Brand Equity Essay

VIII. Brand Equity for Institutions of Higher Learning

Marketers and practitioners have begun to realize the economic value in brands and consumer relationships. Brands are assets that have real value and are the most important aspect of any company (Aaker, 2014). The concept of brand equity is particularly relevant to consumer choice in physical products, but recently scholars have applied the concept to the service sector (Ennew, Kortam and Mourand, 2011; (Garcia-Salmones, Herrero-Crespo & San Martín Gutiérrez, .2016).

Some scholars, but not others, have recognized institutions of higher learning as marketers, where students, faculty, and alumni are consumers (Ennew, Kortam and Mourand, 20ll). As a result, academic institutions explore the concept of brand equity across several contexts (i.e. sports, race, and internationally). Scholars devise several theoretical constructs to examine brand equity in institutions of higher learning. Ennew, Kortam and Mourand (2011) devised

Recently, Herrero-Crespo, San Martín Gutiérrez, Garcia-Salmones (2016) used Aaker’s theory of consumer-based brand equity (CBE) to create a model that examined how country image influence the dimensions of the CBE in the higher education institutions. Aaker’s model of brand equity includes five dimensions of brand equity: brand name awareness, brand associations, perceived quality, brand loyalty and other proprietary assets. However, the theoretical framework identifies country image and consumer-based brand equity as two separate levels of analysis: First, country image (macro) examines the significant influence country image has on international students evaluating an unfamiliar institution. The second dimension of the CBE (micro) are associations regarding the products or brands from a country. It examines consumer’s brand evaluation, preferences, and purchase