Evaluating Aaker's sources of brand equity and the mediating role of brand image

Abstract

Brand equity has been defined and measured by different researchers in different ways. While one school of thought measures brand equity as the additional preference a consumer has for a branded product over a similar no-name product, another school of thought led by Aaker defines it in terms of a set of assets, popularly called the sources of brand equity. This study measures brand equity using both methods and tries to establish the extent to which they reconcile. We first measure brand equity using conjoint, establishing the part-worths of attribute brand as brand equity. We then go on to measure Aaker's sources of brand equity. Regressing brand equity on these sources of brand equity, we found that Aaker's sources were inadequate in explaining brand equity fully. Moreover, some of these sources were highly correlated. Factor analyzing Aaker's sources resulted in two factors- cognitive factor and image factor. Further analysis revealed that the image factor plays a mediating role between awareness and brand equity. © 2010 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.