The idea of Brand Equity makes a distinction between the value a brand has for customers/ consumers (i.e. the actual added value of the brand) and the value it has for the brand owner/ company (brand equity):
In a society where plastic and online experiences dominate, many a consumer has started to look for ‘genuine’ products. Authenticity is the keyword. Gilmore and Pine devoted a book to this subject as early as in 2007, but there has not been much ‘hard’ research into it since. Recent research now shows that the perception of authenticity can differ from one consumer to the next, depending on their brand perception. It turned out that even a brand like McDonald’s could be perceived as authentic...
Kapferer once stated that the biggest threat to a brand is that people start considering it predictable and boring. Recent research has shown that many brands are losing value because they lack a certain degree of dynamic energy. If marketing people fail to act on time, such brands will see their value drop even more, with disastrous consequences. Further research now shows how brands can re-energize themselves.
David A. Aaker’s Brand Equity Model identifies five components of brand equity: (1) brand loyalty, (2) brand awareness, (3) perceived quality, (4) brand associations and (5) other proprietary assets. Each component comes with benefits for both consumer and producer.
The Brand-Added Value / Brand Equity model builds on David Aaker’s Brand Equity Model. Aaker’s model does not make an explicit distinction between the added value a brand can have for customers/ consumers and the added value it can have for the brand owner. And Aaker’s model does not identify market share as a component of brand equity either. Riezebos’ Brand-Added Value / Brand Equity Model has filled those gaps.
The Brand Asset Valuator Power Grid of Young & Rubicam (Y&R) presents four stages brands can pass through in their development. This model views brand equity from the perspective of the customers, and consists of two main dimensions: (1) Brand Vitality (resting on two mainstays: differentiation and relevance) and (2) Brand Stature (mainstays: valuation and familiarity).
Kevin Lane Keller’s Customer-Based Brand Equity Model depicts the process that goes into building strong brands. The model describes six dimensions of brand equity: brand salience, brand performance, brand imagery, consumer judgements, consumer feelings and brand resonance.
Brands are increasingly managed with a short-term perspective. Where the emphasis used to be on investment in marketing and advertising, today’s branding efforts mainly focus on trade marketing and sales promotions. Lodish and Mela’s article identifies three root causes for this shift in marketing investments. And they also show how to buck this trend.
Rust, Zeithaml en Lemon add nuance to the concept of brand equity value by placing it in a broader context, namely that of Customer Equity. These authors flag situations where a brand’s added value can be very high, but without that being reflected in the market share. They present Customer Equity as a more suitable term to capture consumers' choice behaviour; Brand Equity will then, alongside 'Value Equity' and 'Retention Equity', be one of three Customer Equity drivers.
Companies spend huge amounts of money on marketing schemes every year. It is often hard for marketing managers to keep track of the yields these investments bring in. One model that makes the effects of marketing investments measurable now casts a new light on this issue. This model was developed to supplement Rust, Zetmahl and Lemon’s Customer-Equity Model.
Yoo and Donthu developed a measuring tool that measures different dimensions of brand equity (MBE/ multidimensional brand equity), as well as a number of questions measuring brand equity as a holistic (OBE/ overall brand equity) construct. This measuring tool has been validated cross-culturally by various researchers (Korea and the US). The included PDF lists the question items of this study.