Article2014

Rethinking brand architecture: a study on industry, company- and product-level drivers of branding strategy

34 citations0/0 files storedEuropean Journal of Marketing

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Marketing and Advertising Strategies Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification Corporate Identity and Reputation

Abstract

Purpose – This study aims to compare academic prescriptive models on how to choose a branding strategy on the continuum from a “branded house” to a “house of brands” with real-life branding strategies of leading companies. Design/methodology/approach – Data from an executive survey, observations and desk research on 75 leading companies in Austria are analysed with multilevel weighted least squares (WLS) regression. Findings – Branding strategies for products are determined by industry (23 per cent of variance), the overall strategy of the company (28 per cent), the remaining variance being product-level decisions deviating from both. Service and consumer durables companies lean more towards corporate branding than consumer nondurables. On the company level, synergies in advertising, e-commerce and e-CRM (customer-relationship management) increase the usage of shared brands. A higher company age leads to brand proliferation. On the product level, quality differences between products, the emphasis on and differences in experiential product positioning and, marginally, the symbolic differences between products favour individual brands. Research limitations/implications – Future research should investigate additional markets, additional drivers, small and medium-sized entreprises (SMEs) and employ additional measures. Practical implications – The study informs brand-architecture audits with benchmarks from leading companies, calls for a view of brand architecture more flexible than ideal-type categories proposed in literature and cautions against management inertia, industry standards and trends in designing branding strategies. Originality/value – This study is the first quantitative cross-industry multi-level study on real-life branding strategies. It also applies a new conceptualisation and measurement of branding strategy.

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References

1998Consumers and Their Brands: Developing Relationship Theory in Consumer Research 1990Market Orientation: The Construct, Research Propositions, and Managerial Implications 1990Market Orientation: The Construct, Research Propositions, and Managerial Implications 1990Consumer Evaluations of Brand Extensions 2000No Pain, No Gain: A Critical Review of the Literature on Signaling Unobservable Product Quality 1991Evaluation of Brand Extensions: The Role of Product Feature Similarity and Brand Concept Consistency 2006Research on Innovation: A Review and Agenda for Marketing Science 1988Umbrella Branding as a Signal of New Product Quality: An Example of Signalling by Posting a Bond

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