Can the perceptions and reputations of brands proceed themselves, and inspire or deter sales? Or are consumers purchase decisions predominantly based on the products or services themselves.  Brand image is the overall perception a brand has with its stakeholders. “A brand image is the perception of the brand in the mind of the customer. It is an aggregate of beliefs, ideas, and impressions that a customer holds regarding the brand.”

Brand Image is important as it helps to: create a customer-business relationship; allow businesses to take view points and respond to world crisis or issues; possibly increase profits as customers are attracted to the brand and what it stands for; is easy to introduce products to existing customers under the same brand and boosts confidence of stakeholders.

In my personal opinion, Brand Image has a significant influence on the purchasing decisions of consumers, as what a customer thinks about a brand and what a brand represents is definitely a factor that consumers consider when they are purchasing products. Although this is a key element on consumers minds, it is evident through precious situations that brands such as Nike who endured a sweatshop scandal were directly exposed to negative brand publicity. Through this negative exposure has not effected Nike, their total revenue world wide reached 36 billion dollars.

Another case scenario where negative brand image was inflicted was upon Volkswagen during the Diesel emissions scandal in 2015. After this massive scandal was released it was evident that VW had cheated emissions tests and were at fault. The brand managed to rebound from this situations with sales up by 33% In September 2017.

Overall brand image is the general interpretation of the brand based on values, attributes, quality and commitments. I do believe that this has an slight influence on consumers decision making process but it is not enough to over-rule the final decision making process if consumers are loyal to brands or certain products as proven by Nike & VW Scandals.

References

https://www.feedough.com/brand-image-explanation-examples/

https://www.statista.com/topics/1243/nike/