Impact of Different Marketing Mix Element on Brand Equity of Mobile Companies

--This research is conducted to test the effect of selected marketing mix element on over all brand equity. After sales service, price, promotion and distribution intensity has been chosen to see their effect on perceived quality, brand loyalty, brand awareness and association which are elements of overall brand equity as proposed by Aaker in 1996. To test the model Mobile Industry is chosen as this industry is growing day by day and most of the customers are brand conscious in this industry due to high involvement product and complex buying behaviour. Youth of all over Pakistan was chosen as a sample to conduct research. The result indicates positive impact of after sale service, promotion and price on perceived quality, brand loyalty, brand association and awareness. Keywords—Marketing Mix, Brand Equity, Dimensions of Brand Equity, Mobile Industry Introduction Brand Equity can be defined as value of a brand in consumer’s mind due to its brand name. The difference in the value of a product when it is branded than unbranded is also known as its Brand Equity (Aaker & Equity, 1991),(Aaker, 1996a; Keller, 1993). Brand Equity has remained an important research area for brand managers over the past 3 decades (Reynolds & Phillips, 2005). The concept is gaining importance and popularity day by day because of lots of new arrivals in the market and tough competitive environment. According to (Keller, Parameswaran, & Jacob, 2011) Positive customer-based brand equity, has several advantages, it gives firm greater revenues, lower costs and higher profits and due to this firm can charge higher prices. Some studies have revealed that product’s brand equity has positive affect on profitability and long term cash flows of the company(Srivastava & Shocker, 1991) Brand Equity dimensions have been provided by(Aaker & Equity, 1991) as Brand Loyalty, Brand Association, Brand awareness, Perceived quality and Proprietary assets. Most researchers have Ignored the fifth dimension as it does not affect consumer perception domain(Buil, de Chernatony, & Martinez, 2008). But very little efforts are put to determine effect of marketing mix of a brand on its equity. According to (Shocker, Srivastava, & Ruekert, 1994). Due to this reason our research will determine effect of different elements of Marketing Mix on increasing or decreasing of Brand Equity(Yoo, Donthu, & Lee, 2000). This model is also helpful in managerial context as it will demonstrate which marketing mix elements are important to create high brand equity leading to high financial performance of the firm. To narrow down our research we have chosen Mobile industry of Pakistan as it is known as one of the world’s largest mobile phone market in the sales of smart phones(Rehman, 2016). Apart from this the Mobile technology has dramatically converted the traditional E-Commerce into mobile commerce hence looking more attractive due to its flexibleness and easy access to internet (Scharl, Dickinger, & Murphy, 2005) Literature Review: Concept of Branding Branding is the source for the companies to create difference in its product from those its competitors. According to the definition of American Marketing Association (AMA) Brand is a name, term, characters, indication, figure, design or consisted to all that mean to recognize the goods or services related to specific company and make differences between branded products to unbranded products.(Keller et al., 2011). The modern concept of branding is much more than making differences, this may create emotionally relationship with the customer(Dolak, 2003; Kotler, 2008). Brand creates perception about the product or service in the mind of customer that unique and best quality. So consumer can rely and make a trust on the product or the service offering by the company for long time that leads towards brand promise. Brand Equity For financial aspect, brand equity is a driving force to the customer which allows them to pay high prices for branded product with respect to its competitors even both offers same features.(Simon & Sullivan, 1993) 1 Lecturer (Marketing) Sukkur IBA University, Pakistan