Evaluating the Effect of Brand Equity on Consumer Satisfaction and Brand Loyalty in Large Retails of the Mazandaran Province (Case Study: Food Products Industry)

Abstract

Brand names are among the highly influential factors of consumer behavior, so that consumers know it as an important component of the product. Companies that have a high position in terms of brand equity in the minds of customers can easily be deemed as profitable among other companies in their associated industry. In this study, using model of Jujang et al., that is inspired from the Aaker‘s model of brand equity, we examine the impact of dimensions of customer-based brand equity as the independent variable on consumer satisfaction and brand loyalty, and as the dependent variable in the Food Products Industry. In order to test this hypothesis, a questionnaire has been designed and distributed to 300 customers of big retails. For data analysis and hypotheses testing, structural equation modeling technique was used. The results show that a group of independent hypotheses considered by the researcher, including the ideal internal consistency, brand identity, and consistent of lifestyle, to an acceptable extent have a significant and direct impact on customer satisfaction, and hence, customer satisfaction will have a positive and significant effect on loyalty, too, but physical quality and staff behavior have no statistically significant relationship with customer satisfaction.