The role of brand trust on brand loyalty : a study on Maltese diaper users

Abstract

The scope of this study is set to determine the relationship between two important contracts in Marketing, brand trust and the different stages of attitudinal brand loyalty (cognitive, affective and conative). The trust-brand loyalty relationship is also tested against the influence of store location, price, pack size and premium brand name. Existing literature about these two constructs, especially on the brand loyalty side, was not complete. Most authors compare one of the stages of brand loyalty to some of the trust components. The nature of this research justified a positivist approach where data was collected through an online questionnaire. The survey was administered to diaper users located in Malta, to which 401 individuals replied over a period of one month. The data was then interpreted through a series of descriptive and multivariate analyses. Results suggest a strong relationship between brand trust and all three stages of brand loyalty, the strongest one being with cognitive, followed by affective and conative loyalty. Price and premium brand name variables resulted in a moderate influence on the trust-brand loyalty relationship. Indicating that when trust is low, customers are likely to opt for cheaper and/or more premium brands. The influence of store location and pack size is slightly more when trust is low than when it is high. These findings suggest that organisations should concentrate on promoting customers to the highest levels of brand loyalty at which level customers are less price sensitive and more committed. This effort should be done on an on-going basis to retain customers and recruit new ones to replace the ones that stopped diapering.