Brand equity and how to strengthen it with digital initiatives

What is brand equity?

Brand equity is the collection of “invisible values” a customer holds toward a brand—such as recognition, trust, feelings, and experience. Compared to companies in Western countries, Japanese companies have generally been less aware of the value generated by this intangible asset.  One reason is that brand equity is intangible (cannot be seen) and does not appear on financial statements, so many Japanese managers did not treat it as an investment.

理由の一つに、ブランドは形には見えず、財務諸表にも価値が乗らない非財務資本であり、かつ無形資産であることから投資対象になりにくいと日本企業の経営者たちが考えてきたことが大きな要因でしたが、今やビジネスにおいて非常に大きな影響を及ぼすものであり、もはやステークホルダーにどう認知されるかを含め企業にとって無視できないファクターとなっています。

そこで、まずは「ブランド資産」の正体をしっかり理解しておきましょう。

ブランド資産について理解する上で、まずマーケティングの権威ケビン・レーン・ケラーが提唱する「CBBEモデル」をご紹介します。ケラーのCBBEモデルでは、ブランド資産は以下の４つの要素で構成されるとされています。

These four elements influence one another and form the brand’s “value.”

How to improve brand value

Here are five representative actions for improving brand value:

①Understand your company’s current situation
②Revisit your brand statement
③Clarify the business domain and the value you provide
④Organise how your company contributes and your methodology
⑤Make everyone, from top management to employees, feel “this is our brand”

① Understand your company’s current situation

For (①) you need to reaffirm your company’s reason for being and its vision, and check whether that vision is truly shared internally.

②Revisit your brand statement

For (②) your brand statement is the promise you make to stakeholders (e.g., “With this brand, we deliver peace of mind”). You need to check if the promise matches both customer expectations and internal perception.

③Clarify the business domain and the value you provide

For (③) regularly revisit what business domain you are strong in and what value you deliver. This helps send clear messages to customers, society, and employees.

④Organise how your company contributes and your methodology

For (④) ask “Why are we focusing on this domain?” and align with your purpose. Identify your unique strengths (technology, channel closeness to customer, etc.).

⑤Make everyone, from top management to employees, feel “this is our brand”

For (⑤) brand is shaped not only by advertising but by every employee’s interaction with society, customers and stakeholders. From top to middle to front-line staff, the brand mindset must be passed on.

Sustainable Branding Practices Implemented by Patagonia

Digital initiatives refer to efforts that use digital technology, data, and online channels to create or improve customer experience (CX) and maximise marketing efficiency.

Examples include SNS (social media) management, data analysis, AI chatbots. The key is designing and implementing with data: Who to reach, what to deliver, how, and what experience.

Below are major benefits of digital initiatives and why they contribute to brand equity:

1. Two-way communication boosts brand loyalty:

Using SNS or chat allows interactive relationships rather than one-way broadcasting. This builds trust, empathy, and enables user-generated content, which promotes “I’m part of it” feeling and long-term attachment.

2. Using data refines brand awareness and perception:

With digital initiatives you can personalise based on behavior/purchase data, optimise with A/B tests, and thus strategically build brand awareness and associations.

3. Storytelling becomes easier and wider:

Brand value is more memorable when told as a story. Through SNS and video platforms, you can visualise your brand’s intent or purpose, build emotional connection, and create the “reason” customers choose you.

4. Easier to design and improve brand experience (CX):

Digital tools make it easier to intervene. For example, improving UX on a website or app can raise perceived quality; you can visualise the customer journey and provide consistent brand experience; user data is easier to capture. Since brand equity grows from consistent high-quality experience, CX design and improvement is key.

5. Visibility of results and speed of improvement:

Brand initiatives often struggle to show quantitative results, but digital initiatives allow measurement (e.g., engagement rate, click rate, repeat rate) and easier optimisation if results are weak. This makes it easier to manage brand equity and minimise risk.

Hence, digital initiatives have high affinity with building, strengthening, and maintaining brand equity. A “triad” strategy of emotional connection, relationship building, and CX design is necessary for accumulating brand equity, and digital initiatives greatly contribute.

① SEO & Content Marketing (Growing awareness and trust)

Background & significance:

Modern buying behaviour often begins with search; by publishing information to solve users’ questions/issues, you create first contact with your brand. In B2B or high-price items, content that shows reliability and expertise has large impact.

Practical points:

Not just collect access, but design articles that convey brand positioning and philosophy. Use topics like “How to choose ○○”, “How to successfuly introduce ○○” to draw in readers and lead to brand trust. Don’t forget technical SEO (keyword design, internal links, mobile optimisation).

② SNS Branding (Building empathy and fandom)

Background & significance:

SNS is a place to communicate brand “humanity” — company values, attitude, how you engage with society, etc., which are hard to convey via advertising. With algorithms and participation behaviour, fandom grows.

Practical points:

Visuals + storytelling are key. By showing behind-the-scenes (company culture, development story) you create empathy. For different platforms: X (formerly Twitter) = immediacy, Instagram = worldview/image, LinkedIn = credibility. Design posts aimed at engagement (likes, comments, shares) also helps algorithmically.

③ UX/UI Optimization (Improving perceived quality)

Background & significance:

The place where users contact the brand (website, app, EC site) being comfortable directly relates to brand trust/quality. Even with good content, if it’s hard to use or slow, users think “rough impression”

Practical points:

Improve performance metrics such as LCP (Largest Contentful Paint), CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) by Google standards. Also, design navigation so users reach their goal with minimal steps; ensure brand colours and typographic choices balance usability & consistency.

④ Customer Reviews & UGC (Trust and reality)

Background & significance:

Not company announcements, but third-party voices have biggest influence on purchases/trust today. Real use experiences, testimonials, word-of-mouth support decision making.

Practical points:

Reviews are not set-and-forget—engagement via replies and reactions matters. Embedding SNS posts (photos/comments) into website provides three-dimensional brand experience. Influencers help, but everyday UGC (user-generated content) often feels more relatable.

⑤ Email Marketing & CRM (Continuing relationships)

Background & significance:

Brand value is influenced not just during purchase but by “post-purchase experience”. Follow-up via email/LINE is not just sales but saying “We care about you”.

Practical points:

Not just info delivery—use personalised content (birthday, past purchases, region) for a “just for me” feeling. Include brand story or employee columns—touchpoints beyond products. Regular delivery ensures “we aren’t forgotten”.

⑥ Brand Movies & Storytelling (Delivering emotional value)

Background & significance:

Text or images alone cannot fully convey emotional value, people’s feelings, brand’s temperature—but video can. Empathy and emotion are easier to generate; memorability is higher.

Practical points:

Use “mission movies” that tell brand origin or values—also useful for internal awareness among employees. Make videos with customer interviews or real user voices for “brand testimony” that resonates. For SNS spread: short length + subtitles + mobile optimisation are essential.

⑦ Digital Maintenance of Brand Guidelines (Ensuring overall consistency)

Background & significance:

With digital initiatives diversifying, if expressions are inconsistent you risk “lower trust” or “brand fragmentation”. Building unified rules and sharing with all stakeholders is indispensable for stable and growing brand value.

Practical points:

Not just logo or fonts, also language (words used), tone of voice, customer-service attitude (FAQ responses) should be unified. Best practice is to use online formats (Notion, Figma, cloud) rather than PDF/print. Distribute to content creators and partner companies so expression remains consistent across touchpoints.

Each of these seven initiatives plays a role in enhancing one or more of the brand equity elements (awareness, associations, perceived quality, loyalty). The key is not to do each in isolation but to design them across with brand strategy in mind. Even small and mid-sized companies or startups can gradually accumulate brand value with digital initiatives suited to their resources.

Even though we introduced the seven digital initiatives, the important point here is: mere individual digital initiatives are not enough to raise brand equity.  Brand equity is an intangible asset formed by accumulation of consumer memories/feelings/experiences over time. Therefore, short-term campaigns often only yield temporary effects. Consistent accumulation of messages and experiences over time strengthens the brand and increases value. That requires time and multiple initiatives. In other words, to raise brand equity you must align digital initiatives with the overall brand strategy.

Here is a table (chart) showing the effect of alignment (or misalignment):

What to do (Action plan, five steps):

Step ①: Language the brand purpose and values

→ e.g., if the company purpose is “We enrich people’s emotions with technology,” translate that into content, UX, even word choice in responses.

Step ②: Map the CX journey

→ e.g., SNS → Web → purchase → delivery → support → repurchase; design a consistent brand-like experience across the whole flow.

Step ③: Define each channel’s role and unify tone

→ e.g., SNS = “empathy & dialogue”, email = “trust & guidance”, app = “personalised experience”; while adjusting for each channel, maintain the common worldview.

Step ④: Design whole KPIs and measurement

→ Set common indicators for each initiative (brand favorability, engagement, NPS, LTV) and evaluate both short-term results and medium/long-term brand value.

Digital initiatives are very effective tactics, but to make the most of them you need a clear brand purpose/worldview and a “strategy” based on them. Only with alignment does a digital initiative function as brand‐equity accumulation (asset) rather than a one-off tactic.

Brand equity is not determined by “how much you spent on advertising”. What is asked is: how do you design the quality of your daily customer touchpoints? Digital initiatives are a powerful tool to build that foundation; if run thoughtfully, they can multiply a company’s trust and value.

For small and mid-sized companies or startups, “branding” or “brand strategy” may feel like high hurdles. But by using digital initiatives, you can grow brand equity even with limited budgets.

In the era ahead, customers will not only ask “What are you selling?” but “Who am I buying it from?” The “who” is shaped by brand equity.

Ref：
・Minoru Aoshima: “Strengthening Intangible Assets through Enhancing Brand Value”