A Study To Assess The Level Of Brand Addiction Among Under Graduate Students Of Selected Colleges Of Himachal Pradesh

Abstract

Abstract: A brand defines as a name, term, symbol, logo, mark, sign or design used by companies in order to sell their products and to differentiate them from other. It represents the face of the company. BRAND ADDICTION is defined as the psychological state of any person that involves obsessive relationship between consumer and a specific brand^{. 2} Brand addiction is the way by which consumers attract towards brands. Consumer brand relationships include attachment to brand, brand love, brand passion, brand trust and loyalty^{. 3} ADDICTIVE BEHAVIOUR is a behavior in which person become addicted to something. This include when someone becoming extremely passionate about something and developing an obsession and fixation.⁴ CONSUMER BRAND RELATIONSHIP, another name of this is BRAND RELATIONSHIP, it is a relationship between brands with consumer’s feeling, thinking, with a product or company brand and the costumers are attracted by the prices and value of the product. ⁵

Method: Quantitative approach and Descriptive research design was adopted, sample comprised of 509 under-graduate students selected using total enumerative sampling from selected schools of distt. Sirmour (H.P.). Data was collected using BASCALE.

Results: The results of the study showed that the presence of brand addiction among undergraduate students. Severe brand addiction is present in fewer students as compared to mild and moderate. The brand addiction is also compared with the selected socio demographic variables and if found to be significant (0.006) with mode of shopping p<0.5 level of significance.

Discussion: The finding of the study has been discussed in the accordance with objectives of the study and previous reviewed literature. In the present study no. of students participated; Males 124 (24.4%) and females 385 (75.6%). In the other study the sample compromise of total 798 participants; 394 male and 404 females.¹⁸ The age were 18-45; with 18-25 (25.7%), 26-35(39.7%), 36-45 (34.6%).⁶ Undergraduate students were taken and in other study British citizens were include. The result of the study showed that 43% had mild, 34% had moderate, 19% had no brand addiction and 4% had severe brand addiction. Result states that 58 participants are compulsive buyers and 382 are brand addicts.⁶ Association of shopping mode with selected socio-demographic variables the result of the study found that only shopping mode (x²= 17.925; p= .006) and other selected socio-demographic variables were not associated with brand addiction.