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The power of a brand lies in what resides in the minds of customers.
Customer-based brand equity is the differential effect that brand-knowledge has on consumer response to the marketing of that brand. A brand is said to have positive customer-based brand equity when consumers react more favorably to a product and the way it is marketed when the brand is identified than when it is not.
Brand equity provides a bridge from the past to the future money spent each year on marketing products are not expenses, rather investments aimed at creating the right knowledge in consumer’s minds. These investment are a guide for the directions to follow in the future.
The key to create brand equity is brand knowledge.
Associative network memory model: memory is a network of nodes and linked, the nodes represent the stored information and the links represent the strength of the associations. Brand knowledge consists of the node in memory with the variety of associations linked to it. It can be characterized in terms of brand awareness and brand image.
Brand awareness is related to the strengths of the brand node in the memory of the consumers and it’s represented by the ability of the consumer to identify the brand under specific conditions.
It consist of: brand recognition and brand recall.
- Brand recognition: ability of the consumers to correctly differentiate the brand they previously have been exposed to ( book: ability of the consumers to confirm exposure to the brand when given the brand as a cue);
- Brand recall: consumers’ ability to retrieve the brand from their memory when given the product category.
If consumer decisions are made at the point of purchase (where brand name, logo, packaging etc… are visible) brand recognition is more important; but if consumer decision are made previously then when the consumer is at the point of purchase, brand recall is more important.
so the importance of brand recall and recognition is related to the extend to which consumers made decisions with the brand present or not!
3 main reasons why brand awareness play an important role in consumer decision-making process:
- Learning advantages: influences the creation and strength of the brand associations that make-up the brand image;
- Consideration advantages: brand awareness increases the likelihood that the brand will be a member of the consideration set of a consumer;
- Choice advantages: brand awareness can affect choices between brands in the consideration set. How to create brand awareness? It’s created by increasing familiarity of a brand through repeated exposure: the more consumers experience the brand, the more likely the brand will become strongly registered in the minds of consumers (increase brand recognition). Plus it’s created by creating strong associations with the product category or other relevant purchase or consumption cues (increase brand recall).
Brand image is defined as consumer perceptions of a brand as reflected by the brand associations held in consumers’ memories. These associations are informational nodes linked to the brand node and contain the meaning of the brand for consumers.
A positive brand image is created by marketing campaigns that link strong, favorable and unique associations to the brand in memory.
STRONG Strength is a function of both the amount of processing that information receives and the nature/ quality of that processing. The more deeply a person thinks about product information and relates it to the existing brand knowledge, the stronger the brand associations.
- Brand attributes: descriptive features that characterized the product
- Brand benefits: personal value and meaning that consumer attach to the product
The source of information that creates the strongest brand attribute and benefit associations is direct experience.
FAVORABLE
To create favorable brand associations you must convince customers that the brand possesses attributes and benefits that satisfy their needs and wants. Favorable associations are those that are desirable to consumers and are successfully delivered by the product and conveyed by the supporting marketing campaign. It’s related to 2 dimensions:
- Desirability: how relevant, distinctive and believable consumers find the brand associations;
- Deliverability: related to the cost or time investment necessary involved to create or change the desired associations; it depends on: - The actual or potential ability of the product to perform - The prospects of communicating that performance - The sustainability of the actual and communicated performance over time
UNIQUE
Brand associations must be unique to that brand and imply superiority over other’s. Uniqueness means that it does not have to be shared with competing brands , otherwise they are just associations that establish the category membership.
When does customer-based brand equity occur? When consumers have a high level of awareness and familiarity with the brand and hold in their memory strong, favorable and unique brand associations.
FOUR STEPS TO BUILDING A BRAND
- Create brand identity : identify the brand with customers and associate the brand in customers’ minds with a specific product category or customer need who are you?
- Create brand meaning : establish the totality of the brand meaning in the minds of customers (link tangible and intangible associations with the product); what are you?
- Create brand response: stimulate the proper customer responses; what about you? What do I think or feel about you?
- Create brand relationship: convert brand responses to create an intense, active loyal relationship between customers and the brand; what about you and me? What kind of associations and how much of a connection would I like to have with you?
Reliability: consistency of performance over time and from purchase to purchase Durability: expected economic life of the product Serviceability: ease of servicing the product if it needs to be repaired
Effectiveness: how completely the brand satisfies customers’ service requirements Efficiency: the manner in which these services are delivered in terms of speed, responsiveness Empathy: extent to which the service providers are seen as trusting, caring and having the customers’ interest in mind
BRAND IMAGERY
Deals with the extrinsic properties of the product or service, including the ways in which it attempts to meet customers’ psychological or social needs.
4 categories can be highlighted:
- User profiles
- Purchase and usage situations
- Personality and usage situations
- Personality and values
- History, heritage and experiences
One specific set of brand imagery associations is the type of person who uses a brand: demographic factors may include: gender, age, identity and income; while psycographic factors may include attitudes towards life, careers, possessions, social issues and political institutions.
Another set of brand imagery can be related to the conditions under which the brand could be bought.
A brand may also have personality traits: sincerity, excitement, competence, ruggedness and sophistication.
BRAND JUDGMENTS: focus on customers’ personal opinions and evaluations. To create a strong brand, 4 types of brand judgments are important:
- Brand quality: perceived quality of the brand influences the attitudes that customers have towards a brand;
- Brand credibility: extent to which the brand is seen credible in terms of: 2.a.Expertise, trustworthiness and likeability
- Brand consideration: likelihood that customers will include the brand in the set of possible options of brands they might buy
- Brand superiority: extent to which customers view a brand as unique and better than others
BRAND FEELINGS: are customers’ emotional responses and reactions with respect to a brand.
Six important types of brand-building feelings:
- Warmth: a brand makes consumers feel a sense of calm or peace-fulness
- Fun: a brand makes consumers feel amused, playful etc…
- Excitement: makes consumers feel energized
- Security: feeling of safety, comfort, self-assurance
- Social approval: positive feelings about the reactions of others
- Self-respect: feel better about yourself
BRAND RESONANCE : the nature of this relationship and the extent to which customers feel they are in sync.
Resonance can be broken down into 4 categories:
- Behavioral loyalty: how often do customers purchase the brand and how much do they purchase?
- Attitudinal attachment
- Sense of community
- Active engagement: customers are willing to spend time, energy and money in the brand beyond those expended during purchase.
Brand relationships can be characterized in terms of:
- intensity : strength of the attitudinal attachment and the sense of community
- activity: how frequently the consumer buys and uses the brand
Strong brand should have duality: it should appeal both to the head and the heart.
According to this model, building a strong brand involves establishing breadth and depth of brand awareness, creating strong and favorable and unique brand associations, stimulate positive, acce ssible brand responses and forge intense, active brand relationships. Achieving these 4 steps,
involves establishing six brand building blocs: salience, performance, imagery, judgments, feelings and resonance. The most valuable block is resonance that occurs when all the core values of the brand are in sync with customers’ needs, wants and desires.
