Abstract:
Many organizations in the global market have realized that branding is an important initiative that they can put in place to ensure survival in the market. The sugar industry especially in Kenya has increasingly become saturated, attracting new and retaining old customers has not only become difficult but also costly in terms of marketing. The purpose of the study was to establish the effect of branding strategies namely, brand awareness and personality on performance of public sugar manufacturing firms in Western Kenya. The target populations of the study were members of the four (Muhoroni, Nzoia, South Nyanza and Chemilil) public sugar manufacturing firms in Western Kenya. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the 12 managers while simple random sampling was used to select the 43 supervisors and 119 clerks. The data was analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics and the findings indicated that, Brand awareness and Personality had a positive and significant influence on the performance of public sugar firms, it was recommended that the management of SMFs should invest more and ensure effective use of these branding attributes by putting more emphasis on use of branding strategies in order to enhance performance.
