No abstract

The authors propose a new approach for measuring, analyzing, and predicting a brand's equity in a product market. Brand equity is defined as the incremental contribution ($) per year obtained by the brand in comparison to the underlying product (or service) with no brand-building efforts. The incremental contribution is driven by the individual customer's incremental choice probability for the brand in comparison to his choice probability for the underlying product with no brand-building efforts. The approach takes into account three sources of brand equity---brand awareness, attribute perception biases, and nonattribute preference---and reveals how much each of the three sources contributes to brand equity. This is done by taking into account not only the direct effects of these three sources on choice probabilities, but also the indirect effects through enhancing the brand's availability. The method provides what-if analysis capabilities to predict the likely impacts of alternative strategies to enhance a brand's equity. The survey-based results from applying the method to the digital cellular phone market in Korea show that the proposed approach has good face validity and convergent validity, with brand awareness playing the largest role, followed by nonattribute preference.brand, brand equity, brand choice, cellular telephones

The authors introduce customized conjoint analysis, which combines self-explicated preference structure measurement with full-profile conjoint analysis. The more important attributes for each respondent are identified first using the self-explicated approach. Full-profile conjoint analysis customized to the respondent's most important attributes then is administered. The conjoint utility function on the limited set of attributes then is combined with the self-explicated utility function on the full set of attributes. Surprisingly, the authors find that the self-explicated approach by itself yields a slightly (but not statistically significantly) higher predictive validity than does the combined approach.

The authors develop a new survey-based method for measuring and understanding a brand's equity in a product category and evaluating the equity of the brand's extension into a different but related product category. It uses a customer-based definition of brand equity as the added value endowed by the brand to the product as perceived by a consumer. It measures brand equity as the difference between an individual consumer's overall brand preference and his or her brand preference on the basis of objectively measured product attribute levels. To understand the sources of brand equity, the approach divides brand equity into attribute-based and nonattribute-based components. The method provides the market share premium and the price premium attributable to brand equity. The survey-based results from applying the method to the toothpaste and mouthwash categories show that the proposed approach has good reliability, convergent validity, and predictive validity.

No abstract