Addressing the complexities of managing domestic and multinational corporate brands (original) (raw)

Brands and Brand Strategies Managerial Considerations

In consumer marketing, brands often provide the primary points of differentiation between competitive offerings, and as such they can be critical to the success of companies. Hence, it is important that the management of brands is approached strategically. Brands play a critical role in a firm's international expansion. A coherent international brand architecture is a key component of the firm's overall international marketing strategy as it provides a structure to leverage strong brands into other markets, assimilate acquired brands, and rationalize the firm's international branding strategy. This paper is a review of the brand literature and his aim is to examine the brand concepts developed by management and the dynamic nature of brands in terms of changing brand strategy and increasing consumer sophistication.

Executive Insights: Integrating Branding Strategy across Markets: Building International Brand Architecture

Journal of International Marketing, 2001

Brands play a critical role in establishing a firm's visibility and position in international markets. Building a coherent international brand architecture is a key component of the firm's overall international marketing strategy, because it provides a structure to leverage strong brands into other markets, assimilate acquired brands, and integrate strategy across markets. The authors examine the way firms have developed international brand architecture and the drivers that shape the architecture. The authors discuss implications for the design and management of the firm's international brand architecture.

Understanding international branding: defining the domain and reviewing the literature

Purpose -This paper's objectives are first to analyse the patterns of research on international brands and branding so far, secondly to provide a definition for international branding based on these previous studies in the field, and finally to suggest fruitful paths for future research in this area. Design/methodology/approach -Content analysis of academic papers published in major marketing, advertising and international business journals. Findings -The field of international branding is broad and has developed in the course of the last 30 years in different directions and with different understandings of what the term refers to. This paper gives an overview of these directions, of the different understandings of the term found in the literature, proposes a definition of international branding, and finally suggests paths for future research. Research limitations/implications -As with all literature reviews, this paper is limited to analysing works in a selection of the top academic journals in the field. However, a careful choice of the most important journals has been made, providing a good reflection of the knowledge in the area. Originality/value -This appears to be the first literature review in the field of international branding and also the first to discuss the different interpretations of the term international branding that have developed over time. The authors also believe it is the first to offer a definition of the term in itself as well as in relation to international marketing.

International Branding: A Framework for Classification and Analysis

Journal of Euromarketing, 2014

The main contention of this paper is that branding and market communication in international markets need to be considered from more than the "traditional" culture-and-scale economies trade off perspective. This study presents a typology of four different branding categories based on the firm's international marketing capabilities and the globality of the industry: local brander, multidomestic brander, export brander, and global brander. Four case studies from Norway, representing each of the above categories of firms, are defined in what concerns the decision-making process involving the headquarters, the subsidiary or the local distributor, and the advertising agency; the information behaviour and the end result shows the degree of standardization of different elements of the branding and the market communication strategy.

A global brand management roadmap

International Journal of Research in Marketing, 2012

Although standardization-adaptation has long been recognized as a dynamic negotiation, less is known about the attendant processes within organizations. Accordingly, this study "pulls back the curtain" on a new global brand management strategy at Kimberly-Clark (KC). An extended case method was employed, comprising three rounds of semi-structured interviews with senior regional and global marketing managers on six continents. Global brand strategy development at KC entails sharing information and best practices, implementing common brand planning processes, assigning responsibilities for global branding, and creating and implementing effective brand-building strategies. Indeed, KC's approach, predicated on accountable empowerment and capacity-building, is transforming the organization by increasing marketing capability locally while instilling better processes and disciplines centrally. An examination of these seemingly orthogonal objectives allows us to see how brand strategy cohesiveness is maintained in an unconventionally decentralized structure.

International strategies of emerging market firms: Standardization in brand management revisited

European Journal of …, 2010

Purpose -This study aims to develop and test a theoretical model to delineate the effects of target market characteristics, firm characteristics and strategic resources, and product characteristics on standardization decisions in brand management of emerging market firms. The effects of standardization on brand performance in international markets are also to be explored. Design/methodology/approach -The study develops a model based on the extant literature and tests its relevance through a survey of eligible managers in charge of international brand operations of 94 strategic business units in Turkey. Findings -The empirical findings indicate that several factors exist as significant drivers of standardization decisions at various levels of brand management. Interestingly, even though firm characteristics and strategic resources were found to be the most critical drivers of brand performance, standardization versus adaptation approaches did not have any significant impact on strategic brand performance.

CORPORATE STRATEGIC BRANDING: HOW COUNTRY AND CORPORATE BRANDS COME TOGETHER

The concept of countries as brands has been increasingly recognized in the post-modern global world. A strong country brand can provide corporate brands with a unique set of values, which supports their positioning on the international market. Simultaneously, once corporate brands achieve worldwide success, they contribute actively to developing new features of the country brand. Consumers pay more and more attention to products' country of origin. When the name of a country is mentioned, they can have positive associations (high quality, modern design, product innovation), which means that the country itself has a powerful brand. However, there are opposite cases where we talk about the weak branding of a particular country. It is necessary to mobilise all the available forces of politicians, business people, artists, sportsmen and scientists to create a strategy for enhancing the image and reputation of a country on the international markets, i.e. for creating the national branding strategy.

The process of global brand strategy development and regional implementation

International Journal of Research in Marketing, 2012

Although standardization-adaptation has long been recognized as a dynamic negotiation, less is known about the attendant processes within organizations. Accordingly, this study "pulls back the curtain" on a new global brand management strategy at Kimberly-Clark (KC). An extended case method was employed, comprising three rounds of semi-structured interviews with senior regional and global marketing managers on six continents. Global brand strategy development at KC entails sharing information and best practices, implementing common brand planning processes, assigning responsibilities for global branding, and creating and implementing effective brand-building strategies. Indeed, KC's approach, predicated on accountable empowerment and capacity-building, is transforming the organization by increasing marketing capability locally while instilling better processes and disciplines centrally. An examination of these seemingly orthogonal objectives allows us to see how brand strategy cohesiveness is maintained in an unconventionally decentralized structure.

A cultural approach to branding in the global marketplace

Journal of International Marketing, 2008

International marketing's commitment to a technical and universalizing approach to solving managerial problems has meant that researchers have adopted an ethnocentric approach to branding. This is becoming problematic as the global marketplace develops. The authors argue that to meet the theoretical and methodological challenges of global branding, international marketing scholars will need to revise some key premises and foundations. Branding research in the future will need to be contextually and historically grounded, polycentric in orientation, and acutely attuned to the symbolic significance of brands of all types. The authors offer some conceptual foundations for a culturally relative, contextually sensitive approach to international branding in which the construct of brand mythology is central.