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In this competitive business environment, the concept of brand awareness is an important source of strategic intelligence for marketers. To compete and achieve the success in the market the businesses need the effective tools. One of the most important tools in the business world for attracting, preserving and increasing the consumer is having powerful brand equity. From that one of the most important dimension is brand awareness. Academic literature explains strong brand awareness will increase the purchase intention.
Closeup having the minority market share in the toothpaste industry in the past years, and their market share decreased in the 2018 compared to 2017 in western province according to Unilever company data. If Unilever Sri Lanka can understand and evaluate the importance of brand awareness on the purchasing intention, then the company can have loyal customers and enjoy a competitive advantage in the market place.
This will increase the company profitability. According to Shahid, Hussain and Zafar (2017) higher brand awareness will raise better in the market.
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Will help the business to earn profits. Therefore, this study will provide more rational guidelines to the company to maintain and increase its market share, profit via brand awareness.
Oral care industry classified into 05 categories. Namely; toothpaste, mouthwash, toothbrush, Denture products, Dental accessories (Grandviewresearch.com, 2018). This research will focus on customers who will purchase toothpaste for their oral care. Having the same prices for most of the toothpaste brands shifts the competition from price to brand buildings. Therefore, developing a strong brand for Closeup in customers’ mind has become as the necessity in the market place. For meeting that purpose, understanding and evaluating brand awareness is important. Brand awareness is recognized as an important concept to gain a superior place in the consumer mind and to gain competitive position in the market. Unilever owns 400 brands worldwide. And runs operations in 100 countries. In Sri Lanka Unilever Sri Lanka provides 29 strong brands. It is a fast-moving consumer goods company. Unilever has local manufacturing facilities as well as imported products also. Its products are mainly base in-home care, personal care and foods.
When considering the toothpaste category, it is a rapidly growing industry in Sri Lanka. To survive in this category by facing the competition successfully and to become a competitiveplayer in the market, it is important to create a unique, valuable place for the brand in the consumers mind. In 2017 Unilever Sri Lanka relaunch the Closeup product under “Break the barrier” theme. After the relaunch, market share has grown comparing with 2016 to 2017 from 2.20% to 2.94%. Also, there is a slight increment in 2018 considering the Unilever company data. Market share of the Closeup for all Island can be show as below, Source: Unilever Sri Lankawhen considering the below graph, Western province could not keep the growing momentum. Market share decreased from 3.02% to 2.3% end of 1st half of 2018. Below pie chart shows the current western province market shares in the toothpaste industry.
It is important that Unilever Sri Lanka understand reason and evaluate the importance & effect of brand awareness on the purchasing intention. When a consumer is purchasing a product and the name of the brand he wants to buy memorize in his mind means that that, the buyer is extremely aware about that specific brand. If the brand or product satisfy its buyers, they will loyal to the brand. If brand awareness is high the number of buyers will increase and the market share grow. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to know the effects of brand awareness on the customer purchase intention. In this research the aim is to maintain the market share growing momentum as per the all island trend.
Objectives can formulate as below:
Literature review provides an approach to the study increased understanding and knowledge. This contains the existing literature about theories, principles, concepts and model regarding the study. Literature review helped to have a concrete idea about the topic to arrive at the research problems to develop the conceptual framework which supported to gather actual data, analyses those and finally to come out with the research findings and conclusion. According to USC Library website literature review described as brief of key sources. A brief is a summary of the vital information of the source. In social sciences, literature review using a structural pattern. And merge both brief and synthesis with specific theoretical categories. Synthesis is a rearranging of information in a way how researcher planning to investigate a research problem (Libguides.usc.edu, 2018).
According to literature brand equity means a relationship between customers and brands. (Wood, 2000). According to Kotler and Keller (2012), brand equity is the added value on products and services. It may indicate in the consumer’s thinking pattern, feel, how they act according to the brand, in the prices, market share and profitability. Brand Equity is a set of characteristics which helps the organization to make the brand as a unique one in the marketplace, allow the company to charge a higher price from its customers and to obtain superior market share than comparing with the product which is unbranded (Samih, 2012). Aaker (1992) provided the most inclusive brand equity model. It comprises of five different aspects. Namely brand loyalty, brand awareness, perceived quality, brand associations, and brand assets. From those five dimensions’ researchers selected brand awareness for the research.
Brand awareness is the ability of a product potential purchaser to identify or remembrance that a brand is a member of an exact product category (Aaker, 1992). Keller (2003) defines brand awareness as the customers’ capability to recall and recognize the brand as reflected by their capability to classify the brand under different situations. And to link the brand name, logo, symbol and to associations in memory. Brand awareness is a basic level of brand knowledge. This means able to identify the name of a brand according to Shahid, Hussain and Zafar (2017).
Brand awareness is the essential and primary restriction in brand related search. And this is the capability of a buyer to identify and recall a brand in different circumstances. Brand awareness will effect the decision making of a buyer about a product. Most of the time buyer is purchasing something he considers as a brand (Shahid, Hussain and Zafar, 2017). All these definitions highlight two vital words as recognition and recall. To exits brand awareness, consumers should differently recognize the brand among competing brands in the product category and there should be an ability to remind it when the product category is given. If not, Brand Awareness will not occur. Brand awareness is a significant aspect that can find in all brand equity models. According to Shahid, Hussain and Zafar (2017) there are factors influencing brand awareness. Such as; name, advertising, promotion & sales and first mover advantage. Name explains as the first thing which attracts a buyer towards a brand. Consumer will encourage to buy that product if the firm has an attractive brand name.
An effective advertisement supports the company to increase the awareness about a brand. Attractive advertisement will create more buyers to the company. Some will advertise the brand by word of mouth. The celebrity endorsement and brand ambassadors the using by companies to make people get attract to the brand. Promotions and sales such as free gift, free sampling increase the awareness about the brand. First mover advantage means if a firm launch any product for the first time in the market it will be remembered by the costumers for a long time according to literature (Shahid, Hussain and Zafar, 2017).
Many people do consume different types of products every day, from basic needs to high valued possessions. When consumers recognize the needs of having a product or service, they are beginning with searching the information about the product, then evaluate the alternatives of brand available in the market, and finally decide to purchase. Purchase intention means a consumer has personal preference towards a certain product, and it has proven to be a significant factor to forecast consumer behaviour (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). Purchase intention is the probability of purchase of a specific product by the consumer in the future. Purchase intention refers to the extent to which a customer purchases a particular product, at the same time as refuses to shift to other products (Yoo, Donthu and Lee 2000). Engel, Blackwell and Miniard (1995) is the most recognized model of consumer purchase decision-making. Model divides the consumer purchase decision process into five stages: Such as problem identification, information search, alternative evaluation, purchase decision, and post-purchase behavior.
According to Kapferer if the buyer identifies about brand he will have more chances for purchasing and most of the time, will be able to make intelligent economic decisions. Creating a strong brand will affect both short-term and in long term revenue (Kapferer, 2008). According to Keller (2003) high level of brand awareness will create choices among different brands available in the market. And it directly affecting consumer purchase intention. And this leads to create up the brand image. One of the factor influence in brand awareness is word of mouth. But if it is about negative thing about the brand it will destroy the brand image. According to Akhtar, Qurat-ul-ain, Sddiqi, Ashraf and Latif (2016) past research regarding impact of a brand equity on consumer purchase decision in L’Oreal Skincare products shows the significant impact of brand awareness on consumer purchase intention. And according Manzoor, A, and Shaikh, K (2016) past research regarding brand equity and purchase intention: the Indian automobile industry past research shows the positive direct impact on consumer purchase intention. According to Shahid, Hussain and Zafar (2017) there is a significant impact on brand awareness on consumer purchase intention.
Concepts Of Brand Awareness On The Example Of Unilever Sri Lanka. (2024, Feb 27). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/concepts-of-brand-awareness-on-the-example-of-unilever-sri-lanka-essay
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