Tracing the drivers of B2B brand strength and value

By building a strong brand that is favourably perceived by target customers, a firm can establish a competitive advantage that enables greater revenues and profitability. This is at least what the branding literature always has assumed, and something few marketing and brand managers seem to disagree with. When asked how exactly a brand can be charged with such great value, however, neither academia nor practitioners can provide definitive answers. This is especially true for business-to-business markets (B2B): although some of the world’s strongest and most valuable brands are operating in B2B markets, research on this area is clearly trailing behind business reality. This thesis aims at bridging the fuzzy and subjective customer-based perspective on brands with their potential economic outcomes for brand-owning firms. It does so by studying a single case (a packaging solutions supplier) in great detail, including face-to-face interviews and 678 observations drawn from a survey completed by professional packaging buyers in 8 countries across Europe. The study relies mainly on brand equity theory, together with thoughts from theories on shareholder value, psychology, corporate branding, business relationships and industrial marketing. More specifically, it is concerned with understanding the customer-perceived determinants (brand image) of brand strength and brand value in business markets. Or, in other words: which specific customer perceptions and behaviours make a brand valuable and profitable? The proposed model, which is the main outcome of this study, can be seen as a first step towards an integrated and nuanced B2B Brand Equity Chain. The model divides brand strength into a volume premium and price premium dimension, and includes five brand image dimensions: brand familiarity, product solution, service relationship, company reputation and brand community. The empirical findings support previous work within the area, but also add a number of elements that increases the explanatory power of existing models, and establishes a unique link between branding and bottom-line performance in business markets

Brand value chain in practise; the relationship between mindset and market performance metrics: A study of the Swedish market for FMCG

For decades, managers have analysed, planned and implemented long-term brand strategies based on customer mindset metrics (MSMs). Typically, such MSMs are customer satisfaction, liking, brand preference and Net Promoter Score (NPS). One of the core pillars, in brand management literature, is the assumed link between certain customer-based brand assets, often operationalized as MSMs, and future long-term market performance. However, few studies have systematically and broadly evaluated how the most common MSMs relate to actual performance data. This study investigates the link between the customer MSMs, most commonly used by practitioners, and their relationships with actual market performance. The paper explores 10 MSMs and 14 market performance metrics, in 10 categories, in the Swedish fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) market. The study is based on survey data from 2007 that is compared to purchase panel household data from 2007 and 2010. Although MSMs are highly correlated to each other, their relations to brands' long-term market performance differ. A more nuanced approach to the MSM-market performance link is proposed, as there appears to be no single “silver bullet” MSM to rely on. Using a cash flow-oriented framework, the authors recommend opting for different MSMs depending on which of the three generic types of market performance (enhanced, sustained or accelerated) are targeted

Förpackningsimitation i dagligvaruhandeln - Är det möjligt för återförsäljare att stjäla ett etablerat varumärkes personlighet?

Förpackningsimitation i dagligvaruhandeln – Är det möjligt för återförsäljare att stjäla ett etablerat varumärkes personlighet? En kvantitativt genomförd undersökning på den svenska daglivarubranschen

Customer-based brand equity and human resource management image : Do retail customers really care about HRM and the employer brand?

Purpose: 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. Design/methodology/approach: The study is based on a survey of Swedish customers in two different retail categories: groceries and home decoration. Findings: 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. Originality/value: 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