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An executive summary for managers and executive readers can be found at the end of this issue.
Introduction
Brand management is considered useful in fully exploiting the assets of an organization and in generating additional value from the investments already made into brands (Pappu et al. , 2005). Brand building can create a powerful and effective communication between marketers and consumers which brings advantages such as defending against competitors and building market share. Therefore, branding strategy, as a key element in the marketing mix, is increasingly viewed as a powerful tool to obtain sustainable competitive advantages as well as to fully utilize available resources (Wang et al. , 2008; Keller, 2009).
Almost every marketing activity works, successfully or unsuccessfully, to build, manage and exploit brand equity (Aaker, 1991; Keller, 1993; Yoo and Donthu, 2001). Building brand equity is considered an important part of brand building (Keller, 2008). Brand equity is regarded as a very important concept in business practices as well as in academic research because marketers can gain competitive advantages through strong brands (Keller, 1993; Aaker, 1996a; Keller, 2008). For example, high brand equity levels are known to lead to higher consumer preferences, brand purchase intentions and brand choice behavior (Cobb-Walgren et al. , 1995; Freling et al. , 2011; Romaniuk and Nenycz-Thiel, 2013). Firms that have strong brands with positive brand equity are also known to have better product-market outcomes such as brand extensibility and price flexibility (Wang et al. , 2008), and brand market performance outcomes (Chaudhuri and Holbrook, 2001).
According to Aaker (1996a), brand personality is a key component of brand equity, and it can contribute to brand equity. Brand personality indicates consumer's perceptions of personality traits of brands and further helps create and build meaningful consumer-brand relationships. A well-established brand personality can help leverage a set of unique and favorable brand images and thus enhance the value of brand equity (Aaker, 1991; Keller, 1993; Aaker, 1996a).
The global sportswear market is highly competitive, and it is one of the most heavily branded areas in the global apparel market (Tong and Hawley, 2009). The sportswear brands are dedicated to create strong brand equity and build brand loyalty through creating strong and distinctive brand personality. Sportswear brand personality enhances the effectiveness of...