* Corresponding author. E-mail address: hashed88@gmail.com (H. A. Mabkhot) © 2016 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved. doi: 10.5267/j.msl.2015.11.004 Management Science Letters 6 (2016) 87–98 Contents lists available at GrowingScience Management Science Letters homepage: www.GrowingScience.com/msl The mediating effect of brand satisfaction on the relationship between brand personality and brand loyalty: Evidence from Malaysia Hashed Ahmad Mabkhot a,b* , Salniza Md. Salleh a and Hasnizam Shaari a a School of Business Management, University Utara Malaysia, 06010 Sintok, Malaysia b Faculty of Business and Economics, Ammran University, Yemen C H R O N I C L E A B S T R A C T Article history: Received June 5, 2015 Received in revised format August 16 2015 Accepted November 8 2015 Available online November 18 2015 This study empirically investigates the mediating effect of brand satisfaction on the relationship between brand personality and brand loyalty among Malaysian customers toward local automobile brands (Proton and Perodua). Four hypotheses were developed to test hypothesizing relationships between brand personality and brand satisfaction on brand loyalty. The data were collected from consumers of automobile brands in north Malaysia peninsula from three states which were Kedah, Penanag, and Perlis. This study applies partial least squares to a sample of 458 customers to test hypothesized relationships. The findings indicate that brand personality and brand satisfaction appear to have a positive and significant relationship with brand loyalty. Moreover, brand satisfaction was found to be a mediator in the relationship between brand personality and brand loyalty. The results are compared with earlier findings and implications for further research are discussed. Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved. 6 201 © Keywords: Brand personality Brand satisfaction Brand loyalty Malaysian automobile 1. Introduction In the marketing literature, brand loyalty has gained great interest among scholars and practitioners for more than 90 years (Copeland, 1923). Loyalty is measured and defined in terms of various marketing aspects like brand loyalty, service loyalty, and product loyalty (Olsen, 2007). Realizing that brand loyalty among current consumers can help generate revenue and increase margin of safety (Dehdashti et al., 2012; Matzler et al., 2008), gaining and sustaining brand loyalty is a key challenge in increasingly competitive markets (Brexendorf et al., 2010). Developing brand loyalty is important; it is considered as one of the major challenges faced by businesses, especially local companies (Gocek et al., 2007). However, researchers argue that the best strategy that local companies can carry out is to design their local brand to respond to the local market’s particular needs (Kapferer, 1994; Keller et al., 2011; Schuiling & Kapferer, 2004). This implies that the