KATHMANDU UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

Article Critiquing 1
Submitted To: Arjun Shrestha Course Instructor

Submitted By Kshitiz Gautam (12110) Niyati Sharma (12129) Shrizana Shrestha (12133)

Date: February 19, 2014

Background This research paper is jointly done by M.I. Subhani and Amber Osman in the area of fast moving consumer goods. Title of this research paper is A Study on the Association between Brand Awareness and Consumer/BrandLoyalty for the Packaged Milk Industry in Pakistan which has been published in South Asian Journal of Management SciencesVol. 5, No. 1 on spring 2011. This research has been conducted on the Pakistan in geographical region of Karachi with 280 respondents and six brands of packaged milk.This paper put forwards the relationship of brand awareness onconsumer/brand loyalty in the packaged milk brands in the urban Pakistan . In order to uncover the relation between brand awareness and customer loyalty, Pearson chi-square test were used. However,this research paper concludes that among the packaged milk brands, there is norelationship between brand awareness and consumer/brand loyalty expect in the case of Habeel among six milk brand which is aganist the objectives of this research paper. Purpose The main purpose of this research paper is to study, analyze, uncover the relationship between the brand awareness and brand recall with the customer loyalty, the frequency of purchase and intention to buy in the low invlvement product category. Main Ideas Literature review suggests direct relationship between brand awareness and the customer loyalty. But the research coducted in pakistan showed contrasting result. Brand awareness in not a stimulating factor for purchase decison in the area of low involvement product i.e. packaged milk product. Consumer may have high recall or recognizatin rate of the brand but this awareness doesnt assurance intention to buy or repeat purchases. Issues/questions of the research The main issues/questions which the author tried to addressed are highlighted below: The relationship between brand awareness and customer brand loyalty. The infuence of brand awareness on consumer purchase decison in choosing the low involvement products i.e. packaged milk prduct.

Brand awareness in terms of recall and recognition doesnt guarantee intention to buy or repeat purchases.

Assumptions/Arguments made The basic assumption made in this article is that brand awareness is the major factor in forming the purchase decision/behavior and choice of the brand. Brand awareness is give utmost importance in order to improve purchase decision and loyalty of consumers. Arguments made on the article suggest that brand awareness shows a relationship impact on consumers responses, which leads to benefit of both consumers and the firm. Image/perception about the brand was also assumed and tested as a mediating variable which made an impact about the awareness of a particular brand to consumers brand loyalty for that brand. However, the research fails to distinguish among target market of the packaged milk between consumers who are well aware of the brand but do not take part in purchasing decision, which would affect the scope of the research as it tries to measure loyalty of people in terms of their buying decisions. Methodology used for addressing the issues In order to generate primary data, authors have distrbuted questionnair to 280 respondents in karachi, pakistan in order to collect relevant data for analysis. The authored did not strive for a large number of responses for the research as the sample consisted only 280 respondents and the results/conclusions drawn from few number of respondents essentially means that they may not fully reflect the characteristics of population being studied. Hence, sample size in this research is questinable. Thus, generalizaton of finding could not be done as sample size is small and hence one of the hallmark of scientific research i.e. genralization is meet by this research. The use of Pearson chi-square test along with small sample size might create occurence of type II error. It is legitimate to question the views expressed by a respondents as mosltly servants in every house bought the pakaged milk and they might not be aware of brand awarenes and thus result may not reflect true relation between awareness and customer loyalty. Thus multiple perspective from multiple respondents is necessary.

Besides these, there is no description on the questionnaire sample used for collecting customer responses. Whether the questionnaire is open-ended or closed-ended and the scale used for rating the responses of the customer is not mentioned in this research. Thus, subjective judgements were mostly involved in this research findings. Overall assessment of the article Significance/ Relevance/ Applicability Consumers buying preferences to a large degree is determined by the culture in which there is raised. With so many countries around the world, consumer buying preferences also changes from culture to culture and among communities. A theory holding true in one country many not hold true in another. The article tries to examine the brand equity theory by Aaker by studying the relationship between the brand awareness and brand loyalty among the packages milk brands in Pakistan. It was seen in the experiment that both brand salience and brand loyalty was not affected by brand awareness levels in packaged milk products in Pakistan. However according to prominent people like Keller, Aaker, Moore, and more, brand awareness should relate to brand salience and brand loyalty. There might be a number of reasons why the results did not concur to the existing theory. First, people in Pakistan may not be used to the culture of drinking packaged milk; they may still prefer fresh milk delivered to their house. Negative sentiments might prevail against western culture in Pakistan. Packaged milk is the way of the west, and people may not positively associate with it. The sampled group may not be the ones drinking milk. One important factor that this article has failed to include is the association aspects of brand recall and recognition. Just being aware of the brand may not lead to brand loyalty. Besides being aware of the brand, the consumers also have to positively associate their experience with the brand. The positive association is largely a result of brand performance than the brand awareness.

The brand resonance or the brand loyalty occurs only at the top level of the Keller's CBBE pyramid. Awareness exists at the lowest level. In order to have an intention to buy, or be a repeat purchaser, the brand also has to improve upon performance, imagery, judgment and feeling attributes of the brand.