MKT202: Brand Personality Impacts on Customer Buying Decisions

This assignment examines the impact of brand personality on consumer buying decisions within the fashion industry, using Marks & Spencer as a case study. The study aims to determine how brand personality influences purchasing power, identify key elements of brand personality, and recommend strategies for improvement. A quantitative survey with 200 respondents was conducted, utilizing both open-ended and close-ended questions, and analyzed using a Likert Scale. The questionnaire, included in the assignment, explores consumer experiences, brand perceptions, and the influence of factors like celebrity endorsements on buying behavior. The research investigates brand personality's impact on competitiveness and suggests customer need interventions to address branding issues. The assignment includes an introduction, a literature review, survey questionnaire design, and the questionnaire itself, designed to gather data on consumer perceptions and preferences related to the brand personality of Marks & Spencer.

THE IMPACTS OF BRAND PERSONALITY ON THE CUSTOMERS 1
THE IMPACTS OF BRAND PERSONALITY ON THE CUSTOMERS
Student’s Name
Code + Course Name
Professor’s Name
University Name
City, State
Date

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The Impacts of Brand Personality on the Customers
This study seeks to investigate how the brand personality impacts the consumers buying
decisions in a fashion industry. The fashion industry is a competitive industry and for a business
to survive it has to develop a strong branding strategy. A business in the fashion industry will
have to spend adequate time to analyze and plan on how to brand its products in order to
establish excellent relationships with the target market. To succeed in all this, a fashion company
will have to carry out brand management in an exclusive way. Hudson (2015.pg.68) asserts that
brand management is essential in any business because it helps that business to attain the
attention of both potential and existing customers through emotional brand attachment. Thus, this
research, will use the “a case study of Marks & Spencer” a company in the fashion industry to
evaluate brand management. The primary reason for choosing the fashion industry is because of
the ever-increasing competition among different fashion brands.
In “a case study of Marks & Spencer” brand management will be looked into through the
lens of brand personality. Brand personality has been defined by researchers and scholars as a set
of human characteristics associated with a brand name (Ferrandi, Valette-Florence & Fine-Falcy,
2015, p.8)). A brand personality ought to be something consumers can easily identify with. This
research will then focus on investigating if brand personality can influence the buying decisions
of consumers. To have the research question answered adequately, the researchers will have to
stick to the research objectives.
The first research objective seeks to determine how the brand personality impacts the
purchasing power of consumers in Marks & Spencer organization. Second, the research seeks to
highlight the brand personality key elements before highlighting the factors that affect the
purchasing power of consumers by examining the literature review. The research will then

THE IMPACTS OF BRAND PERSONALITY ON THE CUSTOMERS 3
conclude by recommending effective strategies that are of the essence regarding the
improvement of the company’s personality in the modern industry. To attain these objectives, a
quantitative survey was carried out to capture the data of the consumers that are relevant to
addressing the aforementioned research objectives.
The survey questionnaire design approach was chosen to address the research question
and meet the research objectives. The quantitative survey was chosen because it provides
quantitative data. This research to a considerable level will be quantified and that is what the
quantitative survey relevant to it. The survey has also been chosen because it will help the
research to gain a detailed insight into the research question (Rauschnabel, 2016.p.3077). The
survey allows the researcher to determine the cause and the effect of the relationship between
brand personality and the consumer’s purchasing power quantitatively.
For the purpose of the research, the quantitative survey will have to take four weeks to
give respondents adequate time to respond to all questions. In addition, the research will only
recruit 200 respondents, which is a considerable sample size. Notably, in the UK where the study
was carried out, fashion is associated with professionals (Sundar, 2016.p.44). Therefore, the
study will include respondents that are informed and professionals. However, the study will use
both open-ended and close-ended questions. In open-ended questions, we believe that our
respondents are educated and professional people who have the ability to express their views or
answers objectively. Besides, close-ended questions will be used to allow the researchers analyze
the results on the scale quantitatively. Hence, the scale that will be employed to analyze the data
will be Likert Scale. This scale will be used because it will allow the researcher to rate the
customer satisfaction, perception and brand loyalty.

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QUESTIONNAIRES FOR ALL MARKS & SPENCER CUSTOMERS
NAME: __________________________ SEX ___________________ DATE: ___/___/___
ADDRESS: ___________________________________________________________________
TELEPHONE: _______________ COMPANY WORKING FOR: _______
The instructions of the interviewer in this survey include; locating the respondents, motivating
them to give independent and honest answers. We are open to the respondents and will be ready
to clarifying some concerns that the respondent might have.
Please respond to the following questions by explaining vividly below every question.
1. Is Marks and Spencer company your primary fashion shopper…………….why………….
…………………….
2. How often do you shop with Marks and Spencer Company in a month……………..
(Tick)
Frequent
Very
frequent
Not
Sure
3. Which of Marks and Spencer stores do you usually go shopping…………………
4. What do you shop most in Marks and Spencer company
A. Baby wear

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B. Men’s wear
C. Range of assortments.
5. What is your general experience of shopping with Marks and Spencer company
…………………………………….
6. Does celebrity endorsement Marks and Spencer company influence your buying
decisions.
Explain
A. Yes.
B. No
C. Not sure
7. Can you compare your current experience of shopping with Marks and spencer with the
experience of shopping with the same company three years ago ............................which
one was better…………. ………………….And why………………………
8. Based on your experience above, do you still prefer to shop with Marks and Spencer
company………...if no, where does you shop now and Why………..
9. If you are not shopping with Marks and Spencer currently, what will you advice the
management of this company to copy from their competitors that you are shopping
with……………….
10. What is your overall rating of the company (excellent, good, fair, poor, no comment)
A. Excellent B. Good C. Fair D. Poor
E. Not sure

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11. How many people have you shared your experience about Marks and Spencer
with……… did they agree or disagree with you………….
12. Since you started shopping with Marks and spencer company do their products respond
to your needs………….. If no, why……….. And what do you think should be done for
the company to respond to your needs……………
13. The branding personality of Marks and Spencer is
A. Very Strong B. Strong C. Weak D. Fair
14. Based on your answer above, what in your opinion is affecting the brand of the
company………… and what should be done to rectify that………………
15. Do you feel that the branding of the company motivates you to shop or not to shop with
them………….
16. How will you help marks and spencer company rebrand if your hired by the company
today
17. According to you what are some of factors that motivated or demoralized you from
shopping with Marks and spencer company……………….
18. In your opinion, does the branding personality of marks and Spencer company make it
more competitive or less competitive in the market……………why…………
19. Based on you’re the answers you have given above, do you feel it’s right for marks and
Spencer to develop a customer need intervention to address their branding
personality…………..why……………..
I have read the above questions and the answers I have given are to the best of my
knowledge
Name……………………………….. Sign…………………………..

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References
Ferrandi, J. M., Valette-Florence, P., & Fine-Falcy, S. (2015). Aaker’s brand personality scale in
a French context: a replication and a preliminary test of its validity. In Proceedings of
the 2000 academy of marketing science (AMS) annual conference (pp. 7-13). Springer,
Cham.
Hudson, S., Roth, M.S., Madden, T.J. and Hudson, R., 2015. The effects of social media on
emotions, brand relationship quality, and word of mouth: An empirical study of music
festival attendees. Tourism Management, 47, pp.68-76.
Rauschnabel, P.A., Krey, N., Babin, B.J. and Ivens, B.S., 2016. Brand management in higher
education: the university brand personality scale. Journal of Business Research, 69(8),
pp.3077-3086.
Sundar, A. and Noseworthy, T.J., 2016. Too exciting to fail, too sincere to succeed: The effects of
brand personality on sensory disconfirmation. Journal of Consumer Research, 43(1),
pp.44-67.