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Introduction
Globalisation of markets is on the increase, and with it a rise in the global management of brands as more companies enter more countries (Lee et al. , 2008; Godey and Lai, 2011). As a result, a great deal of attention has been placed on how brand strategies differ across markets (Alashban et al. , 2001; Shrum et al. , 2012; Fetscherin et al. , 2015) because managers might need to devise strategies for a brand that is well established in one country, but still nascent in another. These circumstances lead to the question:Q1.
Is it possible to have the same consumer-based brand equity metrics for brands across countries?
Customer-based brand equity (CBBE) examines the value of a brand from the perspective of customers because this provides behavioural insights that can be converted into actionable brand management strategies (Christodoulides and Chernatony, 2004). Managers of global brands must evaluate the performance of their marketing strategies in different markets. This is an important step, because the systematic monitoring and follow-up of brand performance separates high-performing brands from their low-performing counterparts (Anselmsson and Lars Anders, 2013). Consequently the demand for global brand equity measurement has increased (Reza et al. , 1998; Hsieh, 2004; Christodoulides et al. , 2015).
There are many different models of brand equity; however, common across all is the inclusion of brand awareness as a key component (Aaker, 1991; Keller and Davey, 2001). Brand awareness is the degree to which customers are aware of the brand as a member of the category, and typified by the link between the brand and the category cue (Assael and Day, 1968). It is usually at the foundation of CBBE models, because brand awareness is the first step in building brand equity (Keller, 1993; Buil et al. , 2013). As the most common CBBE metric reported to company boards (Ambler, 2000), it is one of the most visible brand metrics in a company. This visibility makes the use of appropriate brand awareness metrics vital, for the marketing department's credibility. Therefore, we feel that it is timely to re-investigate brand awareness metrics in light of the complex global circumstances that brand managers often encounter.
Importance of measuring brand awareness
Pivotal to the importance of brand awareness is that...