In the hypercompetitive B2B market, branding strategy becomes a competitive advantage to sustain the business. Two common forms of brand evaluations are an evaluation by either the cognitive or affective aspect, and this paper focuses on the affective aspect, which concerns emotional factors. The paper analyzes two drivers corresponding to satisfaction - the brand association, reflected by brand image, and social bonds - and how strongly these both drivers influence satisfaction; hence sellers can anticipate future actions in order to keep business going. The finding confirms that the brand image has a stronger influence on satisfaction than social bonds; furthermore, customer satisfaction leads to brand loyalty.

This empirical study aims to identify the effects of different factors influencing on customer satisfaction, such as perceived quality or perceived value in a case study in chemical industry. Understanding the effects of such variables helps us manage customers properly, balancing between perceived quality and perceived value. The research design is a quantitative method and employs Structural Equation Method (SEM) to ensure the correlation between constructs. The method results confirm that perceived value contributes a stronger influence on customer satisfaction than perceived quality does. Chemical market tends to put perceived value as a priority as long as the product quality meets the standard parameter. Perceived quality is reflected more by service while there is less point of differentiation on tangible product. The paper may limit the generalization of the findings, hence the replication in other industries are encouraged.