HELSINKI SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS (HSE) Department of Marketing and Management

A CONCEPT ANALYSIS ON MODERN BRANDING Defining Key Concepts in Mind-Share, Emotional, Viral, and Cultural Branding

Marketing Master´s thesis Henri Weijo Spring 2008

Approved by the Council of the Department ____ / ____ 20____ and awarded

the grade_______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________

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Abstract Helsinki School of Economics 16.4.2008 Master’s Thesis Henri Weijo A CONCEPT ANALYSIS ON MODERN BRANDING: DEFINING KEY CONCEPTS IN MIND-SHARE, EMOTIONAL, VIRAL AND CULTURAL BRANDING

Research purpose and objectives

Branding is an ever-popular topic for research and managerial discussion. In modern branding

discourse, there are four dominant models of branding: mind-share, emotional, viral and

cultural branding. In this thesis these models were studied with the intent to what they are

comprised of.

Methodology

The study was conducted using concept analysis, more specifically through differentiating

between a concept’s intention and extension, through dissecting different manifestations of

each concept. Concept analysis is performed as interpretative reading and cross-referencing to

other definitions. The research was conducted using five branding books as source material

and in analyzing five concepts: consumer, brand, branding, brand management and

competitive environment.

Findings

From the findings new definitions were forged for each concept and for the most part they

were found to differ significantly from one another – especially in the cases of consumer and

branding. Also, in evaluating and comparing the definitions, key differences and similarities

were outlined. The main findings of this study relate to possible synergies between the

models, especially between viral branding and cultural branding. Also, in analyzing the

concepts, a notion of brand building through progressively moving from one brand model

from another was introduced.

Keywords

Concept analysis, branding, brand management, consumer, mind-share branding, emotional

branding, viral branding, cultural branding, hybrid branding.

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Preface and Acknowledgements

My interest in brands and branding has been present throughout my studies. However, it was

through the International Design Business Management (IDBM) program and the project our

team completed that my interest in branding really deepened. Also, during the IDBM project I

was able to familiarize myself with all the branding models explored in this thesis, and I was

particularly impressed with cultural branding and the works of Douglas Holt overall. You

could say that this was the spark that led to me choosing this subject for this thesis. This thesis

has also solidified my intent to make a career in the field of branding, possibly even as an

author later in my career.

At Nokia, I would like to thank Kelly Burlace, Liisa Puolakka and Hannu Nieminen for their

involvement in the IDBM project and for commissioning this thesis based on the findings of

our project. A special thanks to Are Thu for shaping the focus of this thesis from Nokia’s

perspective. Also, a very special thanks to Minna Hellström and Maria Jernström for their

roles as handlers for this thesis from Nokia’s side and for sparring ideas.

From HSE, I would like to thank Markku Salimäki from the IDBM program for his influence

in the times predating this thesis. Also, a very special thanks to my thesis tutor, professor

Johanna Moisander, who was instrumental in shaping the form and focus of this thesis.

Without her, the thesis may not have lived to its full potential, or at least it would have been

considerably more painful to produce.

And finally, I would like to thank my family and friends, who have supported me throughout

this long but very rewarding process.

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Table of Contents

ABSTRACT........................................................................................................................................................ IIPREFACEANDACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................III1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................................11.1 BACKGROUND...........................................................................................................................................................11.2 RESEARCHGAP ........................................................................................................................................................21.3 KEYCONCEPTS .........................................................................................................................................................21.4 CONCEPTDIFFERENTIATIONINMARKETINGANDBRANDING.........................................................................41.5 METHODOFRESEARCH ..........................................................................................................................................61.6 RESEARCHMATERIAL .............................................................................................................................................91.7 LIMITATIONSANDFOCUS ....................................................................................................................................101.8 STRUCTUREOFTHEREPORT..............................................................................................................................11

2 BRANDINGANDTHEFOURMAINMODELSOFBRANDING..................................................... 122.1 THEMODERNBRANDINGDISCOURSE................................................................................................................122.1.1 Ashorthistoryofbranding ......................................................................................................................122.1.2 Brandingandbrandmanagementasstrategicfunctionsintoday’sbusiness ..................13

2.2 THEFOURDIFFERENTBRANDINGMODELS......................................................................................................152.2.1 Mind­shareBranding..................................................................................................................................152.2.2 EmotionalBranding ....................................................................................................................................202.2.3 ViralBranding ...............................................................................................................................................212.2.4 CulturalBranding.........................................................................................................................................24

3 CONCEPTANALYSISONTHEFOURBRANDINGMODELS ........................................................ 313.1 MIND‐SHAREBRANDING’SCONCEPTS ..............................................................................................................313.1.1 TheMind­ShareConsumer .......................................................................................................................313.1.2 TheMind­ShareBrand ...............................................................................................................................363.1.3 Mind­ShareBrandingandBrandManagement..............................................................................403.1.4 Mind­shareandthecompetitiveenvironment.................................................................................44

3.2 EMOTIONALBRANDINGCONCEPTS....................................................................................................................463.2.1 TheEmotionalConsumer..........................................................................................................................463.2.2 TheEmotionalBrand..................................................................................................................................513.2.3 EmotionalBrandingandBrandManagement ................................................................................533.2.4 TheEmotionalCompetitiveEnvironment .........................................................................................57

3.3 VIRALBRANDINGCONCEPTS...............................................................................................................................583.3.1 TheViralConsumer .....................................................................................................................................583.3.2 TheViralBrand .............................................................................................................................................653.3.3 ViralBrandingandBrandManagement............................................................................................673.3.4 TheViralCompetitiveEnvironment.....................................................................................................73

3.4 CULTURALBRANDINGCONCEPTS......................................................................................................................753.4.1 TheCulturalConsumer ..............................................................................................................................753.4.2 TheCulturalBrand ......................................................................................................................................803.4.3 CulturalBrandingandBrandManagement.....................................................................................833.4.4 TheCulturalCompetitiveEnvironment ..............................................................................................88

4 DISCUSSIONANDIMPLICATIONSOFTHENEWCONCEPTS.................................................... 904.1 CONSUMER.............................................................................................................................................................904.2 BRAND ....................................................................................................................................................................954.3 BRANDING..............................................................................................................................................................984.4 BRANDMANAGEMENT ..................................................................................................................................... 1024.5 COMPETETIVEENVIRONMENT........................................................................................................................ 1044.6 FRAMEWORKOFFINDINGS .............................................................................................................................. 107

5 IMPLICATIONS.....................................................................................................................................109

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5.1 MEETINGTHEOBJECTIVESOFTHESTUDY ................................................................................................... 1095.2 THEORETICALCONTRIBUTION........................................................................................................................ 1095.3 MANAGERIALIMPLICATIONS........................................................................................................................... 1105.4 LIMITATIONSANDIDEASFORFUTURERESEARCH..................................................................................... 111

6 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................................1137 ELECTRONICREFERENCES ..............................................................................................................119 List of Figures Figure 1: Conceptual Triangle................................................................................................ 8Figure 2: Report Structure ................................................................................................... 11Figure 3: The Onion Model of the Brand ............................................................................ 18Figure 4: Brand Identity's Elements .................................................................................... 19Figure 5: Cultural Branding's Consumer Dynamics.......................................................... 29Figure 6: The Consumer Concepts....................................................................................... 90Figure 7: The Brand Concepts.............................................................................................. 95Figure 8: The Branding Concepts ........................................................................................ 98Figure 9: The Brand Management Concepts .................................................................... 102Figure 10: The Competetive Environment Concepts ....................................................... 104Figure 11: Summary of findings ......................................................................................... 107Figure 12: Brand model progression.................................................................................. 111

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1 Introduction

1.1 Background

Branding continues to be a topic of major interest for academics and companies alike. For

companies, building a strong brand can be the source of major competitive advantage in the

current market situation, but also something to leverage when the company expands to new

markets. For academics, branding offers a topic that is constantly in motion - especially when

it is rooted in the ever-changing consumer marketplace. (Keller & Lehmann 2005)

During the past decade or so, the field of branding has been in a state of turmoil. The

emergence of the Internet as a place of building communities, sharing information and doing

business has shaped the way we live our lives and the way we interact with brands – and

naturally how brands should be built. Add to this the fact that the world is converging into one

global marketplace, where brands from all over the world compete for the hearts of

consumers, and it is no wonder that new books on branding keep popping up on the shelves of

bookstores – all claiming to solve today’s branding problems.

Given that a great deal of literature has been written on branding, some schools of thought

have started to emerge as well. Brand researcher Douglas Holt argues in his book “How

Brands Become Icons” (2004) that there are four dominant branding models that account for

nearly all the current branding strategies or disciplines: mind-share branding, emotional

branding, viral branding and cultural branding (Holt 2004, p. 14). Mind-share remains the

most dominant of the models, still taught in business schools worldwide and practiced by the

majority of companies around the globe (Holt 2004, p. 13). But the other three models have

also managed to gain a following and have had their share of success stories as well.

Given that these different branding models all try to solve problems in a marketplace which

faces continuous changes, it is interesting to evaluate how they differ in their key concepts

and what makes these models what they are. For example, the concept of “consumer” might

not be even remotely similar in viral and mind-share branding. Emotional branding and

cultural branding might not see eye-to-eye on what a brand is and how it should be managed.

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Holt (2004, p. 5, 14, 20) also states that many companies look to incorporate hybrid branding

strategies depending on the product category the brand is in. Especially in cases like these, it

is paramount that managers know what kind of limitations and similarities the different

branding strategies might offer in relation to each other. Also, this kind of analysis should not

be just conducted as a general comparison. Rather the models should be examined in more

depth, dissecting how they differ in places where they are talking about the same things –

using the same terms.

1.2 Research Gap

Given this apparent need for clarification of some key concepts in today’s branding discourse,

my research question is as follows:

How do mind-share branding, emotional branding, viral branding, and cultural branding

differ from one another in regards to their concepts of consumer, brand, branding, brand

management and the competitive environment?

My goal is to analyze the aforementioned concepts from all four branding models outlined by

Holt (2004, p. 14), create a reference framework that aims to define the different branding

models, and evaluate how they relate to one another, especially if intended to use in a hybrid

branding strategy.

1.3 Key concepts

I have preliminarily defined the key concepts of interest for my study. From these concepts, I

aim to derive a new and a more definitive concept for each branding model.

Consumer The definition of a consumer is generally quite broad. Holbrook (1987) states that,

in essence, being a consumer requires consumption, and consumption entails the acquisition,

usage and disposition of products, services, ideas, events or any other entities. However,

Aaker (2001, p. 22) says that even those who are not consuming the brand are considered

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consumers from the brand’s perspective, not just the active clientele. Since this thesis is

mostly about consumers from a brand-consumer relationship perspective, I will define the

concept of consumer as a single actor who can be considered to be in the sphere of influence

of a brand and a potential customer. This definition serves as a good starting point, as it can

quite easily be made more intensive for each branding model.

Brand Keller (2003, p. 2) states that a brand is a “name, sign, symbol, design, or a

combination of them, intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of

sellers and to differentiate them from those of competition”. From a company perspective,

Kotler & Armstrong (2004) define a brand as something that “outlasts the firm’s specific

products” and is a powerful asset that must be carefully developed and managed. One of the

most basic definitions of a brand, however, is that it is something of “value” for both the

consumer and the company (de Chernatory & McDonald 1992). This is the so-called

“product-plus” definition of the brand. Also, the notion of value, especially from a company’s

perspective, is what creates the need for strategic thinking when managing brands, and this

was also advocated by Aaker (2001, p. 274-275). As a starting point for my thesis, I will

define the brand as a distinguishable entity that provides value for both companies and

consumers.

Branding The shortest way to define branding is to say that branding is the pursuit to

differentiate one producer’s products from another in a way that is relevant to the consumer

(Farquah 1994). In section 2.1 I present an expanded definition as to what branding has

historically meant, but for research purposes the aforementioned definition is quite adequate.

In this thesis I will be concentrating solely on consumer brands and how they should be built

and managed; corporate branding is outside the scope of my research.

Brand Management Bettis & Prahalad (1995) define brand management as “a deep-seated

way of seeing and managing brands and their value, shared by the members of an

organizational community marked by a common culture.” The key difference to branding

here is that brand management also talks about organizational issues, or rather, that branding

is a subset of brand management. Again, the focus is solely on consumer brand management.

Therefore, as a starting point, I will define brand management as the choices related to an

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organization’s attempts to influence brands that it can claim to be under its influence.

Competitive Environment By competitive environment, I mean the overall marketplace in

which companies are supposed to be acting, be it in terms of competitors, societies, cultural

issues or any other instances outside the company’s control. The main interest here is whether

or not the different authors see any significance in these external forces, and to what degree.

In some instances and especially in the media, branding and brand management are

sometimes referred to interchangeably. For the sake of clarity in this thesis, I have decided to

differentiate branding and brand management because I am interested in how the different

branding models differ in building a brand but also managing it in the truest sense of the

word. This means that I am interested to see how the different branding models react to

changes that affect already-established brands and how the brands should be modified – if at

all. Also, brand management touches not only on how brands should be handled, but also on

how organizational issues, such as who is in charge of branding, should be handled.

1.4 Concept differentiation in marketing and branding

There are many common building block concepts in marketing, such as the four “Ps” of

marketing. The continuous advancement of the marketing discipline requires that the

marketing community continually re-evaluate what marketing really is, and where the

discipline is going by evaluating what marketing is “made of” – what are its key concepts.

This is where conducting a concept analysis becomes relevant. The earliest concept analysis

works in marketing that I could find were from McNamara (1972), who conducted a historical

study on the “marketing concept”, and Kotler (1972), who concluded through his analysis that

the marketing concept should be broadened to include transactions between the company and

all of its publics. Since then, research has also expanded to include other concepts within

marketing (e.g. Bengtsson & Firat 2006; Low & Fullerton 1994; McRae & Uncles 1996).

Simkin (2000) states that marketers of services were first to speak out against the limitations

of marketing discourse, stating that it was geared too much toward traditional products and

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that it ignored or overly simplified some aspects that were essential to service marketing.

Simkin also argues that this discourse has lead to improvement and additions to the field of

marketing. For example, some scholars now include three “new P's”, namely people, physical

evidence (ambience) and process, into the 4 P's of marketing to better accommodate the

service aspect, even though some scholars disagree with the necessity of these additions. This

kind of discourse is what drives the need for concept analysis.

As an example as to why concept analysis could be useful in the marketing discourse, Brown

(1992) states that the use of the term “postmodern” – a term frequently used in marketing

literature – has been muddled close to meaningless as different authors use it to mean, among

others, “changed”, “complex”, “new”, “naturalistic”, “interpretive” or even “genuine”. Brown

argues that even though postmodernism has very significant ramifications on the marketing

field, this kind of scattered meaning pool is not exactly helping the marketing discipline.

There is no doubt that marketing concepts and terms will continue to evolve, but also the field

of marketing will continue to become more scattered. This is partly because of the added

complexities in the field of marketing, but also because sometimes different authors will

simply not agree on certain things, and this is when different schools of thought start to

emerge.

Relating to Holt’s claim that all branding models are often advocated as “one size fits all”, it

is also a reasonable assumption that given the fragmentation of the branding models, certain

common terms and concepts used within them have started to become differentiated as well.

This may happen for a number of reasons. For starters, one branding model may be much

older and comprehensive, whereas another branding model can be considered more modern

and perhaps designed to attract only a certain niche of consumers. For example, in mind-share

branding a consumer is likely to be defined – directly or indirectly – as something completely

different than in viral branding because viral branding is something that has emerged only in

the past decade or so.

When examining different concept analysis studies, it becomes clear that there is no one

single way to conduct a concept analysis. Some of the studies were done as historical analysis

of previous literature (e.g. Bengtsson & Firat 2006) and some as more empirical findings (e.g.

Kotler 1972). In the next section I will introduce my own model of analysis, which borrows

from theoretical philosophy and is based on analyzing current material.

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1.5 Method of research

As already stated, my goal is to conduct a concept analysis on key marketing concepts found

in the branding literature outlined above. Concept analysis is a subset of qualitative research,

and is conducted interpretively where the researcher has to use his or her judgment to a great

degree in evaluating existing written material. (Denzin & Lincoln 2000)

In theoretical philosophy, to analyze a concept is to analyze two of its distinguishing features:

its extension and intension. Intension stands for the other objects that give meaning to the

concept. Extension, on the other hand, is the collection of objects that share the intension as a

common denominator. (Kakkuri-Knuuttila 1998, p. 335) Key in analyzing a concept is to

analyze and differentiate between its different intension manifestations or objects, that is,

recognize different objects that have some sort of connection or common thread and organize

them into a collection of beings and thus into a single extension, and then point out relativity

or dependence between the objects. The goal is thus to define the intension for a concept

through its extension, which was built up by gathering objects that share a connection of some

kind. (Kakkuri-Knuuttila 1998, p. 335) This is also the method I will be using in my thesis. I

will try to gauge different manifestations for each concept, and try to come up with an

intension for each term.

For example, the intension of “consumer” relates to all consumers, real or unreal, from

passive supermarket shoppers to fanatic brand evangelists, but the extension is the collection

of these different consumers, because they all relate to the intended meaning – i.e. intension –

of consumer. If the intension were “a passive consumer”, this would reduce the amount of

different consumers in the extension significantly, but as a result, the term would become

more precise and accurate, whereas in the former, it was very loosely defined and the

different beings in the extension had very little in common.

Extension and intension are inversely correlated; when extension becomes broader, intension

becomes less accurate - i.e. less intensive. The broader the extension for a word is, the less the

beings in the collection have in common. (Kakkuri-Knuuttila 1998, p. 335) Intension is

dynamic in nature and its meaning may change. This can and often does have an effect on the

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concept’s extension as well (Kakkuri-Knuuttila 1998, p. 335). Intension can also be referred

to as the concept's or term’s meaning and extension is sometimes called the word’s or term’s

reference (Haaparanta and Niiniluoto 1998, p. 42-43).

Ducasse (1954) states that a person cannot freely describe both the extension and the

intension of a term, because the two are logically dependent. This means that describing one

places a restriction on the other, and one is thus free to describe one as long as the proposed

description is consistent with the other. As an example, Ducasse posits that if one describes

“table” and “God” as are parts of the extension for the term “real” (meaning that a table is

“real” and God is “real”), one can no longer define “real” in the instance of being “spherical”

or “hungry”, for example, since neither “table” nor “God”, which are part of the extension,

have either of the aforementioned characteristics. The definition of “real” is thus bound to

characteristics that only “God” and “table” possess.

As Kakkuri-Knuuttila (1998, p.337) argues, the meaning of a concept is revealed in how it is

used. By looking for situational usage of each concept or term whose extension one is trying

to build up, one can make assumptions and interpretations for each intension. As Kakkuri-

Knuuttila (1998, p. 339) notes, in one instance a term or a word can be a definite concept, in

another not. Identifying different instances reveals a great deal about the concept under

inspection. This situational usage is of great interest in my thesis.

Knuuttila (in Heinämaa, Reuter & Yrjönsuuri 2003, p. 19) points out that unlike a concept, a

term can have multiple meanings, and they may include unspecified usage conventions.

Kakkuri-Knuuttila (1998, p. 342) states that when comparing concepts, it is useful to choose

the one with the least number of intension objects in its definition, i.e. the simplest concept,

the basic definition of the concept family. Or in other words, when the intension is so

intensive that adding a new object to the extension would cause the intension to break.

However, my goal is not to define an intension so intensive that it is on the verge of breaking,

but rather to create a definition that is intensive enough for discussion.

Kakkuri-Knuuttila (1998, p. 342) also states that in the history of concepts, the concepts that

follow the original are much richer and varied in meaning, which is logical when one

considers that in time concepts and terms tend to gather new meanings and become used in

new situations. One way to illustrate this interdependent nature of extension and intension is

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to use the so-called conceptual triangle, outlined by, among others, Kakkuri-Knuuttila (1998,

p. 335). Here I have used with the concept “consumer”:

Figure 1: Conceptual Triangle

Based on Kaakkuri-Knuuttila 1998, p. 335

For example, my initial definition of consumer, single actor, who can be considered to be in

the sphere of influence of a brand and a potential customer, is very broad and only the

inclusion of a brand relationship in this definition “prohibits” including every type of

consumer in the extension. Since extension and intension are inversely correlated, this same

process could also be performed starting from the term's intension and defining the extension.

This requires that the intension is somehow defined in the source material by the author, or

the researcher uses an intension as a starting point for analysis.

Knuuttila (in Heinämaa, Reuter & Yrjönsuuri 2003, p. 17-21) states that texts - and with it

terms and concepts - have usually been born in a different time from ours. Knowing a term’s

historical context helps us understand better its usage in our time. Relating to this, it is easy to

conclude that each term or concept has been given a plethora of new meanings through the

hands of different authors – regardless of the field in question. Uncovering the differences

between the concepts used in different texts will help understand them both in comparison to

each other, but also as a single abridged concept.

For example, Bengtsson & Firat (2006) conducted a concept analysis on the concept of

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“brand literacy” by tracing the concept’s historical arc. The historical development of a given

concept is very relevant in understanding how the concept has come to be what it is today,

and this will no doubt be reflected in my thesis as will. However, the main focus interest

remains what the concept is now and what implications this has for current business and

academic discourse.

This interdependence of extension and intension has a two-fold meaning for research. For

one, it places a restraint, as illustrated by Ducasse (1954), on the researcher and the

definitions of both. In all likelihood it means that a researcher has to reassess the defined

intension over and over again as the extension grows. This notion of dynamism for both the

extension and intension was also marked by Kakkuri-Knuuttila, as noted earlier. In addition,

this interdependence of extension and intension means that a researcher can use it to find and

analyze possible consistencies or even inconsistencies in the source material, especially in a

case like branding or marketing literature.

In my thesis, it will be to see what kind of consequences concept intensiveness has on the

branding models. For example, if the extension for the term “consumer” becomes very broad

in one branding model’s literature, it could have a multitude of consequences, especially in

relation to the other branding models. As stated earlier, if the extension for the word

“consumer” grows, it means that its intension becomes more defined and the manifestations in

the extension have less in common. Perhaps this means the branding model is very general in

its applicability; perhaps the consumer is not defined precisely enough for the model to be

effective or credible; perhaps the consumer is defined in a way that is simply unsupported by

previous literature, or in a way that is simply illogical or contradictory.

1.6 Research material

As already stated, I aim to study the four branding models outlined by Holt (2004, p. 14),

namely mind-share branding, emotional branding, viral branding, and cultural branding. Holt

(2004, p. 13) argues that these four branding models account for “virtually every consumer

branding initiative today undertaken by brand owners, ad agencies, and brand consultancies”.

Especially emotional branding and viral branding have been hot topics in online conversations

and brand research. Not everybody necessarily shares Holt’s categorization on branding

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models, however, but for this thesis, the categorization of Holt is regarded as valid.

As my source material, I have chosen the following branding literature:

• Mind-share branding: David Aaker: Building Strong Brands (1996), Free Press

Publishing

• Emotional branding: Marc Gobé: Emotional Branding (2001), Alworth Press

• Viral branding: Andy Sernovitz: Word Of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies

Get People Talking (2006), Kaplan Publishing and Ben McConnel & Jackie Huba:

Citizen Marketers: When People Are The Message (2006), Kaplan Publishing

• Cultural branding: Douglas Holt: How Brands Become Icons: The Principles of

Cultural Branding (2004), Harvard Business School Publishing

I will complement each branding discipline with academic articles and other source material

as necessary, and especially in the analysis stage of my thesis. My hypothesis is that even

though some of the concepts might be contradictory between different branding models, there

will be a visible evolution within some concepts in emotional, viral and cultural branding that

can be traced from mind-share branding.

The choices for mind-share branding, emotional branding and cultural branding are rather

straightforward, as they are all books that, at least to a large degree, outline the main tenets

behind the branding principle. However, the choices for viral branding books require some

elaboration, which can be found in section 2.2.3. As it is probably apparent from the titles of

the books I have chosen, neither is a “true” branding book nor a self-proclaimed

representation of the viral branding discipline. Nonetheless, I feel that their inclusion in the

study is just and well argued.

1.7 Limitations and focus

As stated above, my interest is in the consumer marketplace and consumer brands. B2B-

markets and corporate branding are out of scope for this research. It is not my goal in this

thesis to build up a comprehensive extension for each concept (for example, an exhaustive

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collection of “consumers” for the concept consumer), because this would require

comprehensive justification and a more linguistically-based analysis. In philosophy, where

concept analysis is often used, as illustrated by Kakkuri-Knuuttila (1998), building up a

conclusive extension might have been required. However, the premise of my thesis is mainly

to focus on the managerial implications of each concept and to act as a starting point for

discussion on not only the concepts themselves, but also the branding models.

1.8 Structure of the Report

I have already defined a starting definition, which can be seen as an intension, for each

concept. After the analysis of each concept, my aim is to redefine a new intension at the end

of each chapter of analysis. For example, the concept of “consumer” becomes “mind-share

consumer” at the end of the chapter, and this is repeated for each model and each concept.

Figure 2: Report Structure

At the end of this thesis, I aim to create a framework of sorts that evaluates the differences

between the concepts and possible managerial implications these differences might have. For

example, do the branding models contradict each other paradigmatically, or do they offer

deeper understanding of each concept and do might they even offer synergies when used in

unison. As already stated, it is my preliminary assumption that because emotional branding,

viral branding and cultural branding have evolved so much later than mind-share, they expand

on many of mind-share’s assumptions and draw from mind-share in many ways.

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2 Branding and The Four Main Models of Branding

In his section, I will briefly introduce what branding is and the go on to introduce each

branding model and outline their contents without going into the concepts I aim to analyze.

2.1 The modern branding discourse

2.1.1 A short history of branding

The roots of branding run deep into economic history: the use of symbols in signifying

ownership or other information about a good is an old tradition dating back all the way to the

Stone Age. In fact, the term “branding” is borrowed from the use of hot irons to burn – brand

– identifying marks on livestock to identify their origins when brought to the market for sale.

In the old days, family names of known ranchers became guarantees of quality. (Almquist &

Roberts 2000; Sheth & Parvatiyar 1995) Even today, the basic notion behind branding is still

more or less to identify the source of a product to customers, because the consumer and the

producer cannot meet face to face anymore (Farquah 1994).

The industrial revolution and the mass production capacity it enabled were key drivers in the

evolution of branding, as mass production enabled catering to mass markets. Farquah (1994)

notes that the rise of transportation systems also enabled branded goods to start competing

head-on with unbranded retailer goods. In the early 1900s branded products were already

commonplace on the shelves of convenience stores, and starting from the 1930s, “brand

management” was already considered an organizational discipline, as championed by Proctor

& Gamble (P&G) and its wide portfolio of consumer brands. (Low & Fullerton 1994)

The real of birth of modern branding, however, can be dated back to the 1950s and the dawn

of mass media (Farquah 1994). The introduction of television into the American living room,

along with the industries’ newly developed mass production ability of the post-WWII era,

meaning that companies now had not only the need but also the means to reach mass

audiences. The 1950s also saw the widespread adaptation of the “brand management system”,

when companies followed P&G’s lead. (Low & Fullerton 1994)

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The drivers for how branding came to be (mass markets, wide availability, mass production)

were also the main reasons why branding has become such a critical and strategic function for

many companies. As the markets expanded and more goods could be found on store shelves

in practically all product categories, brand awareness efforts became necessary to break

through the market clutter in order to reach consumers (Farquah 1994). Brand building was

seen as the best sure-fire way to encourage product trial, and then maintaining a coherent

image that promoted repurchase.

2.1.2 Branding and brand management as strategic functions in today’s business

For a certain period after the 1950s, branding was only seen as a communications problem as

relating to the birth of mass media, and to surprisingly many companies, this type of thinking

is still prevalent to this day (Morrison 2001). To some, branding is seen as a marketing

communications effort and its principles are implemented only in, for example, advertising,

sales, or exhibitions. But many companies have incorporated a more strategic view on

branding, which is also advocated by most leading academics and consultants.

Farquah (1994) states that branding efforts have risen to even higher strategic importance for

companies because of the added complexities in the marketplace today, and thus move from

merely branding to brand management, which takes a more strategic stance on the branding

function. The widespread use of cooperatives, licensing, acquisitions, partnering, and

extensions is potentially very diluting to brands and their associations and thus harmful to

companies. While for example co-branding, for example, seems appealing and is an ever-

growing practice today, asymmetries among brands are often overlooked with dire

consequences.

Farquah (1994) argues that the long-term risks of bundling brands are that “consumers will

misattribute successful experiences to other brands, blame product failures on the wrong

brand, or confound the brand' s positioning with others in the bundle.” Farquah goes on to say

that in the future, the fundamental question in branding will be who “gets the credit” for a

good consumer experience as consumers interact with more and more brands, often

simultaneously.

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To Aaker (2001, p. 25-30), probably the biggest reason to engage in strategic branding efforts

– i.e. brand management – is to protect the company profit margins from eroding. Strong

retailers have started to push their own private-label brands and enjoy the same benefits of

widespread distribution, and in today’s connected economy, they can gear their production to

counter the scale economies of even the largest of brands and deliver comparable or even

similar quality in their own products. The ever-growing power of distribution channels was

also noted by Shocker et al. (1994) and Lodish & Mela (2007). Lodish & Mela go on to say

that an overdependence on distribution channels and bowing to retailer pricing demands has

downright killed some once-prominent brands, and this is why brand managers should take

long-term brand management very seriously.

Also, consumers have been taught to be increasingly price-sensitive and quality-aware. In this

way of seeing the marketplace, only brands can deliver higher margins on products, as

technology and production advantages can be erased quite quickly, product innovations are

copied mercilessly, global competitors can enter markets more easily and consumers are

dividing into ever smaller micro-segments (Shocker et al. 1994). As Aaker (2001, p. 321) puts

it: the price premium paid for a brand is the only sustainable advantage a company can attain,

and companies should gear all their operations to support brand building.

Relating to this, more and more authors are arguing that branding decisions do and should

have an impact on the organization as a whole, even advocating that branding be used as a

management tool within the whole organization and as an integral part of the company’s

mission (e.g. Aaker 2001, Keller 1998). Graham (2001, in Blombäck 2005) states that

“branding comprises everything a firm does”, which captures this type of new thinking

perfectly. Wood (2000) states that at the very least, companies should gear their marketing

mix decisions to benefit the brand and not just short-term sales goals.

Uncles et al. (1995) state that if brands really do have value, then managing the portfolio of

brands should be a very top-management decision. As an organizational issue, as companies

have become more and more decentralized through outsourcing and increasingly global in

their operations, the brand might be the only common link in the company’s actions (Farquah

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1994; Shocker et al. 1994). This is another reason why the brand is often included in the

company’s mission or strategy. In this thesis, one of the presumptions is that branding and

especially brand management are indeed top-level strategic functions and this is something

that I will continuously reflect in my analysis.

2.2 The four different branding models

Up to the 1990s branding, as we knew it, was all mind-share branding. In fact, there were

really no different schools of thought, unlike now. All branding was mostly geared towards

creating consumer awareness, managing brand equity and assuring consistent

communications of the brand’s value proposition. But in the 1990s, some branding advocates

called for the expansion of the mind-share paradigm in order to respond to the demands of the

new marketplace and its challenges. This is how new branding models started to emerge, and

the first of the bunch was emotional branding. In the following decade and with the rise of the

Internet, viral branding emerged onto the scene and found followers. The latest entry to the

branding model discussion is cultural branding. (Holt 2004, p. 13-15)

In the following section, I will briefly introduce each branding model and offer some insight

on their basic tenets. After introducing them, I will proceed to analyzing each branding model

and their concepts.

2.2.1 Mind-share Branding

Mind-share is the oldest branding discipline of the four, and the basis from which the other

three have evolved. Mind-share dates back to the birth of mass markets and the rise of mass

media, and since then has been the de facto way of branding for the majority of brand

managers. (Holt 2004, p. 13-15)

In mind-share branding, the goal is to generate brand equity through managing a brand

identity that is consistent and timeless. Aaker (1996, p. 7-9) defines brand equity as “a set of

assets (and liabilities) linked to a brand’s name and symbol that adds to (or subtracts from) the

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value provided by a product or service to a firm and/or that firm’s customers.” Keller (in

Schulz et al. 2000, p. 115-118, 121) and Farquah (1989) define brand equity in similar terms:

brand equity is when a relevant constituent reacts more positively to, for example, an ad

campaign, a product or service than if it would have been issued by an unknown or fictitious

company.

In mind-share branding, the brand is seen as the firm’s most treasured asset in that it can be

leveraged into financial success (Aaker 1996, p. 274-275). Hill & Lederer (2001, p. x-xi) echo

this statement, arguing that a brand can be leveraged into anything from partnerships,

organizational synergies to even internal leadership. Strong brands command a price premium

and attract a loyal following of consumers that enjoy lowered searching costs (Aaker 1996, p.

275; Sethuraman 2000). Successful brands thus have high name recognition and loyal

customers who are willing to pay a premium for the brand. A successful brand is perceived to

be of higher quality than its competitors and the brand owns a set of favorable associations,

more so than its competitors.

The four major categories for brand equity that managers should actively look to manage and

build are:

1. Brand name awareness

2. Brand loyalty

3. Perceived quality

4. Brand associations

Aaker 1996, p. 8

According to Aaker (1996, p. 10-17), brand awareness helps brands anchor themselves in the

consumer’s buying decision process through favorable associations and recall (Aaker 1996, p.

10-17; Hoyer & Brown 1990). Brand loyalty, on the other hand, helps companies reduce

marketing costs, leverage the brand into new ventures, attract new customers, and respond to

competitive threats (Aaker 1996, p. 9, 21-23; Jacoby & Kyner 1973). Perceived quality is the

key driver for financial performance and the key to a strong brand because consumers use

quality cues in their decision-making process more than any other intangible cue (Aaker 1996,

p. 17-19; Rao & Monroe 1989). Finally, brand associations are helpful mental triggers that

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aid and persuade the consumer in the buying process (Aaker 1991, p. 109-113; Aaker 1996, p.

25-27; Low & Lamb Jr 2000). These associations can be anything from product attributes to

celebrity spokespersons or symbols. Aaker urges brands to look to develop a brand identity

that encapsulates all of these associations.

What is key in mind-share branding is the brand’s so called value proposition; the reason why

a consumer would buy the brand and the value the consumer gets for his or her money in

respect to other competing brands (Aaker 1996, p. 96-96; Christopher 1996). A successful

brand manages to create key benefits that the consumers find valuable, and communicate

these benefits better than its competitors and thus gain a competitive advantage. These

benefits can be functional, emotional, or self-expressive benefits. (Aaker 1996, p. 95-96)

Ulrich et al. (2004) add price and social benefits to this list too, and different authors will

argue for other benefits as well. As stated above, however, the challenge is the brand’s

position in relation to other, competing brands, and how to communicate this position

effectively.

Holt (2004, p. 16) argues that in mind-share branding, the key is to generate a “distinctive

constellation” of abstract concepts in the consumer’s mind. The prime concern for managers

is to make sure that the brand’s core promise is evoked in everything that carries the brand

mark in order to create maximum awareness for the brand. Aaker (1996, p. 10, 234-244)

states that if “consumers’ minds were full of mental billboards - each one depicting a single

brand - then a brand’s awareness would be reflected in the size of its billboard.” To Aaker

(1996, p. 16), awareness through recall and recognition is what drives brand preference and,

in effect, purchase decision. The power of recall in purchase decisions and preference was

also outlined by Keller et al. (1998) in their research.

Probably the best known visual representation in mind-share model is what Holt (2004, p. xii)

calls the onion model of the brand identity:

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Figure 3: The Onion Model of the Brand

Based on Aaker 1996, p. 86.

The rationale behind this kind of representation is that a brand has a timeless core or essence,

a promise that the manager must keep constant in the changing competitive atmosphere, along

with an extended outer layer, and this comprises the brand identity (Aaker 1996, p. 68-69;

Kelly 1998; Holt 2004, p. 16). Shaw & Merrick (2004) state that the brand’s essence is the

smallest compression of what the brand is about and it should be articulated “in six words or

less”. To Shaw & Merrick, the brand identity itself is a collection of ideas that the company

wishes people would associate with the brand.

As already stated, a brand has an outer layer of extended identity in addition to its core or

essence, which adds character to the brand’s core The rationale is that the broader the

extended identity circle is, the stronger the brand is. The extended identity can change and

grow over time, but the core has to remain constant. (Aaker 1996, p. 85-92; Holt 2003). The

extended brand identity contains different elements, such as brand as product, brand as

organization, brand as person, and brand as symbol (Aaker 1996, p. 68). These elements can,

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in turn, include different sub-elements:

Figure 4: Brand Identity's Elements

Based on Aaker 1996, p. 68

Aaker (1996, p. 218-230) states that the act of branding is about maintaining consistency in

the brand’s management; crystallizing the brand’s core promise and extending it through

ownership of key benefits the brand wishes to represent. This means mixing and choosing

from the different brand identity elements. Aaker argues that the brand manager must make

sure that the brand identity is communicated consistently in all channels and at all times, a

notion that was also advocated by Park et al. (1991). The only possible reason for deviating

from the brand’s eternal essence is when the brand’s promise has become truly outdated and it

needs to be either refreshed or let go altogether (Aaker 1996, p. 218-230).

Mind-share branding is the most commonly known discipline of branding and is spoken of as

simply branding in many books and articles. Holt (2004, p. 13) argues that mind-share

branding is the model still taught in business schools around the world and still the most

dominant model of branding in existence today. Holt (2004, p. 20) and Hoeffler & Keller

(2003) argue that mind-share branding can be effective for utilitarian and low-involvement

products that need only a handful of key benefits to be articulated in order to sell.

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2.2.2 Emotional Branding

Emotional branding is a fairly new model of brand building. The strategic objective of

emotional branding is to forge strong and meaningful affective bonds with consumers and

through these bonds become part of their life stories, and memories and an “important link in

their social networks” (Atkin 2004 via Thompson et al. 2006). Emotional branding urges

brand managers to create emotional ties with the consumers, selling the brand as a desirable

relationship partner for the consumer, and find or even create new touch points and design

features to convey this emotiveness, especially through the senses (Gobé 2001, p. 139-140;

Lindstrom 2005, p. 32-33). To Roberts (2004, p. 33-36), emotional branding is a consumer-

centric, relational and story-driven approach to forging deep and enduring affective bonds

between consumers and brands. Thompson et al. (2006) state that this storytelling aspect is

the key focus for brand strategists in emotional branding. Morrison & Crane (2007) define

emotional branding as “engaging consumers on the level of senses and emotions and forging a

deep, lasting, intimate emotional connection to the brand that transcends material

satisfaction.”

As viral branding can be seen as a subset of viral marketing (more on this in the next

segment), emotional branding can be seen as a subset of experiential marketing, which has

evolved as response to “the omnipresence of information technology, the supremacy of the

brand, and the ubiquity of communications and entertainment” (Schmitt 1999). Sensory

aspects and making each consumer encounter an experience are key aspects in experiential

marketing, as in emotional branding. Schmitt argues that one of the biggest insights in how

experiential marketing (and with it, emotional branding) has evolved was the inclusion of

consumer’s emotions into the discussion. The argument is that in the past (an indirect

reference to mind-share models), consumers were seen as purely rational, but lately, research

has started to incorporate the important role of emotions as well (Solomon et al. 1999, p. 132).

In emotional branding, almost any tangible or intangible touch point of consumer interaction

offers a platform to display and experience the brand (Holt 2004, p. 21; Gobé 2001, p. ix-x,

xii-xxv). Lindstrom (2005, p. 39-42), an advocate of emotional branding, goes as far as saying

that consumers should be able to “smash” the brand and still recognize it from the pieces of

the product, meaning that emotional branding is very visually oriented and looking for a

multitude of new ways to position the brand in the consumer’s mind. Emotional branding

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places a large emphasis on multisensoriality and finding new and unique touch points through

which the consumer can experience the brand (e.g. Gobé 2001, p. 139). Solomon et al. (1999,

p. 108) also argue that ads using sensory appeals generate higher levels of attention.

In emotional branding, it is hard to find a set of distinguished guidelines, such as a model for

brand identity and brand equity building in mind-share. Rather, emotional branding discusses

adding new layers and approaches to the current brand strategy and especially brand identity

management. As a branding model, emotional branding is more about a paradigm shift that is

due to changes in the consumer populace and the global marketplace (Gobé 2001, p. 272-

280). According to Fournier (1998), research shows that “relationship principles have

virtually replaced short-term exchange notions in both marketing thought and practice”.

Fournier concurs with Gobé that this can be viewed as a paradigm shift for the whole field of

marketing. Kay (2006) and Esch et al. (2006) state that strong brands need to be defined better

than just “aides” in quick recognition or tools of advertising recall and they need to measure

things such as trust and bonds in measuring brand strength, not just recall and awareness

levels. However, in mind-share literature emotional benefits are emphasized to some degree

as well (e.g., Aaker 1996, p. vii, p. 68).

The key difference between emotional branding and mind-share branding is that emotional

branding goes much further in how it sees the product and service design. Holt (2004, p. 21)

argues that emotional branding is not so much a new branding model as an updated or

extended version of the mind-share model with a new vocabulary. Thompson et al. (2006)

note that the divide of mind-share and emotional branding models is rapidly narrowing as

principles of emotional branding are being integrated into the mind-share brand management

paradigm. Both models preach consistency in handling the brand’s essence and especially

consistent communications, and both models preach creating brand awareness and creating a

unique brand identity as key objectives in branding (Gobé 2001, p. 246.)

2.2.3 Viral Branding

As mentioned on page 10, I will first present my justification for my research material, then

proceed to present the viral branding model.

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Viral branding is the fuzziest in its definition when compared to the other branding models.

For example, Holt (2004, p. 14) differentiates viral branding and viral marketing, and lumps

in together word of mouth, stealth marketing, guerrilla marketing, buzz marketing and cool

hunt as viral branding tactics. To Holt viral marketing was a larger category, in which viral

branding was a part. Solomon et al. (1999, p. 317-320) differentiate viral marketing and

guerrilla marketing altogether, and see word of mouth as merely a consequence, not a tactic to

be pursued. To make matters even more confusing, Thomas Jr. (2004) declares that viral

marketing is obsolete, and should be now called buzz marketing!

To Holt (2005, p. 14), viral branding is the pursuit of turning so-called “influentials” into

brand advocates through planting the brand into their discussions and hoping that the brand

crosses over to the mainstream due to the influentials’ considerable authority as trendsetters

over normal consumers (Holt 2002; Holt 2004, p. 29). Holt argues that the problem is that

these influentials thrive on building up brands and then abandoning them when they become

too “mainstream” (Holt 2004, p. 34). The influentials are not that impressed or immersed into

the brand’s influence; instead they play around with it for a while and then move on.

Kaikati & Kaikati (2004) go as far as to say that stealth marketing aims to promote word of

mouth by catching people “at their most vulnerable by identifying the weak spot in their

defensive shields”. Stealth marketing relies on “whispering” in the ear of just the right

influential individuals, and thus by creating a falsified sense of “cool” and organic discovery

around the product. Thomas Jr. (2004) defines buzz marketing as “the amplification of initial

marketing efforts by third parties through their passive or active influence”. However,

Thomas Jr. still seems to imply that buzz marketing is about finding the most influential

consumer from perspectives other than their enthusiasm for the brand, i.e. their “coolness”,

early adaption, celebrity status, expertise or connectedness.

However, both Sernovitz and McConnel & Huba reject this notion of coolhunting, influential

chasing and all kinds of deceptive marketing techniques, such as stealth and buzz marketing,

and argue throughout their books that “true” viral and word of mouth marketing is based on

honesty, transparency and authenticity, which goes against what Holt outlines viral branding

to be (Sernovitz 2006, p. 28, McConnel and Huba 2006, p. 25, 27-28). As a starting point for

my thesis, I have decided to choose books that represent only word of mouth marketing,

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because I feel that the other disciplines (buzz marketing, stealth marketing, coolhunting,

guerrilla marketing) are too incompatible with word of mouth marketing, and recent research

has shown that they simply are not as effective as they are made out to be. Thompson (2008)

illustrates that influentials hold substantially less marketing power when compared to

ordinary people and according to a report by JupiterResearch conducted in 2007, only 15% of

viral campaigns managed to get users to promote the products the campaign was created for.

Also, according to the JupiterResearch study, 55% of firms polled stated they would be

moving away from the tactic of targeting influentials to trigger viral behavior.

The main reason for this apparent conflict between how viral branding is seen is probably just

due to natural evolution in the field. Holt’s book is older than the books I have chosen to

represent viral branding (2004 versus 2006 and 2007, respectively). However, it is interesting

to note that even Holt (2002) himself had argued earlier that viral branding campaigns have

been “exposed” and that awareness of these practices has increased, which in turn has

hindered their effectiveness. Perhaps it goes to show that this new more honest way of

conducting viral branding has become more prominent only after 2004.

When it comes to defining what viral branding is, Holt (2004, p. 28) states that viral branding

was born as a result of two major shifts in the 1990s: increased cynicism towards mass

marketing and the emergence of the Internet. Both Sernovitz (2006, p. 5) and McConnel &

Huba (2007, p. ix) agree that the rise of the Internet is a key contributor to the sudden

popularity of viral activities. They also outline the ineffectiveness of mass marketing

communications throughout their books. On the Internet, viral activities are not restricted to

pairwise or small-group interactions between individuals; rather, customers can share their

experiences and opinions on products with pretty much everyone (Leskovec et al. 2007).

Wilson (2000) argues that companies are infatuated with viral campaigns because of the

possibility of spreading a message fast, cheaply and through a channel people trust; their

friends. Viral campaigns scale: there is no added cost for the company if one friend sends a

link or recommendation to one or ten people he or she knows. The basic premise of viral

branding - people recommending products or services they like to their friends - is a very

elementary marketing principle. However, without the emergence of the Internet, this aspect

of marketing would probably never have risen to a nearly mission-critical factor in marketing

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and into a model of branding.

What makes viral branding difficult to conceptualize is the apparent lack of a single originator

of the term or a small collection of authors that have defined the term. Rather, viral branding

is a collection of different marketing tactics and disciplines, some of which are heavily

contradicting one another, as illustrated earlier, and each of these disciplines is advocated by a

plethora of authors – mostly unacademic writers – further adding to the confusing and

scattered nature of the branding model – if one can even call it that at this point of the model’s

evolution.

It also merits repeating that Holt (2004, p. 234) differentiates viral branding and viral

marketing: viral branding is solely the pursuit of influentials with little to no regard to product

and organizational attributes, whereas viral marketing is about creating word of mouth and

managing one’s business processes to encourage it. Also, viral marketing is a larger category,

whereas viral branding is just a collection of “activities” that are engaged in to increase the

value of the brand. This distinction is vital in my thesis, as I will have to rely on my original

definitions for branding and brand management in evaluating how these concepts are seen in

the literature I have chosen.

It also merits noting that the difference between a branding decision and a marketing decision

is not clear-cut, which is why I feel justified treating the two books I have chosen as branding

literature – even though neither calls itself such. It is of note that the majority of literature on

viral activities is categorized under viral marketing, even if they fit Holt’s description of viral

branding, for example. In a way, this thesis will aide in defining what viral branding is or

what it should be.

2.2.4 Cultural Branding

Cultural branding is a branding model developed by Douglas Holt. It was first outlined in his

book “How Brands Become Icons: The Principles of Cultural Branding”, but it also draws

from Holt’s previous academic works (Holt 2002; Holt 2003). The goal of cultural branding is

to build the brand into an icon: a symbol of an ideal that people hold in considerable esteem.

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According to Holt (2004, p. 5, 14), the cultural branding model is intended for branding

mostly identity categories. With identity brands, people tend to value products as a means of

self-expression. Products such as clothing, home decor, beauty, leisure, entertainment,

automotive, food, and beverage are prime examples of identity products. Marketers refer to

these categories as lifestyle, image, badge, or ego-expressive products. (Holt 2004, p. 5)

Tuten (2007) argues that brands, products and styles provide a tangible method of meaning

transference for consumers who seek to both fit in to peer groups and express individuality.

Holt (2004, p. 6) echoed this sentiment by saying that consumers often feel that their identity-

building projects are intense “personal quests”, but in truth similar quests are shared by many

in the population.

Khalil (2000) sees identity goods as a subset of symbolic goods, and that they are

significantly different from substantive products. Symbolic products enhance the sense of

self-regard, which is similar to how Holt defined identity categories above, whereas

substantive products satisfy more general needs which relate to personal welfare. However,

Khalil argues that this classification is rather arbitrary, as most products combine elements of

both symbolic and substantive products. It is thus more a question of degree than anything

else. Also, Hogg & Mitchell (1996) state that different levels of identity vary greatly, and the

distinction of a brand speaking to micro and macro levels of identity is substantial. Therefore,

simply stating that a brand is an identity product or a part of the extended self is not really

saying much yet brand managers should know how deep into the consumer’s identity the

brand speaks. Also, Khalil already noted, all products have some identity value.

Cultural branding sees brands as historical artifacts of sorts moving through time and carriers

of meaning (Holt 2004, p. 1-4, 38). This notion of brands as historical artifacts was also noted

by Hatch & Rubin (2005), who present their model of brand hermeneutics, in which they state

that brand meaning lives and fluctuates through time. A brand’s contemporary significance is

a result of collective interpretations by multiple stakeholders over numerous but significant

historical moments. In Holt’s view, the role of the brand managers is thus not to guard the

brand’s timeless essence, as is with mind-share branding; rather, the brand manager’s role is

to look back and understand the brand’s “genealogy”, as Holt (2004, p. 11, 214-215) puts it,

and align the brand with the appropriate identity myth in a credible and appealing way in its

marketing communications.

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Expanding on Holt’s view of brands as historical products, Hatch & Rubin (2005) argue that a

brand always has an original “purpose”, but through collective interpretation by multiple

stakeholders, this meaning will change over time. In the case of hermeneutics, the brand

works as a cultural text and remakes itself with each new reading, but the history of previous

readings never disappears completely. The consumer thus creates the text (brand) with the

author and the text’s horizon becomes framed by the dialogue that transpires between past,

present and future. Brands respond to changes by “speaking again” in new contexts, and

thereby can adapt old meanings to new circumstances. This way, they also open themselves to

the influence of others who take part in this dialogue of defining the brand. Brands cannot be

detached from their earlier interpretations.

A brand’s strength is dependent on how well a brand encapsulates an identity myth and how

strongly people identify with the myth (Holt 2004, p. 8-10, 36, 211-212). Holt (2006) calls

these identity myths “imaginative stories and images that selectively draw on history as

source material, which function to continually re-imagine and vitalize the nation’s ideology”.

Similarly, Solomon et al. (1999, p. 447) state that myths define culture by expressing its

shared emotions and ideals. According to Holt (2004, p. 45, 57, 210-213), people feel

anxieties when their personal life experiences and realities are in conflict with what the

national ideology expects of them. The strength of people’s identification with an identity

myth is dependent on how well the myth soothes people’s anxieties in their personal identity

building projects.

When people sense that their own lives in these aspects are not quite up to par with what the

national ideology expects of them, they feel anxiety and look to find meaning and solutions to

these fears. A brand’s main benefit is thus not in its value proposition. Rather, people value its

symbolic value: stories that people can access to soothe their personal tensions through ritual

consumption of the brand. Common sources of anxieties are, for example, people’s ambitions

at work, their dreams for their children, their fears of technology and their difficulties in

building friendships (Holt 2004, p. 212). Similarly, Fournier (1998) states that brand

relationships can be a big help in soothing profound existential concerns or tensions that

individuals address in daily life, in other words, “the construction, maintenance and

dissolution of key life roles that significantly alters one’s concept of self”, e.g. college

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graduation, retirement or even mid-life crisis.

As an example of cultural branding in action, Holt (2004, p. 155-183) argues that Harley-

Davidson has represented the “outlaw biker” identity myth throughout different times and this

is why it has become a cultural icon and a desirable identity product. As another example,

Holt (2006) argues that Jack Daniel’s became an icon, and thus a successful brand, when it

managed to encapsulate the “western frontier” identity myth. Both examples succeeded in

“striking a nerve” at a given time and in soothing people’s anxieties. As Holt (2003) notes, in

America the most common myth portrayed by an iconic brand is that of a rebel, but there have

been other myth types as well.

Relating to myth caricatures such as “the rebel”, Howard-Spink (2002, 2003) for one has also

introduced using myths in branding, though from a slightly different perspective. In these

models, brands try to attain a form or a role, if you will, that is universally recognizable in

mythology and folklore. Such archetypes are, for example, the outlaw, the ruler, and the

caregiver just to name a few. Joseph Campbell’s “A Hero with a Thousand Faces” (1972) is

the most famous work on myth personas and these branding models borrow heavily from

Campbell’s work. The goal is to have the brand tell a story through its mythical persona and

manage the organization according to this persona, especially in communications.

The fundamental difference with these myth archetype models compared to Holt’s model is

that more often than not, the selection of the myth does not have anything to do with what is

going on in society and culture, which is key for Holt. It is most likely that this myth role is

based on consistency, as in mind-share, which Holt (2004, p.10) rejects. The notion of using

myths in marketing was also suggested by Solomon et al. (1999, p. 447), though not in great

detail. They also echoed Holt’s view that advertisements not only reflect culture, but also

often contain the underlying cultural themes that define cultures, i.e. myths.

McCracken (1986) argues that one of the great shortcomings of the present approach to

studying cultural meaning in consumer goods is the failure to observe that meaning is

constantly in transit. McCracken states that “cultural meaning flows continually between its

several locations in the social world, aided by the collective and individual efforts of

designers, producers, advertisers and consumers”. This means that cultural meaning is drawn

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from a culturally constituted world and transferred or stored into a consumer good. From the

good, the meaning eventually transfers to the consumer.

McCracken also argues that cultural meaning is located in three places: the culturally

constituted world, the consumer good and the individual consumer. The movement of

meaning is in trajectory from world to object and from object to consumer. According to

McCracken, this kind of view encourages us to view both consumer goods and consumers

themselves as way-stations of meaning, which adds a whole new dynamic aspect to

consumption that has not been emphasized before. This aspect of consumers being carriers of

meaning is also essential in cultural branding, as explained in more detail below. McCracken

also points out that the “trajectory” movement between world, good and consumer makes us

see phenomena as advertising, the fashion world and consumption rituals as instruments of

meaning movement.

Paramount in cultural branding is the brand’s communications: a brand tells stories that

portray the brand’s myth. Holt (2004, p. 10) argues that brands become icons because of a

few “masterful performances” in advertising instead of a steady stream of consistent

messaging. When a brand creates a myth, most often through advertisement, consumers come

to understand that the myth is embodied in the brand’s products (Holt 2003). It is somewhat

ironic that Holt would argue that iconic brands live and die on their communications, as

Farquah (1994) had chastised companies for seeing branding as only a communications

problem. This is something to keep an eye on when evaluating cultural branding’s strategic

aspects.

The brand’s myth is rooted in what Holt (2004, p. 58) calls populist worlds, places in the

outside of mainstream society that yield considerable appeal for their ethos, because people

feel this ethos is authentic and not driven by pursuit of money or status. McCracken (1986)

also noted the cultural leadership of people living in the margins of society, such as hippies,

punks or gays. According to McCracken, however, it is a very western trait to tolerate and

even absorb into the mainstream dramatic violations of cultural norms - even when they aim

to overturn the established order (hippies, punks). This is exactly what seems to be happening

in cultural branding.

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Iconic brands do not target their advertising at the vast majority of consumers, even though

they, in the end, are responsible for the majority of sales. Iconic brands target their advertising

at the people inhabiting and embodying the ethos of the populist world, people Holt (2004, p.

139-152) calls “insiders”. Through these insiders’ acceptance of the brand, the brand is

legitimized as an icon of that populist world and thus creates a following of normal

consumers – or as Holt calls them, “feeders” – through its affiliation with the credible insiders

and the brand’s other key constituency, its enthusiastic “followers”. If the insiders reject the

brand (which they easily might, as often the insiders see the brand as a competitor for status in

the populist world), the followers and feeders will slowly move on from the brand as well. A

brand must manage all three constituencies and the possible tensions between them. The

dynamics between the three constituencies can be also illustrated as follows:

Figure 5: Cultural Branding's Consumer Dynamics

Based on Holt 2004, p. 140

In short, building an iconic brand according to Holt (2004, p. 63-72, 218) is achieved by

following these steps:

1. Target the most appropriate myth market for your brand

2. Create the identity myth by composing the cultural brief that outlines the myth

treatment in advertising and other communications

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3. Assure populist authenticity and manage all three constituencies by monitoring

consumer perceptions and avoiding a profiteering image

4. Develop a charismatic aesthetic, a way of communicating or distinguished “voice”

5. Manage, extend, and monitor the identity myth and its development

This concludes the introductory part of the models. In the next segment the concepts for each

model are analyzed and dissected.

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3 Concept Analysis On The Four Branding Models

In this section, I will analyze the key concepts for each branding model, one model at a time.

At the end of each segment, I will write a conclusive summary for each concept, and outline

an intension for it. The order of the models is mind-share, emotional, viral and cultural.

Within each model, the order of analysis for the concepts is consumer, brand, branding,

brand, management and competitive environment.

3.1 Mind-Share branding’s concepts

3.1.1 The Mind-Share Consumer

Aaker does not venture into analyzing any issues regarding consumers overall. Instead, nearly

everything stems from the consumers and their relationships and reactions to brands. The only

real speculation and elaboration of consumers’ overall demographics relate to their attitudes

towards marketing. Aaker (1995, p. 16) states that consumers are “bombarded every day by

more marketing messages”, which suggests an increasingly negative attitude towards

advertising. Aaker (1995, p. 20, 75-76) also implies an inherent skepticism towards

marketers’ claims, and that consumers experience “mistrust and confusion” in buying

situations. Otherwise, however, the consumers’ actions are almost completely defined from a

brand-consumer relationship point of view, as illustrated below.

Aaker (1995, p. 10) defines the consumer’s preference of a brand in relation to how strongly

the brand is present in the consumer’s mind. The premise is that if the consumer recognizes

the brand, presumably visually, he is likely to prefer the brand in a buying situation.

Consumers also react to newness, but preference is driven by familiarity and recognition is

generated by repeated past exposures (Aaker 1995, p. 10-11). Aaker (1995, p. 10) argues that

it does not involve where the brand was encountered, why it differs from other brands, or

even what the brand’s product class is. Consumers are thus susceptible to acting on brand

image and incomplete information, which suggests a relatively irrational consumer – at least

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from a financial standpoint – if one examines brands only on their technical qualities (Aaker

1995, p. 20).

On the other hand, this susceptibility to brand image suggests that consumers are driven by

psychological benefits as well, which can be seen as a rational pursuit as consumers look to

fulfill a certain psychological need. Aaker (1995, p. 20, 123) emphasizes quality’s importance

to consumers, which, on the other hand, makes the consumer seem more rational. However,

consumers only react to one or two quality cues at a time, which suggests irrationality, since

they are acting on incomplete product information. Finally, Aaker (1995, p. 75-76) argues that

“many customers do not care as much about the function as they do about style, status,

reassurance, other less functional benefits.” People even use brands to escape stress,

alienation and clutter (Aaker 1996, p.161). This rings very similar to Holt’s idea of people

using brands to soothe their anxieties, though the motivations might be different in this case.

Aaker (1995, p. 101) differentiates emotional benefits and self-expressive benefits, which are

key to Aaker in deepening the brand relationship, in the following ways: self rather than

feelings, public settings rather than private ones, aspiration for the future rather than

memories of the past, the permanent rather than the transitory and the act of using a product

rather than the consequence of the usage. Aaker (1995, p. 167) lists seven qualities through

which a brand relationship should be evaluated: behavioral interdependence, personal

commitment, love and passion, nostalgic connection, self-concept connection, intimacy and

partner quality. Aaker (1995, p. 12) states that there is always some demand for local

competitors because they provide links to the consumer and speak to their local sensibilities,

and since people’s local surroundings are likely to have a plethora of positive meanings to the

consumer. All this confirms that consumers look for plenty of emotional benefits in brands.

However, Orth et al. (2004) found that different benefits had a strong linkage to consumer

lifestyles or segments derived from them. One assumption could be that it is the lifestyles that

matter most, not the benefits. Lifestyles, self-expression and consumer identities are explored

next.

To Aaker (1995, p. 157-158), consumers may have “multiple selves” through the roles they

play in their everyday lives (for example parent, colleague, on vacation); each of these selves

needs expression, and people seek to express themselves through brands. This notion was also

advocated by Solomon et al. (1999, p. 191-193), who argue that different role identities are

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active at different times, and often even hidden from certain people. Some consumers use

brands as vehicles of self-expression and as building blocks of self-identity (Aaker 1995, p.

153-154; Holt 2002; Solomon et al. 1999, p. 504-505). This self-identity can be either the

consumer’s actual identity or an aspired one. Aaker states that some consumers feel weary of

using brands that are not true to their actual or ideal self, and that a brand “fit” creates comfort

and satisfaction, which was also advocated by Tuten (2007). Consumers can, for example,

aspire to an idealized childhood they would have liked to have (Aaker 1995, p. 231), which

implies that these aspirations do not always have to be attainable or even realistic – they just

have to fit the persona. Also, Aaker (1994, p. 153-154) states that consumers respond more to

products that have significant cultural meaning as building blocks for self-identity, and this

meaning changes over time. This notion is explored more in cultural branding, but it is

interesting that this is advocated also in mind-share, though only in passing.

Consumers who identify with a brand like to express their experiences and attitudes towards it

with other brand users (Aaker 19995, p. 24). This suggests bran- based consumer tribalism

and communal activity (Muniz & O’Guinn 2001). Aaker (1995, p. 165) says that ritual or

routine brand usage could strengthen a relation characterized by familiarity and comfort. As

individuals or the subcultures they belong to seek to translate their values into statements of

meaning, brand in particular become a widely available tool for that expression (Tuten 2007).

The brand must be relevant to a significant segment or it will not attract a large customer

base, meaning that people do not congregate around weak brands, only strong ones (Aaker

1995, p. 307).

Aaker (1995, p. 8) suggests that consumers are not only those who buy the brand, but also

non-consumers. This is akin to the initial consumer definition that consumers do not have

necessarily have to buy the brand, but merely to be in “the sphere of influence”. However, the

basis of differentiating people is still consumption – or lack thereof: nonconsumers (buy

competitive products or do not use the product class’s products), price switchers, passive

loyal (habitual buyers), fence sitters (indifferent between brands) and committed buyers

(Aaker 1995, p. 22). The willingness to purchase a given brand as a basis for categorizing

consumers is a quite limited approach, as it leaves many aspects of the brand relationship

unexplored, such as consumers’ brand relationships as a collection or brand purchases as a

stream of purchases (Fournier 1998; Hogg & Michell 1996).

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Aaker (1995, p. 51, 58, 68) sees that brands should be seen as persons with a personality and

with interpersonal relationships with consumers, and also as sources of “packaged meaning”.

To me, this implies that consumers like to set human attributes to brand elements and this

“humanizing” of brands makes them more likable and easier to understand. Brands that are

perceived as persons are richer and more interesting than product-attribute-based brands. The

suggestion here is that customers interact with brands as if they were real people, especially

when the brands are attached to meaningful products such as clothes or cars.

Exactly the same phenomenon was outlined by Fournier (1998), who argues that consumers

transfer human qualities to brands, such as emotionality, thought and volition, as a process of

“anthropomorphization” of the brand object. This way limited human qualities are attributed

to the brand, even though the brand is not viewed as a living and feeling entity just yet.

Fournier argues that people have a need to anthropomorphize (i.e. give human characteristics

to) objects in order to facilitate interactions with the immaterial brands. Farquah (1994) notes

that brand blindness afflicts consumers who are so confused by the multitude of brand

positions that they fail to recognize any differences at all. Perhaps the effort to humanize

brands suggests that consumers look to simplify what they see – break elements into simpler

abstractions that they can handle better – is a response to this trend of overwhelming choice.

Aaker (1995, p. 193) states that consumers differ most in the benefits they seek, price

sensitivity, brand loyalty, and brand application. Aaker (1995, p. 11, 259) suggests that the

mere act of branding can sway consumers to view the brand favorably, as consumers

understand that branding costs money and this requires faith on the brand on the company’s

part. Global brands especially enjoy a halo effect on the consumer’s mind: they are perceived

as “signals of longevity, resources to invest in the brand, and a commitment to the brand’s

future” (Aaker 1995, p. 130). This notion sounds a little outdated now, as Holt (2002) noted

that we are long past the time when consumers “looked up” at big brands. More recently,

however, Holt et al. (2004) argued people have become convinced that global brands hold a

special duty to handle social issues, even though they do not hold local producers to these

same standards. Global brands are seen as powerful institutions which are capable of doing

both good and harm.

Overall, Aaker’s views on consumers rely much more on how they react to brands, and not so

much on their motivations and demographic differences. Consumers seek certain benefits

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from brands that fit their different needs, and they seem to be able to identify these needs and

brands that provide them quite observantly and mostly rationally. The utmost sensitivities for

consumers are price (or rather, value for money) and quality, as consumers respond to these

cues more than anything. Gilmore & Pine (2007, p. 10-20) concur with the notion that price

and quality are key consumer sensibilities, but they also add availability and authenticity to

the list. However, newer research indicates that consumer lifestyles are more dominant in

determining the benefit preferences. Consumers also like to break down and categorize

brands, labeling them so that they are more easily manageable in their minds.

Fournier (1998) criticizes current research on brand relationships of being too “inertia-based”

on repeat purchases and of being too “narrowly cognitive utilitarian decision-making”, and

admittedly there are traces of this kind of thinking in Aaker’s descriptions of consumer

behavior. Fournier also found in her research that people did not buy brands only because of

preference or functional value: psychological and emotional meanings are valued as well. The

subjects were involved with a collectivity of brands that each brought meaning to their lives.

Also, consumer-brand relationships are more about “perceived goal compatibility than

congruence between discreet product attributes and personality trait images.”

Esch et al. (2006) call traditional branding models (i.e. mind-share branding models)

“perceptual and cognitive models” that argue that consumer brand knowledge (i.e. brand

awareness and image) affects consumer response to the brand, defined perceptions,

preferences and behavior arising from marketing mix activity. These kinds of models assume

that the consumer is a rational actor and the relationship towards a brand is more about trust

in quality and familiarity. Therefore, perhaps mind-share branding should indeed place more

emphasis on emotive benefits, as in emotional branding.

Originally I defined the consumer to be a single actor, who can be considered to be in the

sphere of influence of a brand and a potential customer. Drawing from my findings, the

mind-share consumer can be defined as follows:

a quality-aware, price-sensitive and moderately advertising-resistant single actor

who actively and rationally seeks brands and brand relationships that fit and

express one or many of the multiple selves he or she possesses, aims to

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differentiate brands by breaking them into easily comprehensible categories or

humanized elements, reacts to brands based on past exposures and seeks to

socialize and share with other brand users, and whose attitude towards brands is

dependent on buying behavior.

Compared to the original definition, it is considerably more intensive. However, the notion of

only using consumption as a basis for establishing brand relationship was surprising, and in

some ways is a step back from the original definition.

3.1.2 The Mind-Share Brand

A brand is something that provides “value” to the customer: some sort of functional,

emotional, or self-expressive benefit that drives purchase decisions and loyalty (Aaker 1995,

p. 95). This notion was also contained in the original definition for brand. Martin (1996)

defined a brand’s value proposition as the brand’s benefits divided by its price. This “value

proposition” is the brand’s most visible and common manifestation for its functional benefit,

something that provides functional utility to the consumer and differentiates from competing

brands (Aaker 1995, p. 95, 176). A value proposition is thus relative to other brands, which

implies that the brand itself is relative to competing brands as well. Aaker notes that it may be

very important to define what the brand is not, especially in relation to other brands (Aaker

1995, p. 181-182). Also, Aaker (1995, p. 183) states that a brand does not need to be superior

to other brands on all dimensions, but rather to avoid liabilities.

A brand can create a “virtual ownership of a position” or a brand identity symbol (for

example visual image, slogan, jingle), which makes the position unattainable for other brands

(Aaker 1995, p. 222). Adding to this notion that brands are relational, Aaker (1995, p. 242-

243) writes that “[…] brands within a system usually fall into a natural hierarchy. Brands at

each level in the hierarchy have a particular role to play in the system and brands on one level

often have important relationships with those other levels. At the top of the hierarchy is the

corporate brand, which identifies the corporation behind the product or service offering.”

As already stated earlier, brands generate equity, which is a set of assets that either adds or

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subtracts the value provided by the product or service to which the brand’s name and symbol

is linked. Brand equity consists of brand name awareness, brand loyalty, perceived quality

and brand associations. Brand equity generates value to both the company and its customers.

Brand associations can be, for example, product attributes, a celebrity spokesperson, and a

particular symbol. (Aaker 1995, p. 8, 25, 42) This notion of “equity” places a historical aspect

on the brand, but not as it being a historical artifact. Rather, the brand is seen to have a history

“within itself”, and a brand cannot be strong from the moment it is born.

Aaker (1995, p. vii, 274-275, 316) states that when the brand has generated equity, the brand

becomes a “strategic” and “manageable” asset that can be financially measured and can be

leveraged to contribute to the company’s long term performance, and these economies of

scale and scope are key in creating a strong brand (Aaker 1995, p. 104, 117). Aaker states that

brands generate brand loyalty and this loyalty is a source of revenue streams and a barrier of

entry to competitors (Aaker 1995, p. 21-22). Again, these notions further illustrate how a

brand can be a source of value for companies.

A brand also has an image, how it is perceived by the public, but from the company’s

perspective the brand is also aspirational, how the brand strategists would like the brand to be

perceived (Aaker 1995, p. vii, 180). However, the brand’s desired position should be

attainable (Aaker 1995, p. 185). As already stated earlier, at the center of Aaker’s view of the

brand is the core and extended identity: the core represents the brand’s timeless essence or

promise and it should be more resistant to change, whereas the extended identity features the

elements that alter slightly when the brand enters new markets and that extend the core’s

meaning. The larger the extended identity, the stronger the brand, because it is more

memorable, relevant, and interesting. (Aaker 1995, p. 68-69, 86, 88). Again, this relates to the

notion mentioned in the consumer section that consumer like to “humanize” brands and break

them down into abstractions.

Aaker argues that the brand identity should be “broad, rather than narrow” and should be

“strategic, rather than tactical” and also have an internal focus within the organization (Aaker

1995, p. 69). The argument here is that broad brands appeal to broader segments, and thus

have more commercial potential. However, Rust et al. (2004) argue that brands should be

made “as narrow as possible” to make them appealing in the ever-fragmenting marketplace,

and to counter these smaller segments, companies should look to have a wider portfolio of

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brands and look for economies of scale elsewhere. There seem to be conflicting views on how

to build a strong brand identity. Aaker’s view is true in the sense that a “broad” brand is likely

to appeal to more people and is correct on a more theoretical level, but Rust et al.’s view is

perhaps more realistic and attainable.

Brand identity and how it is perceived is what drives sales (Aaker 1995, p. 72). To Aaker, a

brand identity creates value by offering extension options, improving brand memorability,

guiding strategy, providing meaning and focus to the organization and by creating a value

proposition, providing credibility to other brands and acting as the basis of the a relationship.

(Aaker 1995, p. 202) A brand that has an identity that goes beyond product associations into

more abstract associations and “personality” and a relationship with customers will “travel

further” and generate more loyalty and a sense of group involvement because the personality

gives direction, purpose, and meaning for the brand. (Aaker, 1995, p. 51, 63, 68, 297) These

are, again, all major benefits for the company.

The brand is an object of recognition and recall, “a billboard on the consumer’s mind”, and

the strength of this kind of recall predicts buying behavior and preference (Aaker 1995, p. 10).

Thus, the brand is a “marker” or “articulator” for the consumer that links the company’s

product offering with something tangible or visual that the consumer can identify.

Recognition leads to positive feelings towards the brand: consumers are biased to believe

brand communications from brands that they perceive positively and vice versa (Aaker 1995,

p. 10, 134). This illustrates benefits for both consumers and companies.

A brand is a part of self-identity to a consumer and has “substantial social impact” in

expressing the self to others (Aaker 1995, p. 99-101, 153-156). To Aaker, brands and

products can become symbols of a person’s self-concept or even a “vehicle of self-

expression” (Aaker 1995, p. vii, 85). A brand is beneficial to consumers because it provides a

way for a person to communicate their desired self-image - or even multiple images

depending on the occasion. Self-expressive benefits are likely to heighten the consumer-brand

relationship. However, as it was noted in the previous chapter, the linkages a brand has to

subcultures are indeed more important to consumers, not the actual benefits.

As noted earlier, consumers who identify with a brand like to express their experiences and

attitudes towards the brand with other brand users. This means that a brand can become a

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social object or topic of discussion around which consumers congregate. Brands mean

different things to different people, and are sometimes communicated as such (Aaker 1995, p.

193). Thus, brands can have multiple, even conflicting identities.

Brand identity consists of four perspectives: brand-as-products (product scope, product

attributes, quality/value, uses, users, country of origin), brand-as-organization (organizational

attributes, local versus global), brand-as-person (brand personality, brand-customer

relationships), and brand-as-symbol (visual imagery/metaphors and heritage). Aaker also

states that the brand’s heritage contributes to the brand’s identity goals (Aaker 1995, p. 196-

197). To Aaker, brand image is about the brand’s past and tactical measures, brand identity

about the brand’s future, enduring qualities, and strategic measures (Aaker 1995, p. 70). The

brand image can have a positive effect on the brand identity that can be leveraged, but it

should not dictate the identity (Aaker 1995, p. 181). It is worthy of note that all the notions of

brand identity are more or less company-internal. The effects of culture, consumers and

history are regarded as less prominent than those aspects within a company’s control.

Brands can be corporate brands, sub-brands, ingredient brands, brand extensions, co-brands,

and branded services. (Aaker 1995, p. 26) This implies that a brand is always tied to its

situational usage, as a complement, never independent. Again, the notion here is that the

brand is very much company-defined, not very dynamic. Aaker suggest that a brand identity

can be the spearhead for a company’s expansion into new product categories and through

partnerships with other brands, such as the examples listed above, which again exemplifies

this situational role of the brand and the brand’s dependence on companies and especially

products (Aaker 1995, p. 248, 261-263).

Aaker (1995, p. 17-19) states that perceived quality is the only brand association that drives

financial performance and is often the key positioning dimension. However, quality is relative

to price, as some brands are price brands and others prestige or premium brands. Aaker says

that price premium may be the best indicator of brand strength because if consumers are loyal

they will pay more for the brand, and he suggests that a brand’s role is to be an external

influencer on customers and their decision making (Aaker 1995, p. 76, 102, 321). One could

argue that in its core, a brand’s role is to shift the consumer’s attention away from price and

justify the higher price.

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Overall, the brand is seen as something from a perspective of value, for both the consumer

and the company. Of note is the aspiration to create a brand identity that is timeless and as

broad and as human-like as possible. One major philosophical principle is the notion of

brands being relational to one another, especially in product categories. This notion of

product-relatedness makes the concept of the brand more intensive. Also, the brand’s role as a

justifier of sorts for a higher price and a source of quality cues can be seen as something that

confirms the product-relatedness. However, this relational aspect of brand also illustrates that

in mind-share branding, the brand is seen as something that the company can control – or

indeed, anything that the company cannot control is somehow disregarded from the

discussion.

Originally I defined a brand to be a distinguishable entity that provides value for both

companies and consumers. Thus, from my findings, I define the mind-share brand to be:

a visually distinguishable and manageable entity that provides strategically

leverageable and measurable asset and price premium value to companies, helps

differentiate and establish a strong positioning in regards to other products in the

category that is hard to copy, offers identity, self-expressive and quality

information value to consumers, and has a clear core promise along with a broad,

multifaceted and human identity that is aspirational and extremely consistent in

all areas.

This new definition is definitely much more intensive than the original one.

3.1.3 Mind-Share Branding and Brand Management

Aaker (1995, p. 26, 32) defines the challenge of brand building to be the creation of an

identity that is clear, connects with the customer, provides organizational guidance and stands

the test of time in a turbulent consumer and competitive environment. The practical problem

is to create an effective communications system that is consistent with this identity in

different media and over time (Aaker 1995, p. 58). Aaker (1995, p. 30, 96) suggests that brand

managers strive for an identity that differentiates, is hard to copy, speaks to the consumers’

emotions rather than reason, and enables strategic flexibility and brand extension. One of the

most defining notions on branding is that it is seen as a company-controlled and company-

41

initiated function throughout. In fact, Aaker states that brand managers should not let

consumers dictate “what you are” and that the brand should reflect a company-driven vision

(Aaker 1995, p. 70).

For example, this quote from Aaker (1995, p. 21) confirms this belief on company control:

“[t]he brand manager is the captain of the ship, who must know where his or her ship is going

and keep it on course. The other brands in the firm, like other ships in a fleet, need to be

coordinated to achieve maximum effectiveness. […] The perceptions and motivations of

customers are like the winds: It is important to know their direction, their strength, and

possible changes.”

Brand management’s role in the organization is indeed very strategic and requires top

management leadership in its implementation, as the goal is to manage the brand’s equity and

to maximize its value in the long term (Aaker 1995, p. 344-345). Aaker (1995, p. 225-228)

says that brand managers face pressures to change brand identities because of high

expectations and because the action of “doing nothing” seems risky, even foolish. The

willingness to “leave a mark” after the previous brand manager is also a key driver for

change. Organizational impatience to wait and see if the identity is “taking hold” also creates

pressure to meddle with the identity, as do market trends that often turn out to be fads. Brand

managers must fight off complacency and greed, because a strong brand will tempt managers

to reduce investments in it and to avoid measurements that reward short-term returns (Aaker

1995, p. 33, 316). Although Aaker admits that change is sometimes necessary, he states that

the goal should be in preserving consistency over time and merely refreshing the image

(Aaker 1995, p. 219-222). Aaker goes so far as to say that being consistent with the brand’s

identity, position and visual imagery is a real “no-brainer” (Aaker 1995, p. 224).

Aaker (1995, p. viii, 241) states that companies should aim to build a “brand system”, a

portfolio of overlapping and intertwined brands. This kind of system is put in place to create

clarity, manageability and synergies to the brands, reduce brand identity damage, achieve

clarity of product offerings, facilitate change and adaptation and allocate resources. Aaker

(1995, p. 256) says that managing the brand “in an environment of complexity” is to consider

brands not as individual performers, but supportive members of a system that can be more

than the sum of its parts. Also, Aaker (1995, p. 132) states that “the corporate brand is like the

flag bearer in front of the army, bestowing credibility on the army forces but depending on the

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army itself to fight the battle.” Building a system for brands and managing their complex

relationships are all very strategic decisions, and show a high degree of commitment to brand

building from management.

Aaker (1995, p. 186) states that “a brilliantly executed communication program breaks

through the clutter by shocking, entertaining, or involving the audience”, so a reasonable

assumption is that boredom in the brand’s communications will mean that the brand will be

lost in the clutter. Brands should look for unconventional marketing practices, such as

sponsoring and public relations, in order to expose the brand in new instances and coordinate

brand building across these diverse media (Aaker 1995, p. 187, 341). Part of branding and

brand management is thus to keep pushing forward and creating new ways to engage the

consumers.

Usually when companies create new products or services, they do so to meet an underserved

niche’s needs (Aaker 1995, p. 190, 193). This again shows that companies are constantly

looking to offer more and more to consumers, which leads to more clutter and possibly

consumer rejection. Aaker encourages brands to engage in “strategic opportunism” through

subbranding, quickly detecting and moving to new market opportunities as they appear

(Aaker 1995, p. 256). This relates to the previous notion of the brand being a strategic asset

and a source of value for companies.

Overall, the branding function in an organization is seen as a straightforward function. The

brand manager seems to have a great deal of control over the brand and its destiny. Changing

the brand is seen to be a rather rigid and slow-moving operation, partially because changing

the identity is hard due to all the coordination between channels involved, but also due to the

fact that the urge to change the identity should be heavily resisted. The view on brand

management is somewhat financially driven, as the brand manager is seen as a trustee of sorts

for the company’s key asset. The brand manager’s job is to leverage the brand and advance its

brand equity in terms of financial value. The brand manager’s role can be seen as quite

strategic and something that should be a top-management-level function, albeit the function

itself is slightly constraining due to this insistence of keeping the brand consistent and

timeless.

As a critique, it should be pointed out that Aaker’s view that brands should look to

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differentiate themselves from other products within a particular product category may be

short-sighted, as Fournier (1998) found that people view brand relationships as an

interconnected web; brands were seen as a coherent portfolio where brands marshaled across

category boundaries for their meaning-provision purposes. Also, the brand identity

consistency is increasingly difficult to sustain as brands have become more and more global

(Kay 2006). However, some companies have adopted a strategy of locally adapting the brand

to fit the culture better, as the connections a brand makes can vary in different cultural and

social contexts. Kay argues that increased “polysemy” (mixed multiple meanings for brands)

is not necessarily something that requires letting go of the branding logic endorsed in mind-

share models. This aspect of conflicting identities emerging is seen as a problem to be

managed and dealt with in mind-share, not an opportunity to engage consumers. This notion

is explored further in the other branding models.

Originally I defined branding as the pursuit to differentiate one producer’s products from

another in a way that is relevant to the consumer. From my findings I define mind-share

branding to be:

a company-controlled pursuit to differentiate one producer’s products from

another through managing the utmost consistency in all of the company’s

functions that contribute to the creation of a strong brand.

Originally, I defined brand management to be the choices related to an organization’s

attempts to influence brands that it can claim to be under its influence. From my findings I

define mind-share brand management to be:

a slow-moving top-level management and strategic function, where the company

uses its considerable control on the brand to manage the brand’s timeless and

consistent identity in different media, solidifies brand hierarchy, creates synergies

and builds equity, and tries to avoid letting consumers dictate brand identities.

Both of these definitions are highly intensive, especially when compared to the original

definition.

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3.1.4 Mind-share and the competitive environment

The marketplace is seen as a harsh, fast-moving and pressured-filled place for the brand to

operate. Aaker (1995, p. 28-29, 278) says that nearly all firms are facing pressure to engage in

price competition, which is “driven by strong retailers, value-sensitive consumers, reduced

category growth and overcapacity”, and price is often regarded as “the key success factor”

and many brands are going along with it. Retailers are especially putting pressure on brands

by introducing private-label brands in both price and premium categories (Aaker 1995, p. 28-

29). As a result, customers come to perceive that brands are not that different from one

another and brand loyalty erodes (Aaker 1995, p. 278).

Overcapacity created by additional competitors contributes to price pressures but also reduces

“brand complexity” and make it harder to gain and hold a position (Aaker 1995, p. 29).

Companies are “dividing the population into smaller and more refined target markets” and

reaching them more directly (Aaker 1995, p. 30-31) As a result, brands become defined more

narrowly, which is the opposite to a strong, broadly-defined brand, and target markets become

narrow as non-target markets become bigger. Again, this creates an “arms race” type of

situation as brands aim to gain advantage in smaller segments, but in the process they help

scatter consumers into smaller brand user groups and thus limit the overall financial potential

of the segment. Also, this process of micro-segmenting results in a need to modify the identity

and target it individually, which leads to more overlap between different brand messages,

which dilutes the brand identity and confuses consumers, and if the identity becomes muddled

it becomes increasingly difficult to break through the increasing advertising clutter (Aaker

1995, p. 30-31, 186, 240).

To counter this notion, de Muniz & O’Guinn (2001) argue that thanks to the Internet and the

connectivity it offers, brand communities, and with it companies can overcome the constraints

of geography and “survive the onslaught of postmodern fragmentation”. The implication is

here that, in their own geographic region or circle of peers, brand users can feel individual

enough through their brand usage. However, from the company’s perspective, through the

Internet they can attain and manage a user base large enough to be relevant commercially. In

effect, therefore, going niche might be a more lucrative alternative to brands than going mass-

market, as the niche market is now global and the mass-market is over competed and does not

offer real identity value to consumers. The notion of niche markets offering a way for brands

45

to achieve sales growth was also advocated by Anderson (2006) in his best-selling book “The

Long Tail”, where he argued that the Internet and the connectivity it offers has made it

possible for an unlimited supply of especially digital products.

Markets are not static and contexts may change in terms of customer tastes, technology,

company cultures and entering and exiting competitors (Aaker 1995, p. 216-217, 225).

Attribute-oriented benefits are easy to copy and performance-driven brands will eventually

get beaten on that attribute (Aaker 1995, p. 63, 75). Product innovations are copied very fast

and may only attract small niches, although technology also drives paradigm shifts, which

helps markets stay somewhat dynamic (Aaker 1995, p. 115, 279).

Aaker says that companies are becoming more and more skilled in operating outside the

normal media channels by using, for example, event promotions and sponsorships (Aaker

1995, p. 16). The implication here is that the “arms race” to reach consumers in new ways

will only heat up and this may again lead to consumer resentment and cynicism. Also, new

media channels make brand management across these channels increasingly difficult –

especially with the rise of interactive media such as the Internet (Aaker 1995, p. 30). Of note

though, is the fact that Aaker sees competition in terms of brands with similar position

strategies (Aaker 1995, p. 194).

Overall, the competitive environment is seen full of pressure of all sorts for brands competing

in the same product category. Brands face price pressures not only in the form of competition

from brands who offer similar products at lower prices, but also consumers who are

demanding it more and more. In mind-share, these pressures lead to micro-segmenting and

increased scattering of the market and media messages. Brand managers face increased

challenges in maintaining their brands’ strong and differentiated identities.

Originally, I defined the competitive environment very vaguely to be any other instances

outside the company’s control. From my findings, I define the mind-share competitive

environment to be:

a fast-moving, increasingly scattered and saturated market environment of

decreasing price margins driven by strong retailers and sensitive consumers,

where any advantage other than brand is copied instantly and brands push the

limits of consumer tolerance.

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This definition is more intensive than the original one.

3.2 Emotional branding concepts

3.2.1 The Emotional Consumer

Gobé states that companies are “alarmingly disconnected from the current changes in

consumer populations, such as the rapid expansion of ethnic markets, generational evolutions,

and the enormous influence of women in our society today” (Gobé 2001, p. xxxii). More

generally, Gobé (2001, p. 3) outlines that there are three “consuming populations” that inhabit

the retail landscape today: Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and Gen Yers. In addition to the three

different age segments, Gobé also lists different consumption patterns and preferences for

different ethnic groups in the United States, women and even gays (Gobé 2001, p. 30-65).

When compared to mind-share, the emotional consumers is much more dependent on his or

her social demographic and the lifestyles that relate to it, whereas in mind-share the

consumer’s lifestyle was seen just as a source of needs, not a manifestation of social

demographic.

The three population segments “don’t speak the same language” as Boomers respond to “cues

of achievement, status and performance”, Gen Xers to “imagination, creativity, and

relationships” and Gen Yers to “fun, interactivity, and experiences”. Gobé sees the Baby

Boomers as having “a versatile identity” and a “never grow up mentality” and brands should

aspire to a similar versatile identity and offer empowering, comforting, reassuring products to

“romance” them into a brand relationship. (Gobé 2001, p. 4-5, 8)

Gobé states that Gen Xers strive to adapt and subvert existing fashions and brands while

individualizing them, or as Gobé states: “your basic postmodern portrait” of a consumer

(Gobé 2001, p. 13). Adding to this, Fournier (1998) states that “‘Generation X’ is a product of

postmodern society that encourages construction of highly individuated identities through

eclectic borrowing of the fragments available in consumer culture.” Gobé calls for

authenticity and appealing to their aspirations when speaking to Gen Xers through

“nontraditional approaches”, especially given their anti-marketing attitude (Gobé 2001, p. 14,

27). This suggests cynicism towards marketing messages, which is also typical to postmodern

consumers (Holt 2002).

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Gobé calls Gen Yers “the warp-speed generation” because of their affinity with the Internet

(Gobé 2001, p. 20-21). Gen Yers “don’t have the time” for long advertising, and ads targeted

to them should be “concisely packed content.” Prensky (2001) states that members of

Generation Y are so-called “digital natives”, people who have grown up in an environment of

technology and most of all, the presence of the Internet, and this has had major effects of how

they process information compared to their predecessors. This has major implications for the

school system, as Prensky states, but also for marketers and advertisers. This begs the

question: if digital natives cannot be reached with a text book in school, how can marketers

then get to them with their print ads? This suggests that advertising clutter is an increasingly

difficult challenge for marketers to break through, and will only become an even bigger

problem in the future if marketers do not find a way to talk to these new digital natives.

Gen Yers “actively reject the mainstream” as soon as a brand becomes perceived as such and

have extremely fast-moving lifestyles and tastes (Gobé 2001, p. 21, 28). Gen Yers seek

belonging with peers and are very keen on following trends, even though they see themselves

as autonomous individuals that customize trends for their personal needs (Gobé 2001, p. 24).

Gen Yers use the Internet as a “social space” and a place to create communities (Gobé 2001,

p. 25). Gen Yers are also “experience driven” and strive for “the real thing” through

interactivity and sensorial marketing. Gobé also suggests that targeting “the most influential

and trendy members” of Gen Y through Guerrilla marketing is very appealing to Gen Y,

especially given their “marketing savviness” (Gobé 2001, p. 26-27). Gobé also cites Gen Yers

to be “prosumers”, which he sees as having “power and willingness to dictate” what they will

not Gobé 2001, p. 28). Solomon et al. (1999, p. 409) note that young people (referring to both

Gen Xers and Yers) are downright “brand-aware and brand-dismissive”. Gobé goes on to call

the modern consumer “blasé”, “marketing-tefloned”, and, in the case of Gen Xers and Yers,

even “hate advertising with all its excess” (Gobé 2001, p. 114, 222).

As there are three different consumer constituencies, we cannot generalize what is said of one

group to apply to all three. However, all three seem to share the following characteristics:

cynicism towards traditional advertising and overexposure to it, using brands as a means for

self-expression and sharing of brands with equal-minded users.

Moving on from the three constituencies, Gobé (2001, p. 109-110) argues that in the twenty-

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first century goods do not matter to consumers as much as a better quality of life. Consumers

are increasingly becoming nostalgic for times when “things happened more slowly” and that

rise of design (or rather, its shedding of its past elitist association) is a counter-force against

“cookie-cutter culture” and a search for authenticity. Brands offer not only identity-building

possibilities, but limited escapism as well (Gobé 2001, p. 110-111, 293-294). However,

Thompson et al. (2006) argue that the difference between brand authenticity and

inauthenticity is actually culturally constructed rather than an inherent property of objects or

actions. Authenticity is thus hardly an objective term. Gilmore & Pine (2007, p. 22) agree that

what is “authentic” to consumers changes over time and that brands should manage this

relevancy. The notion of authenticity is further explored later and also in the other branding

models.

Gobé (2001, p. 69, 99) implies that consumers are often unconscious of the effects of

sensorial stimuli on their buying decisions, and this sensorial way is the quickest way to

increase sales and reach consumers’ emotions. For example, sound can have a “cognitively

unmediated effect on recall and emotions” and can set off an “uncontrolled hierarchy of

associations” (Gobé 2001, p. 71). Gobé (2001, p. 72) argues that when consumers are exposed

to products and their advertisements, they do not perceive a personal ‘need’ for the product at

that precise moment, and they rarely intend to buy it. Because information-seeking about

products is usually not active, stimulating emotion and affect is a better way to distinguish a

product and draw interest. Gobé argues that audience members are usually “comprised of

uninvolved potential consumers rather than cognitively active problem-solvers” (Gobé 2001,

p. 72-73). This is almost entirely against what the rational mind-share consumer represents

and is closer to what Esch et al. (2006) had argued, as already stated above.

Bengtsson & Firat (2006) state that as consumers’ literacy of brands and brand management

strategies grows – and it continuously does, as noted by Holt (2002) – so does their ability to

experience with brand meanings to suit their tastes. However, as this literacy grows, so does

the consumers’ ability to resist the branding efforts that companies engage in. In a way,

through literacy the company’s actions become more and more transparent to consumers, and

often less effective. It could be argued that sensorial tactics are used more and more because

consumers are less aware of them, or maybe even because they are something that the

consumers simply cannot ignore. This brings great responsibility to the companies, however.

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Gobé (2001, p. 4) sees the consumer as being hard to attract to a long-lasting brand

relationship by conventional promotions. Instead, brands should look to court them through a

“lifelong love affair” that is built around a perceptual “dialogue surrounding the issues

affecting consumers”. Brands that speak to for example Gen Xers’ eclectic individuality and

do not paint them selves as status symbols will find success (Gobe 2001, pp, 13). Gobé (2001,

p. 17-19) suggest that Gen Xers are generally “unimpressed” with brands that try to sell

themselves through benefits of how “great” they are and that “live-for-today” Gen Xers don

“badges of success” early, unlike Boomers who wear them when they have actually achieved

them. Khalil (2000) had also noted this notion of consumers wearing badges that they do not

“deserve”, and McCracken (1986) noted that in western culture people are free to challenge

preconceived notions, such as age or social class, and manifest this through consumption.

Gobé states that brands should look to align brand identity with the lifestyle consumers, as

individuals, aspire toward so that consumers can use brands as “labels” or “badges” to express

who they are in terms of personality, style and status (Gobé 2001. p. 82, 143, 198). In effect, a

brand is a representation of a lifestyle to consumers. This was also argued in mind-share, but

is much more prominent in emotional branding.

Gobé (2001, p. 30, 143, 221) says that, overall, consumers will want relationships with brands

that “understand” them and express “who the consumer wants to be”, and that consumers will

discriminate between companies that reflect their values and those that do not. Especially

women are likely to measure if the brand’s image, philosophy and ethics are in sync with

theirs and look for a relationship and connection with brands (Gobé 2001, p. 47-48). This

notion of brand “fit” and aspiring identity was noted also in mind-share branding.

Also, Gobé states that consumers like form branded communities around brands they love and

“share” their favorite brand with one another, and that this is type of “communal

environment” is essential to branding (Gobé 2001, p. 88, 262). This type of sharing through

word of mouth requires a real commitment to pass the brand message, and this will not

happen unless there are strong emotions towards the brand (Gobé 2001, p. 267). Again, this

notion was mentioned in mind-share, but in emotional branding this is seen as more

prominent and crucial for emotional bonds to a brand form.

The need for more sensorial and physical experiences through brands and to reconnect to

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“what’s real”, according to Gobé, is because consumers are more and more “out of touch with

reality” in this era of “speed and computer screens” (Gobé 2001, p. 110). People want to

impact their physical surroundings because it gives them a sense of control. To Gobé, buying

a product is not a process, but more of an “art” and a way to escape as consumers search for

newness and excitement within retail spaces (Gobé 2001, p. 162, 172).

Gobé suggests that “push” communication has no future and consumers look for more of a

dialogue with brands (Gobé 2001, p. 232). Consumers are very wary of tolerating brand

communications in their physical and psychological surroundings and expect more sensitivity,

sincerity and honesty from brands (Gobé 2001, p. 222). This is evident also in the fact that

brands are now trying to reach consumers through influential “young, hip, and extroverted”

trendsetters instead of direct marketing channels (Gobé 2001, p. 192-193). Gobé (2001, p.

258) says that consumers have “no patience and [are] always looking for ‘what’s next’.” This

decline in brand loyalty may also be due to increased brand cynicism. This view is akin to

Holt’s (2002) view that marketers are often seen as cultural engineers, organizing how people

think and feel through branded commercial products. In this view, branding is seen as nothing

more as a sophisticated and immoral game of seduction.

Overall, Gobé goes into great lengths to describe consumers in more general terms, such as

different demographics and motivations and not just what kind of relationships they have with

brands. This is a key difference to mind-share branding, where the consumer is seen as more

of a target and straightforward cognitive problem-solving actor. The differentiation between

different social demographics makes it difficult to paint a single portrait of a “consumer”,

though in the case of Gobé it is the whole premise of his book – to make real connections

with people based on who they are. Companies would do well to define an intension for each

and every consumer demographic (Gen Xers, Yers, Boomers) so that the definitions for

consumers can become even more intensive.

However, too much reliance on demographics might not be a good idea in brand building,

especially when branding identity categories. As already mentioned earlier, McCracken

(1986) argues that in North American culture markers of person and age, for example, are

marked by a striking lack of clarity and are of elective quality: people are allowed to use their

own discretion in declaring which “cultural categories” they occupy: teenagers declare

themselves adults and the working class declares itself middle class through their

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consumption.. Cultural categorization is largely a matter of choice in western culture, even if

that choice is in some ways an implausible claim.

The need and willingness to express oneself through brands is also more paramount than in

mind-share, as are the motivations for it – especially the yearning for authenticity. Gilmore &

Pine (2007, p. 12) argue that the search for authenticity is increasingly linked to the

consumers’ quest to align one’s self to whom one wants to be, an aspired self-identity created

through consumption. This aspirational view of consumption was also noted by Gobé, but not

linked to the search of authenticity. Emotional branding also treats consumers as much less

rational or cognitive problem-solvers than in mind-share, as evident by consumers’ reactions

to sensorial stimuli and the unconscious responses to them.

Originally I defined the consumer to be a single actor, who can be considered to be in the

sphere of influence of a brand and a potential customer. Drawing from my findings, the

emotional consumer can be defined as follows:

a single actor who looks to build long-lasting relationships and engage in

communal activity with personal and perceived non-mainstream brands because

they enable aspirational lifestyle self-expression and connection to relevant

meanings, is highly marketing savvy, is both bombarded by advertising and anti-

marketing, craves authenticity, and whose consumption tastes are defined by

his/her social demographic more than anything else and whose consumption is

guided by emotions and uncognitive factors.

3.2.2 The Emotional Brand

The starting definition for what a brand is very similar to what it is in mind-share branding:

Gobé says that brand identities are “unique and express a point of difference vis-à-vis the

competitive landscape” and that brands have personalities that have “charismatic character”

and that provide “meaning” (Gobé 2001, p. xxx, 306). The goal again seems to be to

“humanize” the brand, or as Gobé (2001, p. 306) puts it, give the brand human qualities and

emotional values, which was also outlined in mind-share branding and advocated by Fournier

(1998). In emotional branding, however, this notion of human brands is taken more seriously

52

and investigated further. As an example, Gobé (2001, p. 106, 280) says that the goal is to

bring the brand to life as a “multi-dimensional, emotionalized entity that people will fall in

love with and continue to love” or even become “like a friend, neither shouting nor

interrupting you”.

Another concept similar to mind-share is the notion of the brand as a source of price premium

and a cue of superior quality (Gobé 2001, p. xxviii-xxxi, 122, 174). However, Gobé suggests

that this premium is paid also for the experience, not only the brand as it is understood in

mind-share. Gobé (2001, p. 285) states that this is partly why services are winning over

products in brand building. In mind-share branding a brand was more relative to products,

whereas in emotional branding this link is less clear. Perhaps it is the concept of a product that

has changed, not the brand.

Where emotional branding differs most from mind-share is in stating that brands are not static

and that they have many facets to their personality, whereas in mind-share it was crucial to

keep the brand as “timeless” and clear as possible (Gobé 2001, p. 185). Gobé (2001, p. 122)

states that corporate identities are becoming more personal in that they respond to consumer

interpretation more (Gobé 2001, p. 122). Instead of quality cues, Gobé says that brands go for

“preference” to entice consumers (Gobé 2001, p. xxviii-xxxi). As stated in the previous

segment, a successful brand connects to brands to the consumer’s lifestyle, becoming a

representation for it (Gobé 2001, p. 185). Gobé (2001, p. 73) suggests that brands associate

themselves with “devices” used for constructing ones identity, such as music, which can bring

distinction to the brand’s identity and attract consumers.

Also, brands are representations of culture and periods of time. This is illustrated, for

example, in packaging and brands should evolve through time to “match the cultural appetite

of the time” (Gobé 2001, p. 143, 202). According to Gobé, a brand is relevant because they

reflect a culture is still relevant (Gobé 2001, p. 158). A brand’s strength, therefore, is relative

to culture. Thompson et al. (2006) link the cultural relevance of an emotional branding story

to Holt’s ideas of cultural branding, claiming that if an emotional branding story is not

culturally relevant (i.e. the story does not help in addressing social contradictions), it will

more likely result in a harmful “doppelganger” brand image, which is a resonant story driven

by antibrand activists through different media. Thompson et al. also stress that the emotional

branding story must be historically continuous, which also key in Holt’s theory of cultural

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branding.

In regards to what a brand is, emotional branding is not too decisive. What a brand is not

really directly defined and the definition has to be contrived from anecdotal evidence. Rather,

as illustrated in the next chapter, the emphasis in emotional branding is more on tactical

measures of branding and redefining the consumer relationship. Where the emotional brand

differs from the mind-share brand is the less strict view on the brand’s timelessness and the

added emphasis on the cultural relevance. When it comes to the concept of the brand, it seems

that emotional branding really is more of an extension of mind-share, as noted earlier by Holt

and Thompson et al.

Originally I defined a brand to be a distinguishable entity that provides value for both

companies and consumers. Thus, from my findings, I define the emotional brand to be:

a visually distinguishable and sensually accessible story-like entity that helps

differentiate and establish a strong positioning in regards to other products in the

category, is dynamic, and open to consumer interpretation, a building block for

identity construction and an embodiment of lifestyle and a representation of

culture, and is a cue for quality and a source for price premium due to its

experiential and relationship value.

3.2.3 Emotional Branding and Brand Management

Gobé proclaims that “all good branding is about managing people’s emotions and creating

positive receptivity to our brands, taking a few extra steps in making customers’ sensual

interactions special” (Gobé 2001, p. 268). Gobé (2001, p. xv, xxxii) states that to build an

emotional brand is to build a brand that engages consumers on the level of sense and

emotions, and that multisensorial brand experiences are an “incredibly effective” branding

tool.

To Gobé (2001, p. 74, 80, 103), branding is about tailoring an engaging, intimate and

personalized encounter that is customized and individualized for each customer while still

enhancing the brand identity with consistency. Especially on the Internet, Gobé sees a

54

possibility to tailor the experience because the medium is almost limitless (Gobé 2001,

p.243). Also in normal retail environments you have to create a shopping environment around

storytelling that facilitates their shopping (Gobé 2001, p. 261). Indeed, the notion of branding

at first seems like a personalized version of mind-share.

Gobé states that brands must be more sensitive to the symbolic values surrounding their

product and image and that these elements are open to constant repositioning or

embellishment (Gobé 2001, p. 10). Gobé advises brands to become verbal and visual “stories”

that consumers want to join in, and these stories need to be culturally relevant to break

through the clutter (Gobé 2001, p. 148, 196, 222; Roberts 2004, p. 36). Gobé states that

companies need to approach consumers with respect and see brands and their identities as

“open-ended dialogues” with consumers that encourage contact (Gobé 2001, p. 136, 292). Or

as Gobé (2001, p. xxxii) says: “brands do not belong to corporations but people.” Kay (2006)

mirrors this statement by stating that brands are part of the popular imagination.

Thompson et al. (2006) argue, however, that with emotional branding strategies there is a

potential risk to expose firms to cultural backlash in the form of a “doppelgänger brand

image”, which refers to a collection of negative images or stories about a brand that spread

through popular culture. These images or stories are usually carried forward by a network of

consumers, anti-brand activists, bloggers and opinion leaders in the news or other media.

These anti-brand movements usually occur only to large global corporations. A brand’s role

or association with culture is thus not always a favorable thing, nor is having consumers

define what the brand is a risk-free venture.

As noted earlier by the demanding tastes of Gen Yers and Gen Xers, brands must show some

exclusivity and balance a line between “prominent exposure and overexposure”. To remain

competitive, brands must reinvent themselves constantly. (Gobé 2001, p. xxxii, 21) To Gobé,

branding is not about “nomenclature and obscure systems”, but flexibility and emotional

reach. Gobé calls for, however, “visionary, integrated, visceral and reflective” commitment

from corporations to share their values and connect their identities with consumers. (Gobé

2001, p. 143, 154) This is significantly different from mind-share, where both systematic

company control and prominent exposure of the brand were high priorities. Because

consumers are so saturated by communications, brands should be constantly looking for more

powerful ways to connect and “speak to consumer where they live” rather than “logos

55

plastered everywhere” (Gobé 2001, p. xxxi, 191). Gobé notes that quality service is still a

relevant way to make consumers feel special and “indulge people in the brand offering”

(Gobé 2001, p. 258). New approaches to design of products, packaging, retail stores,

advertisement, and Web sites help brands “break the ceiling of the expected” and reach “the

hearts of consumers” in a new way (Gobé 2001, p. xxxii). As Gobé says, “packaging is a half-

second commercial” that has to work instantly to catch your attention or establish your

familiarity with a product and stand out on overcrowded shelves (Gobé 2001, p. 197-198,

202). This again relates to the notion of advertising clutter and companies’ struggle to break

through it.

According to Gobé, sensory experiences are “immediate, powerful, and capable of changing

our lives profoundly” (Gobé 2001, p. 68-69). Gobé also states that these tactics are not used to

their full extent in product development, packaging and advertising, and that all these points

should be points of interaction, emotional delivery and dialogue with consumers (Gobé 2001,

p. 68-69, 122, 186). This mirrors the idea that brands need to be ever expanding ways to

connect with consumers in the “arms race” against other brands. Or as Gobé (2001, p. 158)

says, brands need to “stay ahead of the market as to be meaningful”.

Emotional branding seems to be about raising the bar from mind-share tactics and that first

mover brands are already moving to these tactics to gain an advantage over other brands. On

the Internet, Gobé says many brands are jumping “on the bandwagon fearing that missing it

would be a fatal mistake (Gobé 2001, p. 242). Gobé says that brands do not need to be only

seen anymore, but also their presence need to be felt in different times and places – even

extending the brand “discovery experience” past the point of purchase (Gobé 2001, p. 186,

197). This is again a sign of pushing the limits to reach the consumers in new ways, also

finding new touch points for the brand.

Emotional branding seems to embrace the corrosion of media and consumer touch points, and

urges brands to always be on the lookout for new ways to connect with consumers and

communicate the brand’s identity, especially through different senses. Emotional branding

takes a less manager-centric view on brands in stressing consumer dialogue and advocating a

sort of bilateral brand building with consumers, even declaring that brands “belong to

people.” Both Lindstrom (2005, p. 165-190) and Roberts (2004, p. 192-199) argue that by

participating in these collaborative dialogues, brand managers can gain valuable insights into,

56

for example, product development and new meanings for products that can be later leveraged

in advertising campaigns. Relating to this, Fournier (1998) states that the experiential

categories marketers originally planned for or imposed on a brand are not necessarily the

same as what the consumer eventually will attribute to them.

One interesting thing to note is that Gobé (2001, p. 267), Lindstrom (2005, p. 165-190), and

Roberts (2004, p. 194) all seem to suggest that word of mouth is a consequence of people

loving the brand, not something that can and should be advanced from the company’s side.

This is probably the most profound difference between the two branding models: seeing word

of mouth as an end, not a means.

In a study of small coffee shops conducted by Thompson et al. (2006), customers perceived

small quirky details in the coffee shop interior to be clues of authenticity and signs of

uniqueness. This is fairly similar to what is outlined in emotional branding in that companies

should keep adding touch points and emotional cues for their consumers to experience.

However, the owners of the coffee shops were regarded as following their own convictions

rather than being commercially calculative in terms of catering to the crowd. There was an

apparent distain for customer preferences that was actually a source of authenticity and thus

competitive advantage. This goes against of what is paramount in emotional branding:

creating positive experiences and downright delighting the consumers. Perhaps consumer’s

anti-corporate attitudes, on the other hand, are stronger than their need to be pleased in service

encounters.

There is also an emphasis on making products more experiential and service-like, to avoid

commoditization and competition. However, the main tenets of mind-share – consistency and

building a strong identity – are still key in emotional branding, too. Overall, emotional

branding reads more as a tactical approach to implementing the brand strategy, with some

updates as to which organizational departments are seen as linked to the brand building efforts

(for example, more emphasis on design and retail) than in mind-share.

Originally I defined branding as the pursuit to differentiate one producer’s products from

another in a way that is relevant to the consumer. From my findings I define emotional

branding to be:

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a consumer-company-based dialogical pursuit to differentiate one producer’s

products from another via creating emotional, culturally relevant, sensual,

tailored, and positive experiences around products, so that make people want to

join the conversation and forge an emotional relationship with the brand.

Originally I defined brand management to be the choices related to an organization’s

attempts to influence brands that it can claim to be under its influence. From my findings I

define emotional brand management to be:

a dynamic and somewhat strategic but mostly tactical function, in which the

company attempts to use its influence to manage its clientele’s emotions via

managing the exposure of its brands between prominent and overexposure and by

engaging the consumers through finding new sensorial touchpoints to stimulate

the consumers and to entice them to participate in defining the brand.

3.2.4 The Emotional Competitive Environment

Gobé (2001, p. 24, 81) states that especially for Gen Yers, the marketplace is becoming

increasingly fragmented and that the Internet provides means for them to get products and

experiences they wish for if their local stores fail to deliver them. We are living in a

“consumer-driven” and “very saturated, competitive environment”, where convincing people

to buy a product or service is increasingly difficult for businesses (Gobé 2001, p. 80, 106).

Gobé (2001, p. 255) also lists price pressures from competitors in similar ways to Aaker in

mind-share branding.

In this “new economy” brands move into more dynamic identities as companies move away

from mass production to tailoring experiences. Mass customization is now economically more

feasible due to technological innovation (Gobé 2001, p. 303). This again places pressure to go

more and more niche and intimate with the consumer. Gobé says that mass customization will

eventually put the consumer in the brand driver’s seat and that companies must expand their

scope in products and make their identities more flexible (Gobé 2001, p. 303-304). This has

been also been advanced by technological innovations and the rise of design. (Gobé 2001, p.

109, 124-126) Gobé also notes that the rise of globalization and cultural sharing are key

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drivers for this new economy (Gobé 2001, p. 118).

Gobé (2001, p. 192) writes that “advertising behemoths gobbled up one medium after

another”, which has lead to resistance not only on the consumer level, but also by rebel brands

that attract loyal niche markets that were inaccessible by mainstream ad campaigns. This

again suggests that consumer markets are being further fragmented, and that brands

themselves are the driving force behind this trend. The rise of smaller niche producers has

increasingly scattered the market into smaller segments with their ability to create more

intimate appeal to consumers (Gobé 2001, p. 193). Also, the Internet has raised people’s

expectations of how fast they should be receiving their products. The amount of relevant

product information available has also gone up substantially. (Gobé 2001, p. 242)

Gobé’s view on the marketplace is more consumer-centric than in mind-share and in many

ways seems like what would have happened if the trends outlined in mind-share – micro-

segmentation and growing consumer cynicism – would have run their course. Ss outlined

above, however, emotional branding takes a more optimistic approach to these changes and

suggests that brands find a way to overcome these trends.

Originally I defined the competitive environment very vaguely to be any other instances

outside the company’s control. From my findings, I define the emotional competitive

environment to be:

a fast-moving, thoroughly scattered and saturated market environment that is

completely consumer-driven because of choice and information available, and

where brands compete against each other fiercely and continuously causing

diminishing returns on marketing.

3.3 Viral branding concepts

3.3.1 The Viral Consumer

Probably the biggest overall theme that is present throughout the concept of viral consumer is

the consumers’ trust and reliance on peers for marketing information and the power a single

consumer now can yield. In the world of viral branding, consumers do not believe advertising

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anymore and marketing communications that aim to convince them that a product is good will

fail, especially now that consumers are connected via the Internet and “the truth” spreads

almost instantly. (Sernovitz 2006, p. xxvii, 28, McConnel & Huba 2007, p. xii, 127)

Sernovitz (2006, p. xxiii) states that people love to talk about products and services they use

every day. When consumers start to look for something to buy, they turn to people they trust

(friends, family, coworkers, and peers) for information, not marketing information (Sernovitz

2006, p. xxiv, 146). However, word of mouth on the Internet is of course different, because

the discussions a customer can engage in exceed the geographical and social boundaries of his

normal friends and peers (Helm 2000). This is naturally reflected in how a consumer trusts

this kind of information, as the counterpart is not necessarily a friend. From a company point

of view, McConnel & Huba (2007, p. 84) go so far as saying that if people are to tolerate any

advertising, it needs to be permission based.

Both Sernovitz (2006, p. 52) and McConnel & Huba (2007, p. 21, 24-25) state that consumers

are put off by “slick production values” in advertising and they instead prefer amateur

content, because it looks and often is perceived to be more authentic and being done without

any profiteering motives or connections to the company – as a personal expression. This takes

the notions of consumer sensibilities from emotional branding even further. People are also

advancing a change in how popular culture is being experienced and consumed as a way of

co-creation and turning it into a whole new lifestyle (McConnel & Huba 2007, p. 22, 119-

120).

The power a single person can wield on the Web is due to the fact that he or she is part of a

social media community of like-minded people that seeks out about things its members care

about and shares those opinions with potentially powerful results to a company (Sernovitz

2006, p. 4; McConnel & Huba 2007, p. ix, xiii, 50). McConnel & Huba (2007, p. ix-x, 24, 30)

argue that since 2004 social media has evolved into a “two-way, three-way, and multiple way

ecosystem of gossip, ideas, news, and collaboration” where the newly digitally empowered

consumer could be a publisher, broadcaster or audience member all at once, collaborating,

debating and discussing brands with each other more easily and faster than any time before

while holding considerable authority over his peers.

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Sernovitz (2006, p. 13) lists reasons why people choose to talk about a brand or its products:

they love or hate the brand, talking about the brand is easy, there is an interesting topic on the

brand to be shared, talking about the brand makes them feel smart or important, they want to

help people or express themselves, they are part of the brand family of enthusiasts, they are

part of the team, or they are so-called “insiders”. Some people get a “kick” of being experts,

showing off what they know and people look for experts for advice (Sernovitz 2006, p. 15).

Leskovec et al. (2007) say that this validation of one’s expertise through recommendations is

indeed a key driver for word of mouth.

Sernovitz says that word of mouth is driven by emotion, not products; sharing happens

because of feelings that are more about “us” than the company (Sernovitz 2006, p. 15-16, 74).

Sharing of beloved brand is “a labor of love” or “hobby”. McConnel & Huba (2007, p. 106)

say that consumer engage in “productive leisure” when engaging in hobby-like behavior

centered on brands, and that it “[validates] our role as workers in a free and capitalistic

market.” In other words: “hobbies are fun, productive, and meaningful… just as long as

paycheck supports them.” McConnel & Huba (2007, p. 108) argue that with the right tools a

hobbyist imagines the world “as it should be”. If you apply this reasoning to citizen

marketers’ work with brands, you could claim that citizen marketers try to shape the brand as

they would like to see it. This is especially true in the case of “mashups”, which are amateur

works, such as spoof advertising and short films, where consumers recycle brand elements

into their own works of art (McConnel & Huba 2007, p. 57-59).

Some people are so passionate about what they know about a brand that they want everyone

else to enjoy the same thing and talk about it non-stop (Sernovitz 2006, p. 16, 74). Sernovitz

says that the desire to be part of the group is “one of the most powerful human emotions” and

that talking about brands is one way to achieve this (Sernovitz 2006, p. 17). We love getting

together with other people when we share excitement about a common interest and we trust

“people like ourselves” more than anyone else. And in modern times, thanks to the emergence

of the Internet, this kind of congregation and dialogue is both easier and more frequent

(Sernovitz 2006, p. 17, 41, 92, 141; McConnel & Huba 2007, p. 53).

Leskovec et al. (2007) found that even though online communities might form around only

certain things (for example books, music, movies), they still give recommendations to each

other about different kinds of products if they somehow relate to their common interests.

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They identified this as a case of homophily, the tendency of like-minded people associating

with one-another. The more closely-knit a social network is, the more likely it is for word-of-

mouth to take off. They cite as an example that many communities, no matter what the social

object around which they congregate, will offer recommendations for children’s books or

movies, for example, since children are of interest for many people in said communities. In

mind-share and emotional branding, the groups people belong to were seen as dominantly

brand groups or at least subcultures where the brand has some sort of presence. In viral

branding, this is not necessarily the case.

McConnel and Huba (2007, p. 154) argue that there are three core components to the

dynamics of community: consciousness of kind, shared rituals and traditions, and a sense of

moral responsibility to the community. To Sernovitz (2006, p. 72), this is also why people

wear brand logos on their clothes: not to identify with the brand per se, but rather its group of

fans. Or in other words, “consumers don’t choose brands, they choose lives” (Fournier 1998).

In fact, Tuten (2007) had noted that people feel uncomfortable when being faced with the idea

that they use brands to define their identities. People would much rather admit being part of a

particular group of people than just fans for any given brand. One assumption could be made

here that viral branding is in fact about creating an illusion that people are not buying brands,

but rather participating in a movement.

Sernovitz (2006, p. xix, 21-22, 67) argues that the people who most likely spread your

marketing message do not have any pre-qualifications other than enthusiasm towards your

products; they are “real people”. McConnel & Huba (2007, p. 4) say that citizen marketers, on

the other hand, do not represent the average person and are more likely to be found “on the

fringes” of culture creation on the web. They are driven mostly by creativity and “a sense of

duty”, but also a sense of passion as Sernovitz had noted. “Talkers” are also very resistant to

marketing, and will turn on a brand that tries to sell to them directly (Sernovitz 2006, p. 158,

134: Holt 2002). All of these notions, especially consumers being on the fringes of culture

and having non-profiteering motifs, were all outlined by Holt (2003, 2004, 2006) in his works

relating to cultural branding and its more enthusiastic consumer segments. This will be

described more in depth in the section concerning cultural branding.

Sernovitz (2006, p. 67) argues that the prevailing myth that word of mouth is driven by “über-

hip talkers and the cool trendsetters” is due to Malcolm Gladwell’s book “the Tipping Point”

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and its portrayal of idea diffusion through influentials. To Sernovitz (2006, p. 67, 76-77), the

most likely talkers are instead new customers who are still excited about the customer

experience, are in a “honeymoon period” with the brand, and are devoted enough to impress

others. However, companies should take note that these new talkers, although excited about

the brand, already care deeply about the brand and will have strong opinions of it as well

(Sernovitz 2006, p. 76). McConnel & Huba (2007, p. 4) call people that will create marketing

and advertising content on behalf of companies, brands, products or people “citizen

marketers”, and often they invite others to join in on the fun.

McConnel & Huba (2007, p. 5-24) divide the so-called citizen marketers into four types:

filters (people who summarize information on brands for other members of the community),

fanatics (brand evangelists or eager brand activists who analyze, filter and share information

about the brand), facilitators (people who create and manage online communities), and

firecrackers (one-hit wonders who spark a major phenomenon or buzz relating to the brand).

Citizen marketers are “the 1 Percenters” of a company’s consumer base and are highly

involved, most likely young, and technologically leading edge. The vast majority of people

online are just spectators, but possible future citizen marketers. (McConnel & Huba 2007, p.

33, 38, 41, 65-66, 69)

McConnel & Huba (2007, p. 27-28) state that “people are the message when their intent is

authentic” when they “have roots of credibility” and are “transparent about their motivations

and interests”, meaning that they are identified as true fans of a given brand. Gilmore & Pine

(2007, p. 12-13) state that creating authenticity through consumer-controlled production, in

essence offering a “prosumer” (a producing consumer) a platform, rather than a finished

product, shifts attention from the company’s moneymaking motives to the buyer’s self-

defining quests. The consumer feels less “sold” to or manipulated when he sees that his or her

peers are in control of the brand.

McConnel and Huba (2007, p. 109-112, 139) argue that people engage in market helping

functions – helping brands by acting on their own interest on behalf of the company – for four

different reasons: altruism (feeling bad for others for having bad experiences), personal

relevance (the brand has connected with the person, is an extension of self and source of

meaning), common good (the world - whatever it may be - will be a better place if the brand’s

mission is advanced) and status (improve one’s value to social networks, make connections

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and find success). Holt (2002) makes a very interesting claim: the proliferation of narrowly

focused consumption communities, regardless of their particular content, can be understood

as a defensive posture towards current consumer culture. In effect, consumers “taking over”

the brand could be seen as an effort to save the brand from the company that has built it. In

Fournier’s (1998) model, it is the everyday actions enacted “on behalf” of the brand along

with the execution of the marketing mix that are the cornerstone of the brand relationship

argument.

This begs the question that unless consumers are doing something for the brand, is the brand

strong? The findings of Lassar et al. (1995) seem to answer this, as they argue that a

consumer’s commitment to a brand can be split into two distinct categories: feeling and

action. Commitment as a feeling is a component of brand equity, but action is a consequence

of brand equity, not a part of brand equity itself. A strong brand inspires action on its behalf.

Sernovitz (2006, p. 101, 142) says that popularity eats away people’s willingness to speak of

the brand: when there is no “inside information” or “privileged status” to share, word of

mouth loses its meaning, but conversely offering inside information can turn mildly interested

people into “rabid fans”. People are more likely to recommend a product if they feel that

others might not know about the product (meaning really popular products are unlikely to be

recommended), the reference group is small and tightly knit, or because people feel that their

recommendation will be of use (Leskovec et al. 2007). One aspect also is that this way people

get to display a certain level of connoisseurship to their peers and validate themselves as

experts. Sernovitz (2006, p. 17, 134), however, implies that consumers – especially young

ones – can be conflicting in their brand usage: expressing distain for “conformity” and a need

for individuality while still using popular mainstream brands if they identify with them. The

notion of too much popularity spoiling the brand was also outlined in emotional branding, but

from a different perspective.

Overall, compared to mind-share and emotional branding, viral consumers are seen as even

more anti-marketing and cynical. This is also evident in their even more underlined craving

for authenticity. Also, even though emotional branding stresses that people use brands to

identify themselves as part of a group, the role of the brand as driving force is seen as

somewhat lesser. A key difference is also the emphasis put on different levels of consumer

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enthusiasm. While in mind-share and emotional branding the focus is more on the consumers’

differences in demographics and attracting them to become your customers, in viral branding

there is more emphasis on what happens when they in fact become the brand’s customers.

The view on the viral consumer and how they interact with brands is very similar to Holt’s

(2002) line of thinking that marketers and consumers interact in a dualistic fashion when it

comes to branding and consumer culture. In this model brands and consumers are constantly

learning and reacting to one another. Thompson (2004), Muniz & O’Guinn (2001) and Tuten

(2007) also challenge the traditional view that subcultures exist as autonomous groups and

brands only appropriate these groups as parasites, and de Burgh-Woodman & Brace-Goven

(2007) draw a hard line between subcultures and brand communities, saying that they are not

synonymous, although they might share some of the same characteristics. An alternative view

is that marketing, brands and subcultures enjoy a much more symbiotic relationship, where

marketing discourse helps crystallize the subcultures identity and its ideological outlooks.

Developing the rules, for a lack of a better word, of branding is thus not a company-driven

process, but rather a joint venture with consumers setting a lot of ground rules as to how much

or how little they will tolerate from marketers. This notion was also advocated by Fournier

(1998), who states that brand relationships are active dialogues between the consumers and

the brand. In this model both are interdependent, but together define and redefine the

relationship.

Originally I defined the consumer to be a single actor, who can be considered to be in the

sphere of influence of a brand and a potential customer. Drawing from my findings, the viral

consumer can be defined as follows:

an extremely influential and advertising-resenting single actor, who loves to take

ownership, help, defend and actively redefine brands in a hobby-like manner that

represent her aspired lifestyle and are deemed authentic, enthusiastically seeks

communal activity with likeminded brand users across the globe through social

networks, and likes to show expertise or insider status relating to the brand by

sharing information.

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3.3.2 The Viral Brand

Sernovitz states that “brands we choose tell people a lot about themselves”, which suggest

that brands work as identity building objects, which was also noted earlier in mind-share and

emotional branding (Sernovitz 2006, p. 17). McConnel & Huba (2007, p. 48) state that people

will work for free for the brand if they believe “in the cause” and can do so in a hobby-like

pursuit. So in effect, a strong brand can be a “cause” that people want to advance. Citizen

marketers can in effect “assume ownership” of a brand if they become properly immersed in

it (McConnel & Huba 2007, p. 89). However, McConnel & Huba (2007, p. 63) seem to reject

the notion that brands draw from their organizational identities in saying that “a brand is a

brand, no matter where it’s based or who manages its countries and regions.”

Sernovitz (2006, p. 95) says that anything can be a good topic of discussion: packaging,

design, a fabulous freebie, a moment of great customer service, a special dessert, or an

unusual advertisement. A reasonable assumption is that a strong brand has at least one

element – if not many – worth talking about. This is somewhat close to the basic notion that

brands help differentiate products from competitive products. Sernovitz (2006, p. xix) also

states that any product can be worth talking about, so the implication is thus that anything

worth talking about can also be a brand. McConnel & Huba (2007, p. 13) echo this and say

that a brand is something that people like to talk about, analyze, and play with. However,

Sernovitz (2006, p. xxvii) says that word of mouth only works if you have good products and

services to begin with. You could conclude that this is a prerequisite for a strong brand as

well.

Thompson et al. (2006) cite numerous researchers who confirm that in the postmodern view,

brand meanings are not controlled by managers, but rather are co-created through ongoing

interactions among other users. Holt (2002) says that brands have become the pre-eminent site

through which people experience and express the social world, even as the worlds that move

through brands are less orchestrated by managers than before. This encapsulates the spirit of

viral branding perfectly. Rust et al. (2004) argue that companies are much more dependent on

their consumers than their brands for success, and the consumers’ preferences guide (or at

least should guide) brand management decisions more than most managers like to admit.

They argue that companies should look to grow customer equity instead of brand equity by

making all branding decisions center around customer segments and their needs instead of

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brands. Brand management thus becomes more of a consumer relationships management

(CRM) function, where brands are simply a means to deliver value to the most cherished

asset: the loyal consumer.

In mind-share branding the brand was the most important strategic asset a company had, but

in viral branding, a company owes its success to the trust of the public and the voices of

satisfied customers (Sernovitz 2006, p. 57-58). As earlier noted by consumers’ need to belong

and build their identities through group association rather than using logos as badges, you

could argue that the consumers (and especially the most loyal and enthusiastic ones) are, in

effect, the brand and that the strength of the brand is nothing more than both the size of its

follower group and their collective enthusiasm. Relating to this idea, McConnel & Huba

(2007, p. 46) talk about the network effect: the more people are in the social network, the

more valuable it becomes. Thompson (2004) cites numerous researchers who argue that

brands are the “loci of complex communities that span even geographical and societal

boundaries”. This notion could again be expanded to the notion that enthusiastic consumers

not only are a marker of a strong brand, but rather are the brand itself.

The viral brand is much more different than the mind-share brand or the emotional brand. In

viral branding, the emphasis is much more on the consumers’ collective interpretation as to

what makes a brand. A good brand is something that people want to talk about (because of its

design elements or exceptional service, for example) or advance as a “cause”. In viral

branding, the brand is seen more as social object, something that people congregate around

and share. I also argued that in viral branding the brand is the conversation that consumers are

having, or even the consumers themselves.

Originally I defined a brand to be a distinguishable entity that provides value for both

companies and consumers. From my findings, I define the viral brand to be:

a collection of different interpretations and discussions around a given company’s

products, which consumers see as a cause worth advancing and defending, and

has identity building value to them, and whose brand strength is dependent on the

consumers’ enthusiasm and the nature of their discussions.

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3.3.3 Viral Branding and Brand Management

Since the two books I had chosen for analysis are not branding books per se, there are no

definite statements of what is branding and what is not. However, through interpretative

reading, we are able to find basic principles for managing a brand in viral branding. To

Sernovitz (2006, p. 3, 24), for example, creating viral action, is about building “active,

mutually beneficial consumer-to-consumer and consumer-to-marketer communications”, or

an “infrastructure to help messages travel” and this could be interpreted as branding.

Similarly, Leskovec et al. (2007) suggested that viral branding could be thought of as a

diffusion of information about the product and its adoption over the network and activities

facilitating this.

Sernovitz (2006, p. 18, 66, 80, 83, 110, 142) says that, in a nutshell, a good word of mouth

program is built through identifying the right talkers through “group recognition”, creating a

channel to reach them regularly, giving them topics to talk about and keeping making them

feel special and giving them a stake of the brand’s future. McConnel & Huba (2007, p. 54-55,

150) echo this sentiment and suggest that brands aim to co-create so that consumers “take an

ownership stake” in the success of the brand, but they also warn that once this “brand

ownership” feeling starts to emerge, people will fight to keep that status and power. Sernovitz

(2006, p. xxiii, xxv) argues that when people trust you, they will put their words on the line

for you. The goal of viral branding is thus pleasing, inspiring and befriending people in order

to “earn that good conversation”.

Relating to this, de Burgh-Woodman & Brace-Goven (2007) argue that brand communities

feel the need to differentiate their favorite brand from other brands in the marketplace. As

stated in the beginning of this thesis, the basic definition of branding is differentiating

products vis-à-vis other brands in a given product category. Enthusiastic brand consumers can

therefore be seen as assuming a brand manager role. Spero & Stone (2004) state that

especially younger consumers are more willing and capable of taking control of a brand,

especially given their prominence in digital environments, and companies should look to give

the reins of the brand to them. Schroeder (2005) notes, however, that the divide between

either consumers or companies controlling the branding process is questionable, as both are

heavily influenced and constrained by cultural codes and how these codes contribute brands’

creation of meaning. In other words, brands are in some ways “captive” in culture they

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originate from, so branding as such is never a controllable function for any one group as the

end result will reflect the surrounding culture anyway.

Gilmore & Pine (2007, p. 17-19) state that consumers now construct their realities socially

and especially on the Internet. They suggest that companies should actively engage customers

not just individually, but as a community of like-minded people with similar self-images. This

way the brand creates an aura of authenticity to its products and to its social association. This

is achieved by creating a platform of collaboration, self-expression, and most importantly

sharing the brand with the consumers. Gilmore & Pine speak of allowing consumers to “co-

create” the brand, and establishing the depth of the brand relationship through the amount of

interaction possible. The implication seems to be that also the strength of the brand is derived

from this collective experience. The amount of “consumer presence” around a brand is crucial

in building a brand and keeping it credible. Expanding on this theme, O’Reilly (2005) argued

that no brand is totally managerially constructed, and to state such is to deny the consumers’

role in making the brand’s meaning. The argument is thus that all brands are to some degree

socially constructed, but also culturally as stated above.

Sernovitz (2006, p. 6, 14, 46) says that in many instances “word of mouth marketing is not

actually ‘marketing’ at all”, meaning that just doing things “right” instead of just talking and

making your products “cool” and “buzzworthy” will organically result in positive word of

mouth. However, Sernovitz (2006, p. xxiv, 12, 64, 120) says that word of mouth is “lazy” or

“passive”, and brands should thus look to facilitate it by finding “a super simple message”

that is interesting and help people share it. Sernovitz (2006, p. 46, 104) also states that word

of mouth can be “amplified” by companies by getting people to talk through campaigns, such

as sales or special offers. However, faking word of mouth is not recommended, because “it

just doesn’t work without the trust” (Sernovitz 2006, p. 28).

As already noted with new customers and their “honeymoon phase”, Sernovitz (2006, p. 122)

argues that companies should try and “capture” new talkers as soon as they appear and make

them sign up for information updates to give them topics to talk about as soon as possible.

Building a solid core of early adopting volunteers or contributors to help in brand-related

endeavors is a key to success (McConnel & Huba 2007, p. 38). McConnel & Huba (2007, p.

46) also recommend monitoring changes in the community, which they call a “sort of

democratic social Darwinism”, where “the interested people stay and form the basis of a

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community, while the disinterested ones move on”. If consumers are indeed the brand or at

least heavily define it, then monitoring changes in the community is necessary.

Sernovitz (2006, p. 14-15) encourages brands to “keep putting new topics out there” in order

to keep at least the “die-hards” interested. Sernovitz (2006, p. 37) lists a number of ways that

could be used to spark word of mouth: special sales, loyalty programs, promotions, free

samples, all of which are familiar marketing techniques not previously associated with just

creating word of mouth. McConnel & Huba (2007, p. 143) suggest instead that contests are

the quickest way to active consumers into citizen marketer behavior. However, Leskovec et

al. (2007) argue that an individual’s likelihood of purchasing a product initially increases as

they receive recommendations, but the amount of recommendations beneficial to buying

decision quickly reaches a saturation point. They also warn that providing too much incentive

for people to recommend products to one another can weaken the very social network links

that the marketer is trying to leverage. Also, both Sernovitz and McConnel & Huba had

warned about outright bribing consumers to take action. Therefore, marketers should take

heed and not over-saturate the medium of word of mouth either.

On a more strategic level, Sernovitz (2006, p. 98, 114, 127) says that design and features are

worth talking about, which would suggest that branding is about designing elements into

products or even services that people want to talk about and share with their friends; to make

word of mouth “an automatic result of using the product”. In regards to website design,

McConnel & Huba (2007, p. 57-59) recommend that everything on the site be made

“mashable”, meaning that everything can be taken apart by consumers and rebuilt into their

own vision. Also, the goal is to build a website in such a way that it promotes discussing and

sharing by building features that facilitate this kind of behavior. This notion is quite strategic

and guides the company’s production processes quite heavily, as design decisions become

brand-related decisions and brand communications are opened up like this.

McConnel & Huba (2007, p. 29, 42, 173) state that citizen marketers hold so-called “dynamic

authority”, which is generated via continuous and productive activity. One implication here

could be that companies should make their consumers more active in contributing in order to

enhance their authority, thus enabling them to evangelize people more on the brand. This of

course needs to be done without jeopardizing consumers’ belief that they are contributing to

the “greater good” of the brand and not just shilling for the company (McConnel and Huba

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2007, p. 118).

People will not talk about a company they do not trust, because they fear it might embarrass

them in front of their friends (Sernovitz 2006, p. 9, 11). If a brand wants to make people talk,

you have got to do something special – anything. Sernovitz (2006, p. 19, 101) argues that

word of mouth is driven by newness and that marketers should keep improving the topic

people are talking about, which would suggest that managing the brand identity as a “timeless

entity”, as in mind-share, might be contradictory to this. On the other hand, this notion of

giving people new topics to talk about has a hint of being just a communications problem,

which I earlier defined as a symptom of unstrategic branding.

In terms of managing (inevitable) negative news, brand managers would make a deadly

mistake in ignoring the online conversation, especially if the brand has been active in

“positive” conversations – you cannot have it both ways, or “once you open the door of word

of mouth conversations, there is not way to shut it again” (Sernovitz 2006, p. 25, 163). Helm

(2000) notes that most do not realize that word-of-mouth refers also to the negative

communications between customers, not just the positive. Helm also argues that information

passed on by customers might be filtered, incomplete, or heavily biased. The marketer cannot

always monitor or control these kinds of distortion processes.

Sernovitz (2006, p. xxv) introduces an interesting idea that “advertising is the price of being

boring”, which means that if your products do not generate word of mouth on their own, you

have to pay for it. This is counterintuitive to the notion of brands trying to find new ways to

advertise through new channels to their consumers. Relating to this, Sernovitz (2006, p. 19,

77) states that “overexposure kills word of mouth”, which is against what brand managers are

usually taught to do: get as much exposure to the brand as possible. However, he counters this

by saying that when it comes to word of mouth, “quantity often counts”.

Sernovitz (2006, p. 38) states that word of mouth not only should “take its place next to other

mainstream marketing techniques, it should come first, because it’s the cheapest, most

effective, and most customer friendly”, which can be seen as a nod to the thinking that

reaching consumers through mass media has now become increasingly difficult and a bad

investment. McConnel & Huba (2007, p. 26) concur with the effectiveness of word of mouth

and go on to say that people would refuse to buy products from companies that “overwhelm

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them with advertising”. Even if word of mouth is “just” and addition to the marketing

toolbox, both Sernovitz (2006, p. 112, 151-152) and McConnel & Huba (2007, p. 153) stress

that companies become immersed in the “word of mouth philosophy” and see business,

customer relationships, and brand building as a dialogue. Sernovitz’s (2006, p. 58) argument

that word of mouth reduces customer acquisition costs, is free advertising, offers a better

return from traditional advertising, and makes salespeople more productive seems to support

this.

To Sernovitz (2006, p. 96, 44), a word of mouth topic is “not your official marketing message

or your normal brand statement” and that word of mouth violates the rules of marketing and

hard for marketers to see, with the added twist that companies have no control over the

conversations anymore and as a consequence, their brand identities. Or as Sernovitz (2006, p.

99) puts it: “[d]on’t worry if your marketing plan says to promote speed, and people are

talking about price instead.”

Sernovitz (2006, p. 39, 157) goes on to say that consumers have added their voices to

advertising decisions and that their voices are “drowning out traditional media”. Brands

shouldn’t worry about owning a certain position in the consumer mind, as in mind-share,

rather the goal is to own a unique place in the customer’s conversation (Sernovitz 2006, p.

113). Sernovitz (2006, p. 165) says that word of mouth is about “respond and participate”

instead of “plant and initiate”, which suggests that not only do the consumer control the

conversation, brands can show limited initiative as well.

As already stated, the literature reviewed for this thesis is not regarded as viral branding in the

truest sense of the word, but in many ways the findings support what, for example, Holt had

claimed viral branding to include. For example, Holt (2004, p. 29) had suggested that

consumers – not marketers – create the identity value of brands and that marketers take a

lesser role in the brand building’s results, and this is certainly true. However, Holt’s (2004, p.

34) notion of hunting for influentials and that viral branding is “essentially a fashion branding

model”, is heavily contradicted by Sernovitz and McConnel & Huba.

Overall, viral branding differs heavily from both mind-share and emotional branding in brand

building efforts. The main focus seems to be on the tactical, not strategic – save for a few

suggestions on building word of mouth into your products. In effect, viral branding could be

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seen as consumer relationship management (CRM) model that is geared to support brand

equity building. Godin (2008) suggested that brand management should now be called “tribe

management”, and this is certainly captures the spirit of my findings from viral branding. In

viral branding, consumers are given a great deal of control and often companies are just left to

hope for the best and weather the storm when the conversation goes bad. The brand manager

is more of a conversation starter and participant, not necessarily even an equal participant at

that. In regards to traditional marketing efforts, the brand should avoid a commercial and

profiteering identity or reputation like the plague.

In regards to how viral branding sees the “arms race” of saturating media and cynical

consumers, viral branding takes a different approach to emotional and mind-share branding.

In emotional branding, the goal outrunning the competitors and reaching out in new ways to

stay ahead of this trend. In viral branding, you could almost argue that brands should just

concede that “tricking” consumers through marketing communications no longer works, and

the only solution is to let the consumers decide what’s best for the brand. Emotional branding

was already more flexible in regards to consumer participation than mind-share, and now viral

branding takes this trend even further.

Originally I defined branding as the pursuit to differentiate one producer’s products from

another in a way that is relevant to the consumer. And now from my findings I define viral

branding to be:

a pursuit to differentiate a company’s products by engaging consumers in an

active and mutually beneficial dialogue via different channels in an honest and

transparent way, in hopes that it leads to consumers’ ownership of the brand and

them engaging other people in a similar dialogue, by making every brand touch

point worthy of dialogue or a source for consumer-made amateur content and

constantly introducing new topics for dialogue.

Originally I defined brand management to be the choices related to an organization’s

attempts to influence brands that it can claim to be under its influence. From my findings I

define viral brand management to be:

an extremely adaptive, responsive and mostly strategic function, where the

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company aims to surrender most of the brand’s control to enthusiastic consumers,

via consumer recognition and monitoring changes in the consumer community

while trying to affect the brand in a transparent way so the brand seems

authentic, consumer driven and not too prominent.

3.3.4 The Viral Competitive Environment

Perhaps the most profound aspect of the viral competitive environment is the fact pretty much

all company endeavors now leave a transparent “trail” of collected knowledge on the Internet

and that consumers’ thoughts on brands are forever to ready be reread and discussions can be

resurrected at any time as well (Sernovitz 2006, p. 5, 43; McConnel & Huba 2007, p. 16).

Sernovitz (2006, p. xxvii, 24) argues that word of mouth’s sudden growth is because of the

emergence of tools that support word of mouth especially on the Internet, but he states that

these discussions were already happening face to face. Now we just have an easier way to join

in and measure these conversations.

Sernovitz (2006, p. 36, 175) says that word of mouth has been “underreported” in the past,

because companies could not track it well, and because it was regarded as “free”, companies

could not put a ROI value to it. One added benefit in creating a trail of knowledge on the

Internet is the fact that it has let brand managers see what interacting with a brand is online

and thus encouraging it: interacting can be writing comments or voting on content items –

even only viewing them, which leaves a visible mark for everybody to see (McConnel &

Huba 2007, p. 34, 134).

Sernovitz (2006, p. 9) also brings up the point of normal advertising losing its power because

of increased clutter. Leskovec et al. (2007) state that this is the most profound reason for viral

marketing’s rise to prominence. Also, both Sernovitz (2006, p. 40) and McConnel & Huba

(2007, p. 25) say that the shift from media to consumer is due to mass consumer participation,

widespread dissemination of consumer opinion, availability of new online tools, and the

scrambling of old-school media with word of mouth. Because of the speed of the Internet,

product reviews and user experiences are available instantly once the product is released and

thus bad products cannot hide behind bad advertising anymore (Sernovitz 2006, p. 46, 51).

Because people are increasingly drawn to authenticity, they are driving companies towards it,

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and also undermining companies’ insistence on “neat, consistent, and always-positive

messaging” (McConnel & Huba 2007, p. 25, 107). However, McConnel & Huba (2007, p. 26,

30) argue that most companies will still continue to saturate traditional media channels with

advertising at an increasing rate. They regard traditional media as “authoritative” and “often

static”.

Relating to what was seen as the biggest problem in mind-share branding, McConnel & Huba

(2007, p. 139) imply that in today’s business successes create copycat businesses. They also

state that today’s marketplace is becoming truly global: people buy the brand in one place and

blog about it in another (McConnel & Huba 2007, p. 64). This trend has been advanced by the

widespread adopting of speedy broadband connections and affordable and more potent digital

tools (McConnel & Huba 2007, p. 61-62). This is very similar to concerns presented in mind-

share that marketing messages of brand identities that were intended for different segments

will start to overlap and cause confusion.

Viral branding seems to affirm trends in marketplaces that were outlined in mind-share

branding, and reaffirmed in emotional branding. The rise of the Internet and transparency of

both media and company actions are the key trends that push viral branding forward. Also,

consumers are seen as ever more cynical and anti-marketing than in mind-share or emotional

branding. Singer (2006) argues that if company’s want to succeed in the new information age

economy, they must move from a push paradigm to a pull paradigm in promoting their brand,

as consumers are not willing to tolerate interruptive marketing. Singer argues that the key area

of interest for a company will not be the brand, rather the company’s information design to

facilitate consumer pull. McConnel & Huba had argued that push advertising be abandoned as

well.

Leskovec et al. (2007) also suggests that viral actions are not only a reaction to changes in

consumer preferences, but also a proactive shift on the producers’ side to work in online

environments, where retailers have the opportunity to offer more products. Many retailers are

experiencing a phenomenon where a large fraction of purchases come from relatively obscure

items. This was also the premise of Anderson’s (2006) work on the endless niche markets the

Internet enables. In the past, it was possible to separate consumer from competitor, but

advances in telecommunications and especially the emergence of the Internet have created a

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new paradigm of information (Singer 2006). Customers, competitors and collaborators have

become linked like never before; it can be argued that all the players have access to the same

information simultaneously, so there is no competitive advantage in digital marketing

capability as each and every player has the ability to advertise at the subatomic level (and is

already doing it), regardless how deep you reach to personalize.

Originally I defined the competitive environment very vaguely to be any other instances

outside the company’s control. From my findings, I define the viral competitive

environment to be:

a fast-moving, thoroughly scattered and saturated market environment that forces

transparency and honesty from all actors involved, is completely consumer-driven

due to choice and information available, and where brands compete against each

other fiercely and copy each other’s successful ideas and thus continuously

causing diminishing returns on traditional advertising.

3.4 Cultural Branding concepts

3.4.1 The Cultural Consumer

Holt (2004, p. 6, 45, 57-58) argues that we build our identities to match what the national

ideology sets as expectations for us through its values of concepts of what is good and just,

and this notion is the basis that defines consumers in cultural branding. National ideology is

“deeply felt”, almost taken for granted as the “national truth”, and it should be relatively

stable for society to work, as Holt writes. National ideology is never expressed directly from

one person to another. Rather it lives through myths and is deeply felt. Most of these myths

are constructed around individual success and manhood, or “what it takes to be a man.”

People start to feel tension when they feel that their lives do not quite live up to what national

ideology expects of them. Holt argues that people view identity building as “intensely

personal quests”, even though identity building is usually shared across a large fraction of the

populace. Anxieties create demand for so-called identity myths, which are small powerful

stories and symbolic resolutions that soothe these tensions.

These myths rely heavily on “populist worlds” for their raw ingredients (Holt, 2004 p. 9, 58-

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59). Populist world reside on the outskirts of society, removed from political and commercial

centers. Holt argues that people are drawn to these populist worlds and the people that inhabit

them, because they are perceived to be authentic and devoted followers of an idea or ethos

that the consumers themselves would like to somehow incorporate into their identity. People

see that political or commercial interests do not drive populist worlds, rather strength of

belief. The myth and icons that that embody it provide a connection to these populist worlds.

As with mind-share, emotional, and viral branding, cultural consumers are seen to be anti-

marketing and overtly bombarded with marketing communications. Holt (2004, p. 36, 184)

states that consumers are put off when they come to realize that a communiqué was designed

to “make them believe” something. Holt (2004, p. 86, 220-221, 225) also argues that people

are increasingly cynical about not only marketing overall, but also about staged identity

brands that strive to be authentic, and that most companies fail to be seen as authentic in the

eyes of consumers. People forget most of the ads they see within a week – especially now that

the volume of mass communication “far exceeds what consumers can manage”, save for a

few masterful performances that speak to people “just right” (Holt 2004, p. 10, 15). Also,

consumers are now more empowered to avoid marketing communications they deem intrusive

(Holt 2004, p. 221).

The basis for how Holt (2004, p. 1, 8-9) sees consumers and their relationships with brands is

how they respond to so-called cultural icons, which they use as “anchors of meaning” for their

lives and perceive as “shorthand to represent important ideas”. Consumers use iconic brands

as symbolic valves: they “grab hold” of the myth that is embodied in the icon as a means to

lessen their identity burdens through “little epiphanies” that speak consumers’ “barely

perceptible desires”.

Holt (2004, p. 139-147) divides consumers into three groups depending on their relationship

with the brand: followers, insiders, and feeders. Followers are the ones who strongly identify

with the brand’s myth and rely on it to soothe their anxieties they face in their lives. They are

devoted followers of the myth’s performer, i.e. the brand, and they form the nucleus of the

brand’s customer base. Insiders are “gatekeepers” to the brand’s claim on the populist world

and are much smaller in numbers than followers. They usually hold the brand in less esteem

than followers, because they see the brand as a competitor of sorts within the populist world.

Insiders – depending on their size and authority – can make or break the brand with their

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acceptance of it, because followers look for them for validation of the brand due to their

presence in (or at least the periphery of) the populist world.

Holt (2004, p. 145, 147) argues that insiders are somewhat protective of their “way of life”;

they reject unworthy and uncommitted would-be members of the populist world but respect

other “cognoscenti”. Holt (2004, p. 147) states that insiders are strongly opposed to

commercialization of the populist world and detest brands they deem “parasitic” and only

hawking the populist world for its “semiotic mother lode to be mined”. Insiders do not see

themselves as “consumers”. Rather, they are “fellow participants”, because they feel they

have a legitimate claim to the populist world. Insiders look down on people who rely on

mediators (brands, critics, other insiders) to achieve the myth’s experience.

The last group that Holt (2004, p. 147-149, 191) introduced is called “feeders”, who are often

the majority of the brand’s consumers, but they are more passive in regards to their attitude

towards the brand and act as “cultural parasites”. Feeders follow the brand because it is trendy

and fashionable: they thrive on the identity value the brand bestows on the insiders and

followers. The feeders look to belong and to “feed off the experiences of others to construct

an identity for themselves”. Feeders only have a superficial connection to the brand’s myth,

and they are more attracted by the status and social ties the brand produces and use the brand

to build “social solidarity” with friends and colleagues.

Relating to the three constituencies, Tuten (2007) argues that consumers will be drawn to

brands that represent their actual or ideal selves and that consumers can choose whether they

subscribe fully or partially to the subculture’s ethos that the consumer wishes show allegiance

to via the brand. In this view, it seems that insiders and followers subscribe to the subculture’s

ethos, and feeders do not. Cultural branding indeed categorizes consumers depending on their

attitude towards the brand or their enthusiasm towards it. This is very similar to viral

branding. However, in viral branding, there was nothing similar to the “insiders”; people who

have a significant influence on the brand, but may feel very indifferent towards it.

According to Holt (2004, p. 147), a brand draws the so-called feeders towards it “like a

magnet”, because of the passionate use of the brand by its followers and the authority of the

insiders. Holt (2004, p. 151) also argues, however, that the insiders and followers “need” the

feeders as “less worthy” outsiders craving acceptance into the populist world to validate their

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status, otherwise the populist world is not relevant. From a brand perspective, its feeders are

likely the biggest source of revenue, but paradoxically not the most important consumer

group, because iconic brands should not look to appeal to their mass audiences (Holt 2004, p.

147, 149, 218). Thompson et al. (2006) claim, rather facetiously, that emotional branding

literature reads like a heroic tale in which brand managers are rewarded with intensely loyal

customers, higher profits and strong foundation of competitive advantage when companies

switch from the old orthodox ways of branding into emotional branding. This may be the

biggest difference between cultural and emotional branding: cultural branding knows that it is

not ideal to make all your consumers into fanatics; otherwise the dynamics of exclusiveness

will break down.

Consumers engage in ritual action when consuming brands – especially identity brands that

are symbols for myths (Holt 2004, p. 131). Along with individual ritual action, however,

consumers experience the brand collectively (Holt 2004, p. 150). Consumers are “locked in to

a social network”, and much of the brand’s value is imparted by other constituents, not just

one-to-one interaction with the brand. To reject the brand is to also reject that social network,

and in the case of followers, an entire community formed around the brand (Holt 2004, p.

183). Holt (2004, p. 150) suggests that consumers can reject the brand en masse when the

brand loses credibility or appeal with the followers or insiders, and as a consequence the

feeders lose interest. If the brand manages to keep its “fresh” and “historically relevant”,

consumers will connect with it and stay fiercely loyal to it (Holt 2004, p. 28, 219).

De Burgh-Woodman & Brace-Goven (2007) argue that brand communities are not at all the

same as subcultures and they are very critical of the fact that in marketing discourse both are

investigated through the ”lens” of consumption and often even treated as synonymous. Brand

communities are indeed held together by consumption, but subcultures are not. Subcultures

are more complex, and de Burgh-Woodman & Brand-Goven note that brand communities are

often lacking in, for example, a common ”language” found often in subcultures. Also,

subcultures are known to reject some of the “accepted meanings” of society and can be more

marginal in their behavior, whereas brand communities do not (Muniz & O’Guinn 2001).

This line of thinking fits perfectly with Holt’s views on insiders versus followers: insiders can

be seen as a subculture, but followers are merely a brand community, parroting the insiders

and not creating their own culture nor going against society. Muniz & O’Guinn also state the

brand community members are “active loyalists” to the brand, and this is closer to followers

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than insiders in spirit.

Muniz & O’Guinn (2001) and de Burgh-Woodman & Brace-Goven (2007) state that brand

community members are very conscious of changes of the brand (i.e. new logo design,

advertising style), and often state their opinion on changes made on the brand in a critical

tone, as they feel that the brand belongs to them as much as it belongs to the company

managing it. Community members also like to track the brand’s evolutionary arc, to see if the

brand moves too quickly from its historical roots. This goes hand in hand with what Holt had

stated brand managers should do: follow the brand’s genealogy in order to assure that the

brand never speaks in ways that do not fit its history.

In many ways the cultural consumer is the most intensive concept of all the different

consumer concepts. The motivations for the cultural consumer (anxiety felt from disconnect

of national ideology) is the most single precise definition of consumer motivations, whereas

the other models stress more vague emotional benefits that span a large range of topics. As in

viral branding, consumers are differentiated by their attitude towards the brand and their

actions that these attitudes cause. However, a key difference in cultural branding is that the

goal seems to be that not all consumers even should be “enthusiasts”, because it would break

the social balance that is built around the brand and destroy its status. Or in other words, if

everybody loves the brand, then it carries no value of exclusivity.

Originally I defined the consumer to be a single actor, who can be considered to be in the

sphere of influence of a brand and a potential customer. Drawing from my findings, the

cultural consumer can be defined as follows:

a potentially extremely influential and advertising resenting individual, who uses

brands in a ritualistic fashion to soothe deep and barely perceptible emotions and

anxieties, whose consumption relationship with the brand can be determined by

his/her relationship with the populist world from which the brand gets its claim to

authenticity, and who uses other people’s experiences to construct an identity,

heavily seeks belonging but also exclusion of those not deemed worthy and sees

non-commercial following of an ethos or ideal as authentic and worthy of

aspiration.

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3.4.2 The Cultural Brand

Holt (2004, p. 2-3) argues that even though a brand may have all the traditional markers of a

brand – a name, trademark, unique packaging, and other design features – the brand does not

yet exist until these “markers” for the brand become filled with meaning, history, and

customer experiences that various authors tell. Holt says that there are four types of authors

that tell the brand’s story with varying influence: companies, the culture industries,

intermediaries (critics and retail sales people), and consumers. Expanding on this notion,

Hatch & Rubin (2005) say that the many texts a brand possesses retain some form of intention

placed by their “authors” (those who promote the brand), but they also respond to different

interpretations produced by simple readers (consumers, the public, social and political

activists, employees and the company’s management).

Solomon (1983) (also in Solomon et al. (1999, p. 159-160)) presents his model of

interactionist perspective on brand communication, where consumers and companies are not

seen as sender and receiver, rather all players are active communicators who are always

engaged in mutual sending and receiving of messages. In this model, human beings act

towards objects (i.e. brands) on the basis of meanings and social interaction they provide.

Also, the object in question and its meanings are processed and modified through this

discourse over and over again.

To Holt (2004, p. 3, 38), brands are historical entities whose importance varies over time. If

the brand is indeed a symbol, then its value is a collective experience, rather than the brand’s

meaning to an individual consumer (Holt 2004, p. 95). Where as in, for example, emotional

branding brands were seen to have life cycles, meaning that eventually they will cease to exist

as people lose interest in them, cultural branding brands never really “disappear” by some

executive decision, they live on as long as their story is retold (Gobé 2001, p. 306). This is

something to remember when, for example, thinking of retro branding or bringing brands

back into production. Also, relating to the notion of companies deciding a brand’s fate, Holt

(2004, p. 214) says that brands are driven by devoted consumers that identify with the brand’s

myth, which would suggest that brands have less control over their destinies if you think of

them in mind-share terms as something that a company can manage through its strategic

decisions. Relating to this, Lassar et al. (1995) argue that a brand’s image should always be

examined in a social context and it should rather be called the brand’s “social image”. They

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defined it as “the consumer’s perception of the esteem in which the consumer’s social group

holds the brand.”

Holt (2004, p. 1, 8-9) likens a brand – especially strong ones – to “cultural icons”, that are

referenced in entertainment, journalism, politics, and advertising. These icons are symbols of

what people accept to represent important ideas and are a gateway to moments of

“recognition” of strong images, sounds, and “barely perceptible desires”. Brands become

iconic representations of particular stories that Holt (2004, p. 2) calls identity myths. These

icons have extraordinary value, because they carry a “heavy symbolic load” for their most

enthusiastic customers. Echoing this, Solomon (1983) argued that brands carry social

meanings and act as guides for performing social roles, especially ones that are novel. An

icon performs a particular myth society especially needs at a given historical moment and

performs it charismatically. Even if a brand does not become an icon, all brands have cultural

value and follow similar paths as iconic brands in that they have a place in our cultural

conversations.

As to what gives a brand cultural value and a link to a populist world, Holt (2004, p. 86)

argues that brands can display either “staged” or “organizational populism.” In staged

populism the brand’s strength is measured how well the brand “performs” as if it were a

participant of the populist world. In organizational populism, the brand lives in the populist

world and the myth is reflected in the company’s ethos. Organizational populists have an

advantage in trying to create a credible claim to the populist world’s myth, but even they

might be perceived as inauthentic. Holt (2004, p. 9, 85) states that iconic brands are like

cultural activists, encouraging people to challenge their conceptions of self and leading

cultural change. How authentic the brand is perceived to be (i.e. the level of its populism)

affects its so-called permission to display this kind of cultural leadership. Strong brands do

not simply mirror what is going on societies and own “benefits” in the consumers minds, they

are participants in cultural dialogue. One key aspect is that brands express stories from

“imaginary worlds” instead of consumers’ everyday lives (Holt 2004, p. 8). In a way, brands

are works of fiction as well as real experiences.

To McCracken (1986), culture is not only the lens through which people view phenomena and

apprehends it, but also the blueprint for human activity, defining social action and productive

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activity and specifying the behaviors and objects that issue from both. Each culture

establishes its own vision of the world and creates rules for action according to the occasion.

Each culture also establishes its own “cultural categories” (for example: categories of time,

class, status, gender), which act as the fundamental coordinates for meaning or the

“conceptual grid” of culturally constituted world, and this is very close to how Holt defined

national ideology. These categories are subject to constant and rapid change, which is

reflected in goods and people alike. This change can be autonomous evolution, but also

subject to manipulation by several parties - even marketers. Social groups may seek to change

their place in the category scheme but marketers may also try to encourage new categories of

person in order to create a new market segment. This seems to validate Holt’s claim on

cultural leadership.

Relating to consumer-brand relationships, Holt (2004. P. 147) says that the so-called

“feeders”, who were identified as the majority of the brand’s users, use the brand as an

“interaction lubricant” amongst their friends and as a status symbol. To Holt (2004, p.3),

brands are holders of “stories” that bring people identity value and are “vessels of self-

expression” and resources of identity construction. Holt (2004, p. 4-5) argues that identity

value matters less in “in low-involvement, business-to-business, critical service delivery, and

highly technical categories.” Identity value is more critical in categories that are usually called

lifestyle, image, badge, or ego-expressive products. But as already stated by Khalil (2000), the

distinction between what is an identity product and what is not is culturally constructed and

sometimes even artificial. But overall, the notion of brands as self-expressive vessels has been

present in all of the branding models thus far, but from different perspectives.

Just like in mind-share branding, the brand is a “strategic asset” that has equity which

indicates the future earnings potential for the brand. This could also be expressed as the

consumers’ willingness to pay premium for the product (Holt 2004, p. 95, 125, 211). In

cultural branding, however, this equity is expressed differently. The brand has cultural

authority (the brand’s credibility to author new myths that are similar to its previous myths

stories) and political authority (the brand’s authority to speak to a similar constituency that it

has addressed in the past). So in effect, a brand’s strength could be expressed as the relevance

of the brand’s myth, combined with the brand’s stature within the populist world and its

insiders and the amount of feeders the insiders attract.

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Holt (2004, p. 35) says that iconic brands enjoy all the benefits of a strong brand as outlined

in the other three models. As Holt repeatedly notes, iconic brands are most likely to be

identity brands and building a strong brand in non-identity categories might be challenging.

But then again, all brands have a cultural aspect to them, only to a varying degree. In the end,

the intension of what a brand is in cultural branding might be hard to define: do we include all

the elements of what makes a strong mind-share, emotional, and viral brand or concentrate on

the notions that create a strong cultural brand? In the latter case, a brand is a carrier of

meaning, topic of conversation and an encapsulation of culture and time.

Originally I defined a brand to be a distinguishable entity that provides value for both

companies and consumers. From my findings, I define the cultural brand to be:

a historical and cultural entity shaped by multiple authors and whose importance

varies over time, which offers self-expressive benefits and communal belonging to

consumers, is a source of leverageable equity and price premium for companies,

and whose strength is the cultural relevance and credibility of the brand’s myth as

a soother of anxieties, combined with its stature within the populist world it draws

from and the stature of its insiders and the amount of feeders the insiders attract.

3.4.3 Cultural Branding and Brand Management

First of all, Holt (2004, p. 35, 218) states that iconic brands have all the characteristics of

conventional branding models: they have distinct associations, they generate word of mouth,

and they connect emotionally with consumers. Holt (2004, p. 225) also argues that having a

strong brand in traditional branding sense is only the beginning to building an iconic brand: it

is the ante to the market or the platform on which the myth is to be built upon. Identity brands

must be good at product quality, distribution, promotion, pricing and customer service, but

these are not differentiating factors, only communications are.

Holt (2004, p. 36) seems to imply that a good brand has not only a strong myth, but also

distinctive branded features or touch points through which people can experience the myth.

So in reality, cultural branding does suggest that product design should be affected by

branding decisions. In some cases myth can be created in store design and service interactions

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as well, which would seem to back this claim (Holt 2004, p. 136). However, with iconic

brands, the strategic focus is on what the brand stands for, not how the brands performs (Holt

2003).

Holt (2004, p. 147) argues that a key for a brand to become an icon is to “assure that insiders

are at least tolerant of, if not fully supportive of, the brand’s claims on the populist world.” A

brand must show “literacy”, a keen understanding of the populist world’s rules, idioms, and

codes if it wishes to be accepted by the world’s insiders (Holt 2004, p. 65). Also, brands must

show “fidelity” to the populist world it draws from, and sacrifice short term financial gains to

gain authenticity amongst the followers and insiders (Holt 2004, p. 89). Relating to this,

McCracken (1986) notes that “world and good” must seem to enjoy a special harmony and

must be seem as compatible. Tuten (2007) echoes this statement and says that without

legitimacy, a brand’s marketing strategy will not resonate with the target audience, and it is

very unlikely that consumers will choose the brand as a “marker”. Both McCracken’s and

Tuten’s views are very similar to Holt’s idea of maintaining populist credibility.

A willingness to defend a particular set ideas even while risking alienating a large amount of

consumers is a way to earn credibility within the populist world (Holt 2004, p. 70). If the

insiders embrace the brand, all the better, because now the brand has potential to become

more valued amongst its other consumers and to expand its myth. Brands that successfully

convey a sense of authenticity about them are more able to convey desirable consumer

meanings of inner directedness, lack of pretense, and genuine commitment to brand-related

activities (Lewis and Bridger 2000, via Thompson et al. 2006). In an earlier work, Holt (2002)

argued that in order to be authentic, brands must be disinterested; they must be as invented

and disseminated by parties without an instrumental economic agenda and by people who are

intrinsically involved by their inherent value. Some consumers may even attribute

considerable moral-political significance to their brand preferences, on the assumption that

these valued brands are somehow anti-corporate, paradoxical as it may sound (Holt 2002,

Thompson 2004; Beverland 2005).

Thompson et al. (2006) noted that Starbucks rose to iconic status through playing with

bohemian bourgeoisie imagery in their marketing communications. However, as the company

grew in popularity, it faced continuous accusations that its bohemian image is actually

nothing more than a marketing gambit. Thompson et al. argue that broad market appeal and

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fast growth can be dangerous for a companies practicing emotional or cultural branding. They

also argue that the David vs. Goliath anecdote of small brands and global brands is an

appealing mythic formulation for consumers, since it gives them a chance to assume heroic

qualities through defending the perceived smaller brands. One implication, therefore, is that

managing an emotional or cultural brand is to make the company seem “smaller” than it is to

its consumers, to make it seem forever like a niche brand.

Relating to this, Thompson et al. (2006) argue that there is an underlying cultural contrast

between authenticity and commercialism that borders on religiousness. Gilmore & Pine

(2007, p. 23-25) went as far as to say that one key driver for authenticity is the consumers’

ever-increasing cynicism towards corporations and the capitalist system. We humans hold

certain spheres sacred and would rather see them untainted by commerce and profit seeking.

Holt (2003) argues that brand image is more a matter of perceived meaning and cultural

mythology rather than an aggregation of verifiable evidence. Thus, the implication is that

even “commercialism” is a manageable dimension of the brand identity for a company.

Again, maybe the size and popularity of the organization is manageable image problem for

the company in terms of its authenticity.

Managing an iconic brand is to actively resist the urge to market to the masses and fad seekers

– or “feeders” as Holt calls them (Holt 2004, p. 149, 191, 213). The masses will follow the

insiders and followers anyway, so it is in the brand’s interests no to target them. However,

there may be an inherent conflict between insiders and followers who sometimes might be at

odds with one another (Holt 2004, p. 153). Thus, brand managers have to tightrope between

the two sides: maintain credibility with the insiders yet appeal to the followers, who are in

fact the most influential consumers in the eyes of feeders. In many ways, cultural branding

could be described as tribe management, just like viral branding, only with different goals and

tactics.

Another balancing act for brand managers is to determine when to abandon the myth and to

pursue a new one that might be just emerging in other cultural texts, and when to keep

milking the current myth’s popularity and risk alienating the insiders and followers (Holt

2004, p. 189, 191, 214). For marketers, the main problem is not to maintain the timeless

essence of the brand. Rather, it is to make the change at the right time when the brand’s myth

starts to lose traction (Holt 2003). These questions are very tough for any organization and

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add to the strategic nature of cultural branding.

As already noted earlier, if the brand manages to keep its fresh and historically relevant,

consumers will stay fiercely loyal to it (Holt 2004, p. 219). In cultural branding, the brand’s

story is at the forefront of management, because it is the myth’s quality that drives the brand’s

identity value. In a tactical sense, brands should look to enhance their storytelling capabilities

in advertising to keep the myth relevant. This is achieved by creating a distinguished voice

(charismatic aesthetic) for the brand that is easily recognizable and by investing in the

organization’s ability to react to changes in society (Holt 2004, p. 65, 199-200, 209-210, 218-

219). Brand managers should look to decide what kind of stories are suitable for the brand to

tell given its history that match its myth at different times (Holt 2004, p. 64, 93).

As noted earlier, if brands are indeed collective in their interpretations in media, cultural

products, and people’s experiences, it indicates that brand managers have less control over

their brands. If cultural products, such as movies, use brands as a central prop, they can

dramatically affect or reinvent the brand’s myth (Holt 2004, p. 185, 187). However, leading

brands take initiative and lead culture and forge their own myths through advertising (Holt

2004, p. 60, 187). Therefore, the brand manager acts as a conversation starter for the brand’s

myth before other players start forging the brand’s myth on their own.

Relating to this, Thompson (2004) argues that the cultural view on branding indicates that

brand managers exert far less control over their brands than traditional brand literature has

commonly taken for granted in the past. Hatch & Rubin (2005) argue that traditional brand

asset management models create a sense that brands are under control, even though that is not

the case. Brand managers would benefit from models that allow engagement with the

collective interpretive processes that define the brand’s meaning and thus better perceive both

opportunities and limitations to their influence over these brand building processes. In my

view cultural branding seems to fall somewhere between emotional branding and viral

branding in this regard. The brand is dependent of conversations outside its control, yes, but

strong brands have a voice charismatic enough that they can control the conversations and

show leadership. Also, in cultural branding strong brands manage their consumers as well, but

have limited wiggling room due to the dynamics of the three constituencies.

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When it comes to brand building as a discipline, Holt (2004, p. 4) takes a more contextual

approach to advocates of other branding models that try to sell their branding models as “one-

size-fits-all.” Holt (2004, p. 5, 14, 20) argues that cultural branding works best on identity

products and that brands should look to incorporate hybrid strategies depending on the

product category the brand is in. The most interesting notion in cultural branding is the idea

that mind-share branding is only the beginning of building a strong identity brand. Holt seems

to suggest that mind-share branding techniques are so common knowledge that they have

become the bare minimum requirement for brands.

Overall, cultural branding is more strategic than emotional branding and viral branding, but it

is debatable as to whether it is as strategic relating to mind-share branding. Cultural branding

sets some very strict guidelines to companies’ marketing communications, because of the

need to conform to the myth and its history. But on the other hand, marketing

communications can be implemented in many ways. Therefore, these constraints can help

bring focus to marketing communications. Also, the recommendations on how brands should

manage their consumers are very strategic and firm, if a bit lacking in concrete “how-to”

examples.

The most serious knock on cultural branding is the lack of instructions on how to build a

brand from the ground up into an iconic brand. It is more about strategic brand management,

i.e. managing existing brands. For example, O’Reilly (2005), who also sees brands as carriers

of cultural meaning, argues that meaning is encoded into products through product design.

This aspect is missing in Holt’s theory of cultural branding. In effect, cultural branding theory

needs some additions on how to build the brand, from a more detailed and ground-up level.

O’Reilly argued that in some ways all brands are cultural, since all brands work as cultural

texts of sorts in, for example, salespeople's’ representations, staff behavior or marketing

communications. Even though Holt noted that iconic brands are the majority of times from

identity categories, perhaps identity elements could be added to non-identity categories

systematically.

Originally I defined branding as the pursuit to differentiate one producer’s products from

another in a way that is relevant to the consumer. And now from my findings I define

cultural branding to be:

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a pursuit to differentiate a company’s products by forging a credible connection

to culture via creating a distinguished voice for a brand that speaks for the non-

commercial ethos of a given constituency that is culturally resonant, and by

creating ways for consumers to experience the connection via the brand’s

storytelling.

Originally I defined brand management to be the choices related to an organization’s

attempts to influence brands that it can claim to be under its influence. From my findings I

define cultural brand management to be:

a mostly strategic function where the company, along with other cultural authors,

aims to define the brand’s story by managing the brand’s perceived popularity,

historical relevance and the dynamics of the brand’s consumer constituencies, by

actively resisting broad-based appeal, short term financial success, and

leveraging the brand’s cultural equity by assuming cultural leadership.

3.4.4 The Cultural Competitive Environment

Holt (2004, p. 5) states that in identity products, competition is fierce on normal brand

attributes, such as quality reputation, trust, or distinctive benefits, and limited to incremental

and often momentary gains. The implication here is that features that can be easily copied will

be copied. Holt (2004, p. 5, 10, 111) also states that brand’s myths are extremely hard to

copy, and that is why companies should look into managing them more seriously. To identity

brands, the main concern is not whether or not consumers are moving in on their myth

territory, but rather brands should be concerned about the myth losing its relevance in society

(Holt 2004, p. 219).

Holt (2004, p. 5, 39) argues that brands do not really compete against other brands in the same

product category, rather they fight for space and collaborate with other cultural products such

as books, films, television programs, and music in so-called “myth markets”, which are

“implicit public conversations centered around the national ideology” that form around

cultural disruptions. Or as Holt (2004, p. 221; 2003) says: “brands are now in the branded

content business and compete for culture share”. The notion that commerce and consumer

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behavior are representations or embodiments of culture is part of the postmodern-

postindustrial paradigm (Venkatesh 1995). In this view culture subsumes commerce, not

“talks” to it as in the modern paradigm. Brands become sources of identity myths if they

become icons for a collective identity or subculture, “journalist packaging” (compelling

stories that connect with consumers) or as “film props”, playing a key role in a powerful film

that caters to a myth markets (Holt 2006).

Holt (2004, p. 60) also argues, however, that brands rarely compete head-on with stronger

cultural products, rather they usually add or borrow from existing myths other cultural

products have spun. Luckily for brands, whereas for example movies need to be watched and

rewatched to experience the myth, a brand can be ritualistically consumed and provide a

material connection to the myth even many times per day. Or put it this way: it might take

two hours to watch a movie, but it just takes half a minute to drink a Coke (Holt 2006).

Holt (2004, p. 7, 10, 225) takes a slightly different stance to the cluttering or even “death” of

mass media by saying that most iconic brands have been and still can be built trough mass

media and especially through television advertising. Holt’s definition of the marketplace is by

far the broadest of all the branding models. If brands not only compete against one another,

but also against other cultural products, such as movies, books, music, then what is left out of

the marketplace? Then again, Holt’s definition of myth markets is quite precise in that brands

and other cultural products can be seen as carriers of meaning only. In cultural branding we

see again the same issues that were present in mind-share, emotional and viral branding:

consumer cynicism and marketing clutter.

Originally I defined the competitive environment very vaguely to be any other instances

outside the company’s control. From my findings, I define the cultural competitive

environment to be:

a scattered and saturated market environment where brands compete for culture

share along with other cultural products, and where advertising has become

saturated but can still offer results.

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4 Discussion and implications of the new concepts

In this section I will bring together the concepts and evaluate their connections, philosophical

differences and speculate if there are possible synergies in using the concepts together or are

they simply too incompatible for this kind of usage.

4.1 Consumer

Figure 6: The Consumer Concepts

All the consumer types more or less share the following characteristics: advertising clutter

and resistance of it, self-expression through brands, need to belong, and to some degree the

search for authenticity. Overall, however, there are more differing notions on consumers than

similar. But on the other hand, there also some interesting possibilities to combine the

different concepts in some parts.

Ha and Litman (1997) state that advertising clutter is widely believed to be the cause of

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advertising’s reduced effectiveness. The amount of advertising clutter is not the only reason

why people have started to reject advertising: the rise of consumerism, perceived deception,

and offensive stereotypes in adverts have also been key drivers in the trend (Elliott & Speck

1998). Advertisers’ insistence on making the ads more “harder to miss” (while not necessarily

any more effective) also contributes to consumers’ perceived advertising clutter (Speck &

Elliott 1997). Also, as noted repeatedly in this thesis, there were clear signs indicating that

Holt’s (2002) notion of consumers becoming more advertising and marketing savvy is another

reason for diminished returns on advertising spending, not just clutter.

The newer the branding model, the stronger this resistance of advertising seemed to get:

mind-share branding stated it was a problem, emotional branding went further and stated that

consumers “resent” advertising, and viral branding went as far as saying that people hate

advertising so much that for it to have any positive effect it should be permission based.

Cultural branding took a slight step away from the trend: advertising clutter and people’s

resentment of marketing were acknowledged, but it was argued that good advertising could

still be effective.

Another shared notion was the idea of consumers expressing themselves through brands. In

this regard, however, the newer branding models seemed to expand on mind-share’s ideas

significantly. In viral and emotional branding it was emphasized that consumers like to use

brands as self-expressive vessels, because of the image value being associated with other

brand users brought, not the brand itself. However, in cultural branding, this notion of peer

belonging was emphasized even more and the brand took a strictly supportive role in a

subculture, whereas in viral and emotional branding it was implied or assumed that brand

communities were similar to subcultures, a notion which was rejected by de Burgh-Woodman

et al. (2007). Cultural branding was the only one to explore real reasons as to why people seek

belonging in subcultures and certain brand communities through illustrating national

ideology’s and people’s anxieties surrounding it, other models only cited this kind of behavior

as fact or because people simply like the brand.

As a critique, Holt (2002) warns that this phenomenon of expressing one’s identity through

consumption can become such a demanding project that it might lead to the inflation of the

symbolic work required to achieve what Holt calls “real sovereignty”. Keeping up with

fashions, cultural texts and other identity project resources might become too much for some

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people to handle, and as a result they will start disregarding identity brands as ways of

identity building. Somewhat relating to this, what we do not consume also tells a lot about

ourselves. For example, what we choose not to consume on principle, what we cannot afford

to consume, which aspects of our identity we choose not to “manifest” through consumption,

or what cannot be manifested through consumption (Jensen Schau 2000). Stretching this idea

even further, Fournier (1998) says that some consumers heavily define themselves by not

consuming certain brands. Therefore, our consumption does not fully tell who or what we are,

and if people are having a tougher time following the trends as to which brand expresses

what, non-consumption as a way to build identity might become a growing trend. Hogg &

Mitchell (1996) also state that consumers’ purchase decision should always be viewed as a

stream of consumption decisions, where the purchases link to one another. Fournier (1998)

also argued that people’s preferred should be viewed as a collection, a distinctive set that has

collective meaning. These notions were not fully explored by any of the branding models.

Relating to expressing oneself through brands was the concept of consumers seeking

belonging, which was also present in all branding models. In mind-share, the notion was that

enthusiastic brand users like to “share” the brand and discuss it. In emotional and viral

branding, the notion was that people seek belonging through homophily, which meant that the

brand relationship is not always the sole reason for people seeking each other’s company (e.g.

mothers recommending brands to one another in their communities). In this view, the brand

has a more supporting role, as the brand establishes a position within the group, but is not the

reason why the group is formed in the first place. However, brand enthusiasts are again

showed to form communities around brands and take ownership of the brands, especially in

viral branding. In cultural branding, the supporting role of brands in people’s belonging

seeking is even more emphasized, as already stated above, as people identify heavily with

certain subcultures whose ethos or identity myth the brand only seems to embody.

Authenticity was mentioned by all branding models as a key consumer preference, but the

argumentation as to what is authentic and what is not varied to some degree. In emotional

branding it was seen as something that is nostalgic, exotic or even niche. In viral branding it

was anything that was consumer-driven. In cultural branding it was anything that displayed a

clear ethos or a non-profiteering motif. Mind-share failed to distinguish what authenticity

stood for, but still cited it as an important feature for a brand to have. Gilmore & Pine (2007,

p. 13) go on to say that authenticity is now the foremost consumer sensibility, as consumers

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have moved from a marketplace of scarcity to abundance. As already stated in this thesis,

price, availability and quality are under attack from competitors from all angels. Quality is

being heavily democratized and technological and design advantages erased. In a way, you

could argue that by demanding authenticity, the consumers themselves are creating scarcity in

brands. In other words: where’s the status value of a brand if the same product can be attained

easily, at a low cost and with similar quality? In its authenticity value.

Gilmore & Pine (2007, p. xii-xiii, 1-2) say that their research and findings on consumers’

yearning for authenticity is an evolution on “the experience economy” (and before it, mass

customization, and longer before it, quality), meaning that the concepts are linked and a

natural evolution from one another. Many businesses have already started to provide the kind

of “staged experiences”, as recommended in Gilmore & Pine’s previous book, “The

Experience Economy”. The next step in this evolution is to provide authenticity to consumers,

as consumers have started to be drawn to it more and even demand it, just as quality was

before it. Gilmore & Pine (2007, p. 3-5) argue, that as consumers came to expect higher and

higher quality on goods and services, they stopped tolerating poor quality. But now that

quality has more or less become democratized, Gilmore & Pine argue that consumers have

progressed from calling unacceptable products from “junk” to “fake.” They argue, that

“management of the customer perception of authenticity” is increasingly becoming a new

imperative for management and a source for competitive advantage. However, Holt (2002)

argues that even authenticity is “becoming an endangered species”. Indeed, there seems to be

a hint of arms race –type progression in the notion of companies tapping into authenticity.

Companies practicing especially viral branding, are now facing demands of authenticity from

the public. People feel that companies using viral tactics or cultural engineering should lay

their organizations to bare if they wish to remain authentic and credible (Holt 2002).

Recently, some have called for “radical transparency” when it comes to corporate

communications, which means leaving every aspect of the company’s functions for public

scrutiny and even inviting people to participate in the betterment of the organization

(Anderson 2006). Holt (2002) has also noted, that the Internet has become a powerful force in

“dissemination of the backstage activities of corporations”, but since his writing this

movement has gained even more momentum.

The biggest differences between the branding models relate to how they see consumers as

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decision makers and what drives their purchase behavior and thus serves as a basis for

segmentation. In mind-share branding, consumers were seen as somewhat rational problem

solvers even though emotional benefits were also mentioned as drivers for purchase. In the

other models, however, we move increasingly towards a consumer who is an uncognitive and

passive information processor. This could also be due to advertising clutter: as people are

bombarded with too much advertising, they “shut down” their active (visual) information

seeking and brands are only able to reach them through their other senses and unconscious

mind.

In emotional branding, the personal social demographic (Baby Boomer, Gen X or Gen Y) was

seen as the most important differentiating factor in the consumer’s buying behavior or basis

for forging brand relationships. As already noted, this was emphasized so heavily that it could

have been necessary to build a consumer definition for each of the three constituencies. In

emotional branding, the notion of brand relationship and its deepness was also heavily

emphasized, but this had traces of mind-share buying behavior and other traditional aspects of

branding. In viral branding, the basis for segmentation was the consumer’s actions: how he or

she aims to take ownership of the brand and how enthusiastically he or she defended,

redefined, criticized or even evangelized the brand. In cultural branding, the basis for

segmentation was the consumer’s connection or attitude towards the brand’s myth or the

populist world from which the myth originates.

This brings me to the most interesting aspect of the concepts: their possible synergies. In my

view the so-called “citizen marketer” or “fanatic” featured in viral branding (and to some

degree emotional and mind-share branding) is very close to the “follower” in cultural

branding. These are the people who drive and evangelize the brand, take ownership of it, and

help shape it. The key distinction here, however, is how they are approached in the different

branding models: viral branding talks about what consumers like these are doing and what

companies should do to facilitate these actions, but cultural branding describes why these

people are doing what they are doing. This is in my view a very powerful possibility for

combining the two branding models: on a strategic level understand the cultural anxieties that

the people are trying to soothe with their brand relationships, and once they are “in” your

brand, you use viral branding tactics to manage their behavior and encourage it.

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Other synergies relate to deepening the understanding of each consumer portrait and

deepening the understanding of the consumer-brand relationship, but I feel this notion of how

to approach a brand’s enthusiasts is the most important finding in regards to consumers.

These varying views of how consumer-brand relationships are forged add to the marketing

discourse, but I was unable to find concrete synergies that could be managerially

implementable right away. However, brand managers should always be mindful of these

different views of seeing consumers, even if they are not always agreeing with one another.

4.2 Brand

Figure 7: The Brand Concepts

All the branding models subscribe to the notion of brands having value for both the consumer

and the company, which was the starting definition in this thesis. Also, all models agreed that

brands help differentiate one company’s products from other producers’ products on the

market and is a source for price premium and an important asset for companies. Also,

consumers using brands as vehicles of self-expression was already outlined in the previous

chapter. However, the models differ in great degree in what kind of value – or equity – a

brand can have and how broadly the brand should be defined.

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In mind-share branding, the brand’s strength was based on the brand’s awareness level and

consumer associations, its clarity, and its presence in the consumers’ minds. Also, the notion

of the brand was heavily tied to products and tangible elements, the so-called product-plus

notion of brand equity. Emotional branding took a step away from the more product-based

notion of the brand by arguing that people value the and relationship value the brand offers

and the brand’s experience or “story”. The brand was seen as something intangible and more

emotive than just its perceived quality and visual cues. Viral branding took the notion of

brand intangibility even further, basically saying that a brand’s equity is owed to the

discussion around it, and the devotion of its most fanatical consumers. In this notion, a brand

and its strength are even more intangible and harder to quantify or grasp. I presented the idea

that perhaps in viral branding, the consumers themselves (or at least its most loyal and

fanatical core consumers) could ultimately be seen as the brand.

In cultural branding, the brand’s strength is based on the brand’s historical connection to

culture and how well that connection currently speaks to people. Also, cultural branding

introduced the idea of brands not competing with other brands in the same product category.

Rather, they compete with brands and cultural products that compete in the same myth

market. However, it bears repeating that cultural branding was intended primarily for identity

categories. The branding models could be ranked in terms of how intangible, dynamic, or

broad the brand is seen to be, and this ranking would be inversely correlated with the models’

views of how much control the company has over their brands. This notion of company

control is explored in more detail in the next section.

Again, cultural branding and viral branding offer some interesting additions to each other’s

paradigms. Viral branding implies that the brand is indeed a discussion or the collection of its

fans, cultural branding offers an understanding as to what the discussion is about on a deeper

level – mainly people’s anxieties – and expands on the social dynamics and even social

friction that relate to the discussion. Emotional branding benefits from both viral branding’s

and cultural branding’s concepts, as it forces emotional branding advocates to re-evaluate

how much control they indeed have, even though it was outlined in emotional branding that

“brands belong to people”. Also, cultural branding’s notions of brands as meaning carriers

enrich emotional branding’s ideas of what the brand’s story should be, and brings focus to it.

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Thompson et al. (2006) had already noted that the mind-share paradigm was already

approaching the emotional branding paradigm, now this need to re-evaluate its notion of what

the brand stands for is even more accentuated.

The notion of brands as self-expressive vessels was, indeed, agreed upon by all branding

models and this was established in the previous section as well. As illustrated in the previous

section, however, the role of the brand in communal or subculture self-expression varied a bit.

Mind-share and to a lesser degree emotional branding seemed to be a bit more “brand-heavy”

in their views, as the brand itself was seen as the building block. Viral and cultural branding,

on the other hand, stressed the role of the people surrounding the brand as the self-expressive

benefit for consumer. The brand is merely a part or even a prop in this equation.

Also, it should be noted that Holt had argued that a strong cultural brand (iconic brand) has all

the traditional features of a strong brand, as argued in mind-share, emotional and viral

branding. The same could probably be argued for the other models as well. The notion of each

branding model being just a different way to seeing brands is an interesting and relevant one.

As companies already use these models in hybrid strategies, it bears repeating that these

models are not necessarily competitors. Rather, they expand on each other’s notions and

complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses. And as brands are continuously measured

as financial assets, it never hurts to have new ways to measure your brand’s equity.

Companies would probably do well to measure their brand strengths as a combination of all

the aspects of brand strength presented in the different branding models.

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4.3 Branding

Figure 8: The Branding Concepts

Unlike the two previous concepts, the concepts of branding and brand management seem to

offer more differing views than agreement on the concept in question. The only common

notion seems to be that branding is the pursuit to differentiate one company’s products from

others, and even in this regard cultural branding takes a slightly different stance by saying that

the idea is not even to compete with products within the same product category. Rather,

brands should compete with other cultural products, as already stated in the previous section.

Also, the notion of creating authenticity was at least briefly touched by all the models.

As already mentioned, the notion where the branding models disagree the most on is the

notion of company control on the brand – and especially what element it can and should

control. Mind-share branding assumes the most control on brands, and suggests that brand

managers never let go of this control to any other instance, be it retailers, subsidiaries, other

layers of the organization, and even consumers. Emotional branding states that consumers

hold a lot of control over the brand, but still urges companies to heavily control the instances

it can, namely the brand’s visual elements and customer experience by training retail staff and

making the experience as unique and tailored as possible. Cultural branding states that a

company’s control on the brand depends on the company’s initiative and cultural leadership:

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act too late and others will start shaping the brand. Also, charismatic brands have more

possibilities to define themselves. The dynamics between the brand’s three consuming

constituencies – not to mention the substantial influence they have on the brand’s authenticity

– gives the company relatively little room to operate. Viral branding on the other hand

embraces this notion that companies do not control their brands, and encourages brand

managers to truly let go of their brands by facilitatin and encouraging consumers’ ownership

of the brand.

In terms of synergy between the branding models, I feel that we can define a progressive way

of using all the branding models, not just combining two or three. I feel that mind-share

branding and emotional branding are very beneficial in the initial stages of building a brand.

During this stage the brand does not have much of a history or following yet, but when the

brand starts to establish itself and establish a position, you need to shift your focus towards

viral and cultural branding, because they take more into account the consumers and the

brand’s historical equity. And as Thompson et al. (2006) and Holt et al. (2006) illustrated, this

is even more important for global and established brands, because they are more prone to be

criticized and be featured in brand stories outside the company’s control. I feel that this notion

of progressively shifting your attention from one branding model to another is probably the

most significant finding of my thesis, and has substantial managerial significance. However,

this notion of working on established brands could be seen as a weakness for cultural and

viral branding; both models would benefit from aspects that relate to actually building a

brand.

As a metaphor for this idea of progressive brand building, let’s consider Lindstrom’s (2005, p.

39-42) idea of “smashing” the brand, which meant building a brand sensorially

distinguishable enough that consumers could identify it even from its pieces. As a starting

point, you put in place the organization, the thinking, the initial core promise, and the tangible

brand elements as advocated in mind-share branding. From mind-share, you move on to

emotional branding, and add more layers to the brand and take a heavy emphasis in sensorial

elements of the brand and the brand’s experiential elements especially in retail environments.

Or as Lindstom said, make the brand “smashable”. After this, you move on to viral branding,

and make sure that consumers are able to pick up the brand they’ve just smashed, sort of

speak, and build it up again to their liking. This goes especially in online environment, where

all elements need to be intractable and shareable. In viral branding, gearing the brand’s

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communication systems, so that they become two-way points for dialogue, is especially key.

And finally, with cultural branding, you try to make sure that it is the right kind of consumers

are the ones picking up the pieces and hope that the brand shapes up to be culturally relevant

in the hands of its consumers and other storytellers. The brand’s consumer populace and

constituencies are constantly in motion. Brand managers would thus do well to monitor these

changes and try to guide this evolution to the right direction.

There are other possibilities for synergies as well, especially on a more detail level. For

example, viral and emotional branding both emphasize tangible and unique touch points, but

from different points of view. In emotional branding, this is done for sensorial stimulation,

but in viral branding the goal is to give the consumer something to talk about. Also, in

cultural branding the notion of touch points was briefly discussed as a way of accessing the

brand’s myth through ritual action. Emotional branding and cultural branding both talk about

the brand as a storyteller, cultural branding gives more insight as to what kind of stories

should be told, but emotional branding has many elements as to how this story should be

conveyed to the consumers in offering innovative advertising techniques. Combining the

knowledge of all three newer models in creating touch points could offer immense

possibilities.

All the models also called for authenticity. Beverland (2005) argues that creating an

impression of authenticity required creating “a sincere story”, which would enable combining

emotional branding’s storytelling ethos with cultural and even viral branding’s calls for

sincerity. Jones et al. (2005) expand on Beverland’s notion and state that being authentic

requires commitment to high quality (which was key in mind-share branding), maintenance of

stylistic consistency (key in mind-share and emotional branding), and instrumental use of

brand history and place and its associated mythologies as positive referents (key in emotional

and cultural branding). This would suggest that there are many possibilities for synergy here.

Interestingly, all branding models cited Harley Davidson as an example of great branding –

and proceeded to illustrate with varying emphasis how the branding model’s teaching were

the reason for the company’s success. This reaffirms the point that evaluating a strong brand

can be indeed a multi-faceted way of seeing things, and managers would probably do wisely

to use elements from all the branding models or at least include them in the discussion. As per

my hypothesis, it does seem that the three newer models expand on notions of mind-share

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branding, but they also have philosophical differences that make them difficult to use to their

full extent all at the same time. Brand managers need to pick and choose between different

elements from all models and avoid conflict.

As an example, Kay (2006) states that Patagonia started as a niche business for a small

segment of consumers. This kind of strategy is essential to viral branding; small and dedicated

communities act virally and recommend the brand to their peers or friends. On the other hand,

Holt (2004) argues that Patagonia’s success is due to its cultural branding efforts, in that

Patagonia took initiative in being a cultural leader by advocating the so-called “dirtbag

culture” and forging a myth of adventuring in nature that appealed to a mass market of liberal,

ecologically minded non-adventurers Some might argue that only one of them is right, but my

view is that they both are right – but for different reasons. Especially in the case of Patagonia,

viral branding to me seems to answer the question of “how” the company’s message spread,

whereas cultural branding answers the question of “why” consumers embraced the brand.

Patagonia struck a note in the consumers mind and made them believers enthusiastic enough

that they would evangelize the brand.

As a side note, it will be interesting to see whether in the future stealth and buzz marketing

will still be viewed as viable tactics of viral branding. Will they evolve into another branding

model, called stealth branding for example r will they be viewed merely an evolutionary link

in the evolution of viral branding? My personal guess, or preference even, is that deceptive

branding tactics be marginalized from viral branding, and the branding discourse altogether,

because of their dishonest tactics, but also because it is repeatedly shown that in the long run

consumer savviness and brand literacy wins out, and consumers like to lash back at brands

they feel are dishonest. In the future the risk versus reward of using stealth tactics will likely

tip in favor of abandoning them and they will be written as merely a footnote in branding’s

evolution.

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4.4 Brand Management

Figure 9: The Brand Management Concepts

In terms of managing already established brands and seeing branding as an organizational

function, my interest was in the strategic aspects of the models. The differences of how to

build a brand were already outlined in the previous section, so there is no need to repeat them

here. However, the differences in branding have some implications to the models’ strategic

emphasis as well.

As mind-share is the oldest of the models, it is logical that the model is the most refined, and

has a thoroughly strategic outlook on brand management as an organizational function. The

model calls for a lot of commitment on the organization’s part when it comes to brand

building, and sees branding as a way to achieve financial success. Brand management is seen

as a top-level management function, with heavy coordination involved. Emotional branding

does not really outline how to build a brand or an organization to support this. Rather, the

emphasis is in the tactical implementations of brand management. It could be assumed that

this is due to the fact that emotional branding is seen by some as a supplement to mind-share

branding and not its own model, as noted earlier. Also, much of branding is seen as managing

the brand’s visual and sensorial aspects, which would indicate the notion of seeing branding

as a “communications problem”, which Farquah (1994) had deemed unstrategic behavior.

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However, in emotional branding it is argued throughout that the whole organization must

embody the brand’s story, which is a very strategic level decision. However, little help is

offered as to how a company should do this when it comes to company processes.

In viral branding, much is talked about how engaging in viral activity necessitates an attitude

change throughout the organization. Indeed, giving up the control of the brand to consumers

and actively participating in discussions with consumers is a rather strategic notion and a big

change for especially larger companies. However, much was talked about that viral tactics are

only an “addition to the marketing toolbox”, as it was stated in both of the books I had chosen

for analysis. So it seems that even the authors themselves do not believe in the strategic nature

of their model. Also, the notion of really building a brand from the ground up is missing from

the model. Viral branding literature more or less reads like a collection of best practices and

anecdotal evidence, with no frameworks or models for laying organizational processes in

place.

Cultural branding has many strategic aspects, such emphasis put on consumer relationship

management, and putting a clear focus on the brand’s actions based on its historical authority

and significance. Also, the notion of taking cultural initiative is a very strategic and binding

notion. However, the model emphasizes communications to a great extent, and as already

noted, this could be seen as a symptom of unstrategicness (Farquah 1994). And as the model

is intended only for identity products, it would have been very beneficial to investigate how

managers can build identity elements into their products – especially in cases where the

identity value opportunities might not be self-evident. As Khalil (2000) noted, the distinction

between identity categories and non-identity ones is in many ways artificial and that all

products have some identity elements in them.

In cultural branding, it was argued that having a strong brand according to the traditional

branding view (mainly mind-share) is only the ante to the market. Therefore, cultural

branding could also be seen as an extension of mind-share, as was emotional branding.

However, as a counter argument you could also point out that since companies have so little

control over their brands in viral and cultural branding, this justifies concentrating only on

issues management can influence, such as advertising and consumer relations.

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In emotional branding, viral branding, and especially cultural branding, it was emphasized

that a brand needs to be kept strong by limiting its short-term popularity and thus making it

seem a bit scarce. This especially is a very strategic decision, and possibly a hard sell in many

organizations. Lodish & Mela (2007) outlined how hard it can be for brand managers to

compete against short-term price pressures, they even say that some brand managers even

embrace it, because they often lack a long-term commitment to the company and see short-

term sales result as a way to boost their own careers. This notion of limiting sales in the short

term might indeed be the biggest strategic challenge of all of brand management. However,

Winther (2008) argues that limiting a brand’s availability can make it seem more interesting

and more prone for word of mouth behavior, as happened with Google when it limited access

to its recently launched email product. Winther also argues that brands should look to “mimic

its smaller rival”, which would suggest that people have a preference for brands that they

perceive to be niche or less popular.

4.5 Competetive Environment

Figure 10: The Competetive Environment Concepts

All the models saw the competitive environment as very challenging: competition is fierce

and fast moving, the market is saturated and consumers are more and more price and quality

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sensitive. In the newer models the notions of a global market and the consumer-favoring

effects of the Internet were emphasized as well. In cultural branding, brands fight against not

only brands, but cultural products as well. It depends on the interpretation whether or not you

see this as making the marketplace more or less competitive. No doubt, in the future, if

companies decide to embrace cultural branding, it will make the marketplace much harder to

operate in for companies. In the current market situation, however, it is not that clear. All in

all, the books underline that companies do not have many sources for competitive advantage

other than brand building. But this was to be expected, as these were indeed branding books I

was researching.

One theme that was present in all of the branding models was the notion of brands being in a

sort of arms race against each other, though this was not necessarily directly expressed. This

phenomenon of arms race branding was outlined by Holt (2002), who argued that companies

try to one-up each other by constantly updating and rethinking their branding practices. As

companies push even harder with their branding practices to gain competitive advantage, and

as consumers become both more skilled in enacting the consumer culture and increasingly

more savant on how brands operate, it creates both an inflation of what is expected and also

what is accepted of branding. These two aspects force companies to constantly rethink and

evolve their branding practices, otherwise they might see their branding practices face more

and more backlash. Christopher (1996) argued that consumer sophistication and advertising’s

declining impact are two of the biggest changes that have impacted the marketplace as of late,

and since then the trend has been picking up speed. Holt (2002) argues that these kinds of

shifts have happened before in the past, and for example viral marketing is a result of this

kind of new postmodern branding equilibrium that is now forming between the companies

and their consumers.

The biggest difference between the branding models was the degree of how fierce this

branding arms race is perceived to be, and what are the consequences. Emotional and cultural

branding took the stance that clutter and increasingly cynical consumers are a manageable

problem, and through their tactics these problems could be overcome. Viral branding seemed

to more or less embrace the notion of consumers being anti-marketing. In viral branding, the

brand is handed over to consumers, as consumer now only trust each other when receiving

marketing information. However, it is interesting that the notion of measuring the

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advancement of consumer cynicism was not advocated by any of the models. Many

companies already engage in media surveillance, measuring how their brands are portrayed in

the media. Perhaps companies would be wise to survey the media themselves, too, to measure

their dynamic effectiveness and relative saturation.

In the next segment I have compiled my findings on the most relevant synergy or differences

between the branding models into a framework, which facilitates understanding how the

models relate to one another.

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4.6 Framework of findings

Figure 11: Summary of findings

This framework when read individually is not too flattering to mind-share branding. However,

it bears repeating that mind-share is more or less the basis for all the other branding models,

so it is practically impossible for mind-share to add anything new to the other branding

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models (although this does happen too), rather the direction of influence is the other way: the

other models add to or challenge notions of mind-share.

In the next section I will evaluate how well this thesis was able to reach its research goals,

evaluate the managerial implications of my thesis and suggest ideas for further research.

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5 Implications

This study defines new concepts for consumer, brand, branding, brand management and the

competitive environment that deepen the understanding of the differences of the four major

branding models being used in business today. Below is a more detailed dissection of the

implications of the study, plus an evaluation of how the thesis reached its goals.

5.1 Meeting the Objectives of the Study

As this was a concept analysis, the notion of how well the objectives were met relates to how

well the concepts were able to be defined. Thi is probably not for me to personally judge, as

conducting a this kind of analysis requires personal and sometimes subjective evaluation.

However, I feel that the definitions are quite rich, as illustrated not only by their length (which

in itself is not necessarily an indicator of good research, of course), and how differentiated the

concepts are. Also, some the synergies and differences I found between the models were

something I had not encountered in any other literature, which I hold as a merit of my

analysis.

Only the concept of the competetive environment was left as a bit shallow. This may be also

due to the apparent lack of anything relating to this concept in any of the books. I had initially

expected that there would be more material relating to this concept. Other than this, I feel that

the concepts are quite rich in their definitions and the research was indeed a success.

5.2 Theoretical Contribution

The main theoretical contribution of this thesis was naturally the formation of the new

concepts, as they add new viewpoints to the discourse of branding, and challenge existing

notions. Also, notion of conducting a concept analysis is not often seen in marketing, let alone

branding. In further academic research on these branding models my definitions could be very

beneficial as starting points for analysis or providing new angles for evaluating results. Also,

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the framework presented in the previous segment I perceive to be a significant theoretical

contribution.

This thesis also challenges traditional notions of what viral branding is or should be, and

directs the conversation into a new direction. The notion of dishonest and stealth tactics is

being abandoned by more and more companies, especially ones prominent in online

environments. Perhaps the academic world will also become more active in analyzing this

change. For example, Sony’s attempt of creating favorable word of mouth by building a fake

blog and the ensuing consumer backlash was one of the most discussed marketing stories of

2007 (AdWeek 2008). Perhaps the most telling notion of how companies are waking up to the

realities of the new marketplace came from Proctor & Gamble’s CEO A.G. Lafley in a speech

he gave in 2006, where he declared that thanks to 30 or so years of media fragmentation and

the more recent rise of user-generated content, marketers would do wisely to engage their

consumers by giving the control of the brand to them (Businessweek 2006). It bears

reminding that Lafley is the CEO of the world’s biggest brand company, which has also been

the most traditional championer of mind-share branding in the model’s history. It is my guess

that in the coming years the viral branding discourse will see a lot of advancements.

5.3 Managerial Implications

The managerial implications of this thesis were outlined in more detail in the previous

segment. However, I would like to repeat the main managerial implication for my thesis,

which I define as follows:

The key managerial implication can also be expressed in visual form as well:

Building a brand can be seen as a progressive function where the foundation of the brand is

laid with mind-share branding, then further enhanced with emotional branding. As the

brand matures and becomes more prominent in the market and also featured in culture,

brand managers should look to involve their customers in managing the brand through viral

branding and see their brand more broadly as a carrier of meanings through cultural

branding.

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Figure 12: Brand model progression

Other than this, brand managers should look to deepen their understanding on the different

concepts I had developed, plus look for possible synergies between the different branding

models. Especially between viral branding and cultural branding I see many opportunities for

synergy and also differing viewpoints that could enrich said models.

The notions that were present in all of the branding models for any given concept are things

that managers can put to use right away, as evidence suggests that these some of these notions

are already quite established and beyond dispute. Managers would also benefit from adopting

a view that different branding models are not necessarily competing against each other, but

are complementary and offer way of seeing strong brands from a different perspective.

Especially in terms of evaluating brand equity, brand managers would do well as to add more

measurements in place from different branding models, not just traditional mind-share

metrics.

5.4 Limitations and Ideas For Future Research

The world of marketing is not short on branding literature. Choosing only five books perhaps

limited the conclusiveness of my findings, especially in the newer branding models, since

their discourse is still somewhat just starting. Nowhere else was this more apparent than in

viral branding, where there is also an almost complete disagreement as to what should be

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included in to the discipline and what not. Conducting this same analysis for the five

concepts, but using more books on viral branding and perhaps combining it with an empirical

study that aims to determine once and for all if deceptive and stealth tactics should be

included in the model or not.

Another limitation, but also a possible source for new research, relates to how the concepts

were defined. As of now, the concepts are defined in a way that they use, for a lack of a better

word, simplistic languge. For example, advertising clutter, marketing cynicism, and self-

expression through brands were all notions more or less agreed upon by all models. Holt

(2002) states that all these notions are typical characteristics of a postmodern consumer.

Therefore, I could have made the definitions shorter by simply replacing the descriptions with

the term “postmodern consumer”. However, I wanted to keep the definitions as layman-like

as possible, which I freely admit does make the definitions quite long and a grammatical

nightmare. In further research, these concepts could be redefined in a way that they become

much shorter, without sacrificing their meaning. And of course, I am in no way implying that

these concepts are already complete or perfect, as they draw from a relatively small sample of

literature. I do feel, however, that they serve as a strong starting point for further research and

discussion.

The possibilities for synergies between the different branding models are something that

should definitely be explored further, most likely in empirical settings, not just on a

conceptual level. The philosophical differences between the models need to be confirmed

before they can be deemed as conclusive. However, most importantly, the notion presented as

my main managerial implication needs to be explored futher. One way to conduct such

research would be to evaluate to what degree brand managers are doing this already –

intentionally or unintentionally. Another idea would be to gauge managers’ attitudes towards

this kind of brand building logic.

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