Measuring Brand Loyalty of Automobile Users in Virtual Brand Communities (of Pakistan)

Abstract

The aim of this study was to measure the brand loyalty of automobile users in virtual brand communities of Pakistan. For this reason, a quantitative approach was chosen to conduct a survey within the virtual community of a popular social media network called Facebook. The top members from the community were chosen to answer the questions based on the social identity theory, the independent variables were brand community identification and consumer brand engagement, whereas the dependent variables were brand loyalty, and to check the relationship between the independent and the dependent variables, a moderator was chosen which was word of mouth. The industry chosen was the automobile industry of Pakistan, of which top three automakers, Toyota, Honda and Suzuki were chosen. A total of 144 surveys were sent out to each top fan member, and 125 were received back. The findings supported it was found that constant consumer brand engagement in a virtual environment where the users identify with the social aspect of the brand in the light of social identity theory, do tend to become brand loyal. The study was part of MS degree, so the time frame was four months and the project were selffinanced, so larger sample size was not possible. The study contributes to the literature pertaining to the brand loyalty aspect of virtual brand community’s interaction between users and it would greatly benefit automobile manufacturer’s top management to make better decisions regarding what the customers need and want from the brand