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This study aims to investigate the interaction between branding strategies, levels of perceived fit and consumer innovativeness on the evaluation of new products from the perspective of situational strength.

Two experiments were conducted to empirically test the hypotheses.

A significant three-way interaction of branding strategy, perceived fit and consumer innovativeness on the evaluation of the new products was found. A significant two-way interaction of branding strategy and perceived fit was also found. Situational clarity fully mediates the relationship between branding strategy and consumer product evaluations at various fit levels.

The theory of situational strength may shed light on the selection of target market when managers launch new products. Innovative consumers are the target market for the new products under new branding or low fit sub-branding; under brand extension or high fit sub-branding, consumers are the target for the new products regardless of their degree of innovativeness.

This is the first work to apply situational strength theory to a new product evaluation context. The theory provides a unified framework for explaining the cognitive processes involved when consumers use and combine marketing cues (i.e. branding strategies and fit levels) to evaluate new products; it also facilitates evaluating how the effects of consumer innovativeness are accentuated or attenuated based on various combinations of marketing cues. Most research on the evaluation of new products has examined the influence of consumer innovativeness, perceived fit or branding strategies as distinct entities. This study simultaneously examined the three.

Increasing and maintaining the population’s consumption of healthful food may hinder the global obesity pandemic. The purpose of this paper is to empirically test whether it is possible for healthful sub-brands to achieve higher consumer behavioural loyalty than their less healthful counterparts.

The study analysed three years of consumer panel data detailing all purchases from five consumer goods categories for 15,000 UK households. The analysis uses best-practice techniques for measuring behavioural loyalty: double jeopardy, polarisation index, duplication of purchase and user profile comparisons. Each sub-brand’s healthfulness was objectively coded.

Despite the level of healthfulness, all sub-brands have predictable repeat purchase patterns, share customers as expected and have similar user profiles as each other. The size of the customer base, not nutrition content, is, by far, the biggest determinant of loyalty levels.

Consumers do not show higher levels of loyalty to healthful sub-brands, or groups of healthful sub-brands. Nor do they buy less healthful sub-brands less often (as a “treat”). There are also no sub-groups of (health conscious) consumers who would only purchase healthful options.

Sub-brands do not have extraordinarily loyal or disloyal customers because of their healthfulness. Marketers need to focus on growing sub-brands by increasing their customer base, which will then naturally grow consumer loyalty towards them.

This research brings novel evidence-based knowledge to an emerging cross-disciplinary area of health marketing. This is the first study comparing behavioural loyalty and user profiles towards objectively defined healthful/less healthful sub-brands.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the adoption of major exhibitions, often called blockbusters, as a sub-branding strategy for art museums. Focusing the experience around one location but drawing on a wide data set for comparative purposes, the authors examine the blockbuster phenomenon as exhibition packages sourced from international institutions, based on an artist or collection of quality and significance. The authors answer the questions: what drives an art museum to adopt an exhibition sub-brand strategy that sees exhibitions become blockbusters? What are the characteristics of the blockbuster sub-brand?

Using extant literature, interviews and content analysis in a comparative case study format, this paper has three aims: first, to embed exhibitions within the marketing and branding literature; second, to identify the drivers of a blockbuster strategy; and third, to explore the key characteristics of blockbuster exhibitions.

The authors present a theoretical model of major exhibitions as a sub-brand. The drivers identified include the entrepreneurial characteristics of pro-activeness, innovation and risk-taking, while the four key characteristics of the blockbuster are celebrity; spectacle; inclusivity; and authenticity.

These exhibitions are used to augment a host art museum’s own collection for its stakeholders and differentiate it in the wider cultural marketplace. While art museum curators seek to develop quality exhibitions, sometimes they become blockbusters. While blockbusters are a household word, the terms is contested and the authors know little about them from a marketing perspective.

Art museums are non-profit, social organisations that serve the community. Art museums therefore meet the needs of multiple stakeholders in a political environment with competing interests. The study draws on the experiences of a major regional art museum, examining the characteristics of exhibition sub-brands and the paradox of the sub-brand being used to differentiate the art museum. This paper fills a gap in both the arts marketing and broader marketing literature.

The use of the identified characteristics develops theory where the literature has been silent on the blockbuster sub-brand from a marketing perspective. It provides an exemplar for institutional learning on how to initiate and manage quality by popular exhibition strategies.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically assess the impact of branding strategies on horizontal and downward line extensions of French luxury brands in a cross-national context (France vs USA).

This study is based on a two line extensions (horizontal/downward) × three branding strategies (direct brand/sub-brand/standalone brand) x two country (France/USA) between-subjects ANOVA design.

The study shows that the subtyping effect created by a sub-branded luxury downward line extension tends to be rated similarly to a direct branded extension which oppose previous beliefs put forward in non-luxury settings. In contrast, a new independent/standalone extension fully uses the subtyping effect which helps attenuate this risk related to luxury downward stretches. The study also found that the effect of gender in cross-national settings must always be taken into consideration as significant variations occur in the process.

The study covers two countries but should be replicated in other cross-national contexts.

This study helps marketing managers of luxury brands make a better decision when it comes to launching vertical line extensions (upscale/downward) by carefully using types of branding strategies and relevant communications whether women and/or men are targeted in cross-national contexts.

This study breaks new ground in the international luxury literature by providing key theoretical and managerial insights in terms of launching new downward line extensions with the proper use of branding strategies when targeting specific genders.

This article aims to estimate the relationship between brand loyalty and price promotions on the German yoghurt market. It considers consumer loyalty to various corporate brands and their respective sub-brands to analyze promotional strategies between and within certain corporate brands with a larger loyal consumer segment and a moderate strength of consumer loyalty are well suited for effective price promotions following the idea of loss leader by Lal and Matutes (1994).

The paper’s approach follows Allender and Richards’ (2012) and extends to explicitly considering the product line management of every manufacturer in the market. In the first step, a random coefficient logit specification is estimated to compute measures of brand loyalty for each brand. In the second step, the relationship between brand loyalty measures and the frequency and depth of price promotions is analysed.

The results suggest that weaker corporate brands are promoted more aggressively supporting the model hypotheses by Koças and Bohlmann (2008). Within the manufacturer’s product line, sub-brands with a larger loyal consumer segment and a moderate strength of consumer loyalty are more often used for effective price promotions which reflects the idea of loss leading first introduced by Lal and Matutes (1994).

The results are limited to a static relationship between brand loyalty and price promotions. Analyzing the dynamics of the relationship between brand loyalty and price promotions should prove fruitful in enhancing the understanding of retailer strategies and provides additional implications for managerial decisions in retailing.

Managers need to be more aware of the linkages between product line management and promotional strategies. Changes in the product line management may require a redirection of the promotional measures and strategies.

Consumer behavior with respect to brand loyalty to some extent determines price promotional strategies of retailers. The promotional strategies provide opportunities to save expenditures, especially for non-loyal and low income households.

Matching and analyzing two detailed (consumer, retail) scanner data sets to investigate the relationship between the measures of brand loyalty and the retailers’ price promotional strategies. Novel is the modeling of two different dimensions of brand loyalty (size and strength) and the consideration of sub-brands. The results clearly show that promotional strategies vary not only between corporate brands but also between sub-brands of the same corporate brand.

We examined consumer reactions to new products introduced under four different brand naming scenarios. The results suggest that when consumers see a high degree of fit between the new product and the existing brand, brand extensions, sub‐brands, and nested brands are about equally preferred. But when consumers perceive little fit, a new brand name is the most preferred, followed by nested brands, sub‐brands, and extensions, in that order.

This research aims to examine the impact of celebrity credibility on consumer‐based equity of the endorsed brand. The mediating role of brand credibility and the moderating role of the type of branding (parent versus sub‐brand) employed by the endorsed brand on the endorser credibility‐brand equity relationship are also to be examined. The endorser credibility‐brand equity relationship was developed using associative learning principles whereas the brand signalling theory is applied to examine the mediating role of brand credibility.

The conceptual framework was tested using a field experiment. Data were collected using a mall‐intercept approach at a shopping centre from a sample of consumers in a metropolitan Australian city. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling.

Results suggest endorser credibility has an indirect impact on brand equity when this relationship is mediated by brand credibility. This mediating relationship was moderated by type of branding. However, the “endorser credibility‐brand credibility” and “endorser credibility‐brand equity” relationships did not vary according to the type of branding employed.

In support of past findings, the present study shows that a celebrity endorser should be one who is perceived as credible based on their attractiveness, expertise and trustworthiness. Moreover, in this research, even a moderately low credibility endorser proved to be able to build the brand.

The present study is one of the first to empirically examine and confirm the impact of endorser credibility on brand credibility and consumer‐based brand equity.

City branding has gained popularity as governance strategy. However, the academic underpinning is still poor, and city branding needs a more critical conceptualization, as well as more complex management systems. This paper challenges the use of a “one size fits all” city brand, which is still common practice in many places. The paper proposes that city branding involves much more complexity than is commonly thought and outlines a strategy that enables urban policy-makers, marketing researchers and (place) marketers alike to better deal with city branding.

The authors integrate insights from literature on place branding, brand architecture and customer-focused marketing.

The article argues that place brands (in general and communicated place brands in particular) are by definition very complex, due to their different target groups, diverse place offerings and various associations place customers could have. Thus, an advanced brand management including target group-specific sub-brands is needed.

The model will be helpful for place brand managers dealing with a diverse target audience, and is likely to improve the target group-specific communication.

The paper provides an insight into the complexity of city brands and acknowledges that the perception of city brands can differ considerably among different target groups. Additionally, it offers a more comprehensive definition of place brands. This will be helpful for city brand managers and researchers alike in dealing with city brand complexity.

The purpose of this study is to examine how status‐seeking and fashion‐innovative young consumers evaluate diffusion brands. The influence of brand naming techniques and country of origin on brand image and product quality of diffusion brands is also examined.

Two well‐known luxury brands and two product categories were identified as the stimulus for the study through pretests. Data were collected using a convenience sampling method in a large Australian university. A self‐administered questionnaire was distributed and 603 usable responses were returned with the sample falling between the ages of 18‐24.

The results revealed that sub‐brands and nested brands have similar product quality and brand image evaluation when compared with the parent brand. Furthermore, sub‐brands and nested brands have demonstrated product quality fit and brand image fit with the parent brand. The findings suggest that a new brand is not a good substitute for the parent brand to express status. In addition, brand origin is a greater indication of product or brand quality than country of origin.

Replication of study on other segments is worthy of future research. Only the influence of fashion innovativeness and status consumption on diffusion brands was examined. Other external factors can be identified and explored.

Marketers or brand strategists can consider establishing sub‐brands or a nested brand in the early stages of product innovation as status symbols to attract young consumers. There should also be greater emphasis on brand name instead of product involvement when marketing a diffusion brand.

There is limited research that examines how young status‐seeking and fashion‐innovative consumers evaluate diffusion brands. Furthermore, the study is conducted in an Australian context. Two product categories were also studied.