THE EFFECT OF BRAND PERSONALITY ON ATTITUDINAL AND BEHAVIORAL LOYALTY IN THE CASE OF CASTEL WINERY S.C., ADDIS ABABA

Abstract

Brand personality involves attributing human characteristics to the brand, and is a way to create uniqueness by reinforcing those human psychological values to which consumers relate, beyond mere performance and functionality. The aim of this study is to investigating the effect of brand personality on the effect of attitudinal and behavioral loyalty in the case of Castel Winery S.C., Addis Ababa. Quantitative research approach with explanatory research design were applied to address the objectives of the study. The survey is conducted on Castel wine product consumers in Addis Ababa. Conveniece sampling technique was adopted to select sample respondnets and standardized self-administered questionnaires were used to collect the primary data. A total of 331 respondent answers and usable reponses were collected and used for analyis with the help of SPSS software. Thus a results of the findings show that the overall brand personality dimensions accounted for 77.9% and 81.4% of variation in customer attitudinal and behavioral loyalty respectively. The five dimensions of brand personality namely sophistication, excitement, competence, sincerity and ruggedness affected both behavioral and attitudinal loyalty of Castel wine customers. Excitement had relatively the strongest effect (B= .552) followed by sincerity (B= .309) on behavioral loyalty. Whereas, ruggedness showed very weak effect (B= .031). Whereas, sincerity (B= .404) and sophestication (B= .334) had the strongest effect on attitudinal loyalty. Despite the weakest influence of ruggedness on both types of loyalty, the other four personality traits are good predictors of customer loyalty towards Castel wine brands. Behavioral loyalty, in this case, escalates more if excitement and sincerity traits of castel wine brand improved by the company. Same token, sincerity and sophistication played more role in improving attitudinal loyalty of the customers.