Abstract :
Brands are the most precious assets owned by any organization and are the source of many tangible as well as intangible benefits. In Marketing, Brand equity is regarded as an important concept which attracts the attention of corporates as well as academicians. Brand equity in simple terms may be defined as "what the customer thinks about the brand, which may be related to its performance or symbolic value delivered". Lot of research work has been done on brands and brand equity. According to Aaker, brand equity is a multidimensional concept that consists of brand loyalty, brand awareness, perceived quality, brand associations and other proprietary assets. (Aaker, 1991). Both for product and service based organizations, it becomes necessary to understand perceived quality and brand image. Specifically, by virtue of higher intangibility of services, understanding how consumers perceive their quality and what image they have of the brand becomes important. The purpose of this paper was to measure the perceived quality, brand image and brand loyalty intentions of two quick service restaurant chains in Lucknow city in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Brand awareness which is also an important constituent of Brand Equity has been deliberately ignored in this research as during initial group discussion it was found that these brands have high level of awareness and these 2 brands (Pizza Hut and McDonalds) were also selected considering their popularity and high level of awareness. A questionnaire was developed after thorough review of brand related literature and appropriate items were selected to measure brand loyalty, perceived quality and brand image. 5 focus groups discussions (of 10-12 students each) were also conducted in 5 different post graduate colleges before finalizing the questionnaire as a major target segment of these quick service restaurant chains is post graduate students. All items were measured on a five point Likert scale. The brand loyalty scale was adapted from measures developed by Aaker (Aaker, 1991), Odin et.al, (Odin, 2001), Yoo and Donthu (Yoo and Donthu, 2001). The results reflected that in brand loyalty McDonalds scores better as compared to Pizza Hut. In perceived quality, there was not much difference in the scores. In Brand Image, McDonalds scored better on price whereas Pizza hut scored better on Employee helpfulness. The findings can be useful for both the restaurants in improving their overall brand image and perceived quality
Keyword :
Brand, Quick service restaurants, Customer based brand equity, brand image,brand loyalty, perceived quality.