Brand Loyalty A Two Dimensional Approach Marketing Essay

Brand Loyalty A Two Dimensional Approach Marketing Essay The ultimate goal of the research is to understand if brand loyalty may arise from participating in online brand communities. This section more specifically intends to provide an answer to the following sub-question: â€Å"Does commitment to online brand communities lead to members’ loyalty toward the brand?† Brand Loyalty: a Two-Dimensional Approach Nowadays, brand loyalty is considered as one of the most valuable asset of any company. Due to the higher cost of attracting new customers, companies have realized the interest of retaining existing ones by carefully developing and managing relationships with them. As explained Rosenberg and Czepiel (1983) (cited in Mellens, Dekimpe, indeed, if properly managed brand loyalty has the ability to provide companies with a sustainable competitive advantage. Companies selling brands with strong customer loyalty can enjoy valuable benefits including: â€Å"ability to maintain premium pricing, greater bargaining power with chann els of distribution, reduced selling costs, a strong barrier to potential new entries into the product or service category, and synergistic advantages of brand extensions† (Reichheld, 1996; cited in Gommans, Krismnan Mellens et al., 1996). Two main approaches in explaining the concept of brand loyalty have emerged in the landscape of the marketing literature, namely: the behavioral and attitudinal approaches. The former defines brand loyalty in terms of repeat purchases of a specific brand over time (Keller et al., 2008; Lichtlà © Sheth, 1968; Tuominen, 1999). The latter – often referred to brand commitment (Jacoby and Chestnut, 1978) – suggests brand loyalty is formed when customers demonstrate favorable attitudes, positive feelings toward a brand (Lichtlà © Fullerton, 1993; Jacoby Keller et al., 2008; Tuominen, 1999). Those partisans of the third approach argue that behavioral loyalty is a necessary condition but not sufficient to develop brand loyalty. I ndeed, customer may repeatedly buy a branded product/service out of convenience, or because she/he cannot afford to purchase another with her/his budget, or due to other reasons such as stock limitations. Such behaviors are referred to as purchase inertia (Bloemer & Kasper, 1995) or spurious loyalty (Dick & Basu, 1994) (Cited in Lichtlà © & Plichon, 2008). This implies that if, for example, the price increases or if an alternative product is available, the customer may turn to another brand. It is the reason why those authors speak of brand loyalty only when repeat purchase behavior over time is the result of positive feelings and attitudes to the brand (Lichtlà © & Plichon, 2008). Aaker (1991) and Keller et al. (2008) go a step further by explaining customers should not simply have positive feelings about the brand but they should feel a deep attitudinal attachment to the brand, leading to repurchase behaviors in the future. By viewing brand loyalty as a two-dimensional construct , limitations faced by the behavioral approach in explaining customer’s loyalty to a brand can be overcome.