Consumer-based brand equity and consumer-based brand performance: evidence from smartphone brands in the USA

Consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) has attracted academic endeavor and strategic emphasis in practice to examine its role for brand success. Despite its diagnostic power for brands, prior studies fail to: reach consensus on conceptualization and operationalization, consider prospective consumers and competing brands, and identify linkages with brand performance. Our study therefore proposes an integrative model of consumer-based brand performance (CBBP) to address its relationship with CBBE. Within this aim, we intend to achieve two objectives. First, we prove that the key components of CBBE, that is, brand attributes, associations and judgments, all play significant roles in determining CBBP. Second, we demonstrate the detailed relationship among the three components of CBBE. Accordingly, we test hypotheses based on the structural equation modeling of 1670 valid questionnaire responses from young consumers (aged 18-35) in the USA and comparative analysis of two competing smartphone brands (iPhone vs. Samsung). As a result, we contribute to theoretical and empirical understanding concerning the relationship between CBBE and CBBP. We also enrich brand empirical understanding by addressing two main competing brands in the US smartphone industry. The combined SEM and comparative analysis add both breadth and depth to current understandings. The results provide implications for practitioners to devise brand strategies which consider the varied impact of consumers, as a key stakeholder, for success.