CHAPTER 9: MEASURING SOURCES OF BRAND EQUITY: CAPURING CUSTOMER MINDSET

9.1

Qualitative Research Techniques

These techniques are relatively unstructured measurement approaches whereby a range of possible consumer responses is permitted. There are also many different ways to uncover the types of associations linked to the brand and their corresponding strength, Favorability and uniqueness. These techniques are often employed to identify possible brand associations and sources of brand equity. These measures are best used to provide in-depth insight into what specific brands, products, and services mean to consumers.
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Qualitative Research Techniques

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 brands personality and values, among others.

Data gathered through qualitative research generally must be coded and aggregated before it is useful.
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Qualitative Research Techniques

Free Association tasks whereby subjects are asked what comes to mind when they think of the brand without any more specific probe or cue than perhaps the associated product category. The primary purpose of free association tasks is to identify the range of possible brand associations in consumers minds but they may also provide rough indication of the relative strength, Favorability and uniqueness of brand associations. What do you like best about the brand? What are its positive aspects? What do you dislike? What are its disadvantages? What do you find unique about the brand? How is it different from other brands? In what ways is it the same?

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Free Associations
ATTRIBUTES
User Imagery Product-Related Western, American, blue collar, hard-working, traditional, strong, rugged, and masculine Usage Imagery Appropriate for outdoor work and casual social situations Brand Personality

Blue denim, shrink-to-fit cotton fabric, button-fly, two-horse patch, and small red pocket tag

LEVIS 501
High quality, long lasting, and durable Functional

Honest, classic, Contemporary, approachable, independent, and universal

Comfortable fitting and relaxing to wear

Experiential

Feelings of self-confidence and self-assurance

Symbolic

BENEFITS

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 Projective

techniques

Diagnostic tools to uncover the true opinions and feelings of consumers when they are unwilling or otherwise unable to express themselves on these matters

Consumers might feel that it would be socially unacceptable to express their true feelings Examples:
Completion and interpretation tasks Comparison tasks

9.6

The Rorschach inkblot test

I see a face in the card I see a scary face in the card Things look like they're whirling around in the card It looks like we're looking down on people or something in the card I see a mask in the card I see a flower in the card
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Completion and Interpretation Tasks

Empty bubbles as found in cartoons, are placed in the scenes to represent the thoughts, words, or actions of one or more of the participants in the scene. Consumers are then asked to figuratively fill the bubble by indicating what they believe is happening or being said in the scene. The stories and conversations told through bubble exercises and picture interpretations can be especially useful to assess user and usage imagery for a brand.

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Comparison Tasks

Consumers are asked to convey their impressions by comparing brands to people, countries, animals, activities, fabrics, occupations, cars, magazines, vegetables, nationalities, or even other brands.

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Sentence Completion

Automatic teller machine users are __________________________________________________ _________ Automatic teller machines may be convenient, but they _____________________________________ My major concern about automatic teller machines is _____________________________________

Unfinished Scenario Completion

Since Mr. Albert Lee had received a large commission by check just before leaving home for a holiday trip, he wanted to deposit it in an automatic teller machine, because ___________, but his friend Mr. Wong told him that he should _____________, because _____________.
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Cartoon Completion Test

In the cartoon technique, the respondent is shown a comic-strip like cartoon with two characters in a conversation. While the speech of one character is shown in his/her balloon, the other balloon is empty. The respondent is asked to assume the role of the other person and fill the empty balloon with a speech.
Deposit this cheque nearest ATM in the

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New approach: ZMET

Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET) ZMET is a technique for eliciting interconnected constructs that influence thought and behavior.

9.12

ZMET

The guided conversation consists of a series of steps that includes some or all of the following:

Story telling Missed images Sorting task Construct elicitation The most representative picture Opposite images Sensory images Mental map Summary image Vignette
9.13

Brand Personality and Values

Brand personality refers to the human characteristics or traits that can be attributed to a brand. The Big Five
Sincerity (down-to-earth, wholesome, and cheerful) Excitement (daring, spirited, imaginative, and up-todate) Competence (reliable, intelligent, and successful) Sophistication (upper class and charming) Ruggedness (outdoorsy and tough)

Jennifer Aaker, 1997

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Identifying Key Brand Personality Associations

Ranbir Kapoor

Imran Khan

Chocolate Mobile Phone Apparels Fast Food

9.15

Experiential Methods

By tapping more directly into their actual home, work, or shopping behaviors, researchers might be able to elicit more meaningful responses from consumers. Advocates of the experiential approach have sent researchers to consumers homes in the morning to see how they approach their days, given business travelers Polaroid cameras and diaries to capture their feelings when in hotel rooms, and conducted beeper studies in which participants are instructed to write down what theyre doing when they are paged.
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Many a times, consumers may not be able to fully express their true selves as part of a formalized research study. Thus Experiential Methods are of great help to the researchers wherein By tapping more directly into their actual home, work, or shipping behaviors, researchers might be able to elicit more meaningful responses from consumers. Researchers are sent to the consumers homes in the morning to see how they approach their days, have given business travelers Polaroid cameras and diaries to capture their feelings when in hotel rooms, and conducted deeper studies.

9.17

Quantitative Research Techniques

Awareness Image Brand responses Brand relationships

9.18

Awareness

Brand Awareness is related to the strength of the brand in memory as reflected by consumers ability to identify various brand elements I.e., the brand name, logo, symbol, character, packaging and slogan Choosing the appropriate measure depends on the relative importance of brand awareness for consumer behaviour in the category and the resulting role it plays in the success of the marketing programme for the brand As per one research reveals that many consume decisions are made at the point of purchase, where the brand name, logo, packaging and so on will be physically present and visible then brand recognition will be important
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Brand Awareness

Brand Recognition relates to consumer's ability to

identify the brand under a variety of circumstances and can involve identification of any of the brand elements. The most basic type of recognition procedure gives consumers a set of individual items visually or orally and asks them if they thought that they have previously seen or heard of these items. Apart from the above, the other example would as follows: Brand name recognition could be tested with missing letters Tachistoscope (T-scope) and eye tracking 9.20

Brand Awareness

In Brand Recall, Consumers must retrieve the actual brand element

from memory when given some related probe or cue. Different measure of brand recall are: - Top of the Mind Slot - Unaided Recall - Aided Recall - Unrecalled Brands Unaided Recalls on the basis of all brands provided as a cue is likely to identify only the very strongest brands Aided Recalls uses various types of cues to help consumer recall. One possible sequence of aided recall might use progressively narrower cues such as product class, product category and product type labels to provide consumers brand knowledge structures.
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Awareness

Corrections for guessing

Any research measure must consider the issue of consumers making up responses or guessing.
The advantage of aided recall measures is that they yield insight into how brand knowledge is organized in memory and what kind of cues or reminders may be necessary for consumers to be able to retrieve the brand from memory. The important point to note is that the category structure that exists in consumers mindsas reflected by brand recall performancecan have profound implications for consumer choice and marketing strategy.
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Strategic implications

Image

Lower level considerations are related to consumer perceptions of specific performance and imagery attributes and benefits. Lower-level considerations are about the brand in their minds to form different types of brand responses and evaluations. Ask open-ended questions to tap into the strength, favorability, and uniqueness of brand associations. These associations should be rated on scales for quantitative analysis.
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Brand Concept Maps(BCM) elicits brand association networks (Brand Maps) from consumers and aggregates individual maps into a consensus map. Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) is a procedure for determining the perceived relative images of a set of objects, such as product or brands.
9.24

Brand Responses

Research in psychology suggests that purchase intentions are most likely to be predictive of actual purchase when there is correspondence between the two in the following categories: Purchase Intentions

Action (buying for own use or to give as a gift) Target (specific type of product and brand) Context (in what type of store based on what prices and other conditions) Time (within a week, month, or year)
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Brand Relationships

Brand Relationships in terms of brand resonance and offered possible measures for each of the four key dimensions: behavioral loyalty, attitudinal attachment, sense of community and active engagement Behavioral loyalty: brand usage & attitude Brand substitutability: brand bought last time & if that is not available what would you have done Other brand resonance dimensions For example, in terms of engagement, measures could explore word-of-mouth behavior, online behavior, and so forth in depth

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Fourniers Brand Relationships Research (BRQ)

BRQ is a multifaceted hierarchical structure that includes six main facets:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Interdependence Self concept connection Commitment Love/passion Intimacy Brand partner loyalty
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Comprehensive Models of Customer-Based Brand Equity

Brand dynamics Equity engines Young & Rubicams Brand Asset Valuator (BAV)

9.28

Brand Dynamics

The Brand Dynamics model adopts a hierarchical approach to determine the strength of relationship a consumer has with a brand. The five levels of the model are:
Presence Relevance Performance Advantage Bonding

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9.30

Equity Engines

This model delineates three key dimensions of brand affinitythe emotional and intangible benefits of a brandas follows:

Authority: The reputation of a brand, whether as a longstanding leader or as a pioneer in innovation Identification: The closeness customers feel for a brand and how well they feel the brand matches their personal needs Approval: The way a brand fits into the wider social matrix and the intangible status it holds for experts and friends

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9.32

Young & Rubicams Brand Asset Valuator (BAV)

BAV is a database of consumer perception of brands created and managed by Brand Asset Consulting, a division of Young & Rubicam Brands to provide information to enable firms to improve the marketing decision-making process and to manage brands better. BAV provides comparative measures of the equity value of thousands of brands across hundreds of different categories, as well as a set of strategic brand management tools for planning brand extensions, joint branding ventures, and other strategies designed to maintain and grow brand value. There are five key components of brand health in BAVthe five pillars.
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BrandAsset Valuator (BAV)

Over 750,000 consumers 50,000 brands 275 studies 51 countries 18 years' worth of data US panel of 17,000+ respondents Quarterly data 72 different brand metrics, including Brand health Brand imagery / personality Usage Consideration Loyalty
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Each pillar is derived from various measures that relate to different aspects of consumers brand perceptions and that together trace the progression of a brands development. Differentiation Relevance Esteem Knowledge

Young & Rubicams Brand Asset Valuator (BAV)

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1.

Differentiation is the ability for a brand to be distinguished from its competitors. A brand should be as unique a possible. Brand health is built, and maintained by offering a set of differentiating promises to consumers. And by delivering those promises to leverage value. Relevance is the actual and perceived importance of the brand to a large consumer market segment. This gauges the personal appropriateness of a brand to consumers and is strongly tied to household penetration (the percentage of households that purchase the brand).
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2.

3. Esteem is the perceived quality and consumer perceptions about the growing or declining popularity of a brand. Does the brand keep its promises? The consumers response to a marketers brand building activity is driven by his perception of two factors: quality and popularity. Both vary by country and culture. 4. Knowledge is the extent of the consumers awareness of the brand and understanding its identity. The awareness levels about the brand, and what it means, shows the intimacy that consumers share with the brand. True knowledge of the brand comes through building of the brand.
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Healthy Brands Have Greater Differentiation than Relevance

100

D>R

90 80
70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

When Differentiation is greater than Relevance, the brand has captured attention, interest and now can build Relevance and penetration. This reflects a new niche or luxury brand. This type of brand has more creativity than functionality.
Examples: Harley Davidson Yahoo! AOL Williams-Sonoma Ikea Bloomberg Business News
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Differentiation

Relevance

Room to grow... Brand has power to build relevance.

Brands with greater Relevance than Differentiation Are in Danger of Becoming Commodities
100

R>D

90 80
70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

If a brand is more Relevant that it is Differentiated, it may still be vital, but its uniqueness is fading and price or convenience is becoming a dominant reason to buy. It may also be more rational than creative.
Examples: Exxon Motts McDonalds Crest Minute Maid Fruit of the Loom Peter Pan (peanut butter)
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Differentiation

Relevance

Uniqueness has faded; price becomes dominant reason to buy.

More Esteem than Knowledge Means, Id like to get to know you better
100

E>K

90 80
70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Esteem

Knowledge

When a brand's Esteem is greater than Knowledge, it is liked but not well-known. Consumers are curious to find out more. There is growth potential in this brand.

Examples:
Coach leatherwear Tag Heuer Calphalon Movado Blaupunkt Pella Windows Palm Pilot Technics
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Brand is better liked than known.

Too Much Knowledge Can Be Dangerous:

I know you and youre nothing special
100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

K>E

Too much knowledge can be a bad thing. If Knowledge is greater than Esteem, the brand has become too familiar, and consumers are not interested in knowing it better. They are probably looking for better options Examples:
Plymouth TV Guide Spam Woolworths Chrysler Maxwell House National Enquirer Sanka 9.41

Esteem

Knowledge

Brand is better known than liked.

A Two-Dimensional Framework for Diagnosing Brands: The Power Grid

BrandAsset Valuator

Brand Strength

Brand Stature

Differentiation

Relevance

Esteem

Knowledge

Leading

Lagging

Leading Indicators of brand health: Brand Strength( differentiation, and relevance combine to become brand energy. These two pillars point to the brands future value, rather than just reflecting its past. Lagging Indicators of brand health: Brand Stature (Esteem and Knowledge together). It is like a report card on brands past performance.

Brand Health Is Captured on the PowerGrid

BAV uses a two-dimensional plot to measure Brand Strength and Brand Stature. The strength is measured on the vertical y-axis [Differentiation, Energy and Relevance] and stature is measured on the horizontal xaxis [Esteem, Knowledge]. Brand Strength illustrates future growth value and momentum potential of brands. Brand Stature reflects current perceived performance. Brands are plotted on the PowerGrid to illustrate a brand's curent stage of development and relative brand health across categories and constituencies

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The Power Grid provides a model for mapping and diagnosing the life of a brand. New brands begin in the lower left quadrant with low strength, low stature. As the brand develops, it rises to the upper left quadrant where strength is significantly higher than stature. It is here where niche brands and brands with unrealized potential reside. This is high margin territory. In order to maximize shareholder value, brands should be strategically leveraged to move to the upper right quadrant, where powerful leadership brands reside. When brands get into trouble, the first thing to erode is Differentiation, causing leadership brands to decline. This loss in Differentiation reduces the ability to extend the brand across new consumer and market segments. As a result, there is a huge loss in intangible value
9.45

Commonalty Between the Basic BAV Model and the CBBE Framework

BAVs knowledge relates to CBBEs brand awareness and familiarity. BAVs esteem relates to CBBEs favorability of brand associations. BAVs relevance relates to CBBEs strength of brand associations (as well as perhaps favorability). BAVs energy relates to CBBEs favorability of associations. BAVs differentiation relates to CBBEs uniqueness of brand associations.
9.46

Advantages of Young & Rubicams Brand asset Valuator

Brand Asset Valuator is an important tool to assess a brands current achievements and stature. It is even more powerful when the future potential of a brand can also be measured. Y&Rs Brand Asset Valuator offers this opportunity. Combining exhaustive amounts of consumer data with a proven model of brand-building, Brand Asset Valuator anticipates future operating earnings and operating margins. This can enhance the marketing-decision process in a variety of substantive ways. Brand Asset Valuator can help managers understand marketplace opportunities and the types of risk that go with them. It can provide a deeper understanding of consumer behavior: for example, shedding light on reasons why some segments are willing to pay a higher price for a highly differentiated brand.
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Brand Asset Valuator stands apart from other brand study aids in a number of ways. It is predictive, focusing on leading indicators instead of lagging. It is exhaustive in every way, size and scope. Most importantly, it evaluates a brand in the entire world of brands, not in its category. Brand Asset Valuator also helps to determine a brands elasticity and helps to explore beneficiary brand alliances. Lastly, Brand Asset Valuator is not only just useful for creating brands. It is useful for managing brands in the long term through ups and downs.

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Disadvantages of Young & Rubicams Brand asset Valuator

The major disadvantage associated with Young & Rubicams Brand asset Valuator is that it is proprietary in nature and can be employed only by Young and Rubicam. Another disadvantage associated with BAV is that the measures underlying the four factors may not be relevant across a wide range of product categories and thus these factors tend to be abstract in nature and might not be related directly to product attributes or benefits and more specific marketing concerns.

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