ABSTRACT
Brand equity has been a key evolving concept in marketing for the last two decades. Brand equity is often referred to as the added value to the firm, the trade, or the consumer with which a brand endows a product or, similarly, as the difference between the value of the branded product to the consumer and the value of the product without that branding. This chapter focuses on consumer-based brand equity models that utilize the utility maximization and random utility framework. It summarizes customer-based holistic brand equity models based on utility maximization, including very recent work that models both customer-based brand equity and brand equity to the firm, using utility and profit maximization frameworks in an equilibrium setting. The chapter provides an integrative framework based on utility maximization and discrete choice modeling, within which psychological and information economics theoretic perspectives of brand equity can be explained and measured, while also allowing for a holistic measurement of overall customer-based brand equity.
