Whether Consumers are Loyal to the Product Depending on the Area of Behavior

Brand Origin Knowledge or BoK is a term used to see if the customers can identify the product’s origin. It’s an important term in Consumer Behavior and is used to learn if the consumers are loyal towards a product based on its origin. If we specifically look at the “2016 Ranking of Top 100 Brand”, we can see that 5 out of the first 10 big brands comes under technology department. This shows how the category of technology is evolving in the 21st century.

It is true that big brands in the automotive sector emerge largely in Western Europe. Looking at the top 100 brands, we can notice a pattern that big names in the automotive sector such as Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Porsche, Volkswagen, Land Rover, and MINI all are based in Western Europe, with majority of these companies headquartered in Germany.

On the other hand, if we bring technology sector into consideration, major brands emerge mostly in the United States. So, it all depends on a specific product category. Using the table, I decided to test the BoK level of different people. Following is my short reflection about it. As the book says, that BoK understanding varies from consumer to consumer, it also depends on the age, and on the location of the person. I asked one of my friends, who is in high school about the top 10 big brands, and to my surprise he got all of them right except the brand Coca Cola. I brought up this topic in front of an international student on campus, and he knew very little about all this. He guessed most of the times, and the ones that he got right were mostly the technology sector. I moved on and asked my cousin who is a lawyer and lives in Indianapolis.

He had a good knowledge about the automotive and technology sector, but other than that he got everything wrong. A few days back, I called back home and asked my mother about all these companies, and she was guessing all the time, and when I told her that most of the automotive companies are based in Europe; she was surprised. She thought that America manufactures all the cars. At the very end, I asked my young cousin who is in middle school about all these brands, and I was very surprised at his answers. He knew a lot about categories of retail, luxury, and sporting goods. From all this, I noticed that people raised in the U.S. have a higher understanding of BoK than their international counterparts. Also, I noticed that people who are older have very less understanding of BoK, as compared to the younger ones. Another pattern that I noticed, is that education plays an important factor in a person’s understanding of BoK.

References

1. Interbrand. “Best Brands.” Interbrand, www.interbrand.com/best-brands/best-global-brands/2016/ranking/#?listFormat=ls.
2. Babin, Barry J., and Eric G. Harris. CB8. Cengage Learning, 2018.

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