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...based several different dimensions. Six hundred and forty in-depth interviews were conducted to assess brand equity of the leading brand in the drinkin' box market. The assessment for the leading brand was then compared to that of other major competing brands within the New Brunswick market. Preliminary results suggest that the metric tested in this study is a valid tool for the determination of brand equity and that although the leading brand is a home brand and is able to hold its market position, competitive pressure from other brands is real and inescapable.
Introduction
The battle faced by marketers today is a battle of the brands. Companies are competing for brand dominance, realizing that brands are the company's most valuable asset. The focus has changed from owning factories to owning markets, and the only way to own markets is to own market-dominate brands (Aaker 1991). Measures of competitiveness based on brand equity are lacking. With a view to filling this gap in the literature, the purpose of the following study was to develop a system to measure a company's competitiveness by assessing its customer-based brand equity. Since brand equity is a result of market competition, five competing brands are used to assess the brand equities in the drinkin' box market.
Literature Review
Keller (2003) demonstrated the brand value creation (BVC) process. Customer-based brand equity assessment focuses on stage two of BVC, and this is the main stream of research in the literature. The basic idea of this approach is to establish a score system in order to evaluate customers' choice along Aaker's five dimensions (Aaker 1991). The methods in this approach are relatively mature. Different literature has used different score systems, but Agarwal and Rao (1996) have shown that they all converge.
Aaker (1991) defines brand equity as "a set of brand assets and liabilities linked to a brand, its name, and symbol that add to or subtract from the value provided by a product or service to a firm and/or to that firm's customers". These assets and liabilities, according to Aaker (1991), have five dimensions--brand loyalty, brand awareness, perceived quality, brand associations, and other proprietary brand assets.
While products create choices, brands make choices easier (Bender, Farquahr, and Schulert 1996). A consumer can choose from many brands for a product, but most consumers do not examine all of the choices. Consumers first simplify the decision by reducing the choices to a small number (consideration set), and then they only evaluate those brands in order to make their decision. Therefore, it is crucial for a brand to be part of the consideration set (Bender, Farquahr, and Schulert 1996). Corporate brands are at the top of the brand hierarchy, and these well known corporate brands provide consumers with the reassurance of product quality and a promise of trusted service. Brand awareness is the most influential factor in determining which brands will be included in the consideration set (Bender. Farquahr, and Schulert 1996). "Brand awareness is the ability of a potential buyer to recognize or recall that a bland is a member of a certain product category" (Aaker 1991). It is a continuum that ranges from a consumer being totally unaware of a particular brand to the belief that it is the only brand that exists for a product.
Brand awareness can affect decisions about brands in the consideration set, even if a consumer does...
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