Corporate Branding and Consumer Attitude: The Mediating Role of Brand Positioning

ABSTRACT

The reforms introduced in the banking sector since 2006 by the central bank in Ghana has changed the sector significantly. The changes include deregulation and minimum capital requirement. These have seen an influx of foreign banks into the Ghanaian market. The influx of more banks in Ghana have paved way for consumers to have multiple choices of banks to select from. Studies have indicated that trust is a key ingredient consumers’ use in their brand selection. Meanwhile, other studies have also revealed that consumers’ trust in the brand is decreasing significantly. Therefore, developing a Corporate Branding strategy that envelopes the entire business under one umbrella and effective positioning of such strategy has become critical. The current study seeks to measure the impact of Brand Positioning mediating between Corporate Branding and Consumer Attitude in the Ghanaian banking sector. The key objective of the study is to assess the relationship between Corporate Branding, Consumer Attitude, and Brand Positioning within the banking sector in Ghana.

A quantitative approach was adopted for the study and structured questionnaire was used to gather data. 310 respondents took part in the survey. The sample was selected using convenience sampling approach. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) through AMOS20 was used to analyse the data. The findings of the study revealed that Corporate Branding (Business Activities, Corporate Image and Employees Actions) has a significant influence on Consumer Attitude in the Ghanaian banking sector. Brand Positioning partially mediate both Business Activities and Corporate Image dimensions in this study. However, Employees Actions dimension fully mediate Brand Positioning in order to influence Consumer Attitude. These findings of the study brought to fore the need of banking institutions management in Ghana to concentrate on building the strong corporate brand through the effective interplay of the proposed dimensions used for the current study in order to influence Consumer Attitude positively.