Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Product & Brand Management, Volume 20, Issue 1

In many ways, brands influence an individuals’ way of making a choice in the marketplace, be it for a product or a service. A brand represents a company’s efforts to win both the hearts and minds (as well as the pocketbooks) of individuals, and also serve as the foundation for a consumer’s choice and preference. A company in the global marketplace today should create both a persistent and consistent message that should allow the consumer to truly understand what that brand represents. To do so helps to create a positive situation whereby customer loyalty can be maintained.

Perez, Padgett and Burgers assess the role that elapsed time and culture may play in affecting intergenerational influence in brand preferences. The authors found that coincidence in family life cycle emerges as an important factor in determining intergenerational influence strength. Understanding how intergenerational influence evolves in different cultural contexts may be applicable in the design of product and communication strategies leading to brand preference.

Hess, Story and Danes examine the sources of consumer brand relationship investment, specifically isolating the sources and outcomes of community and exchange relationship characteristics. Brands that wish to develop long-lasting relationships with their customers must understand the relative impact of both personal and functional (exchange) relationship characteristics on the development of relationship investment. Each has a specific role to play and the roles of each vary at different relationship stages.

Pepe, Abratt and Dion investigate the influence of private label resources possessed by a supermarket retailer on the shopping behavior of loyal customers. The authors examine whether or not private label products can help in the overall enhancement of product category performance. Although private label products may represent increased profitability for retailers, consumers prefer a full assortment of merchandise and an over emphasis on private label brands may result in diminishing category performance.

Belaid and Temessek Behi investigate the role of attachment to consumer brand relationships and its link with constructs such as trust, satisfaction,commitment and behavioral loyalty. The authors create a structural equation model to assess the hypothetical links. The findings of the structural model confirm the majority of the hypothesized relationships. Brand attachment is considered as an important input to brand commitment of utilitarian products.

Gammoh, Koh and Okoroafo study the impact of global consumer culture positioning in comparison to local consumer culture positioning strategies on consumer evaluations of a new unknown brand. The author’s results support the effectiveness of such strategies as demonstrated by overall improvement in subjects’ attitudinal evaluations of a [fictitious] brand when global consumer culture positioning is used relative to the use of local consumer culture positioning. The authors offer specific strategic positioning guides to brand managers competing in the global marketplace.

Liu and Hu study the characteristics of product portfolio on the price premium of an umbrella brand. Specifically, the study explores three aspects of a product portfolio: the presence of attribute compatibility, similarity, and portfolio size. The author’s findings show that people value the compatibility attributes within a brand, thus it would benefit a brand manager to develop compatible attributes within amongst and within a brand. Also, a company may consider offering such compatibility attributes by forming strategic alliances with other companies.

In this issue of the JPBM you will also find our Pricing Strategy& Practice section as well as our Book Review section.

Richard C. Leventhal