Understanding Of Branding Research Articles

The importance of brands in the lunch‐box choices of low‐income British school children

Abstract This research explores the consumer socialisation of children and adolescents from low‐income groups. In particular, the importance of reference groups in cognitive development and understanding is investigated to gain insight into the consumption behaviours immediately before, during and after their 'tweens'. 'Tweens' are defined as 8–12‐year‐olds. To gain a thorough insight into changes in opinion during tweenage years, 7‐, 11‐ and 14‐year‐olds were interviewed in this study. In total 30 children from these three age groups were (depth) interviewed and their discourses were compared to show the development in understanding of brands and peer influence. Whereas previous studies have concentrated on the symbolism behind clothing brands this research looks at the meanings attached to different types of food and beverage brands. Our interviews suggest peers become more influential to consumption decisions as children move through the tweens and in our study, peer approval replaces family as the main influence behind consumption behaviour. Brand understanding also changes as the child becomes older; children learn how to identify commercial, supermarket and budget brands and attach meaning to these different types of brands. The symbolic meaning of products and brands become more complex during the tween years as children view possessions as material symbols of identity and make inferences about peers based on their consumption choices. This research found that as children become older even simple products change from functional to symbolic items. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Essence: The Structure and Dynamics of the Brand

The concept of ‘brand essence’ is relatively well established in marketing circles. It has come to the fore as a way for marketers to better understand their brands and also as a benchmark to evaluate brand activities. In some quarters, however, the concept has encountered more resistance. It is seen by many in the creative community as something that oversimplifies the marketing process and limits the power of the brand. The main argument of this paper is that brand essence has been fundamentally misunderstood. This has resulted in a number of negative consequences for the branding process. However, this paper will also show how the concept still has much to offer marketing professionals. A new, and more relevant, interpretation of brand essence is put forward in this paper, which recognises the intrinsically relational and dynamic aspects of the concept. As such, it creates a new platform upon which we can build our understanding of brands.

Literature review on brand equity in professional team sport: a German perspective on ice hockey

This paper reviews the concept of brand from a perspective of ice hockey. Since branding hockey can appropriately be described by the concept of customer-based brand equity, the literature about this concept is a valuable point of reference for gaining insights into the mechanisms of hockey branding. By reviewing the concept, appropriately defining the hockey customers and the hockey product are mandatory. Practical implications are then derived from a case study of the German Hockey League (DEL) in order to enhance the understanding of branding in a German hockey context.

Branded Products as a Passport to Global Citizenship: Perspectives from Developed and Developing Countries

This article focuses on belief in brands as a passport to global citizenship, defined as a person's perception that global brands create an imagined global identity. The authors assess the effects of this belief on the importance consumers assign to branded products and also examine the antecedent effects of cultural openness and consumer ethnocentrism. Their work focuses on the global youth market in the developing countries of Romania, Ukraine, and Russia and the developed U.S. market. The findings contribute to a broadened understanding of branding in a global marketplace by examining the associations between beliefs about global brands and the importance consumers attach to branded products in their daily lives.

Building Online Brand Perceptual Map

Many companies have launched their products or services online as a new business focus, but only a few of them have survived the competition and made profits. The most important key to an online business's success is to create "brand value" for the customers. Although the concept of online brand has been discussed in previous studies, there is no empirical study on the measurement of online branding. As Web 2.0 emerges to be critical to online branding, the purpose of this study was to measure Taiwan's major Web sites with a number of personality traits to build a perceptual map for online brands. A pretest identified 10 most representative online brand perceptions. The results of the correspondence analysis showed five groups in the perceptual map. This study provided a practical view of the associations and similarities among online brands for potential alliance or branding strategies. The findings also suggested that brand perceptions can be used with identified consumer needs and behaviors to better position online services. The brand perception map in the study also contributed to a better understanding of the online brands in Taiwan.

Youths' understandings of cigarette advertisements

This study addresses two questions: (1) when youths are exposed to advertisements for cigarettes, do they primarily see advertisements for brands or products, and (2) is there a relationship between youths' understandings of cigarette advertisements and their susceptibility to smoking? A sample of 271 participants ranging in age from 7 to 12 viewed a series of print advertisements that included cigarette and non-tobacco-related ads. While viewing each ad, participants were asked to indicate what they thought the advertisement was trying to sell. Responses were coded into one of three categories reflecting important differences in participants' comprehension of each advertisement — no understanding, product category understanding, or brand understanding. Results show that youths typically understand the type of product an advertisement is promoting; however, the levels of brand understanding observed for cigarette advertisements were low in an absolute sense, and significantly lower than brand understanding of non-tobacco-related advertisements. Results also show that understanding cigarette ads as promoting specific brands of cigarettes is positively related to susceptibility to smoking. Taken together, these findings provide a glimpse of the psychological mechanisms that may underlie the well established link between exposure to cigarette advertising and youth smoking.

Online and Offline Corporate Brand Images: Do They Differ?

This study compares the corporate brand images (CBI) of two book retailers: one that sells exclusively online and the other that sells exclusively offline. The study has adopted measurements developed by Davies et al. (2004) known as the ‘Corporate Character Scale’ in order to measure the two bookstores' CBI. The study is informed by 511 responses from experienced customers of these two bookstores. To identify the difference between offline and online CBI, confirmatory factor analysis was used. Previous literature stresses that Agreeableness and Enterprise were the two most significant variables in predicting online and offline CBI. This study, however, found that consumers appeared to view online CBI as more Informal and Innovative than offline CBI (which appeared to be expressed more in terms of Agreeableness and Competence). In general, the present study adds to the existing literature in branding and reputation in two main ways. First, it puts the concept of emotional brand attributes (the CBI) in a unique context (the internet), and compares it with the bricks-and-mortar context. The present study provides empirical evidence in the context of internet and retail bookstores to enhance the understanding of branding and reputation. Secondly, the practical contribution of the study and its managerial implications can be seen in the context of defining strategy and positioning the corporate brand in the online and offline contexts.

“i‐Branding”: developing the internet as a branding tool

PurposeTo derive an applicable conceptual framework of branding via the internet form; to show how that framework can, by organising and integrating current knowledge, assist marketing planners in the development of successful internet‐based branding strategies.Design/methodology/approachThe conceptual framework presented here derives from a thorough analytical and critical review of the literature on branding in the conventional and virtual marketing environments.FindingsThere are three key themes in the mainstream branding literature, supplemented in the proposed framework by a fourth research stream self‐evidently relevant to internet‐based branding. It is clear that the resulting four main elements of the framework are strongly interrelated in the practice of brand management in the online environment.Practical implicationsThe “Four Pillars of i‐Branding” should be of intellectual interest and practical value to marketing planners and those advising them, providing a more systematic approach to the understanding and application of branding, online.Originality/valueThe literature of “i‐Branding” is at present at a formative stage, with limited integration among its themes. The framework described here provides the basis for the rational formulation and implementation of branding strategies, applying internet‐based tools to the tasks of marketing communication and customer relationship‐building in particular.

Branding: a generation gap?

PurposeThe paper seeks to explore key differences in the perceptions of parents and children towards branding, examining differences and potential implications.Design/methodology/approachThis study was conducted over a six‐month period utilising focus groups, a school census and a parental survey to determine attitudes towards branding and to compare/contrast the different views and perceptions.FindingsThe study demonstrated a gap between the perceptions of parents and the actual brand awareness of their children. The research indicated that children tend to be brand aware at a younger age than their parents believe. Many parents assume that branding influences on their child come from outside the family, but this was contradicted by the children. The study indicated that children have a growing ability to receive information about brands and are able to use this knowledge to inform the growing influence that they exert in the buying process. Finally the study indicated that parents were concerned over the influence that branding can have. It is suggested that the growing sophistication of children in relation to branding issues results in them becoming much more brand‐wise when making purchase choices.Research limitations/implicationsThe choice of methodology – a census of a specific school – minimised sampling limitations. The middle‐class catchment area may have produced some bias, and this could be addressed by replicating the research in different schools to allow a broader comparison of the findings.Originality/valueThe paper adds to existing knowledge and understanding of branding and purchase decision making with specific reference to contradictions between generations.

Emerging metaphors in brand management: towards a relational approach

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to describe, analyse, and understand the emerging metaphors in brand management in the context of service brands.Design/methodology/approachThis article takes the form of a conceptual study.FindingsThe silence metaphor illustrates the product paradigm and the monologue metaphor describes the projective paradigm. The listening metaphor demonstrates the adaptive paradigm and finally, the dialogue metaphor depicts the relational paradigm.Research limitations/implicationsThe traditional understanding of service branding neglects a key characteristic of services – the fact that services are processes – and this neglect causes the crucial role of dialogue with the customer in service delivery to be relatively overlooked. There is an emerging need to move towards a relational approach in brand management.Practical implicationsService brands continuously develop as the customer relates to the flow of communication in the form of diverse brand messages. These brand messages come from contact personnel, from physical product elements in the service process, and from various planned and unplanned communication messages.Originality/valueThe importance of creating brands in service offerings has become apparent, and communication issues in branding have become extremely vital for service firms. By creating dialogue in brand relationships, the customer is given an active role in service branding.

The hermeneutics of branding

An increasing body of scholarship, particularly in marketing, has drawn on a wide variety of theoretical traditions to address the implications of brands as social texts. Taken together this research proposes that: brands exist as symbols in popular culture with their meanings contingent on particular cultural contexts; that consumers may resist meanings originally conceived by managers or agencies; that brands embody stories constructed both by the companies that produce them and by their consumers; that brands have histories. In this paper, we engage these topics from the perspective of hermeneutical inquiry. The linguistic, historical tradition in hermeneutics — which continues to play a role in contemporary theory through, for example, reader response and reception theory — offers a rich interpretive tradition and method that contributes to our developing understanding of brands. Following from recent research in marketing, we regard brands to be one of the most text-like artifacts of contemporary business culture and therefore appropriate for a demonstration of the potential contribution of hermeneutics. To this end, we emphasise three hermeneutic concepts: intention, the horizon of expectations and reception. From these categories, we derive the more pragmatic terms of trace, arc and collective interpretation to move towards a hermeneutical theory of branding. This approach allows us to explain the ways in which the meaning of a brand changes over time (giving branding a historical dimension) and how managerial intention intersects interpretations made by multiple constituencies. We contend that a deeper understanding of brands in terms of their past and present meaning increases the opportunities to realise a brand's potential.

Internal brand building in multicultural organisations: a roadmap towards action research

In order to ensure consistency in brand management activities, employees need to develop a shared understanding of what their brand stands for. This process receives even greater complexity in a multicultural workforce. Despite an increase of interest in internal branding, literature widely lacks an understanding of how employees from different cultural backgrounds develop a shared brand understanding and how leaders can facilitate this process. This paper introduces a road map to action research: First, a justification as to why action research is considered an appropriate model to capture internal brand building processes is provided. Subsequently, the main steps that led to the development of the presented methodological framework are outlined by referring to results of pre‐tests or to already published material where appropriate.

Extending human personality to brands: The stability factor

This paper explores the brand personality concept and investigates whether the human personality approach could be applied to the brand construct. Specifically it investigates whether brand personality is stable over time and in association with other brands, even with the introduction of reference brands. The results showed that stability over time and in association with other brands appeared to be inherent in brands, which suggested that the brand personality functioned in much the same way as the human personality and, by extension, the personality of brands would be likely to function much like the personality of humans. This has far-reaching managerial implications for the understanding of brands from the personality perspective. These implications underline the importance of brand congruity so that it becomes a fundamental principle for brand management and strategy.

Managing a company's brand leadership activities: framework and discussion

This article presents an integrated Concept of Corporate Identity and Corporate Branding (CIB). This CIB approach is understood as the third step in the development of an understanding and interpretation of Corporate Branding. The point of departure for this type of CIB Management is the critical examination of the corporate philosophy in order to ensure that branding assumes the right status within the company and aims in the right direction. Next, strong focus is placed on how to define an identity-oriented Corporate Branding Concept and the analyses necessary for achieving this objective. A multi-step approach for designing the 'CIB Profile' is expounded, which takes all relevant contact and identification points into account. This is done in order to consider the actual perceptions and expectations of all corporate stakeholders and the desired positioning of the brand. After explaining the basic ideas of the CIB Management approach, different examples of analyses and strategically relevant concepts of branding are outlined in order to demonstrate the heuristic power of a CIB Profiling.

The criteria for successful services brands

There are few valuable services brands, which may be due to the lack of services branding knowledge and the inappropriate use of product‐based branding advice. To contribute to services branding knowledge the authors undertook a review of the services management and services branding literature and postulated a model of services branding. In‐depth interviews with 28 leading‐edge consultants showed the appropriateness of this model. The study found a need for ruthless clarity about positioning and the corporation's genuinely felt values. Success is more likely when everyone internally believes in their brand's values. When management behaviour is based on genuine conviction, shared values are more likely. Through shared values, there is a greater likelihood of commitment, internal loyalty, clearer brand understanding, and importantly, consistent brand delivery across all stakeholders. By viewing these factors within a systems perspective, greater services brand consistency can result.

Speaking the Buick language: capturing, understanding, and exploring brand identity with shape grammars

Developing and maintaining a consistent brand statement is an important aspect of developing a successful product. However, maintaining that statement is difficult due in part to the inconsistent and often insufficient understanding of brand by marketing, engineering, and industrial design. This paper presents shape grammars as a method for encoding the key elements of a brand into a repeatable language, which can be used to generate products consistent with the brand. A detailed investigation into the history of Buick styling reveals the brand characteristics of the front view of Buick vehicles, which are then captured in a shape grammar.

Pharmaceuticals: The New Brand Arena

This paper looks at the rapidly advancing recognition of the importance of brands within the international pharmaceutical arena. It explores what ramifications recent developments in our understanding of mind, culture and brands have for the whole business of brand development. The paper looks at how and in what ways qualitative research has to be built into this process, in particular exploring the issues of how qualitative research is structured and analysed.

Management consultancies as brands: Can David learn from Goliath?

This paper analyses notions of brand management in small- and medium-sized management consultancy firms. Specifically, it examines whether small firms understand the multitude of brand facets and constructs, how they attempt to differentiate themselves, and how they consistently deliver what they stand for. The paper confirms a perceived lack of understanding of brands per se and confirms the importance of brands in promoting the organisation and communicating values and meaning to stakeholders. In turn, this accounts for the fact that management consultancies are ‘playing on an uneven field’, with a notable difference between larger and smaller organisations.

Status brands: examining the effects of non‐product‐related brand associations on status and conspicuous consumption

In seeking to expand our understanding of brands and their impact on consumer behaviour, assesses the relationship between brand associations, which contribute to consumption behaviour. A self‐administered questionnaire was developed and administered to a non‐probabilistic convenience sample of 315 young consumers. The findings of this research indicate that the status‐conscious market is more likely to be affected by the symbolic characteristics of a brand; feelings aroused by the brand; and by the degree of congruency between the brand‐user’s self‐image and the brand’s image itself. Results also indicate that the higher the symbolic characteristics, the stronger the positive feelings, and the greater the congruency between the consumer and brand image, the greater the likelihood of the brand being perceived as possessing high status elements. The suspicion that status‐laden brands would be chosen for status consumption and conspicuous consumption was also confirmed. These findings broaden our understanding of status‐conscious consumers and their behaviour towards brands.

Brand orientation in the Top 500 fundraising charities in the UK

Examines the concept of brand orientation in the charity sector against a background of mounting criticism that charities are under‐using their brands and not managing them properly. From the academic literature and a series of depth interviews, four key components of brand orientation were identified which were operationalised into a series of item statements and tested on charity managers in the Top 500 UK charities. From an exploratory factor analysis of the data, it seems that brand orientation may comprise one “general factor” of brand orientation incorporating “brand understanding”, “brand communication” and more substantially, “the strategic use of brands” and six further factors, three of which comprise different managerial responsibilities. All but one of these factors correlated satisfactorily with secondary indicators of brand orientation. The paper discusses the results and examines the implications for charities.