Brand Equity Management

A brand is not just a name, logo, design, symbol or combination of them, that helps the consumer in identifying the
origin of the product, but it is much more than that. A brand is a promise, feeling, expectation and experience. A
point to ponder, relating to the brand is that Brand equity is not equal to brand value. Brand equity is consumer
focused, as its value is derived from consumer perceptions, experiences, memories and associations concerning the
brand.

Brand Equity is ascertained by consumer behaviour, perception and experiences. It is developed over a period of
time, which increases on the basis of the delivery of promises, made by the company to its audience. Hence, it
occurs when the consumer is very much accustomed to the brand, as well as they have a very positive cum
distinctive brand association.

Companies can create brand equity for their products by making them memorable, easily recognizable, and
superior in quality and reliability. Mass marketing campaigns also help to create brand equity.

When a company has positive brand equity, customers willingly pay a high price for its products, even though they
could get the same thing from a competitor for less. Customers, in effect, pay a price premium to do business with
a firm they know and admire. Because the company with brand equity does not incur a higher expense than its
competitors to produce the product and bring it to market, the difference in price goes to their margin. The firm's
brand equity enables it to make a bigger profit on each sale.
 Brand Equity
This definition hits the three main points that define brand equity

David Aaker defines Brand Equity - A set of assets and liabilities to a brand, its name and symbol, that adds to or
subtracts from the value provided by a product or service to a firm and/or to that firm’s customers.

• Tangible and intangible value: This can be tangible value such as revenues and price premiums or intangible value such as
awareness and goodwill

• Positive or negative effects: The organization, products, services, and bottom line can benefit or suffer from brand equity.

• Consumer catalysts: Brands are built by consumers, not companies. Therefore, brand equity is built by consumers too.

• Brand Equity is the value and strength of the Brand that decides its worth. It is also be defined as the differential impact
of brand knowledge on consumers response to Brand Marketing. Brand Equity exists as a function of consumer choice in the
marketplace. The concept of Brand Equity comes into existence when consumer makes a choice of a product or a service. It
occurs when the consumer is familiar with the brand and holds some favorable positive strong and distinctive associations in
memory.
Aaker’s Brand Equity Model
 Factors contributing to Brand Equity
• Brand Awareness - The degree to which consumers recognize a product by its name. Ideally, consumers'
awareness of the brand may include positive perceptions of the qualities that distinguish the product from its
competition. Brand awareness is the extent to which customers are able to recall or recognize a brand under
different conditions.
• Brand Associations - Brand association is the mental connection, feelings, and responses that occur when
you think of a particular company, its products, services, and ethos. For example, Apple uses elegant,
minimalist branding to promote the simplicity of its products. it helps consumers foster positive feelings
towards a company and its products, which can help businesses develop a loyal client base. These associations
have the power to help influence purchase decisions and help build a recognizable brand image .
• Brand Loyalty - Brand loyalty is when customers continue to purchase from the same brand over and over
again, despite competitors offering similar products or services.
• Perceived Quality: refers to the customer's perception about the total quality of the brand. Quality is a
perceptual factor based on consumer analysis Perceived quality affect the pricing decisions of the
organizations.
• Other Proprietary Brand Assets: Patents, Trademarks and Channel Inter-relations are proprietary assets.
These assets prevent competitors attack on the organization. They also help in maintaining customer loyalty
and organization's competitive advantage.
 Brand Equity Management System
• Kevin Lane Keller - Set of organisational processes designed to improve the understanding and the use of
brand equity within a firm.
• Creating Written Framework - This includes meaning, scope, present position and desired future
status of brand equity, identifying strategies to measure brand equity and setting procedures wherever
needed.
• Creating Report - On the basis of the above framework, actual report is prepared on the basis of brand
movement. Report is prepared on regular basis (monthly, quarterly, half yearly and so on). It guides about
what is happening and why it is happening to brand equity.
• Creating Responsibility Centres - Brand needs long-term nurturing. It needs to identify the
responsibility center to make it sure that right kind of commitment and passion is developed towards
a brand. It should be created for both the existing brands as well as new brands. The purpose is to develop
brand as an individual and also as an integral part of the brand portfolio. It should be created.
• Within Organisation - With the Trade Partners to make it sure that a company is getting right support from
trade partners
 Measuring Brand Equity
Brands are financial assets, and should be recognized as such by top management and the financial
market. The financial value of a brand depends on its `Brand Strength', and the strength of its
customer franchise
Measuring brand equity is the process of calculating the value of a brand. In other words, it is the
equivalent amount of money that a person or a company is ready to pay for the brand.
Young and Rubicam (Y &R), a major advertising agency, developed -
Brand Asset Valuator, for measuring the brand equity across products.
The main parameters used in the evaluation are:
• Brand personality
• Differentiation of brand in terms of how distinctive the brand is in the category
• Relevance - measure of evaluating the meaning of a brand to the respondent, i.e., whether there is
personal relevance of the brand to him
• Esteem - It is closely related to perceived quality, it is used to evaluate what kind of regard the
brand is enjoying
• Knowledge - what a brand stands for?
 Brand Equity Measurement
The two most important measures of brand equity are
• Unaided awareness
• Relevant differentiation.
We measure relevant differentiation in two ways. We identity top-of-mind brand associations
(open-ended questions) and measure how well the brand delivers against the twenty-four most
important category attributes, benefits and values.In addition, we measure
• Brand value perceptions
• Brand accessibility
• Customer's emotional connection to brand
• Brand Validity
• Customer attitudinal loyalty
• How strong brand exhibits different personality attributes
Five key components or pillars of brand equity. They are:
• Differentiation or Uniqueness measures the degree to which the brand is seen as different from
others
• Energy measures the brand's sense of momentum.
• Relevance or Appropriateness - measures the breadth of a brand's appeal
• Esteem or Likeability - measures how well the brand is measured and respected.
• Knowledge or Awareness - measures how familiar and intimate consumers are with the brand.
Build Brand Equity
Step 1 – Identity: Build Awareness.
Step 2 – Meaning: Communicate What Your Brand Means and What It Stands for.
Step 3 – Response: Reshape How Customers Think and Feel about Your Brand.
Step 4 – Relationships: Build a Deeper Bond With Customers.
Brand equity measurement system can accomplish the following objectives for your brand

• Measure the brand's equity across a variety of dimensions at different points in time over time
• Provide diagnostic information on the reasons for the changes in brand equity
• Gauge and evaluate the brand's progress against goals
• Provide direction on how to improve brand equity
• Provide insight into the brand's positioning vis-à-vis its major competitors including its opportunities and
threats strengths, Weaknesses.
• Provide direction on how to reposition the brand for maximum effect
• The value-addition is not always tangible and measurable.

Brand equity and brand value are both measures that estimate what a brand is worth. The difference between
two measures is that brand value refers to the financial asset that the company records on its balance sheet,
while equity refers to the importance of the brand to a customer of the company.

Brand value is the monetary worth of your brand, if you were to sell it.
 Brand Value

Brand value is the monetary worth of the brand.

Brand Value is the net present value of the future cash flows of the brand itself. The brand value can
be ascertained by performing marketing and financial analysis, for which the following steps are to be
followed:

● Market Segmentation: In the initial step of the process, the market is classified into various
mutually exclusive segments, in which the brand is offered for sale, which will assist in
determining the disparity among the brand’s different classes of customers.
● Financial Analysis: Interbrand evaluates the purchase price, frequency and volume, so as to
compute the exact forecast of the future sales and revenues, of the brand. After arriving at brand
revenues, all the associated operating expenses, taxes and charge for capital employed is
subtracted, to come up with the Economic Earnings.
● Branding role: A proportion of Economic Earnings assigned to brand in all the market segment
by recognizing various demand drivers, and ascertaining the extent to which the brand affects the
segments.
● Brand Strength: After ascertaining the role of brand, thereafter Interbrand analyzes the
strength of the brand, to know whether the brand will be able to realize the estimated earnings.
Competitive benchmarking and a systematic assessment of the commitment, protection,
responsiveness, relevance and differentiation, etc. are the base in this step. Thus industry and
brand equity data are applied to know the risk premium, which helps in the determination of
Brand Discount Rate.
● Brand Valuation: The net present value of the forecasted brand earnings, discounted by
Brand Discount Rate amounts to Brand Value. The net present value calculation contains both
the forecasted period and the period further, representing the brand’s power in generating
revenues in future.

Brand value is the premium endowed to the brand from the customers, who can pay the extra price
to get it. It can be achieved by delivering quality products at a competitive price, using state of the
art technology for producing the product, excellent customer service, commitment towards social
and environmental responsibility. The main steps for creating brand value are:

The brand value is the difference between what a customer pays for getting the branded product,
i.e. from the brand point of view, and a similar product without a revered brand name.
 Brand Value Measurement
• Brand Equity is the value and strength of the Brand that decides its worth. It can also be defined as the differential
impact of brand knowledge on consumers response to the Brand Marketing. Brand Equity exists as a function of
consumer choice in the marketplace.
• The concept of Brand Equity comes into existence when consumer makes choice of a product or a service. It occurs
when the consumer is familiar with the brand and holds some favourable positive strong and distinctive brand
associations in the memory.
• Brand Equity is measured on how well the brand is recognized and favored over its competitors. It is the added value
endowed on products and services. The value addition may be reflected in the way consumers think, feel, and act with
respect to the brand as well as in the prices, market share and profitability the brand commands for the firm
• There are many ways to measure the value of a brand. Some measurements approaches are at the firm level, some at
the the product level and still others are at the consumer level.
• Firm Level: Firm level approaches measure the brand as a financial asset.
• Product Level: The classic product level brand measurement example is to compare the price of a no-name or private
label product to an “equivalent branded product”.
• Consumer Level: This approach seeks to map the mind of the consumer to find out what associations with the brand
the consumer has. This approach seeks to measure the awareness (recall and recognition) and brand image (the overall
associations that the brand has). Free association tests and projective techniques are commonly used to uncover the
tangible and intangible attributes, attitudes, and intentions about a brand Brands with high levels of awareness and
strong, favorable and unique associations are high equity brands.
 Brand Equity vs. Brand Value
• Brand Values - the net present value of future cash flows from a branded product minus the net
present value of future cash flows from similar unbranded product
• Equity is a set of perceptions, knowledge and behavior on the part of customers that creates
demand and/or ap premium for a branded product in other words, what the brand is worth to a
customer. Brand equity may also defined as a set of elements such as brand associations, market
fundamentals and marketing assets that help distinguish one brand from another, While
measuring brand value has its usefulness, the act of measurement by itself will not a brand more
valuable or less risky. Quantifying and managing brand equity, however, using a cusu
measurement model, is critical to transferring value to the corporation's shareholders.
• Band Equity is best managed with the development of Brand Equity Goals, which are then used
to track progress and performance.
Brand Equity Benefits
• Positive brand equity can help a company in a variety of ways. The most common is the financial
benefit which enables a company to charge a price premium for that brand.
• Positive brand equity can also help to expand a company through successful brand extensions and
expansions.
• Brand equity help increase sales and revenues, but it can also help reduce costs.
 Brand Value - Brand value is based on the brand’s clarity, uniqueness,
Brand Equity - Brand equity is a result of customer recall.
authenticity, commitment, consistency, performance, and so on.

Brand equity is the additional value a product receives due to being Brand value is the implied market value of the brand as established by
manufactured under a well-known brand name. financial and marketing analyses.

Brand equity is the customer’s perception and propensity toward the Brand value represents the brand’s net present worth of potential future
brand. earnings.

Brand equity solely includes revenue derived from direct and indirect
Brand value is the total of all earnings.
customer-related factors.

Brand value is the sum of all the money that can be made from selling the
brand in the market. Market variables that determine the value of your
Brand equity shows how well the brand is doing. Your customer’s
brand have an impact on brand value.
perception of your brand will determine its brand equity.
 Brand Experience

Brand experience refers to the overall perception that customers have when interacting with your
business. It encompasses all touchpoints across the customer journey, including advertising,
digital marketing, products, and customer service.
Brand experience consists of sensory, affective, cognitive, behavioral and relational stimuli that
provide consumers with a pleasurable and memorable experience.
 5 Stages of Brand Experience
• Brand Awareness

• Brand Trial

• Brand Recall

• Brand Preference

• Brand Loyalty

• Brand Name
 Brand Association
Brand association is a mental connection a customer makes between your brand
and a concept, image, emotion, experience, person, interest, or activity. This
association can be immediately positive or negative and it heavily influences
purchase decisions.

Types of brand association

■ Celebrity-based (e.g., Jay-Z and TIDAL music streaming)
■ Founder-based (e.g., Arianna Huffington and Huffington Post)
■ Character-based (e.g., Geico’s gecko)
■ Word or tagline association (e.g., Nike’s “Just do it” tagline)
■ Activity-based (e.g., The North Face and adventure activities)
■ Luxury-based (e.g., Rolex watches)
■ Customer-service-based (e.g., Zappos)
 Brand Association
• Brand Associations are not benefits, but are images and symbols associated with a brand or a brand benefit.
• Brand association is anything which is deep seated in customer's mind about the brand.
• Brand should be associated with something positive so that the customers relate your brand to being positive.
• Brand associations are the attributes of brand which come into consumers mind when the brand is talked
about.
• It is related with the implicit and explicit meanings which a consumer relates/associates with a specific brand
name.
• Brand association can also be defined as the degree to which a specific product/service is recognized within
it's product/service class/category.
• Positive brand association are developed if the product which the brand depicts is durable, marketable and
desirable.
• Positive brand association helps an organisation to gain goodwill, and obstructs the competitor’s entry into
the market.
 Brand associations are formed on the following basis:
• Customers contact with the organization and it's employees
• Advertisements
• Word of mouth publicity
• Price at which the brand is sold
• Celebrity/big entity association
• Quality of the product
• Products and schemes offered by competitors
• Product class/category to which the brand belongs
• POP (Point of purchase) displays, etc
 BRAND PERSONALITY
● Brand is how a customer perceives the brand and how the brand
differentiates itself from the competition.
● Brand have physical characteristics ( how they look and sound ), skills and
abilities (performance), and certain associations and attitude.
● It is the personification of the Brand
● It is expressed either as a personality who embodies these personality traits
(M.S.Dhoni) or distinct personality traits (Dove – Honest)
● The brand personality appeals to senses, to reasons and to emotions.
● It develops brand equity and sets brand attitude.
● Brand personality and celebrity should supplement each other.
 BRAND PERSONALITY
• Brand personality is the collection of emotional, intellectual, and behavioral patterns unique to a brand
and consistent over time.
• A well-established brand has a clear brand personality.
• Brand image is broader than brand personality.
• Brand personality is part of how consumers perceive the brand and how the brand differentiates itself
from the competition.
• It enables brand owners to ask important questions that can strengthen competitive advantage.
• A brand personality comes into existence when human-like adjectives – like unique, caring, funny,
trustworthy, creative, straightforward, dishonest, rebel, etc. – are assigned to a brand.
• It is the personification of the brand.
• It is the link between the internal brand architecture and external brand extension.
• It is the way a brand speaks and behaves.
• It is result of all customer’s experience with brand. It is long lasting and unique.
 Importance Of Brand Personality
• Develops Brand Image: Brand identity and brand personality are two interconnected
tools which helps in developing a desired brand image in the market. While brand
personality strategizes how a brand would behave in the market, brand identity
visualizes this strategy, which in turn, results in developing a brand image.
• Positions The Offering: Customers use same products provided by different brands
differently. That is to say, brand personality teaches customers how they should be using
the bryand’s products.
• Develops Emotional Connection: Brand personality helps develop emotional
connection with the like-minded people who look for more than just tangible offerings
from the brand. This emotional connection further helps the brand to develop more
meaningful brand interactions and start with customer powered marketing strategies like
word of mouth marketing, loyalty marketing, etc.
• Eases Communication: Having a personality makes it easy for the brand to
communicate effectively with the customers mostly because the customers can relate to
the traits that they possess with the personality traits that the brand has.
 BRAND PERSONALITY vs BRAND IMAGE

• Brand personality why people like some brands more then others even when there
is no physical difference between them.
• It represents the part of the brand image which in the consumer’s mind, is
associated with the brand’s emotional aspects and symbolism.
• It is the means by which the customer communicates hs own identity.
• Brand personality develops brand equity.
• Brand personality and celebrity should supplement each other.
• It not only includes personality features / characteristics, but also the demographic
features like age, gender or class and psychographic features.
 Advantages of Brand Personality

• It provides an added insight into the brand

• It is the basis to differentiate a brand
• Brand personality statement can be used in positioning strategy
• It makes promotions easier
• Brand personality and product attributes should complement each other.
• Distinguishes the brand from the competitors
• Enables to gain market share and price leverage.
• It is difficult to copy brand personality
• Helps in generating and building sales, and build brand equity in the long-run.
 Brand Personality Traits

A Brand’s personality can be segmented into four distinct facets:

• Emotion
• Thoughts
• Characteristics
• Behaviors
JENNIFER AKER’S VARIABLES OF BRAND PERSONALITY
 Jennifer Aaker Model

These dimensions are: These facets are further divided into a set of traits.
• Down-to-earth: down-to-earth, family-oriented, small-town
• Sincerity: down-to-earth, honest, • Honest: honest, sincere, real
wholesome, cheerful • Wholesome: wholesome, original
• Cheerful: cheerful, sentimental, friendly
• Excitement: daring, spirited,
• Daring: daring, trendy, exciting
imaginative, up-to-date • Spirited: spirited, cool, young
• Competence: reliable, intelligent, • Imaginative: imaginative, unique
successful • Up-to-date: up-to-date, independent, contemporary
• Reliable: reliable, hardworking, secure
• Sophistication: upper class, • Intelligent: intelligent, technical, corporate
charming • Successful: successful, leader, confident
• Ruggedness: outdoorsy, tough • Upper class: upper class, glamorous, good looking
• Charming: charming, feminine, smooth
• Outdoorsy: outdoorsy, masculine, western
• Tough: tough, rugged
BRAND PERSONALITY
 Archetype

• Archetypes are the personification of certain behaviors. It provides you a roadmap

to understand your customers’ desires more accurately.
• So the first step towards building a brand personality starts with understanding the
target audience. The better you know your target audience, the easier the process
will be. Start by segmenting your audience with their demographic, psychographic
and behavioral qualities.
• To learn more about the brand archetypes, check out this infographic detailing
each one.
 Brand Identity
• Brand identity is an important aspect of marketing.
• It is how an organization seeks to identify itself.
• It represents how an organization wants to be perceived in the market.
• An organization communicates its identity to the customers through its branding and
marketing strategies.
• A Brand is unique due to its identity.
• Brand identity includes- Brand vision, brand culture, positioning, personality,
relationships, and presentations.
• Brand identity is a bundle of mental and functional associations with the brand.
• Brand identity is the collection of all elements that a company creates to portray the right
image to its consumer.
• Brand identity is different from “brand image” and “branding,” even though these terms
are sometimes treated as interchangeable.
 Necessity of Brand Identity
• Branding a product means long-term investment in building that build by spending on
promotion, advertising and packing.
• A brand is defined as “A Name, Term, Sign, Symbol, or Special design or some
combination of these elements that is indented to identify the goods and services of one
seller or a group of sellers.
• A brand name consists of words, letter, and / or numbers that can be vocalized.
• A brand mark is the visual representation of the band like symbols, design, distinctive
coloring or lettering.
• A Trademark is a brand that is legally protected. It consist of the brand name and the
pictorial design.
• It sustains by it value, culture and personality.
• Rand equity is built up by advertising appropriately to reduce the initial consumer
resistance.
• Branding makes price comparisons difficult.
• Brand loyalty protects a firm against competition.
• Good brands help build a corporate image. Branding gives added prestige to the marketer
• It also gives legal protection to the seller.
• Branding enables a seller to segment the market.
• The distributors prefer branding as an identification tool for vendors, as a convenient tool to handle the products, and
as a guarantee of certain production standard.
• Branding is a costly proposition, involving the costs of packaging, labeling, advertising and legal protections.
• Branding decision is related to the nature of the product and the trade channels to be involved.
• Brand development and personal disposable income have a positive co-relationship.
• The outward expression of a brand including its name, trademark, communications, and visual appearance is
Brand Identity. It is fundamental to consumer recognition and symbolizes the brand's differentiation from
competitors.
• Brand identity is what the owner wants to communicate to its potential consumers.
• Brand identity leads to brand loyalty, brand preference, high credibility, good prices and good financial returns.
• It helps the organization to express to the customers and the target market the kind of organization it is.
• It establishes an immediate connection between the organization and consumers.
• Brand identity should be sustainable.
• Brand identity should be futuristic, i.e, it should reveal the associations aspired for the brand.
• It should reflect the durable qualities of a brand Brand
• Brand identity is a basic means of consumer recognition and represents the brand’s distinction from it 's competitors.
• Brand is a complex symbol.
• Brands also reflect the following:

• Vision

• Personality

• Relationship

• Position

o Value
o Culture
o Personality
o User
 Sources of Brand Identity
SYMBOLS
Symbols help customers memorize organization's products and services
• They help us correlate positive attributes that bring us closer and make it convenient for us to purchase those products and
services.,
• Symbols emphasize our brand expectations and shape corporate images Symbols become a key component of brand equity
and help in differentiating the brand characteristics.
• Symbols are easier to memorize than the brand names as they are visual images. These can include logos, people,
geometric shapes, cartoon images, anything.

LOGOS
A logo is, a unique graphic or symbol that represents a company, product, service, or other entity.
• It represents an organization very well and make the customers well-acquainted with the company.
• It is due to logo that customers form an image for the product/service in mind.
The elements of a logo are:
• Logotype
• Icon
• Slogan
 Features of a Good Logo
• It should be simple.
• It should be distinguished/uniqne.
• Jt should differentiate itself
• It should be functional so that it can be used widely.
• It should be effective, i.e., it must have an impact on the intended audience.
• It should be memorable.
• It should be easily identifiable in full colours, limited colour palettes, or in black and white.
• It should be a perfect reflection/representation of the organization.
• It should be easy to correlate by the customers and should develop customers trust in the organization.
• It should not loose it's integrity when transferred on fabric or any other material.
• It should portray company's values, mission and objectives
TRAEMARKS
• Trademark is a unique symbol, design, or any form of identification that helps people recognize a
brand.
• A renowned brand has a popular trademark and that helps consumers purchase quality products.
• The goodwill of the dealer/maker of the product also enhances by use trademark
• Trademark totally indicates the commercial source of product/service
• Trademark contribute in brand equity formation of a brand.
• Trademark should be original.
A trademark is chosen by the following symbols :
• TM( denotes unregistered trademark, that is, a mark used to promote or brand goods )
• SM ( denotes unregistered service mark )
• ® ( denotes registered trademark )

• Registration of trademark is essential in some countries to give exclusive rights to it.

• Without adequate trademark protection, brand names can become legally declared generic.
 Sources of Brand Identity

• Goods

• Name

• Personage (emblem)

• Visual Symbols and Logotypes

• Brand developer

• Communication together with its content and form

 Brand Identity Vs Brand Image
Brand identity is a set of visible elements like logo, design, and color that helps a
brand stand out among its competitors in consumers’ minds. A business owner’s
team selects a name, develops a logo, crafts messages and a certain way of
communication, creates shapes and visuals, and uses colors to shape a specific
image in the minds of consumers.

Brand image is the perception a consumer has about a particular brand after
interacting with it. Simply put, it’s a result of a company’s team’s efforts to create a
brand identity. If it is successful, they shape a positive image.