In search of the brand

Consumers frequently need to locate a target brand among a large set of competing brands. The question is raised: "how do consumers search for a target brand from a set that is offered to them, and which factors influence search performance?" Surprisingly, little to no research in marketing has examined how consumers accomplish the task of locating a target brand from among the competition, which stages this search process is composed of, and which individual and stimulus factors influence the search process and outcomes (Alba and Hutchinson, 1987).