The Power of Brand Awareness and Association: How Service Quality Shapes Brand Equity and Brand Loyalty in Odisha's Restaurant?

Abstract

Odisha is now witnessing remarkable growth in food industry driven by tourism, urbanization, changing lifestyles, and the popularity for regional cuisine. Traditional Odia foods such as Seafoods, Millet-based dishes, sweets, staple foods are gaining recognition across India. The Indian restaurant and food service industry is multiplying rapidly because people are earning more and maintaining luxurious lifestyle by eating out in restaurants, cafes etc. It has become more common now a days. This study analyses on restaurants in Odisha and examines how service quality affects customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, with brand equity acting as a connecting factor. Brand equity mainly signifies how well customers recognize a restaurant brand and how it positively impacts to restaurant Brand Awareness and Association.  In this study, a descriptive research design was used, and the population was customers who used the services of restaurants located in various major cities throughout Odisha. Purposive sampling, a non-probability sampling approach, was used in this investigation. Purposive sampling, also known as judgement sampling, is the purposeful selection of a participant based on the participant's characteristics. The study incorporated both primary and secondary data. Secondary data was gathered from the organization's journals, magazines, books, research journals, and articles. The structured questionnaire was used to collect the primary data. This study employed a total of ten constructs. Tangibles, pricing value, assurance, empathy, reliability, responsiveness, and food quality are the six sub-dimensions of service quality. Brand equity, on the other hand, has two sub-dimensions: brand awareness and brand association. At last, the questionnaire incorporated multi-items measures for customer satisfaction and loyalty which were considered to be two exogenous variables in this study. A pilot study was carried out with a few restaurants in Bhubaneswar. To ensure the substance and interpretation of the questionnaire, it was disseminated to customers, managers, and senior marketing faculty. A few questions were changed in response to restaurant managers' and faculty members' comments. Customers' replies that were similar in nature were removed from the study. In order to analyse the data, the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 20 version and AMOS 20.0 version were employed. According to the findings, the application of four crucial criteria, including service quality, brand equity, variables, have a substantial relationship with one another. The findings of past studies on their link still hold true, with the emphasis that as service quality improves, so does brand equity, which in turn improves customer happiness and loyalty in Odisha restaurants.