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.
