Abstract
Brand equity has been accepted as an important construct as evidenced by the proliferation of models and arguments on the concept. Brand equity has multiple definitions which reflect the commercial intention of brands. Social brands, however, have social intentions. It is therefore plausible that determining the value of social brand equity may be different from determining the value of commercial brand equity. The purpose of this article is to conduct exploratory research to obtain a sense of whether existing brand equity models apply to social brands, and if not, what modifications are needed to help in the measurement of social brands. In-depth interviews were conducted with fifteen experts from four continents. In general, constructs of brand equity were agreed upon as valid and useful in social brand equity. However, the application of two constructs is tempered by ethical and funding issues. This is due to the context of measuring social brand equity, and the unassailable fact that the social sector consists of complexities, over and above those experienced by the commercial sector.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aaker, D.A. 1996. Building strong brands. New York: The Free Press.
Abela, A. 2003. Additive versus inclusive approaches to measuring brand equity: Practical and ethical implications. Journal of Brand Management 10(4/5): 342–352.
Andreasen, A.R. 2002. Marketing social marketing in the social change marketplace. Journal of Public Policy and Marketing 21(1): 3–13.
Baalbaki, S., and F. Guzman. 2016. A consumer-perceived consumer-based brand equity scale. Journal of Brand Management 23: 229–251.
Bayerlein, P. 2005. Measuring behaviour change. Strategic HR Review 5: 7–8.
Bendixen, M., K.A. Bukasa, and R. Abratt. 2004. Brand equity in the business-to-business market. Industrial Marketing Management 33(5): 371–380.
Blahut, S.A., W.D. Evans, S. Price, and A. Ulasevich. 2004. A confirmatory test of a higher order factor structure: Brand equity and the TruthSM campaign. Social Marketing Quarterly 10: 3–15.
Bryman, A. 2012. Social research methods. 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Creswell, J.W. 2013. Qualitative inquiry and research design. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications Inc.
Dahlen, M., and S. Rosengran. 2005. Brands affect slogans affect brands? Competitive interference, brand equity and the brand-slogan link. Journal of Brand Management 12(3): 151–164.
Das, S., C. Stenger, and C.H. Ellis. 2009. Managing tomorrow’s brands: Moving from measurement towards an integrated system of brand equity. Journal of Brand Management 17(1): 26–38.
DeChernatony, L., and F. Dall’Olmo Riley. 1998. Defining a “brand”: Beyond the literature with experts’ interpretations. Journal of Marketing Management 14(5): 417–443.
Du Plooy, G.M. 2002. Communication research: Techniques, methods and applications. 2nd ed. Lansdowne: Juta & Co., Ltd.
Dwivedi, A., and B. Merrilees. 2012. The impact of brand extensions on parent brand relationship equity. Journal of Brand Management 19(5): 377–390.
Evans, W.D. 2008. Social media campaigns and children’s media use. The Future of Children 18: 181–203.
Evans, W.D., J. Wasserman, E. Bertolotti, and S. Martino. 2002. Branding behaviour: The strategy behind the truth SM campaign. Social Marketing Quarterly 8: 17–29.
Grier, S., and C.A. Bryant. 2005. Social marketing in public health. Annual Review of Public Health 26: 319–339.
Guest, G., A. Bunce, and L. Johnson. 2006. How many interviews are enough? An experiment with data saturation and variability. Field Methods 18(1): 59–82.
Hoeffler, S., and K.L. Keller. 2002. Building brand equity through corporate societal marketing. Journal of Public Policy and Marketing 21(1): 78–89.
InterBrand. 2013. Best global brands report 2013. Retrieved 4 February 2014 from http://www.InterBrand.com/en/best-global-brands/2013/best-global-brands-methodology.aspx.
Jia, Y., and W. Zhang. 2013. Brand equity valuation: An optimized interbrand model which is based on the consumer perspective. Paper presented at the international academic workshop on social science (IAW-SC-13).
Johansson, J.K., C.V. Dimofte, and S.K. Mazvancheryl. 2012. The performance of global brands in the 2008 financial crisis: A test of two brand value measures. International Journal of Research in Marketing 29: 235–245.
Jones, R. 2005. Finding sources of brand value: Developing a stakeholder model of brand equity. Journal of Brand Management 13(1): 10–32.
Keller, K. L. 1993. Conceptualizing, measuring, and managing customer-based brand equity. Journal of Marketing 57(1): 1–22.
Keller, K.L. 2001. Building customer-based brand equity: A blueprint for creating strong brands. Cambridge, MA: Marketing Science Institute.
Keller, K.L. 2009. Building strong brands in a modern marketing communications environment. Journal of Marketing Communications 15: 139–155.
Kirby, S.D. 2001. Focus on branding: Introduction and overview. Social Marketing Quarterly 7(2): 4–7.
Kotler, P., and K.L. Keller. 2009. Marketing management. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education Inc.
Kotler, P., and N. Lee. 2005. Best of breed: When it comes to gaining a market edge while supporting a social cause, corporate social marketing leads the pack. Social Marketing Quarterly 11(3–4): 91–103.
Kotler, P., and G. Zaltman. 1971. Social marketing: An approach to planned social change. The Journal of Marketing 35: 3–12.
Lefebvre, R.C. 2011. An integrative model for social marketing. Journal of Social Marketing 1(1): 54–72.
Lefebvre, R.C. 2013. Social marketing and social change. New York: Wiley.
Long, T., A.M. Taubenheim, J. Wayman, S. Temple, and B.A. Ruoff. 2008. The heart truth: Using the power of branding and social marketing to increase awareness of heart disease in women. Social Marketing Quarterly 14: 3–29.
McDivitt, J. 2003. Is there a role for branding in social marketing? Social Marketing Quarterly 9(3): 11–17.
Meyer, A., B. Brudler, and C. Blumelhuber. 2008. Everybody’s darling? The target groups of a brand. In Handbook on brand and experience management, ed. B.H. Schmitt and D.L. Rogers, 99–109. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.
Mulcahy, R., R. Russell-Bennett, and S. Rundlle-Thiele. 2015. Electronic games: Can they create value for the moderate drinking brand? Journal of Social Marketing 5(3): 258–278.
Millward Brown. 2013. Top 100 global brands 2013 methodology. Retrieved 4 February 2014 from http://www.millwardbrown.com/BrandZ/Top_100_Global_Brands/Methodology.aspx.
M’zungu, S.D.M., B. Merrilees, and D. Miller. 2010. Brand management to protect brand equity: A conceptual model. Journal of Brand Management 17(8): 605–617.
Neal, W., and R. Strauss. 2008. Value creation: The power of brand equity. Boston: Cengage Learning/South-Western.
Nguyen, T.D., C. Dadzie, A. Davari, and F. Guzman. 2015. Intellectual capital through the eyes of the consumer. Journal of Product and Brand Management 24(6): 554–566.
Papadopoulos, N., and L. Heslop. 2002. Country equity and country branding: Problems and prospects. Journal of Brand Management 9(4/5): 294–314.
Patton, M.Q. 2002. Two decades of developments in qualitative inquiry a personal, experiential perspective. Qualitative Social Work 1: 261–283.
Pauwels, K., and E. Dans. 2001. Internet marketing the news: Leveraging brand equity from marketplace to marketspace. Journal of Brand Management 8(4/5): 303–314.
Price, S.M., L.D. Potter, B. Das, Y.-C.L. Wang, and M. Huhman. 2009. Exploring the influence of the VERB™ brand using a brand equity framework. Social Marketing Quarterly 15: 66–82.
Raggio, R.D., and R.P. Leone. 2007. The theoretical separation of brand equity and brand value: Managerial implications for strategic planning. Journal of Brand Management 14(5): 380–395.
Rendón, W.M., and K.R. Morales. 2013. Brand valuation: A review of interbrand™ and brand capability value™ models. International Journal of Management Research and Business Strategy 2: 121–128.
Samad, N., S. Nwankwo, and A. Gbadamosi. 2010. Branding in contraceptive social marketing: The Pakistani experience. Social Marketing Quarterly 16(2): 50–68.
Schreier, M. 2012. Qualitative content analysis in practice. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.
Spielman, N. 2014. Brand equity for origin-bounded brands. Journal of Brand Management 21(3): 189–201.
Stahl, F., M. Heitmann, D.R. Lehmann, and S.A. Neslin. 2012. The impact of brand equity on customer acquisition, retention, and profit margin. Journal of Marketing 76: 44–63.
Uggla, H. 2004. The brand association base: A conceptual model for strategically leveraging partner brand equity. Journal of Brand Management 12(2): 105–123.
Villarejo-Ramos, A.F., and M.J. Sanchez-Franco. 2005. The impact of marketing communication and price promotion on brand equity. Journal of Brand Management 12(6): 431–444.
Wood, M. 2008. Applying commercial marketing theory to social marketing: A tale of 4Ps (and a B). Social Marketing Quarterly 14(1): 76–85.
Wood, M. 2012. Marketing social marketing. Journal of Social Marketing 2: 94–102.
Wymer, W. 2011. Developing more effective social marketing strategies. Journal of Social Marketing 1(1): 17–31.
Yin, R.K. 2011. Qualitative research from start to finish. New York: The Guildford Press.
Yoo, B., N. Donthu, and S. Lee. 2000. An examination of selected marketing mix elements and brand equity. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 28: 195–211.
Young & Rubicam. 2010. Brand asset™ valuator. Retrieved 3 February 2014 from http://young-rubicam.de/tools-wissen/tools/brandasset-valuator/?lang=en.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Naidoo, C., Abratt, R. Brands that do good: insight into social brand equity. J Brand Manag 25, 3–13 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41262-017-0072-2
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41262-017-0072-2