Are service brands constrained in launching new service offerings? Both research evidence and managerial wisdom suggest brands should extend to similar categories. However, in five studies using ...real-life brands - four experiments and one large-sample survey - we provide evidence that similarity is less of a constraint for service brands extending to other service categories (service-to-service extensions), compared to cases involving parent brands or extension categories of a product nature. Importantly, we demonstrate that such an effect occurs because service brands possess associations relevant across the spectrum of service categories. Our results suggest that service brand managers have the opportunity to stretch their brands to dissimilar service offerings; yet, they need to ensure the marketing execution does not make the brands’ service associations inaccessible to consumers. The findings suggest that even product brands can build service associations by adding service components to their offering, thus becoming “servitized” and better able to extend to dissimilar service categories. Overall, our work contributes to the academic debate documenting that the principles governing the management of product vs. service brands are not identical.
Internal Branding Löhndorf, Birgit; Diamantopoulos, Adamantios
Journal of service research : JSR,
08/2014, Volume:
17, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Prior research acknowledges employees' crucial role in building strong service brands, yet empirical research on how to turn employees into brand champions remains scarce and has been largely ...approached from an internal branding perspective. Drawing on social identity and social exchange theories, this study takes a broader organizational perspective to link internal branding outcomes (employee-brand fit, brand knowledge, and belief in the brand) and employees' perceptions of organizational support to a range of employee brand-building behaviors, with organizational identification as the key mediating mechanism. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of employee data from a major retail bank reveal organizational identification as a strong motivational force for employees to become brand champions, largely mediating the effects of internal branding outcomes. When organizational identification is low, perceived organizational support (as a quality indicator of employees' exchange-based relationship with the organization) constitutes an alternative, external motivator of on-the-job brand building behaviors; when organizational identification is high, perceived organizational support boosts employees' voluntary participation in brand development and positive word-of-mouth. These findings highlight the managerial relevance of the employee-organization relationship for turning employees into brand champions and show how organizational identification can be stimulated by means of internal branding.
Private-label brands have been offered as an alternative to national brands. Given the widespread belief that private-label brands offer good value, it is surprising that the market share of such ...brands has remained low in most countries. In the current research, we examine the interactive effect of power distance belief (PDB) – the acceptance and expectation of hierarchies and inequalities in society – and consumers’ status on their preference for private-label (vs. national) brands. Results revealed that in high-PDB contexts, low (vs. high) status consumers are more attracted to national brands. Interestingly, this effect emerged only for products low, compared to high, in symbolism. Furthermore, results suggest that the interactive effect of PDB and consumers’ status on brand preferences is driven by consumers’ status consumption needs.
Finding greener grass on the other side of hill Kashif, Muhammad; Fernando, P.M.P.; Samad, Sarminah ...
Asia Pacific journal of marketing and logistics,
11/2018, Volume:
30, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Purpose The research concerning brand credibility of charity brands is scantly examined. The purpose of this paper is to examine the moderating role of brand credibility within the customer-based ...brand equity model to investigate donor perceived brand equity of charity brands. Design/methodology/approach In a cross-sectional research design, a survey-based research strategy is followed to collect data from 448 active Muslim donors in Pakistan. The collected data are analysed by employing confirmatory factor analysis based on Smart PLS 2.0. Findings The results indicate that donor perceived brand association, brand awareness and brand loyalty strongly relate to perceived brand equity of charity brands. The brand credibility moderates the relationship between perceived quality, equity and brand loyalty, and equity paths. Practical implications The charity brands need to focus on building a strong brand image and reputation to uplift brand credibility which can be achieved by offering training programmes addressing various social causes such as HIV and Cancer prevention. Originality/value The proposed moderating effects of brand credibility and its application to charity brands operating in an Asian Muslim country context are unique products of this study.
Despite the call in literature, the masstige brands in the service industry remain unexplored exposing an important literature gap. This study employed the masstige theory to explore and ...conceptualize luxury service brands. An initial pre‐test study was used to identify the masstige brands in the service category. Study 2 comprised a quantitative survey on 358 identified masstige brand users for two purposes: (i) To determine the masstige mean scores of the specified brands. (ii) To examine the association between masstige consumption, brand happiness, and brand advocacy for masstige brands in the tourism and airline category. It was found that service masstige brand consumption does influence brand happiness, which further affects consumers' brand advocacy. Further, the masstige consumption and brand happiness relation was moderated by internal motivations but not external motivations. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
In many countries, the growth of private label brands (PLBs) is negatively affecting manufacturer brands' shares, though PLBs have yet to take hold in other markets. Numerous studies have identified ...factors leading to the success of PLBs in product categories, and yet little empirical research has investigated the factors underlying the variability of PLB shares across countries. This research examines country-level market structure factors—retail distribution structure, retailer typology, and logistic structure—to understand the differential success of PLBs across countries. The results indicate that these factors help explain the dispersion pattern of PLB penetration across 46 countries and that the distribution structure has the largest effect on PLB share, followed by the logistic structure and retailer typology in particular global discounters. The findings can enable manufacturer brand managers to better foresee whether specific countries represent fertile ground for internationalizing their brands or, contrarily, constitute bastions for brand manufacturers to protect their brands' shares. The results also provide insights about the time frame over which PLB share development may pose a threat in different markets.
In recent efforts, instead of the conventional co-branding marketing approach, many fashion brands have tried to break through the original image by applying a crossover alliance method, and have ...achieved good results in practice. However, whether this kind of alliance can effectively enhance consumers’ online brand engagement is still a key question to be addressed. Using the S-O-R model, the paper introduces two mediating variables, novelty perception and hedonic perception, to explore the potential mechanism of brand image differences and product type differences on consumers’ online brand engagement under the background of a crossover alliance of fashion brands. This study shows that (1) brand image differences and product type differences positively affect consumers’ novelty perceptions and hedonic perceptions, and (2) such positive perceptions facilitate online brand engagement of consumers.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate members’ reactions to the forced closure of a narrative video game brand community and its participatory culture.
Design/methodology/approach
The ...BioWare Social Network forums closure was announced in a thread, which attracted 8,891 posts. These were analysed using thematic analysis, facilitated by the software program Leximancer and non-participatory netnography.
Findings
The brand community and participatory culture members were predominantly distressed because they would lose their relationships with each other and access to the participatory culture’s creative output.
Research limitations/implications
Previous research suggested that video game players cannot be fans and that player-generated content is exploitative. However, members, self-identified as fans, encouraged BioWare’s use of their player-created content for financial gain and articulated the community’s marketing benefits, all of which have implications for Fan and Game Studies’ researchers. Research using primary data could identify brand communities and participatory cultures’ specific benefits and their members’ attitudes about brands’ commercial use of their outputs. Further research is required to identify other products and brands not suitable for establishing brand communities on social media to determine the best ways to manage them.
Practical implications
Addressing narrative brand communities’ complaints quickly can prevent negative financial outcomes and using social media sites for brand communities may not be suitable structurally or because of members’ privacy concerns. Furthermore, consumers often have intense emotional bonds with narrative brands, their communities and participatory cultures, which marketers may underestimate or misunderstand.
Originality/value
This study of the unique phenomenon of the forced closure of a narrative brand community and its participatory culture increased understandings about them.
As global players, multinational product and corporate brands are known to have an advantage over local competitors.Although foreign multinational corporations (MNCs) increasingly compete against ...domestic MNCs, particularly in economically strong countries, little is known about (1) whether foreign MNCs can use their globalness to their advantage and (2) how the perceptions of foreign versus domestic MNCs drive consumer behavior. To examine this issue, the authors propose a framework based on accessibility-diagnosticity theory and test it using consumer data from countries in which leading foreign and domestic MNCs compete. The results show that perceived brand globalness enhances consumers 9 intentional loyalty toward MNCs indirectly by affecting the functional and psychological value these MNCs offer. The value-creation routes change according to firms' origins—that is, foreign MNCs translate globalness through functional and psychological value, while domestic MNCs translate globalness through psychological value. However, the benefits of being global and the value-creation routes for foreign (vs. domestic) MNCs differ between countries. Finally, high consumer ethnocentrism weakens—but does not completely erase—the effects of perceived brand globalness in all countries and interacts with MNCs' origins.
Nearly a quarter of all products purchased in U.S. supermarkets and drug stores are store brands (SBs). Although the presence of SBs benefits both consumers and retailers, it is a threat to the ...dominance of the incumbent national brand manufacturers (NBMs). When considering the potential threat of an SB, an NBM generally pursues one of three strategies: accommodate, displace, or buffer. Under the
accommodation
strategy, the NBM repositions the products in his existing product line. Under the
displacement
strategy, the NBM elects to supply the SB to preempt the entry of the SB supplier. Under the
buffering
strategy, the NBM adds a
defender
product, which competes with his own product offering and the new SB. Using a game-theoretic model, we consider a market where consumers are heterogeneous in their valuation of product quality and analyze an NBM's response to an SB threat. We focus on two important drivers: the NBM's ability to differentiate on the quality dimensions and his cost advantage over the outside supplier of SB. To completely characterize the NBM's response, we consider two regimes. In the first regime, the NBM is a monopolist producer. In the second regime, the retailer has the added option of procuring an SB product from an independent, nonstrategic SB manufacturer. By comparing the results from both regimes, we develop a descriptive theory that clarifies the incentives of the NBM to accommodate, displace, or buffer. In doing this, we determine how the NBM's whole product portfolio should be designed, i.e., the positioning (quality levels) and prices of all its offerings.
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