Fresh perspectives on brand management

The 14th Global Brand Conference, ‘Start-ups, Art and Creativity – Fresh Perspectives on Brands’, took place from 8–10 May 2019 in Berlin. This annual conference of the SIG ‘Brand Identity and Corporate Reputation’ of the Academy of Marketing has become the most important scientific conference worldwide on the topic of brands. 193 people from 23 countries covering all 5 continents took part in the two-and-a-half-day conference, with around 80 double-blind reviewed papers overseen by 78 reviewers (acceptance rate: 72%), being presented and discussed.

As local organisers, we wanted to take the conference further and take on a ‘fresh’ approach. Renewal and innovation relate to three areas in particular: (1) fresh topics, (2) fresh methods, (3) fresh practice-science-exchange.

Fresh topics

In our understanding, brand science is always applied- and practice-oriented. Hence, ‘good’ brand research should analyse the new topics of the ‘real’ business and non-profit world and should try to find answers to the challenges. In recent years, the world of brand practice has changed dramatically. The most important megatrends are digitalisation, changing values and new business models, which results in completely new questions and challenges for brand management. ‘Hot’ topics include the loss of brand control by external stakeholders (keywords: Firestorms in social media, brand hate, brand co-creation; e.g., Dessart et al., 2020; Herhausen et al., 2019; Ind et al., 2017; Ind & Schmidt, 2019; Kristal et al., 2018, 2020; Zarantonello et al., 2016), more complex customer journeys through off- and online brand touchpoints (keywords: ZMOT, customer journey, brand and customer experience; e.g., Lecinski, 2011; Lemon & Verhoef, 2016), new digital brand contact points (keywords: voice assistants and robots; e.g., Kuehnl et al., 2019; McLeay et al., 2020; West et al., 2018), the legitimacy crisis of purely profit-oriented business models and brands (keywords: Fridays for Future, Black Lives Matter, brand purpose, political brands; e.g., Hsu, 2017; Matos et al., 2017), new types of collaboration (keywords: art-brand-collaborations, influencer; e.g., Baumgarth, 2018; Baumgarth & Wieker, 2020; Ki et al., 2020; Michel & Willing, 2020; Nascimento et al., 2020) and building brands for new companies and new business models (keywords: start-up or entrepreneurial branding, vegan and meat alternatives, platform brands, direct-to-consumer brands; e.g., Eggers et al., 2016; Haslehurst et al., 2017; Kühlwein, 2019; Van Loo et al. 2020). These and many other new topics lead to new and exciting questions for brand science. Some authors have therefore published lists and discussions of new topics for brand (marketing) research in recent years (e.g., Golob et al., 2020; Rust, 2020; Veloutsou & Delgado-Ballester, 2018; Yoganathan et al., 2019), formulated frameworks, or even models for new brand management (e.g., Baumgarth et al., 2020). The Global Brand Conference (GBC) is an ideal platform to formulate new research questions, develop initial answers and share newest research findings. Many of the presentations at the conference incorporated ‘fresh’ brand topics, for instance, to name a few, ‘Sharing brand ideologies: A cultural analysis of start-up brand failure’, ‘How Urban Artists Contributes to the Brand Experience’, ‘Does Co-Creation Improve the Equity of Services Brands’, ‘e-WOM as a Tool for Brand Hate Propagation’, ‘Celebrity Endorsement Practices in the Era of Megaphone Effect’, and ‘Politically Conscious Brands: Insights into consumer attitudes and managerial perceptions’.

We recently asked the participants and authors of the GBC 2019 which three brand topics they consider particularly new and fresh. Eighteen scientists located in Germany, South Africa, the UK, the USA, Finland, Sweden, Italy, Spain and Australia participated in the survey. In their view, the freshest topics lie within the following areas: brand co-creation and brand agility (8 nominations), purposeful brands taking a stance (8 nominations), the use of new technologies like artificial intelligence or robotics (6 nominations), sustainability, CSR and green marketing (5 nominations), and brands in recession or in times of crisis (4 nominations). Various other areas of interest were also nominated.

Fresh methods

In addition to the topics, brand science is also characterised by ever-evolving methods of empirical research. Therefore, new methods for data collection and data analysis are discussed in both quantitative and qualitative paradigms. In recent years, sentiment analyses (e.g., Kübler et al., 2020) and biometric methods such as eye tracking for virtual reality (e.g., Meißner et al., 2019) or emotion measurement by face recognition (e.g., Stöckli et al., 2018) for data collection and PLS models (e.g., Benitez et al., 2020) on the data analysis side have been introduced as methodological innovations and further developments in quantitative brand science. In the qualitative paradigm, netnography (e.g., Kozinets, 2020), as well as the related content analytical evaluation of user-generated content (e.g., social media), should be mentioned in particular. Also during the GBC 2019, several fresh methods like a smartphone-based diary method for the collection of customer journeys, sentiment analysis of Twitter posts, or a machine learning approach for classifying search terms were used to present methodological innovations for brand science.

In the current survey of GBC participants, methods based on robotics and artificial intelligence that allow real time and digital analysis of data (e.g., to conduct a sentiment analysis in social media networks) were seen as the most promising, fresh approaches within the field of brand management research (14 nominations). Netnography (5 nominations) was considered as another fresh method, and participants also mentioned methodological innovations in the fields of biometrics (eye, face, skin) (3 nominations) and neuroscience (3 nominations). Other fresh methods were also reported.

Fresh science-practice-exchange

From the perspective of the editors of this special issue, brand science is also always of relevance to practitioners. From our point of view, this exchange and transfer plays an increasingly important role. Although the relationship between research and practice in the management, marketing and brand context has been discussed for years under the keywords ‘rigour vs. relevance’ (e.g., Kieser & Leiner, 2009; Patel et al., 2019; Roberts et al., 2014; Varadarajan, 2003), the gap is sadly widening. For example, a survey of managers in Italy shows that awareness of top management journals is only between 0 and, at best, 35% (Giaretta et al., 2016). In addition, the increasing number of scientific publications in marketing journals, which perhaps can be explained by the ‘Publish or Perish’ logic (Harzing, 2007), prevents a transfer of knowledge since managers are overloaded with information (as indeed are scientists). For example, the German Academic Association for Business Research has listed 104 scientific marketing journals in its journal ranking JOURQUAL. The four A+ journals published 222 scientific articles in 2019. Multiplying this number by the number of journals results in an estimated 5,772 contributions for the year 2019. This high number will be supplemented by books, working papers and conference proceedings.

Various approaches such as classical and explicit science communication (e.g., Burns et al., 2003), joint research projects (e.g., Bartunek, 2007), design research philosophy (e.g., Easterday et al., 2018) or the ‘Theories-in-Use’-approach (e.g., Zeithaml et al., 2020) are discussed in the literature as possible solutions.

Within the framework of the GBC, and along with the classic style of scientific presentations, three different formats to strengthen the interaction between science and practice were realised: four keynote speakers from various fields of brand management (e.g., agencies, start-ups, established brands) discussed current topics with the participating scientists, a Brand Walk with a visit to flagship stores offered real life experience of brand management practices to all participants, and a Brand Science Slam was introduced as a new format to the GBC. At the Brand Science Slam, each of the four teams presented one of their scientific essays in a maximum of ten minutes, and the audience, consisting of scientists and practitioners, voted for the individual presentations and chose a winner. In addition to the content, this assessment focused largely on the entertainment value and the transfer of the research results.

In our survey of the GBC participants, respondents indicated that there is a need to report and share results of scientific research in a new and fresh way (e.g., in a style that is easy to read; with the use of podcast, science slams, social media) (16 nominations). The answers also show that researchers see a stronger need to conduct collaborative research (10 nominations) in joint teams of scientists and practitioners. Amongst other ideas to close the gap between research and practice within the field of brand management, job shadowing and a stronger involvement of scientist in real companies (3 nominations) were proposed, and it was indicated that researchers need to increase the practical relevance of their research projects (3 nominations). Very few other areas were mentioned.

This special issue

We only invited contributions to this Special Issue that were presented at the GBC 2019 in Berlin. Fifteen contributions were submitted overall and after two review rounds, seven contributions qualified for this issue (overall acceptance rate: 8.8.%). Many thanks also to the many reviewers who, voluntarily and without payment (this is a completely different topic again), took up this necessary and important quality check. Without their commitment, such a conference and Special Issue of this quality would not be possible.

The seven articles in this Special Issue cover a diverse spectrum of topics offering fresh perspectives for brand researcher and brand managers. In their paper ‘Building a corporate brand in the digital age: imperatives for transforming born-digital startups into successful corporate brands’, Michela Mingione and Russell Abratt (2020) are providing five imperatives that can be used by entrepreneurs and marketing managers in the digital age for the creation and development of a born-digital startup, and transforming it into a competitive corporate brand. By studying the successful story of the OneDay Group, an Italian corporate brand that originally grew out of a blog, the paper specifically defines, explores and explains the novel construct of born-digital startup corporate brands.

Thaysa Costa Do Nascimento, Roberta Dias Campos and Maribel Suarez are looking into the increased complexity of the endorsement phenomena created by social media platforms, where ordinary consumers can achieve celebrity status and rise to the level of digital influencers. Based on a five-year netnography, their paper ‘Experimenting, partnering and bonding: a framework for the digital influencer-brand endorsement relationship’ outlines three forms of endorsement relationship that evolve during the influencer’s career cycle. The paper also argues that brands play different roles, as providers, partners and hirers, supporting and rewarding digital influencers’ entrepreneurial process.

John Nadeau, Richard Rutter and Fiona Lettice (2020) look into the process of attitudinal changes towards a brand in crisis and the brand’s communication around the crisis. Their paper ‘Social media responses and brand personality in product and moral harm crises: why waste a good crisis?’ is based on four selected crisis case studies and data collected from brands’ Twitter platforms. Results demonstrate an opportunity to update the balance theory approach in a crisis by considering the type of crisis (product harm vs. moral harm) relative to brand personality (brand competence vs. brand character). Their research shows that brand personality identity can change as a result of a crisis and demonstrate how brand managers can actively frame their online communication to help the brand to recover more effectively from a crisis.

Caroline Cuny, Mathieu Pinelli, Marianela Fornerino and Axel deMarles (2020) are providing a study exploring the art infusion effect in a service context, and specifying its mechanisms. Their paper ‘Experiential art infusion effect on a service’s brand: the role of emotions’ presents a study, investigating groups of customers who experience an artistic intervention in different conditions, characterised by two types of music (art-congruent vs. brand-congruent) and an artist’s performance. Experiencing one of these artistic interventions increased brand attachment, relative to a control condition.

Floortje Wijnands and Tripat Gill (2020) propose and test a new determinant of self-brand congruence, which they call brand affective congruence (BAC). Their paper ‘“You’re not perfect, but you’re still my favourite.” Brand affective congruence as a new determinant of self-brand congruence’ sheds light on the determinants of self-brand congruence using an empirical study. Their findings show that their new construct BAC is an effective determinant of self-brand congruence and has positive downstream effects on brand-self connection, brand trust, purchase intentions, and willingness to pay a higher price.

Paul Beresford and Craig Hirst (2020) are offering insights into the consumer-led co-creative processes underlying the switching behaviour to discount food retailers by middle-class consumers. Their paper ‘How consumers reconcile discordant food retailer brand images’ is based on phenomenological interviews with ideographic analysis and demonstrates how consumers negotiate individuated brand meanings. It reveals how, in spite of normative marketplace discourses, consumers are able to reframe and negotiate personally relevant meanings suitable to their own lifestyles and life projects. Their findings hold relevance for grocery retail managers and other practitioners engaged with the management of low-involvement and mundane brands.

Leonor Vacas de Carvalhoa, Salim L. Azar and Joana Cesar Machado (2020) are delivering research to deepen the understanding of the relationship between brand gender and brand loyalty. ‘Bridging the gap between brand gender and brand loyalty on social media: exploring the mediating effects’ is the title of their paper showing the importance of active consumer brand engagement, perceived quality and brand love in underpinning the underlying process between brand gender and brand loyalty. This research complements prior work on brand gender and confirms the important benefits of a clear brand gender positioning by showing that a strong gender identity will enhance loyalty towards the brand.

Overall, we are confident that the GBC 2019 in Berlin as well as this Special Issue will raise awareness of the need for fresh approaches within our brand management discipline. If both served as a springboard for potential future research projects, the goals that we as local organisers and Guest Editors followed would be met – and our discipline could benefit from it.