Volume 7, Issue 7, July – 2022 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology

ISSN No:-2456-2165

The Effect of Brand Awareness Used by FMCG’s

Manufacturers in Improving Support of Local
Products: A Zambian Perspective
Burton Mweemba1
ZCAS University, School of Business
Lusaka, Zambia. Boyd Longwe4
ZCAS University, School of Business
Professor Edwin Bbenkele2 Lusaka, Zambia.
ZCAS University, School of Business
Lusaka, Zambia. Windu Matoka5
ZCAS University, School of Business
Gwebente Mudenda3 Lusaka, Zambia.
ZCAS University, School of Social Sciences
Lusaka, Zambia.

Abstract:- Many countries have created buy local with this position on branding stating that a brand is anything
campaigns to encourage local customers to become that brings uniqueness to the product or service through a logo,
ethnocentric towards local brands. In order to enhance the name, signs, color, terms or designs that differentiates the
buy local campaign’s effectiveness, many countries have product from competitors. Branding builds an emotional
created a logo to be used by all campaign members. The connection between an organization and customers. Branding
motivation to develop buy local campaigns by many states has the ability to change the purchase intentions of customers
has been to improve the economies and create as it also fosters the emotional connection between the product
employment. Zambia unemployment rate has been on a and the customer. Aaker (1991[2]) states that brand equity is
rise at 20.17% in 2020, hence the need to improve local determined by how customers view a brand in terms of brand
brand advocacy. Quantitative research was conducted associations, brand loyalty, name recognition, perceived
which involved the sample size of 295, and the data was quality, and other proprietary brand assets.
collected using a questionnaire and data analysis was done
using SPSS to produce the descriptive information.  Problem Statement
The results indicate that many respondents were not aware The Zambian market are inundated with a mixture of
of the logo used by the buy local campaign, as there is more products from both local and international markets out of
than one logo used by the industry players. The results also which citizens are fronted with a challenge of choice as to
show that the majority of respondents prefer buying which product they would select at a particular time, and this
imported products other than the local FMCG’s. This is supposedly driven by patriotism, ethnocentrism and
therefore renders the branding strategy used by the buy intentionality. World Bank (2015[3]) states that a significant
local campaign ineffective. There is need for all industry number of FMCGs in Zambia are imported from other
players to use one logo as branding brings emotional countries such as South Africa (SA) and Zimbabwe. Further,
connection between the products and the customers. Ziba and Phiri (2017[4]) also posit that about 80% of FMCG’s
sold in Zambia, especially from one of the leading retail outlets
Keywords:- Branding, Brand equity, FMCG’s, Perceived like Shoprite Zambia, Pick N Pay are mainly imported from
quality, Positioning. South Africa. Faced with a heavy influx of imported products
from South Africa, branding is one of the important elements
I. INTRODUCTION that might influence the support of local FMCG’s. As Zambia
is importing 80% of FMCG’s, the rate of unemployment is
When evaluating the effectiveness of marketing arguably said to have reached an alarming level of 12.17% in
promotional tactics, branding is one of the factors taken into 2020, 13.20% in 2019 from 11.40% in 2018 (Zamstat,
account. With the passage of time, the definition of branding 2020[5]). The question is, how effective is the branding
has changed, including the understanding. Branding should be strategy used to support the buy local campaign in Zambia?
understood to be beyond just identifying and differentiating a
product or service from those of competitors. Weinewski  Objectives
(2011[1]) defines branding as all things that has to do with the  To identify the branding strategy used by manufacturers of
whole organization which includes the tangibles and FMCG’s in support of the buy local campaign.
intangible attributes of the firm. A brand could be everything
about an organization which can include the logo, the product,
the name, what the company believes in, what you say, what
you do and how the product looks like. Aaker (1991[2]) agrees

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Volume 7, Issue 7, July – 2022 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
 To establish the influence of branding strategy used by the B. The value of branding to customers
Proudly Zambian Campaign to attract support from local The perceived value of the brands by the targeted
consumers. consumers also influences the success of promotional efforts.
The notion of branding, according to Kotler and Keller
II. LITERATURE REVIEW (2016[9]), has the potential to effectively developing mental
structures that boost the consumer's ability to gather enough
De Charnatony, McDonald, & Wallace (2011[6]) brand information or knowledge about the items and services. When
is just a collection of emotional and functional values that clients have the ability to readily recognize their favorite
firms employ to develop their promises to customers about goods, De Charnatony, McDonald, & Wallace (2011[6])
what they are delivering and the distinctive experience they asserts that this minimizes the cost of searching and further
should have. Coleman (2011[7]) described branding as a eliminates the risks in the purchasing process.
concept that helps offer value to consumers through the
facilitation of reciprocal advantages between the buyer and the According to Chrostodoulides and De Chernatony
supplier, which is largely founded on passionate and (2009[10]), consumers of products usually identify with the
purposeful values. product's symbolic device, perceived quality, and function in
meeting the customer's wants. According to Chovanova,
According to Karan and Saydam (2015[8]) a brand Korshunov, and Barbcanova (2015[14]), branding serves as a
provides an emotional reason for why a consumer should buy memory cue for customers, allowing them to recall key
a certain product or service. According to Kotler and Keller information and make an informed purchase decision.
(2016[9]), a brand is all a product means to customers. As a According to Alizade, Hoseini, and Naiej (2014[15]) branding
result, a brand should refer to everything that adds value to as a concept also involves effective communication,
consumers. From the positive image built for the product value positioning, personality, and value identity. Allaway,
is built and this increases brand recall and hence brand loyalty. Huddlestone, Whipple , and Ellinger (2011[16]) suggest that
Ultimately from the brand associations made by consumers the information acquired could be about the customers' brand
this creates brand equity for the firm, employees and experience, brand association, and brand image. If a
consumers (Aaker, 1991[2]). corporation wants to succeed, especially in a competitive
business environment, it has been suggested that branding is
A. The logos as brand element used by manufacturers in the most crucial element of the business strategy Allaway,
support of buy-local campaigns Huddlestone, Whipple , and Ellinger (2011[16]).
According to Salehudin (2016[11]), buy local campaigns
in different nations have chosen different symbols. Customers C. Considering brand equity in the buy local campaign
will be able to relate to the brands more easily as a result of In all notable definitions, brand equity is thought to be a
this. This creates brand awareness and the needed brand recall. factor that contributes to increased profits, improved
As part of these campaigns, governments typically produced a communications, and brand expansion opportunities, as well
logo to show that a commodity is local to that country. The as enhancing consumers' preferences and intentions to buy a
logo is frequently encouraged to be used on products by local specific product, which affects customer loyalty Allaway,
businesses (Saffu, Walker, and Mazurek (2010[12]). Huddlestone, Whipple , and Ellinger (2011[16]). According to
Chrostodoulides and De Chernatony (2009[10]) the idea of
According to Alter, Bridger, and Frumento (2012[13]), brand equity covers how customers think, feel, and react to
manufacturers are expected to support purchase local brand messages such as price, product or brand needs, product
initiatives by utilizing the agreed-upon logo to help local profitability, customer base, and market share.
businesses thrive. Here are some logos that have been used in
purchase local campaigns (Indonesia, Australia, United D. Customers and company brand equity
Kingdom, South Africa, and Zimbabwe). Aaker (1991[2]) suggests that there are three types of
brand equity namely, consumer based brand equity, employee
based brand equity and firm based brand equity. Researchers
have mostly examined and analyzed brand equity from two
perspectives: customer brand equity and corporate brand
equity perspectives Chrostodoulides and De Chernatony
(2009[10]). Customer-based brand equity, as espoused by
Chrostodoulides and De Chernatony (2009[10]) is based on
customers' perceptions of the value they receive from the
brand, whereas firm-based brand equity is based on the firm's
capacity to influence product demand, grow market shares,
and profitability. Keller (2013[17]) posits that the customer-
based brand equity method, measures customers' thinking,
brand image, how they perceive the brand, beliefs, and how
they feel about the brand, as well as how they react to brand
Fig 1 communications.

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Volume 7, Issue 7, July – 2022 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
Chinomona and Maziriri (2017[18]) conducted a study in determinants of consumer brand success. With the
South Africa, and discovered that brand trust, familiarity, and achievement of this success the resulting brand loyalty would
experience had a favorable effect on customer brand create value for the firms in terms of profitability. Huang and
attachment, which enhanced the support of the proudly South Sarigollu (2012[25]), investigated how brand awareness
African campaign. According to Laforet (2010[19]), today's connects to market result, brand equity, and the marketing mix
customers don't consume or buy products but buy brands, and in their study by combining survey data with real-market data.
this ranges from convenience products to high involvement As a measure of brand market performance, the study looked
products like clothing. Roustasekehravani and Hamid at increases in brand sales and market share. To see if brand
(2014[20]) postulate that if brands are well managed, a firm's awareness is an antecedent of market outcome, the researchers
market share and profitability would improve. utilized regression and cross-prediction studies. According to
Huang and Sarigollu (2012[25]), study, they found that brand
Hence, a well-executed Buy Local campaign, such as the awareness and brand market performance are linked. This
Proudly Zambian campaign, would increase brand trust and would suggest that if the Zambia Buy Local Campaigns are
familiarity in the local market. This would result into increased successful the market demand for local products would be high
demand for the local products thereby sustaining and that is the ultimate goal of these campaigns.
manufacturing and contributing to employment creation.
Customers who are made loyal to a brand as a consequence of Kim and Kim, (2013[29]) found that brand awareness
effective branding are always willing to spend more because has a positive relationship with market performance in the
of the company's trust and quality Ahmed, Rizwan, Ahmad, hotel industry, and that substantial differences in brand
and Haq (2014[21]). awareness exist between high and low market performance
hotels in other similar studies of the relationship between
E. Buy local campaign brand awareness brand awareness and brand performance. Baldauf, Cravens,
Brand recognition is the most important and first feature and Binder, 2013[30]) investigated the impact of brand equity
of consumer brand equity, and it is frequently overlooked as a management on the tile industry's sales and profit performance
component of brand equity Tong and Hawley (2009[22]). It's results in another study. The study discovered a substantial
a key indicator of a customer's brand awareness, the frequency link between brand awareness and brand sales and
with which the brand appears in their minds, and the ease with profitability. Many researchers have studied the impact of
which that knowledge may be recalled from memory branding on customer purchase intention in other countries
(O’Guinn, Allen, and Semenik, 2009[23]). If consumers are such as Ghana and South Africa (Darku and Akpan, 2020[27]).
aware of a company's product or service, they are more likely However, there is still a gap in knowledge as branding used by
to accept its presence and availability (Mowen and Minor, the buy local campaign is yet to be appreciated in Zambia.
2011[24]). According to Huang and Sarigollu (2012[25]),
brand recognition comes before brand equity in the III. METHODOLOGY
perspective of customers.
Langos (2004[31]) defined methodology as the structure
There are two types of brand awareness: aided or assisted related with a specific arrangement of paradigmatic
awareness and top of mind awareness (Farris, Bendle, Pfeifer, suppositions that one uses to conduct a study, for example, the
and Reibstein, 2010[26]). When a customer is presented a scientific method, ethnography and activity research. For this
variety of brand names and must choose one from a list, aided study, the researcher used a survey. According to Check and
recognition occurs, whereas 'top of mind awareness' occurs Schutt (2012[32]), survey research is the collection of
when the brand name is immediately recognized since the information from a sample of individuals gotten from a large
consumer easily correlates the brand with the product category population. For this study, the population of interest was the
Keller (2013[17]). consumers of FMCG’s in Lusaka. The questionnaire was used
to collect the data. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS to
Despite the fact that individuals in Ghana did not seem come up with descriptive information.
to be as aware of the local campaign (branding) as they did in
South Africa, Darku and Akpan (2020[27]) discovered that the A. Sampling Strategy
Ghanaian campaign was more popular. On a scale of "strongly Sampling is a process of choosing a representative group
agree" to "strongly disagree," respondents were asked to rate of people or items from the population of interest in order to
their level of awareness, with lower mean scores indicating generalize the findings (Etikan and Bala, 2017[33]). For this
higher awareness. The average awareness score in both study, the researcher used probability (systematic) sampling
campaigns was 3.14. South Africa had a lower awareness level method, of which quantitative data was collected from
than the rest of the world (2.18), whereas Ghana had a higher consumers of FMCG’s in Lusaka District of Zambia. The
awareness level (4.05). sample involved 295 respondents.

F. Brand awareness and brand performance in the market

Kilei, Iravo, and Omwenga (2016[28]) investigated the
impact of brand awareness on product and service market
brand performance. Brand recall and brand recognition were
found to be positively and significantly related, suggesting that
brand recall and overall brand knowledge are critical

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Volume 7, Issue 7, July – 2022 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
IV. DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS V. CONCLUSION

A. The FMCG’s customers prefer According to the findings, the respondents were unaware
of the campaign's branding strategy. Many respondents
Table 1: Brand Preferences (48.6%) expressed a lack of knowledge about the logo brand
element used in the buy local campaign used in Zambia. Local
campaigns in different countries have adopted different
symbols Salehudin (2016[11]). Customers will be able to
easily relate to the brands as a result of this. MCTI (2018[35])
states that more than one logo has been used as an identifier in
support of the buy local campaign.

Table 1 above shows the descriptive statistics on which

FMCG’s the consumers buy the most. 61 out of 292
respondents representing 20.9% prefer buying local brands
and 231 out of 292 respondents representing 79.1% prefer
buying foreign or imported FMCG’s. According to the study
by Van den Berg (2017[34]) in South Africa, 24% of the
respondents strongly disagreed to a statement that buying
foreign brands is un- South African, 38% disagreed and 24% Fig 2: Logos for Buy local in Zambia
neither disagreed nor agreed. Both studies seem to show that
consumers in both countries support imported brands as According to Darku and Apkan (2020[27]), the buy
compared to local FMCG products. South African campaign adopted only one logo that it is
associated with. The usage of a well-known logo makes it
B. Branding strategy (Logo) used to support the the buy local easier for buyers to recognize and recall the products and
campaign would easily help customers become ethnocentric
(Chovanova, Korshunov, and Barbcanova, 2015[14]). The
Table 2: Logo used for branding usage of a logo help to strengthen the campaign's
identification. The logos used by industry players in Zambia
as evidenced by figure 2 above where there is more than one
logo might be confusing to local buyers. The industry players
should begin using the one agreed logo in support of the buy
local campaign. Results indicate that the majority of
respondents have challenges recognizing the logo used to
support the campaign, therefore, this confirms that the
branding strategy is not effective.

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