THE ROLE OF BRAND ADVOCACY ON CONSUMER SATISFACTION

Abstract

The ability for an organization to create and managed brands by communicating it product and image is steadily declining in effectiveness and relevance. As traditional mass media is overtaken by word-of mouth and peer review dialogue as the primary driver of consumer attitude and brand choice, consumers are more able to challenge an organization’s brand promise as well as seek out alternatives. Thus, this paper focused on the role of brand advocacy on consumer satisfaction. Thus the purpose of the paper was to investigate what role (s) brand advocacy play on consumer satisfaction towards the brand. In line with the stipulated objective the cognitive dissonance and brand identity theories were employed to further provide perspective for the study. Similarly, secondary data was retrieved as the research design was documentary. Thus findings showed that in creating successful brand advocacy organizations requires a different set of brand management competencies. It requires organizations to develop and harness the competencies of customers. Also a successful brand advocacy demands new communication infrastructures to enable customers listen and participate brand conversations. It is concluded that brand advocacy is necessary to provide needed information for customer satisfaction .It is recommended that brand managers should make brand advocacy a new paradigm for advertising, since advocacy triggers brand satisfaction and loyalty and enable the brand to compete favourably in the ever changing market.