COPENHAGEN BUSINESS SCHOOL 2014 DEPARTMENT OF MARKETING
CAND. MERC. BRAND AND COMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT
The influence of packaging change on brand preference and brand relationship.
CASE STUDY: BELLAVISTA
NAME OF THE STUDENT: Marco Fioretti ADVISOR: Karsten Bobek
HAND IN DATE: 13/10/2014 NUMBER OF PAGES: 75
NUMBER OF DIGITS INCLUDING SPACES: 121.912
ABSTRACT
This thesis aims to study the effects of packaging change on brand preference and brand relationship. For this purpose, the author chose Bellavista as case study. The winery is based in Italy, precisely in the territory of Franciacorta.
A literature review provides the basis for the adaptation of the Customer Based Brand Equity pyramid to the objective of the thesis.
The research process employs both qualitative and quantitative methods. An online-‐based survey was conducted to test the hypotheses on the role that packaging change plays on self-‐
concept and brand preference; data were inserted into SPSS IBM Statistics and successively analysed using Pearson r correlation coefficient and Wilcoxon signed ranked test. During the writing process, the researcher has accomplished a netnography in order to evaluate conversations between the brand and its customers; this was centred on the social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Lastly, four customers were interviewed to complete the studies on brand relationship.
The results of the survey confirm the hypotheses, while the outcomes of the other methods give validity to the framework proposed. In fact, it was found that the revised Customer based brand equity pyramid created by the author is adequate to analyse the impacts of a packaging change. The uniqueness of this thesis resides in the new theoretical contribution generated by the studies.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract……….3
1. Introduction………6
1.1. Description of the case……….6
1.2. Choice of topic………...7
1.3. Presentation of the case………...10
1.4. Methodology………14
1.5. Delimitations………...16
1.6. Thesis structure………16
2. Theoretical background……….18
2.1. Brand preference………..18
2.2.Customer-‐Based Brand Equity………..19
2.3. Self Concept………..24
2.4. Brand Relationship………..27
2.5. Elaboration of the Framework……….30
3. Research question……….34
4. Methodology ………37
4.1.Netnography………..37
4.2. Quantitative survey ………40
4.2.1 Survey method………40
4.2.2 Sample……….40
4.2.3 Research design………41
4.2.4 Choice of competitors………42
4.2.5 Variables………43
4.3. In-‐depth Interviews………..44
4.3.1 Sample………44
4.3.2 Structure………45
5. Analysis………47
5.1 Netnography………47
5.1.1 Facebook………47
5.1.2 Twitter………49
5.1.3 Instagram………50
5.2 Survey………51
5.2.1 Description of the sample………52
5.2.2 Results………54
5.3 In-‐depth interviews………58
5.3.1 Interviewees………59
5.3.2 Transcription………..60
5.3.3 Interview analysis………60
5.3.4 Grounded Theory………..61
6. Findings………62
6.1 Brand awareness………62
6.2 Image and Self Concept………..65
6.3 Preference………..68
6.3.1 Judgements………68
6.3.2 Feelings………69
6.4 Relationship………..71
6.5 Managerial implication.……….75
7. Limitations and Future Research………76
7.1 Limitations………76
7.2 Future research……….76
8. Conclusions………..78
9. References……….79
9.1 Web Sources………79
9.2 Bibliography………80
10. Appendix A -‐ Survey………83
10.1 Appendix B -‐ Interview guide………90
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 DESCRIPTION OF THE CASE
Wine industry is a highly competitive market. There are thousands of brands that are available on the market, even in a single wine shop; this makes the competition very difficult.
It’s really hard to emerge and create brand equity, therefore it is really difficult to enhance preference.
An important factor in the wine business is that the quantity of the bottles available on the market is limited. Regarding high quality it can’t exist a high massive production like it does for computers or cell phones because it is limited to the grapes (of high quality) available to the winemaker. Following this perspective it is also difficult to create awareness and to be appreciated on the market; a possible way to bypass this problem is to extend the production line. This will help to cover more segments of consumers on the market and not to limit your chances to make your product purchased.
The company I chose as case study it is called Bellavista. It is part of a larger group named Terra Moretti, and regarding wine it is the best-‐known brand of the group. The other wine brands of the group are Petra, a cellar based in Tuscany, and Contati Castaldi, another company that is from the same area of Bellavista.
Bellavista is specialized in producing sparkling wine with champenoise method, which is the classic process adopted for producing champagne and fine sparkling wines. The grapes used for making Bellavista’s wines are also the same as champagne: Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc and Chardonnay. The factory is in the middle of its vineyards, located at Erbusco in the province of Brescia, near the Iseo Lake.
Bellavista is part of the consortium of Franciacorta. Being part of it gives you the Italian title
"DOCG", which in the European Union is called Protected Designation of Origin. This title implies that winemakers have to follow very strict rules for the wine production processes.
The territory of Franciacorta started the production of sparkling wine in the 1961, with Berlucchi; this area is considered historically young compared to the area of Trento Doc, active from 100 year, or the champagne region, which has been producing sparkling wine from at least three centuries.
Franciacorta produces wines well known in the northern Italy and less distributed in the southern regions of the country, even if in the last years data are changing and this appellation is changing trends. The total production of the territory is a little more than 14 millions bottles per year, of which the 9% of them is exported. Bellavista is an important character, it covers almost the 10% of the total annual production of Franciacorta and it is well know by all the most of the wine drinkers in Italy. Bellavista is also leading the exportations of the products’ territory with a rate of almost one fifth of its production.
1.2 CHOICE OF TOPIC
I chose to research in this branch of the marketing theory because I have found a lack of theories and experiments in the field of the change of packaging. It is sure that in the category of packaged goods packaging plays a very important role, in fact there are many strategies to attract consumers with creative packaging: make the product be reminded or using the external part of it as the first item of the communication process, trying to link features to the product itself.
It was important for me to enquire the role of preference in branding theory. In my opinion, it is a issue not well covered yet and there are many possibilities of discovering behaviours of consumers that aren’t reported in any manual or article.
Some authors wrote their opinion about preference. Nilson (2000) proposes that brand preference should be the focus of brand management (Almaro and Rowley, 2011); Nilson states that having a great brand preference will ensure that all the products produced by the brand would be perceived as superior to those of the competitors (Nilson 2000). This means that enhancing and maintaining brand preference is one of the keys to have success on the market.
The change of packaging can be a strategy to differentiate from competitors and give the chance to products to be better recognized by consumers. Jensen and Hansen said: “marketers should clearly differentiate their own brand from competitive alternatives by telling the consumer why and how their brand is better than the alternatives” (Jensen and Hansen 2006). With this sentence it has been summed up a good cause to change packaging.
Packaging plays an important role in the recognition of the brand by consumers (Kotler and Keller, 2009).
The case study of the thesis, Bellavista, represents a change in the packaging driven from both external, described above, and internal reasons. An example of this latter reason is the need to better communicate the qualities of each product in order to avoid cannibalization. Line extension is also a strategy useful to reach more consumers in the market. In fact, Bellavista is now producing Nectar S.A., a classic sparkling sweet wine with the addition of 38 grams of sugar per litre after the second fermentation. This completes the line of the brand with the introduction of a demi-‐sec sparkling wine. In their article, Jensen and Hansen have stated that in a product category where there’s a variation in the purchase it is important to extend the
line to meet consumers needs and fulfil them with products that they may be forced to buy from other brands in the past. (Jensen and Hansen 2006) In this way Bellavista strived to fulfil the need of a niche that wanted them to product a sweet wine. Nectar S.A. is produced in two thousand bottles per years, which in the world of wine makes it extremely rare to find.
If there are no differences between brands alternatives in the product category it would be very difficult to build brand preference, a change in the way to present the products is fundamental to be recognized and recalled between many other competitors (products). This is a sufficient reason to use this strategy to emerge from the competition and to put under a different light your brand, to enhance preference and extend your position in the consumers’
mind.
I have also chosen this topic to extend my research and then study the implications with the relationship that consumers form with brands. A relationship must include consumption, satisfaction and all the other components that are in the category of the pre-‐purchase stage; it is accepted that a consumer who has a relationship with a brand can also be considered a loyal customer. The question that came to my mind was: What happens when a brand makes a completely restyle in its image? Or at least what happens when it changes packaging?
This leads to other theories and to other part of the consumer behaviour, which has been deeply investigated.
Fournier (1998) stated that a marketing action is considered as the living action of an inanimate brand; in other words, brands can communicate through these actions their intentions to the customers and then modify the relationship that they hold with them (Fournier 1998). It is important to note that this will lead to an analysis in depth with some customers of Bellavista in order to check their response, in terms of brand relationship, to their marketing campaign “New Air On Wine”. Another example could be found in those
people who don’t know the brand yet, that begin a relationship with it after the change; it would be a good reason to investigate how they become aware of the company and the reason why they started buying and consuming those wines.
1.3 PRESENTATION OF THE CASE
Bellavista is a wine company active on the market since the first years of the 80s; since its born Bellavista had had the same bottle (which is an original project of its founder, Vittorio Moretti) and held the same packaging for more than 30 years. Its labels were all similar to each other with a poor variance of colours; this has created difficulties in distinguishing one product from the other causing problems of product identification.
The campaign was launched on the Instagram page of the company; this social network is very popular and its primarily feature is to share pictures with the use of hash tags (#).
The claim of the campaign is “New Air On Wine”. It communicates the need to give fresh air on the wine market, to give a new whisper to the images of the bottles, something different that consumers will note and will be attracted from.
The change consists in passing from the old classical label to new ones with all different colours and with renovated names for two products of the line. The constant theme of every packaging is the energy of the wine itself, of the workers who actually make it with traditional methods in all the step of the production. In fact, every process from the grape harvest to the riddling (remuage) is entirely handmade.
The expression of nature in all the product line is also an important feature. Man is making wine but Bellavista wants to keep the essence of it and not modify the products with many post-‐harvest corrections. Every colour represents the “soul” of the wine contained in the
bottle. Here below are presented the two packaging next to each other. I will explain then characteristics and the meaning of the different packaging.
This is the classical, and old, packaging of Bellavista.
This is the new packaging launched by Bellavista in February 2014.
Bellavista Alma Cuvée : Orange. The butterflies represent the grace, the harmony and the beauty of the wine inside the bottle; the colour orange reflects the strong energy. This product has also changed name from Cuvèe Bellavista to Bellavista Alma Cuveèe; Alma is a Latin word with different meanings, the one chosen by the brand is “land that produces wonders”.
Bellavista has also introduced the concept of the word Vendemmia. It is the Italian translation of harvest, for the brand it symbolizes renovation and freshness of nature. The entire product line except for Alma Cuvèe and Nectar S.A. are vintages, which means that they have grapes and wines from just one harvest.
Bellavista Brut: Black with finishing touch of orange. The Roots are the image connected with this wine. They represent the feeding of the grapes, its wellness and its strength during adversities. This product shifted the name from Grand Cuvèe Bellvista to the new one.
Bellavista Satèn: Beige the motif to explain this wine is the bubble. Satèn is compared to the dewdrops in the vineyards during the first hours of the morning. This comparison reminds the finesse and the elegance of it. Bellavista satèn is a Blanc the Blanc, a sparkling wine obtained with the use of just white grapes, in this case 100% Chardonnay.
Bellavista Pas Operé: Light Blue. It is defined as an idea that goes up to the sky with purity, energy and freshness like the passing clouds in a blue sky. The main features are freedom and the lightness of a product, that has no add of sugar after the second fermentation.
Bellavista rosè: Pink. This is connected with image of the girl painted by Klimt, which are painted by the colours. Rosè has the same essence and the same elegance of those paintings;
Bellavista wants to compare the technique of the painting to the method employed to give the wine its colour.
Bellavista Nectar S.A. (Sans Annè) Demi-‐sec: White. Here, the brand is comparing this product with the candies. The sweetness and the prevalence of morbid sensation of the wine are typical of a Demi-‐sec, which is the category of sweet sparkling wine.
Bellavista Vittorio Moretti Special Riserva: Red. It is the finest wine of the brand. From now on the Bellavista Vittorio Moretti will celebrate every year a different artist of the Italian culture.
The first bottle after the change is titled to the Latin poet Quinto Orazio Flacco. They have used the image of this poet to remind that this wine, in particular, is produced following ancestral methods that give it distinctive personality, longevity and an extraordinary aromatic quality which are rare to be found in a wine.
1.4 METHODOLOGY
The writing process of the thesis begins with a theoretical background composed of previous studies on brand loyalty and brand preference. The aim was to take part of theories and to mix them in order to create a new theoretical contribute on brand preference. After theorising a new model and formulate hypotheses, it’s needed to test the new theory with some research methods.
I started conducting a research on literature using key phrase as: brand preference, brand loyalty, packaging, packaging changing/changes, brand relationship, and brand personality.
During this stage, I have collected many articles with the purpose to go in depth with the themes; this allowed me to gain knowledge and have an objective view of the theories and the models utilized in the theoretical framework.
The process has started from the idea that a change in the packaging or the label will enhance or modify brand preference, and then have some influences on the relationship that consumers have with this brand.
I chose wine industry because it is really rare to see a change in the packaging, for this reason I believe that this action will have a greater effect in this product category than in another one.
It was important to find a good and actual case study and I found that Bellavista winery has recently changed all the labels in the entire production line; Bellavista is selling wine from about more than forty years, the action was a shift from the classical label to a more innovative one.
The study is a mix of induction and deduction. I have first followed the inductive approach to formulate the hypothesis using different theories as background in order to lay down the process on something already studied and confirmed. The next step is the investigation of the hypothesis with a quantitative survey, the goal is to obtain enough data to ensure the validity
and continue the research. From the epistemological point of view, this first part of the research is related to the philosophical position known as Positivism. Both inductive and deductive approaches reflect two of the most important aspects of this doctrine (Bryman and Bell, 2011).
During the second stage, I will select some customer of the brand and interview them. The aim is to go in-‐depth in order to be able to understand and analyse possible interaction with the relationship they hold with the brand. It’s clear that the target interviewers have to be selected with more accuracy to guarantee the variability of the sample and the reliability of the results.
As we will see in chapter four, Analysis, this part is summarized in the principles of Grounded theory. From a general point of view, it is a method to analyse qualitative data, which follows an unconventional inductive approach as “it contains a deductive element too”. (Bryman and Bell, 2011, p.13)
Moving backwards, a first research on the web can be a useful tool to gain insights on the possible thoughts of the stakeholders (in particular buyers); this has to be done using key words on web search engines, such as Google, to search for blogs that are talking about the case study; I have then checked their social media pages (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) to see if there were some comments available and if someone is using hash tags to talk about them.
The Sample for the two studies is taken from the Italian population because the Brand is for sure well known in Italy; in fact the exportation of the products are around the 20% of the total annual production.
Italy is one of the first countries for wine production and since the Roman period wine has always been present in the Italian peninsula. In term on consumption Italy is the one of the country in the world where wine is drunk the most, this gives validity to the choice of the
sample. Choosing, for example, a country where alcohol is prohibited by law or religion would be worthless because they won’t buy or consume in any case the product and they won’t be able to express any reliable and valid preference for any this product category.
1.5 DELIMITATIONS
The main delimitation of the thesis resides in the choice of the case study. In fact, wine is a product category where branding counts but the quality of product itself affects more the perception of consumers. Furthermore, the company chosen imposes to have a limited target population for the study.
Even if the research aim is not to evaluate the efficacy of a marketing activity, during the managerial implication will be assessed the possibility of using the framework proposed to measure the customers’ response.
A final delimitation is the lack of experiments and theories related to the wine business; every theory used took as case study other product categories. This represents both the originality of the work and the difficulties of adapting theories.
1.6 THESIS STRUCTURE
The writing process of the thesis will follow this structure:
1. Theoretical Background: First, a background of the theories that lies upon the creation of the hypotheses, the methodology used to conduct the studies and the support to the eventual findings. A review of the theory about brand preference and brand relationship will be the central focus of this chapter; after that a theoretical model will be proposed with the explanation of every level focusing on the definitive evaluation about the power of brands.
2. Research Design: the problem formulation will be explicated in this section and the hypotheses will be explained.
3. Methodology: this represents the part where the methods used are illustrated. For the first study there will be a description of the survey with all its features. Regarding the second study, the qualitative method chosen is the in-‐depth interview; this section contains all the justification and the reasons that have driven the choice of a type of interview instead of another. Finally, the netnography will be explained.
4. Analysis: Here there are the comments on the results of the survey and then an analysis of the interview.
5. Findings: a deeper comment on the results of the studies, which results in a union of all the contribution furnished by the different methods employed during the studies. Lastly, it will be present a short paragraph on the managerial implications.
6. Limitations and Future research: Describes possible future directions of the researcher in the area studied in the thesis; it also describes the limitations that came across during the thesis.
2. THEORETHICAL BACKGROUND
2.1 BRAND PREFERENCE
The first objective of the thesis is to create a framework, which supports the successive developing of the hypothesis. It is necessary to have a clear definition of brand preference.
Hellier (2003) explains brand preference as ”The extent to which the customer favours the designated service provided by his or her present company, in comparison to the designated service provided by other companies in his or her consideration set (Hellier et al, 2003, p.
1765).” I have considered this as a perfect definition of what brand preference is: a preference for a brand within a set of brands that are offering similar services/products; the important thing in this definition is that the brand has to be contained in a consideration set, it is impossible to express preference for something that we don’t have knowledge of. Following the point of view of my research I will obtain preference following another pattern, not through the choice between different brands but I will calculate it with the use of self-‐image congruence concept and its application on the subject.
It is very important to examine the product/service category when we are talking about preference since factors such as the availability on the market or the quantity of advertising are fundamental to create awareness and then to stimulate preference toward the brand.
There are many actions that a marketer can use to increase the brand equity in general, what I want to study is what stimulate the creation of preference and if the are some particular actions that can modify or increase it. I want to focus on the impact of the change of packaging on consumers’ preferences and if this strategy is enough to attract the attention of them and to change their choice in the marketplace.
The framework I am proposing now is formed by different theories. The Customer-‐Based Brand Equity proposed by Keller (2003) is the base, after that there is the Self-‐Image Congruence theory analysed by Jamal and Goode and reviewed by Sirgy; Preference is a variable derived from the outcome of this second theory and thus it has to be insert into the CBBE pyramid to measure the relative power of the brand. Finally the last one is the brand relationship theory, which represents the top of the CBBE pyramid.
2.2 COSTUMER-‐BASED BRAND EQUITY
When thinking about how to measure the power of a brand on the market you need to have a model that includes all the useful parameters. I have found that the CBBE model includes the necessary criterion to evaluate brand power following my own perspective.
The “customer-‐based brand equity is defined as the differential effect that brand knowledge has on consumer response to the marketing of that brand” (Keller 2003). For example, a brand holds positive customer-‐based brand equity when customers consider more positively a product and its marketing strategy and when they are able to connect it and identify the brand than when it is not. Conversely, a brand has negative customer-‐based brand equity if consumers react negatively to the product and its marketing strategy of the brand proposed in comparison to another one.
“The power of the brand lies in the minds and the hearts of consumers”(Keller 2003), this sentence perfectly matches with the objective of my research: understand what happens in consumers’ minds when there’s a change in the brand image, which impact has on their expression of preference; what happens in their hearts and lastly what transformation and influence have this marketing activities on the relationship that consumers have with brands.
Starting from the bottom I begin talking about Brand Image, which is defined as “the consumers’ perceptions and association about a brand”. Keller then defines these brand associations: “the other informational nodes linked to the brand node in memory and contain the meaning of the brand for consumers.”(Keller 2003) These associations can either reflect the characteristics of the product or other aspects that are not physically connected to it such as marketing activities or selling conditions.
A requirement of Customer-‐based brand equity is that “it needs a high level of familiarity and awareness and consumer must holds strong, favourable and unique brand association in his memory”(Keller 2003). In low–involvement cases, brand awareness could be enough to enhance favourable consumer response; a result of this is that consumers will base their choices just on familiarity with the brand. In all the other cases the consumer will be affected by the differential effect created by the brand equity and thus they would choose the brand that is considered more valuable by them and they won’t evaluate other brands in the product category.
The aim of the marketers is to tell consumers that there are important and deep differences between brands in the category. It is then important to create a positive brand image in the consumers’ mind and memory in order to start building customer-‐based brand equity.
Brand awareness is defined as the customers’ capacity “to recall and recognize the brand under different conditions and to link the brand name, logo, symbol, to certain associations in memory.” It is important to build awareness because it will help the customers to find the brand in the right category and to understand which needs the products can satisfy. Brand awareness thus gives the product an identity by linking brand elements to a product category and associated purchase, consumption or usage situations.
The depth of brand awareness measures how likely the brand will come up to customers mind. This is formed of two components: recognition, which occurs when the awareness of the brand reminds you of the category need; and recall, identified when the category need occurs and you must remember brands that will satisfy that need. (Percy & Rosenbaum-‐Elliot 2012, p.174)
The breadth of brand awareness measures all the purchase and usage situations, in which the product of the brand comes to mind.It is really important a combination of depth and breadth because the brand has to come in mind as one of the first, but also it has to come up at the right time and right place. This is just the first step of the framework, which is well represented by the CBBE Pyramid; what we have described so far is the level of Identity represented by salience.
(Keller 2003, p. 100)
Climbing the pyramid Keller posed the level of Meaning: what the brand means for the consumers in terms of its Performance and its Imagery.
The products are the principal element in forming brand equity because they are the direct experience that consumers have with brands. Marketers have to create expectation in consumers’ mind in terms of quality, utilitarian function, aesthetic and other features. After that, they must be sure to at least fulfil and possibly overlap them. This is the way to meet consumers’ expectation and to have a positive brand performance.
Imagery refers to the intangible aspect of the brand; consumers form their brand imagery through their own experience or from other sources like advertising, packaging and what other people say about the brand (Word of mouth). There are four main aspects that are useful to identify the brand imagery:
1) Users profiles, the kind of person who uses the brand, either if they are actual or ideal users. They can also be described in both demographic and psychographic ways.
2) Purchase and usage situations: the association consumers have regarding conditions and situations related to the use and the buying process of the brand. It can be defined in terms of type of channel (where to buy), or timing (when to consume it), specifically which time of the day, week, month, year; or location, connected also to the activity that they are doing when consuming the brand.
3) Personality and values that are referred to the set of human characteristics that customers associate with the brand. This means that they consider brand like human identity.
4) History, heritage, and experiences are together all the association that are connected to the path that the company has followed in terms of marketing strategies;
for example its packaging, its advertising, the events which it had sponsored or the
store where it is sold. The experiences also could play an important role in defining the imagery of a brand; these can be personal or related to a person we know or they can be well known by many other people.
This latter part is the connection with the theory of the self-‐concept that will be further explicated and that represents an important part of the study. In fact, this level represents the point were the change has been operated and where we will try to understand what happens in consumers mind when there’s a modification in the packaging.
Going on, I have theorized that this change will have a strong impact on the third level of the pyramid; at this stage there is the response that the costumers have toward the brand in term of Judgements and Feelings. Following the objective of the research these components are to be intended as the expression of Brand Preference which represents an important indicator for the analysis on the power of brands. In particular, brand judgements are considered the personal opinion and evaluation of the brand formed by the brand imagery and performance;
there are four kinds of different judgements, which are important to mention: quality, credibility, consideration and superiority.
Brand feelings are formed with the emotional responses and the totality of the different reactions of customers to the brand; these are considered the expressions of the heart of consumers and therefore are intended as a strong component of brand preference. Give customers something that will enhance a positive feeling, it will generate a congruent response and vice versa. This is important to keep in mind because it is strongly connected with the congruence between the product user image and the self of the consumers.
The last level, Resonance, displays the top of the CBBE pyramid. It is representative of the relationship that the brand has with its own customers. It is categorized in regard of the activities that customers have with the brand, and the intensity of the attachment that they hold with it. Keller synthetize the analysis of Resonance classifying four different categories:
Behavioural loyalty, Attitudinal attachment, Sense of community and Active engagement.
It all starts simply considering the awareness and then continues climbing the pyramid step by step to arrive to the more complicate and subjective level; here I can measure the real power of such a change in the packaging and in the image of the brand, here I can collect data on what really happens in consumers minds and hearts when they face this kind of changes in one of their brands.
2.3 SELF CONCEPT
A general accepted definition of self-‐concept is “the totality of the individuals’ thought and feelings having reference to himself as object” (Sirgy 1982). The self-‐concept has always been intended as multidimensional, four of these dimensions are the ones more used in literature and they corresponds to: Actual self which represents how an individual sees himself; Ideal Self, it describes how an individual would like to perceive himself; Social self, it is how an individual thinks that the others see him; Ideal social self, the representation of how and individual would like to be perceived by others. (Sirgy 1982; Jamal and Goode 2001) Furthermore, there are two self-‐concept motives that are important to be mentioned: firstly, the self-‐esteem motive, which is “the tendency to seek experiences that enhance self-‐concept”.
Secondly, the self-‐consistency motive which is described as “the tendency for an individual to behave consistently with her view of himself” (Sirgy 1982, p. 287). These two motives could
be either harmonious and in conflict; the latter situation causes dissonance which can result in avoidance of the product/service.
This subject is strictly related to the personality of consumers; in fact it has been said that individuals give meaning to what they buy (McCracken 1986) and they can be described by what they use or depending on the attitude they hold toward the brand. Consumers will be inclined to buy, and may prefer those brands that have a personality more similar to their self-‐images. Thus individuals seek brand that are consistent with their personalities and which are ideal to express themselves. The images of brands and their personalities are not defined just by the physical characteristics of their products but there are more factors as packaging, price and communication in general. (Tucker 1957)
Furthermore, the image of the product is often associated with the stereotypical image of a generalized user, which is then called product-‐user image. This concept is important and will be crucial for measuring the self-‐image congruence with the brand and thus evaluate the degree of interaction with the expression of preference.
The importance of self-‐concept is that consumers use products to demonstrate it to them, so the consumptions are deep influenced by the image that they hold about themselves. Belk sustains that people extend themselves through the consumption of product or services that enhance a certain image of self (Belk, 1988); other researchers stated that purchase or consumption of products/services is a vehicle to protect and reinforce their self-‐concept communicating its symbolic meaning to them and to the others; so goods in general will be then considered as vehicles for symbols.
Consumers tend to buy and use product that are similar to their self-‐concept in order to better express and strengthen them; this is reported with the expression of “self-‐image congruity”
(Sirgy 1982, 1997; Jamal and Goode 2001). Sirgy theorized that this is a physiological
comparison between the product-‐user image and the consumer’s self-‐concept. This comparison is thus quantifiable in high self-‐congruity, when there is positive match between the two components, and in low self-‐congruity when there’s no match. (Sirgy, 1997) This thesis continues with the idea that consumer behaviour is affected by this congruence in the term of the motives described above.
Actual self is considered easier to measure and provides more reliability than ideal self;
people usually tend to lie when they are asked to think about how they would like to be or to be perceived. Since the question will be asked in a formal online survey without any interaction with the respondents I’ve decided to use the actual instead of the ideal self because it will provide results more reliable in terms of preference and I expect more valid and coherent answers.
Furthermore some researchers found that “consumers may not be able to distinguish their feelings toward the brand and their beliefs about how they are viewed by the others”(Sirgy, 1982, p. 288); for this reason in the framework it will not be included the actual and the ideal social self. These concepts could be then studied with other methods such as an interview or other qualitative tools where the social habits can be asked with open-‐ended questions where the interviewees can express their thoughts in freedom.
Following previous studies, it is advised to contextualize the actual self-‐image in a specific usage situation; especially with the method that I will use to measure self-‐congruence. Using a real and replicable situation, it gives the consumer a concrete link to reality; therefore it avoids the abstractness resulted from the use of bipolar adjective. Moreover, the use of direct method ensures solution to many problems:
-‐The use of discrepancy scores: many researchers have found that they have problem in the variance, in the validity and the results are not reliable. But the principal problem is that it
“does not incorporate any reference to psychological congruity experience” (Sirgy et al. 1997), in other words it does not measure it directly, as it is with the new method.
-‐The use of predetermined images: when respondents are taking the survey they find a list of images and attributes predetermined by the researcher. The problem lies in the chance that they may not associate many of these images to the brand, and it will lead to errors in the measurements of the self-‐congruity.
-‐The use of compensatory decision rule: Consumers who are experiencing self-‐congruity with more than one image dimension use this rule to form a judgement. The problems are concerned with the involvement of the choice; in fact with high-‐involvement products the consumer will tend to use this rule to solve a utilitarian function instead of the low-‐
involvement products that are advertised with value-‐expressive appeals, which stimulate the self-‐image congruence.
2.4 BRAND RELATIONSHIP
It has been theorized that customers form relationship with brands that go beyond a mere loyalty towards them. Fournier sustains that brands are viable relationship partner; we do not have to think about the brand as a mere passive object but instead as something alive that acts through marketing activities contributing to the development and maintaining the dyadic relationship held with its customers. The customers have to accept that the brand is not a vital entity; it cannot think or feel, it can have a part in the relationship throughout the activities administrated by the managers. (Fournier, 1998) Consumers tend to facilitate these relationships focusing on the part of those brands that can be considered animated and therefore humanized or personalized; this phenomenon has been categorized as
anthropomorphizing inanimate objects, it is known that it includes also brands.
To accept the brand as a relationship partner, consumers need to humanize and relate to it existing persons, in the case of advertising brand may use spokespersons to facilitate this process. Another way to humanize the products of a brand is to transfer them human qualities such as the ability to feel emotions, volition and to have thoughts. From this point of view all the marketing activities have to be considered as expressions of the behaviours of the brand.
Every action represents something that the brand does for initiate, maintain and possibly destroy the brand relationship bonds.
In this sense I think that a change in the packaging will have strong influence on the brand relationship; it is a modification of the image of the products and it is fundamentally a change of look of Bellavista’s wines. Changing the packaging can be considered as a change of dress;
the product/person under it remains the same but its outlook/outfit changes and so it does its presentation to the outside world. This would mean that as a flashy coloured dress on a person will catch our attention, also a change in the labels of a product passing from a classical non-‐noticeable to a vivid and more lively colour will catch the eye and perhaps change our perception about the brand and the product under the dress.
At this point it is necessary to introduce the concept of brand personality; it is defined as: “the set of human characteristics associated with a brand”. (Aaker, 1997) In contrast with the product-‐related attributes, which are considered to have just a utilitarian function for customers, Keller said that the brand personality concept is more oriented to express the symbolic use and the self-‐expressive role. This step links the trend to humanize brands with the traits of human personalities, which is called “animism”.
Aaker (1997) also said that brands attempt to build their “personality” with the use of celebrities or historical figures, or with other advertising strategy that will imbue the brand
with anthropormophization, personification or the establishment of the user imagery.
Previous research has suggested that a greater congruence between the human traits of brand personality and the one of actual self or ideal self-‐image of consumers will result in a greater preference towards the brand. This is a base for the developing of the hypothesis.
To form the brand personality of a firm, consumers use any direct or indirect contact with the brand. It can be any contact with a company employer or other people representing the brand, through an advertising campaign or the active presence during an event organized by the company. Lastly the most important factor in building the personality is the brand user imagery, defined as “the set of human characteristics associated with the typical user of a brand”; this component will play a central role in the research because it connects every level of the Customer Based Brand Equity, from the bases to the top of the pyramid.
This change may enhance preference and thus may strengthen the relationship; conversely it can have a bad impact on preference diminishing it and then causing a probable fracture in the relationship bonds that tied the consumers with the brand. I have found some examples of these behaviours in their social media official pages and also the company told me that they have received some emails and letters. There are people criticizing the new packaging claiming that there are perceived differences in the taste of the wine saying that it got worse, some saying that it caused them an heart attack, that the old packaging was perfect and that they have made a big mistake. On the other side, there are people supporting the company saying that the new bottle is “perfect” and “beautiful”; while in the distribution area there are wine shops and restaurants asking them decorative bottles to put in their show window to attract client with their new bottles, and to let them know that they serve Bellavista.
2.5. ELABORATION OF THE FRAMEWORK
Here above many theories have been described, but an original framework will be then created to describe the possible outcomes and the importance of packaging change in regards with the brand preference and the brand relationship. The Customer-‐Based Brand Equity provides the possibility to measure the impact of these marketing activities. In fact, in every level of its pyramid it is possible to see and then evaluate a variation, either positive or negative, of a component. I have interpreted this model associating a concept to every level:
1) Who are you? Which means what is the brand in term of salience and awareness for the customers. Here the packaging tends to fulfil a fundamental role: a more recognizable packaging will have more possibility to have a strong awareness in consumers mind, in comparison with a plain or non-‐well-‐identifiable packaging. In the case of Bellavista, it has differentiated its wines from the competitors and from one to another; before the transformation most of the bottles were almost the same, the labels had just a slightly variation of colours and some wines where confused one with an other, some case reported that after the change consumers were more aware of the entire product line whereas before they were thinking that Bellavista was producing just 2-‐3 types of sparkling wine, instead of 7.
2) In this stage the question proposed is: What are you? This brings to many facets of the research and it’s an essential part of the framework. Here the question asks customers what is the brand in their imagery, what is the performance of the brand. In few words, it is the total set of images that they associate with the brand and the rating in terms of performance.
