The Effects of Brand Associations on Consumer Response (Case Study: Mobile Consumers in Tehran)

Aaker (1991) believes that images and brand associations constitute the basis of buying decision and reliability for a brand. In the present research, the effects of brand associations (guarantee, personal identification, social identification, status and prestige) of consumers’ responses (through: acceptance of brand extensions, recommendations to others, and payment of price premiums) towards various mobile brands in Tehran have been investigated. In this survey research, opinions of some 360 individual mobile users, chosen through simple random sampling method, have been collected and analyzed with the help of SPSS and LISREL soft wares. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling techniques were applied as analytical tools. Research findings indicate that there are positive relationships between: a) “guarantee” and consumers’ “brand recommendation”; and b) between “personal identification” of the consumers, from one hand, and “payment of premium price” and “acceptance of brand extensions”, from the other hand. Research finding also shows a negative relationship between “social identification” of the consumers and their “acceptance of brand extensions”.