The Role of Brand Personality Congruity (BPC) on Brand Loyalty Mediated by Customer Value and Brand Trust (Study on Blackberry Smartphone Users)

Abstract

Building strong brand loyalty in the tight competitive business world is critical. Yet, when the competitiveness of a firm only focuses on product performance, particularly for products which have similar attributes, due to technology advancement and human resource development it makes brand performance is more difficult to be distinguished. Strong brand is built based on psychological values of the customers; however, research on this topic is still few, particularly in Indonesia context. Motivation is encouraged by the willingness to self-express so that a brand has symbolic function. Strong brand personality is not yet sufficient to build brand loyalty; thus, it needs a congruity between brand personality and consumer personality. This research aims to develop the relationship between brand personality congruity (BPC) and brand loyalty through customer value and brand trust as the mediating variables. It takes 307 college students who have Blackberry smart phone in Malang as the research sample. The sampling technique used non-probability, particularly purposive sampling technique. The data are then analyzed by using GSCA analysis method. The results show that Brand Personality Congruity(BPC) do not have significant effect on brand loyalty; but, BPC has significant effect if it is mediated by customer value and brand trust . The practical implication of this research is as the source of information for marketing managers in implementing marketing strategy, especially segmentation and positioning strategies to build brand loyalty through symbolic value of the brand on the psychological aspects.

Keywords: Brand personality congruity, value, trust, GSCA