Brand awareness in the services sector influenced by eight internal marketing elements

INTRODUCTIONhe internal marketing mix for services typically consists of seven elements (product, price, place, promotion, people, processes and physical evidence). In this study another element, performance, was added to the mix to determine the influence of these eight elements on the brand awareness as perceived by customers of car rental companies in South Africa. Irrespective of the fact that service organisations, such as car rental companies, may have developed a well-conceived positioning for their brand, the brand's successful positioning and awareness depend on the role the employees play in delivering the service (Wilson, Zeithaml, Bitner & Gremler, 2012:249). In order to achieve the goal of internal marketing, service organisations need to recognise that marketing strategies should not only be aimed at external customers, but should also be implemented internally and achieve better internal communication (Lindman, Pennanen, Rothenstein, Scozzi & Vincze, 2012:3). This research aimed to provide guidance to South African car rental companies to improve their respective brand awareness, enabling them to expand customer bases whilst retaining existing customers through improvement of internal marketing programmes.LITERATURE REVIEWThe traditional marketing mix for products consists of the well-known four elements, product, price, place and promotion. A key factor distinguishing the services marketing from the marketing of physical products is the human element. The distinctive characteristics of services require the addition of three more Ps to overcome the limitations of the traditional marketing mix (Wilson et al., 2012:23). The elements of the three additional Ps of the marketing mix are:* People - the appearance and behaviour of service personnel;* Process - how the service is delivered, the actual procedures and flow of activities; and* Physical evidence - everything from the appearance, design, layout of the service setting, to brochures, signage and equipment.The unique characteristics of services cause customers to search for evidence of the service in each of their interactions with the organisation. The additional elements of the service mix, namely people, process and physical evidence, provide customers with that evidence and allow them to form their own judgement (Chen, Chen & Huang, 2012:107). Since employees are a powerful element tool of customer persuasion and a major parameter affecting the customer's perception on the delivered service quality, Grove, Fisk and John (2000) added performance of employees as another critical element to the marketing mix (Gummesson, Lusch & Vargo, 2010:13; Constantinides, 2006:421). Kotier & Keller (2009:288) stated that marketing and branding theories support the idea that there is a functional connection between the marketing of services and the awareness of the brand. Establishing favourable brand awareness is an important factor to ensure business success (Park, Cho «fe Kandampully, 2009:134). Brand awareness refers to the strength of a brand's presence in the customer's mind. Awareness is measured according to the different ways in which customers remember a brand, ranging from recognition (exposure to the brand) to recall (what can be recalled about the brand) to first in the mind (the brand appearing first in the mind) and finally to dominant (the only brand recalled) (Brewer & Zhao, 2010:36). Brand awareness is created by increasing the familiarity of the brand through repeated exposure and strong associations with the relevant cues enabling the customer to recall the brand effectively. Brand associations are divided into three major categories, these being attributes, benefits and attitudes (Keller, 2009:139). In this study attributes refer to the trustworthiness of the vehicles; benefits refer to perceived quality, translating into the overall evaluation of the service customers receive; and attitudes refer to the customer's loyalty towards the brand (Kapferer, 2005:149). …