Individual Brands Research Articles

Is Co-Branding a Double-Edged Sword for Brand Partners?

1. Introduction Co-branding is a specific strategic alliance in which two brand names appear on a single product (Leuthesser et al, 2003), and Hadjicharalambous (2006) identified two primary types of co-branding: horizontal (e.g., Sony-Ericsson) and ingredient (e.g., HP laptops with Intel-inside). Co-branding has recently become an increasingly popular tactic used by marketers to achieve a success. For instance, in 2001 Sony-Ericsson combined the superior entertainment ability of Sony with the premium skill of wireless communication technology of Ericsson to offer 'innovative' co-branded mobile phones; the co-branded product, Doritos Locos Tacos, released in 2012, successfully sells one million units daily and has generated an unexpected positive return on one of the partnering brands, Taco Bell--15,000 extra jobs. (1) Unfortunately, firms do not always achieve a success by co-branding as was the case with the NextCard-Amazon credit card, BenQ-Siemens mobile, and the Target Neiman limited-edition clothes; those are the typical examples of co-branding failures. To our knowledge, co-branding success has been explored in two major scientific fields, namely the field of strategic alliance (e.g., Venkatesh et al., 2000) and the field of consumer behavior (e.g., Simonin and Ruth, 1998). However, because co-branding is a relatively new phenomenon, additional scientific insights into co-branding success are still required (Helmig et al., 2008). Therefore, the present research enriches the growing body of literature on co-branding success (e.g., Radighieri et al., 2014; Cao and Sorescu, 2013; Newmeyer et al., 2013). Rao and Ruekert (1994) inferred that co-branding success may be evaluated by measuring a co-branded product's value. Thus, in this research, we define co-branding success as the existence of two effects that help us measure its value. The first effect is a synergy effect on the co-brand: the alliance's aggregated brand value is greater than the value of each partner's individual brand value (e.g., whether Sony-Ericsson's value is greater than Sony's and Ericsson's individual brand values). That is, instead of the additive rule (i.e., the sum is greater than the individual parts; Rao and Ruekert, 1994), the maximum rule (cf. Murphy, 1988) is applied here to explain the synergy effect. The second effect is a positive spillover effect: the value of the alliance is greater for each partner than without the alliance (e.g., whether Ericsson's post-alliance value is greater than its pre-alliance value). Based on a thorough literature search, previous research on co-branding focuses only on the synergy effect from either the perspective of attitudinal favorability and preferences (e.g., Levin et al., 1996; Park et al., 1996) or financial value and returns (e.g., Chang and Chang, 2012). To the best of our knowledge, no study examines the synergy effect from the perspective of attribute beliefs under a specific product-fit scenario, namely attribute-level complementarity (ALC), on which marketing scholars have long concentrated (e.g., Park et al., 1996). Similarly, although the literature (e.g., Washburn et al., 2004) has investigated the positive spillover effect by utilizing the consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) measure, researchers have not measured the spillover effect under the ALC scenario. We argue that this gap is crucial because ALC is considered the key factor of co-branding success (Park et al., 1996). This study bridges this gap by exploring the impacts of ALC on co-branding success by determining whether the synergy and positive spillover effect(s) exist. By addressing this theoretical gap, we advance the co-branding literature by showing the connection between the affect-transfer of attribute beliefs (Hillyer and Tikoo, 1995) and co-branding success. Our new finding is, due to the underlying inconsistency of attribute beliefs, a horizontal co-branding partnership with ALC could be a double-edged sword for the allying brands. …

국내 커피전문점의 유니폼 디자인 분석

Abstract The purpose of this study is to find the differences among the clothing brands through examination of present situation about uniform design in domestic coffee houses and provide the basic materials in developing uniform designs to reflect the brand identity. For research contents and method, the overall circumstances were examined about the domestic coffee houses and their uniforms at large via literature review. Then, characteristics on their 10 uniform designs were reviewed according to item, color, pattern and accessary. The following are results. First, cardigan, cap, and necktie according to the individual brand are added with basis of shirt and apron in composition of coffeehouse's uniform. Second, in cardigan, those colors including black, navy and brown are used, reminding of the coffee. Brand logo or symbol is also presented on it, which addresses the brand image. Third, the kind of shirt consists mainly with long or short shirt blouse and long sleeve or short sleeve pique shirt. Job title or gender differentiates the shape and color. Fourth, one-piece type is commonly applied for the apron. At the same time, a short skirt is put on as well. An image expression is often found by the unique brand color also, but mostly, some dark tones like brown or black are largely used. Fifth, in cap, various kinds are worn including the cap as in the case of baseball, fedora, beret, and hunting cap. In color, black or brown color same to that of apron is common, which fails to show differentiation. Thus, consideration of color remix with application of brand symbol is thought to be an alternative to this.Keywords: coffee house, uniform, design

Aplicación del autoconcepto al desarrollo de la marca personal. Análisis comparativo entre estudiantes internacionales

Individual personal brands have experienced a growing importance due to the massive use of new technologies. Everyone can benefit from the use of social networks to make a personal brand spread establishing a difference with the rest of the individuals. The interest to develop a personal brand is growing partly because of the high competitive employment market. Students in their last university years are especially interested in developing a personal brand. This study shows results obtained in a sample of students from Belgium and Spain. The objectives are to analyze self-concept as a valid tool to develop a personal brand and to establish possible differences in the self-concept levels of both nationalities. This article shows the results obtained in a study about personal brand and self-concept carried out in Belgium and Spain in May 2013.

Brands in the arts and culture sector

Purpose– The purposes of this editorial are first, to review the background to, and development of, the Special Issue call for papers issued in March 2013 on the topic of “Brands in the Arts and Culture Sector”, second, to introduce the eight papers in the double issue (seven in the Special Issue plus one paper (by Caldwell)) which was submitted to the journal in the normal course and whose topic fits well with the arts and cultural branding topic, and third, to set out a framework designed to facilitate the analysis of individual arts and cultural brands, as well as the directions for future research in the area.Design/methodology/approach– The papers in this Special Issue use a variety of approaches-some qualitative (e.g. ethnography, expert interviews), others quantitative (e.g. laboratory experiment, surveys); others deal with conceptual issues for individual artists and for the arts market.Findings– Findings and insights relate to topics such as: how the “in-between spaces” (e.g. art studios) can be key building blocks of a strong artist’s brand; the importance of western ideas for the Chinese art market; how pro-activeness, innovation, and risk-taking are the three key drivers for the decision to integrate blockbusters as a sub-brand in museum brand architecture; the importance of experiential design for low-involvement museum visitors; the utility of the notion of brand attachment in explaining volunteering; the potential of visual arts branding for general branding theory; the concept of millennial cultural consumers and how to reach them; and celebrity casting in London’s West End theatres.Research limitations/implications– The authors believe that all of the papers have implications for future thinking, research, scholarship, paedagogy, and practice in the area of arts and cultural branding.Originality/value– As far as the editors are aware, this is the first ever journal Special Issue on arts and cultural branding. More specifically, the authors have taken the opportunity to present in this editorial essay the “C-Framework” of arts and cultural brands, which offers a new way of thinking about arts and cultural brands − one which can accommodate classical or so-called “mainstream” branding ideas as well as insights from cultural, media, and consumer studies, and other disciplines. This framework can be applied to individual arts and cultural brands as well as to the entire field.

MODELLING THE CRYSTALLIZER’S MOLD STATE DEPENDING ON ITS WEAR

This article is designed to determine the life of technical objects, in particular molds. Specifying lifetime of technical objects are followed by an explanation of standards and in particular standard EN 61649:2008 Weibull analysis. Further detail is given technical characteristics of the molds. Within the two models have been developed mold life - the first based on analytical expressions of the degradation mechanism transferred to the shape of the marginal probability of failure with the application of Weibull distribution, the second model using artificial neural networks based on the frequency dependence of individual brands of cast steel and mold profile of the average value measured at each system levels MKL 100/420. Reliability and maintenance control systems gives us an analysis of the maintenance actions, failure analysis, costs analysis spent to made actions and spare parts. It gives the answers to questions, which would be without a complex look over the data derived hardly – if the given crystallizer’s desks can be used in operation or if is necessary to make its renovation. On history basis of previously actions or another historical data the maintenance control system gives sufficient information for correct decision make. Thanks to recently made maintenance data collection the base for maintenance planning is improving. Introduction of reliability control system and maintenance further help to increase availability and serviceability of devices from the reason of lowering unplanned time delays, breakdowns and increase device’s service life.

How Attitudes Toward Product Categories Drive Individual Brand Attitudes and Choice

Three experiments examine the role of attitudes toward the category to which a brand belongs in consumers’ attitudes toward individual brands. The core findings indicate that what consumers think generally about a category affects their evaluations of singular brands belonging to the category. Study 1 demonstrates that both consumers’ attitudes toward a category as well as their relative attitudes toward a brand versus intracategory competitors drive overall attitudes toward individual brands. Study 2 shows that manipulating attitudes toward a product category affects attitudes toward, and purchase intention of, individual brands belonging to that category. Study 3 demonstrates that more versus less favorably evaluated categories are more likely to exhibit brand positivity effects in judgments of singular brands. The results suggest the practical importance of measuring attitudes toward product categories, as well as the utility of marketing interventions aimed at the category level.

Rethinking brand architecture: a study on industry, company- and product-level drivers of branding strategy

Purpose – This study aims to compare academic prescriptive models on how to choose a branding strategy on the continuum from a “branded house” to a “house of brands” with real-life branding strategies of leading companies. Design/methodology/approach – Data from an executive survey, observations and desk research on 75 leading companies in Austria are analysed with multilevel weighted least squares (WLS) regression. Findings – Branding strategies for products are determined by industry (23 per cent of variance), the overall strategy of the company (28 per cent), the remaining variance being product-level decisions deviating from both. Service and consumer durables companies lean more towards corporate branding than consumer nondurables. On the company level, synergies in advertising, e-commerce and e-CRM (customer-relationship management) increase the usage of shared brands. A higher company age leads to brand proliferation. On the product level, quality differences between products, the emphasis on and differences in experiential product positioning and, marginally, the symbolic differences between products favour individual brands. Research limitations/implications – Future research should investigate additional markets, additional drivers, small and medium-sized entreprises (SMEs) and employ additional measures. Practical implications – The study informs brand-architecture audits with benchmarks from leading companies, calls for a view of brand architecture more flexible than ideal-type categories proposed in literature and cautions against management inertia, industry standards and trends in designing branding strategies. Originality/value – This study is the first quantitative cross-industry multi-level study on real-life branding strategies. It also applies a new conceptualisation and measurement of branding strategy.

Sales promotion influencing consumer brand preferences/purchases

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate whether or not ongoing sales promotion contributed to the declines in “no brand preference” (NBP). Part of an ongoing series investigating the growth of US consumer’s responses of NBP for more than 1,500 frequently purchased consumer product brands. Data were drawn from responses to a very large (1.1 million) online longitudinal consumer questionnaire during 2002-2012. Design/methodology/approach – Additional research, combining this data set with two other major US longitudinal studies, confirmed results. This study focused on determining reasons for NBP increase. Initial data set included use of and influence of 23 in-store promotional tools. These were investigated to determine impact and effect. Findings – Four leading sales promotional tools, based on consumer influence, were coupons, home samples, in-store samples and retail shopper cards. Shopper cards had most influence on purchase of secondary, not primary brands in categories. Shopper cards are a clearly underused promotional tool in building brand preference and sales. Research limitations/implications – Limited to US consumer products only. No attempt made to connect media advertising and in-store media impact or effect. Practical implications – Future investigation should focus on other geographies, synergy between media advertising and promotional techniques. Also, the study is all aggregated data; individual brand investigations should be made. Shopper cards appear to be a major opportunity for secondary brands. More focus on cooperative activities between brands and retailers would benefit both. Originality/value – Paucity of longitudinal customer-view research on shopper cards identifies both manufacturer and retailer opportunities, particularly secondary brands.

General Motors | Global Design Strategy with Individual Brand Values

General Motors | Global Design Strategy with Individual Brand Values

Celebrity Humanitarianism: The Ideology of Global Charity

Celebrity Humanitarianism: The Ideology of Global Charity

Economic efficiency of members of protected designations of origin: sharing reputation indicators in the experience goods of wine and cheese

The aim of this paper is to analyse the economic efficiency of members of protected designations of origin (PDO). For the first time we analyse the value of PDO labels from the point of view of economic efficiency. The central hypothesis is that a PDO has a positive impact on the economic efficiency of its member companies and that this is because a PDO label is a collective reputation indicator that foments efficient investment in quality in terms of member returns. The methodology applied to test this hypothesis is based on data envelopment analysis to estimate economic efficiency, and econometric models to explain company efficiency through both the PDO label, as an indicator of collective reputation, and the characteristics of the company. The results obtained in the experience goods of wine and cheese in Spain show that PDO labels have a positive impact on economic efficiency. Additionally, the age and size of the company have a positive effect while the wage level of the company has a different influence on efficiency depending on the sector considered. Overall, the results reveal the importance of PDOs in industries in which the signal of reputation is not only reliant on the individual brands.

Branding Decisions for Retailers’ Private Labels

Umbrella branding (UB) strategies for manufacturers’ products have received considerable attention in the literature. Not much is known about this strategy for private labels. Using a game-theoretic approach, we reassess the benefits of introducing a private label in a distinct category, and provide favorable conditions for the retailer to implement umbrella or individual branding for his private labels. We find that (1) UB leads to lower wholesale and retail prices for both national brands; (2) national brands’ manufacturers prefer individual branding over UB for private labels; and (3) the profitability of UB is not always guaranteed for the retailer.

Brand management and the marketing mix model

Brand management is typically defined as the way in which brands are positioned in the marketplace, both in terms of tangibles such as price, packaging and the marketing mix and intangibles such as consumer perceptions and brand equity. The conventional marketing mix model is often used to inform the tangible elements, but is lacking into two key aspects. Firstly, it ignores the role of intangibles. Secondly, the focus is solely on individual brands in isolation. This ignores the wider competitive context, where the decision to choose one brand is the simultaneous decision not to choose another. Successful brand management, however, requires a simultaneous holistic view of all players. To address both issues, this article argues for a dynamic time series version of the discrete choice attraction model. Firstly, the demand system structure treats the entire category as a single unit, capturing competitive steal, cannibalisation, halo and category expansion effects of brand-specific marketing. This provides accurate marketing return on investment and budget allocation, facilitating the manufacturer-retailer relationship. Secondly, the time series approach allows us to quantify the evolution and drivers of consumer brand tastes – critical to understanding brand intangibles. This enables managers to set marketing strategy for optimal long-term brand performance.

Hotel loyalty programs: how valuable is valuable enough?

Purpose – This study attempts to examine customers' perceived value of hotel loyalty programs, to identify the relationship between perceived program value and active loyalty, and to examine the effect of perceived program value in determining customers' active loyalty. Design/methodology/approach – An extensive sample of 15,000 respondents was randomly selected from a pool of US domestic tourists who previously requested tourism information from the Convention and Visitor's Bureau (CVB) websites across the country. The data for this study were collected using online survey questionnaires. The researchers sent out e-mails, embedding a link to a brief questionnaire and consent form to potential respondents. Findings – This study substantiates the impact of perceived program value, particularly the psychological value, on active loyalty. In addition, the study identifies significant differences in perceived financial value and externality value of the loyalty programs. Originality/value – This study breaks down loyalty program practices into individual brand levels and compares the perceived program value of 11 major hotel loyalty programs. This provides a better understanding of the perceived program value that may affect active loyalty and explains how the value varies by different hotel loyalty programs. This study offers recommendations on how hotels might craft value opportunities to cultivate the continued engagement of consumers. The results of this study offer insights into the under-researched domain of the drivers of active loyalty in the hospitality context and suggest methods for better strategic management of this loyalty form.

Attitude contagion in consumer opinion platforms: posters and lurkers

The study details why and how product reviews from consumer opinion platforms affect individual users’ brand buying behavior. Drawing on social theories, the authors predict that consumers’ perceptions of other consumers’ product reviews affect brand buying intentions through two intervening variables: product- and brand-related attitudes. Moreover, the authors investigate whether these relationships are contingent on user type (i.e., active posters or passive lurkers). The empirical results support a multiple mediation framework in which product- and brand attitudes mediate the effects of consumer product reviews on individual brand buying intentions. In addition, consumer product reviews appear to more strongly affect the brand-related attitudes of posters than lurkers. Lurkers, who make up the majority of opinion platform users, are much less influenced by the opinions of others than posters. Encouraging variations in poster- and lurker rates may be an effective means for companies to manage and control consumer-to-consumer communication.

Detecting Free Riders in Collective Brands through a Hierarchical Choice Process

Free-riding behaviors exist in tourism and they should be analyzed from a comprehensive perspective; while the literature has mainly focused on free riders operating in a destination, the destinations themselves might also free ride when they are under the umbrella of a collective brand. The objective of this article is to detect potential free-riding destinations by estimating the contribution of the different individual destinations to their collective brands, from the point of view of consumer perception. We argue that these individual contributions can be better understood by reflecting the various stages that tourists follow to reach their final decision. A hierarchical choice process is proposed in which the following choices are nested (not independent): “whether to buy,” “what collective brand to buy,” and “what individual brand to buy.” A Mixed Logit model confirms this sequence, which permits estimation of individual contributions and detection of free riders.

Carbon Hotspots in the Food and Beverage Industry: Insights from Analyzing the Product Portfolio of a Global Packaged Consumer Goods Company

Some efforts to streamline and accelerate product-level life cycle assessments (LCA) with regards to greenhouse gas emissions (product carbon footprinting, PCF) rely on first grouping products into categories and then building simplified LCA models around emission hotpots. This requires, among others, fundamental understanding of how much such hotspots can vary from product to product, across brands, and country of origin. Here, we apply a novel fast LCA methodology to first quantify and then analyze PCFs of 3,335 stock keeping units (SKUs) of a global food snack and beverage company. We find that the often cited dominance of the supply chain's contribution to the total footprint is valid for large portfolios of products in aggregate (75%-93% contribution). However, this does not remain universally valid when analyzing individual brands and SKUs: At SKU level, the metric varies widely, from 9% (smallest supply chain contribution) to nearly 100%. For 254 of the 3,335 SKUs, less than 50% of overall emissions originate in the supply chain. SKU-level carbon intensity (PCF divided by net SKU weight) varies widely as well, in our sample from 0.1 to 70. It also varies within brands, indicating a design challenge for stream-lined models. SKU-average carbon intensityvaries between ~0.4 (beverages) to ~4 (some baked snacks). The portfolio-level footprint (3,335 SKUs in our sample) is highly concentrated: 4% of SKUs contribute 50% of annual GHG; 2.5% of the 6,040 acquired individual raw materials contribute 40% of annual GHG from all raw materials, the majority of the 2.5% being agricultural ingredients.

The Connotation, Mechanism and Effects of Self-Brand Connections

Self-brand Connections (SBC) measure the extent to which consumers have incorporated brands into their individual or social self-concept. There are two types of mechanisms that explain the formation of brand connections. In the viewpoint of consumers’ identity, consumers construct individual, social or national brand connections according to different aspects of identity. From the perspective of brand communication, the formation of brand connections consisted of three stages. The effects of self-brand connections are that brand connections have active, positive influence on the consumer-brand relationship, but this effect realized will be affected by many factors. Future studies should focus on cultural psychology, ego psychology of self-brand connections and the mechanism of our country consumers how to form national brand connections.

Faulkner and Hemingway: Biography of a Literary Rivalry by Joseph Fruscione (review)

Reviewed by: Faulkner and Hemingway: Biography of a Literary Rivalry by Joseph Fruscione Christopher Rieger Joseph Fruscione. Faulkner and Hemingway: Biography of a Literary Rivalry. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2012. vii + 263 pp. Joseph Fruscione has written the most thorough study to date of the relationship between Faulkner and Hemingway, America's two supreme modernist novelists, and he makes a compelling case in this book that their intense rivalry was a strong influence on both writers and on their works. Scholars of both Faulkner and Hemingway are likely to find new and useful information here and will probably be surprised at how much each author seemed to have his rival in mind throughout their respective careers. Early in his book Fruscione compares Faulkner and Hemingway to both rival bullfighters and jazz musicians, succinctly capturing the competitiveness and the complementary nature and intertextuality of the writers’ relationship,. The strength of the book is Fruscione’s ability to marshal copious amounts of information from a wide variety of sources (letters, fiction, biographies, criticism), present it cogently, and make a strong argument through reading their works, letters, speeches, and public and private remarks as evidence of their psychological influence on one another: “This shared motivation and desire to be America’s definitive modernist, I argue throughout, engendered a mutual psychological influence. Oftentimes, each wanted to outshine his rival; in turn, bringing their mutually referential texts under review will reveal how they were locked in a competition throughout their writing lives, a competition in which—in their minds, and possibly in the academy’s—Faulkner seems to have prevailed” (3). Hemingway, in particular, comes across in letters and conversations as determined to be more manly than other writers, to defeat [End Page 872] them in the public arena, and Fruscione argues that he may have felt feminized by Faulkner’s artistic dominance. Faulkner, on the other hand, comes off as more secure in his masculinity, not as inclined to equate his writing with his manhood: “Although both writers were aware of and somewhat unsettled by this psychocompetitive influence, Hemingway felt an attendant anxiety more acutely than Faulkner did” (8). The first chapter investigates the 1920s as the era in which both writers matured artistically and examines the shared influences that shaped their similar versions of modernism. Pound, Eliot, Joyce, and Lewis are not only influential in Faulkner’s and Hemingway’s individual brands of modernism; the competitive literary rivalries and intertextual responses of the “Men of 1914” also create a model of competitive artists pushing each other to respond anew in their work. We see also in this chapter how both men almost comically exaggerated their wartime heroics, creating more valorous and masculine versions of themselves. Although the relationships of the two writers with Sherwood Anderson have been documented in various biographies, Fruscione does a nice job of putting Faulkner’s and Hemingway’s tutelage and subsequent rejection of Anderson in conversation with one another, demonstrating the anxiety-riddled competitiveness that would characterize their own literary feud in the years to come. The connections with Anderson are the dominant focus of this chapter, and perhaps more could have been said about the authors’ time in Paris, the influences of modernist painting, or the effects of World War I on their respective artistic visions. Chapter 2 focuses on the 1930s when the writers’ awareness of one another’s work becomes evident and the responses begin, and Fruscione makes a strong case for Hemingway seeing Faulkner as his principal rival, not just one among many inferiors he could dismiss. The chapter includes an interesting comparison of Faulkner’s and Hemingway’s novels of civil war, The Unvanquished (1938) and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), although at times Fruscione’s approach leads to some dubious claims of influence: “Faulkner’s families— Compsons, Sartorises, even Sutpens—bond through storytelling and a collective past, though of course not without tension or conflict. He seems to have guided Hemingway in this direction, since little of Hemingway’s prior work depicted such a strong familial element” (75). These sorts of claims are not frequent, however, and Fruscione has more solid claims for often striking parallels and similarities between the authors...

The dimensions of prescription drug brand personality as identified by consumers

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to describe the development and validation of a two-dimensional scale measuring prescription drug brand personality as identified by consumers. Design/methodology/approach – A total of 483 US respondents rated a subset of 15 well-known prescription medications on 22 different personality traits. A total of 2,245 individual brand evaluations were generated and subsequently analyzed using exploratory factor analysis. Findings – The findings revealed that consumers are in fact able to attribute human personality traits to prescription drugs. A stable and generalizable two-dimensional (competence and innovativeness) scale was established: the Prescription Brand Personality Scale (PBPS). Research limitations/implications – The “stacked” data structure required to aggregate data across subjects discounts the variation between brands and subjects. The brands included in the study are relatively few compared to consumer brands. Practical implications – This research has important implications for the expansion of pharmaceutical branding strategies and demonstrates the potential of using brand personality as an effective positioning and differentiation tool. Originality/value – This is the first study to investigate the existence of prescription drug brand personalities as perceived by consumers as well as the development of the PBPS, specifically for prescription drug brands. The findings have important implications for the development of innovative marketing strategies, and this study lays the groundwork for further investigation into the antecedents and consequences of prescription drug brand personality.