Brand Meaning
Brand salience is an important first step in building brand equity, but is usually
not sufficient in and of itself. For most customers in most situations, other consid-
erations, such as the meaning or image of the brand, also come into play. Creating
brand meaning involves establishing a brand image—what the brand is character-
ized by and should stand for in the minds of customers. Although a myriad of dif-
ferent types of brand associations are possible, brand meaning can broadly be dis-
tinguished in terms of functional, performance-related considerations versus
abstract, imagery-related considerations. Thus, brand meaning is made up of two
major categories of brand associations that exist in customers’ minds—related to
performance and imagery—with a set of specific subcategories within each. These
brand associations can be formed directly—from a customer’s own experiences and
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contact with the brand—or indirectly—through the depiction of the brand in
advertising or by some other source of information (e.g., word-of-mouth).
We next describe the two main types of brand meaning and the subcategories
within each.
Brand Performance. The product itself is at the heart of brand equity, as it is the
primary influence of what consumers experience with a brand, what they hear
about a brand from others, and what the firm can tell customers about the brand
in their communications. Designing and delivering a product that fully satisfies
consumer needs and wants is a prerequisite for successful marketing, regardless of
whether the product is a tangible good, service, or organization. To create brand
loyalty and resonance, consumers’ experiences with the product must at least meet,
if not actually surpass, their expectations. Numerous studies have shown that high
quality brands tend to perform better financially, for example, yielding higher
returns on investment.
Brand performance relates to the ways in which the product or service attempts to
meet customers’ more functional needs. Thus, brand performance refers to the
intrinsic properties of the brand in terms of inherent product or service character-
istics. How well does the brand rate on objective assessments of quality? To what
extent does the brand satisfy the utilitarian, aesthetic, and economic needs and
wants of customers in its product or service category?
The specific performance attributes and benefits that constitute functionality will
vary widely by category. Nevertheless, there are five important types of attributes
and benefits that often underlie brand performance: