Monday, May 26, 2008

Identifying the Dimensions of the Product-Brand and Consumer Relationship

ÖZGE KOÇ
107604185

Journal Of Marketing Management
Identifying the Dimensions of the Product-Brand and Consumer Relationship
Cleopatra Veloutsou, University of Glasgow, UK*


Summary

This article mainly includes unfold dimensions of the consumer relationship with the product brand.
In marketing, there are two main distinct types were identified as the transactional and the relationship marketing. In nowadays business life, marketing strategy has shifted from a transactional to a relationship focus by increasing their 'customer focus’ with being more customer-oriented, close contact with consumers. However, that relationship focus is not practical to market in an individual way especially when the firm has a large customer base. Therefore consumer companies appear to rely more on the marketing mix than business-to-business firms in their strategies. Although this finding indicates the use of higher levels of transactional marketing, it has also been acknowledged that there is a need for a marketing mix base for relationship development. After all, transactional marketing and relationship marketing are complementary.

Products and brands create value for their customers, past research supported that the brand consumer relationship might take a number of forms depending on the personality of customers and the manner they develop relationships.

Brand Identity has two main dimensions, the brand organization and the brand expression (consisting of the brand as a symbol, the brand as a product and the brand as a person). The development of a strong brand identity will naturally contribute to the development of customer brand relationship. The results clearly indicated that Brand Relationships is a multidimensional concept, since there are two different dimensions in the relationship which are Two Way Communication and Emotional Exchange. The former one suggests that there is some interaction between consumers and the brands, at least in their own perception. The second dimension is the Emotional Exchange. Consumers appear to develop feelings towards the brands. They value the brands of their choice. They sense closeness to them and feel that they benefit from this interaction. Both scales exhibit strong internal consistency and a reasonable degree of validity and could be used in the future to assess the strength of relationships between consumers and brands.

No comments: