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The aim of this paper is to explore the meaning of the term “retail brand” to small‐ to medium‐sized enterprise (SME) owner managers and how this impacts upon brand management practice.

This research utilises a case study approach, which involved 12 SME retailers located in two regions of the UK, combining qualitative interview data with desktop research and documentary evidence.

The findings of this paper confirm that the owner manager is central to the brand management function in SME retail firms. Furthermore, it was found that the retail brand encompasses both symbolic and functional meaning to the owner manager.

This research contributes to the retail and SME literature by offering a conceptual framework, which presents the interpretation of the retail brand from abstractive, service and environmental perspectives.

It is recommended that SME owner managers set an overall direction for branding across all aspects of the retail business. In doing so, existing retail brand models may be utilised as a tool kit for SME brand managers.

The research begins to address a significant empirical lacuna in branding at the SME retail marketing interface. This paper also adds to wider marketing discourse, through the presentation of terminological adaptation within a small retailing situ.

While the charity retail literature emphasizes the richness of human resource practices among charity retailers, it rarely makes the link between these practices and their interest for establishing charity retailers' brands. Simultaneously, while the retail branding literature increasingly emphasizes the central role of human resource practices for retail branding, it rarely explains how retailers should conduct such practices. The purpose of this study is to test the recent model proposed by Burt and Sparks in 2002 (the “fifth generation of retail branding”) which proposes that a retail brand depends on the alignment between a retailer's substance (vision and culture) and its perceived image by customers.

The research is based on an ethnographic study conducted within the Oxfam Trading Division, GB from October to December 2002.

The study supports the Burt and Spark's model and makes explicit the practice of human resource for branding. The study demonstrates that it was the alignment between the vision of Oxfam's top management and its new customer‐oriented culture, two elements of its core substance mediated to customers by store employees, which has enabled an improved customers' perception of the brand. The study also seeks to elaborate upon the Burt and Spark's model by specifying an ascending feedback loop starting from customers' perception of Oxfam brand and enabling the creation of a suitable culture and vision again mediated by store employees.

New research should explore whether and how retailers create synergies between human resource and marketing functions to sustain their brand image.

If the adoption of business practices by charity retailers is often discussed, this study highlights that commercial retailers could usefully transfer human resource best practices from leading charity retailers to develop their retail brand.

The paper is of value to commercial retailers.

The purpose of the paper is to present a review of the existing research themes in the area of retail branding, and note how these have developed as the conceptualisation of “branding” in retailing has itself evolved.

This paper reviews existing research themes within retail branding. There is a vast body of academic literature on branding, or aspects of branding in retailing. The initial focus of academic work was upon the product perspective via studies of the store brand. This body of work is summarised under five broad themes – the characteristics of store brand prone consumers and the product attributes which attract consumers; the growth of and motivations for retail brand development; the role of changing channel relationships and behaviours on store brand development; intra‐category brand relationships; and the concept of copycat brands. From this initial, rather narrow, perspective research has evolved, taking on a wider view the brand in retailing which in turn has encompassed the store and the organisational perspectives.

The evolution of branding in retailing from studies of store brands to the exploration of the retail‐er as a brand has been matched with a widening of the conceptualisation of the brand in retail research: from the product as a brand to the store as a brand and most recently to the organisation as a brand. This has implications for future research in terms of the themes under investigation, research design, and the research methodologies employed.

The paper summarises the themes in existing retail branding research, notes the evolution of thought in retail brand research and suggests areas for future research.

The aim of this research is to define the development and boundaries of the retailer brand primarily through the elements of identity and image. Two perspectives are introduced to explain the ways in which three‐dimensional branding and sensory experiences of the retail brand can arise. One approach is marketing led; the other is based on design studies. The study assesses the development of retail branding, the areas in which sensory experience of the retail brand occurs and its implications for retailers. It concludes with new insights into retail branding and proposals for the subject to be studied across disciplinary boundaries.

Despite their essential role as providers of emergency medication, expert advice and specialist healthcare services UK community pharmacies are coming under increasing competitive pressure. Deregulation measures and heightened competition from supermarkets and multiples have led to increases in market concentration and forced many independents into closure. This paper aims to explore the potential of retail branding as a tool for independent pharmacists who wish to complement their role as therapeutic experts with a strong retail proposition and enhance their competitive positioning.

Based on a qualitative study using key informant interviews with independent pharmacists in the Greater Manchester area, this paper takes a grounded theory approach. NVivo qualitative analysis software was applied to develop theoretical categories, explore themes and offer a starting point for theory building.

The UK pharmacy market is polarized into the highly branded large scale multiples and an independent sector which still fails to make full use of the opportunities for retail marketing support available. A SWOT analysis for the community pharmacy sector illustrates pharmacists' key strengths as healthcare professionals and therapeutic expert advisors. However, often this is complemented by an inward looking, reactive and short‐termist approach. Overall respondents fail to embrace the opportunities marketing and retail branding might offer on the retail side fully, to the detriment of overall business success.

The paper is based on a small scale qualitative study. Whilst the sample was carefully selected to be a fair representation of the different types of small retail pharmacies found in the Greater Manchester area, and within this context ecological validity is thought to be high, care must be taken with wider generalisations.

Possibilities of complementing pharmacists' professional ethos as therapeutic experts with lessons from the retail marketing and branding literature with the aim of achieving image congruence and business success are explored.

A contribution is made to the understanding of the UK retail pharmacy sector, as well as the complex interaction between professional healthcare provision and retail marketing in relation to the self‐concept and business practice of independent pharmacists.

Branding has become a permanent source of competitive advantage for any leading business. Predominantly, it is execution inside the organization for employees. The purpose of this paper is to measure the influence of internal branding (IB) on customers-based brand equity (CBBE) and the mediating effect of organizational loyalty (OL) between two retail store chains of an under developing country (e.g. Pakistan).

This paper draws on primary data. Data were collected from frontline officers and customers of selected retail stores. Descriptive analysis, mediation analysis and independent sample t-test data analysis techniques were applied through smart PLS and SPSS.

The results of the study revealed that IB influences OL and CBBE. The outcomes showed the mediation effect of OL on the relationship between IB and CBBE partially. Furthermore, results of this papers also disclosed a difference in the levels of IB and OL in both organizations. But, there was no difference in the level of brand equity among customers of both retail stores.

The retail store sector is growing at fast pace with new innovations in all dimensions of the sector. These results could help the retail industry with empirical pieces of evidence to implement IB in their organizations to make the strong relationship between store and customer through efficient and well-trained frontline officers.

The study’s noteworthy contribution to the industry and academic world is the empirical support for the relationship between IB and CBBE. This study has explored the IB in the service sector (i.e. the retail store) from the non-western and under developing context.

This issue of Retail Insights focuses on the subject of branding. There are a number of retail reports that offer valuable insights into current trends in branding. Professor Leslie de Chernatony analyses UK consumers’ attitudes towards brand extensions in a survey commissioned by Ventura. The Brand Finance Report for 1999 provides interesting reading on brand values and the overall performance of companies last year. In addition, there are a collection of shorter reports on various new branding issues and abstracts of articles on the topic.

While some football clubs are recognised as popular brands, little is known about the way they leverage their brand in their merchandise retailing. To address this gap the purpose of this paper is to investigate retail branding strategies used by professional football clubs through brand equity and supply chain management. In particular, it analyses the type of product merchandised, the reasons for selling certain products and the ways through which football clubs merchandise, including their partners in distribution channels.

A qualitative approach was undertaken involving content analysis of 22 Scottish professional football clubs’ websites and annual reports, and semi-structured interviews with seven football clubs retail managers and four supply chain partners. Transcribed data were coded and thematically organised through an inductive process using the qualitative data analysis software NVivo 10.

Three types of merchandise have been identified: basic, fashion and short season. Building brand equity is considered the main motive for retailing merchandise. Some football clubs use intermediaries or outsourcers to respond to sudden consumer demands and to ensure high levels of service, whereas others have an integrated supply chain which allows for greater control.

This paper contributes to the discussion on the role of retailing in football club brand equity. It suggests initiating intermediaries in the distribution channels to build brand equity thus enabling clubs to become more responsive to consumer demand.

This is the first paper to look at retail branding strategies of professional football clubs.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between an organization’s human resource management (HRM) image and its customer-based brand equity. Research into HRM in relation to branding has mostly dealt with how to attract and maintain employees through employer branding. The present study attempts to link HRM directly to marketing and branding aimed at customers as an altruistic dimension of the brand image and as something that applies to customers’ sociological needs.

The study is based on a survey of Swedish customers in two different retail categories: groceries and home decoration.

The results show that HRM image is distinct from a more traditional service image and that there is a significant relationship between favourable customer perceptions of an organization’s HRM and customers’ willingness to buy and pay a premium for products provided by the retail chain. This finding leads to the conclusion that HRM is not only relevant for employer branding, internal branding and operations management but also plays a significant role in building customer-based brand equity. The results show that further integration of HRM and brand management is needed, both in theory and practice.

This study takes a holistic approach to marketing and is one of the first attempts to incorporate HRM and employer branding into the customer-based brand equity framework. Implications for future research, retailing and other businesses are discussed in the conclusion.