Updating Aaker’s model of brand equity to incorporate modern social media strategies and consumer interactions : A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Lincoln University

Abstract

Brand equity provides businesses with a solid foundation for understanding the success of their strategic marketing, which contributes to their financial profitability and success. It is a critical factor in business and marketing strategies, as brands are assets that drive business performance over time. A brand's equity is a tactical aid to generate short-term sales and strategic support to create long-term value for an organisation. In 1991, David Aaker pioneered this space, constructing a brand equity model that is still used today. The model was constructed with five dimensions, brand loyalty, brand awareness, brand associations, perceived quality, and other proprietary brand assets. Although brand equity is an essential measure for companies, research has not reconsidered traditional methods, reexamining accounting for social media. Social media has been a massive shift in the global markets, offering consumers a new way to communicate and engage with people and brands online. Social media is one of the most popular online activities. Content published on social media platforms containing information created which is highly accessible and intended to facilitate communication, influence and interaction with others, even on a global scale. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, are among the largest in the world, with billions of users. The emergence of social media has changed how consumers interact and absorb content. As a result, companies must reconsider their marketing efforts and where marketing investments are made, ensuring they continue to reach their target consumers. This study determined how Aaker’s brand equity model could be updated by accounting for social media marketing. Four additional social media marketing-based dimensions were considered and used within the study; online brand information/usefulness, online brand interaction/ engagement, online brand detection and online brand affiliation. One model closely followed Aaker’s structure and integrated the social media concepts within its original structure; the second added the social media dimensions as separate drivers. A robust design method was developed to assess the alternative approaches to updating the model, testing the suitability of the two proposed expanded models. An online survey was developed, and the data was collected from 509 respondents through Qualtrics. Before this, pre-testing was undertaken with a small group of 20 individuals to check the validity and detail of the instrument. Exploratory Factor Analysis, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, and Structural Equation Modeling were used to analyse the data. Smart-PLS and AMOS were the selected software to test the models. The results clearly show that the separated updated model is superior, supporting the notion that social media drivers work alongside the original model drivers. Nevertheless, there is scope for further research to be carried out in this space, helping companies to build brand equity both through traditional marketing strategies and emerging social media strategies.