Focal Brand Research Articles

The Brand Equity of the Liberal Democrats in the 2010 General Election: A National and Local Perspective

This paper considers the Liberal Democrat party as a brand, using appropriate branding concepts to analyze the fortunes of the party during the 2010 General Election. It explains Nick Clegg as a key influence on the brand's image nationally (the party leader as national brand spokesperson) and how the national image was moderated by Jeremy Browne (the focal constituency candidate and local brand spokesperson). The analysis then considers the effect of the subsequent Coalition Government (with the Conservatives) on the Liberal Democrat brand, focusing specifically on the new legislation to which it is inextricably associated.

Brand community membership and the construction of meaning

Summary We investigate one way that consumers find meaning in their lives through the joint experience of a brand with friends in a brand community. Using the laddering technique, we disclose the sense-making related to the participation of 174 members of Ducati motorcycle communities. The emergent cognitive map reveals that the members’ sense-making is related to a strong personal involvement with the focal brand and its social relatedness and symbolic meanings. These variables and their interconnections allow customers to define their relationships through the community. We also explore how elicited explanations for joining a community are efficacious in decision-making processes, through their influence on variables included in the theory of planned behavior. The findings provide a clearer explanation of consumer membership in brand communities than extant approaches and how customers define their identities through the centrality of the brand in their lives.

The impact of perceived brand globalness, brand origin image, and brand origin–extension fit on brand extension success

This research investigates perceived brand globalness, brand origin image, and brand origin–extension fit as drivers of brand extension success that are mediated through parent brand quality and brand–extension fit. The authors present two complementary studies based on consumer samples from a mature and an emerging market respectively. In both studies, out of all drivers examined, the brand origin–extension fit has the strongest effect on brand extension success both in terms of quality evaluations and purchase intentions. The findings further indicate that extension success is more influenced by consumers’ perceptions of the country from which the focal brand originates than by their perceptions of the brand’s global availability and reach. Implications of the findings for theory and practice are considered and future research directions identified.

The Role of Value Congruity and Consumer Brand Identification toward Development of Brand Commitment and Positive Word of Mouth

This paper examines a model proposed by Tuskej, et.al (2011) that suggest value congruity between consumer and a brand as well as customers’ brand identification, and may influence brand commitment and positive Word of Mouth. In this paper, Tuskej, et.al’s model (2011) was applied in Indonesian context using Apple as focal brand. The findings suggest that: (1) value congruity positively influence consumers’ affective brand commitment, both directly as well as through brand identification (2) Value congruity does not significantly influence social compliance brand commitment, (3) Consumers’ brand identification is found to be positively influencing both affective commitment and social compliance brand commitment but does not significantly influence positive word of mouth (Positive WOM), (3). Affective brand commitment and social compliance brand commitment positively influence positive word of mouth. Result from this study indicates that brand building activities should be aimed at developing brand that possess clear and distinct set of values that match with its target market’s values in order to build affective commitment and positive word of mouth, which could potentially increase demand for the brand.

Implications of brand communities for rival brands: Negative brand ratings, negative stereotyping of their consumers and negative word-of-mouth

The importance of understanding competitive influences in the marketplace is well understood, but most prior brand community research has focused on the positive ramifications for the focal brand rather than on the negative repercussions for competing brands. This research introduces a conceptual model that uses Social Identity Theory and the Stereotype Content Model (SCM) as theoretical frameworks for investigating negative word-of-mouth (NWOM) about out-group brands, negative ratings of out-group brands and negative stereotyping of out-group brand consumers by brand community members. Using a Macintosh User Group (MUG) as the research context, the results of the study demonstrate that as MUG members more strongly identify with the community they perceive themselves to be more prototypical members. Higher levels of prototypicality are then shown to lead to lower out-group brand ratings that, in turn, lead to increased negative stereotyping of out-group brand consumers along both dimensions of the SCM (warmth and competence) and to increased NWOM about out-group brands. Based on the support found for the conceptual model, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Effects of advertising cues on brand extension evaluation: A global versus focused processing style account

It is well known that the effectiveness of a brand extension strategy depends on the degree of perceived similarity between the parent brand and the extension and a host of important contextual variables. One such potential variable is the consumer's global versus local processing type. Using a converging operations approach, we show through three experiments that parent-extension similarity has weaker effects on extension evaluation in global processing while local processing leads to a heightened concern for the similarity of the extension. Importantly, global/local processing can be perceptually primed using advertising-specific procedures that operate independently of the focal brand and extension.

How does a Brand Ally Affect Consumer Evaluations of a Focal Brand?

ABSTRACTPublished research has shown that an alliance with a well‐known, reputable brand can improve quality perceptions of a previously unknown focal brand. Much of this research is based on signaling theory's bonding hypothesis. However, customers face information search costs when evaluating brands with which they may be unfamiliar. The authors contend that, since consumers are self‐interested, they will prefer to realize cost savings for themselves relative to a future conditional opportunity to punish a false signal sender. Three studies show that the effect of brand ally information on quality perceptions of an unfamiliar brand is mediated by perceived risk reduction due to lower information search costs.

The customer engagement/value interface: An exploratory investigation

After generating significant interest among marketing practitioners, the customer engagement (CE) concept is rapidly gaining traction in the academic marketing literature. Although pioneering research has provided foundational insights in this emerging area, little is known regarding the ways in which CE may contribute to generating customer value (CV) and ensuing loyalty for utilitarian and hedonic brands. Addressing this research gap, this paper develops a conceptual model of the CE/CV interface for utilitarian and hedonic brands, which proposes: (i) The existence of a curvilinear relationship between CE/CV for utilitarian and hedonic brands; and (ii) Up to a focal brand-, category-, consumer-, and situation-specific optimum, growing CE generates greater CV increases for hedonic, than for utilitarian brands. By drawing on a sample of 14 consumers, depth-interviewing/focus group findings provided exploratory evidence for contentions (i) and (ii). The paper concludes with an overview of key research limitations and implications.

Doing Good Does Good? Sustainable Marketing of CSR and Consumer Evaluations

ABSTRACTThis study focuses on the effect of the sustainable marketing of three types of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives – sponsorship, cause‐related marketing, and philanthropy – on consumer evaluations with the moderating effect of psychological distance (social distance and spatial distance). Four hundred and eighty subjects participated in a 3x2x2 between‐subjects factorial design experiment. The results of the analyses were significant and in the direction hypothesized. Philanthropy was found to have a stronger effect on consumer evaluations, followed by sponsorship and cause‐related marketing. However, the relationship between CSR initiatives and consumer evaluations was significantly stronger when consumers perceived the focal brand with low social distance as well as the cause with low spatial distance. The findings thus provide support for the importance of psychological distance in moderating CSR initiatives. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Demystifying customer brand engagement: Exploring the loyalty nexus

With its conceptual roots in fields including psychology and organisational behaviour, the engagement concept is emerging in the marketing literature, with preliminary research indicating that engaged consumers might exhibit greater loyalty to focal brands. Despite these advancements, the engagement concept remains underexplored to date. This paper addresses this gap by reviewing literature in other disciplines and marketing, and developing a tripartite customer brand-engagement conceptualisation comprising activation, identification, and absorption dimensions. Further, a conceptual model illustrating the conceptually distinct nature of and relationships between customer brand engagement and other marketing constructs is proposed, followed by a customer engagement/loyalty-based segmentation analysis. Enhanced insights into customer engagement are expected to be valuable for marketing scholars and practitioners seeking to enhance customer relationships, retention, and loyalty. The paper thus concludes with a set of research and practitioner implications, which may be used to guide future developments in this promising area.

The effects of audio-visual and visual-only cues on consumers' responses to co-branded advertising

Co-branded advertising (two brands featured in the same ad) is a relatively new and under-researched area of advertising that offers advertisers the opportunity to share advertising costs and leverage brand equity. Despite its growing popularity, few research studies have examined the potential benefits and/or limitations of this executional strategy, and particularly a strategy in which one brand (a focal brand) is paired with another, but less emphasized (peripheral) brand. This study reports the results of an empirical investigation that examines how modifying reference to the peripheral brand (visual-only versus simultaneous visual and audio references) influences consumers' perceived associations of the advertised brands, as well as their attitudes toward the advertisement and intentions to purchase either brand. Employing a convenience sample of undergraduate students on a university campus in the United States, the results of this study indicate that audio-visual cues enhance brand association and purchase intentions. However, additional analyses reveal that attitude toward a co-branded advertisement mediates the brand association effect on purchase intentions toward the focal brand, whereas brand association has a direct effect on purchase intentions toward the peripheral brand.

Estimating Cannibalization Rates for Pioneering Innovations

To evaluate the success of a new product, managers need to determine how much of its new demand is due to cannibalizing the firm's other products, rather than drawing from competition or generating primary demand. We introduce a time-varying vector error-correction model to decompose the base sales of a new product into its constituent sources. The model allows managers to estimate cannibalization effects and calculate the new product's net demand, which may be considerably less than its total demand. We apply our methodology to the introduction of the Lexus RX300 using detailed car transaction data. This case is especially interesting because the Lexus RX300 was the first crossover sport utility vehicle (SUV), implying that its demand could come from both the luxury SUV and the luxury sedan categories. Because Lexus was active in both categories, there was a double cannibalization potential. We show how the contribution of the different demand sources varies over time and discuss the managerial implications for both the focal brand and its competitors.

Authentic subcultural membership: Antecedents and consequences of authenticating acts and authoritative performances

AbstractThe postmodern consumer often finds authenticity in communities of consumption including those that are based around a focal brand. Two means through which authenticity can be achieved are an individual authenticating act or a collective authoritative performance. Using this dual lens, the contested nature of authenticity within subcultures is explored. Drawing on long, interpretive interviews with surfers, skaters, and snowboarders, it was found that the contested nature of authentic community membership is driven by different identity benefits, including flow and kinship. These two separate benefits lead members to engage different brand‐related cues when seeking an authentic brand partner. This paper advances the understanding of subcultural authenticity by identifying the diversity of identity goals sought from membership of consumption communities and by linking antecedents and outcomes of authenticity, and associated consumption behaviors. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Double jeopardy in brand defection

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to test whether brand defection shows double‐jeopardy effects, and whether stochastic models provide useful benchmarks of expected brand defection rates.Design/methodology/approachThe approach takes the form of an empirical study of brand defection in four markets using panel data, comparing the performance of simple OLS models with a stochastic model.FindingsBrand defection shows double jeopardy. Almost all brand defection in the markets studied could be explained by the category examined and the market share of the focal brand. A stochastic model of choice fits these data well, and provides many further practical and theoretical applications.Practical implicationsThe study provides improved benchmarks for brand defection, allowing managers to spot whether their brand is performing better or worse than expected. It also allows better analysis of market structure for subscription services, especially under dynamic conditions, and better estimation of customer lifetime value when defection rates are not known for all brands.Originality/valueThe paper closes a gap in the brand defection literature by showing that a given level of defection is a natural characteristic of any market, subject to within‐market variations dominated by market share. Recent work has overlooked these points, resulting in unrealistic goals for customer defection programmes and inefficient estimates of customer lifetime value. The paper also provides a method of defection analysis that can be deployed by numerate managers and market researchers, and used as a basis for further academic work.

Multiple brand alliances: a portfolio diversification perspective

PurposeThe paper attempts to examine the effect of multiple brand alliances using a portfolio diversification approach.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reports the findings of a four‐level, single factor design study in which 149 randomly assigned participants were exposed to a product concept description for a new product in conjunction with: no ally (control), one ally, three homogeneous allies, and three heterogeneous allies.FindingsResults support previous findings in the literature with regard to the effect of a single brand alliance. However, no support was found for the proposition that consumer evaluations of an unknown focal brand, when three well‐known heterogeneous allies are present, will be higher than when either one well‐known ally is present or three well‐known homogeneous allies are present.Research limitations/implicationsConsistent with previous published research and despite diversifying the brand allies; it is impossible to conclude that multiple brand allies provide increased evaluations, relative to a single ally, for a previously unknown brand. More research is necessary regarding when and why multiple allies might be beneficial.Originality/valueAs the use of multiple brand alliances proliferates in the marketplace, it is important to understand the effect of such strategies on consumers' evaluations. The paper contributes to this growing body of research by investigating the effect of multiple brand alliances using a portfolio diversification approach.

One brand perception? Or many? The heterogeneity of intra‐brand knowledge

PurposeWhat customers associate with a brand is the result of what they have felt, learnt, seen and heard about the brand. This knowledge impacts the attitudinal and behavioral brand response of customers (and vice versa). This paper aims to identify how customer segments of one brand characterized by different levels of behavioral and attitudinal response intensity differ in terms of content and structure of brand associations..Design/methodology/approachThe paper reports findings of two single‐brand studies, each comparing brand associations of customer groups with different brand response intensity levels: one in a business‐to‐customer (B2C) setting where knowledge is determined via brand‐to‐association retrieval, one in a business‐to‐business (B2B) setting with benefit‐to‐brand retrieval.FindingsThe findings show that consumer segments with differing behavioral and attitudinal brand response intensity show unique brand knowledge patterns. Consumers with high response intensity elicit more (favorable) brand associations, and elicit the brand more frequently when stimulated with the brand name. In addition, identical brand associations are rated differently favorable depending on the intensity of brand response.Practical implicationsTo learn about the strength of a brand, organizations may complement frequently used comparisons with competing brands by investigating what distinguishes brand knowledge of various customer segments that differ with respect to their relationship with the focal brand. This allows targeting various segments more specifically.Originality/valueThis paper adds to our understanding of brand strength by comparing multiple intra‐brand segments and by understanding how their brand knowledge differs depending on their attitudinal and behavioral brand response. Such a perspective may provide more useful insights to fostering brand response than studying inter‐brand differences.

Is Anyone Listening? Modeling the Impact of Word-of-Mouth at the Individual Level

Most studies of word-of-mouth (WOM) in marketing have concentrated either on aggregate outcomes (e.g., new product diffusion) or on the transmission process (i.e., “talking” or “sending” information to others). This paper instead focuses on the reception process at the individual level (i.e., “listening” to information from others), and addresses two questions: what makes people listen to WOM, and what are the drivers of the type and extent of WOM impact on recipients’ brand attitudes and purchase intentions? Transmitter, message, and transmitter— recipient relationship characteristics are examined as potential drivers of reception/listening and WOM’s impact on the disposition recipients have toward focal brands and the certainty or confidence with which these dispositions are held. Two studies demonstrate that (1) WOM impacts disposition and certainty differently, (2) changes in both disposition and certainty affect consumers’ intentions to purchase a focal talked-about brand, (3) WOM from strangers in some cases can be as impactful as WOM from friends and acquaintances, and (4) the relatively strong influence of strangers under some conditions seems to be the result of perceptions of the credibility of strangers as sources of information. Overall, the results illustrate that WOM reception is multiply-determined and, above all, the outcome of a complex set of processes.

The Power of Strangers: The Effect of Incidental Consumer Brand Encounters on Brand Choice

In the course of daily encounters with other consumers, an individual may be incidentally exposed to various brands. We refer to these situations as incidental consumer brand encounters (ICBEs). This research examines how ICBEs influence brand choice. Four studies provide evidence that repeated exposure to simulated ICBEs increases choice of the focal brand for people not aware of the brand exposure, that perceptual fluency underlies these effects, and that these effects are moderated by perceivers' automatic responses to the type of user observed with the brand.

Practice Prize Paper—BRAN*EQT: A Multicategory Brand Equity Model and Its Application at Allstate

We develop a robust model for estimating, tracking, and managing brand equity for multicategory brands based on customer survey and financial measures. This model has two components: (1) offering value (computed from discounted cash flow analysis) and (2) relative brand importance (computed from brand choice models such as multinomial logit, heteroscedastic extreme value, and mixed logit). We apply this model to estimate the brand equity of Allstate—a leading insurance company—and its leading competitor, which compete in multiple categories. The model captures the brand's spillover effects from one category to another. In addition, we identify the dimensions that drive a brand's image, examine the relationships among advertising, brand equity, and shareholder value, and build a decision support simulator for the focal brand. Our model provides reliable estimates of brand equity, and our results show that advertising has a strong long-term positive influence on brand equity, which is significantly positively related to shareholder value. The model, the brand equity estimates, and the decision support simulator are used by key executives across multiple functional areas and have enabled the company to substantially gain by reallocating its advertising resources to improve brand equity and shareholder value, and by offering better guidance to analysts and investors.

The Effect of Competitive Advertising Interference on Sales for Packaged Goods

Competitive advertising interference can occur when viewers of advertising for a focal brand are also exposed to advertising messages for competing brands within a short period (e.g., one week for television advertising). Although competitive advertising interference has been shown to reduce advertising recall and recognition and brand evaluation measures, no studies have examined its impact on brand sales. In this research, the authors use a market response model of sales for two grocery categories for a large grocery chain in the Chicago area to study the extent to which competitive advertising interference influences sales. The model enables the authors to capture the “pure” own-brand advertising elasticities that would arise if there were no competitive interference. The results show that competitive interference effects on sales are strong. When one or more competing brands advertise in the same week as the focal brand, the advertising elasticity diminishes for the focal brand. The decrease depends on the number of competing brands advertising in a particular week and their total advertising volume. The authors find that having one more competitor advertise is often more harmful to a focal brand's advertising effectiveness than if the current number of advertising brands increase their total advertising volume.