The concept of brand management has been discussed by many academicians or marketing experts and known with brand equity term since 1990s (Srivastava dan Shocker, 1991 ; Aaker, 1991 ; Keller, 1993 ; Simon and Sullivan, 1993). Along the development of brand management, most founded the development of brand equity which impacts to consumer’s preference and purchase intentions for specific products. This research is aiming to know the assessment of ASUS notebook’s potential consumers for the role of brand preference and country of origin in relationship between brand equity and purchase intentions. With country of origin as moderating variable, the writer wants to know whether this variable can strengthen or weaken the influence between two variables. As of notebook products really concern with quality, the producer country can be one of consideration in consumer’s evaluation for purchase decision. In this research, there are five hypothesis need to be tested the truth and significance. Data is used in this research is primary with questionnaire build by writer. The distribution of questionnaire spread out to 10 cities (Jakarta, Surabaya, Yogyakarta, Bandung, Bali, Semarang, Makassar, Medan, Banjarmasin, and Palembang) based on the branches location of PT Astrindo Senayasa. The sampling method used in this research is cluster sampling which is one of probability sampling method. The target is about 150 respondents to answer the objectives. After the distribution, there are 180 fully completed questionnaires back to writer, from 200 in total. To answer the objectives there are several analyze to do, reliability and validity test, mean analysis, correlation analysis, path analysis, and moderated regression analysis.
The results of research show that there are positive and significant correlation between brand equity and purchase intentions, brand equity and brand preference, and also brand preference and purchase intentions. The same results found in path analysis to know how big the impact between variables. For moderating variable, COO, summarized that there’s no significant impact to brand equity and purchase intentions. Therefore, COO is not the moderating variable which influences potential consumer’s evaluation to ASUS notebook. From this research is summarized that the impact of brand equity is strong enough to purchase intentions. Although COO is one of factor that influences consumer’s evaluation, in fact doesn’t impact to ASUS notebook’s potential consumers. |