| Abstract [eng] |
106 pages, 12 tables, 6 figures, 168 sources. The aim of this paper is to investigate the influence of brand personality and consumer personality traits, as well as other personal consumer characteristics, on consumers' emotional loyalty, an essential element of relationship marketing. The seven objectives set out to achieve this aim are implemented in the main parts of the thesis: the first section of the thesis is devoted to an analysis of the literature explaining the understanding of emotional loyalty and the factors influencing it. This includes the personality traits studied in the Big Five model and the corresponding brand personality traits developed by Aaker, as well as the overlaps between these traits. The literature review section explains how these brand and consumer personality dimensions relate, which elements unite them and through which linkages they influence consumers' emotional loyalty. The understanding of personality is expanded in the paper by the additional characteristics of diversity avoidance, self-esteem, and sensitivity to the influence of others, all of which are significant as changing variables in people's lives, and are important in the study of emotional loyalty. The second part of the thesis presents a study explaining the coincidence of the above-mentioned traits in the mobile phone category, with the aim of fulfilling the objective of the thesis. The chosen method of quantitative research is a convenience non-randomized electronic survey, based on constructs used in previous researches and suitable for measuring the variables specified in the working model. The online survey resulted in 300 fully completed questionnaires, but 289 of them are used in the analysis of the study after the data management phase. The analysis of the results of the study was based on statistical calculations, which allowed to test the 16 hypotheses put forward in the work. It was found that all the overlaps between personality and consumer traits in the study have an impact on consumers' emotional loyalty, with the highest impact observed for agreeableness and sincerity overlaps. Personality traits of the brand personality appeared to be more significant than consumer traits in the study. In the group of changing consumer characteristics, the variable of diversity avoidance, which is directly correlated with consumers' emotional loyalty, was significant. A detailed analysis of the results, their interpretation and practical insights are also presented in Chapter 3. The thesis concludes with conclusions and propositions, presenting key insights and directions for further research. The author outlines the possibilities of extending the research by analysing the combination of personality traits of the brands and the impact of such combinations on consumers' emotional loyalty, or by retesting the hypotheses in other product categories. |
