Advanced brand concept maps: A new approach for evaluating the favorability of brand association networks

Abstract

John, Loken, Kim, and Monga (2006) have introduced brand concept maps (BCM) as a powerful approach to measuring brand image according to the structure of the underlying brand association networks and reveal the strength and uniqueness of brand associations. Interestingly, BCM, as well as other consumer mapping techniques, do not incorporate explicit measures for the favorability of brand associations. This study extends the original BCM approach with explicit information on the favorability of single brand associations and, further, develops a new metric, brand association network value (BANV), which quantifies overall network favorability. Our advanced BCM approach and the new BANV metric are managerially relevant in that they allow for comparison of the favorability of networks at both individual brand association and aggregate network levels. We illustrate the relevance of our BANV metric within an empirical application and demonstrate its validity.