The Relationship Between Issue News and Corporate Brand Equity: a Case Study of Uchumi Supermarkets
Publisher
University Of Nairobi
Subject
Corporate Brand EquityDescription
This study critically examines the relationship between issue news and corporate brand equity. Using Uchumi supermarkets as a case study, this research argues that issues news have a significant impact on the brand equity of companies. This is especially critical when companies are facing crises occasioned by various factors and actors as was the case with Uchumi supermarkets whose brand equity has taken a battering in the recent years. The research was premised on the main objective which was to examine the relationship between issue news and Uchumi Supermarket’s corporate brand equity. The specific objectives were: to determine consumer awareness of issue news about Uchumi Supermarket; to establish the relationship between issue news and Uchumi supermarket brand equity; and, to evaluate the mediating role of consumer’s sensitivity to information from the news media on Uchumi supermarket brand equity. Evidence from all the eight Uchumi supermarkets in Nairobi and eight competing stores was used. Moreover, the research also talked with 73 respondents comprising of 32 shoppers from Uchumi, 32 shoppers from competing supermarket brands located close to Uchumi’s eight supermarket stores in Nairobi and nine key informants was used. In addition, newspaper clippings and TV clips were analysed to confirm the effect issue news had on shoppers’ and stakeholders’ behaviour and choices towards Uchumi. Most of those interviewed, as evidence in this study shows, consider brand equity and reputation as critical to the choices they make. Unfortunately, most of those interviewed, or 95 per cent, considered Uchumi’s reputation and brand as bad largely because of the negative press and challenges it faces. Given this situation, the study notes that Uchumi has been unable to effectively deal with the crisis bedevilling it. Accordingly, had Uchumi had a crisis communication plan in place, it might have been able to control the impact of the issue news on their corporate brand reputation and by extension limited the effect on their corporate brand reputation.
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
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