Expert Witness Blog
Trademark expert witness William D. Neal is Senior Executive Officer at SDR Consulting and in Modeling Brand Equity, he writes on branding:
A brand’s equity therefore becomes part of the tradeoff exercise a consumer considers as they first select their consideration set, then decide which product to purchase. That is, purchasers actively trade off both the perceived tangible benefits and the perceived intrinsic benefits delivered by products in their consideration set, against price, to arrive at their value hierarchy, and ultimately their purchase decision.
Brands that have high perceived value are always included in a purchaser’s consideration set. If a brand’s combined tangible and intrinsic equities are consistently higher than any other brand in the category, that brand will have the highest customer loyalty in terms of purchase, repurchase, and recommendation. Competing brands can only improve their loyalty against the brand equity leader by lowering price in the short term, improving their product’s tangible features in the mid term, or improving their brand’s intrinsic benefits, or equity, in the long term.