The brand equity model: a comparison between private label and national brand

Over the years, branding has gained attention from scholars and managers. A model brand that is increasingly chosen by the consumers is represented by private label. Because of its key role in the strategy of companies it can be still considered one of the hottest topics even though it has already been discussed over years. Although it is clear that retailers are brands, the measurement of their equity has been treated differently and there is the need to become able to understand whether they can follow the same process of national brands value creation or not. Therefore, since it is necessary to investigate the retail brand equity and understand in depth the main factors affecting it and how to measure it this study aims to close the current gap. Drawn on the literature review two main gaps have been identified. The first is related to the need to test the applicability of the Keller’s pyramid (in the study the conceptualization and the framework developed by the author is considered as the point of reference) in its entirety because until now almost all the scholars have considered only some dimensions without creating an unique model. The second is about the likelihood to apply the same model to the retail context with the goal to find similarities and, or differences. In addition to investigate whether the private label equity has the same structure as national brand equity, it wants to investigate and identify the most influential variables in the model. A SEM (structural equation modeling) model has enabled us to make specific predictions about the way in which equity is created considering two different players. Results show that private label effectively follows the same process of value creation in terms of brand equity, but the intensity of the relationships among the constructs are differently. In fact, the emotional side is higher for the national brands than the private label. These findings lead to important implications both for manufacturers and retailers.