He is the E.T. Grether Professor Emeritus of Marketing Strategy at the Haas School of Business [4] and the currently the vice chairman of Prophet, a global brand and marketing consultancy firm, and an advisor to Dentsu, a Japanese advertising agency.[5][6]
He has been awarded three career awards for contributions to the science of marketing: The Paul D. Converse Award; The Vijay Mahajan Award; and The Buck Weaver Award.[citation needed] Aaker was inducted into the New York American Marketing Association's Hall of Fame in 2015.[7]
Aaker has won the award for "best article" in the California Management Review and in the Journal of Marketing (twice). His book, Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant, was named among the "Ten Marketing Books You Should Have Read" by Advertising Age in 2011 and named one of the top 3 marketing books of the year by Strategy and Business.[8] Aaker also has a regular column in American Marketing Association's Marketing News called "Aaker on Branding".[9]
Aaker was one of the eleven people included in the 2007 book Conversations with Marketing Masters.[10]
Aaker is the creator of the Aaker Model, a marketing model that views brand equity as a combination of brand awareness, brand loyalty, and brand associations.[11] The model outlines the necessity of developing a brand identity, which is a unique set of brand associations representing what the brand stands for and offers to customers an aspiring brand image.[12]
Aaker primarily sees brand identity as consisting of 8–12 elements which fall under four perspectives:
Brand as Product – consists of product scope, product attributes, quality or value of the product, uses, users and country of origin.
Brand as Organisation – consists of organizational attributes and local workings versus global activities.
Brand as Person – consists of brand personality and customer-brand relationships.
Brand as Symbol – consists of audio and visual imagery, metaphorical symbols and brand heritage.[12]
Aaker first introduced the model in his book Building Strong Brands (1996).
