Impact of component supplier branding on profitability

In recent years, many business-to-business (B2B) component supplier (CS) firms have added branding to their marketing toolbox. By extending the logic of ingredient branding to B2B components, they aim to create “pull” from B2B end customers by building a strong CS brand image among their customers' customers. In contrast with the established “push” approach of building strong relationships with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), it is unclear whether and under which conditions CS branding is a worthy strategy. On the one hand, anecdotal evidence suggests that suppliers can leverage strong CS brand image in negotiations with increasingly powerful OEMs to enhance their financial performance. On the other hand, many B2B managers believe that branding does not work in their industry context and erodes profitability. We build a data set consisting of survey measures and archival data across a broad set of industries. Our results indicate that the financial outcomes of CS branding largely depend on the characteristics of the CS and OEM industries. Unlike dyadic OEM–CS relationships, which enhance profitability invariably across industry contexts, CS branding is effective only in well-defined situations. CS branding initiatives can enhance return in CS industries with substantial levels of product differentiation and technology intensity. However, unfavorable results may arise in industry contexts in which OEM–end customer relationships or OEM brands are important.     

Understanding retail branding: conceptual insights and research priorities

With the growing realization that brands are one of a firm's most valuable intangible assets, branding has emerged as a top management priority in the last decade. Given its highly competitive nature, branding can be especially important in the retailing industry to influence customer perceptions and drive store choice and loyalty. We integrate lessons from branding and retail image research to provide a better understanding of how retailers create their brand images, paying special attention to the role of the manufacturer and private label brand assortment. We also highlight some important areas that deserve further research in the form of three sets of research priorities.     

Don’t put all your green eggs in one basket: Examining environmentally friendly sub-branding strategies

Although marketers are increasingly developing strategies to promote environmentally-friendly images for their brands, little is known about green brand architecture strategies. The current study examines two sub-branding strategies and finds that when green products are dispersed across several sub-brands (vs. concentrated within one sub-brand), consumers are more likely to infer that the overall parent brand is environmentally friendly. The sincerity of the company’s sustainability efforts is found to mediate the effects of the sub-branding strategy on consumers’ eco-friendly beliefs of the parent brand. Specifically, consumers associate dispersed strategy (vs. concentrated strategy) with intrinsic motive (vs. extrinsic motive) of the company’s sustainability policy. As a result, dispersed strategy instead of concentrated strategy promotes spillover effects of sustainability to the parent brand, demonstrating the impact of brand structure on spillover to the parent brand equity. Managerial implications are discussed related to the automobile company’s sub-branding strategy.     

Academic liner notes: a re-inquiry of Chris Hackley’s (2012) CCT Blues

ABSTRACT

While in certain sub-areas of marketing and consumer research, alternative modes of investigation and representation have been mushrooming for a while - i.e. publications of poetry, poetry sessions at conferences, videography, and fiction - we suggest music and complementary academic liner notes as another form of alternative investigation and expression. This paper offers accompanying notes to our original contribution in musical format as an alternative mode of representation and critical dramatization in marketing and consumer research. The song is called CCT Blues and is perfomed by Postmödern talking sans frontiers avéc fromage [the song can be found on Applemusic, iTunes, and Spotify searching for CCT Blues and the artist name.] These liner notes guide the academic listener through our reflexive critical dramatization of the current intellectual condition of the CCT research area in form of a cover song of Chris Hackley’s CCT Blues [2012a. CCT Blues Electric Version.wmv, June 2. Accessed November 25, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1pgyaiw610]. Consequently, this paper offers a backstage pass into the world of producing and packaging our critique in audio format.     

Branding Strategies of Born Globals

Born global companies have now been studied for a decade. However, little has been written specifically about the challenges facing born globals in their branding endeavours. This research examines the branding strategies of 30 Finnish small and medium-sized born globals. The experience, qualities and global orientation of the founder and the top management team are found important for the success of the born globals in their branding achievements. A key argument is that business-to-business and business-to-consumer born globals differ as to their branding strategies and approaches. The analysis reveals a major imperative; branding strategies are dynamic and depend on the globalisation degree.     

Football – marketplace icon?

Football has always been an important part of consumer culture, in many countries producing a global audience for World Cups and millions of people celebrating annual football competitions. It was once described by iconic Liverpool Football Club (FC) football manager Bill Shankly as follows, “Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don’t like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.” This marketplace icon contribution puzzles over whether football truly represents a marketplace icon and if so how does this effect the world’s most popular sports game? The commentary explores the significance of the beautiful game asking the reader to consider that it is not only a marketplace icon but much more than that, likened here to a “supra socio-cultural phenomenon” which rises above market logic or as Foer argues Football explains the world.     

农产品区域产业品牌伞策略探析

品牌伞策略强调伞品牌对伞下产品或品牌产生庇护和提携作用,农产品区域产业品牌伞策略,除了具有一般品牌伞的功能效用之外,区域和产业可以增强伞下农产品和品牌的可识别性,赋予农产品和品牌一些独特的质量特性,形成与竞争对手的差异性,从而影响农产品的消费者信任度和市场接受度,农产品生产者可以利用区域产业品牌伞策略解决农产品创牌难题。     

中国品牌国际化面对的难题及策略

以海尔为代表的中国一大批企业在创建国际品牌方面都取得了瞩目的成绩,给中国其他企业进行品牌国际化战略提供了宝贵的学习经验。本文分析了中国企业在品牌国际化过程中遇到的难题,并对中国企业在品牌国际化过程中应采取的策略进行了重点研究。     

Generalizations regarding the growth and decline of manufacturer and store brands

Stimulating growth or staving off decline in market share are core objectives for brand managers, including retailers who now offer store brands (SBs). This study identifies how changes in brand penetration and repeat-purchase loyalty accompany changes in brand share. We examine 1093 changes in brand share over 63 packaged goods categories in the UK from 2003 to 2007, covering both growth and decline. Two measures of repeat purchase loyalty are used—annual purchase frequency (PF) and share of category requirements (SCR). Our results show that brand share growth is accompanied by greater change in penetration than in loyalty, at a ratio of approximately 3:1. This finding generalizes across brand type, loyalty measure, retailer SB or manufacturer brand (MB), category purchase frequency, category type, and initial brand share. However, while brand share growth is accompanied by stronger changes in SCR than PF for MBs; the reverse is the case for SBs. For MB decline, both penetration and SCR change are significant correlates. However for SBs, the decline in brand share happens predominantly in loyalty—more strongly in SCR, followed by PF. Therefore, both brand types need to focus on building penetration to grow. While MBs also need to prevent light buyers from lapsing, SBs need to pay more attention to retaining heavy buyers to avoid repertoire demotion.     

A typology of organisational stakeholder engagement with place brand identity

ABSTRACT

This study explores how stakeholders engage with a place brand identity (PBI) in the context of country branding. This research extends beyond the importance and challenges of stakeholder brand engagement with place brand identity by exploring several typology of stakeholder engagement with PBI. A case study approach using semi-structured interviews with 39 senior-level representatives from national Australian organisations was adopted to explore how internal stakeholders in Australia are engaged with the current PBI initiative in Australia: Australia Unlimited (AU). A typology of stakeholder engagement with a PBI, including philosophical and concrete engagement was identified. Stakeholders’ philosophical engagement is reflected by their moral support, future engagement intention, as well as positive word-of-mouth (WOM) behaviour. Concrete engagement, on the other hand, is reflected by place brand partnership and internalisation of PBI in the organisations’ strategy. The research findings offer practical ways for place brand managing organisations (PBMO) to enhance stakeholder engagement with a PBI. The identification of multicomponent nature of PBI from the research findings allows PBMO to identify which PBI component lacks stakeholder support in order to make necessary improvements. Further, identification of the typology of stakeholder engagement with PBI provides alternative strategies of how stakeholder engagement can be managed.     

Competitive advantage,private-label brands,and category profitability

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of private-label resources possessed by a supermarket retailer. Our study examines whether or not private-label products can help in the overall enhancement of product category performance. We examine the performance of a supermarket retailer in the Northeast United States that operates over 100 stores and generates a total yearly sales volume in excess of $3 billion. Data of this nature is difficult to obtain for research purposes, and this proved to be very valuable. Data obtained from the internal financial database of the supermarket was used and generated from point-of-sale information. We then developed a research model from the literature review and used structural equation modelling to analyse the data. The findings of this study indicate that a change in category private-label sales penetration and category market share had little impact on category profitability. The major implication for retailers is the necessity for category managers to focus on all brands within their respective categories and not over-emphasise a private-label brand focus.