Brand Loyalty and Brand Awareness As Core Dimension of Brand Equity-A Conceptual Analysis

Abstract

The most important assets of :my business arc intangibk including its base of loya l customers, brands. symbols & slogans and the brand's utllkrlying image. personality. identity. altitudes, famili arity, associations and name awareness. These assets ,ilong with patents. trademarks. and channel relationships comprise brand equity. and arc a primary source of competiti ve advantage and future earnings. The concept of brand loyalty can be widely accepted as core dimension or brand equity. As it can leverage several positive effects on brand marketing performance and on other dimensions or brand equity, loyalty i.:an serve as both an input and an output from this perspective. Brand loyalty re veals the various features and parameters on whid1 consumers buy the products. IL tells about that a parlirnlar product is meeting the expectations of consumers and consumers arc likely to purchase the same brand. In fact, brand loyalty gives the future guarantee for success because it reflects the consumer' frequency to purchase the same brand. The marketing companies arc always interested in increasing the hard-core loyal base of their customers. This is advantageous to them in two ways- a) increased number of loyal customers will automatically lead to increased mouth publicity, and b) it will ultimately reflect in the increased sa le of their brands and incn.::ascd market share. As a general assumption that higher brand loya lty and brand awareness can generate higher brand equity, the paper tries to study the relationship between brand loya lty as core dimension ofhrand equity. In order to achieve this purpose. we lirsl analyse the coni.:ept of brand and its constituents: brand cquil y and its constituents: concept of brand awareness. brand association, brand famili arity. brand allitudcs. brand identity, brand personality. brand image, brand position, brand preference and brand loyalty. This paper will try to position .brand loya lty among other descriptive dimensions of brand equity. analyze the effects of a high degree of loyalty among customers, how the brand loyalty among customers can be enhanced and finally establish a framework for creating, enhancing and maintaining brand loyalty.