Brand knowledge can be expressed as a sum of brand awareness and brand image. Each of the parameters (i.e. brand recall/strength of brand associations/ attitudes/ user image) can be measured on a 1 to 10 scale. A weighted sum of these parameters will be the measure of brand equity.
Dimensions of brand knowledge
Brand recall: Here is an illustration to measure brand recall. Suppose you want the consumer to recall, let us say NIRMA ” the following set of questions can be asked:
What brand comes to your mind when I say ‘detergent powder’? (This is called top-of-mind-awareness.)
Which detergent brand comes to your mind when I say ”Low price?” (The answer could be “Wheel”/”Nirma”/or a regional brand.)
Which brand comes to your mind when I say “white/cream detergent cake?”
The advertisement for which brand says “Do you now understand why 1 buy this?” (This is an allusion to the housewife in the Nirma advertisement mentioning she buys Nirma because it saves money.)
If the answer to the first question is “Nirma” then its Brand Recall score is high. It can be given a score of 10.
If the respondent does not have any brand on top-of-mind awareness identifies Nirma for question 2 which contains a stronger clue, his association with the brand is that much weaker. He may be assigned a brand recall score of 6.
Now, in question 3, a stronger hint is being supplied because “Nirma” is the most popular among white/cream detergent cakes. If the respondent does not identify Nirma in Questions 1 and 2 but does for question 3, he gets a brand recall score of 4.
The fourth question is almost a giveaway, which points straight to the Nirma advertisement. If the respondent identifies Nirma here, he is given a score of 2.
If he fails to identify it even here, he gets a score of 0.
Thus, a scale can be developed where high score signifies high brand recall and low score the opposite. In a similar manner the other parameters like brand recognition, favourability of brand associations, strength of brand associations, etc. can be measured on a 0 to 10 scale.
When these scores are summed up and averaged, we get a measure of brand equity. This method is probably the most comprehensive measure, if consumers can be accepted as the focus of brand equity. Such methods argue that equity does not lie in the price at which a brand can be sold but in the mind of the customer. Even if consideration obtained for selling a brand can be a measure, it is argued that this consideration itself depends on how many people like the brand or its customer based brand equity.
