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Aaker versus Keller's models: much ado about branding
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Brands are said to be the most valuable assets of businesses. Arguably the most prominent brand management models presented in the extant theory are Aaker's brand equity model and Keller's customer-based brand equity model (renamed to brand resonance pyramid). These models were developed predominantly from a business-to-consumer (B2C) product context. But in the 21st century services and the business-to-business (B2B) context are more relevant than ever. Important research questions are therefore: Can these models be used unadapted or should it be adapted to guide brand management for B2B services in general and B2B services brand building within the African context specifically? There is a perceived urgent need for an amended brand management model for B2B services.
To answer the research questions raise above, a series of studies have been initiated, which will span a number of years. This paper, however, reports on the theoretical framework for the series of studies, namely which one of Aaker or Keller's models should be chosen and applied or tested for possible adaptation for an African B2B service context?
Aaker and Keller's models have not been compared yet and it is not known whether to use any one of the models, both or a combination as brand management guide. The building blocks of the two models have different labels and the models have different layouts. At first glance Aaker and Keller's models (Figure 2) appear to be dissimilar, but are they? The article begins by introducing the two models and then the marketing mix is overlaid onto Keller's model because it is through the marketing mix that brand equity is created. A table is presented considering the parity between the two models and this is represented visually by colour coding the models. In the end the findings reported here show substantial similarities when the models were compared. Therefore, there is no need to allocate resources to apply both models, rather the brand resonance pyramid is proposed for the application during the next phase of the journey towards an amended African B2B services brand management model.
KEYWORDS Brand equity, customer-based brand equity, brand awareness, brand imagery, brand loyalty
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Both brand equity and relationship marketing are continuing to receive practitioner and academic attention. Measurement of the holistic brand entity is necessary to balance the focus on short-term profitability as well as providing control for the marketing function and comparing alternative courses of action. The need for longer-term thinking has also driven the perception of marketing as value enhancement through a network of relationships. As brand equity has yet to be succesfully reduced to money values for these purposes, practitioners will have to rely on the marketing indicators but these may be re-expressed in terms of the end-user's and intermediate customers' relationships with the brand. Further work is needed to reduce those to the fewest measures which also sensitively predict future profitability.
This study involved a nation-wide sample of industrial customers of heavy equipment manufacturers. The results suggest that brand equity and trust are consistently the most important antecedents to both behavioral and attitudinal forms of customer loyalty. There is also evidence that the models underlying the formation of behavioral versus attitudinal forms of customer loyalty may vary across research settings. The results suggest that industrial equipment marketers may consider moving beyond a focus on satisfaction in relationship marketing strategies toward integrated strategies that foster brand equity and trust in their customer base as well.
Purpose – The present research aims to improve the measurement of consumer-based brand equity. Current measurement of consumer-based brand equity suffers from limitations, including: a lack of distinction between the dimensions brand awareness and brand associations, the use of nondiscriminant indicators in the measurement scales and of student samples.
Design/methodology/approach – Based on the recommendations of extant research, the scale constructed to measure consumer-based brand equity in this study included brand personality measures. Brand associations were measured using a different set of items. Unlike many of the previous studies that had used student samples, the present study used a sample of actual consumers from an Australian state capital city. Confirmatory factor
analysis employing structural equations modelling was used to measure consumer-based brand equity in two product categories and across six brands.
Findings – Results support the hypothesised four-dimension model of consumer-based brand equity across two product categories and six brands. Brand awareness and brand associations were found to be two distinct dimensions of brand equity as conceptualised in the marketing literature. The present study contributes to the understanding of consumer-based brand equity measurement by examining the dimensionality of this construct.
Originality/value – The principal contribution of the present research is that it provides empirical evidence of the multidimensionality of consumer-based brand equity, supporting Aaker’s and Keller’s conceptualisation of brand equity. The present research also enriched consumer-based brand equity measurement by incorporating the brand personality measures, as recommended by previous researchers. While earlier studies were conducted using US and Korean samples, the present study also used a sample of Australian consumers.
The author presents a conceptual model of brand equity from the perspective of the individual consumer. Customer-based brand equity is defined as the differential effect of brand knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of the brand. A brand is said to have positive (negative) customer-based brand equity when consumers react more (less) favorably to an element of the marketing mix for the brand than they do to the same marketing mix element when it is attributed to a fictitiously named or unnamed version of the product or service. Brand knowledge is conceptualized according to an associative network memory model in terms of two components, brand awareness and brand image (i.e., a set of brand associations). Customer-based brand equity occurs when the consumer is familiar with the brand and holds some favorable, strong, and unique brand associations in memory. Issues in building, measuring, and managing customer-based brand equity are discussed, as well as areas for future research.
In packaged goods, the product is the primary brand. However, with services, the company is the primary brand. This article,
based on primary research with 14 mature, high-performance service companies, makes a case for service branding as a cornerstone
of services marketing for today and tomorrow. The article presents a service-branding model that underscores the salient role
of customers' service experiences in brand formation. Four primary strategies that excellent service firms use to cultivate
brand equity are discussed and illustrated. Branding is not just for tangible goods; it is a principal success driver for
service organizations as well.
Product brand equity has become one of the most discussed concepts among marketing scholars. It is suggested that brand equity impacts customers’ loyalty intentions. This article widens the traditional brand equity discussions into corporate level, namely into corporate brand equity, and examines whether corporate brand equity results in customer loyalty in a B2B service context. A model was created and tested by using empirical survey data collected from Finnish industrial logistics service buyers in 2008. The analysis showed that the model was unworkable, and therefore the data was further analysed in an explorative manner to determine how brand-related concepts affect customer loyalty. According to the results, loyalty is neither a component of nor an outcome of brand equity. Instead, brand image results in loyalty. In addition, it was noticed that the current brand equity measures developed from product brand perspective may not work so well for corporate brand equity purposes. Therefore, corporate brand equity measures should be further developed.