What factors affect to brand equity at sun life vietnam

- RESEARCH PROJECT (BMBR5103) WHAT FACTORS AFFECT TO BRAND EQUITY AT SUN LIFE VIETNAM ? STUDENT’S FULL NAME STUDENT ID INTAKE ADVISOR’S NAME & TITLE : TRINH XUAN NAM : CGS00019875 : SEPTEMBER, 2015 : DR BUI PHI HUNG (DBA) February, 2017 - Advisor’s assessment Advisor’s signature - TABLE OF CONTENT ABSTRACT CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .7 1.1 Company background 1.2 Research problem statement 1.3 Research objective 11 1.4 Research scope 11 CHAPTER II : LITERATURE REVIEW .12 2.1 What is Brand? .12 2.2 Brand equity 13 2.3 The concept of brand equity 15 2.4 Keller’s brand equity model 18 2.5 Aaker’s brand equity model 20 2.6 Luming Wang and Adam Finn’s brand equity model .23 2.7 Hypotheses .24 CHAPTER III : METHODOLOGY 26 3.1 Data collection method 26 3.2 Sampling 27 3.3 Measurement Techniques 28 3.4 Data analysis 31 CHAPTER IV: KEY FINDINGS 32 4.1 Cronbach’s Alpha 32 4.2 Exploratory Factor Analysis 33 4.3 Assessment of customers about Brand Equity of Sun Life Vietnam 35 CHAPTER V: DISCUSSION 36 5.1 Brand Loyalty of Sun Life Vietnam 36 - 5.2 Brand Awareness of Sun Life Vietnam 37 5.3 Perceived Quality of Sun Life Vietnam 40 5.4 Brand Associations of Sun Life Vietnam 43 CHAPTER VI: CONCLUSION .45 REFERENCE 48 APPENDIX .50 - ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Foremost, I would like to thank for knowledge I have gained from MBA course of Open University Malaysia and specially express my sincere gratitude to my advisor Dr Hung Bui, for offering his precious time and effort for proofreading my Researching Project, for his guidance, valuable comments and suggestions It is worth to mention that he was a perfect match for my Researching Project in terms of language and proficiency This work would not have been more successful without his help and patience I also want to express my profound gratitude to my Dad and Mum – you are the best in the world and I’m so proud of you! Big thanks to friends, MBAOUM K19A classmates, Marketing colleagues at Sun Life Vietnam who went out of their ways in providing immeasurable supports and positive energy And also my thanks go to those who will read this Researching Project until the very end Last, but not least, it is a pleasure to thank those interviewees and the customers of Sun Life Vietnam, who took part in my survey, for your kindness, time, and effort Trinh Xuan Nam - ABSTRACT Sun Life Vietnam is a new insurer in Vietnam after Sun Life Financial acquired PVI Sun Life and renamed of PVI Sun Life to Sun Life Vietnam Insurance Company Limited to reflect its new status as a wholly owned subsidiary of Sun Life PVI Sun Life didn’t invest more in advertising and marketing activities to build brand equity So the awareness about PVI Sun Life‘s Brand equity is low Additionally, “Trust” of customers on Brand equity is a very important key point of competitive advantage in Life insurance industry in Vietnam It makes business activities become difficulty One of the most valuable assets of any company is its brand equity that the company could earn more benefits from consumers Sun Life Vietnam is new insurance company in Vietnam Understanding current fierce competition, CEO of Sun Life Vietnam determined one of the most important objective is Sun Life Vietnam need to diffuse brand equity to Vietnamese and flash on Vietnam Life Insurance market This study researches to examine the factors affecting brand equity from the perspective of customers using Aaker's Model, it was determined the relationship between levels brand equity with four factors: brand loyaty, brand awareness, perceived quality, brand assciations; and this study analyzed based on four factors above and data will be analyzed using SPSS software Data collection methods included 19 questionnaires as part of a customer survey to brand equity at Sun Life Vietnam Thus, this research aims to examine above factors that affect to brand equity at Sun Life Vietnam I think results of this research will help the CEO of Sun Life Vietnam have solutions to improve and increase brand equity Key words in this research: brand loyaty, brand awareness, perceived quality, brand assciations, brand equity, insurance, Sun Life Vietnam, Vietnam insurance - CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Starting with the background of the problem by using factors of PESTL, this chapter will present the research aims, research questions and research scope 1.1 Company background Sun Life Vietnam is a new insurer in Vietnam In Jan 2013, PVI Sun Life Insurance Company Limited was founded by PVI Holdings and Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada Sun Life Financial Inc is a leading international financial services organization providing a diverse range of protection and wealth products and services to individuals and corporate customers Sun Life Financial has operations in a number of markets worldwide, including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, India, China, Australia, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and Bermuda On Dec 31st, 2015, Sun Life increased its share of charter capital up to 75% and on Nov 7th, 2016, upon approval of the Ministry of Finance, Sun Life acquired the remaining 25% charter capital from PVI and becomes a 100% foreign owned, Canadian life insurance company operating in Vietnam under the brand name of Sun Life Vietnam Insurance Company Limited Sun Life Vietnam has provided life and health insurance, education plans and pension products to Clients throughout the country Since it was launched in 2013, Sun Life Vietnam has become the country’s sixth largest life insurance provider and a market leader and industry pioneer in pensions Sun Life Vietnam adopts “Client for life” strategy in which clients are the focus of all business Its mission is to help Vietnamese clients achieve lifetime financial security by offering a strong suite of life insurance, health riders and savings products So far, Sun Life Vietnam has already established itself as one of the leading life insurance providers and an industry pioneer in pensions for both individual and corporate clients - Nowadays, lots of insurance companies are convinced that one of their most valuable assets is their product brands and services The Brand equity is one of those capitals which preserve company's value and also have the loyalty of customers in follow The more the Brand equity in customers' mind the more the company can achieve revenues For this reason, CEO of Sun Life Vietnam decide to invest in activities that enhance brand equity to create competitive advantage and confirming its position as a global brand 1.2 Research problem statement Market changes Markets have been changing over time and are still changing fast New markets are emerging continually, and communication channels about products and services and selling them are changing at a revolutionary pace (Kotler, 1999) Thus, marketing is also changing to meet those changes in the world Even though customer satisfaction drives customer loyalty, it suggested that care must be taken for customers (Donaldson, B and O’Toole, T., 2007) As Philip Kotler (1999) describes in his book, the goal of marketing today is to create customer satisfaction and firms’ profitability by building valued relationships with customers Intense communication and interaction strengthens relationship or bond with customers and thus creates more loyal customers (Donaldson, B and O’Toole, T., 2007) Brand awareness in any industry gives that company an edge Brand awareness accomplishes several objectives for companies seeking to increase sales in the marketplace (Lea Nathan, September 2011) In financial services, especially the insurance industry, the financial performance is intimately attached to customers loyalty (Diacon & O’Brien, 2002) As the selling cost of an insurance policy is not recovered unless the policy is renewed (Zeithaml, Berry & Parasuraman, 1996), thus, customer loyalty is one of - the most important determinant of economic success to the insurance firms (Mishra & Prasad, 2014; Moore & Santomero, 1999) In this regard, customer loyalty is an area of interest not only in academia but among marketing practitioners (Lovelock, 2008; Sagib & Zapan, 2014) Although the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty has been researched in different industry at large, however the examination of the impact of the relationship between perceived value and loyalty has mostly been ignored by the health insurance perspective (Yang, Jun & Peterson, 2004) Commonly, the healthcare insurance service products are distributed through a very complicated insurance agency network (Grönroos, 1982) In this respect, building a distinctive and purposeful relationship between customers and the healthcare insurance providers will require a superior level of service qualities provided by insurance firms (Gera, 2011; Rahman, AbdelFattah & Mohamad, 2014; Wong, Tong & Wong, 2012) Corporate Image described as a company's image as how “customers see and perceive” the firm (Gronroos, 2007) Clow and Beisel (1995) and Mazursky and Jacoby (1986) added that the customer’s image of particular service firm will have a direct effect on their attitude on future expectations There is evidence that “image” is significantly related to perceptions of quality (Darden & Schwinghammer, 1985) Because, the firm image will precede customer evaluations as these assessments are components of the image (Mazursky & Jacoby, 1986) Aside from technical quality and functional quality, firm's image was drawn as an initial decision for customers to determine the quality of service provided (Clow, Kurtz & Ozment, 1998; Faché, 2000; Mazursky & Jacoby, 1986) That’s mean, when services are difficult to be evaluated, then firm image shown as an important factor that influencing the perception of customers towards the quality of service provided (Andreassen & Lindestad, 1998; LeBlanc & Nguyen, 2001) - Previous studies established a positive relationship between the firm image and expectations in several service industries, such as catering, financial services, or travel agencies (Rodríguez del Bosque, San Martín, Collado & García de los Salmones, 2009; Clow, Kurtz & Ozment, 1997; Devlin, Gwynne & Ennew, 2002) A positive firm image develops cues that give source of the appearance of expertise that are capable of increasing a message’s of persuasive effect (Schindler & Bickart, 2005) Interactive technology In addition, those (above) market changes move the marketing generation (industrial age) to an ‘information age’ and later to a ‘relationship age’ (Keith, F and Tahl, R., 2005) Today, information and communication technology (ICT) developments and innovations are playing a vital role in the contemporary market (Naudé, P and Holland, C P., 2004; Brady et.al, 2008) The digital landscape across Viet Nam continues to grow and mature showing no signs of slowing Cell phone and particularly smartphone ownership has not yet reached a saturation point so this market has grown and will continue to grow While computers still account for a significant percentage of the internet access in Vietnam, that share is declining as mobile internet access and mobile social media access is rapidly increasing Social interaction is a critically important online activity for the Vietnamese and Facebook is holding strong as the leading platform for social media Beyond social interaction or perhaps in tandem with that interaction the Vietnamese are steadily consuming online content centered in both news and information as well as entertainment Each of these areas will be of key importance to media and marketing efforts Due to this background, interactive technology has proven to offer unique marketing opportunities for the companies and to be used as a tool to build brand equity(©reachingvietnam.com, April 2016) 10 - Reliability Statistics Cronbach's Alpha Based on Standardized Cronbach's Alpha Items N of Items 803 808 Item Statistics Impress Sun Life Vietnam brandname Recognize that Sun Life Vietnam is a life insurer Recognize logo and brandcolor of Sun Life Vietnam Recognize and remember Sun Life Vietnam products Easy to recognize Sun Life Vietnam with other life insurers Mean Std Deviation N 3.74 860 100 3.02 681 100 2.56 820 100 2.42 713 100 3.05 687 100 Summary Item Statistics Maximum / Item Means Mean Minimum Maximum Range Minimum Variance N of Items 2.958 2.420 3.740 1.320 1.545 268 Item-Total Statistics 53 - Impress Sun Life Vietnam brandname Recognize that Sun Life Vietnam is a life insurer Recognize logo and brandcolor of Sun Life Vietnam Recognize and remember Sun Life Vietnam products Easy to recognize Sun Life Vietnam with other life insurers Scale Mean if Scale Variance if Corrected Item- Squared Multiple Item Deleted Item Deleted Total Correlation Correlation 11.05 5.240 509 294 11.77 5.452 651 747 12.23 4.987 635 801 12.37 5.407 624 796 11.74 5.730 542 706 Item-Total Statistics Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted Impress Sun Life Vietnam brandname 794 Recognize that Sun Life Vietnam is a life insurer 748 Recognize logo and brandcolor of Sun Life Vietnam 749 Recognize and remember Sun Life Vietnam products 754 Easy to recognize Sun Life Vietnam with other life insurers 778 Scale Statistics Mean Variance Std Deviation N of Items 14.79 7.986 2.826 Conclusion: Official measurement 54 - Scale: PERCEIVED QUALITY Case Processing Summary Cases N % Valid 100 34.4 Excludeda 191 65.6 Total 291 100.0 a Listwise deletion based on all variables in the procedure Reliability Statistics Cronbach's Alpha Based on Standardized Cronbach's Alpha Items N of Items 801 811 Item Statistics Sun Life Vietnam products with good benefits Advisors are professional and friendly Sun Life Vietnam have good customer service Mean Std Deviation N 4.30 689 100 3.79 498 100 3.34 742 100 55 - Policy issue with expectation time Low premium fee 2.34 685 100 2.48 674 100 Summary Item Statistics Maximum / Item Means Mean Minimum Maximum Range Minimum Variance N of Items 3.250 2.340 4.300 1.960 1.838 706 Item-Total Statistics Sun Life Vietnam products with good benefits Advisors are professional and friendly Sun Life Vietnam have good customer service Policy issue with expectation time Low premium fee Scale Mean if Scale Variance if Corrected Item- Squared Multiple Item Deleted Item Deleted Total Correlation Correlation 11.95 4.513 383 535 12.46 4.493 647 586 12.91 4.143 469 365 13.91 3.780 698 776 13.77 3.593 807 810 Item-Total Statistics Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted Sun Life Vietnam products with good benefits 825 56 - Advisors are professional and friendly 755 Sun Life Vietnam have good customer service 804 Policy issue with expectation time 724 Low premium fee 687 Scale Statistics Mean Variance Std Deviation N of Items 16.25 6.109 2.472 Conclusion: Official Measurement Scale: BRAND ASSOCIATIONS Case Processing Summary Cases N % Valid 100 34.4 Excludeda 191 65.6 Total 291 100.0 a Listwise deletion based on all variables in the procedure 57 - Reliability Statistics Cronbach's Alpha Based on Standardized Cronbach's Alpha Items N of Items 770 775 Item Statistics Sun Life Vietnam is a prestige, professional insurer Sun Life Vietnam designed flexible products Sun Life Vietnam is an insurer with outstanding quality Sun Life Vietnam is a top of Vietnam insurers Sun Life Vietname products make life financial safety Mean Std Deviation N 3.64 704 100 3.50 644 100 3.12 795 100 3.70 659 100 4.38 708 100 Summary Item Statistics Maximum / Item Means Mean Minimum Maximum Range Minimum Variance N of Items 3.668 3.120 4.380 1.260 1.404 209 Item-Total Statistics 58 - Sun Life Vietnam is a prestige, professional insurer Sun Life Vietnam designed flexible products Sun Life Vietnam is an insurer with outstanding quality Sun Life Vietnam is a top of Vietnam insurers Sun Life Vietname products make life financial safety Scale Mean if Scale Variance if Corrected Item- Squared Multiple Item Deleted Item Deleted Total Correlation Correlation 14.70 4.232 594 407 14.84 4.540 545 356 15.22 4.355 441 211 14.64 4.394 586 351 13.96 4.301 561 321 Item-Total Statistics Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted Sun Life Vietnam is a prestige, professional insurer 709 Sun Life Vietnam designed flexible products 728 Sun Life Vietnam is an insurer with outstanding quality 769 Sun Life Vietnam is a top of Vietnam insurers 714 Sun Life Vietname products make life financial safety 721 Scale Statistics Mean Variance Std Deviation N of Items 18.34 6.449 2.539 Conclusion: Official measurment 59 - APPENDIX RESULT OF TEST EFA FACTORS KMO and Bartlett's Test Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy Bartlett's Test of Sphericity 698 Approx Chi-Square 1287.504 Df 171 Sig .000 Rotated Component Matrix a Component 60 - Think about Sun Life Vietnam first when have demand of 837 insurance product Buy Sun Life Vietnam product in comparision with 804 another brand Repeat to purchase Sun Life Vietnam product Advocacy Sun Life Vietnam product to friends, relatives Impress Sun Life Vietnam brandname Recognize that Sun Life Vietnam is a life insurer 790 742 843 828 Recognize logo and brandcolor of Sun Life 791 Vietnam Recognize and remember Sun Life Vietnam products 779 Easy to recognize Sun Life Vietnam with other life 795 insurers Sun Life Vietnam products with good benefits Advisors are professional and friendly Sun Life Vietnam have good customer service Policy issue with expectation time Low premium fee 757 753 718 586 919 61 - Sun Life Vietnam is a 902 prestige, professional insurer Sun Life Vietnam designed flexible products 858 Sun Life Vietnam is an insurer with outstanding quality 854 Sun Life Vietnam is a top of Vietnam insurers 926 Sun Life Vietname products make life financial safety 911 SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE In order to gather information to help us build and complete research "WHAT FACTORS AFFECT TO BRAND EQUITY AT SUN LIFE VIETNAM" We are sending you this survey We sincerely hope you take a few moments to access by choosing a scale of to 5, where "1 is strongly disagree"; "2 Is not agree"; "3 is not opinion"; "4 is agreed"; "5 is strongly agree" 62 - Think about Sun Life Vietnam first when have demand of insurance product Buy Sun Life Vietnam product in comparision with another brand Repeat to purchase Sun Life Vietnam product Advocacy Sun Life Vietnam product to friends, relatives 5 Impress Sun Life Vietnam brandname Recognize that Sun Life Vietnam is a insurer Recognize logo and brandcolor of Sun Life Vietnam Recognize and remember Sun Life Vietnam products Easy to recognize Sun Life Vietnam with other insurers 10 Sun Life Vietnam products with good benefits 11 Sun Life Vietnam have good customer service 12 Advisors are professional and friendly 13 Policy issue with expectation time 14 Confortable premium fee 15 Sun Life Vietnam is a prestige, professional insurer 16 Sun Life Vietnam designed flexible products 17 Sun Life Vietnam is an insurer with outstanding quality 63 - 18 Sun Life Vietnam is a top of Vietnam insurers 19 Sun Life Vietname make life financial safety Thank you for joining this survey APPENDIX 03 Assestment of customers about Brand Loyalty Levels Average STT Questionary value Evaluation Standard of Deviation 24 38 35 3.05 Moderate 0.845 24 57 15 2.83 Moderate 0.726 25 34 29 12 2.28 Low 0.975 38 21 25 16 2.19 Low 1.116 2.5875 Low Think about Sun Life Vietnam first when have demand of insurance product Buy Sun Life Vietnam product in comparision with another brand Repeat to purchase Sun Life Vietnam product Advocacy Sun Life Vietnam product to friends, relatives Brand Loyalty Factor Table Assessment of customers about Brand Loyalty 64 - Assestment of customers about Brand Awareness Levels STT Average Questionary 1 Impress Sun Life Vietnam brandname 18 29 46 16 60 12 29 12 value Standard Evaluation of Deviation 3.74 High 0.86 22 3.02 Moderate 0.681 50 2.56 Low 0.82 35 52 2.42 Low 0.713 15 59 24 3.05 Moderate 0.687 2.958 Moderate Recognize that Sun Life Vietnam is a life insurer Recognize logo and brandcolor of Sun Life Vietnam Recognize and remember Sun Life Vietnam products Easy to recognize Sun Life Vietnam with other life insurers Brand Awareness Factor Table Assessment of customers about Brand Awareness 65 - Assessment of customers about Perceived Quality Levels Average STT Questionary 10 47 42 1 16 82 10 46 40 11 45 43 35 55 value Evaluation Standard of Deviation Sun Life Vietnam products with good 4.3 Very High 0.689 3.79 High 0.498 3.34 Moderate 0.742 2.34 Low 0.685 2.48 Low 0.674 3.25 Moderate benefits Advisors are professional and friendly Sun Life Vietnam have good customer service Policy issue with expectation time Low premium fee Perceived Quality Factor Table 10 Assessment of customers about Perceived Quality 66 - Assessment of customers about Brand Associations Levels Average STT Questionary value Standard Evaluation of 25 64 3.64 High 0.704 43 49 3.5 High 0.644 16 48 32 3.12 Moderate 0.795 20 69 3.7 High 0.659 13 36 51 4.38 Very High 0.708 3.668 High Deviation Sun Life Vietnam is a prestige, professional insurer Sun Life Vietnam designed flexible products Sun Life Vietnam is an insurer with outstanding quality Sun Life Vietnam is a top of Vietnam insurers Sun Life Vietname products make life financial safety Brand Associations Factor Table 11 Assessment of customers about Brand Associations 67