Muslim Consumer Cognitive Toward Bank’s Brands likeability in Saudi Arabia

Introduction:

In recent years consumers have attached increasing importance to food safety, health, naturalness, pleasure, convenience, information and ethical issues like sustainability, animal or environmental friendliness (e.g. Almas, 1999 ; Dupuis, 2000 ; Mathijs, 2003, Vermeir and Verbeke, 2005).

Islam has the second largest population across the world and represents more than 20% of the world’s population, as there is one Muslim out of each five people and the Muslim population increases at a rate of about 27 million each year (NazlidaMuhamad, 2008). According to this estimated dramatic increase in Muslim population, many multinational companies have started to consider the concept of Halal. For example, the Nestle Company is one of those companies, as Nestle targeted Muslim consumers through customizing its products to match Muslim cultural needs. More companies started to consider the concept of selling Halal food to win Muslim consumers. Tesco is another example, as they lunched a Halal section in 117 branches around the UK (Kearney, 2007).

Literature Review

Consider the research hypothesis in this part.

Culture:

Religious Beliefs:

Explain the influence of religiosity on behavior.

The Cognitive theory:

Consumer Behavior:

-Decision Making Process

-Consider the (NICOSIA) Model and other Consumer decision Making models:

This model focuses on the relationship between the firm and its potential consumers. The firm communicates with consumers through its marketing messages (advertising), and the consumers react to these messages by purchasing response. Looking to the model we will find that the firm and the consumer are connected with each other, the firm tries to influence the consumer and the consumer is influencing the firm by his decision.

Field 1

 
Attitude

Field 2: Search                                                                                                                                                     And evaluation

Of mean/end(s)                                                          Experience                                                          relation(s)

(Preaction field)

Motivation

Field 4:                   Feedback

Field 3: Act of

Purchase

Purchasing

Behavior

Figure2‑2. Nicosia Model of Consumer Decision Processes

Source: Nicosia, (1976).

The Nicosia model is divided into four major fields:

Field 1: The consumer attitude based on the firms’ messages.

The first field is divided into two subfields.

The first subfield deals with the firm’s marketing environment and communication efforts that affect consumer attitudes, the competitive environment, and characteristics of target market. Subfield two specifies the consumer characteristics e.g., experience, personality, and how he perceives the promotional idea toward the product in this stage the consumer forms his attitude toward the firm’s product based on his interpretation of the message.

Field 2: search and evaluation

The consumer will start to search for other firm’s brand and evaluate the firm’s brand in comparison with alternate brands. In this case the firm motivates the consumer to purchase its brands.

Field 3: The act of the purchase

The result of motivation will arise by convincing the consumer to purchase the firm products from a specific retailer.

Field 4: Feed back

This model analyses the feedback of both the firm and the consumer after purchasing the product. The firm will benefit from its sales data as a feedback, and the consumer will use his experience with the product affects the individuals attitude and predisposition’s concerning future messages from the firm.

The Nicosia model offers no detail explanation of the internal factors, which may affect the personality of the consumer, and how the consumer develops his attitude toward the product. For example, the consumer may find the firm’s message very interesting, but virtually he cannot buy the firm’s brand because it contains something prohibited according to his beliefs. Apparently it is very essential to include such factors in the model, which give more interpretation about the attributes affecting the decision process. (From the above paragraph Hypothesis (H5) will be generated ‘see the Hypothesis part). From   (Consumer Behavior Models in Tourism Analysis Study/Muhannad M.A Abdallat and Hesham El –Sayed El – Emam) and other recognized references

Muslim Consumer Market:

-Population of Muslim Consumer (Economist Inelegance Unit) from (A.T Kearney) Attached

-Purchase power of Muslim Consumer.

-Quran- encouragement for consumption, Quran encouragement

– Use Mental report .

Muslim Consumer Behavior:

-Intrinsic and Extrinsic and how they impact Muslim Consumers. (Parsing religiosity, guilt and materialism on consumer ethics/ Abou Bakar and Richard Lee) and (King,J.E.andCrowther,M.R.(2004),“Themeasurementofreligiosityandspirituality:examplesand issuesfrompsychology”, Journal ofOrganizationalChangeManagement, Vol. 17,pp. 83-101)

-Muslim Consumption Drives.

–Highlight the importance of consumption in Quran in order to highlight the importance of Muslim consumer for both academia and business.

(Don’t expand so much here)

Branding:

-Discussion of Brand history (in depth)

Branding and Culture:

Brand Likeability:

– (The Brand Likeability Effect: can firms make themselves more likeable?) Bang Nguyen and T.C Melewar

And other references

Brand Likeability and Islamic Banking:

Islamic Banking:

-Definition of Islamic Banks.

-Customer perception toward Islamic Banks

Banks and Branding:

-explain the differences between Intrinsic and Extrinsic Muslim Consumer toward Islamic and non-Islamic Banks Brands.

Expected Research Contribution:

Explain how the research will be useful for both academia and business, specifically those whoare willing to target Muslim consumer.

Conceptual Model:

                                                                   H4                          H3

                                                 H1                                                                         H2

Link the key literature with the conceptual model above.

Research Questions:

-Research question should be formulated based on the research hypothesis.

Research Hypothesis:

H1: There is a positive correlation between intrinsic Muslim consumers and Islamic Banks Brands.

H2: There is a positive correlation between extrinsic Muslim Consumers and Non Islamic Banks Brands.

H3: There is a negative correlation between intrinsic Muslim consumers and Islamic Banks Brands.

H4: There is a positive correlation between extrinsic Muslim consumer and Islamic Banks Brands.

H5: NICOSIA Model of Consumer Decision Processes will be developed through considering

Muslim consumer