Effects of Foodservice Franchise’s Brand Awareness and Service Quality on Cognitive Attitude, Affective Attitude, and Loyalty

Purpose: In general, franchise business models can generate higher returns and profits than non-franchise businesses. The reason customers use franchises is to buy brands and products. Therefore, it is necessary to study customer-based foodservice franchise brand awareness and service quality. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of service quality and brand awareness of foodservice franchises on attitudes divided into cognitive and affective attitudes and revisit intentions. Through this study, we intend to establish a structure that leads to service quality and brand awareness-cognitive attitude and affective attitude-loyalty. In addition, these studies can be used as helpful data in establishing service marketing strategies for foodservice franchises. Research design, data, and methodology: In order to verify the hypothesis of this study, the survey was conducted among general consumers over the age of 20 who had visited a foodservice franchise within the last 3 months. During the survey period, from December 7 to December 16, 2020, 300 questionnaires were surveyed for a total of 10 days. Among the collected questionnaires, one insincere questionnaire was excluded, and 299 copies were used for analysis. The data collected to verify the hypothesis of this study were analyzed using SPSS 24.0 and AMOS 24.0. Result: First, it was found that the service quality of the foodservice franchise had a positive (+) effect on the cognitive attitude, and the service quality of the foodservice franchise had a statistically significant positive effect on the affective attitude. Second, the brand awareness of the foodservice franchise was found to have a statistically significant positive (+) effect on the cognitive attitude. and the brand awareness of the foodservice franchise had a statistically significant positive (+) effect on the affective attitude as well. Third, cognitive attitude was found to have a statistically significant positive (+) effect on loyalty, and affective attitude was also found to have a statistically significant positive (+) effect on loyalty. Conclusions: First, this study applied the S-O-R theory to the effect of service quality and brand recognition on cognitive attitude, affective attitude, and loyalty. Second, the structure leading to service quality and brand awareness-cognitive attitude and affective attitude-revisit intention was established. Third, attitudes in this study were divided into cognitive attitudes and affective attitudes. In general, attitude is studied as a single dimension as a cognitive attitude, but in this study, attitude was studied by dividing it into a cognitive dimension and an affective dimension. Fourth, in this study, service quality and brand Awareness of foodservice franchises were found to have significant effects on both cognitive and affective attitudes. Fifth, the foodservice franchise should let customers know about the brand. Sixth, foodservice franchises should strive to improve service quality. Franchise can provide standardized service through manual. Seventh, both service quality and brand recognition had a high effect on foodservice attitude.