Understanding Brand Perception: Hollis's Three Layers vs Keller's Brand Equity Model
Two Frameworks That Explain Why Strong Brands Win
Brand perception is one of the most discussed concepts in marketing, yet it is often misunderstood.
Many organisations focus heavily on visual identity, messaging, or awareness campaigns without fully understanding how consumers actually form perceptions of a brand. In reality, perception is shaped by multiple influences that extend beyond advertising alone.
Two frameworks that help explain this process from different perspectives. Branding researcher Nigel Hollis explores how consumers create meaning around brands through cultural, community, and individual influences. Marketing scholar Kevin Keller, meanwhile, explains how brands build customer-based brand equity through a structured hierarchy of awareness, meaning, response, and relationships.
While these models are often discussed separately, together they provide a more complete understanding of how brands become relevant, trusted, and ultimately preferred.
Nigel Hollis: The Three Layers of Brand Perception
Nigel Hollis argues that consumers interpret brands through three interconnected layers of meaning: cultural meaning, community meaning, and individual meaning.
Rather than focusing on marketing tactics, Hollis examines the environments in which brand meaning is created.
Cultural Meaning: The World Around the Brand
The first layer exists at the cultural level.
Brands operate within broader social conversations shaped by values, trends, beliefs, and collective expectations. Consumers often develop assumptions about a brand long before they interact with its products or services.
For example, perceptions of sustainability, innovation, luxury, wellness, or social responsibility are often influenced by wider cultural narratives rather than direct brand communications.
A brand that aligns with relevant cultural conversations can become easier for consumers to understand and remember because it fits within an existing framework of meaning.
Community Meaning: The Influence of Others
The second layer is shaped by communities.
Professional networks, social circles, industry groups, online communities, and peer recommendations all contribute to how brands are perceived.
Communities create credibility.
They influence which brands become trusted, recommended, and accepted within specific audiences. This helps explain why some niche brands develop strong loyalty despite limited mainstream awareness.
In many purchasing decisions, consumers place significant value on the opinions and experiences of others because community validation helps reduce uncertainty.
Individual Meaning: Personal Relevance
The deepest layer of perception is individual meaning.
At this level, a brand becomes connected to a person's goals, values, experiences, aspirations, or identity.
Consumers are no longer evaluating what a brand does. They are responding to what the brand represents to them personally.
This is often where true preference develops.
Two competing brands may offer similar features, pricing, and performance, yet consumers frequently develop stronger attachments to one because it aligns more closely with their personal beliefs or self-image.
According to Hollis, this personal layer often becomes the most influential because it directly shapes consumer choice.
Kevin Keller: How Brand Equity Is Built
While Hollis explains where brand meaning comes from, Kevin Keller's Customer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE) Model focuses on how strong brands are built in the minds of consumers.
Introduced in the 1990s and refined over the next decades, Keller's model proposes that brand equity develops through four progressive stages.
These stages are often visualised as the Brand Resonance Pyramid.
Stage One: Brand Identity
The foundation of Keller's model is identity.
Before consumers can develop opinions or relationships with a brand, they must first recognise and recall it.
Keller refers to this as brand salience.
The objective at this stage is not preference but awareness. Consumers must know a brand exists before any deeper connection can occur.
Stage Two: Brand Meaning
Once awareness has been established, consumers begin forming associations about what the brand stands for.
Keller divides this stage into two dimensions:
Performance, which relates to functional benefits, reliability, quality, and effectiveness.
Imagery, which relates to emotional, psychological, and symbolic associations.
Together, these elements shape how consumers understand the brand.
Stage Three: Consumer Response
The third stage focuses on how consumers evaluate the brand.
Keller identifies two primary dimensions:
Judgements, which include perceptions of quality, credibility, and superiority.
Feelings, which include emotional responses such as trust, excitement, security, or admiration.
At this stage, consumers move beyond understanding a brand and begin actively evaluating it.
Stage Four: Brand Resonance
At the top of the pyramid sits resonance.
This represents the strongest possible consumer-brand relationship.
Resonance occurs when consumers develop deep psychological connections with a brand, resulting in loyalty, advocacy, repeat purchases, and active engagement.
Brands that achieve resonance are often able to maintain stronger customer relationships even within highly competitive markets.
How the Two Models Work Together
At first glance, Hollis and Keller appear to describe different aspects of branding.
In reality, they answer different questions.
Hollis asks:
Where does brand meaning come from?
Keller asks:
How does that meaning become brand equity?
Hollis focuses on the sources of perception. Keller focuses on the process through which those perceptions become valuable business assets.
Together, they reveal an important insight.
Consumers do not form perceptions in isolation. Those perceptions emerge from cultural influences, community interactions, and personal experiences. Brands then strengthen those perceptions through awareness, meaningful associations, positive responses, and long-term relationships.
Viewed together, the two frameworks create a more complete picture of modern brand building.
Why This Matters for Brand Strategy
Many branding initiatives focus heavily on visibility.
Visibility is important, but awareness alone rarely creates preference.
Strong brands understand both the source of perception and the mechanics of equity building.
They actively participate in cultural conversations. They cultivate credibility within communities. They create personal relevance for individual consumers.
At the same time, they build awareness, communicate meaningful associations, shape positive responses, and foster lasting relationships.
This combination helps transform recognition into trust and trust into long-term brand value.
Key Takeaway
Nigel Hollis's Three Layers of Brand Perception and Kevin Keller's Customer-Based Brand Equity Model are not competing theories. They address different aspects of the same challenge.
Hollis explains how consumers create meaning around brands through cultural, community, and individual influences. Keller explains how those perceptions evolve into awareness, associations, evaluations, and ultimately loyalty.
Together, they offer a powerful framework for understanding not only how consumers perceive brands, but why certain brands become genuinely valuable over time.
Sources and Further Reading
Nigel Hollis – The Three Layers of Brand PerceptionKevin Keller – Customer-Based Brand Equity
