Proceedings of Applied International Business Conference 2008 BRANDING IN THE CHOICE OF PROPERTY PURCHASE IN MALAYSIA Cheng Fan Fah a, Jason Cheok b, ψ and Liew Yoke Ying b a b University Putra Malaysi, Malaysia Sunway University College, Malaysia Abstract The new purchasers of properties are more sophisticated now. They are looking for living environments of the 21st century with new standards in comfort and design. The new generation likes modern homes that allow the best of man's technology to work harmoniously with nature. Modern townships that are planned to be efficient and structured for the future with superb linkages and state-of-the-art support to create effective business environments are the latest trends in property development. This paper is to study the brand consciousness of property purchasers toward the property developers in Malaysia as a developing country. This study used survey of purchasers in Klang Valley and tested the brand awareness and the brand personality trait of property developers using a 5-point Likert scale. A total of 5000 questionnaires were distributed and only 214 were usable for this study. The results show that property purchasers are brand conscious about the property developers and they ranked developers based on the brand personalities. Property purchasers ranked trend, professionalism and investment as the top three priorities in the property brand personalities. Keywords: Branding; Property purchase; Brand consciousness; Brand personality; Purchaser attitudes. JEL Classification Codes: M3; M31. 1. Introduction The theory on Branding was first introduced in marketing of the consumer products sector in the 1990’s. In the past few decades, branding has become increasingly popular as a main strategic tool to differentiate products from those of its competitors. Branding has impacted the way marketers do marketing as well as designing and conceptualizing their products. More and more companies are doing market research to help them address the branding issue correctly (Clegg, 2007). The real estate property sector has not been spared from the branding phenomena either. This literature review seeks to research the role that branding plays in affecting buyers purchasing decision of products in general and properties in particular. In conducting the research, several characteristics of branding will be identified in the questionnaire survey methodology. The association and reaction of property purchase towards these brand characteristics will then be examined. Asian consumers can cite the names of no less than twenty five brands within seconds. Brands like CocaCola, Nokia, Sony, Toyota, Shell, Colgate, Rolex, Nestle, to name a few, have influenced consumer behavior consciously and unconsciously (Batey, 2002). The reason they remain so vividly in consumers’ minds is perhaps the constant effort these companies put in to fight for the mind space. Temporal (2000) has written on how strategic communication via promotion, advertising, packaging and communication can help in brand building. For example, through creative product design, attractive packaging, persistent good quality together with constant advertisements, top brands have managed to establish a memorable brand position in our minds. Torsten (1998) in his book Competitive Branding has defined brand as a symbol with tremendous potential. Other authors have linked attributes, actions and emotions to branding. Ellwood illustrated branding ψ Corresponding author. Jason Cheok. Sunway University College, Victoria University External Programme, No 5, Jalan University, Bandar Sunway, 46150 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia. Email: [email protected]. Proceedings of Applied International Business Conference 2008 cleverly: ‘The brand therefore acts as a kind of flag, waving to consumers, creating awareness of the product and differentiating it from other competitors’. He has also gone to the extent of humanizing and personalizing branding. In his concept, branding possesses DNA blueprint, personality, value, experience and identity (Ellwood, 2002). Similarly, many experts in the field of branding have used this persona approach in understanding the study of branding (Morrow, 2007). Psychologically, consumers’ knowledge and understanding of products are based on schema, which are a set of associations linked to concepts. With branding, consumers link schemas through the brand’s personality (Hoyer, 2004). Perhaps the most popular branding personality study was conducted by Aaker in 1997. She identified five main personality characteristics for brands. They are: Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication and Ruggedness (Aaker, 1997). These main personalities are further subdivided by several attributes. For example, the terms ‘honest’, ‘wholesome’ and ‘cheerful’ are used in associate with Sincerity. ‘Reliable’, ‘intelligent’ and ‘successful’ are used to describe Competence. Sophistication is linked with upper class and charm, while ‘daring’ and ‘imaginative’ are used to describe Excitement. (Hoyer, 2004) Therefore, this paper is to study the brand consciousness of property purchasers in Malaysia. The findings will resolve the issue of whether the property purchasers go to these property developers for brand or for other factors with the products and services offered by these developers. Therefore, this study will extend the other studies in the develop countries on branding and find that their results can be generalized to Malaysia. The rest of the paper is organised as follows. A review of the relevant literature is given in Section 2. Section 3 outlines the objective and section 4 discusses data, hypotheses, and methodology. The findings are presented and discussed in Section 5. Section 6 concludes the paper. 2. Literature review Branding can be measured by brand success and this can be conducted/ performed through both quantitative and qualitative methods (Temporal, 2001). The latter has received greater emphasis as it provides more comprehensive information compared to quantitative method in the understanding of brand success. Quantitative methods usually provide us with an indication of the value related to branding. CocaCola, for example, has a brand value of approximately 48,000 million USD compared to Pepsi which has a brand value of approximately 8200 million USD (Buchholz, 2000). The numbers, however, are just figures representing the brand can vendetta market share of the soft drinks giants. In contrast, the qualitative measurement of branding is more significant in the current environment as it focuses on two major factors: brand awareness and brand association (Temporal, 2001). These two factors provide better understanding on the relation of consumer towards the branding of a company. Bu knowing the relationship, a company can seek to establish favorable brand position in its consumers’ minds through brand awareness and association as it would eventually translate into preference for that brand over those of the competitors (Ford, 2005). Successful branding position in the mind of consumers could bring potential benefit in the future. The qualitative measure based on brand awareness and brand recognition will be utilized in this research. Several methods are available in the pursuit of qualitative measurement of brand. One could use a set of defined metrics to measure branding. Davies (2002) has suggested that there are three categories of qualitative metrics: Pre-purchase, Purchase and Post-purchase. Under each category, the sub metrics could be brand recognition, brand consciousness, brand awareness (for Pre-purchase), brand preference, brand association, brand credibility (for Purchase), and brand satisfaction (for Post-purchase). According to Davies (2002), increased customer recognition of brand would help to measure the particular brand recognition magnitude. Increase customers’ preference over other options would help measure the brand preference. Whereas branding in consumer products market especially in the Fast Moving Consumers Products (FMCP) is more dominant and well established, branding in real estate property market is considerably new. Nevertheless, branding in property development is not unheard of. In fact, it is catching up at a very fast speed. Globally, notable property developer like Nakheel’s has placed great emphasis in branding their 28 Proceedings of Applied International Business Conference 2008 Palm Jebel Ali Resort project in Dubai. So much so that they have established a special branding department dedicated to branding the project on site. Other more significant global projects include the Dongtan located near Shanghai and the New Songdo City in Korea has also integrated branding into their marketing (Walsh, 2006). Branding has also impacted real estate sales agents. Increasingly, more calls are being made to have real estate sales agents “brand” themselves (Fishwick, 2005). The academic study in regards to branding impact on property market is limited. One of the earlier studies on project branding was by Ashworth and Voogd (1990). They suggested that geographical marketing mix is different from the traditional business marketing mix. Geographical marketing mixes defined by them are a) promotional measures, b) spatial-functional measures c) organizational measures and d) financial measures. The scope and effectiveness of property marketing is largely determined by selection and application of the appropriate combination of these measures. Viitanen (2004) has identified four factors of real estate brand, i.e. the images evoked by the real estate, the premises themselves, their physical and operational functionality and the performance. These four factors formed the basis by which a purchaser evaluates the branding of the developer. He has stressed that building and implementing a brand is a strategic matter for each developer. A wider view by Hankinson (2004) offered four branding perspectives on place branding management. He suggested brands as perceptual entities, brands as communicators, brands as relationships and brands as value enhancers. Kavaratzis (2005) in his explanation of place marketing theory suggests that place/property branding is a complex subject. He has classified the trends of place/property branding into five major branding strategies that a developer can adopt. The first is the place of origin branding, secondly the nation branding, followed by the culture/entertainment branding, destination branding and lastly place/city branding. He has also added the relevance of corporate branding that affects the overall branding of the property that is to be developed by each developer. The brand is communicated effectively through many other strategies that a developer has adopted. The primary communication to form a brand will include the landscaping/amenities strategies, the infrastructure of the project being built, the organizational and administration structure of the developer and finally the project behavior that encompasses the project vision and financial incentive provided. The secondary communication strategies on brand building are like all forms of advertising, public relations, graphic design, the use of logo and so forth. 3. Objective The objective of this study is to test the effect of branding in property sector. The starting points of property branding are brand awareness follow by brand personality test. The approach used in this study is through development of a model using several metrics to test the qualitative aspect of branding through Brand Awareness (consciousness) and Brand Differences (familiarity). The questions were divided into two main sections: Brand awareness (brand consciousness) and brand differences via brand personality comparison. Brand personality model in the study of branding has been widely used. The model involves assigning human personalities to the subject (in this case, property developers). Here, the developers were humanized, personalized or characterized in order for respondents to express their brand association with the particular developers. For example, personality such as Sincerity, Excitement, Sophistication, and Competence were used to express or associate the property brand. This result will enable the “measurement” or categorizing of branding to be made to the various developers. Based on the survey, the result could provide some marketing implications to property developers on how the targeted property purchasers position and associate their brands. 4. Methodology Survey development In order to study the role of branding on property purchase, a quantitative research method using questionnaire was employed in July 2007. The questionnaire was divided into several sections that include components determining: demographics of respondents, purchasing preference, awareness in branding and characteristics of branding. A pre-testing of the questionnaire was conducted through a convenience sample with 22 respondents in May. On the basis of the pre-test response several changes were made. For example, a common feedback was the clarity on terminology of the questions in relation to branding characteristics. As a result, a short briefing on why branding was measured through branding 29 Proceedings of Applied International Business Conference 2008 characteristics was provided in the introduction. In addition, the branding characteristics were rephrased to reflect local understanding. Table 1: Survey location Location Ampang Bangsar Damansara Mont Kiara Bukit Pantai Petaling Jaya Subang Jaya Sunway Taman Tun Bandar Utama Total Number responded 22 11 28 14 5 42 41 26 13 12 214 % of total 10 5 13 6 2 20 20 12 6 6 100 Nine upper medium income locations around the Klang Valley and metropolitan Kuala Lumpur were selected for the survey (refer to Table 1). Within the selected location, an array of property types was chosen that includes semi-detached house, terrace linked double storey house, bungalow, condominium, apartment, townhouse and single story linked house. The location and property type was chosen to reflect the targeted survey respondents, in this case: male or female above 25 years old with monthly family income above RM 5000. In all, a total of 5000 questionnaires with self-reply envelopes were distributed in the selected location. The respondents were given two weeks to complete the survey. Finally, 214 (4.6 %) valid responses were received and used as the sample base for analysis. 5. Research results Respondents’ demographics Of the 214 respondents, 116 or 54% were male and 46 percent were female. Given the location, not surprisingly, a majority of the respondents stated they had received at least some level of tertiary education. More than seventy percent were married and out of this group, more than half of them indicated that they have an average of two children in the family. In terms of household income, on the average, the married group reported a combined monthly income between RM 5000 to RM 10,000; whereas the single group reporting an average monthly income of RM 5,000. In term of ethnicity, majority or about sixty six percent of the respondents were Chinese, Malay (17 percent) and Indian (17 percent) as shown in Table 2. Almost all the respondents were Malaysian with less than three percent were foreigners. The highest response from the survey comes from the Klang Valley suburb of Petaling Jaya and Subang Jaya vicinity (combine total of 83%) as compared to KL Metropolitan. Less than twenty percent of the respondents reside in KL responded to the survey (refer to Table 1). As for property type, less than thirty percent of the respondents live in condominium or apartments. Majority of them lives in landed property such as double story link house with an average build up of 2500 square foot. Seventy five percent of them have purchased or were owner of the property with the rest renting the premises. Of all the respondents who own property, forty percent of them paid less than RM 200,000 purchasing price for their property. The rest, about thirty five percent paid more than RM 300,000 purchase price for their property and less than five percent has indicated owning property that cost more than one million ringgit (Table 2). Branding Brand awareness/brand consciousness. A total of 21 questions related to branding in property were listed in the questionnaires. The first section contains questions related to the awareness and importance of branding in property purchase (Table 3). Several questions associating awareness and perception of branding to qualities were asked using the five points Linkers scale. In addition, the relations of price versus quality in relation to branding were also being tested. There were several interesting finding in the understanding of branding awareness in the property industry. Firstly, surprisingly, most respondents did 30 Proceedings of Applied International Business Conference 2008 Table2: Profile of respondents Demographic Factors Gender Male Female % of Respondents 46.4 53.6 Demographic Factors % of Respondents Marital Status Married Single Others 70.1 28.4 1.4 No. of Children None 1–2 3–4 More than 4 30.8 47.4 19.0 2.8 Household Income RM5,000 and less 5,001 – 10,000 10,001 – 15,000 Above 15,000 32.5 30.6 16.7 20.1 Race Malay Chinese Indians Other 16.9 66.2 13.1 3.8 Type of House Apartment/condominium Townhouse Semi-detached house Bungalow 25.8 56.3 6.6 11.3 Citizenship Malaysian Others 96.7 3.3 Ownership Status Own Rent 77.7 22.3 Purchase Price (Owners) Below RM200,000 200,000 – 399,999 400,000 – 699,999 700,000 – 999,999 1 million and above 40.8 32.5 11.8 6.5 8.4 not associate high price to high quality in relationship to branding. More than eighty percents indicated that they do not believe high price equates to high quality (Table 3). That is to say that high price developers are not necessarily branded developers or quality developers. High percentages in the result shows that most of the respondents did not agree to expensive developers are better quality developers as shown in Table 3. Fifty percent showed that they have the understanding of price differentiation among developers. The association of brand and quality were repeatedly exhibited in the response. For example, about ninety percent indicated they are more likely to purchase from well known or branded developer due to better quality. In a sense, most property buyers have their own set of factors in their evaluation of a property dim to be of high quality other than price. Most of the respondents have their respective criteria in the selection of ‘Branded” property developers. Secondly, in testing awareness of branding, they were able to distinguish brand differences among the various developers. More than twenty percent stated that not all developers are the same and that most developers have their own unique branding attributes. Table 3: Respondents’ property branding awareness Agree (%) Strongly agree Usually purchase from well-known developer 45.5 45.5 Less known developers’ projects inferior 25.0 19.9 All developers’ projects similar 15.2 4.2 Well known brand best 49.8 5.7 Prefer more expensive developers 16.5 6.1 Higher cost means higher quality 18.4 3.8 Price differences among developers are large. 44.8 2.4 Differences among developers difficult to assess 40.1 0.9 Brand awareness items 31 Combine 91.0 69.7 49.0 45.8 31.1 22.1 18.9 16.1 Proceedings of Applied International Business Conference 2008 Brand personality. In addition to brand awareness, the starting points of property branding measurement are through the testing of brand personality. Table 4 shows the results using brand personality to test on three developers. The testing of brand personality uses the second sections of the questionnaires designed to test a set of brand personality through comparison among developers. Respondents were provided three developers classified as developer A, B and C and were asked to brand them through a series of brand personalities. The lists of brand personality used were taken from Aaker’s (1997) expanded version of brand personality matrix. This method of testing branding through personified characteristics was fairly common and widely used in consumer products. For this particular survey, the following characteristics that reflect branding impression used were: modern, sophisticated, classy, contemporary, family oriented, and professional. These pre-established characteristics enable respondents to expresses and associate their impression of certain brands. In addition, other personality characteristics such as reliability, leader in the field, confident and secure were also included to enable the respondents to further describe branding. Table 4: Property developers branding awareness through branding personality Brand personality Trendy Professional Attractive investment Reliable Confident Secure Classy Leader in field Family-oriented Contemporary Technically sound Developer A 31.4 43.9 36.9 47.5 39.8 35.6 27.0 36.5 44.0 34.8 34.2 Developer B Developer C 51.3 59.7 58.8 64.3 64.8 54.9 47.3 50.3 56.1 50.9 52.7 78.2 78.0 77.6 77.2 76.2 75.7 74.1 73.8 72.8 70.8 70.1 The result in this section shows consistence with the developers overall branding awareness. For example, developers A, B and C have very different score in term of all the personality traits. Their score are distinctively difference between all the three developers. Trendy ness, professionalism and investment scored the highest in developer A. Reliability, confidents and professionalism score the highest for developer B. Finally, reliability, family oriented and professionalism score the highest for developer C. In term of lowest score are family-oriented, contemporary and technically sound score the lowest for developer A. The personality of classiness, leader in the field and contemporary scored the lowest for developer B. Finally, The classiness, trendy ness and technically sound scored the lowest for developer C. The branding personality comparison findings are further summarized in the Figure 1. Figure 1: Comparison of property developers using branding personality Respondents Ranking Developer A & B Developer A Developer B C on fid Te e ch ni S nt ca e ll cu Le y S re ou ad nd er in Fi el d C on Tr e te nd m y po ra ry C la s A R sy ttr P el ac ro ia tiv fe ble e ss In io Fa ves nal tm m ily en -o t rie nt ed 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Note: The developers’ names can be revealed upon request. 32 Developer C Proceedings of Applied International Business Conference 2008 6. Conclusion This paper on branding in terms of the preference and buying decision of property buyers raises several interesting findings. First, although the concept of branding in property development is not as common when compared to general consumer products, the result indicated that the awareness of branding was prominent. In property buyers’ mind, for example, there were distinctions between various property developers and the distinction could be identified through the assigned property branding characteristics. Branded property developers were usually on the property purchasers’ premium list. That means branded developers usually obtain higher scoring in all the factors related to property purchase preference and attitude. The study also suggests that the role of branding is increasingly important even for the property industry. Clearly, branding which has become the main emphasis and driving force in many industries such as consumer products and services is spreading to affect property industry. Therefore, one of the implications of the study is that property developers should increase the role and importance of branding. That is, branding, should no longer be used just as a marketing gimmick but be a driving force in becoming the direction and focus in any property company’s strategic planning. Perhaps, one of the examples would be the Palm Island Project in Dubai where from the beginning, branding was the driving force in the project development and marketing. Just like consumers product industry enjoying the benefits of branding, similarly when a property company is able to achieve branding status, it will also enjoy a larger market share and brand equity in the competitive environment. Acknowledgement This paper is part of a research by Sunway University College in determining the property markets in Malaysia. We wish to express our sincere thanks to the following persons who have conducted the research together. They are Leong Yin Ching, Cheong Kee Cheok and Teoh Tsien Jin. However, we are solely responsible for any errors in this paper. References Aaker, J. L. (1997) Branding in Consumer Research. Journal of Marketing Research, 8, 34. Ashworth, G. J. and Voogd, H. (1990) Selling the City: Marketing Approaches in Public Sector Urban Planning. London: Belhaven Press. Batey, I. (2002) Asian Branding: A Great Way to Fly. Singapore: Prentice Hall. Bruner II, C. G. and Hensel, J. P. (2005) Marketing Sales Handbook. Chicago, IL.: American Marketing Association. Buchholz, A. (2000) What Makes Winning Brands Different. Sommerset: John Wiley and Sons. Clegg, A. (2007) Unlock the power of brands. Marketing Week, 1, 23-25. Davis, M. S. and Dunn, M. (2002) Building The Brand Driven Business. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Ellwood, I. (2002) The Essential Brand Book. Great Britain: Kogan Page. Fishwick, A. (2005) The power of branding for real estate agents. Real Estate Magazine, August 2005. Ford, K. (2005) Brands Laid Bare. West Sussex: John Wiley and Sons. Hankinson, G. (2004) Relational network brands: Towards a conceptual model of place brands. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 10, 109-121. Hoyer, D. W. (2004) Consumer Behavior. USA: Houghton Mifflin Company. Kavartzis M. (2005) Place branding: A review of trends and conceptual models. The Marketing Review, 329-342. Morrow, L. J. (2007) Brand Your Business, Rural Telecommunications. Rural Telecommunications, 23-27. Stinnett, B. (2006) Think Like Your Customer. New York: McGraw-Hill. Temporal, P.(2001) Branding in Asia. Singapore: John Wiley and Sons (Asia). Temporal, P. (2006) Asia Star Brands. Singapore: John Wiley and Sons (Asia). Torsten, H. (1998) Competitive branding. West Sussex : John Wiley and Sons. Viitanen, K. (2004) Brand in the real estate business: concept, idea, value. FIG Working Week, 4, 1-9. Walsh, K. (2006) Branding the cities of god. Property Strategy, September 2006, 25-29. 33 Proceedings of Applied International Business Conference 2008 Appendix A: Questionnaire Please tick the appropriate box or boxes for Questions 1 to 29. A. Background characteristics of respondent 1. Age group : 20 and below 21 to 30 31 to 40 41 to 50 51 and above 2. Gender : Male Female 3. Race : Malay Chinese Indian Others (please specify) 4. Citizenship : Malaysian Foreign (please specify) 5. Marital status : Single Married Others (please specify) 6. No. of children in the family : None 1 to 2 3 to 4 5 and above 7. Household income per month : RM5,000 and below RM5,001 to RM9,999 RM10,000 to RM14,999 RM15,000 and above 8. Type of house : Apartment/Condominium Town/Terrace house Semi-detached Bungalow 9. Status of current house : Purchased Rented Others (please specify) 10. If current status of house is purchased, please indicate the purchase price as shown below: RM199,999 and below RM200,000 to 399,999 RM400,000 to 499,999 RM500,000 to 599,999 RM600,000 to 699,999 RM700,000 to 799,999 RM800,000 to 899,999 RM900,000 to 999,999 RM1 million and above. 34 Proceedings of Applied International Business Conference 2008 Appendix A: Questionnaire(Continued) B. Branding The following set of statements relate to your views of property developers in the housing sector. Please indicate whether you Strongly agree, Agree, are Neutral, Disagree or Strongly disagree with the statements below. There is no right or wrong answer. We are interested in your views only. Please circle the appropriate number which best reflects your views on property developers in the housing sector. Degree of Agreement Strongly Agree (1) No. Statements 11. Usually purchase houses which developed by well-known developers. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. Agree Neutral Disagree (2) (3) (4) Strongly Disagree (5) are 1 2 3 4 5 Less known property developers’ projects are usually of a poor quality. 1 2 3 4 5 All developers’ house projects are about the same. 1 2 3 4 5 A well-known property developer’s brand is best for me. 1 2 3 4 5 I usually choose the more expensive of property developers. 1 2 3 4 5 The higher the property cost, the better the quality of the property. 1 2 3 4 5 The price difference developers is large. 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 among property The differences among property developers are difficult to assess. Brand personality is a set of human characteristics associated with a brand. Below are brand personality traits to determine the brand personality of three developers. Please circle the number which indicates, most appropriately, your perception of the brand personality, from the highest (1 and 2) to the lowest rank (4 and 5). The names of these developers can be provided upon request only. Housing Developers Developer A No. Brand Personality Highest Rank Developer B Lowest Rank Highest Rank Developer C Lowest Rank Highest Rank Lowest Rank 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 19. Confident 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 20. Secure 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 21. Technically sound 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 22. Leader in field 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 23. Trendy 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 24. Contemporary 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 25. Classy 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 26. Reliable 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 27. Professional 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 28. Attractive investment 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 29. Family-oriented 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 35
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