Asia Pacific Business Review ISSN: 1360-2381 (Print) 1743-792X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fapb20 Brand personality appeal, brand relationship quality and WOM transmission: a study of consumer markets in Vietnam Nguyen Dinh Tho, Nguyen Thi Mai Trang & Svein Ottar Olsen To cite this article: Nguyen Dinh Tho, Nguyen Thi Mai Trang & Svein Ottar Olsen (2015): Brand personality appeal, brand relationship quality and WOM transmission: a study of consumer markets in Vietnam, Asia Pacific Business Review, DOI: 10.1080/13602381.2015.1076655 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13602381.2015.1076655 Published online: 20 Aug 2015 Submit your article to this journal Article views: 59 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=fapb20 Download by: [University of Nebraska, Lincoln] Date: 02 December 2015, At: 16:00 Asia Pacific Business Review, 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13602381.2015.1076655 Brand personality appeal, brand relationship quality and WOM transmission: a study of consumer markets in Vietnam Nguyen Dinh Thoa,b, Nguyen Thi Mai Trangc and Svein Ottar Olsend International School of Business, University of Economics HCM City, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; bSchool of Business, University of Western Sydney, Sydney, Australia; cFaculty of Business Administration, University of Economics and Law, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; dTromsø University Business School, University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway Downloaded by [University of Nebraska, Lincoln] at 16:00 02 December 2015 a KEYWORDS ABSTRACT This study investigates the impact of brand personality appeal on both brand relationship quality and word-of-mouth (WOM) transmission in Vietnam It also examines the role of consumer attitudes toward advertising and public relations on brand personality appeal as well as brand relationship quality An empirical test with a sample of 477 consumers by means of structural equation modeling reveals that brand personality appeal has a positive impact on both brand relationship quality and WOM transmission, and that brand relationship quality has a positive effect on WOM transmission Furthermore, attitudes toward public relations have positive impacts on both brand personality appeal and brand relationship quality Finally, attitudes toward advertising have a positive impact on brand personality appeal but not on brand relationship quality Brand personality appeal; brand relationship quality; worth-of-mouth transmission; Vietnam Introduction How to build strong brands is an issue that attracts academics and practitioners for several decades (e.g Erdem and Swait 1998; Keller 1993; Woodside and Walser 2007) Accordingly, a number of approaches have been proposed by academics to characterize the strength of a brand Some stem from cognitive psychology, i.e based on consumer cognitive processes, such as brand awareness, perceived quality, brand loyalty, brand associations and recently brand experience (e.g Brakus, Schmitt, and Zarantonello 2009; Keller 1993) Others come from information economics, i.e based on the signal of the brand to the consumer such as brand credibility, consistency and clarity (e.g Erdem and Swait 1998) While based on different theoretical perspectives, their common focus is on what makes a brand become strong, and establishing a high quality relationship between the brand and the consumer is among the best strategies to build strong brands (Lin and Sung 2014; Woodside and Walser 2007) As marketing has been moving from the traditional marketing (the marketing-mix) paradigm to the relationship-marketing paradigm (Bejou 1997), establishing quality brand-­ consumer relationships is crucial to the success of a brand For that reason, scholars have CONTACT  Nguyen Dinh Tho  © 2015 Taylor & Francis ndtho@ueh.edu.vn; tho.nguyen@uws.edu.au    Downloaded by [University of Nebraska, Lincoln] at 16:00 02 December 2015 2    N D Tho et al devoted their efforts in studying the relationship between the brand and the consumer (e.g Fournier 1998; Huang and Mitchell 2014; Pentina et al 2013), and marketers are increasingly trying to build good relationships between their brands and consumers, reflected in the quality of such relationships, that is, brand relationship quality Fournier (1998) offers a comprehensive model of brand relationship quality, which covers all aspects that contribute to a high quality relationship between the brand and the consumer Researchers in the area have also suggested a number of antecedents and outcomes of brand-consumer relationships (MacInnis, Park, and Priester 2009) Among antecedents of brand relationship quality, brand personality is perhaps a potential one After Aaker’s (1997) influential article on human characteristics associated with a brand, a host of studies about brand personality based on personality psychology has been published in marketing journals (e.g Branaghan and Hildebrand 2011; Eisend and Stokburger-Sauer 2013; Maehle, Otnes, and Supphellen 2011) However, the role of brand personality in brand relationship quality is still under-investigated (Eisend and StokburgeSauer 2013) Further, although the literature on brand personality has rapidly evolved over the past several years, its practical implications are still in question because consumers may not in general regard brands as humanlike (Avis 2012) There is a need for transferring the concept of brand personality into more accessible by consumers and the concept of brand personality appeal is an appropriate one for this regard (Freling, Crosno, and Henard 2011) In addition, research on brand personality has been mainly undertaken in the developed world (e.g Aaker 1997; Arsena, Silvera, and Pandelaere 2014; Freling, Crosno, and Henard 2011) Little has been known in Vietnam With a population of more than 80 million people, Vietnam provides an appropriate case for the study of consumer brands in general and brand personality appeal in particular The movement toward a market economy together with the entry to the WTO has caused Vietnamese firms to change their traditional ways of doing business Instead of focusing heavily on production and sales, Vietnamese firms have gradually been recognizing the important role of branding in their business Vietnamese consumers' shopping habits have also shifted from buying unbranded products to buying branded ones (Nguyen, Nguyen, and Barrett 2008) A recent survey of Vietnamese consumers undertaken by GfK, a foreign market research agency in Vietnam, shows that Vietnamese consumers are becoming more sophisticated in terms of making purchase decision; they always think twice before making a purchase The survey results also indicate that 55% of the Vietnamese consumers spend quite a lot of time researching information on brands, 12% higher than the global average (Viet Toan 2013) During the last few years, several government-sponsored promotional campaigns have been designed to encourage Vietnamese consumers to buy locally made products, such as ‘Vietnam’s High Quality Brands’ and ‘Vietnam’s Brands Week’ However, Vietnamese consumers are still in love with foreign brands because, not only are they imported, they are also very well established in the minds of consumers While Vietnamese consumers are now ready to pay for the brands that they love, Vietnamese brands have not yet built a strong position in the minds of consumers, unlike competing well-known imported products (Duy Duy 2015) This is because Vietnamese firms have not fully recognized the important role of brands (Thuong hieu Viet 2015) Therefore, it is argued that building high brand personality appeal to consumers plays an important role for the success of brands because brand personality can serve as a tool for personal identification (Fennis and Pruyn 2007; Szmigin 2003) For that Asia Pacific Business Review   3 reason, the present study contributes to the literature on brands by investigating the impact of brand personality appeal on both brand personality appeal and word-of-mouth (WOM) transmission in Vietnam The study also tests the role of attitudes towards advertising and public relations in brand personality appeal as well as brand relationship quality Downloaded by [University of Nebraska, Lincoln] at 16:00 02 December 2015 Theoretical background and hypotheses Social identity and the consumer-social identity-brand model Social identity theory suggests that individuals tend to classify themselves as belonging to a specific group, distinguishing from other groups (Hogg 2006) This is undertaken by ‘a process of social categorization, social comparison, and social identification as ways in which people actively define social reality and their own position relative to other in that reality’ (Ellemers and Haslam 2012, 382) Social identity theory is an appropriate approach to consumer research (Reed, Cohen, and Bhattacharjee 2009) and has been employed in the study of brands For example, Lam et al (2010) use social identity theory to study brand-consumer relationships and brand switching Kim, Han, and Park (2001) employ social identity theory to investigate the impact of brand personality on WOM reports and brand loyalty Underwood, Bond, and Baer (2001) apply social identity theory to building brand equity in services Applying the theory to brands, Reed, Cohen, and Bhattacharjee (2009) propose a ‘consumer-social identity-brand’ model illustrating the connection between brands and consumers, between consumers and social identity, and between social identity and brands The connection occurs when there is a congruity between consumers, their social identity and the brands they own Based on the ‘consumer-social identity-brand’ model, this present study proposes a model, depicted in Figure The model proposes that brand personality appeal has a positive impact on both brand relationship quality and WOM transmission The model also hypothesizes a positive effect of brand relationship quality on WOM transmission In addition, attitudes toward advertising and attitudes toward public relations have positive impacts on brand personality appeal as well as brand relationship quality Brand relationship quality Although definitions of brand relationship quality and its components vary, scholars agree that it is a multidimensional construct (Aaker, Fournier, and Brasel 2004; Fournier 1998; Smit, Bronner, and Tolboom 2007) Fournier (1998), based on the results of her qualitative study, Attitudes toward Advertising Attitudes toward Public Relations Figure 1. Conceptual model H4 H5 H6 H7 Brand Personality Appeal H3 H2 Brand Relationship Quality Word-of-Mouth Transmission H1 Downloaded by [University of Nebraska, Lincoln] at 16:00 02 December 2015 4    N D Tho et al proposes six different but related facets of brand relationship quality, i.e love and passion, self-connection, commitment, interdependence, intimacy, and brand partner quality Love and passion refer to the attachment and affection of the consumer for a specific brand (Fournier 1998; Smit, Bronner, and Tolboom 2007) Self-connection reflects the extent to which the brand assists the consumer in expressing a significant aspect of her or his self, i.e the brand is part of the consumer’s self and they have a lot in common (Aaker, Fournier, and Brasel 2004; Fournier 1998; Smit, Bronner, and Tolboom 2007) Commitment refers to the degree to which the consumer is loyal to the brand and willing to make efforts to continue the relationship with the brand (Aaker, Fournier, and Brasel 2004; Smit, Bronner, and Tolboom 2007) Interdependence relates to the interaction and intermutual dependency between the brand and the consumer (Fournier 1998; Kressmann et al 2006) Intimacy reflects the psychological closeness between the brand and the consumer as well as consumers’ knowledge about, and understanding of, the brand (Kressmann et al 2006; Smit, Bronner, and Tolboom 2007) Finally, brand partner quality relates to the consumers’ evaluation of the brand as a partner in the relationship (Fournier 1998; Smit, Bronner, and Tolboom 2007) Several researchers have employed Fournier’s (1998) conceptualization in their research on brand relationship quality with some modifications For example, Aaker, Fournier, and Brasel (2004) utilize four components, i.e commitment, intimacy, self-connection, and satisfaction Kressmann et al (2006) also employ four dimensions, i.e love and passion, intimacy, interdependence, and partnership quality Smit, Bronner, and Tolboom (2007) include trust in the measure of brand relationship quality This study, following Smit, Bronner, and Tolboom (2007), defines brand relationship quality as the strength and depth of a relationship between a brand and an individual consumer It comprises six components, namely, interdependence, passion, self-connection, commitment, intimacy, and trust Note that, the study uses trust, instead of partner quality, as a component of brand relationship quality, because trust plays an important role in the business relationship literature In addition, trust and partner quality are closely related, i.e relationship partners are willing to fulfill their promises (Aaker, Fournier, and Brasel 2004) Besides providing consumers with utilitarian and emotional benefits, a brand-consumer relationship can help consumers to develop and communicate something about themselves, which is a critical purpose that initiates consumers to form the relationship with the brand (MacInnis, Park, and Priester 2009) For that reason, what makes a relationship qualified and what results from a quality relationship are questions that marketing scholars have tried to answer for years For example, Chang and Chieng (2006) find that brand association, brand attitude and brand image are antecedents of brand relationship quality However, the impact of brand personality on brand relationship quality is significant in the Shanghai sample but not significant in the Taipei sample Smit, Bronner, and Tolboom (2007) find that brand personality has an impact on brand relationship quality These researchers also find that brand relationship quality has a positive link with future use, willingness to share, openness to contact, and has a negative connection with switch likelihood As previously discussed, scholars studying brand personality have questioned about the consumers’ ability to assess the concept and there is a need for transferring it into more accessible This may help explain the reason why the link between brand personality and brand relationship receives partial support (e.g Chang and Chieng 2006) In addition, whereas WOM transmission has been suggested as an outcome of brand relationship quality (MacInnis, Park, and Priester 2009), little empirical evidence has been provided, especially in Vietnam Asia Pacific Business Review   5 For that reason, the main attempt of this study is to empirically test the relationship between brand personality appeal, a concept that is more accessible to consumers, brand relationship quality and WOM transmission in Vietnam Downloaded by [University of Nebraska, Lincoln] at 16:00 02 December 2015 WOM transmission WOM transmission, compared to traditional marketing, is believed more credible and faster, especially with the support of the Internet (Silverman 2001; Trusov, Bucklin, and Pauwels 2009) It refers to the ‘communication about products and services between people who are perceived to be independent of the company providing the product or service, in a medium perceived to be independent of the company’ (Silverman 2001, 25) WOM transmission is generally regarded as an informal transfer of purchase-related and consumption-related information on a brand between consumers, and it can be negative or positive (Soderlund and Rosengren 2007) Positive WOM transmission is a valuable tool for promoting a brand (Gremler, Gwinner, and Brown 2001) Thus, this study frames WOM transmission as a positive behavioral response (e.g as a recommendation) A brand that has established a high quality relationship with the consumer will benefit from positive WOM transmission The quality relationship is formed when the consumer has extensive knowledge and experiences about the brand and when the consumer highly evaluates it through interactions between the brand and the consumer These may result in a discovery of a high fit between her/him and the brand as specified in the consumer-social identity-brand model The consumer will become an active partner in the relationship (File, Judd, and Prince 1992; Fournier 1998; Veloutsou and Moutinho 2009), which is likely to produce consumer advocacy behaviors such as positive WOM transmission Therefore, H1: Brand relationship quality has a positive effect on WOM transmission Brand personality appeal Brand personality, a combination of human characteristics associated with a brand (Aaker 1997; Freling, Crosno, and Henard 2011), is an area of brands that researchers have devoted their effort in the past several years (Aaker 1997; Arsena, Silvera, and Pandelaere 2014; Eisend and Stokburger-Sauer 2013; Ha and Janda 2014; Kim and Sung 2013) Within a consumer-social identity-brand framework (Reed, Cohen, and Bhattacharjee 2009), a brand is no longer an object of economic exchange but it helps consumers identify themselves (Szmigin 2003) Consumers use the brand when its personality assists them in personal identification and positioning; based on the information about the brand they integrate over the time (Fennis and Pruyn 2007) Consumers use a brand’s personality as a means for their personal identification and positioning when they perceive a fit between the brand personality and their ­personality Such a fit depends on the ability of the brand to make it appealing to consumers To perform this role, the personality of the brand should be distinctive (i.e novel and unique to consumers), attractive (i.e favorable to consumers) and recognizable (i.e apparent and accessible to consumers; Freling, Crosno, and Henard 2011; Kim, Han, and Park 2001) These characteristics of the brand can be represented by the concept of brand personality appeal, which is defined as ‘a brand’s ability to appeal to consumers through the combination of human characteristics associated with it’ (Freling, Crosno, and Henard 2011, 293) 6    N D Tho et al Empirical research on brand-consumer relationships has shown that brand personality enables consumers to express their self, forming and strengthening the relationship between brands and consumers (e.g Aaker, Fournier, and Brasel 2004) This is because when the personality of a brand is able to appeal to consumers, they will perceive a good fit between their personality and the brand personality and tend to regard the brand as a member of their group as suggested by social identity theory (Reed, Cohen, and Bhattacharjee 2009) For that reason, consumers tend to build, develop and strengthen their relationship with the brand In addition, as a member of the group, the brand will be introduced to other members within the group as explained by social identity theory Thus, Downloaded by [University of Nebraska, Lincoln] at 16:00 02 December 2015 H2: Brand personality appeal has a positive effect on brand relationship quality H3: Brand personality appeal has a positive effect on WOM transmission Attitudes toward advertising and public relations The attitude of consumers toward advertising refers to ‘a learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favorable manner toward advertising in general’ (MacKenzie and Lutz 1989, 53–54) Advertising is a means to communicate a brand’s appeal to the consumer The appeal of a brand can be rational (e.g quality, value, performance, etc.), emotional (e.g love, joy, humor etc.) and moral (e.g right and proper) (Kotler and Armstrong 2014) Advertisers attempt to consistently communicate brand claims reflecting some key aspects of brand personality, which helps consumers reinforce their perception of brand personality (Puzakova, Kwak, and Taylor 2013) It is therefore well documented in the literature that advertising is heavily employed by marketers to create and promote brand personality and brand relationships (Aaker and Biel 1993; Kim and Sung 2013; Mehta 2000; Puzakova, Kwak, and Taylor 2013) Because attitude is evaluative in nature (Fishbein and Ajzen 2010), favorable attitudes of consumers toward advertising programs of a brand will encourage them to learn more about the brand and its personality traits, assisting them in evaluating the fit between the brand personality and themselves (MacKenzie and Lutz 1989; Puzakova, Kwak, and Taylor 2013) For that reason, such advertising programs will make the personality of the brand to be more appealing to consumers H4: Attitudes toward advertising have a positive effect on brand personality appeal Furthermore, when forming a relationship with a brand, consumers tend to behave in a manner similar to what they with people They tend to apply rules of social interaction to the brand (Fournier 1998; Puzakova, Kwak, and Taylor 2013) Consumers who hold favorable attitudes toward a brand’s advertising programs are therefore likely to have a positive evaluation of the brand (MacKenzie and Lutz 1989; Mehta 2000) This will strengthen their relationships with the brand Thus, H5: Attitudes toward advertising have a positive effect on brand relationship quality Public relations refers to the establishment of long-term interactions between brands, consumers and the public’s, aiming to establish their mutual understanding, goodwill and support, thus enhancing their relationships (Smith 2005) Public relations is believed to be more authentic and credible to consumers than advertising (Smith 2005), and is an effective tool for building strong brands (Ries and Ries 2004) As in the case of advertising, favorable attitudes of consumers toward the public relations programs of a brand will reinforce long-term interactions between the brand and consumers Those consumers are likely to strengthen Asia Pacific Business Review   7 their relationships with the brand, as they with humans In addition, such long-term interactions will assist consumers in discovering the fit between their personality and the brand personality And, when consumers recognize such a fit between their personality and the brand personality, they will perceive the brand personality to be more appealing Thus, H6: Attitudes toward public relations have a positive effect on brand personality appeal H7: Attitudes toward public relations have a positive effect on brand relationship quality Downloaded by [University of Nebraska, Lincoln] at 16:00 02 December 2015 Method Procedure and sample The research was conducted in Ho Chi Minh City, the principal business center of Vietnam Two phases of study, a pilot study and a main survey, were undertaken to collect data for testing the proposed model Respondents were users of various brands of consumer products including high-involvement products such as cars, and low-involvement products such as detergents, local as well as international brands Brands under study were those that respondents had used in the last six months When approaching a respondent for interview, the interviewer asked the respondent to list three brands that he or she had used in the last 6 months The interviewer randomly chose one brand out of three and then, asked the respondent to answer the questions on that chosen brand The pilot study comprised two steps: a qualitative study and a quantitative pilot survey Although most of the measures of constructs in the model are available in the literature, it is important to ensure they are appropriate for the Vietnamese context, especially for the measure of brand personality appeal Therefore, the study first, conducted a series of in-depth interviews with 11 part-time graduate students of the University of Economics in HCM City Theoretical sampling (Coyne 1997) was employed in this step and the saturated point was 11 Next, the quantitative pilot survey was undertaken by means of face-to-face interviews with a convenience sample of 102 consumers The data collected from this study was used to refine the measures by means of Cronbach’s alpha reliability and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) The main survey was also undertaken by using face-to-face interviews with a convenience sample of 477 consumers A team of interviewers was hired to the interviewing at the respondents’ home When a respondent completed a questionnaire, the interviewer immediately checked it for any missing values The sample comprised 242 (50.7%) female consumers and 235 (49.3%) male consumers There were 303 (63.5%) consumers who were 30 years of age or younger, and 174 (36.5%) consumers who were older than 30 years of age Finally, the sample included 311 (65.2%) consumers had a monthly income lower than or equal to US$ 400, and 166 (34.8%) consumers had a monthly income higher than US$ 400 The data collected from this main survey was used to validate the measures by means of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and to test the structural model by means of structural equation modeling (SEM) Measurement Five constructs were examined: brand personality appeal, brand relationship quality, WOM transmission, attitudes toward advertising and attitudes toward public relations Brand personality appeal was measured by a global scale consisting of three items, borrowed from 8    N D Tho et al Downloaded by [University of Nebraska, Lincoln] at 16:00 02 December 2015 Freling, Crosno, and Henard (2011) and modified based on the results of the qualitative pilot study Note that the scale developed by Freling, Crosno, and Henard’s (2011) comprised items measuring three dimensions of brand personality appeal, i.e favorability, originality, and clarity This study employed a global scale to measure brand personality appeal The global items covered all three facets of the construct, i.e favorability (attractive), originality (distinctive), and clarity (recognizable) Results from the qualitative pilot study indicate that the personality of a brand is appealing when it is distinctive, attractive, and easy to recognize For example, a respondent expressed his own opinion about the personality of a brand as follows: I see some brands are different but nothing unique and attractive to me; this brand is attractive and unique compared to others; the personality of this brand … I don’t know; I can’t realize … I like this brand because it looks rugged like me; it is not difficult for me to recognize its ruggedness … Brand relationship quality was conceptualized as a second-order construct consisting of six components: interdependence, passion, self-connection, commitment, intimacy, and trust The 18 items measuring these components were borrowed from Aaker, Fournier, and Brasel (2004) and Smit, Bronner, and Tolboom (2007) WOM transmission was measured by three items adapted from File, Judd, and Prince (1992) Finally, attitudes toward adverting were measured by two items, and two items measured attitudes toward public relations These measures were based on Fishbein and Ajzen’s (2010) who believe that attitudes are evaluative in nature However, following Mehta (2000), this study employed Likert-type scaling instead of semantic differential scaling to measure attitudes All items were seven-point Likert scales, anchored by 1: strongly disagree and 7: strongly agree (see Table for the means, standard deviations, and CFA factor loadings of scale items) We initially prepared the questionnaire in English Then, an academic who is fluent in both languages translated the questionnaire into Vietnamese This procedure was undertaken because English is not well understood by all consumers in this market Back translation was undertaken to ensure the equivalence of meanings Note that the order of the items measuring these constructs was randomly distributed in the survey questionnaire to reduce acquiescence bias (Chang, van Witteloostuijn, and Eden 2010) Measurement refinement Cronbach’s alpha reliability and EFA were employed to refine the measures of constructs based on the data collected in the quantitative pilot study (n = 102) The Cronbach alpha’s results indicate that all Cronbach’s alphas of the scales were greater than 70, satisfying the requirement for internal consistency Note that one item measuring brand personality appeal (No other brands can be compared with X) was deleted due to its low item-total correlation (