KELLER'S BRAND EQUITY MODEL

Brands represent enormously valuable pieces of legal property, capable of influencing consumer behavior, being bought and sold, and providing the security of sustained future revenues to their owner. The value directly or indirectly accrued by these various benefits is often called brand equity (Kapferer, 2005; Keller, 2003).

The figure below illustraes the four steps that you need to follow to  build strong brand equity.

Brand Equity Pyramid

From Kevin Lane Keller's Brand Resonance Model
from Strategic Brand Management (1998 & 2002, Prentice Hall)

Step 1: Salience: Brand Identity “Who are you?”

The brand has to be known. The consumers have to be aware of the existence and the availability of the product of service. Assure that the target market can recall and recognize the brand or product.

Step 2: Performance and Imagery “What are you?”

Performance is measures by the reliability and durability of the product, the service effectiveness and efficiency, and by the price. Performance is what makes the consumers select a particular brand over others.

Imagery meets consumers’ needs on social and psychological level by the consumers’ experience or by word to mouth.

Step 3: brand response “What about you?

Consumers respond to a brand by judgments of the actual or perceived quality, satisfaction, credibility, consideration, and superiority.

Customers also respond to your brand according to how it makes them feel. Your brand can evoke feelings directly, but they also respond emotionally to how a brand makes them feel about themselves. According to the model, there are six positive brand feelings: warmth, fun, excitement, security, social approval, and self-respect.

Step 4: Resonance or Equity “What about you and me?”

You have achieved brand resonance when your customers feel a deep, psychological bond with your brand. There are four components of brand resonance.

• Behavioral loyalty: This includes regular, repeat purchases.
• Attitudinal attachment: a customer’s sense that they would miss a brand if it disappeared. The consumers love the brand and see it as a special purchase.
• A sense of community, in which a customer’s attachment extends to the company itself, or to other people associated with the brand.
• Active engagement: This is the strongest example of brand loyalty. Customers are actively engaged with your brand, even when they are not purchasing it or consuming it. This could include joining a club related to the brand; participating in online chats, marketing rallies, or events; following your brand on social media; or taking part in other, outside activities.

Professor Kevin Keller, of Dartmouth College, lists the following seven benefits of brand equity:

1. Be perceived differently and produce different interpretations of product performance.
2. Enjoy greater loyalty and be less vulnerable to competitive marketing actions.
3. Command larger margins and have more inelastic responses to price increases and elastic responses to price decreases.
4. Receive greater trade cooperation and support.
5. Increase marketing communication effectiveness.
6. Yield licensing opportunities.
7. Support brand extension.

Citations:

http://www.marketingresearch.org/brand-equity-models

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/keller-brand-equity-model.htm

keller, kevin. Brand Equity Model. 1998. Image. google.comWeb. 22 Oct 2013.

Keller, Kevin. "Brand Resonance as a Strategic Measurement Tool." Journal of Marketing. (2010): n. page. Web. 22 Oct. 2013. <http://www.marketingpower.com/ResourceLibrary/Documents/Whitepapers/Brand Resonance as a Strategic Measurement Tool.pdf>.