What factors affect to brand equity at sun life vietnam

RESEARCH PROJECT
(BMBR5103)

WHAT FACTORS AFFECT TO BRAND EQUITY
AT SUN LIFE VIETNAM ?

STUDENT’S FULL NAME
STUDENT ID
INTAKE
ADVISOR’S NAME & TITLE

: TRINH XUAN NAM
: CGS00019875
: SEPTEMBER, 2015
: DR BUI PHI HUNG (DBA)

February, 2017


Advisor’s assessment

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Advisor’s signature


TABLE OF CONTENT
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................6
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................7
1.1 Company background ........................................................................................7
1.2 Research problem statement ..............................................................................8
1.3 Research objective ...........................................................................................11
1.4 Research scope .................................................................................................11
CHAPTER II : LITERATURE REVIEW ...............................................................12
2.1 What is Brand?.................................................................................................12
2.2 Brand equity.....................................................................................................13
2.3 The concept of brand equity ............................................................................15
2.4 Keller’s brand equity model ............................................................................18
2.5 Aaker’s brand equity model.............................................................................20
2.6 Luming Wang and Adam Finn’s brand equity model .....................................23
2.7 Hypotheses .......................................................................................................24

CHAPTER III : METHODOLOGY .........................................................................26
3.1 Data collection method ....................................................................................26
3.2 Sampling ..........................................................................................................27
3.3 Measurement Techniques ................................................................................28
3.4 Data analysis ....................................................................................................31
CHAPTER IV: KEY FINDINGS ............................................................................32
4.1 Cronbach’s Alpha ............................................................................................32
4.2 Exploratory Factor Analysis ............................................................................33
4.3 Assessment of customers about Brand Equity of Sun Life Vietnam ..............35
CHAPTER V: DISCUSSION ...................................................................................36
5.1 Brand Loyalty of Sun Life Vietnam ................................................................36
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5.2 Brand Awareness of Sun Life Vietnam ...........................................................37
5.3 Perceived Quality of Sun Life Vietnam...........................................................40
5.4 Brand Associations of Sun Life Vietnam ........................................................43
CHAPTER VI: CONCLUSION ...............................................................................45
REFERENCE ............................................................................................................48
APPENDIX ...............................................................................................................50

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Foremost, I would like to thank for knowledge I have gained from MBA
course of Open University Malaysia and specially express my sincere gratitude to
my advisor Dr Hung Bui, for offering his precious time and effort for proofreading
my Researching Project, for his guidance, valuable comments and suggestions. It is
worth to mention that he was a perfect match for my Researching Project in terms

of language and proficiency. This work would not have been more successful
without his help and patience. I also want to express my profound gratitude to my
Dad and Mum – you are the best in the world and I’m so proud of you! Big thanks
to friends, MBAOUM K19A classmates, Marketing colleagues at Sun Life Vietnam
who went out of their ways in providing immeasurable supports and positive
energy. And also my thanks go to those who will read this Researching Project until
the very end. Last, but not least, it is a pleasure to thank those interviewees and the
customers of Sun Life Vietnam, who took part in my survey, for your kindness,
time, and effort.

Trinh Xuan Nam

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ABSTRACT
Sun Life Vietnam is a new insurer in Vietnam after Sun Life Financial
acquired PVI Sun Life and renamed of PVI Sun Life to Sun Life Vietnam Insurance
Company Limited to reflect its new status as a wholly owned subsidiary of Sun
Life. PVI Sun Life didn’t invest more in advertising and marketing activities to
build brand equity. So the awareness about PVI Sun Life‘s Brand equity is low.
Additionally, “Trust” of customers on Brand equity is a very important key point of
competitive advantage in Life insurance industry in Vietnam. It makes business
activities become difficulty.
One of the most valuable assets of any company is its brand equity that the
company could earn more benefits from consumers. Sun Life Vietnam is new
insurance company in Vietnam. Understanding current fierce competition, CEO of
Sun Life Vietnam determined one of the most important objective is Sun Life
Vietnam need to diffuse brand equity to Vietnamese and flash on Vietnam Life
Insurance market.

This study researches to examine the factors affecting brand equity from the
perspective of customers using Aaker's Model, it was determined the relationship
between levels brand equity with four factors: brand loyaty, brand awareness,
perceived quality, brand assciations; and this study analyzed based on four factors
above and data will be analyzed using SPSS software.
Data collection methods included 19 questionnaires as part of a customer
survey to brand equity at Sun Life Vietnam. Thus, this research aims to examine
above factors that affect to brand equity at Sun Life Vietnam. I think results of this
research will help the CEO of Sun Life Vietnam have solutions to improve and
increase brand equity.
Key words in this research: brand loyaty, brand awareness, perceived quality,
brand assciations, brand equity, insurance, Sun Life Vietnam, Vietnam insurance.

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Starting with the background of the problem by using factors of PESTL, this
chapter will present the research aims, research questions and research scope.
1.1 Company background
Sun Life Vietnam is a new insurer in Vietnam. In Jan. 2013, PVI Sun Life
Insurance Company Limited was founded by PVI Holdings and Sun Life Assurance
Company of Canada. Sun Life Financial Inc. is a leading international financial
services organization providing a diverse range of protection and wealth products
and services to individuals and corporate customers. Sun Life Financial has
operations in a number of markets worldwide, including Canada, the United States,
the United Kingdom, Ireland, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, India,
China, Australia, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and Bermuda.
On Dec. 31st, 2015, Sun Life increased its share of charter capital up to 75%
and on Nov. 7th, 2016, upon approval of the Ministry of Finance, Sun Life acquired

the remaining 25% charter capital from PVI and becomes a 100% foreign owned,
Canadian life insurance company operating in Vietnam under the brand name of
Sun Life Vietnam Insurance Company Limited.
Sun Life Vietnam has provided life and health insurance, education plans and
pension products to Clients throughout the country. Since it was launched in 2013,
Sun Life Vietnam has become the country’s sixth largest life insurance provider and
a market leader and industry pioneer in pensions.
Sun Life Vietnam adopts “Client for life” strategy in which clients are the
focus of all business. Its mission is to help Vietnamese clients achieve lifetime
financial security by offering a strong suite of life insurance, health riders and
savings products. So far, Sun Life Vietnam has already established itself as one of
the leading life insurance providers and an industry pioneer in pensions for both
individual and corporate clients.

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Nowadays, lots of insurance companies are convinced that one of their most
valuable assets is their product brands and services. The Brand equity is one of
those capitals which preserve company's value and also have the loyalty of
customers in follow. The more the Brand equity in customers' mind the more the
company can achieve revenues. For this reason, CEO of Sun Life Vietnam decide to
invest in activities that enhance brand equity to create competitive advantage and
confirming its position as a global brand.
1.2 Research problem statement
Market changes
Markets have been changing over time and are still changing fast. New
markets are emerging continually, and communication channels about products and
services and selling them are changing at a revolutionary pace (Kotler, 1999). Thus,
marketing is also changing to meet those changes in the world.

Even though customer satisfaction drives customer loyalty, it suggested that
care must be taken for customers (Donaldson, B. and O’Toole, T., 2007). As Philip
Kotler (1999) describes in his book, the goal of marketing today is to create
customer satisfaction and firms’ profitability by building valued relationships with
customers. Intense communication and interaction strengthens relationship or bond
with customers and thus creates more loyal customers (Donaldson, B. and O’Toole,
T., 2007).
Brand awareness in any industry gives that company an edge. Brand
awareness accomplishes several objectives for companies seeking to increase sales
in the marketplace (Lea Nathan, September 2011).
In financial services, especially the insurance industry, the financial
performance is intimately attached to customers loyalty (Diacon & O’Brien, 2002).
As the selling cost of an insurance policy is not recovered unless the policy is
renewed (Zeithaml, Berry & Parasuraman, 1996), thus, customer loyalty is one of

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the most important determinant of economic success to the insurance firms (Mishra
& Prasad, 2014; Moore & Santomero, 1999). In this regard, customer
loyalty is an area of interest not only in academia but among marketing practitioners
(Lovelock, 2008; Sagib & Zapan, 2014).
Although the relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty
has been researched in different industry at large, however the examination of the
impact of the relationship between perceived value and loyalty has mostly been
ignored by the health insurance perspective (Yang, Jun & Peterson, 2004).
Commonly, the healthcare insurance service products are distributed through a
very complicated insurance agency network (Grönroos, 1982). In this respect,
building a distinctive and purposeful relationship between customers and the
healthcare insurance providers will require a superior level of service qualities

provided by insurance firms (Gera, 2011; Rahman, AbdelFattah & Mohamad, 2014;
Wong, Tong & Wong, 2012).
Corporate Image described as a company's image as how “customers see and
perceive” the firm (Gronroos, 2007). Clow and Beisel (1995) and Mazursky and
Jacoby (1986) added that the customer’s image of particular service firm will have a
direct effect on their attitude on future expectations. There is evidence that “image”
is significantly related to perceptions of quality (Darden & Schwinghammer, 1985).
Because, the firm image will precede customer evaluations as these assessments are
components of the image (Mazursky & Jacoby, 1986).
Aside from technical quality and functional quality, firm's image was drawn as
an initial decision for customers to determine the quality of service provided (Clow,
Kurtz & Ozment, 1998; Faché, 2000; Mazursky & Jacoby, 1986). That’s mean,
when services are difficult to be evaluated, then firm image shown as an important
factor that influencing the perception of customers towards the quality of service
provided (Andreassen & Lindestad, 1998; LeBlanc & Nguyen, 2001).

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Previous studies established a positive relationship between the firm image
and expectations in several service industries, such as catering, financial services, or
travel agencies (Rodríguez del Bosque, San Martín, Collado & García de los
Salmones, 2009; Clow, Kurtz & Ozment, 1997; Devlin, Gwynne & Ennew, 2002).
A positive firm image develops cues that give source of the appearance of expertise
that are capable of increasing a message’s of persuasive effect (Schindler & Bickart,
2005).
Interactive technology
In addition, those (above) market changes move the marketing generation
(industrial age) to an ‘information age’ and later to a ‘relationship age’ (Keith, F.
and Tahl, R., 2005). Today, information and communication technology (ICT)

developments and innovations are playing a vital role in the contemporary market
(Naudé, P. and Holland, C. P., 2004; Brady et.al, 2008).
The digital landscape across Viet Nam continues to grow and mature showing
no signs of slowing. Cell phone and particularly smartphone ownership has not yet
reached a saturation point so this market has grown and will continue to grow.
While computers still account for a significant percentage of the internet access in
Vietnam, that share is declining as mobile internet access and mobile social media
access is rapidly increasing. Social interaction is a critically important online
activity for the Vietnamese and Facebook is holding strong as the leading platform
for social media. Beyond social interaction or perhaps in tandem with that
interaction the Vietnamese are steadily consuming online content centered in both
news and information as well as entertainment. Each of these areas will be of key
importance to media and marketing efforts. Due to this background, interactive
technology has proven to offer unique marketing opportunities for the companies
and to be used as a tool to build brand equity(©reachingvietnam.com, April 2016) .

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Customer changes
In life insurance industry, the Consider process have most number of mention,
so this is an important step to make customers to actions. Moreover, the brand
equity selection is the biggest concerns of consumer when considering buying Life
Insurance or recommend others to buy life insurance (©Buzzmetric, April 2016).
For this reason, I conducted this research to know clearly about factors affect
brand equity of Sun Life Vietnam. In this study, the factors are evaluated to affect
brand equity are brand loyaty, brand awareness, perceived quality, brand
assciations. The main content of this research will show clearly about the
relationship between the above factors and brand equity. Thus, the CEO of Sun Life
Vietnam has recognized that what factors are of paramount importance to improve

and increase brand equity.
1.3 Research objective
By examining a case insurance company - Sun Life Vietnam, the purpose of
this research is finding factors affect to brand equity. Include workings: try to define
brand equity and four factors including brand loyaty, brand awareness, perceived
quality, brand assciations; design research conceptual framework and test to check
influence relationship between above factors and brand equity then recommendation
to improve and increase brand equity at Sun Life Vietnam.
1.4 Research scope
This research focuses to issues related to brand equity based on four factors
including brand loyaty, brand awareness, perceived quality, brand assciations. The
survey is also built to collect feedback from customers of Sun Life Vietnam to
provide a clear understanding of above factors to enable CEO of Sun Life Vietnam
to set the effective strategies to improve brand equity.

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CHAPTER II : LITERATURE REVIEW
Research conducted for the literature was gathered from academic journals,
books and through the World Wide Web. The researcher aspired to gather academic
information post 2006 in order to gain an up to date view of literature available in
the brand equity area. Various factors of brand equity available to companies are
addressed, giving a brief description of each method. There is however limited
literature which coincides with popular factors of brand equity used by companies
to build brand equity.
2.1 What is Brand?
A brand is a product, service, or concept that is publicly distinguished from
other products, services, or concepts so that it can be easily communicated and
usually marketed. A brand name is the name of the distinctive product, service, or

concept. Branding is the process of creating and disseminating the brand name.
Branding can be applied to the entire corporate identity as well as to individual
product and service names. (Accessed
December 8, 2016)
Brands can be a tangible commodity (or matter), a service (non-physical),
shops, a place, an organization or an idea, the brand is a name, but may affect
customers (Kapferer, 2008).
According to Kotler (2000) brand name, associated with one or more of the
products of a product line, it is used to determine the source and characteristics of
the product or products. Agreeing with the point on the American Marketing
Association (AMA) says the brand is a name, symbols, logos, graphics, designs ...
or set of factors in order to identify and distinguish goods services of one seller or
group of goods and services of competitors (Keller, 2008).
Author Nguyen Dinh Tho and Nguyen Thi Mai Trang in the study of brand
value (Nguyen & Nguyen, 2002) for the traditional view that this watch brand as a

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component of the product. Meanwhile, Davis (2002) argues that brand is not just a
name or a symbol that it is more complex, it is a set of attributes provides the target
customers the value they require. According to this point of the product is
considered to be part of the brand (Nguyen & Nguyen, 2002).
According Lnapp (2000), the brand is the synthesis of all that impressive, is
perceived by customers and consumers, drawn from the different positioning of
eyes, spirit based on the emotions and the benefits Additional functionality is felt.
According to the American Marketing Association: Branding a name, word,
symbol design drawings, ... or set of factors in order to identify and distinguish
goods or services of one person or a group of sellers with goods and services of
competitors.

There are many concepts of the brand, but the brand is generally the entity
(product or organization) determined commitment to create the face value of the
entity.
2.2 Brand equity
Brand equity is the brand value in comparison to the brands rivals (Neal and
Strauss, 2008), and brand associations are ‘the other informational nodes linked to
the brand node in memory and contain the meaning of the brand for consumers’
(Keller, 1993, p. 3).

In Keller's point of view brand equity is the distinctive

influence of brand knowledge upon the reaction on customers' side to the brand
marketing (Keller, 1998). Brand personality, one of the original components of
brand image, makes the brand image by means of the other physical constituents,
adjectives, practical features and profits of brand usage (Maehle and Shneor, 2010);
as a result, it will have an impact on the brand equity.
Brand equity is deemed as a market-oriented, relational asset connected with
brand and located in the relationship between brand and customer (Srivastava et.al,
1998). Definition of brand equity based on consumers is close to the consumers

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view. The client is an individual or organization they claim to be that value of a
brand should be considered valuable by customers. Thus, the power of the brand
hides in what customers learned through time and experience or seen or heard about
brand (Keller, 2003). In addition, brand equity, will play a special role in service
firms. Because of strong brand names, make sure to intangible products and able
customers to understanding and ability to make the diagnosis. According to Keller,
being familiar with brand can play an important role in consumers' purchasing

decisions and that include the following deceptions: Learning, attention and
selection; Brand awareness and image, as parts of Keler brand knowledge, are
responsible essential roles in consumer decision making (Atilgan & et al, 2009).
An attempt to define the relationship between customers and brands produced
the term “brand equity” in the marketing literature (Wood, 2000). The brand equity
generates a type of added value for products which help with companies’ long term
interests and capabilities (Chen, 2008). Over the past two decades, a great deal of
research has addressed various aspects of brand equity; brand equity is generally
accepted as a critical success factor to differentiate companies and service providers
from its competitors. Brands with high levels of equity are associated with
outstanding performance including sustained price premiums, inelastic price
sensitivity, high market shares, and successful expansion into new businesses,
competitive cost structures and high profitability all contributing to companies’
competitive advantage (Keller and Lehmann 2003; Vazquez et al. 2002 ).
Brand equity is significant in assisting consumers to process information,
especially, when the information is overloaded (Krishan and Hartline, 2001). For
firms, growing brand equity is a key objective to be achieved by gaining more
favourable associations and feelings of target consumers (Falkenberg 1996). In
other words, financial meaning from the perspective of the value of the brand to the
firm and customer-based meaning from the perspective of the value of the brand to
the customer which both come from a marketing decision-making context (Kim,

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and An 2003). In addition, Yoo, at el (2000) states that understanding the
dimensions of brand equity and investing to its growth raises competitive barriers
and drives brand wealth. The subject of brand equity is very rich in the context of
definitions, models and measurement issue; several brand equity measurement
methods have been suggested by different researches.

2.3 The concept of brand equity
During the past few decades, brand equity has become one of the major areas
of attention to managers and marketing researchers owing to its major role as a
significant intangible firm asset. Many definitions of brand equity exist. One of the
most widely accepted definitions states that brand equity is the “added value
endowed by the brand to the product” (Farquhar 1989). There are some other
definitions by other researchers as well. Aaker (1991) conceptualized brand equity
as a set of brand assets and liabilities linked to a brand, its name and symbol that
add to or subtract from the value provided by a product or service to a firm and/or to
that firm’s customers. Definition by Keller (1993) focused on marketing; he
described brand equity as “the differential effect of brand knowledge on consumer
response to the marketing of the brand”. Brand equity has also been defined as “the
enhancement in the perceived utility and Desirability a brand name confers on a
product” (Lassar, Mittal and Sharma 1995). Vázquez et al. (2002) mentioned that
brand equity is the utility that the consumer associates to the use and consumption
of the brand. Clow and Baack (2005) pointed out another definition: they
considered brand equity as a set of characteristics that make a brand unique in the
marketplace, allows the company to charge a higher price and retain a greater
market share than would be possible with an unbranded product.
We can evaluate the brand equity from different perspectives, As Baalbaki
(2012) mentioned brand equity can be seen from three different perspectives:

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Figure 1. Brand Equity Perspectives
Financial perspective (Financial- based brand equity)
Brand equity in the 1980s, as seen from the financial perspective, was viewed
as a method that gave managers guidance in understanding brand enhancement. In
this perspective, the measures focused on stock prices or brand replacement (Myers,

2003). Simon and Sullivan (1993) defined brand equity as “the incremental cash
flows which accrue to branded products over and above the cash flows which would
result from the sale of unbranded products”. Supporters of the financial perspective
(FBBE) define brand equity as the “total value of a brand which is a separable asset
– when it is sold or included in a balance sheet” (Atilgan et al., 2005). Wood (2000)
discussed that from a financial perspective it is possible to give a monetary value to
the brand that can be useful for managers in case of merger, acquisition or
divestiture. Estimating a financial value for the brand is certainly useful but it does
not help marketers to understand the process of building brand equity.
Employee perspective (Employee-based brand equity)
Youngbum Kwon (2013) discussed that the definitions of Employee-based
brand equity and Customer-based brand equity are similar in respect that they are
both values that come from the innate nature of the brand. Employee-based brand
equity is defined from the employee perspective and is based on the differential
effect that brand knowledge has on an employee’s response to his or her work
environments and cultures (King and Grace, 2009).Youngbum Kwon (2013)
presented a three dimension model based on King and Grace (2009, 2010) and

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Aaker (1991) research. The three dimensions are Brand knowledge, Role Clarity,
Brand commitment. Cardy et al (2007) argued that subjective and emotional
employee judgments concerning an organization reflect brand equity in the
reflection of several following questions: what is the employee perception of an
organization’s reputation; does it convey a sense of respect to its members; does an
individual associate certain emotions, lifestyles, or experiences with an
organization; has an employee forged an organizational identity, or considered the
firm a part of himself or herself (Ashforth and Mael, 1989). All these questions
describe subjective, intangible factors that imply developing an emotional tie with a

firm or its culture. In a marketing sense, brand equity results in increasing the
positive feelings that make one less likely to defect to a competing product. HRM
can adopt the brand equity concept to strengthen the psychological contract with
employees and make them less likely to leave. According to King and Grace (2009),
Employee-based brand equity serves as a foundation to build Customer-based brand
equity because employees who understand and wholeheartedly endorse the
organization’s objectives deliver these values to their customers.
Consumer-based brand equity
In recent brand equity literature, there are two prominent theoretical views that
provide valuable insights into the body of customer based brand equity. Aaker
(1991) defined four basic dimensions of customer-based brand equity: perceived
quality, brand awareness, brand associations, and brand loyalty. Another prominent
theoretical conceptualization is Keller’s (1993) customer-based brand equity model.
The basic premise of Keller’s (1993). customer-based brand equity model is that
“the power of a brand lies in what customers have learned, felt, seen, and heard
about the brand as a result of their experiences over time” (Keller, 2003, p. 59). His
model is an insightful way to represent how brand knowledge is the key to creating
brand equity. Keller (1993) viewed customer-based brand equity as “the differential
effect of brand knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of the brand”. He

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conceptualized the sources of brand knowledge as brand awareness and brand
image. In brief, the customer-based brand equity dimensions of both Aaker’s (1991)
and Keller’s (1993) models are strictly intersecting. What Keller (1993) left out
from Aaker’s framework in defining the customer-based brand equity is the brand
loyalty dimension.
2.4 Keller’s brand equity model
Keller (1993) defined consumer-based brand equity at individual level taking

brand knowledge as a starting point, which is conceptualized as an associative
network, where the associations are nodes. In 2003, he defined brand equity as
differences in customer response to marketing activity. The concept behind the
brand equity is to form how customers think and feel about the product or service
relying on positive experience. A company should create a situation that your
customer will have positive thoughts and feelings and perceptions concerning the
brand. Keller model identifies 6 elements including brand salience, brand
performances, brand imagery, brand feelings, brand judgments and brand
relationships.

Figure 2. Keller’s Customer-based Brand Equity Pyramid

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The first stage relates to brand identity and uses brand salience as a measure of
the awareness of the brand (Keller, 2008). Formally, brand awareness refers to
customer’s ability to recall and recognize the brand; brand awareness also involves
linking the brand name, logo and symbol to certain association in memory. Building
brand awareness involves making sure that customer understand the product or
service category in which the brand competes (Keller 2001). Based on Keller’s
model, Kerri-Ann et al (2008) explained that the first step in building a strong brand
is to ensure the correct brand identity; the purpose is to create an identification of
the brand with customers and an association in their minds with a specific product
class or need. To do this, brand salience must exist, which represents aspects of
brand awareness and the range of purchase and consumption situations in which the
brand comes to mind. The salience building block is, therefore, made up of two subdimensions – need satisfaction and category identification.
Kerri-Ann et al (2008) discussed the second step of Keller’s model as
establishing brand meaning by linking tangible and intangible brand associations.
Brand meaning is, therefore, characterised in either functional (brand performance)

or abstract (image-related) associations. Brand response is the third step in the
Keller’s model and represents opinions and evaluations of the brand based on a
combination of associations identified in brand meaning. These judgments include
overall quality, credibility, consideration and superiority. Brand feelings are
customers’ emotional responses and reactions to the brand. Keller (2003) identifies
six types: warmth, fun, excitement, security, social approval and self-respect. Brand
relationships constitute the final step in the pyramid where brand response is
converted to create an intense, active loyalty relationship between customers and
the brand. The pinnacle of the pyramid is resonance, which refers to the nature of
the relationship between the customer and the brand. It is described as having four
elements: behavioural loyalty, attitudinal attachment, sense of community and
active engagement (Keller, 2001). There is an obvious sequence in this “branding
ladder” and this meaning cannot be established unless identity has been created.
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Responses cannot occur unless the right meaning has been developed and the
relationship cannot be forged unless the proper responses have been elicited (Keller,
2001).
2.5 Aaker’s brand equity model
Aaker (1992) provided the most comprehensive brand equity model which
consists of five different assets that are the source of the value creation. These assets
include: brand loyalty; brand name awareness; perceived brand quality; brand
associations in addition to perceived quality; and other proprietary brand assets –
e.g., patents, trademarks, and channel relationships.

Figure 3. Aaker’s Customer-Based Brand Equity Framework

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According to Aaker (1996) there are several aspects of the definition that
needs to be emphasized. First, brand equity is as earlier mentioned a set of assets,
and these need to be created and enhanced through investments. Second, each of
these assets creates value in several different ways, which has to be managed with
sensitivity in order to perform effective brand-building activities. Third, brand
equity does not only create value for the firm, but for the customer as well, and by
customer the authors mean both the end user and those in the distribution chain,
such as retailers which can be critical to market success. Finally, in order for assets
and liabilities to form the basis for the brand equity they need to be linked to the
brand’s symbol or name. However, if there would be a change in the name or
symbol of the brand it could affect or even eliminate assets or liabilities (Aaker,
1996).
Brand awareness, as one of the major asset categories, consists of making
consumers get a greater awareness of the brand. Brand awareness is a key and
essential element of brand equity which is often overlooked (Aaker, 1996). Brand
awareness refers to “the ability of a potential buyer to recognize or recall that a
brand is a member of a certain product category” (Aaker, 1991). Brand awareness
has different level; at the recognition level, it can provide the brand with a sense of
the familiarity as well as a signal of substance, commitment and awareness and at
the recall level, it further affects choice by influencing what brands get considered
and selected. For many companies, brand awareness is pivotal and it underlies the
strength of successful brands (Aaker, 1992). Awareness plays an important role in
most of conceptual models of brand equity. Brand awareness generates a high level
of purchase, mainly because consumers are likely to buy those brands they are
familiar with enhancing the firm’s profitability and sales (Baldauf et al., 2003).
A strong brand is not only managed to achieve as much general awareness as
possible, they are striving for strategic awareness. It is a huge difference in just

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being remembered and in being remembered for the right reasons, and to avoid the
opposite (Aaker, 1996).
Brand Loyalty, is according to Aaker (1996) an useful asset category due to at
least two reasons:
 A brand’s value to a firm is largely created by the customer loyalty it
commands.
 Considering loyalty as an asset encourages and justifies loyalty-building
programs which then help create and enhance brand equity.
A brand’s loyal customer base is a key factor to consider when placing a value
an a brand because brand loyalty and predictable sales and profit streams are most
likely to be connected. Without its loyal customer base the brand is vulnerable or
has only value in its potential to create loyal customers. Aaker (1996) further
emphasizes the fact that “it is simple much less costly to retain customers than to
attract new ones”.
Perceived Quality, is considered an asset for the brands due to several reasons
according to Aaker (1996). Firstly, perceived quality is the only brand association
that has been proven through multiple studies to drive financial performance.
Results from these studies have shown that the profitability is affected by perceived
quality through enhanced market share and prices. They also showed that it has a
major impact an ROI due to being a major driver of customer satisfaction.
Secondly, perceived quality is an important strategic variable for many companies,
as it is often their key positioning dimension. Within categories of price and
premium brands, perceived quality is often the key variable in defining
differentiation. Thirdly, perceived quality is usually the what the consumers base
their purchases on, and therefore it makes out a fundamental measure for the brand
identity. The perceived quality influences other elements of how consumers
perceive the brand as well, and as the perceived quality improves so does the other
elements.

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Brand associations or brand image is perhaps the most accepted aspect of
brand equity. In fact, it is anything linked in customers’ memory to a brand. Brand
assets
Based on Aaker’s model, Ovidiu (2005)discussed that brand assets refers to
patents, trademarks and channel relationships which can provide strong competitive
advantage. Trademark protects brand equity from competitors who might want to
confuse customers by using a similar name, symbol or package. Patent can prevent
direct competition if strong and relevant to the purchase decision process. Finally, a
distribution channel can be indirectly controlled by a brand as customers expect the
brand to be available.
2.6 Luming Wang and Adam Finn’s brand equity model
Model presented by Luming Wang and Adam Finn (2013) is quite different
from prior consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) research that examined wellknown brands in different product categories. Their research focused on the withinproduct category differences in terms of the sources of CBBE. To facilitate the
comparison, they proposed a hybrid measurement model of CBBE that
systematically integrates various existing CBBE dimensions and examined the
substantive difference among master brands and their sub-brands within a product
category. They explained that this model distinguishes the latent CBBE construct
from its dimensions, and separates its formative dimensions (causes of CBBE) from
its reflective (effects of CBBE) dimensions based on the causal relationship with the
construct. They added another formative dimension, that is brand emotions, to
expand the coverage of the CBBE domain from solely cognitive to include
cognitive and non-cognitive, spontaneous emotional reactions to brands. They
emphasized that formative dimension (such as uniqueness and perceived quality)
jointly define CBBE. Eliminating any of them may alter the conceptual domain of
the construct and decreases the construct validity; especially, formative dimensions

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can be used to identify potential; cannibalization effects among sister sub-brands
within a brand portfolio.

Figure 4. Customer-based brand equity Model.
2.7 Hypotheses
During the process of theory and literature study, Aaker’s brand equity model
is considered one of customer based brand equity model with high generality which
scientists conducted to qualify practically.
The main purpose of this study aims to examine factos affect brand equity at
Sun Life Vietnam. I have chosen Aaker model and found four factors including
brand loyaty, brand awareness, perceived quality, brand assciations and formulates
them as my hypotheses in order to examine association between aboved factors and
brand equity.

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The brand assets factor which related patents, trademarks, and channel
relationships will not mentioned on this reseach because other studies doesn’t
utilize it and this factor little impacts to customer.
The research hypotheses were divided into following four categories:
 H1: Brand Loyalty affects to customer loyalty at Sun Life Vietnam.
 H2: Brand Awareness affects to customer loyalty at Sun Life Vietnam.
 H3: Perceived Quality affects to customer loyalty at Sun Life Vietnam.
 H4: Brand Assciations affects to customer loyalty at Sun Life Vietnam.

Research model
Brand

Loyalty
(H1)

Brand
Awareness
(H2)

Perceived
Quality
(H3)

Brand
Assciations
(H4)

Brand
Equity

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