1,721,029 research outputs found
IMC in digitally-empowering contexts: the emerging role of negotiated brands
No full textIn current digitally-empowering contexts, the Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) paradigm may have lost its ‘original’ customer-centric focus. Drawing on service-dominant logic, the paper examines the changes to IMC when multiple sources of consumer power emerge as central in the value creation process. This change in the focus of IMC likely enables the emergence of negotiated brands, i.e. brands that focus on a marketplace where traditional marketer-created brand value may be replaced by buyer and seller co-created value. The paper argues that this novel type of brand structure represents an appropriate managerial response to multidimensional IMC approaches. As that occurs, four key issues (community-centric orientation, emergent strategy, hybrid communication mix, reciprocity-based assessment) emerge which lead to a number of research questions in the planning and execution of marketing communications in today’s digitally-empowered contexts. All these issues clearly highlight the consumers’ contributions to brand value co-creation, by reaffirming the ‘original’ outside-in perspective of IMC
Reshaping the boundaries of marketing communication to bond with consumers
No full textBrands have been traditionally built focusing on continuity and mass media exposure controlled by marketers with the aim of pursuing linear contacts with target markets that could benefit brands. Linearity typically translated into a brand communication approach
characterized by a one-to-many message exchange and targeting, which was designed according to a unilateral communication logic (Schultz, Block, and Raman 2012). On that logic rested the classic marketing concept that was built on market control relying on deskdefined market scenario and competitive analysis, segmentation, targeting, positioning and marketing tactics implementation (i.e., the 4Ps).
This kind of market approach cannot work anymore. We currently live in a fuzzy world which is always in turmoil and whose pace of innovation and change is increasingly fast and disruptive. Consumers are eager to cocreate and self-produce meaningful contents, whether iconic, audio-visual, textual, to relate to their brands and companies.Hence, marketing communication strategies are currently expected to define a common experiential frame reflecting companies’ and consumers’ sensitivities, consistent with and inspired by their subjectivities, which can be translated into relational touchpoints between brands and consumers that are meaningful to encourage consumer identification, that are lively to host and nurture consumer participation and that provide a context that boosts consumer interaction and sharing with each other and with the brand
Brand wars: consumer-brand engagement as client-agency battlefield
No full textMuch of extant literature points to Consumer-Brand Engagement (CBE) as a potential amplifier of the conflicting relational dynamics which have always characterized client and agency relationship. In that context, CBE calls for a conception of consumer-brand relationships as a peer-to-peer dialogue, based on a listening and dialogic capability on the part of practitioners. It is this capability which often conflicts with the competitive and goal-oriented logics which drive marketing decision-making and forces it into the empathetic logics which seem to drive agency decisions.
Using that premise of client-agency conflict, an in-depth investigation of practitioners’ views and practices of CBE was conducted. Our aim was to explore how marketing/brand managers and agency professionals currently conceive CBE. We highlight the differences in how each group manages the consumer-brand relationships necessary to achieve CBE. Thus, we develop a potential unifying framework that may help them build a common path in CBE strategies.
This conceptual framework applies a circular relational logic starting from a shared outside-in market perspective that points at consumers as the starting point to develop a shared and comprehensive value system which embeds and is nurtured by the value systems of all the actors involved in the CBE process
Conceptualising the corporate brand as a socially owned asset: a critical contemplation
No full textOver the past few years, brand reference appears to have declined, dramatically (Schultz and Block 2012; Schultz et al. 2013). Attempts have been made to offset that decline by developing company efforts to build and sustain a trustworthy corporate brand capable of supporting the entire product brand portfolio. In this paper we posit that managing the organization as a corporate brand may help companies differentiate their offerings and therefore regain some of their lost brand preference through enhancing and seeking to expand their social roles
Brand wars: consumer–brand engagement beyond client–agency fights
No full textEngaging consumers with their brands has emerged as a priority in marketers’ agenda. Brand decision-makers share a clear representational view of consumer-brand engagement (CBE). Despite this agreement, practitioners are currently finding hard to practically achieve CBE. The clash between an ideal representation of CBE focused on consumer protagonism and its fragile execution urges a rethinking of consumer-brand relationship modes and timeframe. We argue that this clash is nurtured by the long-established conflicting relational dynamics among brand decision-makers illustrated by client–agency (CA) disputes of which consumers represent the ending-point recipient. This paper reflects on how consumer protagonism as an inherent component of CBE is currently reshaping the relation dynamics among all brand actors. We represent CBE as a relational hub resting upon a co-creation rather than a separation logic. We finally provide a pragmatic reflection on the relationship culture required by CBE among actors beyond the CA dyad
Advancing a Citizenship Approach to Corporate Branding: A Societal View
No full textCitizenship approach to corporate branding challenges the corporate brand to evolve from being a self-referential corporate asset embodying a company-centred attitude, toward being an asset that is socially inspired and that in the essence of its promise expresses the citizenship status of the corporation in society. In this article, we name this view of corporate branding (CB) as “societal CB.” By societal CB we refer to the humanistic tension of a company to use the corporate brand as an enabler of social discourses and actions through which the company, in enacting its cor- porate citizenship (CC), carries out quasi-governmental interventions in favor of society. The aim is to elaborate the view of the corporate brand as a relational asset nurtured by business and society encounters, by elucidating the conceptual seeds that pave the way to societal CB, to then illustrate and critically discuss anecdotes of quasi-governmental actions carried out by companies in their CB efforts. In doing that, we attempt to open an arena for debate on societal CB as a contemporary humanistic expression of CC. We conceive this contribution as an incubator of ideas for the advancement of CC through the societal CB view
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Beyond negative liberties: the role of the brand as value facilitator
No full textSo far value co-creation literature has been devoting much of its attention to explore and frame the primary role of customers as ultimate value co-creators, neglecting to adequately acknowledge the new role of the firm as value enabler. The latest supremacy of customers as empirical focus leaves then open the following question: what is the role of the firm in value co-creation (Grönroos, 2008)? In the current society the role of the firm seems to be regulated mainly by “negative liberties” (Berlin, 1969) that represent non-action imperatives or imposed impediments to do something: “do not control, do not take over, do not over-speak, do not show off, do not intrude, do not annoy”, just to mention some. We argue that in order to better understand the role of the brand in value co-creation, positive actions need to be uncovered beyond negative liberties to recognize the potential of the firm as value facilitator (Veloutsou, 2009). More concretely we contend that the actions performed by the brand in order to enable value co-creation by customers need to be empirically explored and identified in order to advance our understanding of value co-creation process in an actionable way (Grönroos, 2011).
This paper interpretively investigates how brand decision-makers conceive and represent through the narratives of their branding practices the role of the brand in facilitating the encounter and the interaction with customers to encourage the process of value co-creation
Filling the gaps for plugging the holes? Why the academic advertising research model maintenance
No full textThis paper suggests the traditional academic advertising research model is likely broken, given the changes in advertising which have occurred over the past few years. Five model areas of the research approach are identified as needing re-thinking, (a) the advertising problem, (b) sample frame and subjects, (c) consumer behaviour assumptions, (d) research methodologies and (e) findings. Suggestions are made for improvement and a call for the establishment of a blue ribbon panel for the next ICORIA meeting to report back on recommended changes are offered as solutions
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