Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Managing Customer-Based Brand Equity

Overview

• Author: Kevin Lane Keller
• Published in: Journal of Marketing, January 1993
• Main Focus: Developing a conceptual model of customer-based brand equity from the consumer's perspective.

Key Concepts

• Customer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE):
  • Defined as the differential effect of brand knowledge on consumer response to marketing.
  • Positive CBBE occurs when consumers react more favorably to a brand's marketing than to a fictitiously named or unnamed version.
• Brand Knowledge:
  • Comprised of brand awareness and brand image (set of brand associations).
  • Built when the consumer is familiar with the brand and holds favorable, strong, and unique brand associations.

Brand Knowledge Components

• Brand Awareness:
  • Reflects how well consumers can recognize or recall a brand under different conditions.
  • Consists of brand recognition and brand recall.
  • Influences consumer decision-making by affecting consideration set and attention.
• Brand Image:
  • Perceptions about a brand as reflected by brand associations in consumer memory.
  • Associations can be attributes, benefits, and attitudes.
  • Attributes can be product-related or non-product-related (e.g., price, packaging, user imagery).
  • Benefits can be functional, experiential, or symbolic.

Building Customer-Based Brand Equity

• Brand Identities:
  • Names, logos, symbols, and slogans are crucial for creating brand awareness and associations.
  • Should be simple, distinctive, and suggestive of benefits or attributes.
• Marketing Programs:
  • Enhance brand awareness and establish favorable, strong, and unique associations.
  • Must be consistent and create a cohesive brand image.
• Leveraging Secondary Associations:
  • Utilize associations from company, country of origin, and endorsements to strengthen brand image.

Measuring Customer-Based Brand Equity

• Indirect Approach:
  • Assess brand knowledge through awareness and association characteristics.
• Direct Approach:
  • Experiments comparing consumer responses to marketing elements with and without brand identification.

Managing Customer-Based Brand Equity

• Broad View:
  • Consider how marketing activity can affect brand knowledge dimensions.
• Long-Term Perspective:
  • Focus on how current marketing affects future brand equity.
• Coordinated Marketing:
  • Ensure consistency across all marketing efforts and integrate traditional and nontraditional tactics.

Guidelines for Management

1. Adopt a broad view of marketing decisions.
2. Define desired consumer knowledge structures.
3. Evaluate tactical options to create knowledge structures.
4. Take a long-term view of marketing impacts.
5. Conduct tracking studies to monitor changes in brand knowledge.
6. Evaluate potential brand extensions and their impact on core brand image.

Future Research Directions

• Developing better brand identity criteria.
• Exploring the costs and benefits of leveraging secondary associations.
• Understanding the effects of marketing mix on brand association favorability, strength, and uniqueness.
• Validating direct measurement approaches to brand equity.

Conclusion

• The conceptual framework offers a comprehensive approach to managing brand equity by understanding and influencing brand knowledge.
• Emphasizes the need for both short-term and long-term strategic planning in brand management.
• Highlights areas where academic research can provide guidance to marketers.

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This synthesis of Keller's work provides a framework for understanding the importance of brand equity from the consumer's perspective and offers practical guidelines for building, measuring, and managing it effectively.