| As is well known that China is the world's largest country for attire production, consumption and exportation, whereas, it does not have strong competitiveness in global attire markets, for the reason that China does not own famous attire brands worldwide.The establishment of well-known brands involves specializing brand management and building brand equity. Scholars overseas have studied Brand Equity since 1980s, with the outcomes concluded on three aspects: the first one studies the effects of all kinds of preconditions on the foundations of brand equity, with the focus on the effects of marketing strategies on brand equity; the second one relates to the framework and measurement of brand equity based on the consumer's conception; the third one falls on the relationships of all kinds of performance index and brand equity, including the product market performance and its financial market performance. Among the three aspects, most scholars focus on the second one, namely studying the definition, the meaning and the measurement of the brand equity, rather than the cause and effect of brand equity, and seldom have they done researches on the effect of marketing strategies on brand equity of fashion industry. And thus, empirical researches on the influence paths and utilities between marketing strategy mix and dimensions of brand equity in China's shunting markets will have a profound significance on building Chinese attire brands with great competitiveness internationally.Based on others'studies, the dissertation first focuses on the definitions, the meanings, the measurements of brand equity, and the relationship between brand equity and marketing strategies. Then it studies the formation mechanism of hierarchies of different dimensions of brand equity theoretically. Next it hypothesizes the model of marketing mix elements and dimensions of brand equity for attire brands, and has a demonstration of the model. Finally, it enlightens the Chinese attire enterprises on the way to build brand equity.The dissertation consists of seven chapters, with Chapter 3 to 6 as the main contents.Chapter 1 is the introduction of the background and the significance of this dissertation, and it also puts forward the research approaches and ways of thinking.Chapter 2 analyzes the meanings of brand equity from financial, consumer and comp comprensive perspectives, this dissertation brings forward that brand equity is additional value that companies gain after investing in marketing strategies, which makes consumers spend more money willingly on branded products than their non-branded counterparts with the same quality. After sorting literatures about researches on the dimensions of brand equity released home and broad, the author found that there is not a consensus about the hierarchies of different dimensions, which may influence brand equity directly or indirectly. However, hierarchies of different dimensions are quite important as to deploy the resources of marketing strategies, and therefore, the dissertation focuses on the hierarchical model of brand equity and its dimensions firstly. The dissertation adopts customer-based method to measure brand equity after summarizing all methods which are prevalent in academic fields, and utilizes focus groups to select attire brands and marketing strategy mix. Then the model of marketing mix elements and dimensions of brand equity comes secondly, which takes fashion and sports attire brand as the research objectives.Chapter 3 analyzes the formation mechanism of hierarchies of different dimensions of brand equity theoretically. The dissertation elaborates the meanings of brand equity from the perspectives of economics, which displays that the values of brand equity derive from three sources, that is, simple values, extended values and composite values, with an evolutionary process from briefness to complexity. The elaboration provides a premise for the black box how the brand equity forms through several paths from the perspectives of economics. Next, it focuses on the formation paths of brand equity, indicating that brand equity starts from consumers'brand awareness, association and perceived quality to a certain brand, and then consumers get the utilities of the products, in the course of which, brand loyalty emerges consciously and at last, it is passed to companies to form brand equity; accordingly, the companies make profits. This is the theoretical basis for hierarchical model of brand equity. Eventually, a two-phase framework is established from the perspectives of cognitive psychology, which discovers that four sessions are necessary in the formation of brand equity. The four sessions interact with each other, and the establishment of brand equity can be divided into two steps, the first of which is the percept to products and second the percept to brand equity. Effective marketing strategies must promote brand equity and comply with the requirements of the percept to products. Hierarchical model of brand equity is established based on the discussion above, with the hypotheses between different dimensions. Following goes the definitions of brand awareness, brand association, perceived quality, brand loyalty and brand equity respectively, which combine the results of current researches and the framework of the dissertation.Chapter 4 hypothesizes the model of marketing mix elements and dimensions of brand equity for attire brands. First of all, marketing strategy mix, which is frequently applied, is sorted, and thereafter, an initial questionnaire for focus groups is designed. Sequentially, three focus groups are held with on-job MBAs of DongHua University as the research objectives to understand what marketing strategy mix respondents care the most comprehensively. The outcomes show that while purchasing clothes, respondents care 8 marketing strategies the most, which are product strategy (pattern design, product mix, shop-assistants'service), price strategy (price of products), place strategy (image of stores where attire are sold), promotion strategy (advertising expenditure, spokesman for products, price deals). When summarizing the most concerned aspects of each marketing strategy, it is found that for pattern design, respondents care to which extend the design is fashionable; for product mix, respondents care to which extend the mix is complete; for shop-assistants'service, respondents care to which extend the attitude is good and the service is professional; for price of products, respondents care to which extend the price is high; for image of stores where attire are sold, respondents care to which extend the store is among the top grade and whether it sells products with well-known brands; for advertising expenditure, respondents care to which extend companies spend money on their brands; for spokesman for products, respondents care whether certain spokesman fits certain brand and whether consumers like him/her; for price deals, respondents care to which extend the deals are carried out and what influences there are. The dissertation adopts these 8 marketing strategies for this research, and establishes the model of marketing mix elements and dimensions of brand equity, with hypotheses between causal variables and consequent variables.Chapter 5 aims at specifying the design of empirical demonstrations and the collection of relative data. Firstly, it summarizes the kinds and brands of attire that respondents choose, implying that most consumers like to wear fashion and sports attire in their daily life. Above all, both female and male respondents know several brands of fashion and sports attire, so these two kinds are selected as the research brands to ensure that the brands selected have familiarities among the research objectives. According to the results from all focus groups, Levi's and Esprit are selected as the brands representing fashion attire and Nike and Lining representing sports attire; following are the brief introductions about the 4 brands. Next, the dissertation gives out techniques how the research questionnaire is generated. The questionnaire finds out consumers'perspectives about marketing strategy variables(influencing factors), dimensions of brand equity and brand equity. Based on the results of focus groups, questions about marketing strategies are put forward; based on the summary of literatures, questions about brand awareness, brand association, perceived quality, brand loyalty and brand equity are put forward. The questionnaires are amended after a pretest, and the research picks out on-job MBA students as objectives. At the end of the chapter, basic information about the research objectives are illustrated.Chapter 6 analyzes data and elaborates results, using the software SPSS11.0 and LISREL with Microsoft Excel as an assistant. The questionnaire has high reliabilities in conclusion. After the inspection of Model 1, the hierarchical model of brand equity and its dimensions, it is found that there are rankings among brand awareness, perceived quality, brand association and brand loyalty, in which, brand loyalty is a dimension much closer to brand equity than the others. Brand awareness and brand association impact brand loyalty and brand equity through impacting perceived quality on the one hand; on the other hand, they impact brand equity directly and brand awareness has negative impacts on brand loyalty. After the inspection of Model 2, the model of marketing mix elements and dimensions of brand equity, conclusions are made as below: pattern design impacts brand equity through impacting brand awareness and brand association; product mix impacts brand equity through impacting brand awareness, perceived quality and brand association; shop-assistants'service impacts brand equity through impacting perceived quality and brand association; price of products impacts brand equity through impacting brand awareness and perceived quality; image of stores where attire are sold impacts brand equity through impacting perceived quality and brand association; advertising expenditure impacts brand equity through impacting brand awareness; spokesman for products impacts brand equity through impacting perceived quality and brand association; price deals impacts brand equity through impacting brand awareness, perceived quality and brand association negatively. There are seven insignificant relations, which can be classified into three categories: shop-assistants'service, image of stores where attire are sold and spokesman for products have insignificant impacts on brand awareness; pattern design and price of products have insignificant impacts on brand association; advertising expenditure has insignificant impacts on perceived quality and brand association. The dissertation analyzes the results of inspections thoroughly.Finally, the dissertation analyzes the practical significance of the two models to Chinese enterprises, emphasizing that currently Chinese attire enterprises are experiencing the initial phase of managing brands, and while making marketing strategies, they usually focus on brand awareness rather than brand image and brand association, both of which are important sources to build perceived quality, brand loyalty and brand equity, so that attire enterprises should strengthen their abilities in these aspects. Moreover, Chinese attire enterprises apply single methods for promotions, depending on price deals to a large extend, which brings negative impacts to brand equity. Chinese attire enterprises are supposed to utilize comprehensive marketing strategies to improve brand equity. The dissertation indicates the paths through which 8 marketing strategies may impact brand equity, and hopefully, it enlightens the Chinese attire enterprises to the way to build brand equity.At last, the dissertation makes a conclusion for the whole research, and proposes the limits and directions for further discussion.Innovations in this dissertation appear as below:(1) The dissertation analyzes the formation mechanism of hierarchies of different dimensions of brand equity, based on the perspectives of both economics and cognitive psychology. The hierarchical model of brand equity is established throughout discussions.(2) According to the results of focus groups, the dissertation hypothesizes the model of marketing mix elements and dimensions of brand equity for attire brands. Based on the fashion industry, the dissertation studies the routes and effects of eight marketing strategies on brand, e.g. pattern design, product mix, shop-assistants' service, price of products, image of stores, advertising expenditure, spokesman for products, price deals.(3) According to the two model, the questionnaire is designed.(4)The dissertation analyse the data and set up the structural equation model using LISREL. Depending on the conclusions, the dissertation enlightens the Chinese attire enterprises on the way to build brand equity.
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