Ethical Positioning Index (EPI)

EPI (Ethical Positioning Index) is an Index which measures, how ethically a brand is positioned. Ethics have been a highly debated and controversial element in branding exercises. Marketers' opinion on this aspect have been varied from time to time. Using ethical practices to build brand equity and brand positioning have been taken by different marketing experts, differently based on their cultural, ethical value system. Sagar et al.,^[1] through their research in this area, came up with an innovative framework to measure the ethical positioning through an index called EPI (Ethical positioning Index).

There are several steps involved in deriving and calculating the EPI. First, a set of blended variables of “brand positioning” and “ethics” is identified, consisting of five elements of brand positioning sub-divided into 15 and ten sub-elements of ethics. Then, consumer ratings are obtained for all the elements on a 1-5 scale, which in total makes 25 values ranging from 1 to 5. The sub-element scores are then averaged over the whole sample to obtain an average score for each sub-element. Thus, a set of 25 average score is obtained. Second, the sub-elements of brand positioning are taken and combined to obtain five sub-elements of brand positioning. The calculation of scores for the five brand positioning variables is done by evaluating the arithmetic mean of the various sub-elements that a brand positioning variable includes. Thus, a set of five average scores, labeled as SB1-SB5, is obtained which reflect the consumer preference for the various attributes. Similarly, a score is obtained for the ten sub-elements of ethics and are labeled as SE1-SE10. A high score reflects greater liking while a low score indicates dislike and insignificance. Third, the weights are obtained for the various elements. To obtain the weight for each of the five brand positioning variables, the average score of the variable was divided by the sum of the average scores of all the five brand positioning variables. The weights so obtained were labeled WB1-WB5. Similarly, 15 weights, labeled WE1-WE10, were obtained for all the ten ethic variables from the analysis of the conducted survey. Finally, the EPI score is calculated and arranged in descending order to obtain the EPI

References

↑ Mahim, Sagar; R.Khandelwal,A.Mittal,D.Singh (May 2010). "Ethical Positioning Index (EPI):". Emerand Corporate Communications. 2011 16 (No2): 124–138. doi:10.1108/13563281111141651. Retrieved 2 April 2012. Check date values in: |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

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