UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business

------------------------

Luu Kien Quoc

ANTECEDENTS AND CONSEQUENCE OF
CONSUMER-BRAND IDENTIFICATION

MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honours)

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2014


UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business

------------------------

Luu Kien Quoc

ANTECEDENTS AND CONSEQUENCE OF
CONSUMER-BRAND IDENTIFICATION

ID: 22120105

MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honours)
SUPERVISOR: Dr. Nguyen Thi Mai Trang

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2014

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This thesis could not be accomplished without the valuable support of many people
whose contributions will never be forgotten. Therefore I would like to express my gratitude
to them.
The first sincere thank I would like to give to my supervisor, Prof. Nguyen Thi Mai
Trang, for giving me the position in a very interesting and challenging project. I had
anticipated the difficulties in dealing with too much strange economy theories and new
academic definition before I started master thesis, but I had not expected so many tough
problems to be encountered. Luckily we could manage to overcome and to reach the target
in the end. Thank you so much for giving me chances to correct my mistakes during the
project and teaching me many new things. I really appreciate your quick action whenever I
need your advices and instructions, your direction in writing our articles and also your day
and night correction for my thesis. So thanks you again, Madame!
I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Nguyen Dong Phong, Professor Nguyen
Dinh Tho, Dr. Tran Ha Minh Quan for their valuable time as the members of the proposal
examination committee. Their comments and meaningful suggestion were contributed
significantly for my completion of this research.
My sincere thanks are given to all of my teachers at International Business School –
University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City for their teaching and guidance during my
Master course.

Best regard,


ABSTRACT
The purpose of this research is to extend consumer-brand identification into social
identity literature in Vietnam smartphone market. We do this by developing a conceptual

model showing how predictors effect on consumer-brand identification and influence of
consumer-brand identification on brand loyalty. The model was tested using cross-sectional
data; 166 respondents were students of university of Science. Results from study show that
brand-self similarity has no influences on consumer-brand identification; brand social
benefit and brand prestige-distinctiveness have positive relationship with consumer-brand
identification. The positive influence of consumer-brand identification with brand loyalty
was also confirmed.
Keywords: Social identity theory, consumer-brand identification, brand loyalty, brand-self
similarity, brand prestige, brand distinctiveness, brand social-benefit.


Abbreviation

CBI

Consumer-brand identification

BS

Brand-self similarity

BSB

Brand social benefit

BP

Brand prestige

BD


Brand distinctiveness

BPD

Brand prestige-distinctiveness

BL

Brand loyalty

VIF

Variance Inflation Factor


Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ......................................................................................................... 1
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................ 2
Abbreviation ............................................................................................................................... 3
LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................... 6
LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................................................................... 7
Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 1
1.1

RESEARCH BACKGROUND ................................................................................... 1

1.2

RESEARCH PROBLEM............................................................................................. 4


1.3

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES ....................................................................................... 6

1.4

RESEARCH SCOPES ................................................................................................. 6

1.5

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY ............................................................................ 6

1.6

THE STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY ....................................................................... 7

Chapter 2. LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES ................................................ 8
2.1

SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY.................................................................................. 8

2.2

CONSUMER – BRAND IDENTIFICATION ........................................................... 9

2.3

BRAND LOYALTY ................................................................................................... 11


2.4

ANTECEDENTS OF CBI ......................................................................................... 12

2.4

2.4.1

Brand-self similarity ............................................................................................ 12

2.4.2

Brand prestige ...................................................................................................... 13

2.4.3

Brand distinctiveness ........................................................................................... 15

2.4.4

Brand social benefit ............................................................................................. 16

THE RESEARCH MODEL ...................................................................................... 18

2.5 SUMMARY ........................................................................................................................ 18
Chapter 3. METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................... 19
3.1

RESEARCH DESIGN ............................................................................................... 19


3.2

MEASURES OF THE CONSTRUCTS ................................................................... 19

3.3

RESEARCH PROCESS ............................................................................................ 21
3.3.1 Qualitative research ................................................................................................. 22
3.3.2 Quantitative research .................................................................................. ……….23


3.4

DATA ANALYSIS METHOD .................................................................................. 25
3.4.1 Cronbach’s alpha ..................................................................................................... 25
3.4.2

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) ................................................................... 26

3.4.3

Multiple regression ............................................................................................. 26

3.5 SUMMARY ........................................................................................................................ 28
Chapter 4. DATA ANALYSIS ................................................................................................ 29
4.1

DESCRIPTIVE STATISTIC .................................................................................... 29

4.2


RELIABILITY ANALYSIS ...................................................................................... 30

4.3

EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS (EFA) .................................................... 33

4.4

4.3.1

EFA for all variables ........................................................................................... 33

4.3.2

Correlation analysis of all variables................................................................... 36

REGRESSION ANALYSIS....................................................................................... 37
4.4.1

Multiple regression analysis ............................................................................... 37

4.4.2

Simple linear regression .................................................................................... ..40

4.5

DISCUSSION .............................................................................................................. 42


4.6

SUMMARY ................................................................................................................. 44

Chapter 5. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................... 45
5.1

CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................. 45

5.2

MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS........................................................................... 46

5.3

LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH ........................................................ 48

Reference ................................................................................................................................... 50
APPENDICES .......................................................................................................................... 60
Appendix A: Guidelines for In-depth Interview Respondents’ information ..................... 60
Appendix B: Questionnaire (English Version) ...................................................................... 66
Appendix C: Questionnaire (Vietnamese version) ............................................................... 69
Appendix D. TABLE................................................................................................................ 71
Appendix E. PLOT AND DIAGRAM .................................................................................... 73


LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE 2. 1 Proposed research model……………………………………………………. 18
FIGURE 3. 1 Research procedure………………………………………………………… 27
FIGURE 4. 1 Refined research model……………………………………………………...355



LIST OF TABLES
TABLE 3. 1 Brand personality framework (aaker, 1997) ................................................... 20
TABLE 3. 2 Qualitative research for reducing brand-self similarity variable. ................. 23
TABLE 3. 3 Result of collecting questionnaires .................................................................... 24
TABLE 4. 1 Sample characteristics ....................................................................................... 30
TABLE 4. 2 Reliability test result .......................................................................................... 31
TABLE 4. 3 Reliability test result of brand-self similarity after deleted item
similarity5 ........................................................................................................................ 322
TABLE 4. 4 Reliability test result of brand-self similarity after deleted item
similarity5, and similarity1 ............................................................................................ 333
TABLE 4. 5 Rotated component matrix .............................................................................. 344
TABLE 4. 6 Reliability test result of brand prestige distinctiveness ................................ 366
TABLE 4. 7 Correlations of all variables ............................................................................ 366
TABLE 4. 8 Coefficients BS, BPD, BSB – CBI. .................................................................. 388
TABLE 4. 9 Model summary ................................................................................................ 388
TABLE 4. 10 ANOVA ........................................................................................................... 399
TABLE 4. 11 Coefficients of CBI - BL ................................................................................... 41
TABLE 4. 12 Model summary ................................................................................................ 41
TABLE 4. 13 ANOVA ............................................................................................................. 41
TABLE 4. 14 Summary of hypotheses testing result .......................................................... 444


1

Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 RESEARCH BACKGROUND
In early of the 21st century, the mobile phone market experiences the boom of

smartphone with the significant increasing of smartphone and changing in market share of
many mobile-phone companies. Agile manufacturers with advantage of smartphone reach a
miracle development and dominate regular phone manufactures. For years, smartphones as
the new experiences and advanced utility of consumer which has brought massive profit for
manufacturers may be peaking. Robert (2013) predicts the possibility that smartphone
market has reached the high point sales and now slowing growth. The prediction is
strengthened by the lowest smartphone sales growth in nine years of European in 2013, as
12%. Additionally, over half of people who own a cell phone in US have a smartphone, and
filling rate of the rest is much slower. These situation poses out a batch of problems that
the administrators need to be concerned to maintain growing trend in saturated period.
Smartphone as a small brand of device in the past are now become the most important
sector of every mobile phone manufacturers.
The contrary with developed countries is emerging markets that Vietnam is a typical
example in South East Asia. With GDP growth rate of about 5.42 percent in 2013 (GFK,
2013), Vietnam become a potential market for both international and domestic brand
(Nguyen et al., 2011). In mobile phone areas, Vietnam is the fastest-growing market for
smartphone in South-east Asia in the first-three quarter of 2013 and the values from January
to September are more than double those of the same period in previous, this report
additionally posits that half of all handset sold are now smartphones (GFK, 2013). Notably,
GFK forecasted that the ratio of smartphone users will increase fast from 23% in 2013 to
25% in 2014 and contributes around 82% of the total revenue of the market in 2014, and
now in September 2014, the ratio of Vietnamese smartphone owner is much higher with


2

33%. Those data point out the central of mobile-phone competition is shifting from regular
cellular phone to smartphone.
In that context, brand acts as an important role for building relationships with
consumers that could assure for long-term business success of a smartphone manufacture.

Assael (1991) proof that, when a customer decide to consume brand and satisfied, they tend
to keep consume product from that brand in the future, combined with recommendation it to
others, and become a loyalty customer. Moreover, brand is also play an important role to
reduce perceived risk from creating brand identity and image in consumer’s mind (Nandan,
2005). Unfortunately, although the concept of brands and branding have appeared for years
in Vietnam and become one of the most growing bodies in marketing sector, branding
practices in Vietnamese market in general are still underdeveloped, especially in
comparisons between marketing approach of Vietnamese firms and foreign companies in
Vietnam, according to Nguyen et al. (2011).
As mention above, act as the central goal in branding practice is the formation of
brand loyalty of customer. Jacoby and Kyner (1973) have described brand loyalty as a
behavioral response and as a function of psychological processes of consumer. Baldinger
and Rubinson (1996), add that brand loyalty includes affective loyalty and action loyalty.
Especially, Reichheald (1996) interprets the advantages of brand loyalty as follow: create
long-term and cumulative profit, reduce of marketing cost by eliminating or minimizing
costs from loyal customers, decrease operating cost, provides competitive advantage. The
comments above show the important role of creating and maintaining brand loyalty for long
term business.
Since the crucial role of brand loyalty, its antecedences and consequences are studied
deeply and summarized for years (Tepeci, 1999; Taylor et al., 2004). Highlighted in his
work, Aaker (1991) propose awareness is the first step toward loyalty and introduce the
construct brand-self similarity with fifteen “facets” as measurement scale to describe brand
image and self - image. The work of Rogerson (1983), suggests that the rising of reputation
by selling high-quality products and providing premium prices, develops brand loyalty. A


3

strong brand image and its benefit are stressed in the work of Shiffman and Kanuk (1991),
Berry et al. (1988). Promotion and perceived quality is also highlighted by Grover and

Srinivasan (1992), Aaker (1991) and Elliott (1996). Innovation remains brand’ product up
to date and attracts customer by its superior and exceed customer needs (Nowlis &
Simonsen, 1996; Aaker & Keller, 1990).
Consumer-brand identification (CBI) is emerged from social identity theory and
examines in consumer behavior and brand management context as the antecedence of brand
loyalty (Escalas & Bettman, 2003; Lam et al., 2010; Stokburger-Sauer et al., 2012; Papista
& Dimitriadis, 2012; Donavan et al., 2006; Kuenzel & Halliday., 2008). While a
comprehensive sense for what creates CBI is of considerable importance to both marketing
academics and practitioners, these issues have been examined from many diverse
perspectives, causing the fragmented understanding (Stockburger-Sauer et al., 2012). While
conceptualization of CBI is rooted in social identity theory, it is related to the construct of
self-brand connections proposed by Escalas and Bettman (2003), defined as the extent to
which an individual has incorporated a brand into their self-concept. On the other hand, the
work of Lam et al. (2010) view CBI as a formative construct composed of three
dimensions. The cognitive dimension of their construct is similar to the notion of cognitive
organizational identification in the work of Bergami and Bagozzi (2000).
However, much is insufficient understood about the drivers of CBI- what factors
cause it, and its consequences. The literature also provide set of antecedents of CBI that
includes three primarily cognitive variables (brand-self similarity, brand distinctiveness,
and brand prestige) as well as rich brand-related factors (brand social benefits) (Donavan et
al., 2006; Kuenzel & Halliday., 2008; Lam et al., 2010; Stokburger-Sauer et al., 2012).
Becerra and Badrinarayanan (2013) suggest that brand identification influences positive and
oppositional brand referrals. The work of Stokburger-Sauer et al. (2012) states the positive
relationship between CBI and its outcome: loyalty and advocacy, which lead to the need of
maximizing CBI in marketing management for the outcome-brand loyalty. Moreover, CBI


4

demonstrates as a powerful predictor of consumer behaviors by generates supportive

behaviors like repurchase intention, word-of-mouth (Kuezel & Halliday, 2008).
Notably, most of studies in CBI are carried out in developed country and less
research about CBI in developing country. Especially there is the lack of research out CBI
in Vietnam context.
1.2 RESEARCH PROBLEM
For decades, brands have been crucial for building relationships with consumers
assuring long-term business success. In the time of great consumer skepticism toward
brands, coupled with the fall in value of traditional media in promoting brands and the
current global economic crisis, questions concerning consumer-brand identification have
become even more important for brand management. Bhattacharya and Sen (2003) argued
that there is still much to learn about the role of consumer’ identification with a brand as
well as its relation to consumer behavior and branding. Scholars recognize that consumer
identification process has a significant impact on individual consumer behavior including:
consumer buying related decisions (Ahearne et al., 2005), brand preference (Tildesley &
Coote, 2009), consumer loyalty (Kim et al., 2001), psychological sense of brand community
and brand commitment (Casaló et al., 2008), consumer satisfaction and a higher possibility
of repurchase (Kuenzel & Halliday. 2008), positive word of mouth (Del Rio et al., 2001)
and predict brand extensions’ success or failure (Viot, 2011).
Through prior studies offer important insights into consumer identification process
and related construct, future research could still bridge important gaps in this scholarly
inquiry. Firstly, whist much research deal with concepts that relate to consumers’
identification with a brand in the literature, there is little attempt to empirically document
the factors that affect consumer-brand identification and to relate the concept of consumerbrand identification with other variable such as brand loyalty. Secondly, the branding
literature mostly focuses on the concept of brand prestige and brand distinctiveness
(Kuenzel & Halliday, 2008; Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003; Jones & Volpe, 2010) and less on


5

the concept of brand social benefit generally housed within the relationship marketing

literature. Especially, although the concept of brand-self similarity is used widely in foreign
studies, but it still not presence in the context of Vietnam, therefore the number of items
from this scale and the analyzing method for this scale should be considerate sufficiently.
Finally, from reviewing literature, we find out the lack of study and examine CBI
and it’s both antecedents and consequence in the case of Vietnam. Previous researches
focus on brand performance and its antecedents as ethics and corporate social responsibility
(Luu., 2012), the positive relationships between perceived quality and brand loyalty
(Nguyen & Leclerc, 2011), brand equity (Nguyen, Nguyen & Barret., 2003; Luu., 2012),
brand associations (Phan., 2012), effect of national identity and perceived values of foreign
products with local brands (Le et al., 2013). This gap may lead to misunderstanding of
brand identification and its mechanism in affecting on brand loyalty. Moreover, knowledge
from revealing CBI and its affects can contribute to providing new tools for marketers and
managers in order to improve competitiveness.
In order to fill the gap, we place the study in case of smartphone owners in Vietnam
market to discover the factors affect the CBI of Vietnamese customer. Our study also
investigates CBI in order to contribute a deeper understanding of drivers of CBI and its
consequence. Moreover, the result of study may be useful for manager and other
researchers in marketing sector.
As a dynamic economy, Vietnam is a visual evidence of success and failure of many
smartphone brands. To improve the competitiveness and maintain the growth rate of
domestic smartphone enterprise, beside product quality and premium price, elements that
relate to consumer-brand identification which are created from branding practice should be
considered adequate. In the period of global economic crisis in combination with the
fluctuated of Vietnam’ economy, a fulfill understanding of consumer-brand identification
has become even more important for brand management to maintain and to improve
competitiveness of domestic company in competition with foreign company.


6


1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
The overall objective of this research is to investigate the antecedents and an outcome of
consumer-brand identification. Specifically, it investigates:
(1) The impact of self-brand similarity, brand distinctiveness, brand prestige, and brand
social benefit on CBI.
(2) The impact of CBI on brand loyalty.
1.4 RESEARCH SCOPES
Due to the limitations of research funds and times, the scope of this research is
limited to smartphone users in Ho Chi Minh City. The target respondents are students of
university of science who age from 16 to 24 years old. This target group which is optimistic
and open to new technologies, as the strongest growth body in Vietnamese smartphone
users.
The author used Microsoft Excel to inject data from collected survey and analysis
data with SPSS. Cronbach’ alpha coefficient is used to test the scale reliability, EFA
analysis is taken to find meaningful patterns within data and certain groups of questions
seem to cluster together, this stage also simplifies data and allows for the development a
neater presentation of the data. Finally, we use linear regressions to check the relationship
between independent variables and dependent variables.
1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
Research results will determine the factors affecting consumer-brand identification,
and the relation between consumer-brand identification and brand loyalty of Vietnamese
smartphone owners. Since then, the study provides an adequate understanding of CBI for
the marketer in not only mobile phone sector but can also applying on the other areas to
contribute into developing strategies, promoting products and maintaining brand loyalty
from consumers.


7

1.6 THE STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY

This thesis is organized into five chapters:
 Chapter 1: Introduction
This chapter presents the research background of the study, research problems,
research objectives, research scopes, the significance of the study, and the research
structure
 Chapter 2: Literature review and hypotheses
This chapter reviews theories and related literature with definition of each concept,
then formulates the research hypothesis and model.
 Chapter 3: Research Methodology
This chapter provides the research design, research methodology and demonstrates
the data analysis process as well as conducting the research.
 Chapter 4: Data analysis and results
For this chapter, the author statistic and analyzes the collected data and conduct the
result of research in connection with theory.
 Chapter 5: Conclusion, implications and limitation
The author performs the results of research, the contribution of research in marketing
theory and practice. This chapter also provides the limitation of study and potential
way for improvement.


8

Chapter 2. LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES

The following literature review encompasses four sections. The first is an overview
of brand loyalty theory in regard to its development. The second the author reviews the
social identity theory, focusing on consumer-brand identification, central to the present
study. The third is an overview of the antecedences of consumer-brand identification and
discussion of brand-self similarity, brand distinctiveness, brand prestige and brand social
benefit. After reviewing relevant literature, hypotheses are presented in the end of each

section to hypothesize the relationship between constructs. Finally, research model is
shown to demonstrate the overall relationship between those constructs.
2.1 SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY
Understand psychological and behavioral of customers in order to control factors that
affecting on brand loyalty is central of branding practice. In essence, the goal of branding is
to establish favorable consumer attitudes towards one’s brand, that is, need to understand
consumer-brand identification which can predict brand loyalty. Consumers have a variety of
different needs and wants that drive their consumption behavior patterns. One important
consumer need is the consumption motivator self-expression and enhancing self-image.
Consumer at time purchase brands that communicate a particular image or social role.
Social identity theory emerges in the early 1970; the concept of social identity has
long been studied by psychologists and sociologists. Then, the theory began to attract
international attention and became the most influential theories of group process and
intergroup relations (Hornsey, 2008). A social identity is the portion of an individual’s selfconcept derived from perceived membership in a relevant social group and the sense of
unity constructed between individuals (Ashforth & Mael, 1989) and it occurs when an
individual is identified with a particular group. As originally formulated by Tajfel and
Turner in the 1970s and the 1980s, social identity theory introduced the concept of a social
identity as a way in which to explain intergroup behavior, and individuals attending in a


9

group define themselves in relation to this group and distinguish themselves from the
others. Several researches have been conducted in the field of consumer behavior,
especially the psychological link between individuals and brands (Founier, 1998;
McAlexander et al., 2002).
Social identity theory is based on the notion that people will be motivated to attach
themselves to those who are perceived to be similar in values, preferences or various shared
group characteristics. Social identity is developed through the value and emotional
attachment that an individual derives from membership in a particular group (Lam et al.,

2013). Social identity theory states that people define their self-concept by their connections
with social groups or organizations, to enhance their self-esteem and individuals describe
themselves beyond personal identity and talk about social identity (Tajfel & Turner, 1985).
They classify themselves in a specific social classification; they create their own social
identity. In the organizational context, social identity is a basis for individuals to define
themselves and the organizational features are used to do (Dutton et al., 1994). Social
identity theory is best described as a theory that predicts certain intergroup behaviors on the
basis of perceived group status differences, the perceived ability to move from one group to
another (Escalas, 2004).
2.2 CONSUMER – BRAND IDENTIFICATION
Recent researches have based on social identity theory and the consumer-company
identification framework (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003) to explain the mechanism of the
connection and sharing the self-definitional attributes between consumers and brand
(Donavan et al., 2006). According to this theory, Kim et al. (2001) define level of
consumer-brand identification as the degree to which the brand expresses and enhances
consumers’ identity. Researchers posit that the consumer identification process has a
significant impact on behaviors such as: brand preferences (Tildesley & Coote, 2009),
loyalty (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003), psychological commitment to the brand (Casaló et al.,
2008), satisfaction and a higher possibility of repurchase (Kuenzel & Halliday, 2008).
Moreover, numerous researches yield that identification with a company lead to higher


10

product utilization, increase collecting company-related collectibles and passing a word of
mouth (Ahearne et al., 2005; Bagozzi & Dholakia, 2006).
There are two types of identification, namely personal identification and social
identification (Del Rio et al., 2001). Social identification involves a brand’s function as
communication instrument that allows a consumer to blend in or separate himself/herself
from group of individuals that make up his/her closet social environment. On the other

hand, personal identification function involves degree to which a consumer identifies with a
brand and develops feelings of positive toward it. Carlson et al. (2008) further suggest that
personal identification depends on degree of overlap between individual self-schema and
schema he/she perceives about the brand. Self-schema or self-concept is also made of
values held by an individual, this implies that brand identification is influenced by degree of
overlap between an individual’s set of values and the brand’ set of values (value congruity).
Stokburger-Sauer et al. (2012) root concept of CBI in organizational identity, and
suggest CBI as a consumer’s perceived state of ones with a brand, is a valid and potent
expression of our quest for identity-fulfilling meaning in the marketplace of brands. On
another hand, Tuskej et al. (2013) define consumers’ identification with a brand as the
perception of sameness between the brand (signifying an object with symbolic meanings)
and the consumer. Specifically, in the research about dynamics of CBI antecedents, Lam et
al. (2013, p.235) define consumer brand identification as “a consumer’s psychological state
consisting of three elements: perceiving, feeling, and valuing his or her belongingness with
a brand”. This conceptualization is not only in line with the original tripartite
conceptualization in social identity theory (i.e., cognitive, affective, and evaluative aspects;
see Tajfel and Turner 1985), but also consistent with define of identification of Ashforth
and Mael (1989) as the perception of oneness with or belongingness to a social referent and
experiencing its successes and failures as one’s own.
Since the consumer-brand identification includes affective attachment to the brands,
customer who are identified more effectively, evaluate the value is not associated with
brand identification directly. In other words, the brand identification provides a deep and


11

significant relationship and the organization’s reputation is associated with the brand
identification (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003). Understanding in antecedents and consequences
of CBI is important for brand management, especially CBI with new brand. In case of
launching a new brand, a deep understanding in CBI could inform the manager how to

manage brand investment (Lam et al., 2013).
2.3 BRAND LOYALTY
Brand loyalty is described as a behavioral response and as a function of
psychological process (Jacoby & Kyner, 1973). Brand loyalty includes some degree of
commitment toward the quality of a brand that is a function of both positive attitudes and
repetitive purchases (Tepec, 1999). Hence, brand loyalty is the most important factors to
explain consumer brand choices, thus, the concept of brand loyalty attracts interesting of
researchers in field of marketing and consumer behavior. Brand loyalty is the result from
non-random, long existence behavior response and it is a mental purchase process formed
by some certain decision units who considered more than one brands (Jacoby & Olson,
1970). Brand loyalty express through behavioral loyalty as the number of repeat purchase
and attitudinal loyalty that a consumer have when they intent to purchase or recommend
brand to others (Nam et al., 2011). Jensen and Hansen (2006) represent firms with large
groups of loyalty customer will also have large market share, higher rates of return on
investment.
Researchers have identified several factors affecting brand loyalty, including trust
(Harris & Goode, 2004; Morgan & Hunt, 1994), customer satisfaction (Garbarino &
Johnson, 1999), and perceived value (Peterson et al., 1997). It should be noted that most of
these studies have been conducted with respect to economical aspect of brand and are based
on B2B framework (Arnett et al., 2003). Bhattacharya and Sen (2003) argue that customers
reflect and reinforce their identities through brand identification and the relationships that
are built along with it. Therefore, when customers highly value the quality of a brand and
competitors can easily imitate and copy the firm products, the necessity of creating a strong
brand identity to gain brand equity seems highly important and desirable.


12

Develop from social identity theory, consumer-brand identification become one of
the most attracted construct which can predict brand loyalty. In the work of StokburgerSauer et al. (2012), the positive relationship between CBI and its outcome brand loyalty are

posed. This view is consistent with a study of Kuenzel and Halliday (2008), which shows
the positive relationship between CBI and repurchase behaviors. Especially, study of
Shirazi et al. (2013) supports the substantial role of consumer-brand identification in brand
loyalty process and also its mediation between brand identity and brand loyalty.
In the Vietnam context, different factors that predict brand loyalty have been
identified. However, these researches have not investigated the effect of CBI on brand
loyalty. In order to fill the gap, we first analyze the effect of consumer-brand identification
on brand loyalty in Vietnam as a research contribution and propose CBI as the driver of
brand loyalty.
H1. Consumer-brand identification has positive effect on Brand loyalty
2.4 ANTECEDENTS OF CBI
2.4.1 Brand-self similarity
Through consumption behavior, consumer intends to construct their self-concepts
and personal identity (Ball & Tasaki, 1992; Richins, 1994). On this stand point, consumers
build their image and introduce themselves to other through their brand choices based on
the congruency between brand image and self-image. Aaker (2000) describe construct selfexpressive benefit as a media to proclaim a particular self-image; and then people prefer
brands whose image is close relate to their own self-image (de Chernatony & McDonald,
2001). Keller (2008) explain the important of self-expressive benefits as the abilities to
offer discriminant points at the highest level of Maslow pyramid and enable customer to
express themselves through the brand. In addition, McCraken (1989) suggest that the
meaning and value of a brand is not just its ability to express the self but its role in helping
consumers create and build their self-identities by forming connections to brands.


13

Furthermore, researchers have emphasized the role of the perceived congruity on the
affiliations of consumers with brands (Grubb & Grathwohl, 1967; Sirgy, 1982).
The study of Lam et al. (2013) is also consistent with this view, by proposing selfbrand similarity satisfies consumers’ higher-order needs, self-brand congruity illustrates a
positive effect on CBI. In marketing context, the association between customers and their

brands can reflect and reinforce theirs self – identities (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003). Papista
and Dimitriadis (2012) view CBI as a cognitive self-categorization process with the
attributes of specific brands serving self-defining needs. Moreover, according to
Bhattacharya and Sen (2003), Business-to-consumer companies may benefit more because
they have better known to public and provide direct consumption with simultaneous
opportunities for self-expression. In study of Escalas and Bettman (2003), they also suggest
that consumer use a brand to meet their self-verification or self-enhancement and forging a
connection between the consumer and the brand. Consistent with this notion, study of
Donavan et al. (2004) claim that people tend to be attracted to organizations with the similar
values.
Drawing on this research, we hypothesize brand-self similarity as the driver of CBI.
H2. Brand-self similarity has positive effect on Consumer-brand identification.
2.4.2 Brand prestige
In marketing context, brand prestige is defined as the relatively high status of
product positioning associated with a brand (Steenkamp et al., 2003). A prestigious brand is
a type of brand that will be used not only due to its quality, but also because of its status,
especially for conspicuous consumption (Kirmani et al., 1999).
In another point of view, brand prestige is the perceived states of consumers, who
consider that the organization or brand is well regarded, respected, admired, or well know
(Bergami & Bagozzi, 2000). Therefore, brand prestige is essential in building brand identity
and provide a perceived of credible by the consumer (Aaker, 2002) and forming belief in


14

brand identity and communications from the brand (Kotler, 2006). Moreover, a prestigious
brand image can create a feeling of belonging to the upper classes by inducing the
psychological experience and then provide a willingness to accept high price of a
prestigious brand because of its embody of social status (Steenkamp et al., 2003).
Prestige leads people to create bond with prestigious organizations/brands to increase

their self-esteem (Campbeel et al., 2004). This view of prestige is consistent with Kunda
(1999) research self-concept, which suggests that people need for self-enhancement, which
requires the affirmation and maintenance of positive self-views, which lead to increased
levels of self-esteem. Self – enhancement is made when consumers believe that focal brand
is reputable and has a good prestige. Researches show that the corporate reputation affects
the brand-customer relationship (Bahattacharya & Sen, 2001) and it is assumed that
external prestige affects the individuals being identified by an organization (Fuller et al.,
2006).
Many studies have agreement with the state that prestige of the organization leads to
the identification of an individual with it (Arnett et al., 2003; Ahearne et al., 2005; Bergami
& Bagozzi, 2000). By using and create link with a prestigious brand, consumer can show
the wealth or power through social image, create a strong connection to self-concept
(O’Cass & Frost, 2002). Besides that, Dutton et al. (1994) suggest brand image is perceived
as prestigious by consumers, successful and well-known, this may also enhance their pride
in identifying with a prestigious brand. Contrary to previous research, study of Jones and
Volpe (2010) poses that organizational prestige was not significantly associated with
identification except when moderated by strong relationships.
Drawing from this research, we implicate brand prestige as an antecedent of CBI.
H3. Brand prestige has positive effect on Consumer-brand identification.


15

2.4.3 Brand distinctiveness
Distinctiveness is one of the core principles of marketing theory and practice and the
marketers should determine to point out the specific characteristic for their brand to stay
desirable to their customers. Marketing literature emphasizes that brand should be perceived
as different by customers from product feature to symbolic, emotional meaning (Kotler et
al., 1996). A brand provides an attractive and strong identity when its identity is more
distinctive and prestigious in comparison with other brands (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003;

Dutton et al., 1994). Therefore, when the role of brands is distinguishing products by
creating value for the brand owners, brand distinction is regarded as an underlying and
critical concept in contemporary competitive markets.
A distinctive brand identity enables the consumers to fulfill their self-definition
needs for being unique (Berger & Heath, 2007). Various individuals have different levels of
motivation and needs to distinguish their identity. Therefore, a brand with a more
distinguishable identity can be assumed as an advantage to attract customers. The study of
Stokburger-Sauer et al. (2012) also point out brand distinctiveness as the perceived
uniqueness of brand’s identity in relation to its competitors. Specifically, Tepper et al.
(2001) states concept of need for uniqueness is an individual’s pursuit of differentness
relative to others that is achieved through the acquisition, utilization, and disposition of
consumer goods for the purpose of developing and enhancing one’s personal and social
identity. Various individuals have different levels of motivation and needs to distinguish
their identity (Tian et al., 2001). Therefore, a brand with a more distinguishable identity can
be assumed as an advantage to attract customers.
On the social context, Tajfel and Turner (1985) indicate that people strive to
distinguish themselves from others. From this view, Brewer (1991) suggests that people
attempt to solve the fundamental conflict between the need to be similar to others and the
need to be different. In the study of perceived brand differentiation, Romaniuk et al. (2007)
summary the important of brand distinctiveness as a key to win market share, to maintain
market share in the competition from other brands by create a perception of its customer


16

about the brand. Especially, study of Romaniuk et al. (2007) has placed distinctiveness at
the center of brand strategy that a brand creates unique features to make it more easily
identifiable. Hence, established brands need to be maintained their point of difference in
order to keep the desire from their consumers and the different does not only a material
feature but also a symbolic, emotional values (Gershoff, 2003). Differentiation theory

suggest that a brand must be perceived as different in order to win market share, to maintain
market share and their customer base is more loyal and less sensitive to actions of
competitors (Romaniuk et al., 2007).
Based on this prior literature, we propose that Brand distinctiveness is a determinant
of CBI.
H4. Brand distinctiveness has positive effect on Consumer-brand identification.
2.4.4 Brand social benefit
Berger & Health, (2007) define self-definition is a social effort of individual for
locating themselves in reference to one’ social community (as cited in Stokburger-Sauer et
al., 2012). A community is made up of its member entities and the relationships among
them. Communities tend to be identified on the basis of commonality or identification
among their members, whether a neighborhood, an occupation, a leisure pursuit, or
devotion to a brand (McAlexander, Schouten & Koenig, 2002). Through communities,
people share essential resources that may be cognitive, emotional, or material in nature.
Moreover, researchers suggest that social and culture meaning can be transmitted by
individuals who consume a brand (Diamond et al., 2009; Holt, 2005).
Besides that, Escalas & Bettman (2003) suggest that people intend to buy products of
brand, which is used by their reference group, to maintain and improve the commitment
with reference group. On another point of view, the work of Stokburger-Sauer (2010)
describes brand as a mean for linking individual to others. The study of Muniz & O’Guinn
(2001) also support this point of view by portray brand community as a non-geographically
bound community that build on social relationships among the fans of a brand. Finally,