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The purpose of this paper is to adopt a customer‐centric value creation perspective to provide insights into the contribution of business orientations, especially marketing orientation and innovation orientation to the creation of customer‐centric value (customer equity and brand performance).

To undertake this examination, a model was developed and then tested to validate its applicability in the context of both developed and developing economies. The paper includes partial least squares.

The findings demonstrate that being marketing‐oriented and innovation‐oriented appears to be important in creating customers, keeping them, and increasing add‐on selling to them and rewards the firm with greater brand performance in the marketplace. Importantly, these relationships are universally held across developed and developing business environments. Interestingly, marketing orientation was found to contribute more to the creation of customer‐centric value than innovation orientation in developing business environment, whereas the opposite was found in the context of developed business environment.

The data incorporate only the subjective measures of customer‐centric value. Future studies can use financial measures to complement the self‐reporting approach used in this paper. This dual‐approach to measuring the value of customers to the firm (customer equity) and brand performance would provide additional insights into the customer‐centric marketing literature.

The findings suggest that managers should strive to develop a high level of marketing orientation and innovation orientation as two efficient ways to achieve higher levels of customer equity. They are also advised that if their firms are more effective in acquiring potential customers, retaining current customers, and enhancing add‐on selling, they see their brands perform better. Importantly, the findings also provide guidance for managers on how to allocate their resources to key business activities (e.g. marketing and innovation) in the context of international business (developing versus developed business environments).

This study contributes to customer‐centric marketing theory by enhancing understanding of the contribution of marketing and innovation to the creation of customer‐centric value in different business environments. This study also contributes to the business orientation literature by demonstrating the utility of a cultural‐behavioral approach in measuring marketing orientation and innovation orientation.

This research aims to systematically explore the cognitive and emotional effects of values-related and performance-related negative brand publicity and investigate how the psychological effects translate into different behavioural outcomes. In addition, it examines the relative effectiveness of two major brand response strategies in mitigating negative publicity.

Two experimental studies were conducted to test the hypotheses. Study 1 examines the effects of values- and performance-related negative brand publicity, using a 3 (negative brand publicity: values-related vs performance-related vs control) × 2 (brand: Dove vs Axe) between-subjects experiment. Study 2 further compares the effects of two major brand response strategies on consumers’ post-crisis perceived trustworthiness and trust and responses towards a brand involved in negative publicity. A 2 (negative brand publicity: values-related vs performance-related) × 2 (brand response strategy: reduction-of-offensiveness vs corrective action) between-subjects design was used.

The results suggest that values-related negative brand publicity is perceived as being more diagnostic and elicits a stronger emotion of contempt, but a weaker emotion of pity than performance-related negative brand publicity. Moreover, values-related negative brand publicity has a stronger negative impact on consumer responses than performance-related negative brand publicity. Interestingly, compared to perceived diagnosticity of information and the emotion of pity, the emotion of contempt is more likely to cause differences in consumer responses to these two types of negative brand publicity. Regarding brand response strategy, corrective action is more effective than reduction-of-offensiveness for both types of negative brand publicity, but the advantage of corrective action is greater for the performance-related case.

This research enriches the negative publicity and brand perception literature, showing the asymmetric cognitive, emotional and behavioural effects of values- and performance-related negative brand publicity. It also identifies the psychological mechanisms underlying consumer responses to negative brand publicity, and it provides empirical evidence for the relative effectiveness of two major brand response strategies.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between brand positioning and business performance, as well as the mediation effect of brand equity between them within the context of Ghana’s alcoholic beverages industry.

A sample of 196 staff across four alcoholic beverage firms in Accra, Ghana was selected using a judgemental sampling technique. A structural equation modelling approach using partial least squares was used to conduct the analyses to answer the research hypotheses.

All the hypotheses were confirmed in line with extant literature. Specifically, the study found a positive relationship between brand positioning and business performance. The study also found that brand equity partially mediates the relationship between brand positioning and business performance.

The study serves as a useful guide to strategy and policy formulation in branding in general and specifically on how brand positioning can be effectively deployed as a key strategy to enhance business performance.

The study has practical implications not only for the marketing and sale of alcoholic beverages in Ghana to achieve financial performance but also for lasting competitive advantage.

The purpose of this paper is to learn how strategic hybrid orientation – constructed from brand and market orientations – is related to the brand awareness, brand credibility, and financial performance of business-to-business (B2B) small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The questionnaire was used in a survey to collect data from 250 Finnish B2B SMEs. The sampled firms were categorized into four clusters according to a two-by-two matrix, and their relationships with the brand performance outcomes were examined using one-way ANOVA and multiple regression.

The results indicate that strategic hybrid orientation is positively related to all three dimensions of brand performance, showing that two dissimilar orientations can complement each other in improving brand performance outcomes. However, the strength of complementary interaction seems to vary depending on the degree to which brand- and market-oriented attributes dominate in a firm’s strategy.

This is one of the first studies to provide empirical evidence to support the concept of strategic hybrid orientation for branding in B2B SMEs. This study aims to contribute to existing research on SME branding by capitalizing on B2B branding and strategic management literatures.

The purpose is to understand the importance of brand experience in the Taiwan hotel branding process; also, this study is to investigate the moderating effect of brand experience on the relationship between brand positioning and non-financial brand performance in Taiwan upscale hotels, focusing on mainland Chinese tourists.

The structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis was used to conduct questionnaire analysis. This study examined data collected from Chinese tourists who stayed at Taiwan upscale hotels.

The brand experience of an upscale hotel brand can affect its brand image, product attributes, brand loyalty and customer satisfaction. By investigating the moderating effect of brand experience, the study revealed the brand image perceptions of hotel guests with a positive brand experience to significantly influence non-financial brand performance. The product attribute perceptions of hotel guests with a more positive brand experience were also found to have a more significant effect on nonfinancial brand performance.

In the highly competitive hotel industry, the application of brand experience to marketing practice has drawn much industry attention. There is a strong possibility that upscale hotel companies will eventually find value in adopting the measurement instruments and suggestions presented here to assess and guide their marketing practices.

This paper aims to show how consumers process information differently under two dissimilar types of brand strategies. By analysing data from dishwashing detergent consumers who evaluated two different brands, one with a high differentiated/performance/price brand (HB) strategy and other with a low differentiated/cost/price brand (LB) strategy, it is shown how the structural relationship between some constructs differ under each price brand strategy. With a structural path analysis, the product performance, customer satisfaction, customer perceived value and behavioural intentions relationship are assessed. Additionally, the moderating effect of the brand strategy in this structural relationship is tested.

Data of a sample of n = 273 Mexican dishwashing detergent users were analysed. Respondents evaluated two brands of dishwashing detergent. One brand followed a high differentiated/performance/price strategy (Axion) and the other used a low differentiated/cost/price strategy (Roma). Participants had to have been consumers of both brands of detergents. A structural path analysis to show the moderating effect of the brand strategy was implemented. A nested comparison invariance test for structural weights to corroborate differences was used, as well.

Results confirm structural differences between both brand strategies in the constructs relationship. The HB strategy showed that both satisfaction and perceived value have a mediating effect between product performance and brand intentions; on the other hand, the LB strategy showed that only satisfaction has a mediating effect between these two constructs. The explanation amount for dependent latent variables was higher for the HB strategy than for the LB strategy.

This study offers a distinct view of the differentiated/quality brand strategy – low cost/price brand strategy duality. It provides a theoretical-empirical explanation of the cognitive processes that both strategies involve for a customer. As well, this study conceptually relates the generic strategies theory with the use of specific brand strategies.

Evaluating the consequences of brand equity management is one of the most important measurement issues for intangible assets in the new economy. Studies have validated the effect of brand equity on the value of the firm and addressed the capital market effects of intangible associations such as brand value. Yet, there is not sufficient evidence on which dimensions of brand equity should be measured and monitored to support financial performance. Using regression analysis on a sample of managers in Austrian organizations, this study investigates the effect of perceived brand equity on brand profitability, brand sales volume, and perceived customer value. Results indicate strong support for measures of perceived quality, brand loyalty, and brand awareness as antecedents of firm performance, customer value and willingness to buy.

The present study sheds light on the role of strategic orientations (SOs) in explaining business growth. The purpose of this paper is to examine how different SOs, namely learning orientation, entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation and brand orientation simultaneously affect business performance measured with brand performance, market performance and business growth in SME context and whether these effects vary across countries.

An extensive data set of 1,120 effective responses is collected from two European countries, namely Hungary, representing a post socialist rapidly growing market, and Finland with a stable, highly developed and competitive economy. A multigroup moderation analysis is conducted. Confirmatory factor analysis is used in testing measurement invariance, subsequently followed by structural equation modeling procedure used in testing research hypotheses developed on the basis of a literature review.

The results show that entrepreneurial orientation, market orientation and brand orientation have a positive effect on business growth in SMEs in both Hungary and Finland through brand and market performance. With regard to learning orientation, a positive yet somewhat weak effect on growth is found only in the Hungarian sample. The moderation analysis reveals that country moderates several of the hypothesized paths from SOs to business performance.

Prior studies on SOs have mainly focussed on single orientations at any given time. However, researchers increasingly argue that many firms are better off if they build their strategies on multiple SOs. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first empirical studies to address multiple (four) SOs in the same research model. Furthermore, little is known about if and how the performance effects of different SOs vary across countries.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of industry competitive intensity (ICI) on brand performance with the mediating role of market orientation and organizational learning using theoretical and experimental materials in fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs) firms.

To test the research hypotheses, a model was designed and tested on 124 chief executive officers from 30 FMCG firms active in both food and chemical industries using structural equation modeling and partial least squares methodology.

The research findings showed that ICI has significant effect on market orientation and organizational learning. It also has significant effect on the firm’s brand performance through developing the market orientation capability as a mediating variable, but the development of organizational learning capability (as a mediating variable) is not effective in the relationship between ICI and brand performance.

Since the early 1990s, addressing intraorganizational capabilities and resources has been a major topic of strategic and marketing research. In this regard, many theoretical and experimental contents have been presented so far. However, little research has simultaneously addressed the industrial environment and the development of competitive capabilities. A manager’s understanding of the competition rate of an industry has the potential to influence the development of organizational capabilities through strategic responsiveness to his/her perception of the environment. This study attempts to show that managers and firms that consider their industrial environment to be volatile must develop their learning capabilities and market orientation, leading to superior brand performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine a possible negative spillover effect in sports sponsorship to answer whether the sponsored team’s poor performance will have a negative effect on audiences’ trust in its sponsor’s brand. The authors further analysed whether the audience’s attitude towards the team plays a mediating role and whether the audience’s personality type (active vs passive) plays a moderating role in this negative spillover effect.

Three experimental studies were conducted with 380 Chinese undergraduates and MBA student participants over two years. The authors designed the experiment as a computer-mediated intervention in which good, poor and neutral performance groups were compared. After the respondents were exposed to the intervention, we asked them to answer questions using a computer terminal. We analysed the data from the three experiments through analysis of variance (ANOVA), regression analysis and a bootstrap.

The audiences who were exposed to a team’s poor performance condition reported less trust in the sponsor’s brand relative to those exposed to a good performance condition, and the brand trust was even lower than for those who were exposed to a control condition (no performance information). Further, the audience’s negative attitude towards the sports team mediated the negative effect of the team’s poor performance on its sponsor’s brand trust. The negative effect was more obvious for individuals with Type A personalities (active) than for those with Type B personalities (passive).

The prior literature has neglected a possible negative effect of a sports team’s performance on its sponsor’s brand trust. In particular, questions of whether, how and when this negative effect occurs are critical for sponsors, teams, and audiences. Since sports team sponsorship is burgeoning in China, the negative implications are unclear in this new context. Thus, the revelation that the negative spillover effects of a team’s poor performance on audiences’ trust in the sponsor’s brand provides two original contributions. First, the negative effect reveals value for multiple sponsorship stakeholders. Second, the Chinese context in this study adds value for future research and practice regarding both Chinese-foreign and domestic Chinese decisions.