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This paper aims to study the consequences of listing national brands in discounters. Is the discount channel a promising outlet for manufacturer brands? Is it an effective means to attract new buyers? Which combination of brand and discount destination at which price is best suited for this strategic move?

Based on a unique dataset (tracking grocery purchase behavior for a representative sample of German households) and employing both descriptive and multivariate statistical techniques, the authors examine the outcome for 134 national brands introduced in six discount chains in Germany between January 2003 and July 2004.

Both the manufacturer and discounter are able to grow their total performance in excess of the market following the introduction for the majority of the brands. Hence, potential cannibalization is more than offset by incremental revenues. It is found that, on average, close to 80 per cent of national brands' sales at a discounter is from new brand buyers. Discounters typically benefit less, as only 29 percent of brand sales are from new category buyers at their store.

Including manufacturer brands into a discount assortment will benefit both the manufacturers and the discounters. Examination of the substantial cross‐brand differences reveals that manufacturers and discounters attract more new customers with brands for which market penetration is still modest. Also, discounters gain more from adding branded offerings in underperforming categories, and benefit from brands that enjoy higher customer loyalty. Finally, national‐brand prices should be set carefully at discounters. It is advised to maintain their price premium even at a discounter.

Discounters are the fastest growing grocery format in Europe. Lately, many discounters add national brands to their private‐label dominated assortment, a move widely discussed in media with substantial implications for grocery channel management. This study provides a comprehensive evaluation of that trend.

Examines regional marketing as a mean of stimulate growth on national brands competing in stagnant categories, to build networks of acquired regionally marketed brands for national clout and efficiency, and to provide springboards for building brands targeted for national distribution. Using Campbell Soup and Borden as case studies, looks at different approaches to regional marketing and also considers some wider implications of regional marketing for the manufacturing industry.

This paper aims to identify what ethical attributes tourists associate with national parks’ brands shown on food souvenir labels and the influence of such attributes on purchase motivations.

An exploratory study was carried out involving a total of 102 Italian tourists, who were interviewed at two different souvenir shops in Italy. Respondents were first asked to describe what images and values they were associating with the visited Italian National Park. The second level of questions related to the association of food products with national parks and the purchase motivations of food products branded with the national park’s label. The ethical attributes associated with the national parks’ brands and their relevance in purchase motivations were detected and analyzed through content analysis.

The analysis of the national park brand allows highlighting the food souvenir role in communicating ethical values that influence the perceived quality of food as well as tourists’ purchase motivations. The analysis reveals interesting implications for the enhancement of local productions in tourist destinations, more specifically, how the place brand can act as a valuable communication tool. Particular attention is given to the crucial role that national parks’ brands play in strengthening the value proposition of small businesses located within parks. This vision must be implemented from the perspective of mutual promotion of local food and tourism in these parks.

The results of this paper contributed to the literature by filling the gap regarding the role of place brands in promoting food souvenirs.

Since early 2000s, several efforts have been initiated to market the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) globally, and the BaltMet Promo project is among them. Simultaneously, several other cases of supra‐national branding have emerged, e.g. the Greater Mekong region, Danube region, and Visegrad countries. Little attention has yet been paid in the literature to branding of supra‐national entities. The purpose of this paper is to discuss branding of BSR using the examples of supra‐national product building of the BaltMet Promo project (2010‐2011).

Branding BSR has faced criticism against its supra‐national perspective which may be seen as a direct competitor to city or nation branding. To shift from competition to cooperation BaltMet Promo acknowledged a bottom‐up approach and nine organisations from six countries created supra‐national products to promote tourism, talent attraction, and investments. Each product concept was built on intensive background research and transnational triple‐helix cooperation.

The case of BaltMet Promo shows that supra‐national branding benefits from a bottom‐up approach that uses concrete products and services as the core of the brand identity. To shift from competition to cooperation the partnership promoted BSR as a common region with a common work plan. Different scales of branding serve different markets. The more distant the market, such as Japan in the case of BaltMet Promo, the more cost effective supra‐regional branding becomes compared to more narrow scales of branding.

The paper introduces recent developments in supra‐national branding using data of the BaltMet Promo project. The analysis aims to contribute to product building, triple helix stakeholder cooperation, and policy making.

While international and even national brand owners may be more concerned with tailoring their brands for local markets, local and regional brand owners are still keen to expand to national level. Examines the elements of the decision‐making process for brand owners expanding beyond their home region, and compares this process with the internationalisation of national brands. Case study research in five companies from the UK food and drink sector provides examples, and a checklist for decision making is proposed.

This paper aims to investigate the national brand manufacturer's ability from corporate social responsibility (CSR) innovation as a counterstrategy against the private label by a retailer. By constructing a model of manufacturer–retailer interaction, the paper attempts to analyze that the national brand manufacturer’s decision on the CSR innovation and the effect of such innovation on the retailer’s motivation of launching the private label. The results of the theoretical model in this paper could be applied by the actors in supply chains in making decision on CSR innovation and the launch of a new brand.

The theoretical model in the paper describes a manufacturer–retailer interaction with the presence of the private label and CSR innovation on the national brand. Specifically, the manufacturer has option of innovating its products and makes them to be more socially responsible; in the meanwhile, the retailer has option of launching its private label. Moreover, there are heterogeneous consumers with respect to their preferences on the CSR feature. The altruistic consumers prefer the socially responsible product while the normal consumers are indifferent between the socially responsible and basic products. By predicting the expected profit, the two firms make decision over the supply chain.

The authors find that the CSR innovation can indeed restrict the retailer’s incentive to launch the private label. Because of the presence of the altruistic consumers, the CSR innovation can help the national brand product to expand its market relative to the situation without the innovation. They demonstrate that the national brand manufacturer wishes to invest more in CSR innovation under non-linear pricing contract and the retailer is more likely to launch the private label. This is because that the non-linear pricing contract makes the two firms to concern more about their joint profit, causing the competition is less fierce.

This paper explains that the CSR innovation in the national brand product can be an effective counterstrategy by the manufacturer to deter the launch of the private label, which has not been considered by the existing studies about national brand-private label competition. Moreover, this paper also shows that the CSR innovation may benefit both the national brand manufacturer and the retailer under some conditions. In addition, the results of the paper provide some insights to the national brand manufacturer when making decision on the CSR innovation and to the retailer when reacting the manufacturer’s CSR innovation.

To explore how store brand personality might play a role in consumer perceptions towards store brands and how such personalities might vary when consumers are allowed to experience the product.

Two different store brand products from high selling categories were compared with their leading national brands. A total of 139 respondents took the survey. Respondents were divided into four groups, each group representing a different experimental condition. Respondents rated the personality attributes on a seven point Likert scale.

Results show that national brands have stronger brand personality traits when compared to store brands; however, such differences diminished when consumers were allowed to taste and experience the products.

Retailers would be better off to let consumers experience and taste the products to drive consumer perceptions of store brands. Retailers should also focus on those categories where the differential in personality traits between store brands and national brands are small and where the profit margins are higher to drive the store brand image.

This paper presents a slightly different approach in understanding store brands and argues that store brands do have a personality and that such personality could be further influenced by allowing consumers to experience the product.

The present study aims to investigate the role of brand store image in the context of private and national fashion brands. The study examines two issues: do private brand consumers differ from national brand consumers in their perception of the attributes they value in their store image? And, do fashion consumers in general differ in their perception of the attributes they value in a store image?

Data were collected through a field survey comprising 395 respondents: 195 private brand consumers and 200 national brand consumers.

Findings indicate that the two groups of consumers do not differ in their perception of store image. Cluster analysis reveals two groups of consumers: “Brand Store Image Enthusiasts” who are high in their perception of their brand store image attributes, and “Brand Store Image Indifferent” consumers who are low in their perception of their brand store image attributes. The first group was also found to have greater brand loyalty.

Different marketing strategies are offered to each fashion sector. In addition, distributors in the fashion industry should build a strategy for Brand Store Image Enthusiasts who are high in their perception of all three brand store attributes. It is essential to point out the psychological meaning of the brand when appealing them.

The study contributes to the consumer behavior literature by tying the well-established construct of brand store image to the fashion sector in the context of private and national labels.

Ideas related to “the Nordic” are important in the reconstruction of national identities in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, and these countries’ modern national narratives are structurally highly similar. At the same time, there are clear differences between the Nordic countries regarding their national images. The purpose of this study is to a examine the relationship between ideas of the Nordic and national images through a qualitative study of brand manifestations on Nordic web portals for foreign visitors.

The two guiding research questions are: How do Nordic branding strategies and national stereotypes impact on nation-branding content toward visitors in the Nordic region? What traces of the Nordic as a supranational concept can be found when the Nordic is translated into concrete national brand manifestations? The analysis focuses on brand manifestations such as brand visions, codes of expression, differentiation, narrative identity and ideologies.

The analysis shows that clichés about the nations prevail in contemporary brand material and that Nordic branding strategies impact on the portals in diffuse and implicit ways. There are, however, some important common denominators, pointing toward a new Nordic brand related to exotic, untouched yet easily accessible nature, with a focus on pure, fresh and clean food with new tastes, in combination with happy and welcoming people.

The results from the study contribute with insight in how ideas of the Nordic on a supranational level transform when used in concrete and practical branding material. Further, this paper proposes a new Nordic branding focus, which contests traditional Nordic ideas.

The purpose of the present study is to test that perceived risk is a multidimensional concept both when it is associated to the purchase of store brands and national brands and analyzes the effect of perceived risk on store brands proneness.

In order to achieve its objective the paper used a confirmatory factor analysis to validate the proposed perceived risk scale and three regression analysis were carried out to evaluate the effect of perceived risk on store brands proneness.

The results of the study show significant differences between store and national brands and, on the other hand, it has been confirmed that these differences contribute to decrease store brand proneness, the latter being measured through three variables: actual store brands purchase, consumption intensity and future purchase intention.

Previous empirical research has focused primarily on the perceived risk associated with store brands individually. On the contrary, this paper considers the perceived risk difference between store and national brands, believing that the difference between brands is what will really make the consumer choose a store brand or a national brand. On the other hand, the present study will permit the evaluation of the effects of the evolution of store brands in Spain, effects that can be replicated in other Mediterranean countries.