Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Skłodowska, sectio H – Oeconomia, volume 51, issue 2, pages 169–175, 2017
- Open access
- Conceptual model
- Research agenda
- Store brands
- Three retail formats
Free full text: the open access article (CC BY 4.0), re-typeset as a clean PDF with the same content as the published version. Please cite the published version.
- store brands
- private label brands
- antecedents
- brand equity
- consumer-based store brand equity (SBBE)
- consumer-based brand equity (CBBE)
- retailer brands
- own brands
- advertising spend
- attitude toward the ad
- price promotions
- non-price promotions
- sales promotion
- brand awareness
- brand associations
- perceived quality
- brand loyalty
- discount stores
- hypermarkets
- delicatessens
- Aaker brand equity model
- Buil, de Chernatony and Martínez (2013) framework
- literature review
Store brands are no longer just cheap copies, yet little is known about how retailers’ advertising and promotions build their brand equity. This paper proposes a model in which advertising spend, attitudes toward the ads, price promotions and non-price promotions shape the awareness, associations, perceived quality and loyalty of store brands, to be compared across discount stores, hypermarkets and delicatessens.
Key findings
- A model of how advertising and promotions build store brand equity. The model links four marketing communication antecedents (store brand advertising spend, attitudes toward store brand advertisements, price promotions and non-price promotions) to the four dimensions of Aaker’s brand equity: awareness, associations, perceived quality and loyalty (Łukasik & Schivinski, 2017).
- Advertising is expected to strengthen every dimension of store brand equity. Perceived advertising spend is hypothesised to raise store brand awareness, associations, perceived quality and loyalty, and favourable attitudes toward the ads to raise awareness, associations and perceived quality (Łukasik & Schivinski, 2017).
- Price promotions may hurt store brands; non-price promotions may help. Because consumers read low prices as a sign of low quality, price promotions are hypothesised to lower store brand perceived quality and associations, while non-price promotions such as gifts, samples and contests should raise them (Łukasik & Schivinski, 2017).
- The first store brand equity model to use all four of Aaker’s dimensions. Previous store brand research measured brand equity with a single dimension; this framework adapts the national brand model of Villarejo-Ramos and Sánchez-Franco (2005) and Buil et al. (2013) to store brands (Łukasik & Schivinski, 2017).
At a glance
- Type
- Conceptual paper: literature review, research question and hypotheses for a research project
- Research question
- How do store brand advertising and sales promotion affect store brand equity, overall and across retail formats?
- Antecedents
- Store brand advertising spend; attitudes toward store brand advertisements; store brand price promotions; store brand non-price promotions
- Outcomes
- Store brand awareness, associations, perceived quality and loyalty (Aaker, 1991)
- Retail formats
- Discount stores, hypermarkets and delicatessens
Figure 1. Conceptual model of antecedents of store brand equity
The question
Store brands now compete with national brands on quality and image, but research has looked at them from the perspective of retailers, manufacturers and consumers rather than as brands. Little evidence exists on how advertising and sales promotion build consumer-based store brand equity, and previous studies measured it with a single dimension. We propose a model to test these antecedents across three retail formats.
Implications
Practical implications
Once tested, the model will show retailers how their advertising budget and promotional tools affect each part of store brand equity, helping them design advertising campaigns and choose between price and non-price promotions in each retail format.
Theoretical implications
The paper extends a national brand equity framework to store brands and proposes measuring store brand equity with all four of Aaker’s dimensions, opening a comparison between consumers’ perceptions of national brands and store brands.
Limitations and future research
- The paper presents a conceptual model and hypotheses; it reports no data.
Questions this paper answers
Does advertising build store brand equity?
This conceptual model hypothesises that perceived store brand advertising spend increases store brand awareness, associations, perceived quality and loyalty (Łukasik & Schivinski, 2017).
Do price promotions hurt store brands?
The model expects price promotions to lower store brand perceived quality and associations, because consumers use price as a cue to quality, while non-price promotions should improve them (Łukasik & Schivinski, 2017).
What is store brand equity?
The value consumers attach to a retailer’s own brand, measured here through Aaker’s four dimensions: awareness, associations, perceived quality and loyalty.
Key concepts
- Store brand
- A brand owned, managed and marketed by a retailer, also called a private label or own brand (Sprott & Shimp, 2004).
- Consumer-based store brand equity (SBBE)
- The value of a store brand from the consumer’s perspective, built from awareness, associations, perceived quality and loyalty.
- Non-price promotion
- A sales promotion that does not reduce the price, such as free gifts, free samples, sweepstakes and contests.
Open science and materials
- Full text (PDF) Open access article re-typeset as a clean PDF, including the model
- Published version Annales UMCS, sectio H – Oeconomia (open access)
How to cite
Łukasik, P., & Schivinski, B. (2017). Antecedents of consumer-based store brand equity – conceptual model. Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Skłodowska, sectio H – Oeconomia, 51(2), 169–175. https://doi.org/10.17951/h.2017.51.2.169
Open access under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 licence.