Resource Guide

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Country Resources,Country Image,and Exports: Country Branding and International Marketing Implications

ABSTRACT

A country's economic, political, and socio-cultural institutions have always been regarded as important determinants of a company's exports and international marketing strategies. With the recent thinking about countries becoming more like a brand, these factors should impact a country's marketing and branding strategies. There has been a call for more research on how countries can use their institutions and resources to enhance their globalization efforts. This study intends to fill this gap by examining the relationships between country institutions and resources, country image, and exports based on institution theory and resource advantage theory. Both archival and primary data for 24 countries over 12 years (1995–2006) were used to assess a random-effects panel data model. The results reveal the significance of economic development and communication infrastructure on exports. In addition, country image was found to indirectly affect exports. The theoretical and practical implications on country branding and international marketing conclude the article.     

Endogenous retailer preferences in intermediate good markets

We model strategic interaction in a differentiated input market as a game among two suppliers and n retailers. Each one of the upstream firms chooses the specification of the input which it will offer.Then, retailers choose their type from a continuum of possibilities. The decisions made in these two first stages affect the degree of compatibility between each retailer's ideal input specification and that of the inputs offered by the two upstream firms. In a third stage, upstream firms compete setting input prices. Equilibrium may be of the two-vendor policy or of the technological monopoly type.     

Balancing acts: Managing employees and reputation in social media

Abstract

Although previous studies have shown that social-media platforms offer companies new ways to gain business value, they have also identified fundamental brand-related challenges in social media. The purpose of this paper is to complement the extant literature by addressing the ways in which companies manage their reputation in social media, focusing on the role of employees. We first illustrate how social-media environments amplify the need for distinct corporate reputation-management practices and, second, how challenges and solutions vary across companies in different sectors and businesses. We contribute to prior research by conceptualising corporate reputation management in social media as balancing acts, which take place in relation to different, contradictory, and sometimes paradoxical priorities related to branding and managing employees.     

Political branding: sense of identity or identity crisis? An investigation of the transfer potential of the brand identity prism to the UK Conservative Party

Abstract

Brands are strategic assets and key to achieving a competitive advantage. Brands can be seen as a heuristic device, encapsulating a series of values that enable the consumer to make quick and efficient choices. More recently, the notion of a political brand and the rhetoric of branding have been widely adopted by many political parties as they seek to differentiate themselves, and this has led to an emerging interest in the idea of the political brand. Therefore, this paper examines the UK Conservative Party brand under David Cameron’s leadership and examines the applicability of Kapferer’s brand identity prism to political branding. This paper extends and operationalises the brand identity prism into a ‘political brand identity network’ which identifies the inter-relatedness of the components of the corporate political brand and the candidate political brand. Crucial for practitioners, this model can demonstrate how the brand is presented and communicated to the electorate and serves as a useful mechanism to identify consistency within the corporate and candidate political brands.     

What is the added value of an organic label? Proposition of a model of transfer from the perspective of ingredient branding

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the added value of an organic ingredient strategy and the transfer mechanisms at work when placing an organic label on product brands. We proposed and empirically tested an integrated model that included three stages: brand and label equity; transfer mechanisms; and product evaluation. We first selected an organic label and product brands and then tested our hypotheses with a sample of French consumers. The results confirm the positive influence of brand and label equity on transfer mechanisms (brand/label perceived fit and ease of transfer) and, in turn, illustrate how ease of transfer influences the overall product evaluation. A surprising result is that brand/label perceived fit does not directly affect the overall product evaluation; rather, it only influences brand/label ease of transfer.     

Branding in the age of social media firestorms: how to create brand value by fighting back online

ABSTRACT

Leading research on social media firestorms typically advises managers to quickly quell the backlash by appeasing brand critics. Drawing on crisis communications and branding research, we offer a radically different perspective and argue that brands can benefit from fighting back online. Through a netnography of a moral-based firestorm, we contribute to the marketing and crisis communications literatures by identifying the escalation strategy as a way to build brand value; explaining how brands can activate supporters; and providing guidance on how to assess these morally steeped events. We advance branding research by identifying how managers can provoke consumer-generated brand stories; and uncovering the hidden benefits of negative consumer voices. Finally, we outline a new perspective on how brands are dialogically constructed through a process we call ‘flyting’.     

The Influence of Reputation and Sector on Perceptions of Brand Alliances of Nonprofit Organizations

Brand alliances long have been used in the private sector and are being more frequently engaged by nonprofit organizations. It is assumed that the alliance benefits both organizations, particularly the focal nonprofit organization that strategically forms the partnership. But care must be taken in selecting partners. A quasi‐experimental design examines the relationship between partner reputation and sector (private or nonprofit) on subject willingness to contribute to a focal nonprofit organization. Partner public reputation was systematically varied using created organizations and a positive reputation enhanced willingness to contribute. Partnering with private sector organizations was only slightly less desirable than nonprofit organizations.     

Kynecting the Dots: How Kentucky’s Willingness to Loosen the Reins Sparked a Health Insurance Enrollment Race in the Bluegrass State

The development of health insurance exchanges within the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) legislation is one of the hottest health policy issues of this decade. With the surprise enrollment success of Kentucky’s exchange called “Kynect,” the influence of how marketing and branding have contributed to the embrace of the policy has garnered interest from scholars and practitioners alike. Driven by the utilization of in-depth interviews, this study found that Kynect’s success was aided by three emergent themes: frequent communication between the outsourced marketing firm, Doe-Anderson, and relevant stakeholders; the willingness to delegate all marketing and branding control to Doe-Anderson; and a multiparty commitment to developing and executing a campaign that would simultaneously adhere to public values and accentuate a feeling of localness to constituents across the state. The paper contributes to existing literature by providing an inside look at how a government can find marketing success against historical odds.     

Celling The Concept: A Study of Managerial Brand Mindsharing of A Distributed Biobanking Research Infrastructure

This interview study investigates how managers/associates of a failed distributed large-scale Research Infrastructures perceived their brand and the role mindsharing played in light of the organisation’s ultimate failure. Specifically, the study looks at BioBanking and Molecular Resource Infrastructure in Sweden (BBMRI.se), an organisation that involved collaboration between several medical and technical universities and sought to harmonise biobanking in Sweden. The aim was to discern the respondents’ degree of mindsharing in regards to their perception of the organisational brand. The four stages the branding process investigated were: Brand Strategic Analysis, Brand Identity, Brand Operationalising, and Post-Implementation Reflections. The results indicated that the mindsharing was present at the initial two stages, but dissipated throughout the ensuing two final stages, resulting in a fragmented brand perception, thereby forgoing the ability of generating a “pull-effect” for the BBMRI.se brand. The study’s implication is for branding to account more for social and individual motivations and less for instrumental motivations, e.g. mission statements.