Brand management

A brand is more than a name or logo: it is the set of perceptions, feelings and associations a customer holds about a product, and brand equity is the value those associations add — the reason customers pay more for one label than for an identical unlabelled product. Brand equity has four sources (Aaker): brand awareness, brand associations, perceived quality and brand loyalty, plus proprietary assets such as trademarks. Worked example: two identical white shirts, one with a respected label, sell at very different prices. The price gap is brand equity at work: awareness gets the shirt considered, associations (quality, status, trust) justify the premium, perceived quality supports it, and loyalty brings the customer back without another advertising rupee.