Understanding consumer-based brand equity and its antecedents in international and national banks in Egypt

The ongoing transformation of branding in developing countries remains under-researched despite its central importance to competitive advantage. The Egyptian banking sector is a prime example: it depends largely on brand equity, but current strategies may not have equal effects in national and international banks. This research therefore quantitively confirms the direction of causality from brand loyalty to brand equity, before conducting a large quantitative study with 622 valid responses, examining consumer-based brand equity in the banking sector. The study’s use of Aaker’s model is especially significant as the model’s complex application in developing countries is not fully understood. The results show that brand loyalty positively mediates the effects of brand awareness, brand associations, and perceived quality on overall brand equity, as well as having a direct effect on overall brand equity; and suggest that Egyptian customers access quality signals more from international brands than from national brands. This study therefore sheds important light on how brand equity operates in the Middle East and North Africa banking sector, and extends the use of Aaker’s model, offering new insights to bank managers on building and maintaining brand equity.