Relationship Between Brand Forgiveness and Brand Equity

It has been found that one of the hardest jobs of managing appropriate brand value is to clean up all the mess after a crisis situation. Hsu (2012) stated that when customers forgive any mishap done by their favorite brands can be termed as brand forgiveness. However, brand forgiveness is not an easy thing to achieve. According to Sheng and Teo (2012), a brand will have to go through a period of penance before it can regain its trust among customers. Rusty Cowly (the assistant director of public relation and communication at Texas A&M) has developed a six step approach to achieve forgiveness. They are mentioned below:

Confess sins and mishaps committed by the company

The management team needs to explain what happened and why happened. Cuneo et al. (2012) stated that, in most of the cases it has been found that fault of the company may exist only in the mind of an outraged community. The management needs to remind that outraged customers or community can cause great harm to the brand reputation. Hence, the management needs to acknowledge their faults and admit that they are wrong. 

• Allow the community to purge its outrage

The company needs to create a community to express its emotions directly to the top brass. The management needs to take notes but avoid debt.

• Apologize and repent

Kim et al. (2012) mentioned that apology has three stages. 1) Accept fault 2) show sympathy to specific victims 3) accept responsibility for improvement 

• Make things right

The management team has to take suggestion from community and seek their suggestions. They also have to work on the suggestions as well. In order to gain forgiveness, they have to do more than they are asked to do by the customers.

• Show consumers the improvement

They have to update the customer community regularly. The management has to develop system that will prevent the company from transgressing again. They have to ask for recommendations from customers and implement them than their own.

• Show humility

They have to give physical reality to their penance. They have to develop some offers, loyalty programs or something dramatic in order to gain customer loyalty again. 

Brand equity

Jara and Cliquet (2012) stated that brand equity is the word used to mention the worth of a brand. It has been found that reason of brand equity is to calculate the worth of a brand. It encompasses name, logo, image, and identity of a product or service. It promises about quality, performance and various other dimensions related with values that can affect consumer’s choice about the competing products and services. It has been analyzed that when customers belief a brand and discover its service relevant, they may decide on the offerings related with the brand over those of the competitors. Brand equity can be effectively handled by the development of the brand equity objectives. Wang and Li (2012) stated that, the brand equity goals can be used to track performance and progress of a specific service or product.

Brand reinforcement is considered as one of the major part of the brand equity. Bruhn et al. (2012) stated that as a significant asset, brand has to be cautiously managed so its worth does not reduce. Companies can easily strengthen brand equity by assigning the meaning of brand in context of two terms. They are mentioned below:

What service or product that the company offers, what are the core benefits and what needs that it can satisfy.

How the brand makes a service or product superior and which favorable, strong and unique brand association needs to exist in customer’s mind.     

Hakala et al. (2012) stated that brand Reinforcement is becoming highly significant in intensively competitive markets.

Impact of brand equity on brand forgiveness

It has been found that any new expansion in the advertising environment can significantly have an effect on the fortune of a brand. Unpleasant experience or negative publicity about a brand can create unfair classification about a company that can decrease brand forgiveness. Brand forgiveness is not an easy thing to achieve. However, from various research works it has been found that there are numbers of organizations or brands that are able to make impressive comeback in recent years. In order to increase brand forgiveness, it is required to find out the factors of brand equity that need to begin with. If a brand has some positive reputation, consumers will easily forgive the missteps. For example, in the year of 2011, due to 60% price increment, the company Netflix had lost 800,000 subscribers (77% drop in the stock price).  However, the company has quickly turned around. In the year of 2013, the stock of Netflix increased by 213% (Gürhan-Canli et al. 2016).  There are some specific ways in which brand equity can increase brand forgiveness. They are such as:

It delivers on value proposition

It can change customers live in positive manner

It develops positive relationship between customers and brands.

Research objectives and approach

Research objectives

• To analyze the positive impact of brand equity on customers
• To assess the factors that can lead to brand forgiveness for customers
• To evaluate the effect of brand equity on brand forgiveness

Research approach

In order to conduct this research work in appropriate manner positivism philosophy has been selected along with deductive research approach. Both primary and secondary data will be collected to conduct this research work. Primary data will be collected with help of survey questionnaires and face to face interview. 10 close ended questions will be developed for the survey questionnaires. They will be distributed among 50 customers of Starbucks. All the questions will be related with brand equity and their perception about brand forgiveness. Face to face interview will be conducted with 5 managers of Starbucks.  This interview will help to analyze the steps taken by the company to improve brand equity so that brand forgiveness of customers can be increased.  The Impact of brand equity on brand forgiveness has also been discussed in the literature review section. The objective of this research work has been provided along with the research approach. Finally a work plan has been provided in which the research work will be developed in future.

Current work and preliminary results

Presently, the proposal for this research work has been developed. The topic of this research work is “The relationship between brand forgiveness and brand equity in service brand context.” In the introduction section, the background information related with brand equity and brand forgiveness has been provided along with the rationale behind developing this research work. In the literature review section, two concepts of brand forgiveness and brand equity have been mentioned.

work plan and implications

In order to complete this research work in time, appropriate work plan has been developed. This research work is planned to be completed within 26 weeks. A Gantt chart has been provided to describe the work plan.

Implications

The search of data will be completed within the first week from the starting of the research work. The literature review section of the research work will be completed within the first 4 weeks. Research methodology required for this research work will be completed within the next two weeks.  Data collection and data analysis for this research work will be conducted from 11^th week to 20^th week. The conclusion and recommendation section of this research work will be developed from 21^st week to 23^rd week. Proof reading will be complete within the next one week. Printing, binding and the final submission will be done within the next two weeks.

Conclusion

It has been found that unpleasant experience or negative publicity about a brand can create unfair classification about a company that can decrease brand forgiveness. Brand forgiveness is not an easy thing to achieve.  A company will have to go through a period of penance before it can regain its trust among customers. Six step approaches can be applied in order increase brand forgiveness. On the other hand, brand equity is the term used to mention the value of a brand. It promises about quality, performance and various other dimensions related with values that can affect consumer’s choice about the competing products and services. It has been found that there are various ways in which the brand equity in improve brand forgiveness. In order to complete this research work positivism philosophy has been used along with deductive approach. Both primary and secondary data will gathered to conduct this research work in appropriate manner.

Reference list

Bruhn, M., Schoenmueller, V. and Schäfer, D.B., 2012. Are social media replacing traditional media in terms of brand equity creation?. Management Research Review, 35(9), pp.770-790.

Cuneo, A., Lopez, P. and Jesus Yagüe, M., 2012. Measuring private labels brand equity: a consumer perspective. European Journal of Marketing, 46(7/8), pp.952-964.

Gürhan-Canli, Z., Hayran, C. and Sarial-Abi, G., 2016. Customer-based brand equity in a technologically fast-paced, connected, and constrained environment. AMS Review, pp.1-10.

Hakala, U., Svensson, J. and Vincze, Z., 2012. Consumer-based brand equity and top-of-mind awareness: a cross-country analysis. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 21(6), pp.439-451.

Hsu, K.T., 2012. The advertising effects of corporate social responsibility on corporate reputation and brand equity: Evidence from the life insurance industry in Taiwan. Journal of business ethics, 109(2), pp.189-201.

Jara, M. and Cliquet, G., 2012. Retail brand equity: Conceptualization and measurement. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 19(1), pp.140-149.

Kapferer, J.N., 2012. The new strategic brand management: Advanced insights and strategic thinking. Kogan page publishers.

Kim, K.H., Jeon, B.J., Jung, H.S., Lu, W. and Jones, J., 2012. Effective employment brand equity through sustainable competitive advantage, marketing strategy, and corporate image. Journal of Business Research, 65(11), pp.1612-1617.

Sheng, M.L. and Teo, T.S., 2012. Product attributes and brand equity in the mobile domain: The mediating role of customer experience. International Journal of Information Management, 32(2), pp.139-146.

Stahl, F., Heitmann, M., Lehmann, D.R. and Neslin, S.A., 2012. The impact of brand equity on customer acquisition, retention, and profit margin. Journal of Marketing, 76(4), pp.44-63.

Torres, A., Bijmolt, T.H., Tribó, J.A. and Verhoef, P., 2012. Generating global brand equity through corporate social responsibility to key stakeholders. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 29(1), pp.13-24.

Wang, W.T. and Li, H.M., 2012. Factors influencing mobile services adoption: a brand-equity perspective. Internet Research, 22(2), pp.142-179.