What's in a name? Building Brand Equity.

Brand Equity. Defined as the value your brand has in mind of a consumer and is measured by the awareness of your brand.

How much is your company name, logo, product or service worth in the mind of a consumer?
If you don't know, should you?

Take for instance the Nike swoosh. A cross platform brand that instantly conjures up elements of loyalty, endorsers and notions of quality. This little icon cost a mere $35.00 to develop and is now worth just a little bit more than that.

OK, so how do you develop brand equity? It takes time, patience, perseverance and it starts with developing brand loyalty. This is accomplished in many different ways.

Product quality, product satisfaction, price, value, exclusiveness, and promotion all play an important part in your brand loyalty. Once consumers have bought into you and your product(s), keeping them satisfied through followup and continual delivery of quality will build your brand loyalty and ultimately it's equity. However brand equity can have a negative impact.

Take Pennzoil for example. In the 60's, it got a bad reputation being knows the oil that sludged up engines. Most mechanics told people not to use it. Still today, if you ask the older generation of "oil changers" this stereotype continues to exist. This is not the case today as most motor oils are extremely well designed. Nonetheless it had an impact on Pennzoil's sales well into the late 80's and still gets a lot of discussion on automotive boards.

Bottom Line - Build your brand on quality and value. Before you know it, you will be enjoying the fruits of brand loyalty, and as a by-product, brand equity is grown.