Branding
Week 1
Article 1(Swaminathan) Branding in a Hyperconnected world: Refocusing Theories and
Rethinking Boundaries
Goal
This article examines how existing perspective need to be refocused and rethought to address the
realities of contemporary society
1. It is looking at the firm perspective from a strategic (brand positioning, targeting, launch,
growth of brands, portfolio architecture) and financial perspective (brand equity and branding
actions affecting the stock market)
2. It is also looking from a consumer perspective adopting an economic approach (information
asymmetries, the relationship between perceive reputation, quality on market performance.
Counterbalancing the economic approach with a psychological approach, the article also
investigates the factors that affect consumer’s minds, the mental representation of brand
awareness, brand image, and key construct conceptualising brand equity.
3. Lastly from a society perspective, the article adopt a sociological approach focusing mainly on
brands as portable containers of meaning that are shaped by institutions and collectives from
the time the brand is conceived, produced and marketed through the post-purchase stage.
Sociological models are recursive and dynamic. Its also taking a cultural approach to
understand the changes of hyperconnectivity, how brands become popular through their
production of cultural capital and the dynamic relationship it has with consumer actions, the
marketplace and cultural meanings.
Findings
Technological advances have resulted in a hyperconnected world requiring a reassessment of
branding research from the perspective of firms, consumers and society.
Hyperconnected world is characterized bz networks of people, devices and other entities that are
continuously interacting and exchanging information.
Hyperconnectivity has led to several new roles for brands. Traditional roles of brands (e.g. brand
signals of quality or as mental cues) have changed in a hyperconnected world and new question are
arising.
,The manner in which consumers interact with brands is also changing due to the rise of digital native
brands, the ubiquitous acces to information and products via online channels and broad availability of
smart devices.
- Blurring Boundaries: Brands are shifting away from single ownership to shared ownership,
as heightened access to information and people is allowing more stakeholders to cocreate
brand meaning and experiences alongside traditional brand owners and managers.
- Hyperconnectivity contributes to several new roles in which brands are containers of
socially constructed meaning, architects of value in networks, catalysts of
communities, arbiters of controversy and stewards of data privacy amongst others.
- Blurring of branding: traditionally brand management methods were designed for a
world in which consumers were exposed to firm controlled media because these
possessed more information. Today information becomes available widely across
multiple channels, consumers’ attention is scattered across many media and
channels, forcing a multitude of branded entities to compete to gain consumers’
awareness and potentially to form an emotional connection
- Beyond cocreation of brand meaning, brand stakeholders (e.g. customers,
employees, firm partners, communities, society at large) are increasingly shaping
various aspects of product and marketing mix activities.
- E.g. firm that use platform based business model often bring together
partners that help co-create the entire brand experience.
- Broadening boundaries: Hyperconnectivity has allowed existing brands to expand their
geographic reach and societal roles, while new types of branded entities (ideas, people,
places, and organisational brands) are further stretching the branding space
- Platform brands: airbin
- Smart brands: google nest
- Idea brands: #metoo
- Person brands: kim kardashian
- The aspects influence how hyperconnected a world is or not:
1. Information availability and speed of information dissemination
increasing rapidly with technology and also making the information more
readily available to everyone reducing the signaling effect that brands use to
have due to possessing more information than consumers.
2. Networks of people and devices and the growth of platforms whereby the
development of these networks has resulted in brand cocreation rather than
two distinct parties having an exchange
3. Device to device connectivity: brand experiences are significantly more
complex due to the fact that they can be accessed via different channels that
seamlessly connect with one another. Heightened connectivity among
devices has led to brands themselves being integral components of networks
of smart products that are populating the internet of things.
- Marketers are losing some control over the meaning that consumers associate with
brands, due to the increasing amount of brand related stakeholder involved in
shaping brand associations.
- Hyperconnectivity has allowes brands to reach stakeholder from all around the world
which broadens the impact for branding (e.g. citizen voters, donors, activists, local
communities, government and society as a whole)
,Consequences of Hyperconnectivity on Branding
1) Rethinking the roles and the functions of brands
- Brands are no longer strong signals because information asymmetries have declined
so brands now serve as weak quality signals. (e.g. increase of tripadvisor has
decreased the information travel agencies possessed)
- Brands information processing should now also consider not only consumer
motivations but sensory information that contribute to brand awareness and choice.
- For instance, sensory rich retail environment as well as VA allow now people
to experience the power of multisensory stimulation and consider brands in
environments that may be dynamic and virtual
- Brands as instruments of identity expression: brands can be used to support a
desired consumer identity and may be associated with humanlike traits. Consumers
use these brand association in an instrumental way to signal their identity. However
hyperconnectivity has caused consumers to now adopt multiple personae on their
devices and change their identities frequently. Their sense of self diverge based on
the offline or online medium which is causing organisation to rethink how they want to
leverage their brand identities.
- Hyperconnectivity can facilitate access to a broader set of brands in the digital space
that can be used by consumers to express their identity, providing consumers a richer
set of identity building tools. It is tempting for brands that want to remain relevant in
the eyes of millennial consumers to take a stance on important social issues but how
to do so is lacking in terms of research and conclusive literature.
- Brand as architects of value network: a better understanding of the brand network
user experience and how consumer derive utility from such a network is warranted.
Brands can not only help organise informational content on network but also serve as
gatekeepers of information they want consumers to see or purchase.
- Brands as catalyst of communities: hyperconnectivity has increased the potential for
individuals to establish and join brand communities.
- Brand as arbiters of controversy: brands now adopt controversial stances on key
topics such as feminism, LGBTQ rights and racial issues and in doing so, appeal to
consumer at the epicenter of cultural controversy
- Hyperconnectivity has not only afforder brands the opportunity to have a
stronger voice but also reduced their ability to stay above the fray on
controversial topics
- Brands as Stewards of Data Privacy: policy makes and consumers have begun
emphasizing the important role of governmental regulation in moderating privacy
concerns emerging as a consequence of hyperconnectivity.
, 2) Rethinking brand value creation and cocreation
- Cocreating Branding Experiences: the most significant change in how brands deliver
value in the digital economy is the cocreation of brand experiences with consumers or
partners.
- E.g. cocreationof the brand experience often occur on digital platforms,
defined as enterprises that uses the internat to facilitate economically
beneficial interaction between 2+ groups of user (e.g. Airbnb, Amazon etc)
- Cocreating brand meaning: large volume of UGC is being produced through digital
channels which have made it easier for marketers to listen to consumers on SM
platforms. Such listening has allowed marketers to derive unique insights into
consumer needs and wants, thus allowing them to replace costly traditional marketing
research with low cost granular data available through social listening via UGC.
- Understanding the implication of UGC on downstream outcomes such as CE,
the motivations of consumers to engage in generating organic WOM has
received more and more research attention.
- Creating new brands in a hyperconnected world: means taking into account the
breadth of new offerings ranging from digital platform brands to smart products to
new business models powered by new technologies. Brands need to manage
complex products that all interact in newer ways with the owners and with
complementary products and people.
- The impact of network of brands, like that of communities, requires additional
sociological, psychological and cultural insight.
- E.g. growth of DTC shows that brands not only leverage hyperconnectivity by
selling their products online, rather they try to provide a distinct brand
experience that sets them apart from brick and mortar competitors by tapping
into network effects. (e.g. Glossier inviting customer to share product ideas
and incentivizing them to share their brand experiences with followers across
SM channels)
- 3 facets of hyperconnectivity are particularly relevant in the context of new
brands now: (1) network communication (WOM, viral content), (2) network value
creation (connectable content using VA, blockchain, technology, (3) data collection
in such a way that it has a beneficial impact for the audience who’s data is being
collected, e.g. netflix.
