Thesis Statements Free Essay Example

Transformations in the world economy are inevitable due to the changing demands of consumers and increasing competence among business organizations. The changing business environment challenges companies to find efficient strategies in gaining competitive advantage.

In marketing, companies need to adjust to diverse preferences and changing buying attitudes of consumers through effective approaches in introducing or presenting products to the different market segments (Chatterjee, Jauchius, Kaas, & Satpathy, 2002).

Regardless of a company’s entry level in the market, they should be able to build and maintain brands through advertising, which plays significant role in attracting and influencing consumers to try new products or keep their loyalty.

This study will focus on the impact of brand building on consumer perception and buying behaviour in order to determine effective marketing strategies for a company’s and decisions planning activities. The effectiveness of branding services can be analyzed through the impact of mass media and internet advertising on consumers’ buying behaviour and brand loyalty.

Background of the Study The impact of Advertising in consumer behaviour Previous studies (Meyers-Levy, Louie, & Curren, 1994; Chan-Olmsted & Kim, 2001) reveal that strong brands benefit companies in gaining competitive advantage. However, it is difficult to build strong brands and how they can be integrated in a company (LePla & Parker, 1999). They define the term “integrated” as the brand which is built on the firm’s actual strengths and customers’ values. Integrated brands are not just communications-driven but they provide long-lasting benefits in marketing management.

Integrated brand allows companies to ensure the continuity of a corporate culture and it helps human resources to live by the brand and to deepen their brand-customer relationship.

Chatterjee et al (2002) assert that customer relationship management (CRM) is an effective approach that contributes in attaining the goals of marketing initiatives of companies or brand service providers. Customer value as part of CRM, is also important because sales staff and customer service representative need to understand customers’ differences, needs, and buying behaviour.

Business firms target and cater to the different market segments to increase sales. Today’s marketers need flexibility and strategies in addressing the challenges of effective brand management (Brady, Hunter, ; Santiapillai, 2000). Branding highlights promotion and communication, innovation highlights the products, channel-management highlights distribution, and low-cost highlights price. Strategic brand management allows companies to maximize their long-term value of a brand.

It requires consistent development of products, intensive consumer research, and the cost of advertising and promotion initiatives (Davis, 1995). Consumer behaviour is defined as the people’s way of consumption and acquisition of products, choice in using services, and perception or disposition about the products and services they buy. Consumer behaviour is a result of internal or mental processes. Because of stimuli, the individual’s behaviour, social context and cultural aspects, other internal processes, and the interactions between these variables change.

Internal processes can be considered as the cause of an individual’s behaviour and intentions in doing action s. They include perception, cognition, learning, and motivation (Jacoby, 1976). Internal process of perception affects people’s awareness of products or attributes of products. Consumer behaviour is shaped by people’s social environment and culture. Consumers recognize and assess brands and they engage in information-search and acquisition strategies as a cognitive response to advertisements.

However, they sometimes lack the ability to analyze information and evaluate options due to effective strengthening brand building and brand loyalty of branding services. Thus, marketing managers should position the company’s brand in the market but they should ensure that integrity and honesty is maintained when advertising products or services. Statement of the Problem Branding services should be able to meet the companies’ needs in attracting customers, building brands, and gaining customer loyalty.

Persuasive message brand values may not always work when strong brand differentiation are not explicitly articulated (Moran, 1990). Therefore, the advertisers need to present products or services in a creative way to ensure a lasting impression. Branding services and advertising must be able to build and maintain brand value for companies’ popularity and profitability because not every brand can continuously grow due to the inevitable presence of many competitive brands. Campaign for brand awareness is needed to establish brands in a long-term perspective.

It is important to know how consumers respond to publicity or advertising every product or service. The factors that affect consumers’ perception and behaviour must be determined in order to help advertisers and marketers use specific and effective strategies for each market segment. Research Objectives This study aims to achieve the following objectives: 1) Review related literature regarding brand services to improve business organizations’ brand-building capability and the factors that affect consumer perceptions and buying behaviour.

2) Conduct a direct-data survey through questionnaires and interviews to regarding the impact of brand building on consumers’ brand value and brand loyalty. 3) Discuss the research findings and significant contributions of the c study in research and development of the university and the marketing field in order to identify advertising and marketing strategies in the United Kingdom for the success and increased profitability of companies. Research Questions This study will work on the following questions in examining the impact of brand building in the United Kingdom:

1) What are the factors that affect consumer perceptions in buying products or services? 2) How do brand-building initiatives impact consumer buying behaviour? 3) To what extent are consumers affected by brand-building initiatives in advertising or branding services? Overview of the Methodology Research Design Primary and secondary data will be used in discussing the impact of advertising in brand-building and the factors that affect consumer perception and behaviour. Whilst secondary data support primary data in the review of related literature, the use of quantitative data strengthens arguments in the form of qualitative data.

Quantitative data are derived from computations needed to interpret the respondents’ answers in the questionnaire. This study will be based on qualitative and quantitative research methods. The qualitative and quantitative analysis of data enriches evaluation of results. They are necessary in a flexible and iterative approach. Research Methods This study employs survey and content analysis. Surveys are used in collecting quantitative information that focus on people’s opinions, events, information and activities for specific purposes.

They are flexible in the sense that a wide range of information can be collected. They include questioning and analysing facts. They are easy to administer and enable researchers to minimize the cost of data collection. They also allow the researcher to generalize findings because of the representative sample. Survey techniques are an efficient way of collecting information from a large number of respondents (Weissberg, Krosnick, & Bowen, 1989). Moreover, standardized surveys are relatively free from errors. Surveys are the primary sources of direct-data.

Direct–data may come from the results of questionnaires and interviews. It allows the researcher to investigate phenomena, events, people or regions in a particular period of time (Brubaker & Thomas, 2002). Sampling Design The general population for this study is composed of randomly selected consumers in the different urban areas in the United Kingdom. One hundred fifty questionnaires will be distributed through electronic males or personal requests. Their responses will be compared in the analysis of the case study of consumers in the UK before general conclusion is made.

The results will serve as the empirical evidence that support the argument in discussing the research questions. Personal and on the spot interviews will also be done with 10 marketing and advertising executives to gain further understanding and evidence. Statistical Treatment Once the measuring instruments are retrieved, the raw data will be processed into quantitative and qualitative forms. The most appropriate statistical treatment to be used in the collated data is as follows: 1) Percentage will be used as descriptive statistics, which is relating a part to the whole i.

e. the respondents’ gender, age, educational attainment, etc. 2) Weighted mean will be used to approximate the general response of the survey samples, whether they agree to a given statement or not. In the computation of a mean the various quantities may be assigned various weights (Rider, 2003, p. 13). The computed weighted mean and its interpretation will be presented in the ffourth chapter of the proposed study. If wi is the weight associated with X i then: Where: w i – weight given to each response X i – number of responses ? w i – total number of responses