Branding Literature 2022-2023
Week 1. Brand Value
1. Branding in a Hyperconnected World: Refocusing Theories and Rethinking
Boundaries (Swaminathan et al., 2020)
● Examines a broad type of entities: platform brands, direct-to-consumer brands, smart
brands, idea brands, person brands
● Examines how existing perspectives need to be refocused and rethought to address the
realities of contemporary society.
● Investigate the blurring of brand boundaries brought about by technology-induced
hyperconnectivity
● Hyperconnectivity = the proliferation of networks of people, devices, and other
entities, as well as the continuous access to other people, machines, and organizations,
regardless of time or location.
○ Information is always accessible and abundant, search costs are low, goods
and services from across geographic boundaries are easier to reach than ever,
and firms may no longer be the primary source of information about brands.
○ Led to 2 changes in branding:
1. Brands are shifting away from single to shared ownership = “blurring
of branding boundaries”
, 2. Allowed existing brands to expand their geographic reach and societal
roles, while new types of brands are stretching the branding space =
“broadening of branding boundaries”
● 3 core perspectives that have underscored traditional branding research:
1. What are the roles and functions of brands?
2. How do brands (co)create value?
3. How should a brand be managed?
● 3 theoretical perspectives:
1. Firm perspective
a. Strategic approach: development and implementation of brand identity;
positioning, targeting, launch, and growth of brands, brand portfolio
architecture; management of brands across geographic boundaries
b. Financial approach: the effect of brand equity and branding actions on
the stock market value of firms
2. Consumer perspective
a. Economic approach: information asymmetry between firms and
consumers
b. Psychological approach: brand equity resides in the minds of
customers (brand knowledge + brand image)
3. Society perspective
a. Sociological approach: 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 postpurchase stage
b. Cultural approach: branded goods, as cultural meaning producers,
enhance consumers’ lives
● Aspects of hyperconnectivity that are relevant to branding research and management:
1. Information availability and speed of information dissemination
● Consumers need to expend less effort in learning information about
brands
● Information overload → reduces brand’s ability to capture attention of
target segment
2. Networks of people and devices, and the growth of platforms
● Loss of control on brand meaning and brand experiences
3. Device-to-device connectivity
2. Reflections on customer-based brand equity: perspectives, progress, and priorities
(Keller)
Goals CBBE article:
, ● Provide a conceptual overview of brand equity which would be helpful in thinking
about how to build, measure, and manage brand equity.
● Specific definition of brand equity → customer-based brand equity = the differential
effect that brand knowledge has on customer response to brand marketing activity,
characterized by three categories:
1. differential effects created by a brand
2. brand knowledge( = any type of mental brand association) as the source of the
differential effects
3. response to a wide variety of different marketing and other variables for the
brands as the basis or outcomes of those differential effects
● Provide strategic insight and guidelines centered around consumer behavior theory
● Provide useful structure into how to think about building, measuring and managing
customer-based brand equity
○ Building customer-based equity:
1. Choosing brand identities or elements
2. Designing and implementing marketing activities
3. Leveraging secondary associations by linking the brand to some other
entity (person, place, thing)
● 2 approaches to measuring customer-based brand equity
1. Indirect approach: focused on potential sources of brand equity by
measuring brand knowledge
2. Direct approach: attempted to measure the differential effect created by
that brand knowledge on consumer response to different aspects of the
brand’s marketing program.
● 6 guidelines for managing customer-based brand equity:
1. Emphasizing the importance of taking a broad and long-term view of
marketing a brand
2. Specifying the desired consumer knowledge structures and core
benefits for a brand
3. Considering a wide range of traditional and nontraditional advertising,
promotion and other marketing options
4. Coordinating the marketing options that were chosen
5. Conducting tracking studies and controlled experiments
6. Evaluating potential extension candidates
● Outline a number of branding topics for future research
Marketing: “satisfying consumer needs and wants better than competitors
Brand knowledge
● Associative network memory model
● Brand knowledge:
1. Brand awareness
a. Brand recall
b. Brand recognition
2. Brand image
a. Strength
b. Favorability
c. Uniqueness
, Articulating brand knowledge
1. Marketing activity creates/affects multiple dimensions of brand knowledge
(awareness, attributes, benefits, images, thoughts, feelings, attitudes, experiences)
2. Multiple dimensions of brand knowledge influence consumer response to marketing
activity
Brand leveraging process: any other entity (person, place, thing) can be characterized by the
same dimensions of brand knowledge.
Three-factor model: the extent of equity transfer that could potentially occur from linking a
brand to another entity depends on:
1. Consumer knowledge of the other entity
2. Meaningfulness of the knowledge of the entity of the brand
3. Transferability of the knowledge of the entity of the brand
Additional research:
Brand personality, brand anthropomorphism, brand emotions, sensory marketing, marketing
aesthetics, self-brand relationships. lifestyle branding, brand tourism
Brand resonance model
→ focused on key dimensions of brand knowledge & how they affected resulting in
consumer-brand relationships. Outlines a series of branding stages and building blocks to
profile how consumers form relationships with brands.
● Brand salience: breadth and depth of brand awareness, depends on the extent to which
the brand is thought of easily in the right places and in the right ways
○ Identity, who are you and when and why do I think of you?
● 2 distinctions in terms of brand image and brand responses
1. Duality of brands: tangible & intangible associations AND rational
(performance, judgment) & emotional responses (imagery, feelings) (that
either type of information might evoke as brand responses at the next level up)
→ strong brands go up a level on both sides of the pyramid
2. Points-of-difference (PODs) & points-of-parity (POPs) as a basis of brand
positioning → brands need to have advantages in both PODs and break even
in POPs
● Judgements & feelings → Brand resonance = the extent to which a consumer feels he
or she is “in sync” with a brand. Reflected by the level of intensity and activity in the
relationship the brand engenders with consumers and conceptualized in terms of:
○ Behavioral loyalty (repeat buying)
○ Attitudinal attachment (create strong bond with brand)
○ Sense of community (bond with each other and company)
○ Active engagement (willingness to invest money, time, energy or other
personal resources in the brand beyond expended purchase or consumption of
the brand)