What's in a Brand Name?
Cox Professor Measures the Power of Positive Association
By Kathleen Tibbetts
Imagine buying Coca-Cola from a vending machine and getting an unmarked can of pop with no familiar logo, no red-and-white markings, nothing to identify it as a soft drink, let alone as the Real Thing. Would that product still be Coke as we know it? And would consumers purchase this product without its world-famous packaging?
The truth is, the only physical product that the Coca-Cola Company sells is soft drink syrup to bottlers ? not the bottles and cans of Coke that consumers buy. The company's greatest success comes from selling its brand, says William Dillon, associate dean for academic affairs and Herman W. Lay Professor of Marketing and Statistics in SMU's Cox School of Business. Dillon's research helps to differentiate among the threads of association and bias that affect consumer product choices and enables companies to make sense of where and why their products achieve their market positions.
To find these results, Dillon says, it's important to distinguish among the factors involved in consumer decisions and how they affect aspects of a brand's identity. He first makes the distinction between brand equity and brand valuation. Brand equity, like equity in a home, "is meant to reflect appreciation ? the good things and positive associations that accrue because the brand has delivered on its stated promises," Dillon says. "Equity is the brand's asset." Brand valuation, as determined through such exercises as Interbrand's annual top 100 brands list published in Business Week, attempts to attach a measurable value to that asset.
"Strong brands build emotional attachments. They attempt to develop a relationship," says Will ...