La Trobe University: Applying the Customer-Based Brand Equity Model

LA TROBE
Section 4: Brand Equity
Student’s name
Name of the Institute

LA TROBE
Section 4: Brand Equity
The CBBE (Customer Based Brand Equity) model was given by Kavin Lane Keller. The
concept behind the Brand Equity Model is simple: in order to build a strong brand, organizations
must shape how customers think and feel about the product (Keller, 2016). It is critical that
organizations should build the right type of experiences around the brand, so that customers have
specific, positive thoughts, feelings, beliefs, opinions, and perceptions about it. The
diagrammatic representation of the model can be shown as:
This model focuses on four key steps as shown in the above pyramid. The application of
these four steps for La Trobe university can be discussed as:
i. Identity: La Trobe university is a known brand name in Australia. People understands
the brand and La Trobe has a good identify in problem. It would be correct to say that La
Trobe does not have an identification problem and it has been able to establish good
brand salience in the country. This is the first step for any organization or marketer. In
this step, marketers have the objective of brand awareness (Keller, 2016). It can be said
that La Trobe brand shows high salience as the organization does focuses on brand

LA TROBE
awareness. La Trobe university uses both offline and online channels of brand awareness.
The objective of the university is to create top of the mind awareness for its courses. With
brand identity, La Trobe university has positioned itself as a responsible brand in the
market. The students have realized that La Trobe university provides quality education.
The brand has definitely succeeded in this dimension; however, there is a need of further
improvement and this can happen with top of the mind awareness and use of social media
channels for advertisement (Datta, Ailawadi & Van Heerde, 2017).
ii. Meaning: With time, La Trobe university has been able to establish itself as a
meaningful brand. This step is linked with the meaning of the brand. Like Apple Inc.
means innovation or Space X means disruption. The two building blocks in this step are:
"performance" and "imagery" (Keller, 2016). La Trobe university has established itself as
a place for quality education. It is evident in performance and imagery. The university
produces some of the best professionals in Australia. The students of La Trobe university
excels in professional courses. The university campus of La Trobe is also established
beautifully that adds meaning to the brand (Vomberg, Homburg & Bornemann, 2015).
One of the things that stand apart for La Trobe is its continuous endeavour to add
meaning to its brand. The university has number of courses across genres. The students
with different backgrounds like political, social, engineering has option to choose a
course. Therefore, La Trobe provides meaning to its target audience in an effective and
efficient manner. The brand has definitely succeeded in this dimension; as people can
relate to La Trobe in a positive manner (Zablocki, Schlegelmilch & Schant, 2017).
iii. Response: The brand of La Trobe is a responsive brand. The response dimension means
the judgements and the feelings of the customers towards the brand (Keller, 2016). The