Building strong brands

This work develops and empirically tests a model for exploring the determinants and effects of brand equity in Indian passenger car market for multiple time (repeat) car buyers. Towards that, the Brand Equity Creation Model developed by Yoo et al. (2000) was expanded and combined with Brand Choice Model developed by Erdem et al. (1999) to develop a new model. Two identified dimensions of brand equity (perceived quality and brand awareness) were found to affect the Overall Brand Equity, which in turn affected the final brand choice made by the consumers. The effect that ten selected marketing activities had on these two dimensions of brand equity were examined. It has been seen through the study, that certain marketing activities which are successful in building brand equity in the Western world are not so successful in building brand equity and influencing final brand choice for the Indian passenger car consumers. Hence, the author has called upon marketers of automobiles to "Think Global. Act Local," wherein more activities like product design are conducted at a global level and marketing and other trans national activities, which are more country specific, are customized at home.