Today, companies have started realizing the importance of brand for their products

and services. Today, almost all the products and services are branded. Consumers
today prefer branded products compared to unbranded products in earlier times.
Many a times they associate brand with good quality. They create the image of the
brands of various products in their minds and then make purchase decisions from
various alternatives of brands. The power of a brand lies in what customers have
learned, felt, seen, and heard about the brand over time. According to American
Marketing Association, brand is defined as the name, term, sign, symbol or design
or combination of them, intended to identify goods and services of one seller or
group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors
In this modern world, where technology is fast growing and access to internet
facilities is a must, laptops can be attributed as one among the most widely used
electronic consumer durables in the world. Irrespective of the geographic location
or economic conditions, the use of digital diaries are increasing day by day. Since
the demand for laptops are high, so is the competition in this field.
With the existence of large number of brands trying to promote and position
themselves in the market, offering wide range of features, the consumers are
granted with a wide variety of options. This has also made the decision even
tougher. With a large number of options available and demand for laptops
increasing day by day, it is necessary to study the impact of brand name and brand
equity in the purchase behavior of customers in case of laptops.
Objectives Of The Study
i.
ii.
iii.

To study effectiveness of brand awareness, brand association, perceived

quality, brand loyalty and brand trust on overall brand equity of the product.
To analyze the inter-relationship among the dimensions of brand equity.
To examine the effect of years of usage and brand name on brand equity.

iv.

To study relationship between customer satisfaction and purchase intention.

Methodology
Data
The study is based on both primary and secondary data.
Primary date is to be collected from members from different age groups. The data
are to be collected with help of questionnaires.
Secondary data is mainly collected from online journals and previous researches
regarding brand equity, customer satisfaction and purchase intentions.
Sample
The sample is to be collected on the basis of convenience sampling.

The study proposes to study the components of brand equity and its effect on
customer satisfaction and purchase intentions based on Aakers Brand Equity
model. According to this model, brand equity has five components namely (i)
brand loyalty, (ii) brand awareness, (iii) perceived quality, (iv) brand associations,
and (v) other proprietary assets. All these terms are briefly explained below:

Brand Equity
Brand equity is a term used in the marketing that explains the worth of having a
popular brand name. Based in this concept, we say that a user of a well known

brand can generate more cash flow from products than from product with ales
popular name. In a competitive business environment, brands play a significant
role in bringing value for the firm. Marketers have realized the importance of
brand equity recently. It is said that brand equity is an intangible asset for the firm
and it brings financial value to the firm. Hence, they started measuring brand
equity from various dimensions. Brand equity can be measured from two
perspectives which is from financial perspective and from consumer perspective.
Brand equity which is measured from consumer perspective is known as customer
based brand equity. There are two main models in this respect, namely Kellers
brand equity model and David Aakers brand equity model, of which we adopt the
latter.
David Aakers brand equity model defines the five components as follows:
1. Brand Loyalty: the extent to which people are loyal to a brand is expressed in
the following factors
- Reduced marketing costs (hanging on to loyal customers is cheaper than
charming potential new customers
- Trade leverage (loyal customers represent a stable source of revenue for the
distributive trade)
- Attracting new customers (current customers can help boost name
awareness and bring in new customers)
- Time to respond to competitive threats (loyal customers that are not quick
to switch brands give more time to respond to competitive threats)

2. Brand Awareness: the extent to which a brand is known to public which can be
measured using the following parameters:
- Anchor to which associations can be attached (depending on the strength of
the brand name, more or fewer associations can be attached to it, which
will, in turn, eventually influence brand awareness)
- Familiarity and liking (consumers with a positive attitude towards a brand,
will talk about it more and spread brand awareness)
- Signal of substance/ commitment to brand
- Brand to be considered during the purchasing process (to what extent does
the brand form part of the evoked set of brands in a consumers mind
3. Perceived Quality: the extent to which a brand is considered to provide good
quality products can be measured on the basis of the following five criteria:
- The quality offered by the product in relation to competing brands
- Level of differentiation/ position in relation to competing brands
- Price (as the product becomes more complex to assess, and status is at play,
consumers tend to take price as quality indicator)
- Availability in different sales channels (consumers have a higher quality
perception of brands that are widely available)
- The number of line/ brand extensions (this can tell the consumer the brand
stands for a certain quality guarantee that is applicable on a wide scale)
4. Brand Associations: associations triggered by a brand can be assessed on the
basis of the five following indicators:
- The extent to which a brand name is able to retrieve associations from the
consumers brain (such information from advertising)
- The extent to which association contribute to brand differentiation in
relation to completion (these can be abstract associations, such as vitality,
or associations with concrete product benefits, such will leave your
washing cleaner)
- The extent to which brand associations play a role in the buying process
(the greater this extent, the higher the total brand equity)

- The extent to which brand associations create positive attitudes/ feelings

(the greater this extent, the higher the total brand equity)
- The number of brand extensions in the market (the greater this number, the
greater the opportunity to add brand associations)
5. Other Proprietary Assets: examples are patents and intellectual property rights,
relations with trade partners, and airlines landing slots (the more proprietary rights
a brand has accumulated, the greater the brands competitive edge in those fields)