Understanding the relationships among brands, consumers, and resellers

This article examines the historical evolution of the relationships among brands, consumers, and resellers in a world increasingly dominated by very large retail organizations with substantial power within the marketing channel. It is widely believed that manufacturers' brands are becoming less important as major retailers are becoming more powerful. This view is based on the mistaken assumption that brands are relationships with consumers, not resellers. Arguments about the decline of brands are often confused with arguments about changes in the brand management function. As major firms redefine their customer as the reseller, not the consumer, there are substantial implications for brand management and the role of the brand manager. Marketing strategy implementation will require increasingly careful coordination of marketing programs with sales strategy to achieve the necessary coordination of reseller- and consumer-targeted communications to maximize the value of the brand to both the retailer and the end user. The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. —Mark Twain, cablegram, 1897 Frederick E. Webster, Jr., is the Charles Henry Jones Third Century Professor of Management in the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College. He is a past executive director of the Marketing Science Institute. He is the author ofMarket-Driven Management and Industrial Marketing Strategy and has contributed a chapter on “The Future Role of Marketing in the Organization” inReflections on the Futures of Marketing, published by the Marketing Science Institute in 1997. He earned his Ph.D. at Stanford University.