Brand Awareness and Prospect Purchase Intention of Selected Vegetable Oil Brands in Nasarawa State

This article is published by the Zamfara International Journal of Humanities.

 Ibrahim, Jafaru Itopa 1, Audu, Omeiza Leonard 2

¹  Department of Marketing, Federal Polytechnic Nasarawa

²  Department of Business Admin, Federal Polytechnic Nasarawa

1 itopajeff40@gmail.com 08036551153

2   centblissa2015@gmail.com 08036086308

Abstract: This work examined the effect of brand awareness on prospect purchase intention of selected vegetable oil brands in Nasarawa State. The study aimed to ascertain the effect of brand recognition, brand recall and brand knowledge on prospects purchase intention of selected vegetable oil brands. Relevant conceptual, theoretical and empirical literatures were reviewed. This research work is anchored on Howard and Sheth model. The study adopted survey research design. The population of the study constitutes the consumers of three vegetable oil brands (Turkey Vegetable Oil, Power Oil, Gino vegetable oil) in the region.About 250 consumers of these vegetable oils from the state were sampled for the study using purposive sampling technique. Questionnaire was employed as the major instrument of data collection. The data generated were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis. The study discovered among other things that brand knowledge, brand recognition and brand recalls has significant positive effect on prospects purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brands in Nasarawa State. Based on the foregoing, the study concludes that brand awareness have significant positive effect on prospects purchase intention. The study recommends

 

that integrated marketing communication should be employed to create brand awareness for vegetable oil brands in Nasarawa State. Keywords: Brand Awareness, Brand Recognition, Brand Recall, Brand Knowledge, Purchase Intention

 

Introduction

_Persuading customers to use a particular brand is significant and could facilitate the maintenance and growth of market share of the organization. In this regard, Bertoncelj and Moisescu  (2010)  points  out  that  one  way  to  persuade  the customers and increase the market share is to create a powerful brand  and  reinforce  it  in  order  to  establish  long-term  and interactive   relationships   among   stakeholders   and   more importantly  the  customers.  In  addition,  some  researchers believe that focusing on some features of brand could be as an important factor in persuading the customers and success of organizations.  Many  factors  are  involved  in  the  purchase intention  of  a  customer  and  having  them  in  mind  could persuade the customer to use and buy the brand. These include brand  equity  and  awareness  (Park  &  Lee,  2009).Farquhar (2009)  considers  that  building  a  strong  brand  within consumers’ minds means creating a positive brand evaluation, an accessible brand attitude, and a consistent brand image, the accessible brand attitude actually referring to what the others term  as  awareness.  Not  only  that  awareness  is  almost  a prerequisite for a brand to be included in the consideration set (the brands that receive consideration for purchase), but it also influences perceptions and attitudes, and can be a driver for brand loyalty (Aaker, 1991). Reflecting the salience of the brand in the customers mind, awareness can be assessed at several levels such as recognition, recall, top of mind, brand dominance (the only brand recalled), or, even more, brand knowledge (what the brand stands for is very well known by consumers) (Aaker, 1996).

 

Brand awareness is the first and prerequisite dimension of the entire brand knowledge system in consumers’ minds, reflecting their ability to identify the brand under different conditions: the likelihood that a brand name will come to mind and the ease with which it does so (Keller, 2001). Brand awareness can be depicted into brand recognition (consumers’ ability to confirm prior exposure to the brand when given the brand as cue) and brand recall (consumers’ ability to retrieve the brand when given the product category, the needs fulfilled by the category, or some other cues). Brand awareness is essential in buying decision-making as it is important that consumers recall the brand in the context of a given specific product category, awareness increasing the probability that the brand will be a member of the consideration set. Awareness also affects decisions about brands in the consideration set, even in the absence of any brand associations in consumers’ minds. In low involvement decision settings, a minimum level of brand awareness may be sufficient for the choice to be final. Awareness can also influence consumer decision making by affecting brand associations that form the brand image (Keller, 2003).

 

Brand awareness is a key component of marketing efforts, as harried consumers overwhelmed by the amount of commercial messaging they see or hear use mental shortcuts to make their decision. Imprinting in their minds what brand is and what it stands for can increase sales, particularly in areas where few obvious differences are apparent among competitors (Berman, 2017). Keller (2003) argues that brand awareness does create impact on buyer decision making process via brand association then embedded in the buyer memory. High brand awareness produces strong brand association and in turn strong brand association creates positive impacts on brand image because brand association is viewed as a sign of quality and commitment leading customers to familiarize purchases with a brand as well as helping them consider it at the point of purchase (Tong & Hawley, 2009; Marinova et al, 2011).

 

Recently, the rising of consumer consciousness has made consumers choose to purchase their familiar and favorable brand. Therefore, if businesses want to defeat their competitors, they have to make consumers love to buy their products and brands. Macdonald and Sharp (2000) mention that even though consumers familiarize and are willing to purchase a product, brand awareness is still an important factor to influence purchase decision. When consumers want to buy a product, and a brand name can come to their minds at once, it reflects that product has higher brand awareness. Consumers’ purchase decision can be influenced if a product has higher brand awareness (Dodds, Monroe, & Grewal, 1991; Grewal, Monroe

 

&  Krishnan, 1998). This explains why a product with higher brand awareness will have higher market share and better quality evaluation. Brand awareness plays an important role on purchase intention because consumers tend to buy a familiar and well known product (Macdonald & Sharp,2000). Brand awareness can help consumers to recognize a brand from a product category and make purchase decision (Percy & Rossiter, 1992).

 

Brand awareness has a great influence on selections and can be a prior consideration base in a product category. Brand awareness also acts as a critical factor in the consumer purchase intention, and certain brands will accumulate in consumers’ mind to influence consumer purchase decision. A product with a high level of brand awareness will receive higher consumer preferences because it has higher market share and quality evaluation (Grewal et al., 1998). Keller (2003) addressed the fact that a high level of brand awareness increases the likelihood that the brand will be a member of the consideration set and affect choices among brands in that consideration set, finally affecting consumer decision-making by influencing the formation and strength of brand association that makes up the brand image. A better-known brand has a much higher possibility of being chosen by consumers than a relatively unknown brand (Hoyer and Brown 1990). Macdonald and Sharp (2003) argued that brand awareness can determine not only entry to the consideration set, but can also determine which brand is chosen from the consideration set. So the well-known brand likely will perform better in the marketplace compared to the unknown brand (Huang and Sarigöllü 2011).Based on the foregoing, this work examined the effect of brand awareness onprospects purchase intention of selected vegetable oil brands in Nasarawa State.

 

Statement of the Problem

 

In recent years, consumer preferences and habits have changed considerably as a result of economic, social and cultural changes. This has posed challenges for companies on how to keep the consumers continuously aware of their products and preventing them from switching to other related brands. Therefore, at the present time, consumers increasingly demand quality products. There are many advantages for companies that have strong brands, which provide a significant competitive advantage by establishing a barrier that prevents consumers from changing brands. The brand allows reducing the perceived risk and costs of searching for information involved in the purchase decision process.

 

Today, brands are operating in a changing world: the growing

 

convergence between standardization, globalization, technology and deregulation has led to the emergence of more players, more products, more brands, and more options and less time to choose. From this new perspective, the need to differentiate from the competition and create a unique and differentiating brand positioning in the consumer’s mind emerges. Companies are very keen in promoting brands and creating strong brand value to display their goods and maintain its position in highly competitive environment, Consequently, brand awareness is a factor to gain this. In food sector the competition is very tough, people prefer the well-known brand so it is necessary for companies to know the how significantly the brand awareness influence the consumer purchase intention. This creates a serious challenge to producers of food items especially vegetable oil. So it is an important issue to recognizing and evaluates the impact of brand awareness on customer purchase decision.

 

This study investigated the effect of brand awareness on prospects purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brands in Nasarawa State.

 

Objectives of the Study

 

The main objective of the study is to examine the effect of brand awareness on prospects purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brands. The specific objective includes to:

 

1.      Determine the extent to which brand recognition affect prospects purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brandsin Nasarawa State.

 

2.      Ascertain the degree to which brand recall affect prospects purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brandsin Nasarawa State.

3.      Investigate the degree to which brand knowledge affect prospects purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brandsin Nasarawa State.

 

 

 

Research Questions

The following research questions guided this study.

 

1.      To what extent does brand recognition affect prospects purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brandsin Nasarawa State?

 

2.      To what degree does brand recall affect prospects purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brandsin Nasarawa State?

 

3.      To what degree does brand knowledge affect prospects purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brandsin Nasarawa State?

 

Hypotheses

 

The following hypotheses stated in null form were formulated for the study.

 

Ho1:  Brand                  recognition          has    no           significant      effect   on

 

prospects purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brands in Nasarawa State.

Ho2:   Brand  recall  has  no  significant  effect  on prospects

 

purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brands in Nasarawa State.

 

Brand knowledge affect has no significant effect on prospects purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brands in Nasarawa State.

 

Scope of the Study

 

The study examined the effect of brand awareness on prospects purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brands. This study is carried out in Nasarawa State and four brands of vegetable oils namely Turkey Vegetable Oil, Kings oil, Power Oil and Gino vegetable are studied. The units of study in this research work consist of consumers of the three selected vegetable oil brands in Nasarawa State. Brand recognition, brand recall and brand knowledge were used in this study as the independent variable while prospects purchase intention was employed as the dependent variable.

 

Review of Related Literature

 

Brand Awareness

 

Brand awareness refers to the ability of a potential customer to recognize the brand while categorizing the brand to a specific class (Aaker,1991). It is believed that brand awareness is one of the main subjects to pay attention to in brand equity. To second, according to T.Shimp(2010), from the consumer’s point, a brand has no equity unless customer is at least aware of the brand. The recall of brand awareness is based on a continuum where the brand recognition is in the lowest level and the highest level where the named brand is going a long with unaided cancellation. As for the product, it is important to be recognized and reach awareness level among other similar or identical items while the potential consumer is making purchase decisions. According to Blackwell etal.(2001),the product needs to be in the set of awareness before the consideration stage is being reached. It is believed that brand swith a higher level of recognition would be more likely purchased than the ones with no recognition. Moreover,brand awareness is an initial goal for new brands. Based on Hoyer (1990), this is an explanation why customers buy well-known brands rather than unknown ones.

 

Brand awareness can be depicted into brand recognition (consumers’ ability to confirm prior exposure to the brand when given the brand as cue) and brand recall (consumers’ ability to retrieve the brand when given the product category, the needs fulfilled by the category, or some other cues). Brand awareness is essential in buying decision-making as it is important that consumers recall the brand in the context of a given specific product category, awareness increasing the probability that the brand will be a member of the consideration set. Awareness also affects decisions about brands in the consideration set, even in the absence of any brand associations in consumers’ minds. In low involvement decision settings, a minimum level of brand awareness may be sufficient for the choice to be final. Awareness can also influence consumer decision making by affecting brand associations that form the brand image (Keller, 1998).

 

Brand awareness consists of “brand recognition and brand recall. Brand recognition relates to consumers’ ability to confirm prior exposure to the brand when given the brand as a cue. In other words, brand recognition requires that consumers correctly discriminate the brand as having been seen or heard previously. The next level of brand awareness is brand recall. It relates to the consumers’ ability to retrieve the brand when given the product category, the needs fulfilled by the category, or some other type of probe as a cue. In other words, brand recall requires that consumers can correctly generate the brand from memory. The relative importance of brand recognition and recall depends on the extent to which consumers make decisions in the store versus outside the store” (Perera and Dissanayake, 2013). Brand recognition may be more important to the extent that product decisions are made in the store. The reason brand awareness is crucial for customer to reach buying decision is that consumers usually reach a purchase decision by using a heuristic such as “purchase the brand they have heard of” or “choose the brand they know” and then buy only the familiar, well established brands (Keller, 2003). To add on the importance of brand awareness, Atingan et al. (2005) claimed that brand equity occurs when the consumer possess awareness and familiarity with the brand at high level and hold some strong favorable, unique brand association in memory.

 

Brand Recognition

 

Brand recognition is extent to which a consumer can correctly identify a particular product or service just by viewing the product or service's logo, tag line, packaging or advertising campaign. Brand recognition refers to the ability of the consumers to correctly identify the brand when they come into contact with it. This does not necessarily require that the consumers identify the brand name. Instead, it means that consumers can recognise the brand when presented with it at the point-of-sale or after viewing its visual packaging (Ya-Hsin, Ya-hei, Suh-Yueh & Wenchang, 2014). In contrast to brand recall, where few consumers are able to spontaneously recall brand names within a given category, when prompted with a brand name, a larger number of consumers are typically able to recognise it.

 

Brand Recall

 

Brand recall refers to the ability of the consumers to correctly elicit a brand name from memory when prompted by a product category (Farris, Neil, Pfeifer &Reibstein, 2010). Brand recall indicates a relatively strong link between a category and a brand while brand recognition indicates a weaker link. When prompted by a product category, most consumers can only recall a relatively small set of brands, typically around 3–5 brand names. In consumer tests, few consumers can recall more than seven brand names within a given category and for low-interest product categories, most consumers can only recall one or two brand names (Manternach, 2011). Research suggests that the number of brands that consumers can recall is affected by both individual and product factors including; brand loyalty, awareness set size, situational, usage factors and education level (Driesener, Paech, Romaniuk & Sharp, 2004). For instance, consumers who are involved with a category, such as heavy users or product enthusiasts, may be able to recall a slightly larger set of brand names than those who are less involved. Brand recall plays a crucial role in getting more customers to stick with a particular brand as well as to buy that brand repeatedly.

 

Brand Knowledge

 

Brand knowledge is a customer’s familiarity and understanding of a brand awareness and brand image (Keller, 1993). Brand knowledge is the level of brand recall and recognition that consumers have of a particular brand and its specific product category. Brand image is the set of mental associations with a brand that influence the buyer. Although different brands may mean different things to different people, brand knowledge is always a function of awareness and image. Brand knowledge refers to all the thoughts, feelings, images, experiences, and beliefs that become associated with a business’s brand. While a company will develop its branded look, which includes company logo, colors, and visuals, a brand is truly identified by the consumer. The consumer will assign interpretation of the company’s brand based on their experience in dealing with the company along with their beliefs and feelings about the company’s products or services. For example, a consumer may experience poor customer service or poor product support from a company; the result would be an unfavorable experience and thus a poor brand image from the consumer’s point of view.

Prospect Purchase Intention

 

Kim and Kim (2004) define purchase intention as the tendency of consumers with the identified aim where it is usually measured in terms of real purchasing. Moreover, Crosno, Freling& Skinner (2009) described that purchase intention refers to the possibility of purchasing a special brand in a product category during purchase. However, the implementation of the product's purchase intention depends on various factors such as customer willingness and interest to the product, imposed social pressure on the customer from others and a general sense of what is received. Purchase intention is the objective intention of a consumer toward a product, and the intention can be a crucial element for predicting the purchase-related behavior of consumers (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). Purchase intention can be defined as an individual’s intention to purchase a specific product or brand after evaluation of the brand or product

 

Engel, Blackwell and Miniard (1995) present the most recognized model of consumer purchase decision-making. This model divides the consumer purchase decision process into five stages: problem recognition, information search, alternative evaluation, purchase decision, and post-purchase behavior. Also, Mowen and Minor (2001) maintain that consumer decision making are a series of processing results from perceiving problems, searching for solutions, evaluating alternatives, and making decisions. Engel, et al. (1995) further contend that purchase intention can be divided into unplanned buying, partially planned buying and fully planned buying. Unplanned buying means that consumers make all decisions to buy a product category and a brand in a store. It can be regarded as an impulse buying behavior. Partially planned buying means that consumers only decide a product category and the specification before buying a product, and brands and types will decide in the shop later. Fully planned buying means that consumers decide which product and brand to buy before entering the shop. Kotler (2003) proposes that individual attitudes and unpredictable situations will influence purchase intention. Individual attitudes include personal preferences to others and obedience to others’ expectation and unpredictable situations signify that consumers change purchase intention because a situation is appearing, for example, when the price is higher that expected price (Dodds et al., 1991). Zeithaml (1988) uses possible to buy, intended to buy and considered to buy as measurement items to measure purchase intention.

 

Theoretical Framework

 

This research work is anchored on Howard and Sheth Model of Consumer Behavior. Howard and Sheth (1969) developed consumer behavior model which explains buyer rationality while making purchase decisions even in conditions of incomplete information. This model focused on repeat purchase where consumers are unfamiliar with the products. The organization makes the product known to the consumers through communication tools like media advertisement, sales promotion, billboard, catalogue, and point of display. The consumer perceives the information with their five senses and interprets it as it relates to their needs and expectations.The model has four major components namely: stimulus inputs (input variables), hypothetical constructs, response outputs (output variables), and exogenous variables. The various components of the model are seen as interacting with each other, with none being essentially dependent or independent; they are all connected through direct loops as well as feedback loop (Howard &Sheth, 1969).

 

The Input Variables: These are the stimuli consumers perceive from the environment. They are the information the consumer gets as regards the product. Howard and Sheth (1969) state that the input variable is made up of three types of stimuli namely: significant, symbolic, and social stimulus. The significant and symbolic are commercial and controllable by the marketers while the social is non-commercial and it is not controllable by the marketers. The significant are the product information that the marketers provide to the consumers while the symbolic are the stimuli that comes from the commercial source. The commercials include advertising, billboards, catalogues, price, sales promotion, product features amongst others. The non-commercials are family, reference group, social class which serves as information cues. Consumer perception depends on how the product offering is positioned which emanates partly from advertising and sales promotion efforts.

 

Hypothetical Construct: This is categorized into two groups: perceptual and learning constructs. These constructs constitute the central part of the model and deal with the psychological variables which operate when the consumer is undergoing the decision making process.

 

Perceptual Constructs: The perceptual constructs deal with how a consumer obtains and processes information received from the input variables. Once the buyer is exposed to any information, there is attention; this attention towards the stimuli depends on the buyers’ sensitivity to information in terms of his urge and receptivity towards such information. Not all information would be processed and the intake of information is subject to perceived uncertainty and lack of meaningfulness of information. This is often referred to as stimulus ambiguity. This reflects the degree to which the buyer regulates the stimulus information flow. Stimulus ambiguity occurs when a consumer does not understand the message from the environment; it could trigger off a need for a specific and active search for information and thus lead to an overt search for information. The information that is gathered and processed may suffer from perceptual bias if the consumer distorts the information received so as to fit his established needs/beliefs/values.

 

Learning Construct: The learning constructs relates to buyer learning, formation of attitude and opinions, and the final decision. The learning construct ranges from a buyer’s motive for a purchase to the final satisfaction from a purchase. The connectivity between these constructs lead to a purchase response. The motives refer to the goals that a buyer seeks to achieve through a purchase and the corresponding urge towards action or the purchase activity. From the information the buyer has about the products, the buyer forms an order of preference based on the choice criteria. The buyer decides which product to buy among the alternative using evaluative criteria and choice rule (Howard &Sheth, 1969).

 

Based on consumer choice criteria, attitudes are formed for the alternative brands. The attitudes reflect the mind of the consumer order of preference, and feelings of the like/dislike towards the products. However, the brand potential of the evoked set determines the buyer’s perception and confidence level of the brands that he is considering to purchase. The purchase intention is a cumulative outcome of the interaction of buyer motives, choice criteria, brand comprehension, resultant brand attitude and the confidence associated with the purchase. Satisfaction, another learning construct involves the post purchase evaluation (whether expectation from an offering

 

matches the performance) and resultant impact (positive/negative) on brand comprehension.

 

Output Variable: The output variables refer to the buyer’s action or response to stimulus inputs. The response outputs comprises five constituents: attention, comprehension, attitude, intention, and purchase. These five responses made up the process consumers pass before buying the product which is the last stage. Attention refers to the degree or level of information that a buyer accepts when exposed to a stimulus. It reflects the magnitude of the buyer’s information intake. Comprehension is the amount of information that he actually processes and stores; it involves the buyers’ knowledge about the product/service category and brand. The attitude is the composite of cognition, affect, and behavior towards the offering. The attitude reflects his evaluation of the brand and the dislike/like based on the brand potential. Intention refers to the buyer’s desire to buy or not to buy a particular offering. Purchase behavior refers to the actual act of buying. The purchase behavior is a commutative result of the other four constituents (Howard &Sheth, 1969).

 

Exogenous Variables: These are independent variable that influences the dependent variables in the model and they have impact in the final output variable. Put differently, they are environmental forces that constrain consumers from buying their preference brand. These are important and may include: price, financial status of the buyer, time, personality traits, and social pressure among others.

 

Empirical Review

 

This section covers the existing empirical evidence on the relationship between brand awareness and consumer purchase intention. Abolfazl and Zahra (2015) examined the impact of brand awareness on re-purchase intention of customers with trilogy of emotions approach. 384 people who went to cell phone shopping centers in Yazd province were sampled for the study. Structural equation modeling was used in analyzing the data with the aid of SPSS. The results of this study show that consumers cognition does not affect the purchase intention, but the customers’ conation and affection affect the re-purchase intention. In addition, brand awareness affects emotions (cognition, affection, and conation) and consumer purchase intention.

 

Naeem, Qurat, Umer, Amna and Muniba (2016) examined the impact of a brand equity on consumer purchase decision in L’oreal skincare products. A total of hundred students from university of education Lahore, Okara campus were sampled using probability sampling technique. In this study, brand awareness, brand loyalty, perceived quality and brand association was employed as the independent variables while consumer purchase decision was employed as the dependent variable. Correlation and regression analysis was employed in analyzing the data. The study found that brand awareness, brand loyalty, perceived quality and brand association have significant impact on consumer purchase decision. The study concludes that brand equity has significant impact on consumer purchase intention.

 

Subhani and Osman (2011) carried out a study on the association between brand awareness and consumer/brand loyalty for the packaged milk industry in Pakistan. A sample of two hundred and eighty (280) respondents using packaged milk brands in Karachi was studied. Pearson Chi-square (test of independence) is used to test the relationship between brand awareness dimensions & consumer/brand loyalty dimension. The study found no significant relationship between brand awareness and its consumer/brand loyalty. The study showed that brand awareness is not playing a significant role to impact a commodity product such as milk to make a repeated purchase, due to random switching purchase behavior and low involvement in buying a convenience product which offers no differentiation amongst the brand.

 

Erfan and Kwek (2013) examined the mediating effects of brand association, brand loyalty, brand image and perceived quality on brand equity. The aim of this study is to find out the indirect relationship amongst the brand equity dimensions on brand equity. For the purpose of this study, brand equity dimensions include brand association, brand awareness, brand loyalty, perceived quality and brand image. Three hundred respondents from private universities in Malaysia were sampled. Mediated regression analysis was employed in

 

analyzing the data. The result indicates a mediating relationship amongst the dimensions of brand equity on brand equity. The study shows that the relationship between brand awareness and brand equity is mediated by brand association; relationship between brand association and brand equity is mediated by brand loyalty; relationship between brand loyalty and brand equity is mediated by brand image and finally relationship between brand image and brand equity is mediated by perceived quality.

 

Naufal, Muhammad and Mukhamad (2016) investigated the effect of brand awareness and image on consumer perceived quality and purchase intension using carbonated drink brand at Bogor City as the focus of the study. Two carbonated drinks namely Coca Cola and Big Cola were used in the study. This research was conducted in some big stores in Bogor from June

 

– August 2014. A total of hundred respondents were sampled. Descriptive analysis and structural equation modeling-partial least squares was employed in analyzing the data. The result for Coca Cola showed that brand awareness affects brand image, brand image affects perceived quality and perceived quality significantly affects consumer purchase intention. The result for Big Cola showed that brand awareness directly affects perceived quality and brand image directly affects consumer purchase intention.

 

Umar and Abdu (2016) examined the effect of brand name on consumer purchase intention in Kano Metropolis. Convenient sampling technique was employed to obtain representative response from a sample of 306 customers of Shoprite retail chain in Kano State, Nigeria. Brand knowledge, brand satisfaction, brand trust, brand attachment, low price and past experience were employed as the explanatory variable while Purchase Intention was employed as the independent variable. The data generated were analyzed using multiple regression analysis. It was found that product knowledge, brand satisfaction, brand trust, brand attachment, low price and past experience were found to have significant effect of purchase intention.

 

Joongi and Yoon (2015) explored brand awareness and purchase intention on complete and ingredient brands of smartphone. In particular, this study investigates i) how attitudes, purchase intention, and expected satisfaction differ based on the level of awareness (high vs. low) of complete product and ingredient brands; how attitudes affect purchase intention based on the level of awareness of complete product and ingredient brands (high vs. low); and how purchase intention affects expected satisfaction based on the level of awareness of complete product and ingredient brands (high vs. low). The data generated were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results of this study find that attitudes, purchase intention, and expected satisfaction differ based on the level of awareness of complete product and ingredient brands. The study also finds significant relationships between attitudes, purchase intention, and expected satisfaction based on the level of brand awareness of complete product and ingredient brands. The empirical evidence reveals conflicting findings on the effect of brand awareness on consumer purchase intention. This shows that the issue is not yet resolved. Also most of the studies were foregoing and the existing local ones are done in environment outside that of Nasarawa State.

 

Methodology

 

The study adopted survey research design. This design is appropriate for this study because the research collected data from the respondents through a few representatives and analyzed them in order to ascertain the effect of brand awareness on consumer purchase intention. This study was carried out in Nasarawa State. Only the consumers of three vegetable oil brands namely Turkey Vegetable Oil, Power Oil and Gino vegetable oilwere studied. The population for this study is the entire consumers of three vegetable oil brands namely Turkey Vegetable Oil, Power Oil and Gino vegetable oil in Nasarawa State.Convenience sampling technique was employed in determining the sample size of two hundred and fifty respondents. The instrument that was employed for data collection was questionnaire constructed by the researcher.

 

Multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses formulated exclusively for this study. Simple regression analysis was conducted to assess the relative predictive power of the independent variables on the dependent variable. The statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 21 will be employed to test the hypotheses.

 

The regression model is represented as:

Y = α + β1X1+ β2X2 + βnXn+ ẹ                -           (1)

Where:

 

Y = dependent variable

 

α= Constant Term β= Beta coefficients

X1to Xn= Independent variables

ẹ = Error Term

 

DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS

 

Multiple regression result was employed to test the effect of brand awareness on consumer purchase intention. The result is presented in the table below.

 Table 1: Summary of Regression Result

a. Predictors: (Constant), Brand Recognition, Brand Recall, Brand Knowledge

b. Dependent Variable: Prospect Purchase Intention

 

Table 1 show thatR² which measures the strength of the effect of independent variable on the dependent variable have the value of 0.669. This implies that 66.9% of the variation in prospect purchase intention is explained by variations inbrand recognition, brand recall and brand knowledge. This was supported by adjusted R² of 0.652. Durbin-Watson statistics was employed to check for autocorrelation in the model. Durbin-Watson statistics of 1.988 shows that the variables in the model are not autocorrelated and is reliable for predications.

 

Table 2: ANOVA Result

a. Dependent Variable: Prospect Purchase Intention.

b. Predictors: (Constant), Brand Recognition, Brand Recall, Brand Knowledge.

 

Source: SPSS 23.0

 

The f-statistics value of 4.116 in table 8 above with f-statistics probability of 0.001 shows that the independent variables has significant effect on the dependent. This shows that brand recognition, brand recall and brand knowledge can collectively explain the variations in prospect purchase intention. This shows that brand awareness has a significant effect on prospect purchase intention.

 

Test of Hypotheses

The hypotheses formulated in section one are tested below.

 

Table 3:Coefficient of the Model

a. Dependent Variable: Prospect Purchase Intention

 

Source: SPSS 23.0

 

Hypothesis One

 

Ho1:   Brand recognition has no significant effect on prospects purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brands in Nasarawa State.

 

Hi:      Brand recognition has a significant effect on prospects purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brands in Nasarawa State.

 

Brand recognition has a t-statistics of 3.262 and a probability value of 0.001 which is statistically significant. Therefore, we reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternative hypotheses and conclude that brand recognition has a significant effect on prospects purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brands in Nasarawa State.

 

Hypotheses Two

 

Ho2:   Brand recall has no significant effect on prospects purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brands in Nasarawa State.

 

Hi:      Brand recall has a significant effect on prospects purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brands in Nasarawa State.

 

Brand recall has a t-statistics of 2.306 and a probability value of 0.003 which is statistically significant. Therefore, we reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternative hypotheses and conclude that brand recall has a significant effect on prospects purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brands in Nasarawa State.

 

Hypotheses Three

 

Ho3:   Brand knowledge affect has no significant effect on prospects purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brands in Nasarawa State.

Hi:      Brand knowledge affect has a significant effect on

 

prospects purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brands in Nasarawa State.

 

Brand knowledge has a t-statistics of 2.120 and a probability value of 0.004 which is statistically significant. Brand knowledge affect has a significant effect on prospects purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brands in Nasarawa State.

 

Discussion of Findings

 

The data generated and analyzed established that brand recognition has a significant effect on prospects purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brands. This shows that brand recognition influences prospects purchase intention for vegetable oil brands in Nasarawa State. This is in agreement with the findings of Abolfazl and Zahra (2015) that brand awareness affects emotions (cognition, affection, and conation) and consumer purchase intention.

 

The study further found that brand recall has a significant effect on prospect purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brands in Nasarawa State. This shows that customers ability to recall a particular brand affect their purchase intention. This collaborates the findings of Naeem, Qurat, Umer, Amna and Muniba (2016) that brand awareness, brand loyalty, perceived quality and brand association have significant impact on consumer purchase decision

 

The study also found that brand knowledge affect has a significant effect on prospect purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brands in Nasarawa State. This established that the knowledge of a particular vegetable oil brand can influence its purchase intention for the products. This tally with the findings of Umar and Abdu (2016) that product knowledge, brand satisfaction, brand trust, brand attachment, low price and past experience were found to have significant effect of purchase intention.

 

Conclusion

 

This study covered the effect of brand awareness on prospect purchase intention for vegetable brands in Nasarawa State. Data were sourced from consumer on three vegetable brands. The data generated and analyzed revealed that brand recognition has a significant effect on prospect purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brands. The study also showed that brand recall has a significant effect on prospect purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brands. Finally, the study revealed that brand knowledge affect has a significant effect on prospect purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brands. In line with these findings, the study concludes that brand awareness has significant positive effect on prospect purchase intention for selected vegetable oil brands in Nasarawa State.

 

Based on the findings, the study recommends the following

 

1.      Integrated marketing communication should be employed to create brand awareness among for vegetable oil brands in Nasarawa State. This will ensure coordination in the promotion message for the vegetable oil brands.

 

2.      The producers of vegetable oil should conduct a market survey in order to determine the extent of awareness of the consumers about their products. This will help them to make informed decision on the promotional tools to be employed.

 

3.      Since brand recognition, brand recall and brand knowledge were found to have significant effect on consumer purchase intention, the producers and distributors of vegetable oil brands should package and promote their products in such a way that it will create lasting impression on the consumers.

 

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