INFLUENCE OF VIRTUAL BRAND PERSONALITY ON BRAND LOYALTY: WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO FINANCIAL LEASING INDUSTRY IN NORTH WESTERN PROVINCE, SRI LANKA

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of Virtual Brand Personality (VBP) on Brand Loyalty (BL) in Financial Leasing Industry in North Western Province Sri Lanka. The Financial Leasing industry in Sri Lanka plays one of the major roles within the Sri Lankan financial system because they are the major liquidity providers for the economy while transforming the risk characteristics of their assets. In present it has become a trend to provide most of the financial leasing services within virtual platforms. Financial Companies value the impact and the involvement of creating virtual brands as part of their overall marketing of the company (Ohnemus, 2009). Given the rapid development of virtual brands, marketers and brand managers have realized the importance of creating awareness through the identification of a virtual brand personality (Aaker, 1997; Okazaki, 2006; Eisend and Stokburger-Sauer, 2013; Matzler et al., 2016). The researchers have been adopted quantitative research approach and data has been collected via structured questionnaire. The analysis of this study has been done by using 384 responses. SEUSL Journal of Marketing, Vol. VII, No.2, 2022 ISSN 2513 – 3071 Page Number 33 - 61 According to the findings of the study the researchers have identified that there is a significance influence of virtual brand personality on brand loyalty. Further, the most influential dimension was identified as sophistication. In addition to that the dimension named as competence has been rejected from the study after observing the significance value. Empirical findings provide academic contributions to the existing body of knowledge of branding as the sophisticated quantitative data analyses used will eventually allow future researchers and practitioners to clarify the contribution of the current study to understand the importance of brand loyalty in financial sector in Sri Lanka.