THE IMPACT OF BRAND EQUITY TO BRAND CHOICE IN COFFEE SHOP MARKET, THE CASE OF HIGHLANDS COFFEE

Abstract

In the present era, facing competition in business is an obvious situation that any business will face. A competitor will be born, more modern, more attractive in many ways and begin to dominate the market. This has been and still is a problem that businessman must always be prepared to face. When a market is becoming more attractive, a large amount of competitors will be attracted. On the other hand, the customer will also be affected since they will have more choices on brands so as different customer-based brand equity on different brands. This research will point out the relationship between brand equity and brand choice, thereby offering solutions to enterprises in improving customer-based brand equity to increase brand choice. This will not only help regaining market share lost to competitors but also increased trust, loyalty and quality of the brand in the consumer’s mind. This research will be applied in the case of Highlands Coffee - a famous and long history of development Viet Nam Coffee brand. This research includes 5 main parts: Introduction, Literature review, Methodology, Analysis and Recommendation/Conclusion. Highlands Coffee is a well-developed Vietnamese Coffee brand, well-known by customer with many stores all over the country. Currently, Highlands Coffee is losing their income so as the preference of the customer because of the appearance of Starbucks and many other competitors. We decided to find out solutions for their customer-based brand equity, therefor having an increase in brand choice. Brand equity is a very important factor in every firm, it has four main elements: Loyalty, Awareness, Association and Perceived quality. These elements have a close relationship with brand preference and purchase intent - the main factors influencing brand choice. A survey on customer-based brand equity and brand choice for Highlands Coffee customer was conducted to re-test the relationship between brand equity and brand choice so as to find out the major issues of Highlands Coffee. After data analyzing, the relationship between brand equity and brand choice were confirmed, the problems on Highlands Coffee’s customer loyalty was found since they are targeting right range of customer. Therefore, general solutions are provided to improve customer loyalty, maintain the other three elements of brand equity. Some limitation of the research will also be provided with recommendation for future research.