Impact of brand familiarity on pioneering or following advantages

Marketing literature until now is full of discussions which company, the pioneer or the follower, experiences more advantages that are generated solely by timing of entrance. It is claimed that pioneers take the best positions in the market, strengthen their image, and anchor themselves in consumers' minds. On the other hand, the followers save on innovations, avoid mistakes that pioneers often make, and enter the market which has clear legal and other rules. A well known (strong) brand is another competitive advantage of a company. The familiarity of a brand determines how often the brand will be recalled, included into consideration set, and finally, selected, to what extent it will be trusted, whether it will be liked, and whether the social pressure to consume it will appear. In order to assess which of the two above mentioned factors - order of entrance or brand familiarity - is stronger in determining consumers' priorities to the particular brand, the factorial experiment was carried out. The experiment imitated order of entrance of the pioneers and the followers with familiar and non-familiar brands into the market. The results of experiment have demonstrated that in comparison to the order of entrance, brand familiarity is a stronger factor in determining consumer preferences in brand selection. Consumers are more inclined to give preferences for a strong brand independently on whether the brand is a pioneer or a follower. It can be claimed that in cases when at least one market player has a strong brand, brand priorities are determined in advance, even before the followers enter the market