Journal of Emerging Trends in Economics and Management Sciences: Home

Article Title:
CUSTOMER BRAND TRUST FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN THE 3RD WORLD: THE ROLE OF EMOTIONAL AND FUNCTIONAL BRAND ATTRIBUTES
by Alfred Atakora

Abstract:
A brand is the balance between the emotional and functional experiences a consumer has when they interact with a product or services. Functional attributes deals with how the brand functions such as current account-cheque book and other tangibles whilst the emotional attributes deals with how the client feels about the brands. Emotional brands focus on dialogue and on sharing, it's all about trusted relationship. The paper seeks to assess the impact of emotional and functional brand attributes such as brand trust and tangibility on customer loyalty, corporate performance and economic development in the 3rd world market like Ghana. The study employed quantitative research method where a total of five hundred and eight (508) questionnaires were distributed to the users of financial services brands in Kumasi, Ghana. The respondents were reached at the entrance of three financial services in Ghana from January 15 to February 15, 2014. The paper finds that brand trust has a direct positive impact on customer loyalty, corporate performance and economic development. The study also reveals a direct negative correlation between tangibility as functional brand attribute and corporate performance and customer loyalty. However, the statistical figures (? = .08; t = 1.421; p < .001) suggests that there is a possible asymmetry as a result of brand distrust in the financial services sector which do not have implications for corporate performance. The study finds no relationship between tangibility, economic development and customer loyalty

Keywords: emotional brand, functional brand, economic development, brand trust, tangibility

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