تاثیر فرهنگ در وفاداری برند از طریق عملکرد برند و شخصیت برند The effect of culture on brand loyalty through brand performance and brand personality

1 | INTRODUCTION Because products and services are not differentiated regarding their most basic functions in this century, the importance of branding cannot be ignored. Branding is a strategical process that enables the consumers to choose a product in an easier way and provides various benefits to its consumers, manufacturers, and mediators, and it also includes elements such as symbols and slogans. While branding is quite common for merchandise, it is not quite common for the service sector. There are several difficulties of branding for services that include the tourism sector as well. First of all, services cannot be stocked and standardized and have heterogeneity in their structure, which results from the service provider. Hotels included in the accommodation enterprises that are an important element of touristic products are able to overcome this problem with branding, and they differentiate from their competitors in this way. In today’s marketing world where consumers prevail, an extremely significant problem for business managements is determining which motivations brands are chosen for. Learning about the motives of tourists for choosing a specific hotel enterprise will provide several benefits such as competition advantage between enterprises. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to reveal the cultural characteristics and attitudes related to the brand personality tourists are affected by and identify the effects of performance perceptions of the hotel enterprise on loyalty attitudes. For this purpose, the cultural characteristics of tourists, their brand personality attitudes, and perceptions regarding brand performance were researched and the effect of these variables on brand loyalty was evaluated by analyzing the data obtained. 2 | CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 2.1 | Culture The effect of culture in intercultural studies is discussed and researched extensively in marketing and management literatures (Elliott & Tam, 2014). Even though culture is a topic that is frequently researched by marketing experts, a commonly accepted definition is out of question. In addition to this, the most extensively accepted definition of culture includes studies regarding its being “behaviour patterns and common sets of values shared by community members.” Culture is also interpreted by primarily common forms of feelings, thoughts, and reactions as several behavioral patterns that are copied from the childhood period until one’s death are either learned or written and are both directly and indirectly distinctive. These common forms of feelings, thoughts, and behaviors shaped by values are acquired and transferred through symbols. Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952) define culture as traditional ideas and values from the past. Kapferer suggests that brand itself is a culture. Powerful brands have a powerful vision. Brands are ideologies rather than the benefits and personalities of their products. The cultural aspect of it concretizes the brand.