Understanding what's in a brand rating: A model for assessing brand and attribute effects and their relationship to brand equity

Although brand ratings capture the favorability of brand associations, they often do not enable marketing managers to disentangle brand-specific assoc iations from other effects. In this article, the authors present a decompos itional model for analyzing brand ratings that addresses this nagging probl em and provide insights for understanding the sources of brand equity. Star ting with consumers' perceived level of a brand on an attribute, the author s decompose the rating into two components: brand-specific associations and general brand impressions. Brand-specific associations refer to features, attributes, or benefits that consumers link to a brand and that differentia te it from the competition. General brand impressions refer to general impr essions about the brand that are based on a more holistic view of the brand . In this article, the authors focus on two principal issues: (1) How can t he sources of bias that may be present in brand ratings be disentangled? an d (2) Do these putatively biasing effects, if present, have any managerial implications for brand equity? The authors demonstrate the properties and a dvantages of the model in the context of three empirical applications.