Exploring Managers' Views About Brand Saboteurs

This paper explores the relationship between employee behaviour and service brand performance. Current literature emphasizes the importance of employee behaviour in delivering a strong service brand, and suggests that employees can be clustered according to their degree of support for the brand. Twenty in-depth interviews were undertaken with HR and Marketing managers in financial services and grocery firms. In the context of employees as brand builders, we explore whether managers have recognized variations in the level of employee support for the brand. Specifically, we surface managers' views about negative performers, or 'Brand Saboteurs'     

The Role of Perceptions in Predicting Donor Value

Explores the role of donor perceptions in predicting the value of a donor, both to the voluntary sector as a whole and to specific organisations. Three classes of perceptual variable are examined; perceptions of the performance of the voluntary sector/specific organisations, perceptions of any exchange benefits that might accrue and in cases where a relationship already exists, perceptions of the quality of service quality provided. Drawing on results of an empirical study of 5000 donors to ten large national charities, the paper concludes that all three classes of perceptual variable have the capacity to influence donor value.     

Winning Hearts and Minds: Business-to-Business Branding and the Role of the Salesperson

Many business-to-business firms recognise that strong brands can be a valuable resource in today's competitive business environment. To realise the potential of B2B brands, effective communication of brand values is essential. In most B2B markets, the primary form of brand communication is through the sales force and their ability to adapt sales strategies and messages to accommodate customer interactions. There are gaps in the literature regarding the brand value communication process in the customer-salesperson dyad. We argue that successful B2B brand communication requires sales strategies that incorporate brand values appealing to the emotional and the rational concerns of organisational buyers. This paper examines the brand communication process in the salesperson-customer dyad and the extent to which adaptive selling based on a brand platform of rational and emotional brand values could better respond to buying centre members.     

No Logo? No Way. Branding in the Non-Profit Sector.

Ten thousand new organisations are joining the charity sector each year (Hankinson 2000). One of the ways in which charities are responding to this increased competition is to adopt commercial branding techniques (Tapp 1996; Ritchie, Swami et al. 1998). It has been suggested that brand orientation can help to raise awareness amongst target audiences (Hankinson 2000), build loyalty within donor and supporter groups (Ritchie, Swami et al. 1998) and facilitate donor choice (Hankinson 2000). This paper investigates what is understood by the term brand, what constitutes a brand in the charity environment and what organisational objectives a brand strategy seeks to achieve. It also explores the role played by values in developing charity brands. The research is primarily exploratory in nature, drawing on existing branding theory. The findings of the research are reviewed within the context of for-profit and not-for-profit branding literature. Recommendations for further research are also made.     

From E-Channel to Channel Mix and Channel Integration

Based on longitudinal research, this paper elucidates the evolution of the e-channel. The results show that that the e-channel is still of limited importance in many areas, when measured by market share. However, the new channel is an important source of information boosting both consumer power and capability. Another important result is that firms, as well as consumers, still perceive the e-channel as promising. One reason is that today's time-pressed consumers are increasingly in need of affordable services to make their everyday life easier, which puts pressure on firms for developing an e-channel capable to perform cost efficient services. An additional result is that the e-channel and the physical channel do, in fact, complement each other rather than only compete. Therefore, to utilise the potential of the e-channel, a service provider strategy of channel mix and channel integration is suggested.     

Branded lives: The production and consumption of meaning at work

Over the last number of decades, as a result of regulatory, technological and changing consumer dynamics, many service organisations operate in an increasingly competitive and dynamic external environment. These changes have led to service companies trying to both recruit and retain profitable customers. In order to compete effectively, do companies focus on transaction and relationship marketing activities only or on the balanced delivery of both? Apart from a small body of work (Brodie et al. 1997; Coviello et al. 1997; 2002), the literature has treated transaction and relationship marketing in an isolated and non-integrated fashion. In particular there has been limited consideration of the pertinent issues facing service organisations trying to integrate these two perspectives in practice. This article describes an in-depth study of a service organisation's transaction and relationship marketing activities. In this study theory was used in the development of a conceptual model. This model was used as a framework to guide the study and data collection using one retail bank case. The data were analysed in relation to the transaction and relationship marketing focus and activities of the bank. The findings indicate that resource investment in some aspects of transaction and relationship marketing activities, in practice, was unbalanced compared to the resource investment in a wide range of support activities. The study has implications for research and theory and to those attempting to deliver both transaction and relationship marketing in the context of dynamic and competitive environments.     

The emergence and development of place marketing's confused identity

This paper draws parallels between the emergence and development of place marketing research with the emergence of service marketing as a distinct subject area within marketing. However, the topic area itself remains confused, terms used to describe its various associated phenomena have not been clearly defined, there is little consensus what type of marketing or branding applies to places, and the literature has not resolved the differences in marketing / branding individual places and whole nations, thus leading to confusion for academics and practitioners alike. A thematic review of the literature is presented in order to reflect on the way various aspects of the literature have developed, and how this has impacted on the current debate. The confusion over the use of terms originates from the way the literature developed over time in different subject areas, but also appears to be linked to the way authors successfully target articles for publication, using terms that better align with a journal's focus rather than necessarily using the most appropriate term for the specific construct under investigation.     

The Methuselah market

In this paper the authors focus on the Methuselah Market, defined as those people within five years of retirement age. Demographic change over the last 100 years has led to a substantial increase in the proportion of the population in the older, near retirement age group. Yet as consumers the needs of this sector of the population have been neglected by marketers. The size, characteristics and potential of the Methuselah Market are discussed, and specific product areas of particular interest to this market are identified. A further paper will be published in the November issue reviewing the decision‐making process of the older consumer and indicating specific marketing strategies relevant to the Methuselah Market.     

Branding and design management: a brand design management model

As brands have become one of firms' most valuable assets, the search for new ways to build brands that achieve a differentiated status in the minds of customers has become of central importance for companies. If design is guided by the brand, it can serve as the cohesive factor for all elements that configure a brand experience and represent an unequivocal source of differentiation. 37 owners and/or top managers of 28 Spanish companies acclaimed for their design were interviewed in order to build a model that integrates branding and design management. The resulting model integrates the innovation process with different kinds of design, in order to build consistent brand experiences.     

The meaning of commitment in professional service relationships: a study of the meaning of commitment used by lawyers and their clients

Several authors have identified the importance of commitment in successful business relationships. However, few studies have considered the meaning of commitment, especially within the context of customer-supplier relationships.

Most studies of commitment within the marketing literature use existing conceptualisations developed within the psychology and organisational behaviour literatures. The purpose of this paper is to explore the meaning of commitment in a customer-supplier relationship context, and to compare this with traditional conceptualisation of commitment.

This study investigates the meaning of commitment used by both lawyers and their clients, within the context of their relationship. The findings show that the meaning of commitment used in professional relationships may be more complex than its traditional conceptualisation and should be extended to include at least three additional components including: 'partnership commitment', 'impression management commitment' and 'personal commitment'. It is argued that it is inappropriate to 'borrow' the conceptualisation of the construct of commitment from other disciplines, without considering the market-based context in which it is used. Implications for professional service relationships include that professionals and clients would benefit from sharing a similar meaning of commitment and this meaning may be influenced by the culture, systems and processes of their organisation.