Search

Purpose: Service branding research predominantly focuses on the purchase and postpurchase stages of the customer journey. This study aims to expand the lens of enquiry to the prepurchase stage, showing the role service brand awareness and service brand retrieval play before customer experiences and relationships can be established. Design/methodology/approach: The research presents and empirically examines a new framework that links service brand awareness and service brand retrieval to key "battlegrounds" in the prepurchase stage of the customer journey: entry into the Awareness Set, Consideration Set and Repertoire Set. The empirical work draws on data from both services and goods markets from two UK-based consumer surveys (N = 771 and N = 270, respectively). Findings: The findings indicate that, prepurchase, service brands compete most intensively to establish and reinforce a broad array of memory associations, rather than a specific corporate or brand image. Research limitations/implications: To improve the generalizability of the conclusions drawn, the findings of this study should be replicated in additional service categories and consumer samples. Practical implications: The findings translate into novel, long-term strategies for the management of service brands at the prepurchase stage of the customer journey, especially opportunities for effective and creative marketing communications. Originality/value: This study contributes to marketing research and practice by introducing the notion of service brand retrieval and highlighting its role, together with service brand awareness and prepurchase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims to investigate the country-of-origin effect and the branding process on the brand equity of Greek yogurt abroad, specifically in the United Kingdom. The research was carried out as a 2 × 2 experiment using a closed-ended questionnaire with the participation of a total of 400 consumers, using two Greek yogurts (branded and non-branded) as the product under study, with or without country-of-origin insignia (viz. the Greek flag) on the packaging. According to the research results, brand equity was found to be higher for the branded Greek yogurt with country-of-origin insignia among the four product categories, as reflected in its three sub-dimensions (brand awareness, loyalty, and perceived quality). It was also found that country of origin influences brand equity regardless of branding, a finding that confirms the significant effect of this factor on consumers' perceptions. This highlights the distinction between perceived quality and the specific image of the country in terms of its production experience for a specific product category. Based on these findings, Greek yogurt companies exporting abroad should lay great emphasis on developing branding strategies to strengthen their product brand, while at the same time incorporate country of origin as an indicator of the quality of their brand. The latter finding applies in particular to less well-known brands, since geographical indication (insignia) or other strategies that promote the country of origin are perceived as important informational cues for consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the variation in brand growth and decline across many different product categories. It uses recent consumer panel data from the UK, covering 639 brands across 28 categories, including food, personal care, home care and pet food, over a five-year period from 2008 to 2012. Consistent with the literature, the study finds that most brands in the consumer packaged goods market are stationary, as only 14% of the brands change their market share by more than three points. However, the study discovers that some categories are more dynamic than others. The percentage of brands that change their share by more than three points is different across the categories, varying from 0% to 44%. The study further examines some potential factors that can affect the variation and finds that category penetration and purchase frequency have significant effects on the variation. The lower the category penetration and category purchase frequency, the lower the brand share stationarity. On the other hand, proportion of sales on promotion in the category and new SKU introductions do not have a significant effect on the variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Index.Comunicación is the property of Index.comunicacion and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Numerous designer luxury brands have been interested in creating co-branding partnerships with the fast-fashion retailer H&M. Despite the recognition by some researchers of the value of examining whether consumer reactions to the co-partnering luxury brands will be affected by the collaboration, to the best of our knowledge, no research to date has examined luxury consumer reactions to such partnerships. Accordingly, this research specifically explores how the collaboration between a luxury brand and a fast-fashion brand impacts on consumer reactions to the luxury brand. Considering the exploratory nature of this study, thirty face-to-face in-depth interviews were conducted in the UK to reveal insights into consumer reactions, given the limited knowledge on the subject matter. Six themes emerged from this study: (a) enhanced brand awareness, (b) impaired perception, (c) word-of-mouth, (d) consumer engagement, (e) perceived self-expressiveness and (f) brand avoidance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on a study which compared the sponsorship management practices used in the Twenty20 cricket in Great Britain and India. The authors report that while both groups prioritize critical success factors and employ a strict selection procedure in getting sponsorship rights, the Indian sample appears to be more strategic in nature. They find that the Indian sample seems to be more target audience-oriented and plan sponsorship programs that are more synergistic with the current marketing communications and corporate plan.