InternationalJournal of of Management (IJM) 0976 6502(Print), ISSN 0976 6510(Online), International Journal Management (IJM), ISSN Volume 2, 6502(Print),

t), (2011), pp. 154-166 ISSN 0976Issue 2, May- JulyISSN 0976 6510(Online) Volume 2, Issue 2, May- July (2011), pp. 154- 166 IAEME IAEME, http://www.iaeme.com/ijm.html

IJM

CONSUMER INVOLVEMENT TOWARD PRIVATE BRANDS IN MENS APPAREL WITH REFERENCE TO CHENNAI CITY
Mr. K.Sadasivan, Assistant Professor, SRM School of Business, SRM University, Chennai, India Dr. Jayshree Suresh, Dean, SRM School of Business, SRM University, Chennai, India S.Rakshana, Doctoral Student, LIBA, Loyola Institute of Business Administration, Loyola College, Chennai, India
ABSTRACT In todays environment of fragmented mass media, rapid changes in consumers preferences and innovation, it is increasingly challenging for marketers to obtain and retain customers. Firms adopt different strategies to maintain their market share and profitability. Especially, in garment industry, the competition is intense and several firms resort to create their own brand names Private Brands. Though PB are popular and successful in western countries it is in nascent stage in India. The stimuli product for this study is ready made garments and the sample consists of students of an engineering college situated in Chennai, India. This study analyses [1] the extent to which the involvement construct plays a significant role in the purchase of PB and the impact of the antecedents of involvement on the loyalty behaviour of consumers and [2] The factors that influence the selection of Private Brands over national brands. The results show that involvement of the consumers influences the buying decision and among the antecedents, interest, pleasure and sign are found to have significant impact on the loyalty behaviour. Findings indicate that, peer pressure [friends] is the most dominating factor the influences the students to prefer PB. The study also reveals that competitive price, attitude of sales people, strategic location and selective communication are the other factors that assist the students in choosing the private brand. 1. INTRODUCTION Powerful brands are the assets of a firm and they serve as arsenals in their armory to fight in the battle of grabbing more share. Branding is the process by which companies distinguish their product offerings from those of competitors (Adamson, 2003). The buying decision of consumers is reliant on their past experiences and perception about a brand and this habitual buying process is associated with brand loyalty (Awadi, 2002). Brands that are perceived positively on quality and value for money by target customers can generate brand loyalty. Private Brands Private brands, also called private labels, are products that are developed by a retailer and are available for sale only through retailer (Baltas, 1997).Private brands which were first introduced over 100 years ago in few product categories, have seen an impressive growth in

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the past few decades (Tarzijan, 2004). Private brands proliferated in a number of product categories and garnered major market share as retailers perceived numerous benefits. As the retail market is witnessing a striking presence of Private Brands, it becomes obvious to explore the different strategies adopted by retailers to position their stores in the minds of the customers. Advancement in technology has changed the taste, choice and preferences of the customers. Standardized products no more enjoy a unique selling proposition. Though standardization controls cost and quality, customization gains easy acceptance, yet there is also a need to check with quality and price. Customers generally evaluate a retail store on the basis of the brands it carries. Brand names have a significant impact on the loyalty of the customers towards a store. Private Brands being a key contributor have a major role to play. Own brands in fashion and apparel on the contrary are believed to possess the power to enhance loyalty to the store they are associated with (Birtwistle et al., 1998). To successfully launch and manage a store brand, it is necessary to understand customers specific needs and intention to purchase of particular type of Private Brands. Apart from providing higher retail margins in comparison to the national brands, Private Brands add diversity to the product line. Private Brands increase category profitability, negotiation power of the retailer and consumer loyalty. Apart from creating strong differentiation in terms of merchandise range and quality, improving the supply chain and price competition, a retailer can achieve sustainability by developing Private Brands that in sync with customer needs and wants. As it is understood, Private Brands not only increase profits but also improve value for the customer. There are several factors which drive the retailers to develop Private Brands. Some of the important factors are intense competition among retailers in terms of number of outlets and in-depth assortments, lack of innovative products by branded manufacturers, changing taste of customers, shifting loyalty of customers, dilution of brand equity of national brands, technological access, profit margins, pricing strategy of heavy discounters, marginal cost gap, less switching cost, price and quality consciousness and retailers quality assurance. 1.2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE Brand Loyalty Brand loyalty is said to occur when a customer makes the choice of purchasing one brand from a set of alternatives, consistently over a period of time. In traditional sense, brand loyalty refers to repetitive purchase behaviour or the propensity to purchase a brand again or the result of cognitive activity and decision making (Mittal and Myung, 1988). Brand loyalty, the ultimate objective of branding, is the situation where in customers has a tendency not to consider other brands during the decision process (Jones et al, 2002). Brand loyalty is the result of extensive cognitive activity and decision making and it is a form of repeat purchasing behaviour reflecting a conscious decision to continue buying the same brand. Dick and Basu (1994) argue that true brand loyalty exists when customers have a high relative attitude towards the brand, which is then exhibited through repurchase intentions. Some say that brand loyalty is mere a process of repurchasing which happens due to situational constraints, lack of viable alternatives or out of convenience (Bandyopadhyay et al, 2005; Aydin and Gokhan, 2005; Argawal and Malhotra, 2005)

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Brand loyalty is a two dimensional construct, comprising attitudinal and behavioural loyalty (Aydin and Gokhan, 2005). Behavioural loyalty is explained as the overt act of selective repeat buying based on evaluative psychological decision whereas attitudinal loyalty is explained as the underlying predispositions to be in such a selective fashion. The later consists of brand attitudes and brand commitment (Coulter et al, 2003; Bansal and Taylor, 2004; Agarwal, 2006). Attitude towards a brand is a multidimensional construct (Arunkumar and Meenakshi, 2003) that relies upon cognitive (knowledge about the brand), affective (positive/negative emotions about the brand) and conative( behavioural dispositions or intention to buy) components. Scanning of literature available reveals that involvement and satisfaction are most significant factors influencing brand loyalty (Avinandan and Anirban, 1996). It is established that involvement and loyalty are highly correlated and proved as the important antecedents of brand loyalty (Knox and David, 2003; Barbara and Aaron 2006). Consumer Involvement Kapferer and Laurent (1985) argued that the involvement persuasion model which portrays advertising as a means to overcome resistant attitudes, might not offer appropriate explanation for gauging brand loyalty. Ditcher (1966) indicated that involvement with the product category is an important determinant of purchase decision. Greenwald (1968) explained that higher involvement increases the accessibility of message details, which leads to improved recall and shorter response latencies. High involvement also increases the number of consumer thoughts generated in reaction to a persuasive message. Peter and Nord (1982) suggest that the low involvement decision heuristic involves the retrieval of previously formed affect associated with the product. Batra and Ray(1986) demonstrate that repetition of message arguments will lead to an eventual decline in the favourability of consumer attitudes under high involvement. Another heuristics for low involvement decision making (Houer and Brown, 1990; Bennett, et al, 2005) is that consumers who are aware of the make of one of the brands in a product category will repeatedly choose that brand even when it offers objectively determined lower quality. Consumers who are unfamiliar with the brand names will often experiment with and eventually settle on a brand that offers higher quality. Hawkins and Stephen (1992) examined how subjects level of involvement during initial exposure to consumer trivia influenced what they learnt and what they subsequently came to believe. Leclerc and Little (1997) confirmed that brand loyalty interacted with product involvement. The authors stated that repeat purchase behaviour for a high involvement product was an indicator of brand loyalty; whereas repeat purchase for a low involvement product was imply habitual purchase behaviour, without elaborating clearly on the relationship between these constructs. Involvement has an impact on whether the purchase process consists of formal search and evaluation or is more habitual. Low involvement purchasing tends to be habitual whereas high involvement requires planning, Therefore, if the purchase employs high involvement it is expected that there will be more complex conscious engagement in cognitive activity (Bloch, 1981; East, 1997). Iwasaki and Havitz (1998) argued that highly loyal people tended to exhibit high levels of involvement and those individual and social situational factors such as personal values or beliefs, social and cultural norms, influenced the behavioural loyalty. Brink et al. (2006) found out that to what extent consumers revealed an effect of strategic and tactical

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cause related marketing efforts on brand loyalty with regards to product involvement. Secondly they sought to access the moderating role of consumer involvement with a product on the relationship between cause related marketing and brand loyalty. They showed that consumer perceive a significantly enhanced level of brand loyalty as a result of strategic cause related marketing. Consumer Involvement Profile Laurent and Kapferer (1985) proposed a four faceted consumer involvement profile as a way of operationalising consumer involvement in products. They proposed that 1] the importance of the product 2] perceived risk associated with the product purchase which in turn has sub facets. (a) Perceived importance of negative consequences from a poor choice and (b) the perceived probability of making such a mistake. [3] the symbolic or sign value and [4] hedonic value of the product. In factor analysis of their data they found that the perceived product importance and perceived importance of negative consequences of a mis purchase loaded on a single factor which they termed imporisk. Risk probability form a separate factor while sign value and pleasure value each provided one additional factor. These four factors are then deemed as constituting the Consumer Involvement Profile. Two of the four facets (perceived importance and hedonic value) are conceived by Laurant and Kapferer at the product level and perceived risk is conceived at the brand choice level. The last facet, sign value defined at an all inclusive level so that it can refer to product or brand choice involvement. 1.3. NEED FOR THE STUDY Factors that contribute to decision making differs from product to product and obviously consumer to consumer. Through this research, it has been aimed to find out important factors that strongly influence the buyers intention to buy private Private Brands. A marketer needs to consider the issue of brand loyalty from the perspective of consumers level of involvement also. Several studies carried out in the area of brand loyalty indicate that research works using non-durable products are few, that too involving Indian consumers are also not plenty. Evolution of Indian private Private Brands in the product category of apparels is of the recent phenomenon and obviously a potential area to do research. With this background, the present study was attempted to investigate what drives customers purchasing intention towards Private Brands and intention to repurchase.. 1.4. OBJECTIVES 1. To find out the factors affecting customers Purchase Intention for private Private Brands ( Apparels) 2. To understand the relationship between antecedents of involvement and brand loyalty attitude 3. To examine whether product involvement influences brand loyalty,

1.5. METHODOLOGY To accomplish the objective framed for this study, a structured questionnaire has been designed with the following three sections. Section A deals with the factors influencing the selection of private Private Brands. Section B contained questions related to involvement measurement and in section C questions pertaining to brand loyalty measurement are added. Personal information is asked at the end.

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Since the product chosen for this research is apparels of private store brand, students are selected as the sample unit. By adopting mall-intercept technique, questionnaires were distributed in three shopping malls during the evening hours (6 to 9 p.m). The purpose of the research was explained and those who are willing to cooperate were only given the questionnaire. After filling the questionnaire, as a token of appreciation, a gift voucher for a snack is given to the respondents. A total of 100 completely filled in questionnaires were collected in a span of one week. Instruments used Involvement has been analysed by five dimensions and is measure by adopting Consumer Involvement Profile scale developed by Kapferer and Laurent (1985b). Taking into consideration the conceptual definition proposed by Jacoby and Keyner (1973) and the argument of Dick and Basu (1994) for the importance of relative attitude, Quester and Lim in 2003 addressed the measurement of loyalty issue by developing a scale, which encompassed the three components of attitude ( cognitive, affective and conative). The same scale has been used in this study. Factors influencing selection of private Private Brands are measured by 14 items. All these responses are captured through 5-point Likert type statements. The reliability values of each scale are computed by using SPSS package. The Chronbach Alpha values of all variables are greater than 0.6 which satisfies the standards proposed by Nunnally (1978) and Siguaw and Diamantopoulos (2000).

1.6. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION Profile of the respondents The results indicate that majority (42.00 per cent) of customers belongs to the age group of 26-30 years and 26.00 per cent of customers have done under graduation in engineering. The results show that about 28.00 per cent of customers are employed in software industry and about 42.00 per cent of customers belong to the income group of Rs. 3.10-4.00 lakhs .The results also indicate that there is a significant difference among the socio-economic characteristics of customers of apparels. The results indicate that about 67.00 per cent are married while the rest of 33.00 per cent are unmarried.. In order to identify the factors affecting the customers purchase intention for apparels, factor analysis (principal component analysis) was carried out on 14 variables. A principal component analysis was carried out with Eigen values greater than one through varimax rotation to identify the variables loadings in each factor and the results obtained through rotated component matrix is presented in Table- 1 There are five independent groups of dimensions which are extracted accounting for a total of 69.44 per cent of variations on 14 attributes. Each of the five factors contributes to 14.73 per cent, 14.07 per cent, 14.05 per cent,13.64 per cent and 12.95 per cent respectively. Factor-I: From the table, it is inferred that out of 14 attributes, four dimensions have their high, relatively tightly grouped factor loadings on factor-I. This factor consists of: The decision to buy store brand apparel is totally by me. (0.80)

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I feel superior when I wear a store brand apparel (0.69) Store brand apparel fits my body exactly (0.82) Hence, this factor is named as INDIVIDUALTIY. Factor-II: is formed with: Store brand apparels enhance my status (0.77) I look hand some when I wear a store brand apparel (-0.72) People consider me prudent when I wear a store brand apparel (-0.56) These variables are named as PERSONALITY. Factor-III: This factor includes: Recommendation from my friends using store brand apparels has high influence on me (0.72) Recommendations by my colleagues in the organization has high influence on me (0.76) Recommendations by my spouse / girl friend has high influence on me (0.60) Recommendations by my children has high influence on me while purchasing store brand apparels(-0.59) These three variables are named as REFERENCE GROUPS. Factor-IV: This factor is formed with: I am called a young fashionable carefree person when I wear a store brand (-0.68) I am noticed by many when I wear store brand apparel (0.72) This factor is named as RESPONSIVENESS Factor-V: This factor includes: People consider me affluent only when I wear store brand apparel. (0.83) Store band apparels are better than a national brands (0.78) The factor is named as STATUS.

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Table-1. Factors Affecting Customers Purchase Intention for Apparels-Exploratory Factor Analysis
Attributes FactorI Recommendation from my friends using store brand apparels has high influence on me. The decision to buy store brand apparel is totally by me. Recommendations by my colleagues in the organization has high influence on me Recommendations by my spouse / girl friend has high influence on me Recommendations by my children has high influence on me while purchasing store brand apparels Store brand apparels enhance my status I feel superior when I wear a store brand apparel Store brand apparel fits my body exactly I am called a young fashionable carefree person when I wear a store brand I look hand some when I wear a store brand apparel I am noticed by many when I wear store brand apparel People consider me affluent only when I wear store brand apparel. People consider me prudent when I wear a store brand apparel Store band apparels are better than a national brands Eigen Value % of Variance Cumulative % of Variance Rotated Factors Loadings on Factor- Factor- FactorII III IV .717 .799 .762 .604 -.594 .774 .685 .822 -.684 -.716 .718 .827 -.564 2.63 14.73 14.73 2.25 14.07 28.80 . 1.94 14.05 42.85 1.51 13.64 56.49 .781 1.39 12.95 69.44 .

FactorV

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. Rotation converged in 9 iterations. Source: Primary & Computed Data To examine the relationship between antecedents of involvement and brand loyalty attitude, Consumer Involvement Profile (CIP) developed by Kapferer and Laurent (1986) has been used in this study. This scale measured involvement through five of its antecedents: interest, pleasure, sign, risk importance and risk probability. Respondents opinions are recorded in a 16 Likert type, five point statements and the data were subjected to factor analysis. Table 2 . Factor Analysis for Involvement Items Interested in using this brand Brand is important to me Get pleasure by using this brand Not careless about the brand Giving myself as a gift I enjoy buying the brand Difficult to choose correct brand Factor 1 0.816 0.790 0.737 0.725 0.719 0.705 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4

0.822

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Dont know that I buy right brand Unsure about what to pick I am quite sure it was right choice Say something about the buyer Reflects my character Who they are Not a mistake if I buy wrong brand Upset if I make Wrong selection Eigen value 3.117 Percentage of variance 25.16 Cumulative percentage 25.16 Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization Rotation converged in 5 iterations

0.718 0.601 0.502 0.831 0.801 0.752 0.833 0.712 1.339 10.58 69.98

2.823 19.32 44.43

1.970 14.90 59.39

It has been established the consumers involvement with the products considerably moderates their judgment on brand selection. The result of factor analysis obtained by principle component analysis with varimax rotation method (suggested by Quester and Lim, 2003) is shown in table 2. The rotated component matrix shows the extraction of four factors. All items have factor loading greater than 0.5 with the exception of one item the risk importance, the loading of which is 0.326. The values in the cell represent partial correlations between the item and the rotated factor. The Eigen values for four components after rotation are 3.117, 2.823, 1.970 and 1.339 respectively. The percentages of variance for the four components are 25.16, 19.32, 14.90 and 10.58 respectively. It is worth pointing out t hat the total variance summarized explains 69.98 percent of the variance of four factors extracted from the analysis. The four factor solution emerged for branded apparel shows that interest and pleasure items merged in factor 1, while distinct factors emerged for risk probability, sign and risk importance. Only two out of three items are included in the last factor, i.e, risk importance. From table. it can be seen that the items of interest and pleasure have loadings of 0.816, 0.790, 0.737, .725, 0.719 and 0.705 on factor 1. The merging of these two antecedents of involvement in a single factor is consistent with the findings of Kapferer and Laurent (1985a), Jain and Srinivasan (1990), Rodgers and Schneider (1993) and Quester and Lim (2003). Consumers seem to have higher degree of interest in as they fulfill the basic need of any human being. The buyers exhibited interest buying private Private Brands because they feel joy when making the brand choice. The colour combination, latest designs, desires to wear fashionable garments and correct are the reasons foe more interest. Since the respondents are students, they derive pleasure in shopping of one their favourite products. This is why the hedonic value of the product is also high.. Hence interest and pleasure have merged and emerged as the most significant factor. Consumers say that the subjective probability of making a poor choice is also important while buying a mobile phone. Hence, risk probability measured by four item (confusion in choosing, unsure of right choice, difficulty in selection and uncertain about the decision) with the factor loading of 0.822, 0718, 0.601, 0.502 has emerged as the next important factor. Choosing a suitable design has become extremely difficult due to the following reasons: availability of variety of modules under different brand names, frequent launching of new models, and different quality of fabrics, durability and ambiguity in

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comparing the features. Obviously respondents attach importance to the perceived probability of making a wrong choice. Sign items are loaded clearly on factor 2. The factor loading of three such items are 0.831, 0.801 and 0.752. Consumers buy apparels of private Private Brands for vaious reasons such as comparatively economical, trust on the store name and the kind of relationship the store maintains. Besides, an individuals affluence level and profession/occupation can be identified (to some extent) just by looking at the brand they wear. People use private label brands to project their social status and feel pride while wearing a popular branded garment. Hence, they attached importance to the sign value of the product the degree to which the product expresses the persons self/personality. The fourth factor is loaded by two items of risk importance, with the factor loading of 0.833 and 0.712. The perceived importance of potential negative consequences associated with poor views of respondents is not high and hence is extracted as the last factor. The respondents feel that it does not matter if they make a mistake in buying a particular brand and they are not irritated also. One possible explanation could be the absence of strong/clearcut product differentiation among different private Private Brands.. Another reason would be that the respondents might have felt that even if they commit a mistake in the brand selection, it can easily be disposed without much difficulty and subsequently they can buy another brand. To accomplish the objective of examining whether product involvement influences brand loyalty, multiple regression has been used. The four facets of involvement obtained through factor analysis are treated as independent variables, whereas brand loyalty is used as a dependent variable. As mentioned in chapter 1 earlier, brand loyalty construct has been measured with cognitive, affective and conative components. Brand loyalty scale developed by Quester and Lim (2003) is used in this study. Table 3 summarizes the results of regression analysis. Table 3: Regression analysis of involvement and Brand Loyalty Unstandardized coefficients B Std. Error 3.416 0.021 0.402 0.021 6.494E-02 0.021 0.129 0.021 -6.17E-02 0.021 Standardized Coefficients Beta 0.624 0.101 0.200 -0.096

t 162.471 19.092** 3.086* 6.135** -2.932*

Constant Interest and Pleasure Risk Probability Sign Risk Importance

*-significant at 5% level; **-significant at 1% level; Dependent Variable: brand loyalty

Model 1

R 0.670a

R2 0.448

Adjusted R square 0.444

Std. Error of the estimate 0.4803

F 105.064

The measure of strength of association in the regression analysis is given by the coefficient of regression determination denoted by adjusted R2. The adjusted R2 value is 0.444

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which implies that 44.4% of the variation on the brand loyalty is explained by the four variables of involvement used in the study. To check whether R2 is statistically significant. ANOVA is used. The F value obtained is 105.064 (P<0.000) and ascertained that there is a significant relationship between dependent and independent variables. It can be ascertained from the table that involvement is clearly not the only determinant factor of brand loyalty, (55.6 percent of variations in brand loyalty are still not explained) but appears to play a significant role, regardless of the involvement of consumers with mobile phones. An examination of t values shows that Interest and Pleasure (t=19.09), Risk Probability (t=3.08), and Sign (t=6.13) contributed significantly to the prediction of brand loyalty, while Risk Importance (t=-2.93) has a negative and significant relationship with brand loyalty. Results of this study do not support the findings reported by Quester and Lim (2003), where only, Interest and Pleasure and Sign are found to be the significant influencers of brand loyalty for sports shoes. It appears that respondents perceived probability of risk associated with a wrong choice of private store brand is critical. Hence, risk probability has a significant relationship with brand loyalty. The negative standardized beta coefficient of risk importance implies that as and when consumers perceived importance of potential negative consequence linked with making a poor selection decrease, the tendency of being loyal increases. 1.7. MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH The results obtained from the first factor analysis provide a valuable insight to the product executives. Respondents indicated that individuality is the prime motivational factor for choosing a private brand and obviously the company should identify the ways and means of enhancing this aspect is their communication. Similarly, the aspect status is given least importance which makes it clear that respondents do not feel that their status is not projected by wearing a private store brand. This is the valuable input and the brand executive need to create and execute advertisements that focus on establishing the status or pride of the users of private Private Brands. The outcome of the second factor analysis offers another worthy point for the corporate. The importance of risk associated with a wrong choice is not at all considered by the users of apparels of private Private Brands. This might be due to the fact that the price is much cheaper when compared to the national or multinational brands. This finding strengthens the point that low price of the products prevents it from being perceived as status symbol. But the issue is, can the private store brand increase and match the price at par with the multinational brands and by doing so, do not they loose their advantage of being economical? Further research in this direction may generate more information. Another useful input that the brand managers can gain from the results of regression analysis is that respondents interest in patronizing the private brand. This shows that the consumers are willing to support the local brands provided if they are positioned in the right platform. Developing emotional attachment would do the magic of getting loyal customers. Hence, future research should focus on finding the loyalty behaviour of users towards various categories of private Private Brands.

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1.8. CONCLUSION
The Private Brands seek an opportunity to deliver a value plus product thereby satisfying the ego needs of the customers. Choice preference being the buzz of customers, retailers are offering a plethora of merchandise with well lit ambience located at convenient places, fulfilling the functional and emotional needs of customers. Ever rising aspirations of customers have sent signals in the market that they are looking forward for quality product, innovativeness, product width, attractive promotional schemes and competitive pricing from the retailers.

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