaction and brand trust, the higher brand image will be gained. It is because brand satisfaction and brand trust are influencing the brand image. With the higher level of brand satisfaction and brand trust, strong positive brand image will be created. Based on Keller (1993), consumer brand awareness will be increased when quality that receives from the brand is high. The brand awareness represents the brand recalls and brand recognition. Keller (1993) also states the high level of brand awareness and positive brand image will increase brand choice probability of consumer, lead to increasing consumer loyalty and lower the damaging of market action. With the high services qualities are provided by Airasia, it had increasing the recognition of consumers toward Airasia. Therefore, it will increase brand choice probability on repurchase intention of consumers. Hence, it will directly affect or influence the decision making of consumers in selecting their airline service provider.

5.

DISCUSSION

Based on Hankinson and Cowking (1993), they stated that customers own physical and psychological needs and the brands symbolic values and functional attributes which perceived by the customer will be reflected by the strength of relationship between customer and brand. From the result analysis, all the measurements have achieved good or positive image due to the customers perception towards Airasia. It has strengthened the relationship between the consumers and brand of Airasia. For the measurement of well-recognized brand and perceived best price offered are the main factors to lead those consumers are having a positive image toward Airasia. With the highest score in well-recognized brand of Airasia, it shows the most of the consumers known about the brand of Airasia. According to Keller (2003), Customer-based equity is occurred when a customer is familiar and aware to the brand and possesses positive association about the brand of recognition. The well-recognized brand is the most important in building the positive image in Airasia. Based on Ranaweera and Prabhu (2003), they found that both trust and satisfaction to have strong positive effects on customer retention. Finally, Delgado-Ballester et al. (2003) suggest that satisfaction affects loyalty both directly, as well as through trust. both brand satisfaction and brand trust of Airasia has moderate positive relationship with its brand image. This is because the correlation value scored for the brand satisfaction and brand trust of Airasia to brand image of Airasia is 0.667 and 0.609 respectively. It means that when Airasia is

6.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

Since this study is focused on consumers perception on brand image, relationship between brand satisfaction and brand trust to brand image, and the decision making of consumers due to brand image. It is recommended that further studies from other airports like LCCT in Kuala Lumpur, Sabah and Sarawak to figure out whether there are any similarities in the findings. Future research can do the research based on the different demographic. It means that the perception on brand image will be divided by the age, occupation, or monthly income. Hence, it can test how these different demographic variables would show different level of influence in the brand image towards decision making, which can make the research to be more precise. Lastly, the primary data to be collected for the study should comprise not only quantitative method (questionnaires) but also qualitative method such as interviews. Qualitative data obtained from interview sessions can generate a

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