Manoella Antonieta Ramos, Svante Andersson and Ulf Aagerup
This study describes how a multinational enterprise (MNE) gains acceptance after rebranding acquired brands from different countries among its internal and external stakeholders…
Abstract
Purpose
This study describes how a multinational enterprise (MNE) gains acceptance after rebranding acquired brands from different countries among its internal and external stakeholders and identifies factors that influence this process.
Design/methodology/approach
The study employed a single case-study approach, including 18 semi-structured in-depth interviews with employees of a firm involved in the rebranding process in six countries. The countries are Sweden, Germany, the United States, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico.
Findings
The findings reveal how the MNE integrated brands it acquired in different international markets into one overarching corporate brand. The study shows that in emerging countries, external legitimation (external implementation process, country profiles and customer buy-in) constitutes the most significant challenge. By contrast, in developed countries, internal legitimation (employee buy-in and internal implementation process) is more challenging.
Research limitations/implications
The study contributes to and extends the rebranding literature by using a legitimation lens to analyze the rebranding process. This lens shows how internal and external stakeholders are both crucial to successful rebranding. The study provides a comprehensive perspective of the process, identifies challenging factors and differentiates between their importance in emerging and developed countries.
Originality/value
To address the dearth of research on how firms legitimize a new brand in different national contexts, the study compares the rebranding process in multiple countries and discusses the factors influencing the rebranding process.
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate if accessible luxury fashion brands discriminate overweight and obese consumers.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate if accessible luxury fashion brands discriminate overweight and obese consumers.
Design/methodology/approach
The physical sizes of garments are surveyed in-store and compared to the body sizes of the population. A gap analysis is carried out in order to determine whether the supply of clothes match the demand of each market segment.
Findings
The surveyed accessible luxury garments come in very small sizes compared to the individuals that make up the population.
Research limitations/implications
The survey is limited to London stores but the garment sizes are compared to the British population. It is therefore possible that the discrepancies between assortments and the population are in part attributable to geographic and demographic factors. The study’s results are, however, so strikingly clear that even if some of the effects were due to extraneous variables, it would be hard to disregard the poor match between overweight and obese women and the clothes offered to them.
Practical implications
For symbolic/expressive brands that are conspicuously consumed, that narrowly target distinct and homogenous groups of people in industries where elitist practices are acceptable, companies can build brands via customer rejection.
Social implications
The results highlight ongoing discrimination of overweight and obese fashion consumers.
Originality/value
The study is the first to provide quantitative evidence for brand building via customer rejection, and it delineates under which conditions this may occur. This extends the theory of typical user imagery.
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Ulf Aagerup and Edson Roberto Scharf
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of obese models vs normal weight models on fashion brands’ attractiveness.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of obese models vs normal weight models on fashion brands’ attractiveness.
Design/methodology/approach
An experiment was carried out in which 1,225 university students in Sweden and Brazil rated the attractiveness of a fashion brand worn by a normal weight model and an obese model.
Findings
The overall effect of obese models’ effect on fashion brand attractiveness was insignificant. Furthermore, neither culture nor the consumer’s own weight had a significant effect. There was, however, a significant effect of the participant’s own gender; women rate fashion brands worn by obese models significantly higher on attractiveness than they did fashion brands worn by normal weight models. Men displayed the inverse response.
Research limitations/implications
The effect of the model’s ethnicity was beyond the scope of the experiment, and the brand attractiveness scale captured only one aspect of brand character, leaving other potential brand effects for future studies.
Practical implications
Companies can use obese models with no overall brand attractiveness penalty across markets and for marketing to women of all sizes. Given men’s negative reactions, such models might however be unsuitable for the male-to-female gift market.
Social implications
The results support the use of obese models, which can lead to greater representation of larger women in the media, and consequently, reduced fat stigma.
Originality/value
The study validates the theory of user imagery, and it extends the theory by examining how different target consumers react to user imagery traits and thus provides evidence for gender bias toward obese models.
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Ulf Aagerup, Anna-Sofia Frank and Evelina Hultqvist
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of rational green packaging claims vs emotional green packaging claims on consumers’ purchase propensity for organic coffee.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of rational green packaging claims vs emotional green packaging claims on consumers’ purchase propensity for organic coffee.
Design/methodology/approach
Three within-subjects experiment were carried out (N=87, N=245, N=60). The experimental design encompasses packaging with rational green claims, emotional green claims, as well as a neutral (control) claim. Measured variables are introduced to assess participants’ environmental commitment and information processing ability. A manipulated between-subjects variable is introduced to test how distraction interacts with preference for the claims.
Findings
Overall, consumers prefer products with green claims over those with neutral (control) claims, and products with emotional green claims to those with rational green claims. The studies also reveal that this effect is moderated by participants’ environmental commitment, information processing ability and by distraction. The findings were statistically significant (p<0.05).
Research limitations/implications
As a lab experiment, the study provides limited generalizability and external validity.
Practical implications
For most organic FMCG products, it is advisable to employ emotional packaging claims.
Social implications
The presented findings provide marketers with tools to influence consumer behavior toward sustainable choices.
Originality/value
The paper validates previous contributions on the effects of product claim types, and extends them by introducing comprehensive empirical data on all the Elaboration Likelihood Model’s criteria for rational decision-making; motivation, opportunity and ability.
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Svante Andersson, Ulf Aagerup, Lisa Svensson and Sanna Eriksson
This study aims to explore challenges and opportunities in the digitalization of the business-to-business (B2B) customer journey in different buying situations. It also…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore challenges and opportunities in the digitalization of the business-to-business (B2B) customer journey in different buying situations. It also investigates where in the customer journey digital marketing is most efficient.
Design/methodology/approach
This research adopts a single case study approach to examine a B2B company that implemented digitalization in its customer journey in different buying situations. Data were collected through semistructured interviews, complemented by internal documents and information from the company’s website and social media, to identify reasons for and against the decision to digitalize the B2B customer journey.
Findings
Digitalization can offer firms a cost-effective and value-creating way to interact with customers in a B2B context. The B2B buying situation, however, plays a significant role in decisions on how to implement digitalization. Moreover, in the prepurchase phase, digital marketing is more effective in building awareness; in the purchase phase, personal selling is more effective in addressing customers’ needs.
Research limitations/implications
The use of a single case study cannot produce results directly generalizable to other contexts. However, the findings are applicable to the digitalization of B2B customer journeys in similar industrial contexts.
Practical implications
To successfully implement digitalization in the customer journey, B2B firms should choose digital tools according to different buying situations and phases in the customer journey, segment buyers by their needs rather than individual characteristics and integrate the sales and marketing functions.
Originality/value
This study contradicts prior research that claims that digital marketing can be used in a similar way in both B2B and business-to-consumer contexts. It further shows that the relevant demarcation is not between personal sales and digitalization but between automated digital marketing and individualized personal sales, regardless of medium.
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Richard Rutter, John Nadeau, Ulf Aagerup and Fiona Lettice
The purpose of this paper is to explore the brand relationships between a mega-sports event, the Olympic Games, and its branded main sponsors, using the lens of brand personality.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the brand relationships between a mega-sports event, the Olympic Games, and its branded main sponsors, using the lens of brand personality.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses the internet-based website communications of the sponsor and event brands to assess congruence in brand personality identity exhibited in the communications of sponsors and how these relate to the event brand itself. A lexical analysis of the website text identifies and graphically represents the dominant brand personality traits of the brands relative to each other.
Findings
The results show the Olympic Games is communicating excitement as a leading brand personality dimension. Sponsors of the Olympics largely take on its dominant brand dimension, but do not adapt their whole brand personality to that of the Olympics and benefit by adding excitement without losing their individual character. The transference is more pronounced for long-running sponsors.
Practical implications
Sponsorship of the Olympic Games does give brands the opportunity to capture or borrow the excitement dimension alongside building or reinforcing their own dominant brand personality trait or to begin to subtly alter their brand positioning.
Originality/value
This study is the first to examine how the sponsor’s brand aligns with the event being sponsored as a basis for developing a strong shared image and associative dimensions complimentary to the positioning of the brand itself.
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Svante Andersson, Gabriel Baffour Awuah, Ulf Aagerup and Ingemar Wictor
This study aims to investigate how mature born global firms create value for customers to achieve continued international growth.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate how mature born global firms create value for customers to achieve continued international growth.
Design/methodology/approach
The study employs a case study approach to investigate the under-researched area of how mature born globals create value for customers and, by doing so, contribute to their continued international growth. This in-depth examination of how three born globals developed over time uses interviews, observation and secondary data.
Findings
The findings indicate that the entrepreneurs of born global firms, that continued to grow, created a culture in the early stages that supported value creation for foreign customers. These firms have built a competitive position by developing international niche products. They have also implemented a combination of proactive and reactive market orientation to facilitate the creation and delivery of value to customers. To maintain growth, they further invest the revenues earned on additional international marketing activities and continuously enhance their focal products.
Research limitations/implications
The study relies on three cases. We therefore recommend that future studies extend the scope of the research to several companies in various industries and countries, in which the theoretical arguments can be applied. In addition, further studies that test the propositions developed in this study, in different contexts, are highly recommended.
Practical implications
To gain international growth, managers should create an organizational culture that facilitates satisfying international customer needs. Firms should continuously invest in sales and market development (e.g. social media marketing, personal selling) and undertake technology development of niche rather than new products. To achieve international growth, managers need to standardize part of the offer to achieve economies of scale and adapt the other part to international customers' needs.
Originality/value
Research on born globals has focused on the early stages of their internationalization processes, while largely neglecting the later stages (mature born globals) or the factors that lead to continued international growth. To address this gap, this study explores what happens when born globals ‘grow up’. This study contributes to the literature by capturing the factors and processes underlying how mature born globals create value for customers, for international growth. In particular, the study shows that the culture and strategies developed in the born globals' early stages also lead to international growth in later stages. The mature born globals have also invested in niche products, brand building, and effective market channels and adopted a combination of proactive and reactive market orientations.
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Ulf Aagerup, Svante Andersson and Gabriel Baffour Awuah
This study aims to investigate how business-to-business (B2B) companies build brand personality via the products they provide and via their interactions with customers.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate how business-to-business (B2B) companies build brand personality via the products they provide and via their interactions with customers.
Design/methodology/approach
A multiple case study, which spans 10 years, investigates via interviews, observations, workshops and document analysis how two fast-growing B2B companies selling industrial equipment to manufacturers build brand personality.
Findings
The studied companies concentrate on different brand personality dimensions depending on the activities in which they engage. By focusing on brand competence in the realm of the actual product and brand warmth in the realm of the augmented product, the companies manage to create a complete and consistent brand personality.
Research limitations/implications
The research approach provides in-depth knowledge on how the companies build brands for a specific type of B2B product. However, the article’s perspective is limited to that of management and therefore does not take customer reactions into account.
Practical implications
The study describes how firms can build strong B2B brands by emphasizing competence in product design and R&D and warmth in activities related to sales and customer service.
Originality/value
The study introduces a conceptually consistent view of brand personality in the form of warm and competent brands to the B2B marketing literature. It builds on and contributes to the emerging research on B2B brand personality. By relating the companies’ brand-building activities to the type of products they sell, this study illustrates how context affects B2B brand building, and by integrating brand personality theory with product levels and marketing philosophy, it extends previous theory on B2B branding.
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This paper aims to expand the emerging field of symbolic green consumer behavior (GCB) by investigating the impact of anticipated conspicuousness of the consumption situation on…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to expand the emerging field of symbolic green consumer behavior (GCB) by investigating the impact of anticipated conspicuousness of the consumption situation on consumers’ choice of organic products. In addition, the paper also explores whether self-monitoring ability and attention to social comparison information (ATSCI) influence GCB in situations of anticipated high conspicuousness.
Design/methodology/approach
Two experiments test the study’s hypotheses.
Findings
The results of both experiments show that the anticipation of conspicuousness has a significant effect on GCB. Moreover, in Experiment 2, this effect is moderated by consumers’ level of ATSCI but not by their self-monitoring ability.
Research limitations/implications
Because ATSCI significantly interacts with green consumption because of the anticipation of a conspicuous setting, although self-monitoring ability does not, we conclude that social identification is an important determinant of green consumption.
Practical implications
Marketers who focus on building green brands could consider designing conspicuous consumption situations to increase GCB.
Social implications
Policymakers could enact change by making the environmental unfriendliness of non-eco-friendly products visible to the public and thus increase the potential for GCB.
Originality/value
The results validate the emerging understanding that green products are consumed for self-enhancement, but also expand the literature by highlighting that a key motivating factor of GCB is the desire to fit in.
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the weight of ideal users affects the perception of mass market fashion brands.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the weight of ideal users affects the perception of mass market fashion brands.
Design/methodology/approach
An experiment was carried out in which 640 university students replied to a web survey, rating the brand personality of jeans and shirts according to Aaker's Big Five construct. The garments were worn by thin, overweight, and obese models.
Findings
The findings show that consumers’ impressions of mass market fashion brands are significantly affected by the weight of ideal users. Slender models lead to the most positive brand perception followed by obese models. Overweight user imagery is for pure fashion brand building the least attractive kind.
Research limitations/implications
A limitation of this study is the use of convenient student samples. Consequently, the generalization of the results beyond this convenience sample may be limited. It is further possible, even probable, that high fashion would suffer more from the negative imagery of overweight and obese users than mass market fashion. It would therefore be interesting to replicate this experiment using clothes of higher fashion grade and price.
Practical implications
The demonstrated effects of user imagery support the industry practice of slim ideal female imagery.
Social implications
The results inform the debate over skinny models vs real women in advertising.
Originality/value
Previous research regarding the effectiveness of real women in advertising has been inconclusive. This paper demonstrates not only that model weight affects consumers’ brand perception, but also how.