Service brand equity and employee brand

commitment
Narumon Kimpakorn
Faculty of Business Administration, Chiang Mai University, Thailand, and

Gerard Tocquer
College of Management, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand
Abstract
Purpose The aims of this article are to measure the brand equity of service firms (luxury hotels) using a customer perspective, to identify factors that
predict customers brands relationships and to explore the links between service brand equity and employee brand commitment
Design/methodology/approach Two surveys were conducted to achieve the research objectives. The first survey objective was to measure brand
equity using a sample of 250 international customers of five-star hotels in Bangkok. The second survey objective was to collect information regarding
employee brand commitment in each selected hotel using a sample of 250 employees.
Findings Results show that hotels belonging to the same category have different brand equity and that brand differentiation and brand trust are the
variables that have the major influence on customer brand relationships. Perceived service quality and associations related to hotel core services are not
related to brand relationships. High hotel brands equity have a stronger level of employee brand commitment that low hotel brands equity.
Research limitations/implications For hotel managers the research findings illustrate the importance of brand differentiation and trust for
international hotels chains and illustrate the importance of employee brand commitment in the process of building a strong band. Therefore this
research has an implication not only for marketing but also for human resource managers and for hotel general managers.
Originality/value The value of this research resides in the exploration between service brand equity and employee brand commitment. The literature
on service marketing emphasizes the link between employee and service quality but to the authors knowledge little research has explored the link
between the service brand and its employees.
Keywords Brands, Brand equity, Employees, Brand loyalty
Paper type Research paper

customers and their ability to distill the brand values

(Zeithaml and Bitner, 1998; Bitner et al., 1990;
Parasuraman et al., 1988) in order to create a specific
meaning to the brands.
De Chernatony and DallOlmo Riely (1999) argued that
successful service brands have built a nurtured relationship
between employees and customers based on certain
functional and emotional values of the brand. The
employees must be imbued with the desired image of the
service and play their appropriate roles in the brand promises.
Most authors who focus on service branding agree that
employees attitude, belief, value, and behavioral style reflect
the brand. As most service brands are about the delivery of
promises through personal interactions, successful service
branding models would not only stress an external
orientation, as evident in consumer goods branding but
rather try to find a balance between internal and external
perspectives (De Chernatony et al., 2003; De Chernatony and
Harris, 2000; Schneider and Bowen, 1993).
The rationale for branding goods and services is similar.
The focus is on building and leveraging the brand equity in
order to build a strong relationship between the brand and its
customers. However branding for services is different from
branding for consumer goods because in many high contact
services like financial services, hotel, airlines or even insurance

An executive summary for managers and executive

readers can be found at the end of this article.

Introduction
The concept of branding finds its roots in the fast moving
consumer goods industry (FMCG) and it is not surprising
that traditional models of brand equity developed by Aaker
(1991, 2002), Keller (1993, 2003) have been largely inspired
by that industry. There is no doubt that the service industry
can benefit from the knowledge accumulated by consumer
goods firms. Nonetheless, the nature of services, specifically
their intangibility and the inseparability between production
and consumption requires a different approach to build a
powerful service brand.
In the services marketing literature, a few authors have
suggested new approaches to build a strong brand in the
service sector (e.g. De Chernatony, 2002; Berry, 2000; De
Chernatony and DallOlmo Riely, 1999; Muller, 1998; CobbWalgren et al., 1995). They recognize and emphasize the
importance of employees during their interactions with
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0887-6045.htm

Journal of Services Marketing

24/5 (2010) 378 388
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 0887-6045]
[DOI 10.1108/08876041011060486]

Received: June 2008

Revised: December 2008
Accepted: February 2009

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Service brand equity and employee brand commitment

Journal of Services Marketing

Narumon Kimpakorn and Gerard Tocquer

Volume 24 Number 5 2010 378 388

organizations, the service delivery occur during multiple

interaction between customers and staff or self-service
technologies (Bitner et al., 1994) and it is during these
touch points that customers experience the service brand.
The customer experience during a service encounter thus
becomes an important tool in shaping opinions and
determining future associations between a customer and the
brand (Bitner, 1990; Berry, 2000).
While external communication is largely used by fast
moving consumer goods companies to express brand
meanings to customers, in services internal communication
and training must be emphasized to be sure that all employees
understand and are committed to deliver the brand promise
(Harris and de Chernatony, 2001).
This paper begins by covering the literature on brand equity
and examines the concept of service brand equity. From the
exploration of service brand equity, the sources of brand
equity are discussed and employee commitment to the brand
is viewed as a critical factor to build a strong service brand.
The research methodology is then described followed by a
discussion of the main findings.

Young and Rubicams brand asset valuator conceptualizes

brand equity into four dimensions including brand
knowledge, brand esteem, brand relevance and brand
differentiation. Brand differentiation is viewed as the
philosophy of branding when it is associated with relevance.
Surprisingly, both Aaker (1991) and Keller (2003) have not
integrated differentiation in their brand equity model while
the core of branding rests on building differentiation between
brands in the mind of customers.
According to Zeithaml et al. (1985), the concept of brand
equity requires adaptation for extension into the context of
services business regarding the specific nature of services.
The literature review on brand equity related to consumer
goods (Aaker, 1991, 2002; Ambler et al., 2002; De
Chernatony, 2002; Franzen and Bouwman, 2001; Keller,
2001; Yoo and Donthu, 2001; Pitta and Katsanis, 1995;
Srivastava and Shocker, 1991) and the literature review on
service brand management (De Chernatony and McDonald,
1998; Berry, 2000; Prasad and Dev, 2000; Kim and Kim,
2004) indicate that the concept of brand equity has not only
been defined with different perspectives (financial or
marketing) but also existing models have different
constructs with common dimensions like brand awareness,
perceived quality, brand associations and brand relationships.
Therefore we developed a theoretical research model that
integrated the consumer goods branding approach with the
specificities of services branding. Our conceptual model of
service brand equity identifies six dimensions that seem
relevant for measuring the value of a service brand with a
customer perspective. These dimensions are the following
(also see the Appendix).

Service brand equity

If strong brands may enhance market share, create customer
loyalty and increase profit, they are valuable assets to a firm
and therefore it is important for managers to measure the
equity that had been built up by their brand. The concept of
brand equity (Aaker, 1991; Keller, 2003) has both a financial
and a marketing aspect. From a financial perspective it is
possible to give a monetary value to the brand that can be
useful for managers in case of merger, acquisition or
divestiture purposes. Simom and Sullivan (1993) as well as
Biel (1997) define brand equity in terms of cash flow
differences between a scenario where the brand name is added
to a company product and another scenario where the same
product does not have brand name. Estimating a financial
value for the brand is certainly useful but it does not help
marketers to understand the process of building brand equity.
The marketing perspective of brand equity is viewed with a
customer perspective to help marketers to understand the
brand in the minds of customers and design effective
marketing programs to build the brand.
Aaker (1991) defines brand equity as a set of assets and
liabilities linked to a brand name and symbol that adds to or
subtracts from the value provided by a product or service to a
firm and that firms customers. These assets can be grouped
into five dimensions: brand awareness, brand associations,
perceived quality, brand loyalty and other proprietary assets.
Keller (2003) defines brand equity as differences in
customer response to marketing activity. His customer
brand equity model identifies 6 components including brand
salience, brand performances, brand imagery, brand feelings,
brand judgments and brand relationships. According to Keller
the process of building a brand requires to follow four
consecutive steps:
1 building brand awareness;
2 creating brand meanings through imagery and brand
performances;
3 building brand responses through brand feelings and
judgments; and finally
4 building relationships between the brand and its
customers.

Brand awareness
Brand awareness is described as the ability for a customer to
recognise or recall the brand (Franzen and Bouwman, 2001;
Hoyer and Brown, 1990). A brand with strong brand recall
(unaided awareness) and top of mind has the ability to
influence customer choice inside a product or service
category.
Perceived quality
Perceived quality is defined as the customers judgment about
dimensions of brand values (Aaker, 1991) and overall
excellence or superiority that ultimately compels the
customer to select a good or service to purchase (Aaker and
Jacobson, 1994). Gronroos (2001) suggests that customers
assess service quality both in terms of what they get (the
outcome of the service) but also by examining the way the
service is delivered (the functional quality of the process).
Parasuraman et al. (1988) suggest five key dimensions to
measure service quality based on customer expectations and
service performances.
Brand differentiation
For marketers brand differentiation is a critical factor to build
a competitive advantage both in consumer goods and service
industries. Brand differentiation is defined in this study as the
degree to which the hotel brand is perceived as different from
its competitors into the customers mind (Lovelock et al.,
2002; Ries and Trout, 2001; Berry, 2000).
The differentiation is created by the brand features,
psychological or emotional benefits through marketing
programs. The differentiation can also be built on the
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Narumon Kimpakorn and Gerard Tocquer

Volume 24 Number 5 2010 378 388

customer experience. Store atmosphere and the quality of the

service encounter as experience providers have been
recognized as a key strategic competitive weapon in the
service marketing literature.
We used two items to measure the differentiation between
hotels. The first item is concerned about the ability of
customers to perceive a differentiation at the holistic level.
The trend in the hotel industry is to use design as a way to
build meaningful differentiation. The second item measures
the ability of customers to identify different hotel attributes
that are unique for the hotel brand.

among others. Keller (2003) distinguishes four types of

brand relationships including;
1 brand loyalty;
2 attitudinal attachment;
3 active engagement; and
4 community based relationship.
In this study of luxury hotels, the concept of brand
relationships is viewed as the customer response to the
brand illustrated by his intention to buy the brand as a
primary choice (Aaker, 2002), his attitudinal attachment to
the brand (Keller, 2003) and his willingness to recommend
the brand to friends and others.

Brand associations
In consumer goods, brand associations are usually grouped in
the form of product related like brand performances and nonproduct related attributes (Aaker, 1991; Keller, 2003;
Netemeyer et al., 2004). Brand personality, user profile,
heritage or country of origin are for example considered as a
non-product related associations.. In services there is a
distinction between associations related to the core service
and those related to facilitating and supporting services
(Gronroos, 2007). Core associations are linked to the reason
of being of a service. For a hotel it is lodging. Facilitating
services like booking check-in or check-out are necessary for
delivering the core services. Supporting associations are
differentiators that add value to the core services. A
restaurant, a business center, a spa are example of
supporting services that can help a hotel to differentiate
itself against its competitors.
Brand associations are always related to a product or service
category. They are criteria used by customers to assess a
product or service. In this study, a set of service attributes
associated with the hotel industry, including room
appearance, hotel atmosphere, staff attitude and facilities
(Tsang and Qu, 2000) have been submitted to hotel managers
and only those relevant associations as perceived by managers
have been integrated in our initial questionnaire.

Source of service brand equity

The literature on branding emphasized the marketing
activities as a major source of brand equity because many
consumer goods brands have been built through advertising.
The service branding model developed by Berry (2000)
suggests that the service brand equity can be created by the
use of effective brand communications but also through
customer experience.
Figure 1 suggests that the service brand must be built
through the integration of two perspectives:
1 A traditional approach pre-eminent in the consumer
goods industry, in which the marketing department is the
driver of all branding efforts (including the brand identity
system, the marketing strategy and supporting marketing
programs and the use of secondary associations (Keller,
2003).
2 A new approach that emerges from the service economy in
which the customer experiences occurs during the service
encounter and is the result of interaction between
customers and service employees and/or self service
technologies. This new approach is more holistic and
requires that branding efforts be supported by different
departments. This new perspective must be supported by
a strong service culture and requires a strong leadership to
break the traditional functional silos in order to
communicate effectively the brand meaning to employees.

Brand trust
Brand trust is a psychological state that exists when one party
has confidence in an exchange partners reliability and
integrity (Garbarino and Johnson, 1999; Morgan and Hunt,
1994). The brand trust as a psychological variable mirroring a
set of accumulated presumptions involved the reliability,
integrity, and intention that a customer attributes to the
brand. In fact trust is measured by the ability for the brand to
deliver its promises. Trust can enhance or destroy a
relationship between brand and customers (Keller, 2003).
As customers buy a service before experiencing it, cultivation
and management of trust is a key to build a relationship with
customers (Kinard and Capella, 2006). Brand trust is
measured in this research by items that concentrate on the
customers expectations that the hotel as a service provider is
dependable and reliable.

The right side of the figure emphasizes the importance of the

marketing function while the left side illustrates the
importance of the customer experience which is not related
to a specific managerial function like marketing but rather the
contribution of different departments including human
resources, operations, information technology and also
marketing during service encounter. The right side is more
about external communication i.e. the image that the brand
wants to communicate to customers while the left side is more
related to the organizational culture which becomes visible
every time customers experience the service. When the
customer experience is compelling and consistent, customers
hold some favorable, strong and unique associations in
memory resulting in strong brand equity.
The idea that corporate culture is the foundation of a
service brand is not new and has been already emphasized by
Hatch and Schultz (1997), Schneider (2000), McDonald et al.
(2001), Kapferer (2004).
The service environment, employees and self-service
technologies have the potential to impact on the customer
experience. According to Gallup (2008) in service industries
nearly all of the company value is delivered to customers by

Brand relationships
Brand relationship is viewed as the ultimate goal of the brand
building process (Aaker, 1991; Keller, 2003). It reflects the
level of identification the customers have with the brand.
Fournier (1998) sees the brand, as a relationship partners
using words related to relationships between people, like
courtships, best friendships, arranged marriages
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Journal of Services Marketing

Narumon Kimpakorn and Gerard Tocquer

Volume 24 Number 5 2010 378 388

Figure 1 Sources of brand equity in services

supervisor and top management. However the concept of

employee commitment to a brand seems to be neglected.
A review of this literature shows that Porter et al. (1974)
and Cook and Wall (1980) view commitment as a
unidimensional concept, mainly affective commitment. They
define organizational commitment as . . . a strong belief in
and acceptance of the organizations goals and values, a
willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the
organization, and a strong desire to maintain membership in
the organization . . .. Commitment is viewed as one single
factor, affective commitment comprising three interrelated
components:
1 identification;
2 involvement; and
3 loyalty.

individual employees. Their behavioral economic model The

Gallup Path is based on the principle that employees
engagement drives customer engagement. In luxury hotels,
the service is inseparable from the staff providing it the
attitude, beliefs, values and behavioral styles of staff.
Employees who interact with customers have a potential to
build and to enhance the brand by delivering what the brand
stand for, its promises and to achieve customer trust and
loyalty (Evans, 2002).

Employee brand commitment

The dominant paradigm in service marketing is probably the
service profit chain (Heskett et al., 1994) that suggests the
existence of a strong link between employees, service quality
and company profitability. The foundation of the paradigm
rests on the service quality concept, a major managerial issue
for service firms during the 1990s. Therefore, it is not
surprising that service quality dominates the service
marketing literature and that few researchers have examined
the relationships between employees behavior and brand
equity. Actually, it is the customer total experience with a
service organization which forms the brand image into the
customer mind. Employees attitude and behavior have a
crucial role in the service brand image formation process.
They carry the brand identity into the consumers eyes (Ind,
1997; Gronroos, 1994). Therefore employees in service firms
not only should understand what the brand stands for, i.e. its
identity but, more importantly, employees must be
committed to support their brand and deliver consistently
its promises to customers. A lack of employee commitment
will have some negative consequences like inconsistent
messages or negative word of mouth that will impact the
clarity and meaning of the brand in the stakeholders mind
(Miles and Mangold, 2004).
Employee commitment is an organizational behavior
concept largely covered in the management literature. The
concept has been applied to different constituencies in an
organization, including unions, work group and team,

Many scholars have criticized the unidimensional perspective

and view commitment as a two components construct,
including continuance and affective commitment (Mowday
et al., 1982; Mathieu and Zajac, 1990) or three components
Allen and Meyer (1990). However most researches on
organizational commitment emphasize the affective
dimension of commitment as the extent to which employees
experience a sense of identification and involvement with an
organization. This emotional attachment influences
employees behavior and their willingness to exert additional
effort to achieve the organizations goals.
In this research we use the British Organizational
Commitment Scale developed by Cook and Wall (1980)
which has been recognized as the main measure of the
construct organizational commitment in the European
context (Peccei and Guest, 1993).
In this context employee brand commitment is defined as
the degree employees:
.
Identify themselves with the brand and willing to exert
additional effort to achieve the goals of the brand.
.
Are interested in remaining with the service organization
(continuance commitment).
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Volume 24 Number 5 2010 378 388

Hypotheses

Table I Reliability of key variables from the customer based brand

equity survey

Following our discussion on service brand equity and its six

components we use brand relationships as a dependent
variable and brand awareness, perceived quality, core brand
associations, supportive brand associations, brand trust and
brand differentiations as independent variables and we
propose the following hypotheses:

Variables/factors

Alpha score
a

Brand awareness
Perceived quality
Brand differentiation
Core service brand associations
Supporting brand associations
Brand trust
Brand relationships

Five star luxury hotels are significantly different in their

brand equity.
H2. Brand awareness is positively related to brand
relationships.
H3. Brand differentiation is positively related to brand
relationships.
H4a. Core brand associations are positively related to brand
relationships.
H4b. Supporting brand associations are positively related to
brand relationships.
H5. Brand trust is positively related to brand relationships.
H6. Brand perceived quality is positively related to brand
relationships.
H7. Employees commitment to the brand will be
significantly different between hotels with strong
brand equity and hotels with lower brand equity.
H1.

0.661
0.832
0.691
0.713
0.713
0.831

Note: a Brand awareness was measured by a single item (top of mind)

employee brand commitment on a five points Likert scale was

distributed to employees.
Employees were asked to fill in the questionnaire at their
own place where they could comfortable complete it, and at
their own convenience. They were requested to return the
questionnaire to their hotel to the department manager, and
to enclose it in a sealed envelope, to minimize pleasing bias
caused by the dyad relationship. After editing a total of 238
questionnaires were used for final data analysis.
The employee respondents profile represents a fair amount
of work experience, mixed age and mixed job characteristics.
84.4 per cent respondents were in the 20-40 age range and
more than half of employees had worked with their hotel for
more than two years. A total of 53 per cent were well educated
(bachelor degree or higher) and nearly half (46.8 per cent) of
employees had worked as frontline staff.
We reassess the dimensionality of the scale that views
commitment as comprising three interrelated components:
identification, involvement, and loyalty. A principal
component factor analysis of employee brand commitment
items revealed only one factor explaining 66.5 per cent of the
variance. One item with low loading factors was deleted.
Lee and Chulguen (2005) have also revealed the
unidimensionality of the organization commitment concept
in the Asian context suggesting two explanations. The
translation of the scale in Korean has altered the meaning of
the items or the theoretical constructs predicting the
organizational commitment of employees may have crosscultural validity.
In our research it is also possible that employee
identification with the brand is stronger because the prestige
of working with a luxury brand. Lipponen et al. (2005) has
demonstrated that the prestige of the organization has a
significant effect on the identification of employees with their
company.
The Cronbachs alpha for the employee brand commitment
scale is 0.923 which confirms that the scale shows good internal
reliability. Table II shows items used for measuring employee
brand commitment after literature analysis, managers and
employees personal interviews and factor analysis.

Methodology
The field of the study covers the international luxury hotel
chains in Bangkok, more specifically the five-star hotel
categories. Approval from management was a condition to be
able to conduct this research (five hotels gave their final
approval).
Our research design is divided in two parts using samples of
hotels customers and employees.
First, we conducted a survey on international hotel
customers with the objective to measure the brand equity of
luxury hotels in Bangkok.
We used a convenience sample of 270 international
customers. Personal interviews were conducted with
customers to collect relevant information. The initial
questionnaire included 43 items to measure the six
dimensions of brand equity on a five points Likert scale.
Finally after editing, 238 questionnaires were used for the
final analysis.
The construct validity of the measure of the service brand
equity concept was validated through qualitative work (indepth interview with hotel managers) and expert opinion
during the instrument development stages. Reliability of
measures for each concept was tested for internal consistency
using Cronbachs alpha, and then rechecked by factor
analysis. The findings for the Cronbachs alpha shows (see
Table I) that the reliability coefficients were acceptable (above
0.6) for all dimensions of brand equity. After factor analysis,
seven factors explaining 70 per cent of the variance were
identified and six items were deleted. The factor analysis
shows that service brand associations have only two subcomponents including core and supporting services.
Second, we conducted a survey on hotels employees with
the objective to measure employee brand commitment for
each five-star hotel. We used a sample of 250 employees for all
hotels. A short questionnaire translated in Thai and slightly
adapted to the Thai culture including nine items measuring

Findings and discussions

MANOVA was used to test H1 examining the existence of
significant differences between hotels regarding their brand
equity. The results are shown in Table III. The F test and
p-value supports H1, in that there is a significant difference
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Journal of Services Marketing

Narumon Kimpakorn and Gerard Tocquer

Volume 24 Number 5 2010 378 388

Table II Employee brand commitment items. Item 4 is reversed

Employee brand commitment

Idea measured

Alpha

1. I usually tell my friends that this is a great hotel brand to work for
2. I am proud to tell others that I am part of this hotel brand
3. For me this is the best of all possible hotel brands to work for
4. It would take very little to cause me to leave this hotel brand (R)
5. I am extremely glad that I choose to work for this hotel brand over others I was considering
6. I really care about this hotel brand
7. I would accept almost any type of job assignment in order to keep working for this hotel brand
8. I am willing to put in a great deal of effort beyond that normally expected in order to help this hotel
brand to be successful

Affect
Identification
Affect
Willingness to remain
Affect
Identification
Attachment/ willingness to remain

0.813
0.814
0.816
0.600
0.854
0.737
0.750

Effort

0.595

the brand relationship is brand trust, follows by brand

differentiation, brand associations related to supporting
services, and brand awareness respectively. Based on these
results, H2, H3, H4b and H5 are supported and H4a and H6
are rejected.
The regression results show that brand differentiation is the
most powerful variable to predict brand relationship, followed
by brand trust. These findings confirm the literature on
strategic brand management that clearly defines the concept
of branding as the process of building a brand differentiation
which is relevant for customers and to deliver it consistently to
customers who therefore can trust the brand.
Brand awareness and brand associations regarding
supporting services have also a significant impact on brand
relationships but at a lower level. More surprising is the fact that
perceived quality does not have any impact on brand
relationship. One possible explanation regarding this lack of
relationship is that customers perceived service quality in the
five star hotel category as a standard a must be and could not
perceived any differences between hotels in the same category.
To validate H7 that explores relationships between brand
equity and employee brand commitment we have created two
hotel groups by calculating the brand equity value of each
hotel (the sum of all seven dimensions) and calculating the
median between the five hotels as cut off point. The two
groups could be categorized as high brand equity hotels and
low brand equity hotels. We use a t- test to check if there is a
mean difference on employee brand commitment between the
two hotel groups.
Table V presents the hotel group means on employee brand
commitment and the statistical significance of the t-tests of
their difference. High brand equity hotel has more employee
brand commitment than low brand equity hotel thus
supporting H7.

Table III Multivariate tests for hotel differences in brand equity

dimensions (MANOVA)
Brand equity dimensions
Brand awareness
Perceived quality
Brand differentiation
Core brand associations
Supporting brand associations
Brand trust
Brand relationships

Wilks lambda

0.749
0.857
0.805
0.835
0.801
0.873
0.735

19.481
9.741
14.086
11.527
14.474
8.486
21.031

df1 df2 Sig.

4
4
4
4
4
4
4

233
233
233
233
233
233
233

0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000

between hotels regarding their brand equity. Univariate tests

show also that all seven brand equity dimensions help to
differentiate hotels.
The findings generally confirm the original hypothesis that
customer based brand equity is best understood as a
composite context represented by the underlying dimensions.
To test H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6 a multiple regression
analysis was conducted to identify the factors that predict
customer brand relationships in the five-star hotels category.
Brand relationships was used as a dependent variable and
brand perceived quality, brand associations (its two
components), brand differentiation and brand trust were
used as independent variable.
A total of 55.9 per cent of the variance in brand relationship
is explained by the regression model. The results of the
analysis are shown in Table IV. Based on the regression
analysis, brand awareness, brand associations (supporting
services), brand differentiation and brand trust are the
significant predictor variables of brand relationships in the
luxury hotel category. The highest degree of contribution to

Table IV Multiple regression. Brand relationships and dimensions of brand equity

Independent variables
Constant
Brand awareness
Perceived quality
Brand differentiation
1. brand associations (core service)
2. brand associations (supporting services)
Brand trust

Standardized coefficient

Sig.

0.154
20.072
0.446
0.067
0.113
0.274

0.954
3.296
21.360
8.104
1.060
2.035
4.561

0.341
0.001
0.175
0.000
0.290
0.043
0.000

Notes: Adjusted R2 0.559; F test 51.007; p , 0.001

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Volume 24 Number 5 2010 378 388

Table V Employee brand commitment by hotel brand equity level

n 5 Size of employees sample

Standard deviation
Mean

High brand equity hotels

Low brand equity hotels

p (t) statistical significance of t-test

of the between means difference

89
0.829
4.13

149
0.758
3.91

0.041

Implications for practitioners

A last managerial implication is related to the findings that

strong brands are characterized by a strong employee
commitment to support the brand. This finding is
consistent with the emerging evidence in the literature on
service branding. It demonstrates the critical role of the
human resource department in building the brand internally.
The typology of employee branding developed by Mangold
and Miles (2007) illustrates that internal branding efforts are
influenced by two dimensions including the employee
knowledge of the brand identity (their understanding of the
brand) and a psychological contract that exists in the
employee minds. A contract violation reduces employee
trust to the organization and affects their commitment to the
brand. Their lack of commitment is demonstrated by
inappropriate behavior during service encounter with the
consequence of eroding the brand equity.

In a highly competitive market, many international hotel

chains have put the brand at the heart of their corporate
strategy. They all want to build a strong brand to increase
customer loyalty to boost their profitability. This research
emphasized the need for marketing managers to understand
that in services, the brand is built from inside first through the
elaboration of a brand identity and that employees are the
foundation of the brand. The results provide some insights for
practitioners.
First, our theoretical research model suggests that a strong
service brand can be assessed on seven dimensions including
brand awareness, perceived quality, brand associations (core
and supporting), brand differentiation, brand trust and brand
relationships. This framework can be used by managers to
measure and track their hotel brand equity.
Second, if profitability is driven by the level of relationships
between a brand and its customers it is interesting to examine
which dimensions of brand equity influence brand
relationships. The results of this research indicate to
managers that brand differentiation should be a priority and
can be achieved by different ways (Ries and Trout, 2001).
In services, De Chernatony and MacDonald (1998) have
suggested that differentiation can be created through a clear
brand identity with a set of values, brand personality and
brand attributes and promises that distinguish the brand from
its competitors. Brand differentiation is usually difficult to
achieve in a product or service category because it requires an
alignment between brand identity, company culture and the
brand image as perceived by stakeholders (Hatch and Schultz,
2001).
The differentiation may be more difficult to achieve when
the industry and its rule of games influence the culture of its
actors. In the hotel industry, for example some factors are
encouraging similarity between brands. For example most
hotel managers have common educational background, they
have been trained in international hotel schools. They also
tend during their career to stay inside the same industry
moving from one hotel chain to another.
Third, the findings reveal clearly that brand trust is critical.
The ability of a brand to deliver its promise consistently
influences significantly the strength of its relationships with
customers. Customers do not trust the brand when the brand
does not deliver on its promises, which is usually an indication
of a misalignment between the brand identity and the
organizational culture (Hatch and Schultz, 2008). In many
services firms there is limited collaborative work between the
marketing department in charge of brand communications
and operations or human resources departments. The lack of
coordination between these departments is a major
explanation about why many companies over promise to
lure customers.

Conclusion and limitations

The focus of this study was to explore the brand equity of
luxury hotels in Thailand and to examine their employee
brand commitment. We suggested that the concept of brand
equity has the same meaning for consumer goods and services
brands but the sources of brand equity are different. In service
firms, the customer experience that occurs during interaction
with employees or self-service technologies is an effective way
not only to create brand meaning but also to connect
customers emotionally with the brand. Therefore employee
commitment to make the brand alive is critical.
Several limitations of the present research need to be noted.
The number of hotels that give approval to our study has been
a major constraint, making difficult our comparison between
high brand and low brand equity hotels. The selection of five
stars international hotels in Thailand within a single service
sector is certainly a limitation regarding the generalizability of
the findings to other service industries. Luxury hotels can be
defined both as type of high customized contact services and a
place where employees may feel proud to work for; therefore
we have over-estimated the contribution of employees in their
role of building the brand. The scale developed in Europe for
measuring the employee commitment despite being translated
in Thai and tested with hotel managers might be limited when
used with Thai employees.
It is hoped that the findings of this research will serve the
needs of both academics and practitioners. In terms of
marketing applications, the findings indicate first that brand
equity is largely influenced by brand differentiation and brand
trust and that there is a major difference between core services
and supporting services, the latter being more relevant to
build strong brand associations into the customers mind.
Second, hotels with strong brand equity usually have also
employees who are more committed to the brand. Therefore
hotel managers need to determine the factors that explain the
employee commitment to the brand and their willingness to
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Journal of Services Marketing

Narumon Kimpakorn and Gerard Tocquer

Volume 24 Number 5 2010 378 388

contribute to the brand building process before designing any

training or internal communication program. We encourage
scholars to conduct research that examines employee brand
commitment in different service industries and identifies the
antecedents of employee brand commitment. Such research
would be useful both for practitioners and will contribute to a
better knowledge of service branding. If delivering a
compelling customer experience in the service industry can
only be achieved through a collaborative work between all
managerial functions, research that explores the differences
between departments regarding their employee brand
commitment would be very helpful to understand why some
departments do not support the brand.

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Narumon Kimpakorn and Gerard Tocquer

Volume 24 Number 5 2010 378 388

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.
.
.

Appendix. Variables used for each construct of

service brand equity

When I have to stay in Bangkok, it makes sense to stay

with this hotel brand instead of any other brand of luxury
hotel.
I feel like I almost belong to a club with other customers of
this brand.
I really like to talk about this hotel brand to others.
I am always interested in learning more about this brand.
I would be interested in service or merchandise with this
brands name on it.
I am proud to have others know I use this brand.
I like to follow news about this hotel brand closely.

Corresponding author

Brand awareness
When I think of luxury hotels in Bangkok, Thailand, this
brand is the brand that first comes to mind.

Narumon Kimpakorn can be contacted at: narumon.cmu.

gmail.com

Perceived quality
.
Special attention given by staff.
.
Staff performing services right the first time.
.
It is very convenient and easy to use the hotel services.
.
I can rely on this hotel to keep promises and perform with
the best interest of the customers at heart.
.
Reservation system was easily accessible.
.
High quality of food in restaurants

Executive summary and implications for

managers and executives
This summary has been provided to allow managers and executives
a rapid appreciation of the content of this article. Those with a
particular interest in the topic covered may then read the article in
toto to take advantage of the more comprehensive description of the
research undertaken and its results to get the full benefits of the
material present.

Brand differentiation
.
This hotel brand really stands out from other brands of
luxury hotels.
.
This hotel brand has unique features.

If strong brands enhance market share, create customer

loyalty and increase profit, they are valuable assets and
therefore it is important for managers to measure the equity
that has been build up by the brand. The concept of brand
equity has both a financial and a marketing aspect. From a
financial perspective it is possible to give a monetary value to
the brand that can be useful in case of merger, acquisition or
divestiture purposes. However, while estimating a financial
value for the brand is certainly useful, it does not help
marketers to understand the process of building brand
equity.
The marketing perspective of brand equity is viewed with a
customer perspective to help marketers to understand the
brand in the minds of customers and design effective
marketing programs to build the brand. But what of the
effect employees actions and attitudes can have on the
customers perception of the brand? After all it is the
customers total experience with a service organization which
forms the brand image in their mind. Employees attitude and
behavior have a crucial role in the service brand image
formation process. They carry the brand identity into the
consumers eyes. Therefore, employees in service firms should
understand what the brand stands for (i.e. its identity) but
more importantly, employees must be committed to support
their brand and deliver consistently its promises to customers.
A lack of employee commitment will have some negative
consequences like inconsistent messages or negative word of
mouth that will impact the clarity and meaning of the brand
in the stakeholders mind.
In Service brand equity and employee brand
commitment Narumon Kimpakorn and Gerard Tocquer
measure the brand equity of luxury hotels, using a customer
perspective, in order to identify factors that predict customer
brands relationships and to explore the links between service
brand equity and employee brand commitment.

Core brand associations

.
Attractive room decor.
.
Security of room.
.
Very safety image.
.
Neat appearance of staff.
.
Availability of staff to provide service.
.
Cleanliness of room.
.
Quietness of room.
.
Luxurious.
.
Comfortable mattress and pillow.
.
A suitable place for high class customers.
Supporting brand associations
.
Availability of first class business center facilities.
.
Availability of first class spa and heath club.
.
Variety of services offered.
Brand trust
.
I never had a bad experience with this hotel brand.
.
I feel confidence in this hotel brand.
.
This hotel brand has a good reputation with customers.
.
This hotel brand is honest and sincere in addressing my
concerns.
.
If this hotel brand makes a claim or promise about its
service, it is probably true.
.
I know that this hotel brand do its best to satisfy me.
.
I know that if I have a problem as a customer of this hotel
brand, they would do their best to help me.
Brand relationships
.
I really love this hotel brand.
387

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Journal of Services Marketing

Narumon Kimpakorn and Gerard Tocquer

Volume 24 Number 5 2010 378 388

They note that the customer experience that occurs during

interaction with employees or self-service technologies is an
effective way not only to create brand meaning but also to
connect customers emotionally with the brand. Therefore
employee commitment to make the brand alive is critical.
In terms of marketing applications, the findings indicate
first that brand equity is largely influenced by brand
differentiation and brand trust and that there is a major
difference between core services and supporting services, the
latter being more relevant to build strong brand associations
in the customers mind. Second, hotels with strong brand
equity usually also have employees who are more committed
to the brand. Therefore hotel managers need to determine the
factors that explain the employee commitment to the brand
and their willingness to contribute to the brand building
process before designing any training or internal
communication program.
In a highly-competitive market, many international hotel
chains have put the brand at the heart of their corporate
strategy. They all want to build a strong brand to increase
customer loyalty to boost their profitability. Marketing
managers need to understand that in services, the brand is
built from inside first through the elaboration of a brand
identity and that employees are the foundation of the brand.
A strong service brand can be assessed on dimensions
including brand awareness, perceived quality, brand
associations (core and supporting), brand differentiation,
brand trust and brand relationships. These can be used by
managers to measure and track their hotel brand equity.

If profitability is driven by the level of relationships between

a brand and its customers it is interesting to examine which
dimensions of brand equity influence brand relationships.
Brand differentiation should be a priority for managers and
can be achieved in different ways. However, in the hotel
industry some factors are encouraging similarity between
brands. For example most hotel managers have common
educational backgrounds, they have been trained in
international hotel schools and they also tend during their
career to stay inside the same industry moving from one hotel
chain to another.
Brand trust is critical. The ability of a brand to deliver its
promise consistently influences significantly the strength of its
relationships with customers. Customers do not trust the
brand when the brand does not deliver on its promises, which
is usually an indication of a misalignment between the brand
identity and the organizational culture. In many services firms
there is limited collaborative work between the marketing
department in charge of brand communications and
operations or human resources departments. The lack of
coordination between these departments is a major reason
why many companies over-promise to lure customers.
Strong brands are characterized by a strong employee
commitment to support the brand. This demonstrates the
critical role of the human resource department in building the
brand internally.
(A precis of the article Service brand equity and employee brand
commitment. Supplied by Marketing Consultants for Emerald.)

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