On The Relation Between Consumer Sophistication And Brand Loyalty

Brand establishes a more lasting competitive advantage than products inpresent market. In order to retain their customers, the battle between product andservice providers have involved from product level to brand level. This trend inpractice also aroused the interest of the academic world. The study of building brandloyalty has become the hotspot in this field since the1920s and numerous valuablearguments have emerged from various angles. Of the existing research, many arebased on the consumer demand and consumer satisfaction; also there are discussionsabout the influence of consumer features on brand loyalty.Based on consumer behavior theory and relevant theories on consumersophistication and brand loyalty, this thesis discussed the influence of consumersophistication on brand loyalty through theoretical analysis and empirical research.For theoretical analysis, the paper starts with a literature review of the existingresearch on consumer sophistication and brand loyalty, and puts forward thethoughts and methods of the thesis. Then an introduction of the theoretical basis, saythe consumer behavior EKB model is given, followed by the theoretical deductionof the relation between consumer sophistication and brand loyalty; finally atheoretical model and relevant research hypothesis of the relation between the twoand are proposed. Then the paper proceeds to empirical research; the idea of thepaper is to build structural equation model base on the theory and then test it withfirst hand data collected through questionnaire survey. Therefore the paper firstdeveloped measuring scales for both consumer sophistication and brand loyalty withreference to existing study and with the consideration of the practice. Then aquestionnaire is developed with the assist of scholars from the relevant fields and isfurther purified and modified through small simple research. With modifiedquestionnaire available, the study is then able to conduct formal survey and largesimple research. Finally, a fitting test of the model to data is applied with theLISREL software, resulting in a model with high degree of fitting. As findings of the study, different aspects of consumer sophistication workdifferently on consumers’ attitudinal commitment and behavioral tendency of brandchoice. Specifically, Consumer Personality Traits Sophistication has positiveinfluence on Attitudinal Brand Loyalty; Consumer Needs RecognitionSophistication has positive influence on Behavioral Brand Loyalty; ConsumerProduct Recognition Sophistication has negative influence on Behavioral BrandLoyalty; all courses, different aspects of consumer sophistication affects each other;and Attitudinal Brand Loyalty works positively on Behavioral Brand Loyalty.