CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

Consumer Behaviour: The Concept of “Perception” & British Airways

Consumer Behaviour: The Concept of “Perception” & British Airways

Part One: Literature Review

Introduction

In the current era, businesses and organisations have to face wide range of challenges, out of which market competitiveness can be categorised as one of the most prominent challenge. Additionally, it is also analysed that, the same situation is also faced by different brands(Albanese, 2001, p. 52). It is important to notice that, the name of the brand plays an inevitable role in recalling the integrity and quality of the products. Well established and reputable brand enable the company to enhance and increase its sales. In more precise words, it can be stated that, brand name plays a considerable role in the success and development of the business, establishing customer satisfaction, developing the value of the brand, sustaining old consumers and acquiring new consumers. The primary purpose of branding is to build and tailor customers' perception, which is our core area of interest in understanding consumer behaviour.

This literature review explores how consumers' perceptions are tailored by branding. The concept of “perception” is widely discussed in the literature, which explores consumers' behaviour. Consumer behaviour, towards a product, service or a brand, is the outcome of the perception which they built about the price, quality, utility or brand image (Govind, 2013, p.659). In the light of this argument, it can be observed that the rationale for using branding techniques is simply based on building the consumers' perception, which is likely to affect the consumer buying behaviours.

Literature Review: Consumer Behaviour & the role of Perception

According to Govind (2013), “A sound understanding of consumer behaviour is essential to the long run success of the marketing programme” (p.659). Govind (2013) agrees with the philosophy that marketing strategies have to rely on the knowledge of the consumers. The primary notion is to gain the knowledge which the customers seek in a given market and then formulate strategies, which account for the consumers' perceptions. The success of a business relies on how well a strategy complies with the consumer perception about a product or a service.

Figure 1: Consumer Perception (Source: Emerald Insight)

The Power of “Brand”: Tailoring the concept of Consumer Perception

Freire & Caldwell (2004) describes brand as an identifiable product, service, person or place, augmented in such a way that the buyer or user “perceives” relevant unique added values that match their needs most closely”. Upon analysing the argument, it can be noted that it does not refer to the components which make up a product or a service; rather, it illustrates additional attributes, which may not be tangible but they project a real value (Collin et al, 2001, p.71). From the perspective of a business, a brand serve as an intangible asset; this obviously has a greater value than the tangible asset. The value comes primarily from the fact that intangible asset is more difficult to build or create (Pina et al, 2006, p.174). Further, it cannot be copied or imitated as it has intangible ...