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RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BRAND AWARENESS, BRAND COMMITMENT AND BRAND LOYALTY IN THE POLITICAL

MARKETING CONTEXT

Abdelbaset M. Alkhawaldeh 1a, Salniza Md. Salleh 1a, Fairol Halim 1a

aSchool of Business Management, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Sintok, 06010, Malaysia Email: abdelbaset_m@oyagsb.uum.edu.my

Email: sal1029@uum.edu.my Email:fairol@staf.uum.edu.my

Abstract

The commercial brands and customer behavior have received a great attention in marketing research since a long time ago, whereas academic literature in the political brand and voting behavior is still sparse, particularly predictors of loyalty to political brand. Therefore, this paper attempts to fill this gap by examining the relationship between political brand awareness and political brand loyalty. It also seeks to investigate the mediation role of voters' brand commitment in primary relationship to address the inconsistent findings in the previous studies. Keywords: Political brand awareness, Political brand loyalty, Voter brand commitment.

INTRODUCTION

Brands are the lifeline for many organizations. They have long-term benefits, including increasing profitability, market share, and customer loyalty. In addition, they protect the organizations' against competitors’ attacks (Steenkamp, 2014). The world’s top 5 brands are as follows: (Apple; Google; Coca Cola; IBM; and Microsoft). These brands were estimated to be worth $450 billion; they contribute dramatically in firms' value (Interbrand, 2014). In line with the success the marketing tools in the commercial fields, a call for adopting these tools is appeared (e.g, brand) in politics in order to strengthen the political activities by depending not only on ideologies, but also building a long-term relationship with the audience (Strömbäck, Mitrook & Kiousis, 2010).

In politics, brand assists the voters by acting as a guide in this area (Winther & Vinaes, 2014). The brand is vital for voters; brand constitutes emotional and functional signals which facilitate a procedure of decision-making, particularly when a person faces several complicated options (Tuškej et al., 2013). Briefly, there are many advantages to apply branding techniques in politics in a way that can offer sociological, psychological, and rational advantages (Smith & French, 2009) for voters in particular (Scammell, 2007). Of late, political brand (PB) has become exerted a similar role to commercial brand by spending large amounts of money in campaigns to increase the political market share (Parker, 2012) as well as influencing voters' decisions (O’Cass & Pecotichb, 2005). For instance, in the 2012 election, Obama brand and the Romney brand spent $1.073 billion, $992.5 million, respectively (Lewandowski, 2013).

Recently, a political party is in the central of discussion about the PBs as tools for electoral competition and formation of the governments (Marsh & Fawcett, 2011; Yan & Cruces, 2012). A political party is a useful explanatory instrument for analysis of voters' choices for understanding the decision-making process (Needham, 2006). In short, the parties are core to democracies (Lees-Marshment et al., 2014). Strong parties in the community are an important indicator on the level of political development of

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Conference on Business Management Research II (CBMR II 2015)

School of Business Management, Universiti Utara Malaysia, 06010 Sintok, Kedah, Malaysia,

22 December 2015

425

the society where parties play a significant role in the modernization of societies by doing multiple functions, including social, economic and political functions (Al-Slaihat, 2012; Whiteley, 2011).

Some studies have been conducted to investigate and demonstrate how brands work in political marketing (Zavattaro, 2010; Smith & Spotswood, 2013; Phipps, Brace-Govan & Jevons, 2010; French & Smith, 2010), However, there is lack of researches in the field of applying loyalty to PBs (parties) (Gullupunar & Gulluoglu, 2013). Previous studies revealed that voter loyalty considered a very significant concept in marketing as a kind of political capital for PB (Lewandowski, 2013; Smith & Spotswood, 2013) since obtaining a large base of loyal customer/voter is useful in producing several competitive benefits and lower the more marketing efforts (Reichheld & Schefter, 2000; Dick & Basu 1994). Voter loyalty determines the advancement of the organization as a “special attachment” (Coker & Crain, 1994; Hirschman, 1970). This can be explained when hearing that, for example, about two-third of voters vote for the same party in the successive elections of democratic countries (Shachar, 2003). Downer (2013) supported that the loyalty of a voter is important, where it might settle the voters' intention to a party. Thus, the link between the voter and the political party can be best described as a customer-organization bond (Mahmud & Gray, 2011). Lees- Marshment (2009) and Winchester et al. (2014) pointed that the study of voter behavior is vital from both a theoretical and practical viewpoint. They recommended that more attention needs to be given to the voter as a customer by emphasizing on the political wants and needs of the voters to obtain a differential advantage during political campaigns (Harris & Lock, 2010). Therefore, there is a crucial growing need to understand the voters behave toward brand in a political context especially in Arab countries (Farrag & Shamma, 2014).

Although the brand is important to political parties, but several studies show that in recent years there has been a significant international decline in voters’ loyalty to their favorite political brand (Mishra & Mishra, 2014; Smith, 2014), especially, in Jordan context (Khatib, 2012). Hence, this indicates that research needs to be done. In voting behavior, previous literatures focused on rational choice as a key factor in individual differences among voters (Bob-Milliar, 2012). Other literatures focused on socioeconomic status and culture (Marsh & Fawcett, 2011), whereas, the research which examining voters’ perceptions toward brand loyalty by adapting customer-based brand equity (CBBE) has not received a considerable attention (French & Smith, 2010; Phipps, et al., 2010) with the need for further explanation (Parker, 2012). Therefore, several variables according to CBBE possibly play a role in voter loyalty, whereas the factors that had received little attention is the brand awareness and commitment (Gullupunar & Gulluoglu, 2013; Parker, 2012). In brief, It seems that the voter's awareness level is vital (Jakeli & Tchumburidze, 2012). Commitment is effective in constituting loyalty (Hameed, 2013; Noor, 2013), the positive relationship between commitment with loyalty, motivate the frequent buying behavior (Morgan & Hunt, 1994). Nevertheless, it has not been clarified yet whether this relationship might work appropriately in the political aspect with the purpose of identifying the voter.

In previous studies, the researchers measured two-dimension relationships, such as an image or awareness with loyalty (Hermanto et al., 2014; Ramaseshan et al., 2013); image or awareness with commitment (Diaz, 2013); and commitment with loyalty (Gullupunar & Gulluoglu, 2013). However, the relationship between political brand awareness with loyalty through commitment was not yet tested simultaneously. Even if any, the two-dimension relationships point out inconsistent findings; some research reported significant results (Gullupunar & Gulluoglu, 2013; Tsang, Lee, & Li, 2011) and others indicate insignificant findings (Liu, Liu, & Lin, 2013; Subhani & Osman, 2011). Such inconsistent findings suggest that more research is needed to establish the relationship between brand awareness and commitment, with loyalty, as well evaluate the role of brand commitment as mediator in initial relationship.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Political brand loyalty (PBL)

The concept of loyalty to a brand is significant for the success of the institutions, particularly in case of a strong competition (Li & Green, 2011). Therefore, it can be argued that loyalty has always been significant due to its role in producing practical advantages through saving marketing cost by means of spreading word-of-mouth (Keller, 1993). Campbell et al. (1960) noted before half century that voter loyalty to a party is the most significant issue in political marketing. Hence, loyalty is explained through the

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Conference on Business Management Research II (CBMR II 2015)

School of Business Management, Universiti Utara Malaysia, 06010 Sintok, Kedah, Malaysia,

22 December 2015

426

frequent purchase on the part of voters to same party (Smith & Spotswood, 2013). Therefore, loyalty can be considered as an aspect that refers to the long-term political preferences by loyal voters (Aleksiejev & Moorman, 2012).

Loyalty is two dimensions (behavioral, and attitudinal) (Saili, Mingli & Zhichao, 2012). Behavioral loyalty includes procurement procedure, and continues in this behavior (Rundle-Thiele & Mackay, 2001). The attitudinal loyalty, is “the tendency to be loyal to a focal brand as demonstrated by the intention to buy it as a primary choice” (Oliver, 1997). Loyalty towards a specific brand is the outcome of a range of powerful emotions between both the customer (voter) and the institution (party). Brand loyalty might be viewed as a special significant psychological attachment to the brand entity consumed (Fournier, 1998). According to Nam, Ekinci and Whyatt (2011) brand loyalty is behavioral construction relating to intentions towards repeat purchase. According to them, the loyalty is one of the consequences of brand equity rather than its component. Therefore, in this research, loyalty to PB is combined of two dimensions: repeat vote for the same party in election time, and recommend others (adapted from Lai, 2014).

In brief, loyalty successfully associated with the organizations (Eakuru & Mat, 2008) because loyal customers/voters are willing to (1) re-buy brands, although there are competitive alternatives attractive to the cause of the shift, (2) spend a lot of effort to experience brands, (3) recommend the organization's services to others, and (4) give sincere feedback for an organization to serve their needs and expectations (Rechinhheld & Sasser, 1990). Furthermore, the loyalty is the result of a successful marketing strategy in competitive markets that creates value for customers/ voters (Ramaseshan et al., 2013; Li & Green, 2011). Ultimately, loyalty is essential since it reduces cost factor and increases the future political market share.

Generally and based on previous research, the voters can be divided into groups such as habitual voters, high-involvement voters (Shachar, 2003), conditional party loyalty (Fiorina, 1981), and loyalty during elections also non-election periods (Needham, 2005). Every group requires different methods to create loyalty. Among habitual voters, loyalty is increased by creating brand awareness. For example, advertisements and other ways of grabbing attention are good ways to do so. On the other side, high-involvement voters are affected less by brand awareness and respond more to a strong brand image. The parties can create a strong brand image by being distinct and unique, but also congruent and consistent, in their actions and ideology. Hence, low party loyalty may become one of the major causal factors of the mergers of political parties (Kim, 1992).

Currently, some researches concerning customer loyalty have been performed in conventional marketing settings (Hsu, Oh, & Assaf, 2011; Boohene & Agyapong, 2010; Choi, Tkachenko, & Sil, 2011; Sharma, Bhola, Malyan, & Patni, 2013; Chang & Wang, 2011; Cheng & Rashid, 2013; Omar et al., 2013; Pi & Huang, 2011; Saeed, Rehman, Akhtar, & Abbas, 2014; Chinomona & Dubihlela, 2014; Lee & Hsieh, 2011; Sabet et al., 2014). However, few previous studies have been conducted in the political setting (Smith & Spotswood, 2013; Parker, 2012; Gullupunar & Gulluoglu, 2013). In addition, the majority of studies were conducted in Western countries, whereas they were neglected in the Arab context.

Political brand awareness (PBA)

Brand awareness considered a central element of brand equity (Azad et al., 2013) which effect on perceptions to differentiate the brand from competitors. Thus, brand awareness can be a driver of brand choice (Valavi, 2014). To be precise, the first step to building our brand is to create brand awareness (Buil et al., 2013a. b). According to Kim et al. (2008), regarding the brand, future decisions are positively affected by a strong brand presence. This is similar to Balaji (2011) who noted that brand awareness influences the strength of brand relationships in the customer’s mind. Moreover, Aaker (1991) considered that brand awareness provides a customer enough reason to consider the brand in his consideration set. Brand awareness has been examined in customer’ behavior studies (Hsu et al., 2011; Huang & Cai, 2015; Bianchi & Pike, 2010). Most models of customer’ behavior argue that awareness is a first and necessary step for choosing the brand.

A call to employing the concept of brand awareness in political marketing management is appeared as a successful factor for political competition that improves competition in the political market (Jakeli & Tchumburidze, 2012). PBA consists of two key components; recognition, and recall (Keller, 1993). Hence, the operational definition of PBA is the ability of voters to recall or recognize that a political

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Conference on Business Management Research II (CBMR II 2015)

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party is a member of a certain parties' category under different elections. PBA refers to the strength of a political brand’s presence in the voter’s mind as well as in the voter’s psyche (Mishra & Mishra, 2014). The party awareness, impact several vital voting behavior outcomes such as voters’ attitudes toward a candidate and party, voting preference, and party loyalty. Additionally, the breadth of PBA expresses the range of vote motives in which the political party name may come to mind (Keller, 1998). Usually, PBA indicates the ability of voters to recall the political brand without any signal at all or a slight signal like the name of the party category or a feature (Aaker, 1996). Thus, PBA is a vital component for developing the image of a political brand (Aaker, 1991).

Al-Sharah, Althubetat and Jarrar (2014) showed that awareness in politics field includes three stages: Cognitive and emotional; while these two stages are translated behaviorally, in the third stage. Also, the level of awareness is also likely to affect the behavior of voters, by making the voters less likely to abstain to vote (Hobolt & Spoon, 2012). According to Holbrook (1996), increasing PBA lead to crowd votes as well as improving the chances of winning the election. In addition, the orientations of individuals towards the political system can be measured through awareness (Alazzam, 2008). Hence, PBA plays an essential role in building a political brand in the voters’ mind, for the reason that voters make voting decisions based on knowledge, awareness, or experience of a specific political brand. As a result, voters may vote repeatedly as they are assured of its quality. Thus, PBA is related to PBL in making voting decisions as it relates to voters’ thoughts. Hence, the degree of PBL becomes stronger and firmer when voters are more aware of political brand.

The PBA is fairly high among American voters (Scremin, 2007) in addition to the UK (French & Smith, 2010). In contrast, in developing countries (e.g. Egypt), the voter' knowledge is weak (Farrag & Shamma, 2014). Hence, this research aims to highlight the role of PBA in the context of the voters’ decision-making process as an important tool for selection amongst voters without big previous experience. From this point, political marketers can create PBA among voters through repetitive publicity and advertising to build a brand image and loyalty in the long-term (Keller, 2003). The basis of the foregoing, political awareness in the current period is considered as essential to life in the Arab region and the Middle East, where the bulk of the attention of youth is oriented to secondary issues, perhaps, interpreted in terms of difficult economic conditions which divert their attention to songs as a priority at the expense of joining institutions such as political parties (Althubetat, & Jarrar, 2013). Therefore, previous research by Al-Sharah et al. (2014) suggested that research pertaining to political awareness regarding Jordanian parties is needed.

Ultimately, brand awareness influences brand commitment and brand loyalty directly, but there is not enough understanding about its impact on the voter loyalty process. Some researches revealed a significant relationship (Valavi, 2014; Tsang et al., 2011). Others found an insignificant relationship (Ramaseshan et al., 2013; Esch et al., 2006; Liu et al., 2013; Hyun & Kim, 2011). However, due to mixed results, the present study proposes the following:

Proposition 1: There is a significant relationship between political brand awareness and political brand loyalty.

Proposition 2: There is a significant relationship between political brand awareness and voter brand commitment.

Voter brand commitment (VBCom)

The concept of developing a relationship is a former significant issue that can be exploited to form customer/voter loyalty (Christopher, Payne & Ballantyne, 2013; Cwalina et al., 2010; Story & Hess, 2006; Moorman et al., 1993). Commitment, in its turn, appears to be an important element in a long term relationship (Morgan & Hunt, 1994) since it can offer the opportunity of not wasting time or money while trying to get recent relations with other brands (Chaudhuri & Holbrook, 2001). This is supported by the findings of Wallenburg et al. (2011). The role of commitment was represented clearly through the organizational buying behavior which reduces the customer turnover (Sartori, Mottironi & Corigliano, 2012; Richard & Zhang, 2012). Nevertheless the concept of voter commitment to a political brand seems to be neglected with the purpose of identifying the voter (Henneberg & O'Shaughnessy, 2009; Gullupunar & Gulluoglu, 2013). The purpose of this study is addressing this shortcoming, through building long-term commitment - based relationships between voter and brand to understand the core of political exchanges,

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whether these exchanges are governmental, electoral, or otherwise political (Henneberg & O'Shaughnessy, 2009).

Commitment has many definitions from different points of view according to their field of interest. Commitment is one dimensional concept; mainly affective commitment (Porter et al., 1974), or two components construct, including continuance and affective commitment (Mowday, Porter & Steers, 1982). As well, According to Allen and Meyer (1990), commitment is three components, namely affective commitment, (person remains in the organization because he wants it), continuance commitment (person remains because he needs it), and normative commitment (person remains because he feels obligated). In political brand (party) context. According to Gullupunar and Gulluoglu (2013), “commitment to a party in terms of organizational commitment can be stated as that a voter’s being identified with the party, his desire to maintain membership relations, having a positive attitude towards message and practices and having tendency to take an active role”(p. 85).

For this work, "affective commitment" is related, affective commitment reflects a voter’s psychological attachment to a political brand (adapted from Lai, 2014; Eisenberger et al., 2001). Affective commitment is chosen for the following reasons. A) According to Morgan and Hunt (1994), the affective commitment is built on emotion that indicates a long-term desire to maintain valued relationships between buyers (voters) and sellers (parties). B) Affective commitment fits the voters setting, all about a sense of liking, identification, and emotional attachment to the party (Gullupunar & Gulluoglu, 2013). C) In the continuance commitment the relationship build on economic gains and person’s decision to continue in the organization because he does not want to lose the investments, D) also according to Ackfeldt and Malhotra (2013), normative commitment has hardly been studied in marketing research because the link between normative commitment and its outcomes are uncertain, some investigators have even questioned the utility of retaining normative commitment as a separate scale consequently, the only affective commitment is used as a single mediating variable in this study.

The final aim of marketing is to preserve customers/voters and build relationships in order to create loyalty. Commitment can provide a trustworthy communication between a voter and a candidate for parties (Gullupunar & Gulluoglu, 2013). Commitment is just an intermediate method to attract new customers/voters (Pi & Huang, 2011). The research findings also support the roles of commitment in influence positively on the perceptions, and loyalty (Shani & Chalasani, 1992; Velnampy & Sivesan, 2012; Ibrahim & Najjar, 2008; Hosseini & Nahad, 2012; Rojas-Mendez et al., 2009; Phelps & Campbell, 2012; Herm, 2013; Dwivedi & Johnson, 2013), especially in the western countries.

Previous studies, mostly examined the influence of commitment with some variables in services and products. For example, brand knowledge (Hasnizam, Salniza & Zolkafli, 2012), awareness, and image (Finlay, 2011; Ito, Brotheridge, & McFarland, 2013; Nguyen, Leclerc, & LeBlanc, 2013), service quality (Hulpia, Devos, & Van Keer, 2011; Knudsen, Roman, & Abraham, 2013; Odrowska & Massar, 2014), perceived value (Bodet, 2012; Hilgeman, 2013), and satisfaction (Amin, Isa, & Fontaine, 2013; Chang, 2013). Few studies have focused on the effect of commitment in a political context, (Gullupunar & Gulluoglu, 2013; Winchester et al., 2014). Political branding strategies to become successful require the voters' commitment to the purpose of reinforcing the communication with the political brand in the political market (Gulupunar & Gulluoglu, 2013). Hence, according to Mahmud and Gray, (2011), commitment requires more investigation and focus. Recently, Hasnizam et al., (2012) pointed out that commitment as a new mediator concept requires more investigation, testing and conceptualization. Hence, this study aims to adopt a voter commitment as a new mediator in political marketing context, as very limited conceptual studies have investigated the effect of this variable as a mediating in this area (e.g. Mahmud & Gray, 2011).

Previous studies include inconsistent findings, which revealed a relationship approach as a mediating between some variables and brand loyalty (Saeed, et al., 2014; Sultan & Wong, 2013; Chang, 2013; Pi & Huang, 2011). However, findings of other studies reflected the opposite by revealing that relationship approach does not act as a mediator between some variables and brand loyalty (Linares, 2012; Pi & Huang, 2011). Consequently, it can be concluded that the affecting factors of commitment may not be consistent. This research is the first attempt that departs from the existing literatures that treats commitment just through trust as mediators, and try to confirm the validity of the political brand awareness model with commitment as a main mediator with regard to voter loyalty to political brand in the context of political marketing. Thus, it can be concluded that the argument is based on the assumption of political

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Conference on Business Management Research II (CBMR II 2015)

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22 December 2015

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brand awareness affect voter commitment and indirectly affect loyalty to political brand by means of intervening variable (voter commitment). Hence, adopt the theme of commitment framework as a basis that can yield more knowledge academically in the field of political marketing. Clearly, due to the gap in the literature related to the mediating effect of voter commitment in the marketing field, it is hoped that the current study might fill this gap.

In sum, based on the preceding discussion, it is important to examine whether or not voter commitment mediates the relationship between PBA and PBL, to build long term relationship between voters and political brand. As such, and according to Baron and Kenny (1986), the mediation (voter commitment) is to "explain" why a relationship between an exogenous (PBA) and endogenous (PBL) construct exists; a mediator interacts between "inputs" variables and the "output" variable and modifies the outcomes. In other words, this goes in line with Hair et al. (2013). Hair et al. (2013) stated that "A significant mediator variable may to some extent absorb a cause-effect relationship. Furthermore, examining mediating variables enables researchers to better understand the relationships between dependent and predictor constructs"(p. 206). Therefore, the present study proposes the following:

Proposition 3: There is a significant relationship between voter brand commitment and political brand loyalty.

Proposition 4: Voter brand commitment mediates the relationship between political brand awareness and political brand loyalty.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

As this paper showed earlier the theoretical linkages between PBA, VBCom, and PBL, the researcher designed a model, in order to interpret and understand the impact of the exogenous variable on the endogenous variable:

Fig. 1: Proposed conceptual framework

PBA =political brand awareness, VCom = voter commitment, PBL = political brand loyalty. Based on the theoretical framework, the voters who have a good awareness about political brand,

would likely to have a high level of loyalty. Also, it is assumed that the higher the voters‟ brand commitment, the lower the effect of PBA on PBL. However, the previous studies have found inconsistent findings. While some of the past studies have demonstrated a significant relationship (Hsu et al., 2011), others found an insignificant relationship (Ramaseshan et al., 2013; Subhani & Osman, 2011; Diaz, 2013).

CONCLUSION

Political parties play a critical role in economic development in democratic countries However, in Jordan, this vital sector faces some problems. Political parties are not able to compete with the independent candidates at the time of elections. In the western countries, political brands spend a much marketing effort, while political parties in Jordan did not adopt this strategy especially to get a voter loyalty.

Voter loyalty is affected by many variables, and this paper aims at identifying the role of brand awareness in building voter loyalty (behavioral, attitudinal) towards the political brand in Jordan, and the above analysis showed the role of VBCom in creating and maintaining loyalty to PB. Since, there is a debate in the literature about the significant relationship between PBA, VBCom on PBL. Based on that, this paper clarifies the role of these constructs, and it proposes a conceptual framework for this relation; according to the literature review, there is limited research that has examined this issue in the Arab

PBL

PBA VBCom

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context. Moreover, this paper will open the door for scholars for future empirical studies, by adding an external factors that might include some dimensions of brand equity as well as the role of culture factors in local context and other countries which affect the voting decision-making.

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Kim, K. H., Kim, K. S., Kim, D. Y., Kim, J. H., & Kang, S. H. (2008). Brand equity in hospital marketing. Journal of Business Research, 61 (1), 75-82.

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Omar, N. A., Wel, C. A. C., Aziz, N. A., & Alam, S. S. (2013). Investigating the structural relationship between loyalty programme service quality, satisfaction and loyalty for retail loyalty programmes: evidence from Malaysia. Measuring Business Excellence, 17 (1), 33-50.

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Story, J., & Hess, J. (2006). Segmenting customer-brand relations: beyond the personal relationship metaphor. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 23 (7), 406-413.

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