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Aaker
11 min read
We use customer-based brand equity (CBBE) to show how a brand’s success can be directly attributed to
customers’ attitudes towards it. What is it, and how can it help you build your brand?
Apple. Coca-Cola. Tylenol. Porsche. What do you feel when you see the names of these brands? They all
provoke feelings (positive, their marketing teams hope) and are examples of strong brands that enjoy
outstanding brand equity.
CBBE is the value of a brand, based on what customers feel about and think of it. Brand equity was
traditionally built through word of mouth recommendation. Now, social media, online advertising and
customer experience have enhanced the potential for reaching customers on a more personal,
emotional level and creating a relationship with them. It’s essential that your customers’ perceptions,
feelings, thoughts, and experiences regarding your brand are always positive.
Because brand equity as a single concept is subtle, nuanced and difficult to quantify, it’s best
approached in measurable stages, using a model. The best-known CBBE model is the Keller Model,
devised by Professor of Marketing Kevin Lane Keller and originally published in his mighty Strategic
Brand Management.
The Keller model is a pyramid shape and shows businesses how to build from a strong foundation of
brand identity upwards towards the holy grail of brand equity ‘resonance’. This is where customers are
in a sufficiently positive relationship with a brand to be advocates for it.
Working up to the resonance level affords a brand opportunities to recognize and capitalize on its
customers’ loyalties and attitudes – whether they are positive or negative. Hearing about negative
experiences help a brand understand how their customers feel about their product, so they can flip
them into positive experiences.
By dividing CBBE into Keller’s four levels, marketers can understand what their customers want and
need before they’ve even bought the product, or maybe even before they know they want it.
The iPad is a stunning example of this CBBE: from the robust foundation of Apple’s brand identity, the
iPad was developed to look great, be easy to use, do everything its customers wanted, and more.
Customers loved it and any glitches that attracted negative responses were quickly patched.
Before long, iPad users were extolling its virtues and their customer loyalty, and the iPad is now
ubiquitous in stores, health centers, schools, offices and homes. It’s a classic example of something we
didn’t know we needed or wanted until we saw one. Now we can’t do without it.
We can add to this question: ‘and what makes you unique?’ This is how customers look at your brand
and distinguish it from others. It’s the most important level and must be strong to support the rest of
the pyramid above it. Its role is twofold:
Identify your USP – why would you choose your brand over the competition?
Conduct market research to identify the wants and needs of your target audience
Target your customers with channeled ad campaigns (social media, Google) to ensure they know who
you are and understand your USP
Once customers become aware of your brand, they’ll want to know more about your product. They’ll
question its features, looks and style, reliability, durability, customer experience and value for money, to
find its brand meaning. It’s important to deliver quality and reliability every time, to create positive
brand associations in the customers’ minds. For the purposes of brand reputation, Level 2 is split into
two categories:
Brand performance (rational): This either builds a brand, or breaks it. It covers product functionality,
reliability, durability, and price as well as customer service and satisfaction. It’s ‘it does what it says on
the tin’ territory and when it performs well, customer opinion will be positive.
Brand imagery (emotional): different, but equally important, imagery meets the customers’ social and
psychological needs. What does the brand appear to be to customers? Volvo appears Scandi-chic,
family-orientated, safe and eco-responsible; Cushelle soft, homely and cozy.
Check that your product or service is living up to its advertised promises by analyzing negative reviews,
negative comments, refunds and returns
Exceed expectations by giving customers value add-ons such as freebies or anniversary discounts
Make sure your advertising and imagery truly reflects the product experience – it doesn’t over-promise
and under-deliver.
Be prepared to develop packaging, logo, consistent visual advertising and customer service.
Level 3: Brand Response (What are the feelings for the brand?)
On this level of Keller’s model, judgment and feelings can be hard to separate and are intensely personal
for each individual customer.
One customer may judge the brand irrelevant to them, whereas another will find it completely relevant.
Another may make their own value comparison against another product, harshly or fairly.
And add to the mix actual interaction and perceived reputation and you can see how hard it can be to
quantify how customers feel about a brand and how much they trust it.
Track your customer feedback across social media channels and other data sources to identify pain
points and areas of customer dissatisfaction
Give special offers and discounts to strengthen customers’ emotional bond with your brand
Loyal to a brand
Considers it superior
Many things resonate with customers: lifetime experience, customer service, products and value. A
good measure for resonance is the Net Promoter Score that asks one simple question: “How likely is it
that you would recommend [Product X] to a friend or colleague?”.
Treat Level 4 customers as a community of VIPs – offer quality extras, such as exclusive rewards, free
gifts, member-only events and discounts, preferential upgrades or shipping
Don’t rest on your laurels – keep improving that customer experience that led to customers reaching
resonance
Keller’s model is deceptively beautiful in its simplicity; building customer-based brand equity is, in
reality, a long and hard road. When you start at the bottom with a great brand identity, then get
customers to know your brand and your business gradually, you’ll create a brand that people will like,
trust and which will ultimately be successful.
Whereas the Keller brand equity model focuses largely on emotions, Professor David Aaker says it’s
much simpler than that: it’s all about recognition. The most successful brands are those that drive
recognition (think Mickey Mouse for Disney) in the emotional part of the brain that makes split-second
decisions about what to buy.
Aaker sees brand equity as a mixture of brand awareness, brand associations and brand loyalty. All
these add up to the value provided by a brand’s goods or services. The Aaker Model helps to create a
brand strategy made up of various components that separate a brand from its competition and advance
it.
Aaker says that there are five components of controlling brand equity. The higher the data scores for
these, the closer the product is to achieving brand equity:
Brand awareness: how known is the brand to the public? Like the Keller model, this is the starting point
of building brand equity.
Brand loyalty: how loyal are people to the brand? Loyalty is hard for competitors to copy, so it gives a
brand time to respond to competition.
Perceived quality: is the brand known or expected to deliver good quality products? Quality above
features will give a product the edge with consumers – for a while, until they begin to demand the
features.
Brand associations: what do people feel when they see the brand? The cognitive, split-second reaction
to seeing the brand on adverts, during the buying process, the ‘feel-good factor’, the number of
available brand extensions and differentiations.
Patents, IP and trading partners: brands with higher accumulated proprietary rights have a competitive
edge against other brands.
All these components are measurable when ran through the right platforms that highlight where more
could be done to attain brand equity. Branding needs to be delivered at every touchpoint along the
customer journey to ensure this recognition. Data can then be gathered at various stages of marketing
to inform and increase customer brand loyalty and show up the distinctiveness of the brand from its
competitors.