Conceptualizing, measuring, and managing customer-based brand
equity
Definition customer-based brand equity: the differential effect of brand
knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of the brand. In other words,
the marketing effects uniquely attributable to the brand. It involves consumers’
reactions to an element of the marketing mix for the brand in comparison with
their reactions to the same marketing mix element attributed to a fictitiously
named version of the product or service.
Brand knowledge: defined in terms of brand awareness (brand recall and
recognition) and brand image (set of associations linked to the brand). It is a
name, term, sigh, symbol or design (or combination), which is intended to
identify the goods and services of one seller to differentiate them from
competitors.
The strength of an association between the activated node (stored information
connected by links that vary in strength) and all linked nodes determines the
extent of this ‘spreading activation’ and the information that can be retrieved
from memory.
Brand awareness is related to the strength of the brand node or trace in
memory, as reflected by consumers’ ability to identify the brand under
different conditions.
- Brand recognition: consumers’ ability to confirm prior exposure to the
brand when given the brand as a cue.
- Brand recall: consumers’ ability to retrieve the brand when given the
product category, the needs fulfilled by the category or some other type of
probe as a cue (generate brand from memory).
Brand image is defined as perceptions about a brand as reflected by the
brand associations held in consumer memory.
The different types of brand associations that may be present in consumer
memory:
1. Attributes: descriptive features that characterize a product or service,
distinguished according to how directly they relate to product/service
performance. We distinguish product-related attributes (ingredients
necessary for performing the product/service function sought by
customers) and non-product-related attributes (external aspects of the
product/service that relate to its purchase or consumption; price
information, packaging, user imagery and usage imagery).
2. Benefits: the personal value consumers attach to the product or service
attributes (what consumers think it can do for them). We distinguish three
categories; functional benefits (intrinsic advantages of product/service
consumption – product-related attributes), experiential benefits (what it
feels like to use the product/service – product-related attributes) and
symbolic benefits (extrinsic advantages of product/service consumption –
non-product-related attributes).
3. Attitudes: consumers’ overall evaluations of a brand, which form the basis
for consumer behavior (e.g. brand choice). The most influential
multiattribute model is the expectancy-value model which views attitudes
as a multiplicative function