Tangibles versus intangibles, which ones bear a higher value today?

Brand competitors and the diversity of choice that is available to consumers, puts brands under pressure to offer high quality products and service, excellent value and a wide availability (Clifton et al., 2009). Brands must differentiate themselves from the competition and create an unforgettable impression.

It has been acknowledge (Romaniuk & Sharp 2004) that Brand salience can be defined as the propensity of the brand to be thought of by buyers when they are in a buying situations. A brand awareness strategy depends on how well known the brand is, Brand Salience is forming image to refresh their memory about the brands that can linked to consumer mind as well as the quantity and quality of the cue to brand links (Olson & Peter 2005), it is very important that consumer can connect to their mind as many cues as possible . The level of consumers’ brand awareness necessary to induce purchase varies depending on how and where they make their purchase decision for that product category or form. The brand attitude is focus on evaluating the brand, according to Schiffman and Kanuk (2007) “attitudes are relevant to purchase behavior are formed as a result of direct experience with the product, word-of-mouth information acquired from others, or exposure to mass-media advertising, the internet, and various forms of direct marketing”

Since an increasing number of people focus on brand names instead of product, brands become important elements for customers to choose products (Carroll, 2008). When customers trust the brand, the benefits for the manufactures are generated. In the first place, brands can be used by products as the tool to identify and differentiate themselves from various products. Secondly, brands are helpful for companies to build a competitive advantage (Bick, 2009). Therefore, organisations take more attention to branding.

In current consumptive environment, most people tend to spend billions on expensive and luxury products either in physical store or online. However, what drives buyers continually purchase such excessive amounts of money on these goods and services? Therefore, every marketing strategy likely to increase intangible value of its products as it is important to either profit-seeking companies or non-profit organization. Intangible value itself means value that is incapable of being perceived by touched or cannot be seen. Accordingly, by adding intangible value on their products, it intends to assure customers – either individuals or organizations - what they spent on goods and services are profitable.

Within the context of evaluating marketing opportunities, brand value relates to the intangible aspects of a company that act as a major source of competitive advantage and benefit for both consumers and sellers. For example, a strong brand value allows for a faster purchase decision process for consumers as information can be gathered quickly, and alternatives will often not be considered with equal weighting. Healy confirms this stating that “Good brands create shortcuts in product choice” (p. 136).

Dawar, N. and Parker, P. (1994), 'Marketing universals: consumers' use of brand name, price, physical appearance, and retailer reputation as signals of product quality", Journal of Marketing, Vol.58No. 2, pp. 81-95.

The meaning of “brand” has evolved over time, and different individuals have different interpretations for “brand”. This essay will firstly brief the meaning of brand and explain an idea that “brand” could be seen as a friend with an application of “Maslow 's Hierarchy of Needs”. Next, to have a better understanding of how “brand” has changed, the interviews for generation X and Y were conducted. The research has found that Gen X still find it difficult to define “brand” and they regard brand as a guarantee of product quality. Meanwhile, Gen Y have lots of ideas about “brand” and take it as normal experiences in life.

The buyer characteristics that influence clothing purchases are significantly different than those involved in the purchase of a computer. Both of these purchases are driven by trust in the brand and products being sold. Each of these decisions is also determined by how effectively the brands involved have positioned themselves as complimentary to the individual preferences of the customers, and how the brand contributes to their implicit and explicit needs (Dholakia, 283, 284). Both clothing and a new computer are evaluated emotionally first and at a functional level of features second. The key to selling each is for marketers to gain insights into what matters most to customers and appeal to the emotional aspects of the purchase first (File, Prince, 41).

Over the years, researchers have taken an interest into consumer behaviour and their preference to purchase manufacture branded products rather than store brand, although the products contain the same content. A brand is defined as a name, sign, symbol or a design used to identify the goods or services of a vendor (Kotler & Keller, 2006). Branding has been identified to be a very important non-sensory factor in the decision of purchasing products (Varela et al, 2010). One of the most studied phenomena related to branding has shown that exposure to a certain stimuli, results in an increase

The consumers in 21st century are very much brand conscious in whatever or wherever they purchase the products or services. The word brand comes out of the value of the products is higher among the existing products or the services (O’Reilly, 2011). The branding has unique feature which differentiate it from the other products and buyer of which also separates from the

The purpose of this report is to use a variety of research techniques aimed at understanding the role that knowledge and group influences have on a consumer’s decision-making process. Additionally, the report will advise a range of recommendations that an inert brand can adopt to guarantee its inclusion in the consumer’s consideration set of brands.

Value is defined as the desirability of something, such as usefulness and exchangeability, also is defined as the amount of money for a fair exchange for something (paperchain , nd). According to Adam Smith, the word “value”, had two different meanings: value in use and value in exchange.George [1908] mentioned that value of a thing was the largest amount of wealth that anyone was willing to exchange for. Mises [1934] added that value is always the result of subjective judgments, and intrinsically related to the worth that the consumer wanted to exchange for. Dewey( 1939) considered

In order to discuss the term value and what it represents in relation to brands and the consumer, one must first try to define it, and understand its underlying message. In the early 2000s, many researchers tried to create holistic conceptualisations, such as Khalifa (2004) and Woodall (2003). These abstractions attempted to conceptualise in on an individual level (Holbrook 1994, 1999). However, recent definitions have tried to encapsulate a more rounded and pragmatic perspective which recognises value in the environment of consumer experiences (Edvardsson et al 2011). Further, Grönroos and Helle (2010) placed further emphasis on economic improvements created communally or by business partners. This, of course, is the definititions of value in a brand-oriented point of view. One of the more general definitions of value derives from Grönroos (2008) where he summarised value

In the modern society brands not only signify the product or company but also have a strong relationship with perceived quality, consumers’ life style, social class, taste etc. The motivation behind this study is to frame a more profound thought of what impact a brand name can have, when individuals go for buying, pick the items between various brands, particularly private vehicle like car. Furthermore, this concentrate additionally tries to investigate the connection between various brand items and the purchaser basic leadership process. This study has been conducted through literature study as well as questionnaire directed survey. Simple random sampling procedure has been used to determine sampling frame and size and a convenience sample of sixty respondents of different age groups, income and occupation have been considered for the survey. The collected data were analysed to comply with the objectives and also to draw conclusions. From the study it is discovered that when consumer purchases a car, brand names do effect his/her choice. The study also reveals that branded cars have a excessive place in consumer mind, when customers go for purchasing a car; they prefer to purchase a familiar branded car. Customers would prefer not to attempt new or obscure marked cars in light of the fact that they have very little data about the slighter known brand.

In consumer behavior study, the construct brand personality has received a considerable amount of attention, defined in Aaker’s (1997) article as the “set of human characteristics associated with a brand”. This idea is well accepted by most proactitioners and marketing academics (Aaker, 1997; Carr, 1996; Duboff, 1986; Durgee, 1988; Kassarjian, 1971; Levy, 1959; Ogilvy, 1988; Plummer, 1985; Sirgy, 1982) for decades, and now has become an important topic of marketing research because of its implementation in consumer behavior theory: differentiating a brand in a product category (Plummer, 1984), enhancing consumers ' preference and loyalty to a brand (Fournier, 1998), and creating brand equity (Keller, 1993). It also has impacts on influencing brand recognition, brand beliefs such as perceived quality (Ramaseshan and Tsao, 2007), and brand associations (Freling and Forbes, 2005).