Building and Properly Managing Brand Equity

Abstract:

Building and properly managing brand equity has become essential for any business organizations and hospitality organizations are not any exception. As such, brand equity can affect marketing in the global hotel industry. Necessary feedback can be obtained from consumers for this evaluation will aid in: identifying service or product related problems; identifying brand loyalty problems; also discuss the role of brand awareness,perceived quality and what is customer-based brand equity. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between the multidimensionality of brand equity and luxury hotel industry marketing future development. The will base on Hilton case study.

Introduction:

Branding is a pivotal issue for organizations operating in today's international market. Brand equity is a theory used in the marketing industry which describes the value of having a well-known brand name. It can be traced 4 source: brand loyalty, brand awareness, perceived quality of the brand and the impact of brand association on consumers’ buying. This paper will base on luxury hotel industry case to introduce and discuss brand equity the relation and influence.

Literature and theory:

Brand equity is becoming increasingly important.The empirical evidence supports the process-oriented view and indicates that brand loyalty could mediate the effects of brand image and perceived quality on travel intention.(Horng, Liu, Chou, & Tsai, 2012; Camarero, Garrido, & Vicente, 2010; Woodside, Cruickshank, & Dehuang, 2007). Prasad and Dev (2000) think the brand equity can help consumer easy to choice which hotel they like, because,based on the idea, as consumers believe that a product with a well-known name is better than products with less well-known names. The rapid growth of tourism industry in the Asia-Pacific region while economic growth.  The Asia-Pacific region become second largest in tourists after 2001,  followed by America.(Lee and Chien 2008) Even in 2008-2010 the economic recession era, only branded hotels can achieved higher profits (O'Neill & Carlback, 2011). Branding is one of the best trends abounding in this industry, in the United States of America, the proportion of hotel branding is more than 70% as compared with non-branded hotels, followed by Canada is 40%and Europe is 25%,it is base on (Forgacs 2005) studied. Brand loyalty occurs when a customer chooses to repeatedly purchase a product produced by the same company instead of a substitute product produced by a competitor. Brand loyalty is importance in brand equity,because it reduce the product promotion cost,The company with brand loyal improve companys’ Visibility,they do not spend more money in marketing and companies may use premium pricing that will increase profit for company.The loyal customer will recommend the product to they friends and family etc.Businesses do have to exert significant effort to facilitate brand loyalty.  the hotel also will attempt to leverage brand loyalty developed for a product to new products offered for the customer. The hotel industry hope is to create brand loyalty for as many products as possible.Brand awareness is the level of consumer consciousness of a company. It measures a potential customer’s ability to not only recognize a brand image, but to also associate it with a certain company’s product or service. Brand awareness is best spread through both inbound and outbound marketing efforts. When competition in an industry is high, brand awareness can be one of a business’s greatest assets.

Consumers' brand awareness

Brand is the consumer impression of products all kinds of perceptual and rational knowledge. Brand market are the most wonderful change in consumers. For consumers, the brand is to bring the interests of the consumer material benefit and spiritual symbol, is a kind of experience and guarantee; With the enrichment of social product, the consumer gradually formed choose brand consciousness, and to evaluate the brand according to your own experience. Between the brand and the brand, consumers are more willing to choose a brand. Enterprise to own brand awareness in the market demand change, brand positioning and brand awareness guide the market and consumers.

The role of brand awareness

Firstly，promote product sales,brand is the core content of the product, brand consciousness was less than other marketing methods, in developed markets, brand recognition has been replaced product identification, became the only factor market choice. Secondly，supervise and guarantee the product value.Brand is a collection of concept, it includes product quality, image, technology, function, utility, and many other content.Thirdly，create a popular with consumers brand products, need to accumulate over a long period of hard work and long-term quality, guarantee value .Finally，to realize scale economic benefit enterprises has a strong brand consciousness will drive enterprise product prices, increased demand, are helpful for enterprises to expand reproduction, increase the size of the economic benefits.Ensure that enterprises growing and sustainable development.