Marketing Concept Of Customer Based Brand Equity

A brand is a portfolio of qualities associated with a name, which in turn invokes certain images to individuals and hold values beyond the benefits of a product (Iacobucci, 2018). Brand association occurs when customers make a cognitive or emotional association with a particular brand. For instance, when a customer sees a certain color, symbol, logo, or name they automatically can make a connection to a particular brand. Brands start with a name that conveys information, suggest their benefits, or can even be named after their founders (Iacobucci, 2018). In the marketing perspective marketers can control the brand which they are marketing by using catching logos, colors, slogans, or even the products shape and appearance. In marketing a marketer can control the message they are trying to convey but cannot really have control over an individual’s association with that particular brand. Once a customer has an association with a particular brand they may favor the brand based on a past experience or even that individual’s sense of style or they may dislike a brand because of an association they

Brand image is defined as consumer perceptions of a brand as reflected by the brand associations held in consumers’ memory. To measure brand image, one can either use and adapt an existing list of brand associations (e.g., Aaker’s brand personality list described later) or start from scratch by eliciting brand associations and by then measuring the strength of these associations. The outcome of this exercise is usually a short list of the positive and negative associations consumers have with the brand, ranked by their strength. For comparison purposes, it is useful to report the average strength of each association with the brand and the strength of the association with competing brands and to do this for each target segments (e.g., brand users and users of competing brands). For example, you can list the five positive and negative associations INSEAD MBAs and LBS IVIBAs have of the INSEAD and LBS brands and report the four scores for each association.

According to Keller(1993) the effective brand positioning gives a brand a competitive advantage or “unique selling proposition” that determines a reason why consumers are buying this product or service (Keller, 1993). Similarly, Kay (2004) argues that brand’s strength depends

According to the American Marketing Association (AMA), a brand is a “name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competition”. However, as Keller highlights, a brand is also “something that has actually created a certain amount of awareness, reputation, prominence, and so on in the marketplace”. Therefore, a brand is an identity created to differentiate itself from the competitors and to be remembered in consumer’s mind.

Since an increasing number of people focus on brand names instead of product, brands become important elements for customers to choose products (Carroll, 2008). When customers trust the brand, the benefits for the manufactures are generated. In the first place, brands can be used by products as the tool to identify and differentiate themselves from various products. Secondly, brands are helpful for companies to build a competitive advantage (Bick, 2009). Therefore, organisations take more attention to branding.

Regarding the issue of consumer behaviour, organisations could improve their perceived quality of their brands (Keller 2001) whilst adjusting their marketing strategies to enhance the brand image (Simmons 2007)

Aaker (2002:68) defines brand identity as: “A unique set of brand associations that the brand strategist aspires to create or maintain. These associations represent what the brand stands for and imply a promise to customers from organization members.”

A key to enhancing the equity of a brand is the selection of an appropriate branding strategy. Laforet and Saunders (1999) define branding strategy as the way companies mix and match their corporate, house, family and individual brand types for their products or services. This mix and match of brand types generates a variety of options for the companies from which they can select a suitable branding strategy for a product/ service. Furthermore, McDonald et al. (2001) assert that an appropriate branding strategy is crucial as it would reinforce the desired positioning and hence influence purchase behaviour. Unfortunately, even the best brand managers have struggled to choose the most appropriate branding strategy, in part, due to a lack of academic clarity and

The CBBE model approaches brand equity from the perspective of the customer – whether customer is an individual or an organization. The CBBE model provides a unique point of view as to what brand equity is and how it should best be built, measured and managed. The power of a brand lies in what customers have learned, felt, seen and heard about the brand as a result of their experiences over time. The big challenge for marketers is to ensure that customers have the right type of experiences with their products and services. In order to do this, marketers must develop marketing programs in way that best fit into customers’ mind and linked the brand to the desire customers’ feelings,

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to examine if there is a correlation between brand equity and brand loyalty. The author will research the sources of brand equity for three international clothing companies: Abercrombie & Fitch, Marks & Spencer, H&M and apply each company to the Loyalty Ladder.

In recent times, branding has played a pivotal role in some brands’ success. This has been made possible through the ability of some marketers to capture the essence and minds of people (consumers), and put the trends and characteristics into the personality of a brand. Customers have always found ways to identify themselves with certain products, and on several occasions, branding campaigns

Brand associations consist of all brand-related thoughts, feelings, perceptions, images, experiences, beliefs, attitudes (Kotler and Keller 2006, p. 188) and is anything linked in memory to a brand. Other researchers (Farquhar & Herr 1993, Chen, 1996, Brown & Dacin 1997, Biel 1992) identify different types of association that contribute to the brand equity. Chen (2001) categorized two types of brand associations - product associations and organizational associations.

As mentioned in the introduction, Gil, Andrés and Salina (2007) have mentioned that family can affect brand awarenss, associations and perceived quality of a brand. Brand awareness is linked with brand salience. It refers to the ability of customers to recognise a brand in various circumstances. It can be seperated into breadth and depth of brand awareness. Breadth of awareness represents the different circumstances among various products offered that customers can recall the brand. Depth of awareness represents the degree to which a customer can recall a brand (Keller K. L., 1993). Values and memories of a family can influence customers to perceive the brand (Gil, Andrés and Salina,

Ambler and Styles (1996) determine that the brand can be structured into two boxes, the first one is the brand plus, which means financially added value to the product, the second one is the holistic package, in which the brand understood as a complete entity with a specific identity. Furthermore, De Chernatony and Riley (1998) establish twelve themes to limit the boundaries of the brand. These themes categorize a brand as 1- a logo, 2- a legal instrument, 4- a company, 5- a risk reducer, 6- an identity system, 7- an image in the consumer mind, 8- a value system, 9- a personality, 10- a relationship, 11- an adding value, and finally 12- an evolving entity. Because of these themes, a comprehensive definition is given describing a brand as ‘a cluster of values that enables a promise to be made about a

According to Mohmmad Doostar and Maryam Kazemi (2012) researched the impact of brand equity and purchase decision of final consumer. The researchers have used the model of brand equity according to which brand equity has four dimensions perceived quality, brand loyalty, brand image and brand awareness. The methods to gather information in this study used were library (specialized texts) and field methods (questionnaires collected); the target population in this study was the buyers of the