Retail Spectacles and Brand Meaning: Insights from a Brand Museum Case Study

This article explores the expansion of brand meaning within a spectacular, retail environment. Spectacular retailing environments include themed retailing, brandscapes, flagship brand stores, themed entertainment brand stores, themed flagship brand stores, and brand museums. This research uses an extended case-study method to investigate the World of Coca-Cola brand museum located in Atlanta, Georgia. A brand museum is a type of themed flagship brand store, but there are some unique aspects. One key feature of brand museums is the resemblance to traditional museums, but, in the former, the brand is positioned within historical and educational contexts. Within the brand museum context, this study explains how brand meaning can be expanded along seven dimensions: humanization, socialization, localization, globalization, contextualization, theatricization, and characterization. Retailing implications are discussed.     

Retail atmospherics: The impact of a brand dictated theme

Although retail atmospherics has been an active area of study, a glance around a typical mall indicates many retailers still do not actively differentiate their retail environment from competitors. This is likely due to retailers considering the atmospheric elements (lighting, music, etc.) individually and making decisions regarding the elements based on what is “standard” for their customers, merchandise, and format. This approach leads to very little differentiation and fails to consider that today’s consumer is often expecting a more multi-sensory, interactive, and holistic shopping experience. This paper considers an alternative approach, where a brand dictated “theme” is used to guide the manipulation of the atmospheric elements. This allows retail brands to break free from standard design to create a more interactive, immersive, and authentic environment. Outcomes include increases in shopping enjoyment, positive brand attitudes, and brand loyalty. T-tests are utilized to compare the two approaches within both the apparel (Study 1) and restaurant (Study 2) industries.     

Brand experience anatomy in retailing: An interpretive structural modeling approach

In today's highly competitive retail environment, retailers have recognized and embraced the concept of offering experiences with the retail brand across various channels beyond new launches and lower prices. To manage the experiences associated with a retail brand, retailers need to understand the concept of brand experience in retailing and the factors that actually comprise it. Interestingly, very few studies have imparted an understanding of brand experience in retailing. This study seeks to understand the retail brand experience and model the interrelationships among retail brand experience variables using interpretive structural modeling (ISM). Retail brand experience variables used in this study have been identified from existing literature on ‘brand experience’ and from brainstorming sessions with academicians and retail industry experts. Our findings show that the variables, namely, packaging of own label brands, customer billings, order and application forms, point-of-sales (i.e., shelf talkers) and recommendation by a salesperson have a high degree of influence and exhibit low dependence. These variables require a great deal of consideration due to their strategic significance to retailers. The approach applied in this study will enhance the understanding of retailers for improving the performance through managed retail brand experience initiatives.     

品牌信仰:构建强势品牌的营销新思考

品牌是企业重要的无形资产,也是企业营销战略的核心。本文以营销学、品牌学、心理学为研究基础,基于消费者视角提出了品牌信仰(Brand Belief)的概念、要素和理论模型,系统地提出了缔造品牌信仰的六大关键步骤。     

Driving In-Role and Extra-Role Brand Performance among Retail Frontline Salespeople: Antecedents and the Moderating Role of Customer Orientation

The organizational frontline in retail represents the frontline for an entire supply chain. This channel structure distances the branded supplier from the end consumer and makes the supplier dependent on a retail frontline salesperson that (1) it does not control and (2) also represents competing brands. This study reveals mechanisms that the supplier may use to influence retail frontline salespeople. We demonstrate the importance of consumer marketing programs and supplier representatives in building brand identification between the manufacturer’s brand and the retail frontline employee that translates into increased brand sales, while also revealing the role of rewards programs in stimulating brand-specific extra-role behaviors. Interestingly, retail frontline customer orientation, built by the retailer, diminishes the effect of brand extra-role behaviors toward the focal brand on the focal brand’s sales, providing an informal control mechanism for retailers to protect its objectives. The results of this study have powerful ramifications for both retailers and suppliers in achieving both their mutual, and sometimes differing, objectives related to the retail frontline.     

Using Lexical Semantic Analysis to Derive Online Brand Positions: An Application to Retail Marketing Research

This paper provides an innovative approach to brand tracking in the context of online retail shopping by deriving meaning from the vast amount of information stored in online search engine databases. The method draws upon research in lexical text analysis and computational linguistics to gain insights into the structural schema of online brand positions. The paper proposes a simple-to-use method that managers can utilize to assess their brand's positioning relative to that of their competitors’ in the online environment.     

品牌信任、顾客满意及关系承诺

基于消费者认知与情感层面,可从消费者与品牌的互动关系入手,将品牌信任划分为转移信任、经验信任两种类型。数据分析表明,对品牌信任的这种新划分存在于消费者与品牌的交互过程之中,不仅具有合理性,而且具有深远的理论意义。数据拟合分析结果表明,转移信任对顾客满意的直接作用非常明显,转移信任能够引起顾客满意,同时顾客满意对经验信任的作用也非常强,顾客满意能够导致经验信任。关系承诺与顾客满意度及经验信任之间存在因果关系,但也会受到其他因素影响,因此即使消费者对品牌产品满意或获得了经验上的信任,也不一定会长期使用或推荐某个品牌的产品。鉴于此,为更好地建立、发展并保持消费者与企业间的长期关系,改善品牌管理方面存在的不足,企业要适时调整营销战略与策略。一要重视消费者转移信任的建立,关注实质的产品质量与服务,关注顾客需求,为顾客解决消费过程中出现的问题,通过建立企业品牌信任,提高顾客满意度;二要培养具备专业知识的业务人员,为消费者提供准确而有价值的产品信息,赢得消费者信任,强化企业与消费者之间的关系,维持企业与顾客之间的长久关系;三要选择有效的途径进行品牌传播,举办吸引消费者参与的活动等,从建立品牌信任开始进行新产品、新品牌的市场开拓。     

Brand Personality and Emotional Attitudes: The Case of Mobile Telephone Operators

ABSTRACT

As part of a brand image, brand personality has aroused for years the interest of scholars and marketers. This article examines this concept in the case of two mobile telephone operators in Tunisia (North Africa). An empirical investigation, based on a sample of 272 students, has shown that brand personality influences and above all is influenced by emotional attitudes within consumers. At a managerial level, this study sheds light on the main brand personality traits (agreeableness, conscientiousness, sophistication, and youth) that make successful product differentiation and communication strategies. An emotion-oriented approach is also indicated as a salient branding management key of success.