Customer-Based Brand Equity for Global Brands: A Multinational Approach
Eda Atilgan Serkan Akinci Safak Aksoy Erdener Kaynak
ABSTRACT. Focusing on the dimensions and measurement, this study is based on the concept of brand equity for global brands with empirical evidence from three economically and culturally dissimilar countries—USA, Turkey, and Russia. The brand equity for global brands can be measured under four basic dimensions: perceived quality, brand loyalty, brand associations, and brand trust. Emergence of brand trust as a new dimension instead of brand awareness complies well with recent literature on global branding, global consumption orientation, and corporate reputation. KEYWORDS. Branding and brand management, structural equation modeling, brand equity, global brands
INTRODUCTION
Brand equity has been an issue of increasing importance in recent years. It is defined as the difference in consumer choice between the focal branded product and an unbranded product given the same level of product features (Yoo & Donthu, 2001). In other words, it represents the utility difference in terms of a positive marketing outcome, which is created by a branded product compared to that of the generic version of the same product. In the marketing literature, this incremental utility or positive marketing outcome is viewed both from customer- and
firm-based perspectives. The consumer-based perspective focuses on “customer mind-set” and is explained with such constructs as attitudes, awareness, associations, attachments, and loyalties (Keller & Lehmann, 2001). The firm-based perspective, however, uses “product-market outcomes” such as price premium, market share, relative price, and “financial-market outcomes” such as brand’s purchase price and discounted cash flow of license fees and royalties (Ailawadi,