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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the problem of place brand architecture. Despite being a well-established research domain in the field of product and services marketing, brand architecture remains an under-explored phenomenon in relation to places. The paper aims to discuss a new approach to a sub-brands strategy that builds on both the supply and the demand sides, and explores the benefits and challenges of the suggested strategy.

This paper is based on a case study of St Petersburg, Russia, using both secondary and primary data. The primary data consists of in-depth interviews with stakeholders involved in city branding and applies thematic analysis.

The results demonstrate that place brand architecture helps to design a differentiated system of sub-brands that are customer-focused and reflect the complexity of a place. The paper outlines the benefits (such as, flexibility of the sub-brands strategy and the increased credibility of the brand) and the challenges for strategy implementation (such as, higher promotional expenditure and communication risk and stakeholder misalignment).

This paper will be helpful for place brand and tourism managers who seek to attract new target groups and avoid various problems, such as the overcrowding of popular sights.

While the existing literature on place brand architecture is mainly approached from a geographical perspective, this paper proposes a new target-group-specific approach that incorporates the supply and demand sides.

“Brand architecture” is an organisation's approach to the design and management of its brand portfolio. Previous research, focused on the views of practitioners, identified a “multi‐corporate” approach in financial services, where a “family of main brands” was incorporated into an organisation's brand portfolio, often in the form of brands traditionally associated with separate companies. The current study seeks to provide contrasting insights from consumer data and to highlight the conceptual and practical implications of the findings.

A qualitative methodology was adopted for the study incorporating six focus groups containing an average of nine participants.

The findings from the current study offer empirical support for the conceptualisation of the corporate brand playing a predominant role in services markets. In doing so, the findings also suggest that the alternative conceptualization of a “multi‐corporate” approach advocated by practitioners and identified previously is not validated by consumer‐based research.

The context of the study reported may be limited by its restriction to a single category, financial services.

Practitioners' rationales for maintaining multiple brands are, in the main, undermined by the views of consumers. Organisations should consider rationalising their brand architecture in order to benefit from significant cost savings.

The consumer perspective on brand architecture is significantly under‐researched and as a result this paper provides valuable insights, and a significant contribution to existing literature.

This paper aims to propose a dynamic and holistic framework that combines the brand portfolio audit with the brand architecture redesign.

Depicting from an extensive review on the frameworks of brand audit and brand architecture, a dynamic approach to brand portfolio audit and brand architecture strategy was developed, and later applied and tested in three B2B and B2C companies.

The paper suggests an eight-step framework to guide practitioners when auditing a specific brand portfolio and designing a revised brand architecture strategy. Additionally, a Brand Audit Scorecard was developed to enable and sustain brand portfolio audits, divided into three dimensions (brand equity, brand contribution and strategic options).

Further research should aim at testing the proposed framework in different types of companies and countries.

This paper contributes to the brand audit and brand architecture literature by proposing a holistic framework that is not static.

This paper aims to investigate the mediating effect of brand love on purchase intention and word-of-mouth through mystery, sensuality and intimacy as brand image dimensions in the context of neo-luxury brands. It also explores the moderating effect of duration and intensity of consumer-brand relationships on brand image dimensions.

The data collection was done via an online survey of a representative group of Millennials. Data analysis was performed using structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis.

The paper suggests that brand love mediates the relationship between brand image, purchase intention and word-of-mouth for both Apple and Michael Kors brands. This study also identifies differences in the effects of intimacy, sensuality and mystery on brand love. Additionally, it is demonstrated that the moderation effect of intensity and duration of consumer-brand relationships varies among the two neo-luxury brands.

Further research should aim at investigating other categories of products and services in the field of neo-luxury, as this study focus on fashion and mobile brands. Other antecedents and outcomes of brand love should also be evaluated, as well as other moderating variables.

This paper contributes to the fast-growing consumer-brand relationships literature by exploring the role of brand love in the context of the emergent neo-luxury paradigm. It also intends to provide a better understanding of how to build and nurture an effective brand image through a multidisciplinary approach that combines mystery, sensuality and intimacy.

The purpose of this study is to understand how a large service organisation with a brand portfolio manages its corporate brand relative to its portfolio of product brands.

The authors use an interpretivist research paradigm to investigate four research questions concerning the relative roles of corporate and product brands, the role of the CEO, the structures and capabilities that support the development of brand equity (including the role of the marketing function) and the role of employees in building corporate brand equity. A case study design was used, and the Tsogo Sun, one of the largest hotel and casino organisations in Africa, was the focus of the investigation.

The findings highlight the important role of both the CEO and the marketing department in optimising brand equity and managing across corporate and product brands. Employees were found to play a critical role and the need to clarify their relative roles as both recipients and expressors of brand identity across corporate and product brands emerged as an important theme.

Although the corporate brand has received much attention in recent years, much of literature remains conceptual. In addition to responding to calls for empirical research, the paper also contributes to deepening understanding about how to manage a corporate brand alongside a number of product brands.

To further improve the branding strategies between single-brand-retailers and multi-brand-retailers, the paper investigates the influence of multiple manufacturer brand images on retailer brand image. It considers the moderating role of the number of offered manufacturer brands.

The research is conducted in the automotive retail context. Based on an online survey (383 respondents), a Partial-Least Squares Modeling, estimated using SmartPLS 3 and a classic partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) algorithm, is used to validate the hypotheses.

The results reveal that manufacturer brands did not influence the retailer's brand image in all cases since it is only influenced by the manufacturer brand when the retailer offers only one manufacturer brand.

For retailers offering only one manufacturer brand, the most extensive possible adoption of the corporate identity (CI) specifications prescribed by the manufacturer brands is the prerequisite for a positive image effect. Retailers offering more than one manufacturer brand should create their image based on the retailer's identity. In this context, it is essential to position the retailer brand independently in the market.

This is the first study focuses on retailers with a small or limited number of offered manufacturer brands to answer the question of whether the number of provided manufacturer brands moderates the impact of manufacturer brand images on the retailer's brand image.

The main purpose of this paper is to develop a brand love measurement scale, adopting an etic approach and testing for differences on how consumers experience brand love across different cultures.

An integrative model of brand love was first developed and then data was collected through an online survey (N = 322) in two countries (the USA and Portugal) with different characteristics (individualistic vs collectivistic). A structural equation model method was followed, including an exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and multi-group analysis to test the set of hypotheses.

As proposed in the initial model, results indicate that brand love is the result of a dynamic interaction between five integrated emotional dimensions: passionate driven behavior, commitment, affection and connection, consumer-brand identification and brand relationship. The multi-group analysis across countries suggests that the socio-cultural context, namely, the collectivistic vs individualistic nature of the sample, significantly influences the brand love experience.

This is the first brand love measurement scale developed from an etic perspective, encompassing complex and dynamic emotional dimensions that in combination, form the brand love experience. Results indicate that the brand love experience may significantly differ from culture to culture, pointing out the most relevant dimensions in each of the socio-cultural contexts that better predict brand love and its consequences. These findings are particularly relevant for practitioners working on global brand management.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which cultural differences and slogan meaning type affect the role of comprehension in attitude toward the ad (A_ad) and attitude toward the brand (A_brand) formation.

In an online experiment, a total of 256 adult participants from the USA (ranged in age from 19 to 26 years old) and 184 participants from France (ranged in age from 18 to 28) were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions (slogan: single meaning vs polysemous) in a between-subjects experimental design. After getting exposed to the ad, participants responded to questions related to their A_ad, A_brand, comprehension, uncertainty avoidance and demographics.

Results from this research demonstrate the moderating effect of uncertainty avoidance and slogan type (single meaning vs polysemous) on the relationship between comprehension and A_ad. The authors show that for polysemous (and not single meaning) slogans, comprehension results in more favorable A_ad for low uncertainty avoidance individuals than for high uncertainty avoidance individuals. In addition, the authors demonstrate the mediating effect of A_ad in the relationship between comprehension and A_brand.

The authors used nationality as a proxy for culture. Future research should include other cultural dimensions in the development of conceptual models and analysis of data. Another limitation is that the authors used a college student sample for this research. A more representative sample should be used in future research to examine cultural differences in interpreting adverting messages. One other limitation concerns the measurement tool the authors used to measure objective versus subjective comprehension in this research. While the theoretical foundations of the two modes of comprehension are clear and robust, improved measurement tools can enhance the validity and reliability of future research. Finally, the authors suggest that future research examine the effect of such variables as figure-ground contrast, figure attractiveness, stimulus repetition, prototypicality, symmetry and semantic or visual priming that may impact the processing of brand slogans.

This study argues that the processing of brand slogans in advertising is impacted by culture. Individuals from different cultures perceive and comprehend brand slogans differently. This study contributes to the research stream that examines the influence of cultural dimensions on the effectiveness of advertising by focusing more precisely on the impact of uncertainty avoidance (one of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions). In the case of single meaning slogans, advertisers might diminish the use of objective comprehension advertising strategies to influence both individuals with high and low uncertainty avoidance. In the case of polysemous slogans, advertisers should consider that consumers with high uncertainty avoidance (vs low uncertainty avoidance) are impacted more by subjective comprehension (vs objective comprehension) when forming A_ad and A_brand.

This research contributes meaningfully to the marketing literature by examining previous work on ad slogan processing through subjective vs objective comprehension and extending the analysis by incorporating culture as an important factor.

The paper aims to analyse the effect of abandoning a venerable brand name (Guinness) and all of the reputation value that it embodied in favour of a new, untested name (Diageo). The paper seeks to examine the extent to which this affects consumers' perceptions of the product and the corporation.

Six hypotheses were tested in the study by surveying corporate and product brand images among a group of consumers (n=411) using the Davies et al. Corporate Character Scale.

The survey establishes that a change of corporate name does affect the perceptions of the corporation but not the products. It also confirms that image spillovers occur between the corporate and the product levels. Corporate image is derived from product image, and vice versa, when the two share the same name.

Although the case study approach allows the gaining of a deep insight into a phenomenon, it is at the expense of generalisability.

The study implies that consumers fail to distinguish between product and corporate brand when the two share the same name. Managers may neutralise corporate images by attributing a different brand name to the corporation.

The paper seeks to fill the conceptual vacuum in which decisions to adopt a new corporate name and rearrange the brand architecture seem to be made.

Many consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies have increased the visibility of their corporate brand to consumers by adding a corporate logo (e.g. Unilever “U”) on the packaging of their product brands (e.g. Dove, Domestos, Lipton, Knorr) and showcasing their product-brand portfolio in additional corporate-brand advertising. This paper aims to investigate consumer needs and product-brand familiarity as moderators of the impact of such a strong form of corporate-brand endorsement on the evaluation of established CPG product brands.

Two experiments with n = 670 and n = 118 respondents compare consumer evaluations of eight (Study 2: ten) product brands of a major German (Study 2: Anglo-Dutch) CPG company with versus without corporate-brand endorsement. The authors measure (Study 2: manipulate) the importance a consumer attaches to symbolic, experiential, relational and functional needs in brand choice.

Corporate-brand endorsement improves (decreases) the evaluation of established CGP product brands among consumer segments who base their brand choice in a CPG category predominantly on functional or relational (experiential or symbolic) needs. Furthermore, it exerts a negative effect on product brands among heavy category users due to their higher product-brand familiarity.

Rather than endorsing all its product brands with the corporate brand, a CPG company should do so selectively, depending on the positioning and target audience of each product brand.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to demonstrate the importance of consumer needs and product-brand familiarity in corporate-brand endorsement.