Brand image and customers' willingness to pay a price premium for food brands
Abstract
Purpose
The aim is to understand customers' willingness, or unwillingness, to pay a price premium in the market for consumer packaged food and what kind of images brands can use in order to achieve a price premium.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on a quantitative survey of brand images found in food and branding literature and their impact on loyalty as well as customers' willingness to pay a price premium for consumer packaged food.
Findings
The survey shows that quality is a significant determinant of price premium, but adding other image dimensions doubles the predictability and understanding about price premium. The strongest determinants of price premium are social image, uniqueness and home country origin. Other significant determinants are corporate social responsibility (CSR) and awareness.
Practical implications
The results help brand managers to recognise the importance of incorporating price premium and to develop a better understanding of what drives price premium in addition to more traditional dimensions as quality and loyalty.
Originality/value
In grocery retailing, the competition for customers, margins and price premiums between manufacturer and private labels is fierce. Traditionally, the literature on this competition has focused on quality and product improvements as the main tool for creating distance to low priced competition. This study looks into other more branding related dimensions to distance from price competition.
Keywords
Citation
Anselmsson, J., Vestman Bondesson, N. and Johansson, U. (2014), "Brand image and customers' willingness to pay a price premium for food brands", Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 23 No. 2, pp. 90-102. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-10-2013-0414
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2014, Emerald Group Publishing Limited