Investigating Critical Success Factors of Brand Loyalty: A Meta-Data Analysis Approach

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim (In the name of Allah, the beneficent the merciful)

Alhamdulillah for everything that happens to me, happy or sad. Let’s be ever grateful to Allah for everything that we possess, including our health, wealth, status, intellectual abilities and life. Maybe Allah didn’t give us everything we want, but He certainly gave us everything we need.

Today, I would like to share with you my second published paper about meta-data analysis of brand loyalty. In this paper, I’ve reviewed previous literature related to brand management and brand loyalty, specifically from the years 1998 to 2016.

Abstract:

Brand loyalty is a critical issue faced by organisations. It increases an organisation’s profits and market share. Overlooking brand loyalty among customers raises problems in retaining customers. Besides, retaining the existing customers is more cost efficient rather than gaining and attracting new customers. Thus, this paper explores the elements of brand management (i.e. product quality, brand service quality, brand value and brand image) that influence customer brand loyalty. Customers satisfied with the quality of a product and service and the value of the brand will remain loyal to the brand as it exceeds their expectations. The brand image also plays an important role in influencing customers to stay loyal. This paper conducts a meta-data analysis addressing this lacuna in the literature and helps researchers to understand the concepts and elements used to measure customer brand loyalty.

Introduction:

In the 21^st century, loyalty towards products and brands has declined, leaving marketers agitated. Marketers strive to differentiate their brand given the saturation of existing markets (Mise et al., 2013). Customers are prone to swing from one brand to another and/or to decide on the different brands equally thereby making it hard to establish loyalty to a brand. This creates a need to study the influence of several elements of brand management on brand loyalty. Brand loyalty is a customer preference when purchasing a specific brand in a product category (Giddens & Hofmann, 2010). Marketing academicians and practitioners accept that retaining the existing customers is more cost efficient as it costs five times more to attract new customers as compared to retaining the existing ones (Oladele & Akeke, 2012).

By establishing and maintaining high levels of brand loyalty among customers, companies can apply their best pricing and reduce their marketing and advertising cost on their products due to the willingness of their customers to not only pay for the brand even though the price is expensive but also to promote it to their families and friends (Upamannyu et al., 2014). Thus, the price is not the only factor that influences people to purchase goods as the perception of product quality, brand service quality, brand value and brand image are essential elements in retaining customers and establishing brand loyalty (Senel, 2011; Mise et al., 2013).

Although both marketing scholars and practitioners have long taken an interest on the subject of customer behaviour (i.e. brand loyalty), it still needs to be explored in detail (Thaichon et al., 2013). Several problems face scholars and marketers in studying and establishing brand loyalty. A highly competitive business environment has urged companies to take action in establishing a long-term and close relationships with their customers. According to Koller, Floh and Zauner (2011), companies are being forced to embed excellent value in their products and service as individuals can switch brands easily due to numerous product brands available in the market.

Improving the value of the product brand is not the only means to establish brand loyalty as companies also need to ensure that their customers are completely satisfied with the products offered (Rad et al., 2014). Brand image is also necessary for companies as it creates satisfaction among customers (Malik et al., 2012). When the satisfaction level of a brand is low, customers tend to leave and choose another brand.

Meta-data analysis for marketing literature is a summary of past research constructed and contains several brand dimensions and elements used by previous researchers that have an influence on customer brand loyalty. This meta-data analysis is an 18-year timeframe in which the articles were analysed from the years 1998 to 2016. This analysis suggests several variables require further study and analysis. These variables were retrieved from different published journal articles, conference proceedings, reports and working papers. The variables are summarised in the meta-data analysis presented in... [cont].

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Dr SAA