Personality type, gender and age difference: a study of customers' brand loyalty

The purpose of the research is to study the role of Personality Types, Gender and Age difference in Customers' Brand Loyalty. It was hypothesized that 1] There would be difference in brand loyalty of customers with Type "A", "B" and "AB" Personalities, 2] There would be gender difference in customers brand loyalty and, 3] There would be difference in brand loyalty of customers with age groups 19-21 years and 22-24 years. Sample of the present research consisted of 54 male and 54 female customers. Their Age range was from 19-24 years.Their minimum educational qualification was graduation and all belonged to middle and upper middle socio economic class. All the respondents were individually approached and they were requested to fill the demographic data sheet, which was followed by Anjum -Khalique Type A Scale [AKTAS, Anjum and Khalique, 1991], along with the Illustrative Measures of Brand Loyalty [Sheth, Mittal, and Newman, 1999a]. Analysis of Variance was applied to determine difference in brand loyalty among customers with Type "A", "B" and "AB" Personalities, t-test was applied in order to find out difference in brand loyalty between Type "A" and "B", Type "A" and "AB" and between Type "B" and "AB" Personalities. Further difference was also calculated with reference to gender and age range. Results indicated that there is a significant difference in consumer's brand loyalty with reference to Personality Types [N=108, df=2 and 105, F=3.561, p<.05].Although insignificant difference of brand loyalty was found between Personality Type A and B [N=36, t=1 .88, df =34, p>.05] and between Personality Type A and AB [N=91, t=0.132, df=89, p>.05]. However significant difference was noted between Personality Type B and AB [N=89, t=-2.725, df=87, p<.01]. Likewise there was significant difference between consumers with age group from 19-21 years and 22 - 24 years [N=108, t=2.83, df =106, p<.01]. Consumers of age group 19-21 years were found to be more brand loyal [X=19.02] than consumers of age group 22- 24 years[X= 17.02].Furthermore insignificant difference of brand loyalty was found between male and female customers [N=108, t=0.101, df=106, p>.05].Overall results indicate that personality and age are two important predictors of customer's brand loyalty where as gender is an insignificant factor. Nevertheless we can't negate the influence of other situational factors that are also responsible for it. Limitations of the study and avenues for future research have also been suggested