Why do firms delete brands? Insights from a qualitative study

ABSTRACT

Large consumer goods firms manage and market an assortment of brands and consistently deal with strategic challenges related to brand portfolio management, such as creating or acquiring brands, growing brand equity, managing brands in the portfolio and deleting brands. There is substantial research on several areas of brand portfolio management except in the area of brand deletion. This situation exists despite the fact that deleting weak brands has important implications for a firm and its brand portfolio. Therefore, it is critical to understand why firms delete brands from their portfolios. This research applies a qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis in the context of firms that adopt a ‘house of brands’ brand architecture and presents findings guided by the strategic decision-making literature.

KEYWORDS:

• Brand deletion
• brand portfolio management
• strategic decision-making
• qualitative research
• thematic analysis
• semi-structured interviews

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dr Joseph Sarkis and Dr Eleanor T. Loiacono for providing valuable feedback on earlier versions of this paper. Their inputs helped to enhance the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Brands in this research include the main brand as well as the sub-brand. For example, Coke and Coke C2 or Toyota and Toyota Camry will all be considered as brands while discussing brand deletion.

2. In this paper, in the context of brand deletion, financial factors include not only financial performance metrics (e.g. profit) but also drivers of financial performance (e.g. sales).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Purvi Shah

Purvi Shah is an assistant professor of marketing at Foisie Business School in Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, USA. Her main research interests are strategic brand management, pre-purchase information search, and business education and pedagogy. Her research has been published in the Journal of Brand Management, Journal of Brand Strategy, Journal of Consumer Affairs, Management Research Review and Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services.