Brand and branding defined
As the trends are changing day by day and market is changing with evolving tools of marketing strategies. Branding is a tool which is becoming more important in rapidly changing markets and practitioners and academics both have same consensus in giving strategic importance and now it is widely accepted. There are numerous definitions of branding which elaborate branding briefly in literature. The American Marketing Association (1994) explain it as a name, symbol, pattern of sign or terms which actually help prospective customers recognize manufacturer’s products from other competitors of the same products. Key function of brand is help consumers in decision making and give them convenience and clarity and that
When customer has to choose among alternatives that process considered as the concept of preference because customer choice depends on his or her desirability and satisfaction associated with that alternative choice this is the definition of brand preference in marketing (Oliver and Swan, 1989).
According to Zajonc and Markus (1982, p. 128) preference is the not the choice which customer made at the time of purchase decision but it is a behavioural tendency which shows that an act of individual toward it regardless of what he or she thinks or says about the thing or item where he or she acted. There are four types of consumer preferences given by Tomer (1996) which are the actual preference, Meta- preferences, True preferences, and last is unrestrained preferences. The actual preference is the when consumer appreciates any goods and willing to use it to certain extent but meta-preference is the actual preference when consumer reflects the formal decision of using that products or services. True preference is consist of different unique set which shows what is actually best for the consumer. When consumer preferences based to satisfy the lower or physical needs is known as unrestrained preferences. Consumers’ actual preference
(Rogers, 1995; Tornasky and Klein, 1982; Mason, 1990; Charlotte, 1999) said that theories of adoption help to understand that how customers choose particular brands based on their brand preferences.
Li and Houston (1999) engaged a sample of 1200 consumers in Taiwan to decide factors which are essential in choice of market innovations. Price level, product variety and marketing communications factors were identified as promoters of choice. Karjaluoto et al. (2005) studied the consumer choice in consideration of the mobile phone industry in Finland using a sample of 196 respondents. Twenty-four questions were used to evaluate consumer inspirations in mobile phone choice. Seven estimated factors impelling mobile phone choice were Innovative services, multimedia, design, brand and basic properties, in consideration of outside incentive for consumers, price, and reliability were selected and these accounted for about 70% of the total variance. Some of the key product decisions in any marketing context are product, range of product, product performance, product features, product shape, product demonstration, and sizes (Doyle, 2002). Consumer surveys often show that quality