Keyword

Aaker; Branding; Brand personality dimensions; Brand personality scale; Kenya; Scale validation

Abstract

Branding and brand personality have become major areas of interest for marketing strategists and academicians. This has, in turn, led to an interest in determining ways to judge brands’ own personality and the implications for these in the market. In 1997, Jennifer Aaker developed a brand personality scale which identified five key brand dimensions. Her study was conducted in the U.S., and since then researchers have assessed the reliability, validity, and dimensionality of her scale in different parts of the world. There has however been a paucity of studies in Africa, including Kenya, that focus on validating Aaker’s brand personality scale. This study was centered on assessing the reliability, validity, and dimensionality of the brand personality scale in Kenya, a developing country. In doing so, data was gathered from customers of Safaricom, a mobile phone service provider. The sample for this study was drawn from both undergraduate and graduate students at the United States International University—Africa. The data collection instrument was an adaptation of Aaker’s brand personality scale, with 42 items. Altogether, 211 completed questionnaires were used in the final analysis. Cronbach’s Alpha values of each construct confirmed that good reliability exists with the data. Principle component analysis was employed to determine the important factors of brand personality. As opposed to the 42 items in the Aaker scale, only 22 were found to satisfy requirements, and 20 items were therefore discarded. Seven dimensions were identified through the CFA, as opposed to the five by Aaker. A structural equation model was developed showing the relationships between the seven dimensions and brand personality, and all the seven were significant. Safaricom brand personality was identified as excitement by consumers after the regression path coefficient.


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