The Impact of Brand Image on Purchase Decisions

Companies use branding, a set of communication, and selling points to differentiate their products from competitive products. A brand image constitutes the mental and emotional attributes determining buyers’ purchase decisions. Successful brands create enduring impressions in customers’ minds, establishing a loyal customer base. Ultimately, a brand image is a decisive factor in a company’s product sales.

Walmart, one of the world’s largest retailers, has a positive brand image. The brand’s vision statement, “to be the destination for customers to save money, no matter how they want to shop,” emphasizes the company’s low-cost strategy (Walmart, 2022). The vision statement has many advantages, such as portraying the company as a socially responsible citizen concerned with customers’ financial well-being (Yu, 2021). Also, Walmart’s CSR initiatives extend beyond its critical stakeholders-customers and employees. The company has built a positive perception by engaging in activities that benefit its neighbors and communities, such as providing relief food when disasters strike.

On the other hand, British Petroleum (BP) has a negative brand image, mainly attributable to the company’s past mistakes. BP’s failures are tied to brand personality aspects, which include the human features tied to a brand. The components of brand personality include sincerity, sophistication, and health (Le, 2021). BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and its response afterward indicates that it is a brand with a poor brand personality. Failure to avert the spill shows how unsophisticated the company’s systems were in detecting a potential catastrophe (McClam & Weber, 2010). Also, BP did little to compensate the victims affected by the spill and instead spent considerable resources on publishing multi-million TV adverts to bolster its image in the US (McClam & Weber, 2010). BP would have improved its brand image if it had focused on compensating the fishermen and business people who lost their livelihoods.

A company’s brand image is a crucial determinant of customers’ purchase decisions. Walmart and BP’s operations offer contrasting perspectives on what positive and negative brand image constitutes. On the one hand, Walmart has built a positive image incorporating social responsibility and a low-cost regime. On the other hand, British Petroleum’s poor brand personality, which was displayed following the crisis, created a negative perception.

References

Le, L. C. (2021). Factors Affecting Brand Image: A Case Study of Public Universities in Ho Chi Minh City. Elementary Education Online, 20(4), 427-427.

McClam, E., & Weber, H. (2010, June 12). BP’s failures were made worse by PR mistakes. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna37647218

Walmart. (2022). Purpose. Corporate – US. https://corporate.walmart.com/purpose#:~:text=We%20aim%20to%20build%20a

Yu, L. (2021). The Impact of Customer Review, Price Label, and Store Mission and Vision on Purchasing Behavior (Doctoral dissertation, University of Florida).

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Question

Brand image affects purchase decisions. Select a brand that you believe projects a positive image and select another brand that projects a negative image.