Strategic Brand Management and Development

Creating and Marketing Successful Brands

Sotiris T. Lalaounis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000298185
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Marketing
• Index: Business

Bringing together theories and concepts from brand management, consumer culture theory, marketing, communications, and design, this book provides an understanding of how organisations can successfully develop, market, and manage their brands. It draws extensively from scholarly research published in social sciences and humanities to provide a detailed discussion of the process of brand management and development. This book explores how organisations can design brand identities, develop brand marketing programmes, measure brand performance, and sustain brand equity, combining psychological, sociological, cultural, and management perspectives. It provides numerous examples that contextualise theory, enabling the reader to understand how past and present branding campaigns and strategies can be deconstructed, analysed, and evaluated, using these theoretical insights.With end-of-chapter case studies on Burberry, Juventus F.C., Pukka Herbs, YO!, and many other European and global brands, Strategic Brand Management and Development is an essential text for students in marketing, brand management, and consumer research, or for anyone interested in understanding the extraordinary power and scope of brands and branding in contemporary post-modern society.

Chapter1

Introduction: History and the importance of brands

Chapter aims and learning outcomes

Understanding the exact meaning of important concepts can be a good starting point for developing thorough knowledge of a subject. A better understanding of the tangible and intangible characteristics of brands can enrich our grasp of the topic of branding (Moore & Reid, 2008). Thus, before we embark on our exploratory journey on how brands can be developed, marketed, and managed successfully, it is important to introduce brands, reflect on their history, and understand their importance to economy and society. In particular, this chapter aims to achieve the following:

1.Define the concept of brands and branding.

2.Discuss the role of brands in the economy and the society by exploring the history of branding from ancient civilisations to post-modern contemporary societies.

3.Explore the importance of brands to consumers, organisations, and society.

Defining brands

Agreeing on a definition of a concept which is so dynamic and multifaceted can be extremely difficult. Over the years, scholars and practitioners have come up with a plethora of different definitions of brands. Etymologically, the origins of the word brand can be traced in Germanic language, meaning ‘to burn’ (Oxford English Dictionary, 2019). In the past, criminals were stamped with hot irons so that they could be identified (Henning, 2000). Nowadays, as in the past, farmers brand by marking their livestock so that they can identify and distinguish their livestock from those of their competitors. Transferring this notion to branding or marking products and services, the American Marketing Association (AMA) defines brand as:

a name, term, sign, symbol, or design or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors.

(American Marketing Association, 1960)

This is one of the most prominent definitions, and one that has been around for years, yet many critics regard it as one dimensional and outdated. De Chernatony and Dall’Olmo Riley (1998) argue that it limits the scope of brands because it focuses on the organisation’s input in terms of differentiating its product or service through a name or visual identity. Most importantly it ignores the role of the consumers who, as nowadays scholars and practitioners recognise, are not passive recipients of the organisation’s marketing activity; “branding is not something done to consumers, but rather something they do things with” (de Chernatony & Dall’Olmo Riley, 1998, p. 419). Conejo and Wooliscroft (2015) echo this view. They find AMA’s definition rather simplistic as it does not represent how brands have evolved over the last few decades. Furthermore, they argue that brands should be conceptualised as “broad multi-dimensional constructs with varying degrees of meaning, independence, co-creation, and scope” (Conejo & Wooliscroft, 2015, p. 291). In fact, these four elements point to four limitations with AMA’s definition.

First, with regard to meaning, brands have evolved to “sophisticated networks of information, associations, and feelings, and complex bundles of multidimensional meaning” (Conejo & Wooliscroft, 2015, p. 289). Brands are not merely organisational legal trademarks but instead have become consumer symbolic devices that enable consumers to construct, communicate, and maintain their identity (Belk, 1988). There is a continuum of meaning on which we can place brands; on the one hand, there are brands that are very basic in their meaning (e.g. Vodafone telecom services or Soxo salt), and on the other hand, brands that are rich and complex (e.g. Gymshark or the BBC). Brands are dynamic entities and their meanings are fluid. Brand meanings have to be managed across all brand touchpoints, i.e. the points where different publics come into contact with the brand, in order to create identification, differentiation, and value for consumers and organisations (Hales, 2011).

Second, as far as independence is concerned, AMA’s definition creates the notion that brands are part of finished products, and that products are more important than brands. Current thinking challenges this notion because brands have become independent of, and more valuable than, their products. Brand names and symbols do not only refer to products. In our contemporary post-industrial world, organisations outsource the manufacturing of their products and focus on the development of their brands. As Klein explains, many organisations are able to “have their products made for them by contractors, many of them overseas. What these companies [produce] primarily [are] not things…but images of their brands” (1999, p. 4). Brands gain a life of their own beyond products and organisations, and even if products are discontinued or firms go bust, brands can live on as important parts of popular culture (Conejo & Wooliscroft, 2015) if they have gained over the years a certain level of iconicity (Holt, 2004). Similar to meaning, there is a continuum of independence on which we can place brands where, on the one end, some brands are closely linked, or even subordinated, to their products (e.g. Kellogg’s corn flakes), and on the other end, brands are independent of their products (and even of their organisations) (e.g. Nike).

Third, in relation to co-creation, AMA’s definition does not take into account the fact that brand meaning is co-created by consumers with organisations. Consumers are not merely passive recipients of messages but active co-creators of value (Vargo & Lusch, 2004, 2008). Instead, the definition “assumes that since organisations create brands, they therefore largely control brands meanings” (Conejo & Wooliscroft, 2015, p. 290). This assumption does not reflect post-modern reality; meaning is dialogic (Morris, 2003) and brand meaning is generated through a dialogue between consumers and organisations. The Internet and social media provide a variety of platforms on which such discussions can take place. On a continuum of co-creation, some brands might still be solely created by their organisations, while at the other end of the spectrum, other brands are collaboratively co-created by consumers (Vargo and Lusch, 2004, 2008) acting as a community of ‘co-designers’ (Garud, Jain, & Tuertscher, 2008). As explored in Chapter 6, consumers-enthusiasts often form brand communities that construct brand meanings beyond the organisation (e.g. Harley-Davidson) (Fournier & Lee, 2009; Muñiz Jr. & O’Guinn, 2001; Schau, Muñiz Jr., & Arnould, 2009).

Finally, AMA’s definition has an important limitation in regard with brands’ scope. The co-creation of brand meaning activity is not limited to the consumer–organisation dyad; there is a range of external and internal stakeholders involved in the co-creation process: suppliers, distributors, employees, government, competitors, media, pressure groups (e.g. Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth), investors, the local community, and the wider public. All these different stakeholders bring their own backgrounds and worldviews to process and re-distribute brand meanings (Cova, Kozinets, & Shankar, 2007). On a continuum of scope, some brands may still be closely linked to the company (e.g. Samsung), while other brands bring together a variety of internal and external stakeholders (e.g. the International Olympic Committee) (Conejo & Wooliscroft, 2015).

The AMA sought to provide an added definition of brands, perhaps as a response to the criticism its initial definition had received. They specify that:

A brand is a customer experience represented by a collection of images and ideas; often it refers to a symbol such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme. Brand recognition and other reactions are created by the accumulation of experiences with the specific product or service, both directly relating to its use, and through the influence of advertising, design, and media commentary.

(American Marketing Association, 2015, cited in Dall’Olmo Riley, 2016, p. 4)

The above reinforces the argument that the initial AMA definition had been too restrictive and preoccupied with the product. Through a content analysis of extant literature at the time, de Chernatony and Dall’Olmo Riley (1998) identified 12 main themes as accurate categorisations of brand definitions, namely the brand defined as a legal instrument, a logo, a company, shorthand, risk reducer, identity system, image in consumers’ minds, value system, personality, relationship, added value, and an evolving entity. As we can see these themes demonstrate “a shift in emphasis from a notion of brands as logos to a more integrated view as the matching of a firm’s functional and emotional values with the performance and psychosocial values sought by consumers” (de Chernatony and Dall’Olmo Riley, 1998, p. 418). Each categorisation has its advantages and disadvantages and each explore the concept of the brand from a different perspective.

Shifting our thinking from conceptualising the brand as a legal instrument or logo to a value system, a personality, and an evolving entity means that we move from a ‘small b’ brand notion to a ‘big B’ brand notion. AMA’s initial definition mirrors the US Federal Trademark Act definition of legal trademarks, hence it is more in line with the ‘small b’ brand notion where the focus is mainly on the organisation’s input activity (de Chernatony, 1993; de Chernatony and Dall’Olmo Riley, 1998; Dall’Olmo Riley, 2016; Keller, 2006). Instead, the ‘big B’ brand notion views the brand as a more dynamic system of values with its own personality (Aaker, 1997). As de Chernatony explains, a brand “is a cluster of functional and emotional values that enables a promise to be made about a unique and welcomed experience” (2010, p. 17). We must have a more holistic view of the brand which brings together the organisation’s messages (input), i.e. the brand identity, elements, and personality, with the consumers’ processing (output), i.e. the brand image in their minds which includes a set of mental associations (Dall’Olmo Riley, 2016). Brands are great sources of value for the firm and the consumer; they are “multidimensional concepts capable of capturing content, images, feelings, lifestyles, personalities, culture, and other characteristics that help a consumer deeply and uniquely associate, or disassociate, with a brand” (Baalbaki & Guzmán, 2016, p. 32). The wonderful amalgamation of tangible and intangible characteristics that is a brand is eloquently explained by Bastos and Levy (2012) with the following:

Branding reflects the reality of the core product, its facts and features, its functions and benefits, as well as the surrounding aura of its aesthetic, its music, its texture, its visualisation, and its fantasy-like existence in the culture as it relates to societal and customer mythology. Ultimately a brand is an opus, a complex design, a mosaic, a symphony, an evolving cultural construction that benefits from a knowledgeable, and perceptive director, and that fires the imagination. The most successful and iconic brands go beyond the ordinary elements (the four essences of earth, air, fire, and water), to become quintessential, and transcendentally so.

(Bastos & Levy, 2012, p. 360)

Bastos and Levy (2012) point to Apple as the epitome of a successful brand due to its integration of innovative technology, human-centred design, and widespread appeal. The aforementioned statement represents the ethos of this book in that we consider brands and branding not only as a commercial and managerial phenomenon, but one that has a multifaceted nature. Hence, brands and branding need to be explored from a combination of sociological, psychological, cultural, and managerial, perspectives. As Schroeder (2015) argues,

brands and branding are not just managerial tools or marketing concepts, they represent a contested cultural, managerial and scholarly arena. Understanding brands and branding implies an awareness of basic cultural processes that affect contemporary brands, including historical context, ethical concerns, consumer response and regulation.

(Schroeder, 2015, p. 3–4)

History of brands and branding

It has been a popular misconception that brands are a Western outcome of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution. Contrary to popular belief, histo...