Effects of Brand Trust, Brand Identification and Quality of Service on Brand Evangelism: A Study of Restaurants in Multan

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate how customer-band relationships and quality of service influences brand evangelism. And more importantly, this study examines the moderating effect of the brand love on brand trust, quality of service, brand identification and brand evangelism relations. Brand evangelism mends to customers’ advocacy behaviour and positive or negative word-of-mouth (for a particular brand) that influence the purchase decision. Based on the prior studies conducted on the brand relationships, an integrated conceptual framework on consumer-brand relationships, quality of service and brand evangelism is developed. The snowball sampling technique was employed in this study, and the sample drawn was consisted of 400 brand conscious customers of the different restaurants serving in Multan. The sample was focused on the salaried class, working at different organizations in Multan only. For more robust testing of the theory, brand love was included as a moderating variable. For testing of the moderation effect Process by Andrew F. Hayes was used with the assistance of SPSS version 23. Research findings revealed that the impacts of the brand trust, quality of service and brand identification on brand evangelism are significant. And brand love as a moderating variable moderate the relationships between brand trust, quality of service, brand identification and brand evangelism. The mindsets of the today customers are changing, and they are getting more brand conscious, they love to share their good and bad experience about the different brands that exist in the market. Today, it is very important for brand managers to know the feelings of the customers about their brands. This study suggests the brands to cultivate brand trust, quality in their services, brand identification and brand love in their service for longer standing in diversifying the market. Brand evangelism is not an old construct, especially, it is new for the graphical location where we are conducting this study, because there is no similar study available here. This study is only focused on the restaurants in Multan, other geographical locations or industries (e.g. beverage industry, cellular operators, electronics etc.) may be used to more clearly understand the brand evangelism construct. Also, comparative studies can be performed to compare the brand evangelism level in customers of a specific at different graphical location markets. This study takes brand customers as brand evangelists but persons from sales department workforce may also be considered as a brand evangelist, because evangelism may also reside there.