Guest editorial

Citation

Guzman, F. and Abimbola, T. (2009), "Guest editorial", Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 18 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/jpbm.2009.09618eaa.002

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Product & Brand Management, Volume 18, Issue 5

About the Guest Editors

Francisco GuzmánAssistant Professor of Marketing at the University of North Texas. His research focuses on branding, corporate social responsibility, and new product development. His work has been published in journals such as Journal of International Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Brand Management, and the Harvard Business Review América Latina. He is a visiting professor both at ESADE in Barcelona and Monterrey Tec in Mexico.

Temi Abimbola Management and Strategic Management Group, Warwick Business School, Coventry, UK. Her research interests are in the areas of brand strategy, brand finance, entrepreneurial marketing and corporate marketing. Her work has appeared in a number of journals, including Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Entrepreneurial Marketing, Qualitative Marketing Research: An International Journal, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Brand Management and Place Branding and Public Diplomacy. Dr Abimbola is on the Warwick Doctoral Programme Committee.

In September 2008, the Academy of Marketing’s “Brand, Corporate Identity and Reputation Special Interest Group” held its 4th annual international colloquium at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School in Atlanta, Georgia. The theme of this special issue reflects the main topic of the colloquium for which the articles herein were presented and discussed. Academics and practitioners from around the world gathered to discuss the power of brands as intangible assets in today’s market. In focusing on the theme of experiential branding as a source of value for the consumer, we recognized the increasing role that brands, organizational identity and reputation play in the discussion as it concerns services (Zeithaml et al., 1988; Vargo and Lusch, 2004). Both tangible and intangible aspects of branding were discussed.

Brand quality in general has improved rapidly as a result of the global innovation and technological advancement of the past decades. Consequently, the objective quality of a brand has become a key success factor, as opposed to a unique differentiating attribute in assessing the worth of a brand. Brand-based intangible attributes have thus emerged as a key determinant of the consumer’s propensity to engage with a brand and ultimately on the consumer purchase decision. In other words, consumers are increasingly looking beyond functional attributes to other intangible aspects of brands that form part of the brand experience. These elements that ignite consumers’ senses and stimulate their minds are becoming the most important differentiating factors because they are relatable and can be adapted to suit their lifestyles (Schmitt, 1999), and have therefore become an important factor in determining a brand’s competitiveness in the market.

Brands and the value they deliver minimize the consumer’s financial and psychological risk (Kapferer, 1997). In this context, a number of scholars have argued that, in addition to well-established brand building factors (such as image, perceived quality, and knowledge), usage experience is an important way to differentiate an offering and highlight other tangible and intangible aspects of a brand. Recent innovation in both service-based intangibles and brand-based intangibles has greatly elevated our consumption experience and brand expectations. For example, service-based intangibles have been characterized by measures such as the responsiveness, friendliness and/or reliability of organizations and their employees. Other experiential qualities include those that can only be assessed after purchase and consumption such as pleasure, satisfaction and customer service. Hence experiential branding can be defined as a brand management approach that enables a brand to create an emotional connection with consumers by engaging them with the brand through marketing actions such as “tryvertising” (engaging consumers through product or service trial), promotional events, and web-based or retail point-of-purchase experiences.

In their article “Customer and non-customer perspectives for examining corporate reputation”, Hamed Shamma and Salah Hassan analyze how corporate reputation varies between customers and non-customers of a product or service. Their research within the telecommunications industry concludes that both stakeholder groups share certain dimensions of corporate reputation. The emotional dimension, however, is specific to the customer group, while the dimension of leadership and vision is specific to the non-customer group. These findings provide important insights on how firms should influence consumer perceptions across different stakeholders. Understanding these perceptual differences and their consequent behavioral outcomes provides managers with valuable knowledge for enhancing the offering of a corporate or brand experience.

In the article entitled “One brand perception? Or many? The heterogeneity of intra-brand knowledge”, Oliver Koll and Sylvia von Wallpach explore how the content and structure of brand associations differ between consumer segments with different levels of attitudinal and behavioral brand response intensity. Their study finds that different consumer segments have unique brand knowledge patterns that lead to unique brand responses. These findings support the notion of a brand as a portfolio of meanings and provide managers with valuable insights regarding the importance of creating consistent and differentiated brand experiences to cater to multiple target segments.

Malaika Brengman and Kim Willems’ article entitled “Determinants of fashion store personality: a consumer perspective” applies the concept of brand personality to fashion stores. Their research analyzes retail stores through humanlike traits, and their findings reveal that store environment and store design are important factors in determining retail store personality. The study concludes that the determinants of fashion store personality are essential for the positioning of the store, in particular the atmospherics. These findings provide managers with important guidelines for developing a store personality and experience.

The topics of brand equity and market performance are analyzed by Ahmed Tolba and Salah Hassan in their article entitled “Linking customer-based brand equity with brand market performance: a managerial approach”. Their research study proposes the operationalization of specific brand equity constructs and reveals that customer-based brand equity consists of five constructs and is correlated to brand market performance. The findings constitute an important contribution to the branding literature.

Whisman examines the essential role that internal branding plays in successful university settings. The evidence, as presented by the author, indicates that the biggest mistake universities make when undertaking-branding initiatives is failure to embrace an inside-out approach to brand development. Corporate branding strategies applied to institutions of higher education involving all interested constituents yield the most positive and effective results.

This special edition is intended to provoke further and more focused research on the topic of experiential branding and its resulting influence on corporate reputation and organizational identity. The articles represent a step towards further engaging the academic and managerial community in discussing the topics from the colloquium. A number of possible avenues for further research exist. For instance, does traditional advertising have a major role to play in experiential branding? Are experiential brands equally applicable across all sectors? Under what conditions do experiential brands flourish, and is this distinct in certain sectors? What are the key aspects of experiential branding that facilitate the development of deep connections between organizations and their customers? What is the role of organizational identity in determining the optimal use of internal resources for developing brand experiences? What role does consumer generated content play in building brand equity? The new competitive environment requires a higher level of creativity, imagination and symbolic meaning, all of which represent a rich territory for the development of brand experiences.

Francisco Guzmán, Temi Abimbola