Search results

This paper aims to examine the development of an iconic corporate brand by the General Post Office (GPO) in Britain in the 1930s by adapting the work of Douglas Holt (2004).

The paper uses a historical approach by developing a historical case study. It combines this historical approach with Holt’s theory and writing on iconic branding and the current literature on corporate identity, corporate branding and corporate communication.

The study argues that the GPO was able to construct an iconic brand in the interwar period (1918-1939) by responding to anxieties in British society generated by social tension and fears of decline. This was facilitated by the establishment of a public relations department, which created “myths” of national identity and imperial unity through telecommunications, and national strength through technology. These myths assuaged social anxieties and enabled the GPO to construct an iconic corporate brand.

This paper provides an important insight into iconic branding. It examines corporate rather than product branding, where research has predominantly focused. It also combines cultural branding theory with historical analysis and provides an adapted approach to Holt’s myth market model (1994, p. 58).

To introduce the concept of cultural equity and provide a theoretical framework for managing cultural equity in multi-cultural markets.

Recent research on the social psychology of globalization, cross-cultural consumer behavior, consumer culture, and global branding is reviewed to develop a theoretical framework for building, leveraging, and protecting cultural equity.

Provides an actionable definition for a brand’s cultural equity, discusses consumer responses to brands that relate to cultural equity, identifies the building blocks of cultural equity, and develops a framework for managing cultural equity.

Research conducted mainly in large cities in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia. Generalizations to less developed parts of the world might be limited.

A very useful theoretical framework for managers interested in building cultural equity into their brands and for leveraging this equity via new products and the development of new markets.

The paper integrates past findings across a variety of domains to develop a parsimonious framework for managing cultural equity in globalized markets.

This study answers the research question “How can businesses apply a luxury brand strategy to achieve innovation in their businesses or brands?” It aims to investigate the possibility of applying a luxury brand strategy to a wide range of business areas.

This study presents a literature review and case studies, analyzing 16 products from a selection of 8 iconic luxury brands. A survey conducted in Japan and Europe identified which of the 8 selected luxury brands had established the strongest brand image. Principal component analysis and SPSS were used to analyze the results. Scatter diagrams are used to depict the relationship between factors and product positioning. Brands and products were selected for case study analysis, and the features were generalized to show how companies in business segments other than luxury goods could apply this model.

The results showed that most of the strategy’s features apply to companies in different business areas. While luxury brand strategies are unique, their features can be generalized to stimulate innovation in other businesses or brands.

This study analyzed only two products under one luxury brand. Thus, the number of products is limited.

This study is unique because it examines how different business areas can apply the advantages of business strategy models. It illustrates the advantages of successful business strategies of luxury companies and how different companies can harness that success for future development.

In recent years, scholars have begun suggesting that marketing can learn a lot from art and art history. This paper aims to build on that work by developing the proposition that successful artists are powerful brands.

Using archival data and biographies, this paper explores the branding acumen of Pablo Picasso.

Picasso maneuvered with consummate skill to assure his position in the art world. By mid-career, he had established his brand so successfully that he had the upper hand over the dealers who represented him, and his work was so sought-after that he could count on selling whatever proportion of it he chose to allow to leave his studio. In order to achieve this level of success, Picasso had to read the culture in which he operated and manage the efforts of a complex system of different intermediaries and stakeholders that was not unlike an organization. Based on an analysis of Picasso's career, the authors assert that in their management of these powerful brands, artists generate a complex, multifaceted public identity that is distinct from a product brand but shares important characteristics with corporate brands, luxury brands and cultural/iconic brands.

This research extends prior work by demonstrating that having an implicit understanding of the precepts of branding is not limited to contemporary artists and by connecting the artist to emerging conceptualizations of brands, particularly the nascent literatures on cultural, complex and corporate brands.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the extended brand identities of two elite female athletes. Specifically, this exploratory case study assessed the extended brand identities of Jennie Finch and Cat Osterman, two iconic female softball athlete brands.

Through the qualitative analysis of individual in-depth, semi-structured interviews, various documents, and social media, data revealed themes associated with positioning, personality, and presentation of the female athlete brands.

Theoretically, the themes provide empirical support for existing brand identity frameworks.

Practically, findings provide evidence for defining an athlete’s extended brand identity that can serve as the foundation for branding efforts that generate long-term value during and after their sport careers.

This case study adds to the extant literature on athlete branding and offers practical content for marketers seeking to brand female athletes.

The purpose of this paper is to outline the marketing history of the Godrej Storwel steel cupboard before India’s economic liberalisation in 1991 to find possible reasons for the brand’s iconic status and strong presence in the Indian public memory.

The paper uses archival material, secondary sources and the idea of cultural branding to analyse the marketing strategies used at various points in the history of Godrej Storwel.

Godrej Storwel found cultural context in the two decades following India’s independence (1947) as a product that addressed the social and economic anxieties of the country, as well as embodied its aspirations at the time. In the following decades up to 1991, the product did not find similar cultural resonance with its consumers.

The unavailability of sales records of the Godrej steel cupboards meant that certain conclusions could not be made concrete.

Because Godrej Storwel has had such a long lifespan, it serves as a useful medium through which changing trends in marketing in India can be viewed. The paper is a good point of reference for those researching the steel industry, storage product histories and marketing in India and could encourage corporates to archive their histories.

While a lot of nostalgia surrounds the Godrej Storwel in India, this is the first work that attempts to place the product and its marketing strategies in the context of Indian industry, culture and consumption.

Retro-marketing is rampant. Throwback branding is burgeoning. Newstalgia is the next big thing. Yet marketing thinking is dominated by the forward-facing discourse of innovation. The purpose of this paper is to challenge innovation’s rhetorical hegemony by making an exemplar-based case for renovation.

If hindsight is the new foresight, then historical analyses can help us peer through a glass darkly into the future. This paper turns back time to the RMS Titanic, once regarded as the epitome of innovation, and offers a qualitative, narratological, culturally informed reading of a much-renovated brand.

In narrative terms, Titanic is a house of many mansions. Cultural research reveals that renovation and innovation, far from being antithetical, are bound together in a deathless embrace, like steamship and iceberg. It shows that, although the luxury liner sank more than a century ago, Titanic is a billion-dollar brand and a testament to renovation’s place in marketing’s pantheon. It contends that the unfathomable mysteries of the Titanic provide an apt metaphor for back-to-the-future brand management. It is a ship-shape simile heading straight for the iceberg called innovation. Survival is unlikely but the collision is striking.

This paper makes no claims to originality. On the contrary, it argues that originality is overrated. Renovation, rather, rules the waves. It is a time to renovate our thinking about innovation. The value of this paper inheres in that observation.

We aim to understand what happens when larger social and cultural myths become the incarnate understanding of consumers within the firm. This paper uncovers the varied myths at play in one Finnish company’s status as an inadvertent cultural icon.

Through a qualitative inquiry of Finland’s largest dairy producer and by employing the theoretical lens of myth, we conceptualize the entanglement of broad cultural, social, and organizational myths within the organization.

Macro-mythic structures merge with everyday employee practice giving consumer understanding flesh within the firm (Hallet, 2010). Mythological thinking leaves organizational members inevitably bound up in a form of consumer knowing that is un-reflective and inadvertently effects brand marketing management.

Working through a nuanced typology of myth (Tillotson & Martin, 2014) provided a deeper understanding of how managers may become increasingly un-reflexive in their marketing activities. This case also provides a cautionary tale for heterogeneous communities where ideological conflict underscores development and adoption of contemporary myths.

The purpose of this paper is to consolidate and advance the understanding of brand meaning and the evolving process by which it is determined by introducing and explicating the concept of brand meaning cocreation (BMCC).

In-depth review and integration of literature from branding, cocreation, service systems, and practice theory. To support deep theorizing, the authors also examine the role of institutional logics in the BMCC process in framing interactions and brand meaning outcomes.

Prior research is limited in that it neither maps the process of cocreation within which meanings emerge nor provides theoretical conceptualizations of brand meaning or the process of BMCC. While the literature acknowledges that brand meaning is influenced by multiple interactions, their nature and how they contribute to BMCC have been overlooked.

This paper reveals a significant gap in knowledge of how brand meaning is cocreated, despite the essential role of brand meaning for firm success and increasing academic interest in the notion of cocreation. Ultimately, this paper builds a conceptual foundation for empirical research in this regard.

This paper proposes that brand meaning is cocreated through the interconnection of different social and service systems, across system levels, time, and geographic space. Marketing theory is advanced by outlining a set of research propositions pertaining to the BMCC process. The authors consider how discrete actor-based brand meanings contribute to an overall brand gestalt and how such a gestalt potentially evolves along a continuum. Additionally, the authors provide a managerially and theoretically relevant research agenda to guide much needed empirical research into BMCC.

The paper aims to explore how companies communicate their heritage by drawing on heritage marketing and corporate communications literature and mapping the corporate heritage communication strategies of iconic Italian brands.

The study adopts an inductive multiple case study approach, analysing the communication of corporate heritage by nine iconic Italian brands (Pastificio Lucio Garofalo, Barovier & Toso, Pasta Farina, Ducati, Amaro Montenegro, Fiat, Bonomelli, Olivetti and Illy).

In communicating corporate heritage, companies adopt different strategies that vary along two main dimensions – the subject of the story and the tone of voice of the content. The strategies are: (1) heritage for authenticity; (2) heritage for market leadership; and (3) heritage for continuity.

From a theoretical point of view, the study highlights that heritage marketing strategies vary according to underlying strategic themes and narrative approaches. From a managerial point of view, it offers a preliminary guide for the development of corporate heritage communications, also providing indications for their implementation.

This study is amongst the firsts to investigate the strategic antecedents that can shape corporate heritage communication strategies. It represents an integration of the existing literature, which is limited to the descriptive presentation of heritage marketing principles and tools.