Managing brand equity in the gourmet coffee outlet industry.

Abstract

This paper examines the role of brand equity in the gourmet coffee outlet (GCO) industry in Singapore and seeks to understand the relationships between brand equity with customer satisfaction and purchase intention. With reference to Aaker’s [1991] model, we conceptualised brand equity as a four dimensional construct comprising of: brand awareness, perceived quality, brand associations and brand loyalty. We also examined the effects of moderating variables (loyalty card and gender) on the relationships of brand equity dimensions with customer satisfaction and purchase intention. In addition, we developed a more comprehensive measure for perceived quality that encompasses both perceived product and service quality; and investigated whether brand loyalty alone is sufficient for measuring brand equity in this industry.

A preliminary interview with a focus group was conducted to determine consumers’ brand associations of generic GCO brands to develop our questionnaire and select the appropriate brands to focus on. Starbucks and The Coffee Connoisseur (TCC) were then chosen due to their high top-of-mind awareness. Subsequently, from our pilot study, we revised and improved the design of our final questionnaire.

For the analysis, we carried out reliability tests and ran several regression models to explore the relationships between the four dimensions of brand equity with customer satisfaction and purchase intention. Additionally, we used multiple regression models to investigate how the relationships between brand equity dimensions with customer satisfaction and purchase intention are moderated by loyalty card and gender.