Abstract
This paper reports on Generation Y students’ brand personality perceptions of the Nokia mobile phone brand. The Generation Y cohort, are the first generation to have been brought up in the mobile telephony era and, consequently, present as a salient current and future segment for mobile device manufacturers and marketers. A brand’s personality is known to increase consumers’ preference for and usage of a brand, which may result in stronger emotional ties and loyalty towards that brand and, ultimately, a sustainable competitive advantage for that brand. A self-administered questionnaire was used to gather data from a sample of 1822 Generation Y students aged between 18 and 24 years, registered at two South African public higher education institutions. The questionnaire comprised 66 brand personality traits of symbolic products, anchored on a five-point Likert-type scale. Participants were requested to indicate the extent to which each of those traits reflected the Nokia brand. The captured data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and a t-test. The findings suggest that Generation Y students perceive the Nokia brand to be “reliable”, “trustworthy” and “intelligent”. The findings also suggest that African respondents have a notable higher brand personality perception of the Nokia brand than White respondents.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Aaker, J. L. (1997). Dimensions of brand personality. Journal of Market Research, 34(3), 347–356.
Anantatmula, V. S., & Shrivastav, B. (2012). Evolution of project teams for Generation Y workforce. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 5(1), 9–26.
Auchard, E., Rosendahl, J., & Abboud, L. (2015, August 11). Nokia returns to mobile phone business. Financial Mail. Retrieved August 28, 2015, from http://www.bdlive.co.za/world/europe/2015/08/11/nokia-returns-to-mobile-phone-business
Austin, J. R., Siguaw, J. A., & Mattila, A. S. (2003). A re-examination of the generalizability of the Aaker brand personality measurement framework. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 11, 77–92.
Bevan-Dye, A. L., Dhurup, M., & Surujlal, J. (2009). Black Generation Y students’ perceptions of national sport celebrity endorsers as role models. African Journal for Physical, Health Education, Recreation and Dance, 15(4), 172–188.
Blythe, J. (2007). Advertising creatives and brand personality: A grounded theory perspective. Journal of Brand Management, 14(4), 284–294.
Chang, W. L., & Lin, H. L. (2010). The impact of color traits on corporate branding. African Journal of Business Management, 4(15), 3344–3355.
Chiumbu, S. (2012). Exploring mobile phone practices in social movements in South Africa: The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign. African Identities, 10(2), 193–206.
Fernandez, P. R. (2009). Impact of branding on Gen Y’s choice of clothing. Journal of the South East Asia Research Centre of Communication and Humanities, 1(1), 79–95.
Freling, T. H., & Forbes, L. B. (2005). An examination of brand personality through methodological triangulation. Journal of Brand Management, 13(2), 148–162.
Geuens, M., Weijters, B., & De Wulf, K. (2009). A new measure of brand personality. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 26(2), 97–107.
Grant, I., & O’Donohoe, S. (2007). Why young consumers are not open to mobile marketing communication. International Journal of Advertising, 26(2), 223–246.
Hwang, J., & Kandampully, J. (2012). The role of emotional aspects in younger consumer-brand relationships. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 21(2), 98–108.
ITU. (2015). ICT data for the world (2005-2015). Retrieved August 29, 2015, from http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/statistics/2015/ITU_Key_2005-2015_ICT_data.xls
Jere, M., & Augustine, J. (2014). Investigating the factors that influence mobile phone adoption amongst the youth in South Africa. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 5(23), 519–526.
Jones, C., & Bonevac, D. (2013). An evolved definition of the term ‘brand’: Why branding has a branding problem. Journal of Brand Strategy, 2(2), 112–120.
Kaur, H., & Abodallahian, M. (2014). Analytical study of global mobile market: Forecasting and substitution. In: Information Technology: New Generations (ITNG), 2014 11th International Conference on, pp. 485–489, IEEE.
Kim, H. S., & Hall, M. L. (2014). Fashion brand personality and advertisement response: Incorporating a symbolic interactionist perspective. In T. M. Choi (Ed.), Fashion branding and consumer behaviors: Scientific models (pp. 29–45). New York: Springer.
Lazarevic, V., & Petrovic-Lararevic, S. (2007). Raising brand equity to Generation Y. Monash University Working Paper Series, No 30/07. Retrieved February 11, 2016, from http://arrow.monash.edu/vital/access/manager/Repository/monash:7312
Markert, J. (2004). Demographics of age: Generational and cohort confusion. Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, 26(2), 11–25.
MarketLine. (2015). Mobile phones industry profile: Global, pp. 1–39. Retrieved February 11, 2016, from http://store.marketline.com/Product/global_mobile_phones?productid=MLIP1636-0009
Mulyanegara, R. C., Tsarenko, Y., & Anderson, A. (2009). The big five and brand personality: Investigating the impact of consumer personality on preferences towards particular brand personality. Journal of Brand Management, 16(4), 234–247.
Opoko, R., Abratt, R., & Pitt, L. (2006). Communicating brand personality: Are the websites doing the talking for the top South African Business Schools? Journal of Brand Management, 14(1/2), 20–39.
Persaud, A., & Azhar, I. (2012). Innovative mobile marketing via smartphones: Are consumers ready? Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 30(4), 418–443.
Porter, G., Hampshire, K., Abane, A., Munthali, A., Robson, E., Mashiri, M., et al. (2012). Youth, mobility and mobile phones in Africa: Findings from a three-country study. Information Technology for Development, 18(2), 145–162.
Ramaseshan, B., & Tsao, H. (2007). Moderating effects of the brand concept on the relationship between brand personality and perceived quality. Journal of Brand Management, 14(6), 458–466.
Schwalbe, B. C. (2009). Leveraging the digital media habits of the millenials: Strategies for teaching journalism courses. Journal of Southwestern Mass Communication, 25(1), 53–68.
Sox, C. B., Kline, S. F., & Crews, T. B. (2014). Identifying best practices, opportunities and barriers in meeting planning for Generation Y. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 36(1), 244–254.
Statistics South Africa. (2014). Mid-year Population Estimates 2014. Retrieved February 4, 2016, from http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0302/P03022014.pdf
Sung, Y., Choi, S. M., Ahn, H., & Song, Y. A. (2015). Dimensions of luxury brand personality: Scale development and validation. Psychology & Marketing, 32(1), 121–132.
Times Media. (2015). The Sunday Times Top Brands Awards. Retrieved August 25, 2015, from http://www.tmadroom.co.za/annual%20supplement/top-brands
Van der Made, G. (2015). Apple, Nokia and Samsung trump BlackBerry in South African user satisfaction stats. Retrieved August 25, 2015, from http://gearburn.com/2015/07/apple-nokia-and-samsung-trump-blackberry-in-south-african-user-satisfaction-stats/
Van Rekom, J., Jacobs, G., Verlegh, P. W. J., & Podnar, K. (2006). Capturing the essence of a corporate brand personality: A western brand in Eastern Europe. Journal of Brand Management, 14(1/2), 114–124.
Veloutsou, C., & Taylor, C. S. (2012). The role of the brand as a person in business to business brands. Industrial Marketing Management, 41(6), 898–907.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Muller, RA., Bevan-Dye, A.L. (2017). Reliable Nokia-Brand Personality Perceptions of the Finnish Communication Giant. In: Bilgin, M., Danis, H., Demir, E., Can, U. (eds) Country Experiences in Economic Development, Management and Entrepreneurship. Eurasian Studies in Business and Economics, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46319-3_50
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46319-3_50
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-46318-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-46319-3
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)