A identificação da marca. Um insturmento da estratégia de marketing

O presente documento é urna pesquisa exploratoria sobre a identificaçâo da marca. O seu interesse, enquanto comunicaçâo de Gestáo Comercial e Marketing ñas Jomadas Hispano-Lusas de Gestáo Científica de Sevilha, pode concretizar-se no seguinte: delimita urna área de investigaçâo relativamente pioneira; . apresenta um projecto de investigaçâo nessa área; inventaría outras direcçôes alternativas de pesquisa. Se a problemática geral da marca tem sido tema de abundante reflexáo, já a questáo precisa dos seus sinais identificadores (nome e logotipo, slogan, rotulagem, jingle, etc ), aparece menos desenvolvida na investigaçâo e na literatura de marketing. Acresce ao seu interesse o facto de se tratar de urna área chameira de outras disciplinas, tais como o direito, a semiótica, a psicología cognitiva e o design, para só falar das mais evidentes. O projecto de investigaçâo apresentado tem por objecto urna pequeña parcela deste universo. Apenas estuda: os dois componentes mais elementares da identificaçâo, ou seja o nome e o logotipo, e mesmo estes reduzidos à sua forma mais simples de nome sem complementos e de logotipo a preto e branco; dois dos principáis critérios de avaliaçâo da qualidade de urna identificaçâo, que sâo a memorizaçào (a curto prazo, espontánea e assistida, analisada experimentalmente) e a diferenciaçào (dos factores de memorizaçào, analisada teóricamente na perspectiva da semiótica estrutural). Com base nesta delimitaçâo, o projecto tem por objectivo a concepçào de um modelo de avaliaçào dos sinais identificadores das marcas. Ao excluir os sinais de identificaçâo mais complexos, e ao nao tratar de outros critérios de avaliaçào, a pesquisa deixa em aberto várias vias complementares de investigaçào. Salientamos as mais próximas do projecto apresentado: . integrar no modelo os factores afectivos; . verificar experimentalmente a distáncia perceptiva das estruturas de diferenciaçào; . adaptar a análise proposta a outros sinais de investigaçào registáveis como marca. O documento está dividido em très partes: . a primeira parte explicita os objectivos do projecto e o ámbito da sua aplicaçâo; . a segunda parte é dedicada à metodología, quer a que diz respeito à experimentaçâo, quer a que se refere à abordagem teórica; a terceira parte, consagrada às conclusóes, analisa a originalidade do projecto e a sua aplicaçâo à gestâo estratégica das marcas

On project finance and the first road concession in Portugal

In broad sense, Project Financing1 as a mean of financing large scale infrastructural projects worldwide has had a steady growth in popularity for the last 20 years. This growth has been relatively unscathed from most economic cycles. However in the wake of the 2007 systemic Financial Crisis, Project Financing was also in trouble. The liquidity freeze and credit crunch that ensued affected all parties involved. Traditional Lenders, of this type of financial instrument, locked-in long-term contractual obligations, were severely hit with scarcity of funding compounded by rapidly increasing cost of funding. All the while, Banks were “rescued” by the concerted actions of Central Banks and other Multi-Lateral Agencies around the world but at the same time “stressed” by upcoming regulatory effort (Basel Committee). This impact resulted in specific changes to this type of long-term financing. Changes such as Commercial Banks’ increased risk aversion; pricing increase and maturities decrease of credit facilities; enforcement of Market Disruption Event clauses; partial responsibility for project risk by Multilateral Agencies; and adoption of utility-like availability payments in other industrial sectors such as transportation and even social infrastructure. To the extent possible, this report is then divided in three parts. First, it begins with a more instructional part, touching academic literature (theory) and giving the Banks perspective (practice), but mostly as an overview of Project Finance for awareness’ sake. The renowned Harvard Business School professor – Benjamin Esty, states2 that Project Finance is a “relatively unexplored territory for both empirical and theoretical research” which means that academic research efforts are lagging the practice of Project Finance. Second, the report presents a practical case regarding the first Road Concession in Portugal in 1998 ending with the lessons learned 10 years after Financial Close. Lastly, the report concludes with the analysis of the current trends and changes to the industry post Financial Crisis of the late 2000’s. To achieve this I’ll reference relevant papers, books on the subject, online articles and my own experience in the Project Finance Department at a major Portuguese Investment Bank. Regarding the latter, with the signing of a confidentiality agreement, I’m duly omitting sensitive and proprietary bank information

A microRNA feedback loop regulates global microRNA abundance during aging

Expression levels of many microRNAs (miRNAs) change during aging, notably declining globally in a number of organisms and tissues across taxa. However, little is known about the mechanisms or the biological relevance for this change. We investigated the network of genes that controls miRNA transcription and processing during C. elegans aging. We found that miRNA biogenesis genes are highly networked with transcription factors and aging-associated miRNAs. In particular, miR-71, known to influence life span and itself up-regulated during aging, represses alg-1/Argonaute expression post-transcriptionally during aging. Increased ALG-1 abundance in mir-71 loss-of-function mutants led to globally increased miRNA expression. Interestingly, these mutants demonstrated widespread mRNA expression dysregulation and diminished levels of variability both in gene expression and in overall life span. Thus, the progressive molecular decline often thought to be the result of accumulated damage over an organism's life may be partially explained by a miRNA-directed mechanism of age-associated decline.</jats:p

Brand mergers: How attitudes influence consumer identity preferences

In the context of a merger, management of corporate brand names and logos assumes a critical role. The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the corporate brand redeployment decision. This study analyses how consumers’ attitudes towards the corporate brands influence their preferences regarding the different branding strategies. Results suggest that the preference for a monolithic alternative is only clearly supported when one of the partners in the merger is a weak partner. When the merger involves two familiar brands, there is a tendency among consumers to combine elements of both brands’ identity. Finally, it is concluded that the affective and behavioural dimension of attitude towards the brand have a significant influence on consumers’ preferences

Is the ECB monetary policy strategy review a catalyst towards a sustainable financial system? Evidence from market reactions

This paper provides novel insights regarding the impact of ECB incorporating climate change in its Monetary Policy Strategy Review (July 2021) and of ECB announcing the tilting of its corporate bond purchases (July 2022) on financing conditions of eligible corporate bonds through the calculation of a Climate Change Score attributed at a firm level. The main purpose is to understand if the two ECB announcements helped in some degree as a catalyst to a decrease in carbon footprint and to an improvement of climate performance in the euro area. Using a difference-in-differences estimation, we compare the evolution of prices for eligible bonds issued by brown firms versus green firms and for eligible green bonds versus conventional bonds. By July 2021, we find that market participants believed that the ECB would continue to apply the market neutrality principle and that the climate incorporation into the monetary policy framework would be translated by an increase in the proportion of green bonds into its portfolio. On the contrary, by July 2022 the regression analysis suggest that participants understand that ECB tilting choice will depend on the issuer climate score rather than on the type of bond issued. However, there is no strong data that supports that market participants believe that ECB shift towards a market efficiency principle.Esta dissertação fornece novos insights sobre o impacto do BCE incorporar as questões climáticas na Revisão Estratégia da Política Monetária (julho de 2021) e do BCE anunciar a alteração da composição dos programas de compras de ativos (julho de 2022) nas condições de financiamento de ativos elegíveis tendo por base o cálculo de uma pontuação climática atribuída a cada emitente. O principal objetivo é perceber se os dois anúncios do BCE ajudaram de alguma forma como catalisadores para a diminuição da pegada de carbono e para a melhoria do desempenho climático na área do euro. Usando uma estimativa de diferença em diferenças, comparamos a evolução dos preços de títulos elegíveis emitidos por empresas altamente poluentes versus empresas verdes e de títulos elegíveis verdes versus títulos convencionais. Em julho de 2021, constatamos que os participantes do mercado acreditavam que o BCE continuaria a aplicar o princípio de market neutrality e que a incorporação do clima no quadro de política monetária se traduziria por um aumento da proporção de títulos verdes na sua carteira. Pelo contrário, em julho de 2022, a análise da regressão sugere que os participantes entendem que a escolha da alteração da composição dos programas de compras do BCE dependerá da pontuação climática do emissor e não do tipo de título emitido. No entanto, não há dados sólidos que sustentem que os participantes do mercado acreditem que o BCE mude para um princípio de market efficiency

Brand triangle model to avoid branding myopia

This article takes the metaphor of myopia to explain the most limited vision of brand, understood as the identifying sign of a product. As brand is a sign, we turn to semiotics, the science of signs, in order to apply a model which broadens the concept of brand to three dimensions: that of the identity sign itself, that of the object the sign refers to and that of the response of the market to the sign

Methicillin-Resistance in Staphylococcus aureus Is Not Affected by the Overexpression in Trans of the mecA Gene Repressor: A Surprising Observation

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is intrinsically cross-resistant to virtually all β-lactam antibiotics. The central determinant for the MRSA phenotype is the mecA gene, whose transcriptional control may be mediated by a repressor (mecI) and a sensor/inducer (mecR1). The mecI-mecR1-mediated induction of mecA takes several hours rendering the strains phenotypically susceptible in spite of the presence of the resistance gene. Therefore, it has been proposed that the full resistance to β-lactams observed in many contemporary clinical MRSA strains requires a non-functional mecI-mecR1 regulatory system. The mecA gene is embedded in a large chromosomal cassette (the SCCmec element) for which several structural types have been described. Some epidemic MRSA clones, typically expressing full β-lactam resistance, carry SCCmec elements that contain an intact mecI-mecR1 locus (e.g. SCCmec types II and III). We have addressed this apparent contradiction by first sequencing the mecI coding region and mecA promoter sequences in a collection of prototype MRSA strains characterized by different SCCmec types. A conserved non-sense mutation within mecI was detected in all SCCmec type III strains tested, presumably responsible for a non-functional truncated MecI protein and, therefore, explaining the full resistance phenotype. In SCCmec type II strains no conserved mutations were found. We next transformed a collection of prototype MRSA epidemic strains with a recombinant plasmid overexpressing a wild-type copy of mecI. Surprisingly, for the great majority of the strains no significant alterations in the phenotypic expression of β-lactam resistance could be detected. These findings were confirmed and further explored, challenging the currently accepted mechanism of mecA transcriptional control. Our observations suggest the existence of yet unidentified additional determinants involved in the transcriptional control of mecA gene and point to a revision of the mecA regulatory mechanism in contemporary MRSA strains

Brand mergers: Examining consumer response to name and logo design

It is critical to investigate reactions to the various name and logo redeployment alternatives available in the context of a brand merger. Yet research on this topic is relatively limited. This paper aims to start filling this gap in the literature, by developing a typology of the visual identity structures that may be assumed in the context of a merger, as well as an exploratory study (n = 467) analysing consumers’ preferences regarding the alternative branding strategies. It uses an innovative design, which gives respondents freedom to choose their preferred solution. Results suggest that there is a clear preference for figurative logos. Furthermore, there is evidence that the logo may play a role as important as the name in a merger, ensuring consumers that there will be a connection with the brand’s past. Data also show that the choice of the logo reflects consumers’ aesthetic responses, whereas the choice of the name reflects consumers’ evaluation of the brand’s offer or off the brand’s presence in the market. These results should guide managers in the evaluation and choice of the post-merger branding strategy.brand identity, logos, brand mergers, consumer preferences

Acquisition or retention of MYGON users : a case of DoD Industry sustainability

MYGON is a Portuguese startup on daily deals set up in 2012. In Silicon Valley, the company was considered a potential global business with its innovative business model in the Deal of Day Industry in 2013 when the growth rates in this industry were still increasing. However, in the beginning of 2016 the results are completely different, the industry is stagnant, and the main players are struggling to survive and have even changed their business models. While looking at the sustainability of its business model, the question now is whether MYGON should enlarge its user base through constant acquisition of new users or retain its existing registered users, trying to turn them into real customers? This dissertation provides a broad overview of relevant marketing topics in the Literature Review, both online customer acquisition and online customer retention, applied to the Deal of the Day Industry. Additionally, a Case Study about MYGON is included with a Teaching Note, where instructions are provided for in-class discussion. A Market Research is also conducted with an In-depth Interview with MYGON’s CEO and Marketing Manager, a Focus Group, a Win-back Survey, and an Online Survey. In conclusion, the implications of the findings as to which direction the Portuguese company should take are also discussed.A MYGON é uma startup portuguesa de daily deals criada em 2012. Esta empresa foi considerada um negócio de dimensão potencialmente global com o seu modelo inovador de negócio na indústria de Daily Deals, em 2013, em Silicon Valley, altura em que as taxas de crescimento desta indústria ainda estavam em alta. No entanto, no início de 2016, os resultados são completamente diferentes, a indústria estagnou e os principais intervenientes estão a lutar por sobreviver, tendo modificado os seus modelos de negócio. Olhando para a sustentabilidade do modelo de negócio, resta saber, agora, se a MYGON deve ampliar a sua base de utilizadores através de um esforço constante de aquisição de novos utilizadores ou se deve reter os utilizadores já registados, procurando torná-los verdadeiros clientes? Esta dissertação proporciona uma ampla panorâmica dos relevantes tópicos de marketing recolhidos na Análise da Literatura, quer a nível da aquisição quer da retenção de clientes online, aplicada à indústria de Daily Deals. Além disso, foi incluído um Estudo de Caso acerca da MYGON juntamente com uma Nota de Ensino, onde são fornecidas instruções para discussão em aula. Também foi realizada uma Pesquisa de Mercado incluindo uma Entrevista Aprofundada com o CEO e o director de marketing da MYGON, um Focus Group, um Questionário de recuperação de antigos utilizadores e um Questionário Online. Finalmente e em conclusão, também são abordadas as implicações dos achados sobre a direcção que esta empresa portuguesa deve tomar no futuro