BRAND BUILDING IN ETHIOPIAN TRADITIONAL CLOTHING SECTOR: CHALLENGES AND PRACTICES

Abstract

Branding is a crucial component to enable clothing businesses to get an advantage over their competitors. This study is intended to assess the practice and the challenges of brand building in the Ethiopian traditional clothing sector. The objective of this research is to investigate how brand element selection and implementation are practiced, and the brand marketing mix programs and leveraging secondary association practices and challenges of the sector. The sample respondents were sellers and female buyers of traditional clothes located in Addis Ababa. A structured questionnaire was distributed to 385 sample respondents. However, the analysis was made based on the data collected from 356 respondents. The data is analyzed using SPSS software. The findings of the research clearly show that the practice of brand elements is very limited in the traditional cloth sector. Many of the sellers in the sector lacks proper branding of their products. Therefore, their marketing programs shall be differentiated to compete with broader textile industry and grow the subsector more competitive internationally. Besides, better understanding of branding can provide better foundation for developing a more effective marketing program.