What is the CBBE Model in short?

The CBBE model is a framework created by Keller in 1993 to help companies understand and build brand equity. The model has four components: brand identity, brand meaning, brand response, and brand relationships.

A little warning here: it is a model, hence it serves as a compass for you to develop in the right direction, but it won’t be the magic wand to build equity of your Brand overnight. Use it following its logic, but mind that it’s one of the many activities required to perform Strategic Brand Management.

What makes a brand strong?

Googling the question “What makes a brand strong?” brings up 449.000.000 results. And this is today in 2022, the age where everybody is more focused on funnels, SEO, Social Media, and all those sorts of articles that start with “5 ways to….” or “10 modern ways to…” letting you infer that by using the newest and all-around SaaS, your company is going to get an enormous competitive advantage in just a few months.

So why are people still interested in Branding and understand the need to build a Brand? Because that’s the way you build competitive advantage over time (I wrote about it here).

The outcome of having a strong Brand is an increase in ranking in customers’ minds versus your category competitors. It’s a business-linked metric, because equal to other levers, a strong(er) Brand will be recognized, considered, and eventually selected more often, thus increasing the probability of generating tangible Sales.

The key concept I want to emphasize here is that a strong Brand per se has little reason to exist (and would be very difficult to build) if not in relation to its competition.

In order to do so, a strong(er) Brand should aim at being memorable, meaningful, and distinguished in its customers’ perception. You are looking to create a competitive advantage, not to be famous, nor just recognizable. A Brand that has a relatively higher index across those three elements in a given Category is the clear category leader in terms of Brand Equity.

This CBBE model, developed by Keller, is still today a great framework to start establishing the elements of your Brand.

What does the CBBE Model defines?

The model tasks its roots by defining equity generation as a function of a process shaped by three factors: Brand Knowledge, Customers Response, and Differential effect.

Brand Knowledge (defining Saliency)

It seems to be obvious, but a strong brand is one that is easily recognizable, has a clear message, and is consistently applied across all relevant touchpoints. By getting in touch with your Brand, people form their own perceptions, and opinions and their psychology starts ranking you against the Brands of your competitors.

Think of Saliency in Google terms: if you are not ranking on the first page of Search results, you probably won’t exist in their minds. Similarly, if you don’t come up to mind quickly to your prospects, you are excluded from any other steps of the customer journey.

Customer Response (shaping Meaningfulness)

The knowledge a customer has developed about a Brand produces a Customer Response in their minds. This is the product of the Marketing efforts profused by the Company, as well as experiences it might have developed through non-Company-driven activities (i.e. peers’ or influencers’ reviews). At this stage, the customer develops a response to the Brand and attributes it to a certain (comparative) degree of meaningfulness.

Think of Meaningfulness in Google terms as a Domain Authority: if you have not built “authority” for the algorithm, you will be ranked lower AND you’ll be penalized in the search results.

Intersecting the notion of Knowledge and Customer Response, we derive that having a strong visual identity, and a clear message, consistently applied across your touchpoint could be is a necessary condition to build Saliency, but not yet sufficient to achieve meaningfulness.

The Differential Effect (resulting in Resonance)

The last foundational concept of the CBBE model is Differentiation: what sets your brand apart from the competition and makes it distinguished in the minds of consumers. Differentiation is the effect customer knowledge has on customer response to the stimuli generated by your marketing or external experiences.

This differential effect of you (as a Brand) versus others’ Brands is what defines you in the psychology of your customer and is the aggregate of perceptions, past experiences, and other’s experiences.

Think of a very special Category like water where apparently all look and feel the same. Net of other commercial levers (pricing and distribution above all), how comes that some Brands sell more than others? It’s a (mostly) perception of differentiation and that’s exactly what builds up that incredibly discussed concept of Brand Equity.

Breaking Down Keller’s CBBE Pyramid

The process above is influenced by external factors that determine a certain customer response and by Competitors’ marketing activities, of course, nevertheless, Keller suggests a 4 step process to build strong brands. These steps are combined together as what is called CBBE Brand Equity Pyramid.

Block 1: Brand Identity

This includes elements that intentionally shape Saliency like the name, logo, and slogan. These elements need to be carefully chosen as they have a direct correlation to Brand Awareness, and hence are crucial during potential purchase opportunities. Brand’s Saliency can be tested via customer research on prompted and spontaneous testings and helps a company understand the degree achieved in both absolute terms (at category level) or relative to its competition. A Brand that is often mentioned spontaneously by customers has already achieved a sufficient degree of category awareness.

Block 2: Brand Meaning

This block is a consequence of Block 1 and entitles a higher degree of relationship with the customer. Creating Brand Meaning involves establishing both emotional and functional representations that stick to the brand. On the functional side, Keller recognizes Performance elements (speed, ergonomics, durability, etc..) while on the more emotional side he refers to imagery. In most academic explanations of the CCBE model, elements generally involving other senses are commonly aggregated under the Performance bucket (such as style and design). I personally believe this segregation must be surpassed, as advancements in technologies (such as sonics) are helping customers recognize Brands beyond their imagery. Think of Mastercard’s sonic signature or Dyson’s iconic design.

Block 3: Brand Response

The brand response is a formed set of perceptions, considerations, and brand feelings, occurring in customers’ minds. As marketers, our sole objective is to make sure those perceptions are positive. We can influence those responses by aligning the previous blocks of the pyramid, but we can’t control them as the variability of personal judgment would make it highly inefficient from a business point of view (and hopefully no marketer can yet control customers’ minds). What we can do though, is to predict the Brand Response by exposing our target group to different stimuli when planning for both Performance and imagery elements in the previous block.

Block 4: Brand Relationships

Phase 4 of Keller’s Brand Equity Pyramid is all about brand relationships. Let me highlight that this step is achieved independently, whether we are referring to an existing customer, a past one, or somebody who’s never purchased from us. Provided a person is aware we exist, the degree of the relationship with us can help us differentiate between average users, loyal customers, advocates, or even rejectors. In other terms, the relationship assumes different a) intensity and b) frequency.

What are some examples of companies that have used the CBBE Model successfully?

The CBBE model has been used successfully by a number of companies, including Coca-Cola, Nike, and Apple. Each of these companies has created strong customer-based brand equity by investing in marketing initiatives that connect with their customers on an emotional level.

Coca-Cola, for example, has built its brand equity by creating ads that focus on happiness and togetherness. Nike’s ads often feature inspirational stories about athletes who have overcome adversity. And Apple’s ads often focus on the creative and innovative ways their products are used by customers.

Each of these companies has also invested heavily in research to understand their customer base and what they want from a brand. This understanding has allowed them to create marketing campaigns that resonated with their target audiences and helped to build strong relationships with their customers.

What are the benefits of the CBBE Model?

The benefits of using the CBBE model are that it helps companies focus on creating a strong emotional connection with their customers, which helps them better compete in their category, leading to loyalty and advocacy in the longer term.

As often I mention in my articles, the world has made tremendous progress since this model has been invented resulting in an oversupply of services and goods coupled with a higher velocity and informational capacity of the average customers. There is no better time (or necessity) to seek a deeper meaning of your company’s Brand. The CBBE is a compass helping you to get on track.