Customer-based Brand Equity: Empirical Evidence from the Private Banking Industry in Ethiopia
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Date
2014-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Brand equity is considered to be a very important concept in business practice as well as in academic research because marketers can gain competitive advantage through strong brands.The private banking industry in Ethiopia is expanding. Banks are trying to increase their market share and customer base by implementing various marketing strategies.As Keller (2003), states brand equity is a difference in customers’ response to marketing activities. Brand equity is also an important consideration for service marketers and should be managed as an asset ((Aaker, 2003), (Keller, 2003)). Private Banks managers and marketers need to understand what constitute their brand value, and where and when their brands add value. This study seeks to examine the practicality and application of a customer-based brand equity model in the private banking industry in Ethiopia with evidence from Awash International Bank. Based on Keller’s well known conceptual framework of customer-based brand equity, this study employed structural equation modeling to investigate the causal relationship among the six dimensions of brand equity including , brand salience, brand performance, brand image, judgments to brand, feelings to brand , and resonance with brand and overall brand equity from the view of the customers. This study used a sample of 344 customers of the bank who used the services of five branches located in Addis Ababa. The drawn hypothesis is tested using a multivariate statistical analysis method, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The result of squared multiple correlation R2=0.74. This shows that predictors of brand equity dimensions explain 74% of brand equity. The findings conclude that brand saliencewith β=0.47 and P<.005and brand imagery withβ=0.39 P< .01 are influential dimensions of brand equity. Weak support was found for the brand feelings dimension. The inter-correlation between brand dimensions was all positive. Thus, brand performance, brand judgment, brand feelings and brand resonance might affect brand equity by influencing brand salience and brand imagery first. Further research needs to be done by incorporating other financial institutions and customers in other regions of the country to improve the generalizability of the results. This study shows that banks marketing managers should consider the relative importance of brand equity in their overall brand equity evaluation, and should concentrate their efforts primarily on building brand salience and image.
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Keywords
Brand equity, business, private banking industry