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THE PRODUCT INVOLVEMENT/BRAND LOYALTY LINK: AN EMPIRICAL

EXAMINATION

Pascale G. Quester, Amal Karunaratna and Ai Lin Lim

The University of Adelaide

Abstract

Product involvement (PI) and Brand Loyalty (BL) are two important concepts in consumer behaviour.

Several studies have examined the relationship between PI and BL but few empirical investigations have

been conducted to validate the notion emerging from the literature than PI precedes BL. In this empirical

study, two products associated with either low or high involvement are used to examine this issue. We

found support for a relationship between the two constructs. In addition, we found that the dimensions of

involvement varied depending on the product category.

Introduction

Product involvement and Brand Loyalty are two important concepts believed to explain a significant

proportion of consumer purchase choices. Several studies (Traylor 1981 and 1983, Park 1996, LeClerc

and Little 1997, Iwasaki and Havitz 1998), have examined the relationship between product involvement

and loyalty, albeit under other names. For instance, Traylor uses the terms ego involvement and brand

commitment whereas Park (1996) refers to just involvement and attitudinal loyalty. Moreover,

studies examining the relationship between product involvement and brand loyalty have remained

conceptual in nature and empirical investigations of the product involvement/brand loyalty link arelacking.

The central premise of the literature examining the relationship between loyalty and product

involvement is that consumers who are more involved with a particular brand, are more committed and

hence, more loyal to that brand (Traylor 1981 and 1983). High involvement has also been suggested as

a precondition to loyalty (Robertson 1976, Park et al. 1987, Assael 1987, Beatty et al. 1988). Indeed,

Assael (1987) argues that the cognitive definition of brand loyalty represents commitment and therefore,

involvement with the brand.

In a rare empirical examination of the issue (an experimental study of free-standing insert

coupons), LeClerc and Little (1997) found that brand loyalty interacted with product involvement. The

authors stated that repeat purchase behaviour for a high-involvement product was an indicator of brand

loyalty, whereas repeat purchase for a low-involvement product was simply habitual purchase behaviour,

without elaborating clearly on the relationship between these constructs.

In an attempt to elucidate these relationships, Park (1996), in a study on leisure activities, found

that involvement and attitudinal loyalty were highly correlated. However, Iwasaki and Havits (1998) later

argued that Parks findings of a correlation between involvement and attitudinal loyalty did not determine

whether involvement precedes loyalty. Rather, they proposed that individuals go through sequential

psychological processes in order to become loyal participants in leisure or recreational activities. Iwasaki

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and Havitz (1998) also argued that highly loyal people tended to exhibit high levels of involvement and

that individual and social-situational factors,such as personal values or beliefs, social and cultural norms,

influenced the feedback effects of behavioural loyalty. However, their proposed framework has not been

empirically tested.

According to Traylor, the general convention in the literature (eg. Lastovicka and Gardner 1979,

Tyebjee 1979) is that ones involvement in a product class is directly related to ones commitment (orloyalty) to a brand within that product class. It is argued that the more focal a product class is to an

individuals ego or sense of identity, the stronger the psychological attachment to a particular brand

within that product class. Conversely, the more peripheral the product class is to the individuals ego, the

lower the attachment to the brand (Traylor 1983). Traylors reasons are that for a low-involvement type

product category, the consumer would have a large consideration set and therefore, brand commitment

would be low. Hence, brand switching would be a more frequent behaviour rather than for another

consumer to whom this product is more highly involving. Traylors (1981) reasoning seems to suggest

that consumers with a smaller consideration set of a high-involvement type product category would have

high brand commitment. This view is rather simplistic, relying on the size of the consideration set rather

than the actual relationship between the constructs.In earlier work, Traylor (1981) stated that brand commitment is generally not directly related to

product involvement, suggesting later (1983) that it is possible to consider cases where low brand

commitment is coupled with high product involvement and high brand commitment with low product

involvement. This is because involvement and loyalty are consumer-defined phenomena, as opposed to

product-defined (Tyebjee 1979b, Traylor 1981, Kassarjian 1981, Traylor 1983, Traylor and Joseph

1984, Kapferer and Laurent 1985a). As a result, Traylor (1983) believed that involvement and

commitment can each be thought of as a continuum along which consumers are distributed. Despite

some quantitative evidence, the small sample size and the composition of the sample precluded Traylor

from claiming any generalisability of his findings.

Surprisingly few empirical investigations have been conducted in this area. The complexity of therelationship between product involvement and brand loyalty along with the use of imprecise measures

appear to have obscured previous research. Hence, the present study seeks to examine this relationship

empirically. Following on the suggestion that the two constructs are consumer-defined phenomena, this

study developed product-specific measures in order to establish the link between product involvement

and brand loyalty.

Hypotheses and methodology

A review of the literature concerning the two constructs at the heart of this study suggests that high

product involvement could be a precondition to brand loyalty. For product categories that are highly

involving, Dick and Basu (1994) suggest that consumers (favourable) relative attitudes towards specific

offerings of a product are likely to contribute most to repeat patronage and to be less susceptible to

situational influences. The literature takes the view that product involvement and brand loyalty are

positively related and that high product involvement precedes the development of brand loyalty. By

contrast, Traylor (1983) argues that combinations of inverse relationships, eg. low product involvement

and high brand loyalty and vice versa are also possible. Further empirical work is clearly needed. In this

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study, we investigate the general hypothesis, stated as follows: H: Product involvement is positively

associated with brand loyalty.

The studies cited above which examined the relationship between product involvement and

brand loyalty treated product involvement as a dichotomous construct. However, a representation of

product involvement as either high or low seems be too simplistic. Laurent and Kapferer (1985)

considered the possibility of a continuum and argued that involvement is a multi-dimensional constructand as such, the construct is better viewed in terms of an involvement profile. Based on this argument,

the authors developed a Consumer Involvement Profile (CIP) scale which measures involvement along

five dimensions/facets, namely, Interest, Pleasure, Sign, Risk Importance and Risk Probability.

Laurent and Kapferer (1985) have demonstrated that different facets of involvement have different

influences on certain aspects of consumer behaviour. Some later studies (eg. Jain and Srinivasan 1990,

Rodgers and Schneider 1993) found that scale items relating to Interest and Pleasure merged on one

factor. An involvement profile is argued to be able to clearly explain the nature and the consequences of

involvement. As such, the general hypothesis (H) is re-stated for each of these dimensions of involvement

on brand loyalty:

H1: Interest and Pleasure is positively associated with Brand Loyalty.H2: Sign is positively associated with Brand Loyalty.

H3: Risk Probability is positively associated with Brand Loyalty.

H4: Risk Importance is positively associated with Brand Loyalty.

The first stage of the study involved the use of focus group discussions to identify product

categories with which students in general would either have total or minimal involvement (using the

terms suggested by Laurent and Kapferer (1985a). The product categories had to be highly relevant to

students who comprised the convenience sample used in this study. In addition, students should have

extensive familiarity and purchasing experiences with those product categories. A total of 13 male and

14 female second year university students participated in these focus groups. Although subjective, this

ensured that the products eventually selected for the study named would fit the total and minimalinvolvement categories sought. The outcome of the discussions resulted in the selection of sports

shoes/sneakers to represent the total involvement product category and ballpoint pens to represent the

minimal involvement product category for this particular population (university students). A

questionnaire was then developed to measure each of the constructs, using multi-item scales. As the

present study involves two products - sports shoes/sneakers and ballpoint pens, the questionnaire was

duplicated for both products.

Most items in the questionnaire were adapted from existing scales, as recommended by Stangor

(1998). As such, the reliability and validity of these measures had already been established in other

contexts. Where existing scales were insufficient to capture the constructs, new items were also

developed. All items used in this study reproduced the reliability of the original literature from which they

were extracted (coefficient alpha ranging between 0.63 and 0.90).

The Consumer Involvement Profile (CIP) scale developed by Laurent and Kapferer (1985)

was deemed appropriate to measure product involvement in this study. The English translated version by

Rodgers and Shneider (1993) of the original French version of the CIP was used. The current CIP scale

comprises 16 Likert-type, five-point statements ranging from totally disagree to totally agree. Only minor

modifications were made to the scale to make these appropriate to the context of the present study.

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Brand loyalty was measured using a variety of items borrowed from several previous studies

(Cooper-Martin 1993, Beatty and Kahle 1988, Lichtenstein, Netemeyer and Burton 1990, Raju 1980,

Holbrook 1986 and Mano and Oliver 1993). Analysis conducted using the response from a pilot study

undertaken with TAFE students enabled a reduction of the initial 31 items measuring brand loyalty to 16,

using exploratory factor analysis.

The final version of the self-administered questionnaire was distributed during a lecture to aconvenience sample of 253 university students, 56% of whom were female and 90% of whom were

aged 18 to 25 years. This sample was therefore representative of the student population for whom initial

qualitative research had demonstrated that the two product categories were highly relevant.

Results

Factor analysis was used to determine the number of factors that would account for maximum variance

in the data used in any subsequent multi-variate analysis (Hair et al. 1995). Principal components analysis

was used, followed by an orthogonal rotation to develop independent factors (Malhotra 1993). All itemsin the scales had factor loadings greater than .55. The measures were then assessed for validity and

reliability following the scale construction method proposed by (Churchill, 1979) and the Cronbachs

coefficient alpha were used to establish scale reliability.

In the case of sports shoes/sneakers, this analysis showed that that Interest and Pleasure

items merged on one single factor, while two distinct factors emerged for Risk Probability, Sign and

Risk Importance. The merging of Interest and Pleasure in one factor is consistent with previous

findings reported by Kapferer and Laurent (1985), Jain and Srinivasan (1990) and Rodgers and

Shneider (1993).

This, however, was not the case for ballpoint pens, where Sign and Pleasure items loaded on

Factor 1. Such a merging of Sign and Pleasure has not been previously reported for any productcategory. Risk Importance items loaded on Factor 2 and Risk Probability items merged on Factor 3

(note: for sports shoes/sneakers, the same items merged on Factor 2). Interest items loaded separately

on three factors. The loading of Interest items on different factors for ballpoint pens contrasted with

shoes/sneakers and confirms that respondents do not appear to attach too much personal interest in a

product that is of low cost, ordinary and inconsequential in nature.

In contrast with the Involvement scale, the factor analyses of items relating to brand loyalty for

both products showed that the measure was uni-dimensional with high coefficient alphas (>.8), displaying

properties of sound construct development (Gerbing and Anderson, 1988).

Despite a large body of literature arguing that attitude is a multi-dimensional construct made up

of cognitive, affective and conative components (eg. Dick and Basu 1994, Foxall and Goldsmith 1994,

Baldinger and Rubinson 1996), the emergence of a single factor from our data indicates that respondents

did not distinguish between the three components of attitude. This single dimension can be labelled

relative brand loyalty since the items were designed to capture attitude towards a brand relative to

other brands.

Our general hypothesis was that product involvement (PI) was positively associated with Brand

Loyalty (BL). As previously argued, Laurent and Kapferer (1985) proposed that the involvement

construct should be viewed in terms of multiple facets. Hence, different consumers would rate the facets

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of the CIP differently. Contrasted profiles, according to these authors, may therefore be expected.

Since the facets of involvement are different for both products, our hypotheses were further refined to

reflect this difference (see Table 1). The involvement dimensions relevant for each product are also

shown in Table 1.

These hypotheses were tested using regression analysis where brand loyalty is the dependent

variable and the involvement dimensions described for each product in Table 1 (four for shoes and threefor ballpoint pens) form the independent variables. Table 2 summarises the results of the regression

analysis. For sports shoes/sneakers, the four independent variables, taken together, explained 29.4% of

the variance in brand loyalty. For ballpoint pens, the three independent variables, taken together,

explained 36.3% of the variance in brand loyalty.

Table 1: Restatement of Hypotheses for Sports shoes/Sneakers (A) and Ballpoint Pens (B).

Product A: Sport Shoes/Sneakers Product B: Ballpoint Pens

H1(a) Interest and Pleasure is positively

associated with brand loyalty.

H1,2(b) Sign and Pleasure is positively

associated with brand loyalty.

H2(a) Sign is positively associated with brandloyalty.

H3(a) Risk Probability is positively associated

with brand loyalty.

H3(b) Risk Probability is positively

associated with brand loyalty

H4(a) Risk Importance is positively associated

with brand loyalty.

H4(b) Risk Importance is positively

associated with brand loyalty

Table 2: Results of Regression Analysis for Hypothesis Testing

Dependent

Variable

Independent Variable

Product A: SportsShoes/Sneakers

Brand Loyalty Interest andPleasure

RiskProbability

Sign Risk Importance

Standardised beta

coefficients

.388* -.081 .312* -.106

t-value 5.640* -1.372 4.310* -1.602

Adjusted R2 = .294 F = 26.814*

Product B: Ballpoint

Pens

Brand Loyalty Sign and

Pleasure

Risk

Probability

Risk

Importance

Standardised beta

coefficients

.362* -.138* .376*

t-value 5.032* 2.256* 5.247*

Adjusted R2= .363 F = 48.340*

*p

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the other hand, for ballpoint pens, while Sign and Pleasure and Risk Importance were significant and

supported the hypotheses on brand loyalty H1,2(b) and H3(b), Risk Probability resulted in a negative

coefficient (all coefficients were significant, p

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