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Purpose This paper aims to compare brand equity strength, i.e. the extent to which brand awareness and brand image contribute to purchase propensity, for different segments of consumers (non-users, light users and heavy users) and two different markets (soft drinks and banking, representing a repertoire and a subscription context, respectively). Design/methodology/approach This aim is pursued using a scalable customer-based brand equity (CBBE) framework, which captures how brand awareness and brand image, on a continuum of brand knowledge, underpin purchase propensity. The framework constitutes a “tool” for the analysis of brand equity strength, and it is applied, alongside a suite of empirical tests, to a large set of longitudinal consumer survey data collected from the same consumers and for both markets. Findings There are meaningful differences across the three consumer segments considered, especially in relation to brand image values, which are generally greater for more loyal consumers. Furthermore, the overall strength of brand equity is greater for banking brands compared to soft drinks brands. Practical implications This research highlights the practical importance of detecting and managing differences in brand equity strength across consumer segments with dissimilar brand loyalty. It also suggests that there is relatively more value in evaluating and managing the CBBE process in subscription markets, than in repertoire markets. Originality/value The contribution of this research to brand equity knowledge is twofold. It addresses concerns in relation to the need to analyze brand equity at a disaggregated level and it sheds light on inconclusive findings in relation to the generalizability of CBBE principles across different types of markets.

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The Natural Monopoly is a robust empirical generalisation that describes the tendency for more popular brands to attract light users of the product category. This study shows that this pattern can also explain the underlying ‘trade-off’ between associations that consumers hold in memory for a specific brand vs. other brands, given the same range of category cues or category entry points (e.g., purchase or consumption situations, core benefits etc.). Specifically, the Natural Monopoly can be extended to explain that consumers with limited knowledge of brands are more likely to memorise associations primarily in relation to the most popular brands of the category, which ‘monopolise’ category entry points. This is confirmed with broadly consistent results across three data sets, multiple time-periods and a total of six categories (including CPGs, services and mobile applications). As such, this study significantly expands the generalisability of the Natural Monopoly empirical law by showcasing it as a ‘tool’ to extend knowledge on brand image associations. The results also yield important practical implications for growing a brand's mental availability. For the most popular brands, the outcomes of this study highlight the relevance of reaching out to consumers with limited knowledge of brands within the same category; for the least popular brands, they indicate the importance of building associations with category entry points.

Herbaria are invaluable sources for understanding the natural world, and in recent years there has been a concerted effort to digitize these collections. To organize such efforts, a method for estimating the necessary labor is desired. This work analyzes digitization productivity reports of 105 participants from eight herbaria, deriving generalized labor estimates that account for human experience.METHODS AND RESULTS: Individuals' rates of digitization were grouped based on cumulative time performing each task and then used to estimate a series of generalized labor projection models. In most cases, productivity was shown to improve with experience, suggesting longer technician retention can reduce labor requirements by 20%. CONCLUSIONS:Using student labor is a common tactic for digitization efforts, and the resulting outreach exposes future professionals to natural history collections. However, overcoming the learning curve should be considered when estimating the labor necessary to digitize a collection. KEY WORDS biodiversity data; digitization rates; herbaria; natural history collections. Applications in Plant Sciences 9(4): e11415 Powell et al.-Estimating herbarium specimen digitization rates • 2 of 8