978-0132664257 Chapter 9 Solution Manual

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Chapter 9

Measuring Sources of Brand Equity: Capturing Customer

Mind-Set

Chapter Objectives

1. Describe eective qualitative research techniques for tapping into

consumer brand knowledge.

2. Identify eective quantitative research techniques for measuring

brand awareness, image, responses, and relationships.

3. Pro”le and contrast some popular brand equity models.

Overview

To measure sources of brand equity, brand managers must understand

two key areas: how consumers shop for and use products and services,

and what consumers know, think, and feel about various brands. One

of the potential complications of pursuing this knowledge is that many

times consumers are unable or unwilling to access and report to

researchers their true beliefs and feelings about a brand. Qualitative

methods allow marketers to probe consumers either through direct

questions or through tasks that indirectly reveal perceptions and

attitudes. Such methods, which permit a relatively unlimited range of

verbal consumer responses, include free association tasks, projective

techniques, and descriptions of a brand’s personality and values,

among others. Data gathered through qualitative research generally

must be coded and aggregated before it is useful.

Quantitative methods, which typically use numerical rating scales or

rankings, include measures of recognition, aided and unaided recall,

beliefs, attitudes, intentions, and behaviors toward the brand. Image

measures, brand response measures such as purchase intentions,

brand relationship measures such as behavioral loyalty, and brand

sustainability can also be employed to measure consumer attitudes.

Data gathered through quantitative research can be entered directly

into “les and analyzed using a variety of statistical techniques.

Ultimately, the two types of research techniques enable marketers to

construct “mental maps” that model consumers’ feelings, beliefs, and

attitudes regarding a brand. Marketers can then employ the mental

maps to make decisions about their brands and develop strategies for

building brand equity.

Qualitative measures are best used to provide in-depth insight into

what speci”c brands, products, and services mean to consumers.

Quantitative measures, on the other hand, are particularly useful to

obtain general information about consumers.

Finally, this chapter concludes by presenting other customer-based

brand equity models designed by researchers and consultants, such as

the Millward Brown’s BrandDynamics model.

Brand Focus 9.0 discusses Young & Rubicam’s Brand Asset Valuator

(BAV). The BAV is the world’s largest database of consumer-derived

information on brands. The BAV evaluates brands on four key

measures, called the “Four Pillars”: dierentiation, relevance, esteem,

and knowledge. Also employed are a number of measures across a

broad array of perceptual dimensions. The BAV provides a brand

landscape by which marketers can see where their brands are located

relative to other prominent brands or with respect to dierent markets.

Science of Branding

THE SCIENCE OF BRANDING 9-1

UNDERSTANDING CATEGORICAL BRAND RECALL

A classic experiment by Prakash Nedungadi provides a compelling

demonstration of the importance of understanding the category

structure that exists in consumer memory as well as the value of

strategies for increasing the recallability or accessibility of brands

during choice situations. As a preliminary step in his research study,

Nedungadi “rst examined the category structure for fast-food

restaurants that existed in consumers’ minds. He found that a “major

subcategory” was “hamburger chains” and a “minor subcategory” was

“sandwich shops.” In an unaided recall and choice task, consumers

were more likely to remember and select a brand from a major

subcategory than from a minor subcategory and, within a subcategory,

a major brand rather than a minor brand.

Nedungadi next looked at the eects of dierent brand “primes” on

subsequent choices among four fast-food restaurants. Two key “ndings

emerged. Merely making the brand more accessible in memory

increased the likelihood that it would be chosen independent of any

dierences in brand attitude. Priming a minor brand in a minor

subcategory actually bene”ted the major brand in that subcategory

more. The implications of Nedungadi’s research are that marketers

must understand how consumers’ memory is organized and, as much

as possible, ensure that the proper cues and primes are evident to

prompt brand recall.

In sum, brand recall provides insight into category structure and brand

positioning in consumers’ minds. Brands tend to be recalled in

categorical clusters when consumers are given a general probe.

Certain brands are grouped together in memory because they share

certain associations and are thus likely to cue and remind consumers

of each other if one is recalled.

THE SCIENCE OF BRANDING 9-2

UNDERSTANDING BRAND ENGAGEMENT

There are several dierent ways to think of brand engagement:

Actual brand engagement is the activities with which the

consumer currently is engaged with the brand and is typically

what is measured with the brand resonance model.

Ideal brand engagement is the activities the brand consumer

wishes they could do with the brand.

Market brand engagement is the activities the consumer believes

other consumers are doing with the brand.

Market brand engagement will be closely related to measures of brand

momentum—how much progress the brand appears to be making with

consumers in the marketplace. Both sets of measures deal with

consumer perceptions of how other consumers are connecting to a

brand. Measures of actual brand engagement can take two forms—

more general, macro measures or more speci”c, micro measures. Micro

sets of measures focus on speci”c categories of brand-related

activities. These activities fall into three categories depending on

whether they relate to: 1) collecting brand information, 2) participating

in brand marketing activities, or 3) interacting with other people and

having a sense of community.

Branding Briefs

BRANDING BRIEF 9-1

DIGGING BENEATH THE SURFACE TO UNDERSTAND CONSUMER

BEHAVIOR

Useful marketing insights sometimes emerge from unobtrusively

observing consumers rather than talking to them. DuPont

commissioned marketing studies to uncover personal pillow behavior

for its Dacron polyester unit, which supplies “lling to pillow makers and

sells its own Comforel brand (now part of INVISTA). The researchers

found that people fell into distinct groups in terms of pillow behavior:

stackers (23 percent), plumpers (20 percent), rollers or folders (16

percent), cuddlers (16 percent), and smashers, who pound their pillows

into a more comfy shape (10 percent). The prevalence of stackers led

the company to sell more pillows packaged as pairs, as well as to

market dierent levels of softness or “rmness. Much of this type of

research has its roots in ethnography, the anthropological term for the

study of cultures in their natural surroundings. The intent behind these

in-depth, observational studies is for consumers to drop their guard

and provide a more realistic portrayal of who they are rather than who

they would like to be.

BRANDING BRIEF 9-2

ONCE UPON A TIME . . . YOU WERE WHAT YOU COOKED

One of the most famous applications of psychographic techniques was

made by Mason Haire in the 1940s. The purpose of the experiment was

to uncover consumers’ true beliefs and feelings toward Nescafé instant

coee. On the basis of consumer taste tests, however, Nescafé’s

management knew consumers found the taste of instant coee

acceptable when they didn’t know what type of coee they were

drinking. Suspecting that consumers were not expressing their true

feelings, Haire designed a clever experiment to discover what was

really going on.

Haire set up two shopping lists containing the same six items.

Shopping List 1 speci”ed Maxwell House drip ground coee, whereas

Shopping List 2 speci”ed Nescafé instant coee. Two groups of

matched subjects were each given one of the lists and asked to “Read

the shopping list. . . . Try to project yourself into the situation as far as

possible until you can more or less characterize the woman who

bought the groceries.” Subjects then wrote a brief description of the

personality and character of that person.

After coding the responses into frequently mentioned categories, Haire

found that two starkly dierent pro”les emerged. Haire interpreted

these results as indicating that instant coee represented a departure

from homemade coee and traditions with respect to caring for one’s

family. In other words, at that time, the “labor-saving” aspect of instant

coee, rather than being an asset, was a liability in that it violated

consumer traditions. Consumers were evidently reluctant to admit this

fact when asked directly but were better able to express their true

feelings when asked to project to another person.

Based on the projective test “ndings, it was obvious that there also

needed to be a point-of-parity on the basis of user imagery. As a result,

a successful ad campaign was launched that promoted Nescafé coee

as a way for housewives to free up time so they could devote

additional time to more important household activities.

BRANDING BRIEF 9-3

BRAND IMAGERY AT JOIE DE VIVRE

Joie de Vivre Hospitality LLC operates a chain of boutique hotels,

restaurants, and resorts in California, Arizona, and Chicago. Chip

Conley founded the company in 1987 when he purchased a rundown

motel in a seedy area of San Francisco and converted it into the

Phoenix, a fashionable destination popular among entertainment

celebrities. In establishing Joie de Vivre, Conley’s goal was “to create a

company with hip hotel concepts that appealed to a younger consumer

base.”

Since launching the Phoenix, the company has grown to a total of 34

hotels, the largest group of boutique hotels in California, and is now

going national. Each property’s unique décor, quirky amenities, and

thematic style are loosely based on a popular magazine.

Joie de Vivre hotels strive to combine style and Havor with comfort and

service. In addition to providing comfort considerations, Joie de Vivre

creates loyalty among its customers with a dedication to customer

service. The company condenses all pertinent service information onto

a small laminated card that all employees carry with them while they

work. The personal touches and unique personality oered by Joie de

Vivre hotels have helped the company build a loyal customer base.

BRANDING BRIEF 9-4

MAKING THE MOST OF CONSUMER INSIGHTS

Consumer research plays a signi”cant role in uncovering information

valuable to consumer-focused companies. David Taylor, founder of the

Brand Gym consultancy, de”nes an insight as “a penetrating,

discerning understanding that unlocks an opportunity.” Taylor

developed a set of criteria to evaluate insights:

Fresh: An insight might be obvious and, in fact, be overlooked or

forgotten as a result. Check again.

Relevant: An insight when played back to other target consumers

should strike a chord.

Enduring: By building on a deep understanding of consumers’

beliefs and needs, a true consumer insight should have potential

to remain relevant over time.

Inspiring: All of the team should be excited by the insight and see

dierent but consistent applications.

Insights can come from consumer research such as focus groups, but

also from using what Taylor describes as the “core insight drills.” A

sample of these drills follows:

How could the brand/category do more to help improve people’s

lives?

What do people really value in the category? What would they

not miss?

What conHicting needs do people have? How can these tradeos

be solved?

What bigger market is the brand really competing in from a

consumer viewpoint? What could the brand do more of to better

meet these “higher–order” needs?

What assumptions do people make about the market that could

be challenged?

How do people think the product works, and how does it work in

reality?

How is the product used in reality? What other products are used

instead of the brand, where the brand could do a better job?

These “drills” can help companies unearth consumer insights that lead

to better products and services, and ultimately to stronger brands.

Brand Focus

BRAND FOCUS 9.0

YOUNG & RUBICAM’S BRANDASSET VALUATOR

BrandAsset® Valuator (BAV), originally developed by Young & Rubicam,

is the world’s largest database of consumer-derived information on

brands. The BAV model is developmental in that it explains how brands

grow, how they get into trouble, and how they recover. BAV measures

brands on four fundamental measures of equity value plus a broad

array of perceptual dimensions. It provides comparative measures of

the equity value of thousands of brands across hundreds of dierent

categories, as well as a set of strategic brand management tools for

planning: brand positioning, brand extensions, joint branding ventures,

and other strategies designed to assess and direct brands and their

growth. BAV is also linked to “nancial metrics and is used to determine

a brand’s contribution to a company’s valuation.

BAV represents a unique brand equity research tool. Respondents

evaluate brands in a category-agnostic context. Brands are percentile

ranked against all brands in the study for each brand metric. Thus, by

comparing brands across as well as within categories, BAV is able to

draw the broadest possible conclusions about how consumer-level

brand equity is created and built—or lost.

Four Pillars

There are four key components of brand health in BAV, namely,

energized dierentiation, relevance, esteem, and knowledge. Each

pillar is derived from various measures that relate to dierent aspects

of consumers’ brand perceptions. Taken together, the four pillars trace

the progression of a brand’s development.

Relationship among the Pillars—Examining the relationships between

these four dimensions—a brand’s “pillar patterns”—reveals much

about a brand’s current and future status. Brands often strive to build

awareness, but if the brand’s pillars are not in the proper alignment,

then consumer knowledge of a brand becomes an obstacle that may

need to be surmounted before the brand can continue to build healthy

momentum.

The PowerGrid

BrandAsset® Valuator has integrated the two macro dimensions of

Brand Strength (Energized Dierentiation and Relevance) and Brand

Stature (Esteem and Knowledge) into a visual analytical representation

known as the PowerGrid. The PowerGrid depicts the stages in the cycle

of brand development—each with its characteristic pillar patterns—in

successive quadrants.

Brands generally begin their life in the lower left quadrant, where they

“rst need to develop Relevant Dierentiation and establish their reason

for being. Most often, the movement from there is “up” into the top left

quadrant. Increased Dierentiation, followed by Relevance, initiates

growth in Brand Strength. The upper right quadrant, the Leadership

Quadrant, is populated by brand leaders—those that have high levels

of both Brand Strength and Brand Stature. Brands that fail to maintain

their Brand Strength—their Relevant Dierentiation—begin to fade and

move “down” into the bottom right quadrant.

Applying BAV to Google

Google is a dramatic example. Google achieved leadership status

faster than any other brand measured in BAV. Google built each brand

pillar, beginning with Energized Dierentiation, both quickly and

strongly. After rapidly establishing Energized Dierentiation, Google

built the other three pillars. It took only three years for Google’s

percentile-ranking on all four pillars to reach the high 90s. From the

BAV perspective, there are three main contributing factors: 1)

consistently strong brand attributes that translate into competitive

advantages; 2) successful brand extensions into new categories; and

3) successful expansion into global markets and the fast establishment

of brand leadership.

Competitive Advantages on Brand Attributes—Google’s leadership is

supported by competitive advantages on the factors that contribute to

the strength of the key pillars. Google is stronger than the competitive

average on the Cutting Edge (innovation) factor and the Bold

personality factor. Both of these factors build Google’s Energized

Dierentiation. Google’s advantage on the Dependability (trust) factor

helps keep the Relevance pillar strong, and Google’s strength on the

Superiority (best brand) factor supports both the Relevance and the

Esteem pillars.

Successful Category Extensions—Google has done a masterful job of

entering new categories with sub-brands. Most of the sub-brands also

have very high Brand Strength, which helps replenish the Brand

Strength of the Google corporate brand. In this way, the leadership of

the sub-brands helps support the parent brand, a common theme

among strong parent brands with sub-brands. The signi”cant strength

of Google’s image pro”le has made entrance into new categories

easier.

Successful Global Expansion—BAV shows global brands must build

consistently strong Brand Strength, Brand Stature, and power on key

factors that drive brand pillars and meaning in each market. Google

has achieved leadership status in global markets the same way it

achieved leadership status in the USA—by quickly “maxing out” on

Brand Strength and Brand Stature. In all countries recently surveyed,

Google is a super-leadership brand on the PowerGrid.

Summary

There is a lot of commonality between the basic BAV model and the

brand resonance model. The brand resonance framework maintains

that brand salience and breadth and depth of awareness is a necessary

“rst step in building brand equity. The BAV model treats familiarity in a

more aective manner—almost in a warm feeling or friendship sense—

and thus sees it as the last step in building brand equity, more akin to

the resonance component itself.

The main advantage of the BAV model is that it provides rich

category-agnostic descriptions and pro“les across a large number of

brands. It also provides focus on four key branding dimensions. It

provides a brand landscape in which marketers can see where their

brands stand relative to other prominent brands in many dierent

markets.

The descriptive nature of the BAV model does mean that there is

potentially less insight as to exactly how a brand could rate highly on

those factors. Nevertheless, the BAV model represents a landmark

study in terms of its ability to enhance marketers’ understanding of

what drives top brands and where their brands “t in a vast brandscape.

Discussion questions

1. Pick a brand. Employ projective techniques to attempt to identify

sources of its brand equity. Which measures work best? Why?

2. Run an experiment to see if you can replicate the Mason Haire

instant co”ee experiment (see Branding Brief 9-2). Do the same

attributions still hold? If not, can you replace co”ee with one brand

combination from another product category that would produce

pronounced di”erences?

3. Pick a product category. Can you pro.le the brand personalities of

the leading brands in the category using Aaker’s brand personality

inventory?

4. Pick a brand. How would you best pro.le consumers’ brand

knowledge structures? How would you use quantitative measures?

5. Think of your brand relationships. Can you 4nd examples of brands that

4t into Fournier’s di7erent categories?

Answers will vary. Students may be divided into groups where each

group may choose one category and come up with examples of

brands that “t their category. They may then be asked to compare

their list of brand examples to assess whether the same brand has

fallen into dierent categories.

Page: 322

Learning Objective: Identify eective quantitative research

techniques for measuring brand awareness, image, responses, and

relationships.

AACSB: Analytic Skills

Exercises and assignments

1. Ask students to conduct a modern-day version of the shopping cart

experiment described in Branding Brief 9-2: Once Upon a Time . . .

You Were What You Cooked. Update the list and choose a focal

product to vary across two versions. For example:

1 whole roasting chicken 1 whole roasting

chicken

1 package Thomas English muPns 1 package Thomas

English muPns

4 ears fresh corn 4 ears fresh corn

Jar of Grey Poupon mustard Jar of Kraft mustard

Breyer’s vanilla bean ice cream Breyer’s vanilla

bean ice cream

2 onions 2 onions

How could the managers of the focal brands use the results in their

marketing planning?

Page: 303

Learning Objective: Describe eective qualitative research

techniques for tapping into consumer brand knowledge.

AACSB: Analytic Skills

2. Tell students to conduct a focus group, using other students as

participants, to gain insights about attitudes, feelings, and

behaviors toward the school or program in which they all are

currently enrolled. What implications do the “ndings have for

marketing strategy?

3. Have students pick brands of their choice and conduct quantitative

research by employing various types of scale questions to draw

numerical representations and summaries. This activity will help

them assess the depth and breadth of brand awareness; the

strength, favorability, and uniqueness of brand associations; the

positivity of brand judgments and feelings; and the extent and

nature of brand relationships.

Page: 312

4. Assign the same sets of brands to the students and have them

adopt the BrandDynamics model to determine the strength of

relationship each student has with each brand. Students may place

themselves into one of the “ve levels depending on their brand

responses. By comparing the pattern across brands, this activity will

help them uncover relative strengths and weaknesses and see

where brands can focus their eorts to improve their loyalty

relationships.

Page: 325

Key take-away points

1. In general, measuring sources of brand equity requires knowing how

consumers shop for and use products and services, and what

consumers know, think, and feel about brands.

2. Since the sources of equity reside in the consumers’ associations,

attitudes, etc. toward the brand, measuring equity requires

consumer-focused research.

3. Consumer knowledge toward a brand may be uncovered using

either quantitative or qualitative methods, often in combination.

4. Qualitative measures are best for capturing speci”c consumer

insights about brands, products, and services, while quantitative

insights can be employed for more generalizable information.

5. The simplest and often the most powerful way to pro”le brand

associations is free association tasks.

6. Projective techniques are diagnostic tools to uncover the true

opinions and feelings of consumers when they are unwilling or

otherwise unable to express themselves on these matters.

7. The Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique is a technique for

eliciting interconnected constructs that inHuence thought and

behavior.

8. Neuromarketing is the study of how the brain responds to marketing

stimuli, including brands.

9. Ethnographic research uses “thick description” based on participant

observation.

10. Quantitative research typically employs various types of scale

questions from which researchers can draw numerical

representations and summaries.

11. Quantitative measures of brand knowledge can help to more

de”nitively assess the depth and breadth of brand awareness; the

strength, favorability, and uniqueness of brand associations; the

positivity of brand judgments and feelings; and the extent and

nature of brand relationships.

12. The customer-based brand equity model provides a

comprehensive, cohesive overview of brand building and brand

equity.

13. Marketing research agency Millward Brown’s BrandDynamics

model oers a graphical model to represent the emotional and

functional strength of relationship consumers have with a brand.