Corporate brands as brand allies
| Published date | 12 February 2018 |
| Date | 12 February 2018 |
| Pages | 41-56 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-01-2016-1080 |
| Author | Mayoor Mohan,Kevin E. Voss,Fernando R. Jiménez,Bashar S. Gammoh |
| Subject Matter | Marketing,Product management,Brand management/equity |
Corporate brands as brand allies
Mayoor Mohan
Department of Marketing, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA
Kevin E. Voss
Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA
Fernando R. Jiménez
Department of Marketing and Management, The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas, USA, and
Bashar S. Gammoh
University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio, USA
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of the corporate brand in a brand alliance that includes one of the corporation’s product
brands.
Design/methodology/approach –Using a scenario-based study, 899 participants were randomly assigned to one of 84 unique brand alliance
scenarios involving a corporate brand, a product brand ally and a focal product brand; a total of 33 corporate brands were represented. Results were
estimated using a three-stage least squares model.
Findings –Consumers’evaluations of a focal brand were enhanced when a corporate brand name associate d with a product brand ally was
included in the brand alliance. The effect was mediated by attitude toward the product brand ally. The indirect effect of the corporate brand was
stronger when consumers had low product category knowledge (PCK).
Research limitations/implications –Consistent with competitive cue theory, the findings suggest that a corporate brand can provide superior,
consistent and unique information in a brand alliance.
Practical implications –Practitioners should note that the effectiveness of adding a corporate brand name into a product brand alliance is
contingent on the extent of consumers’PCK.
Originality/value –This paper examines when and why corporate brands are effective endorsers in product brand alliances. This paper adds
empirical support to previous assertions that, if managed effectively, corporate brands can be valuable assets that convey unique valuable
information to consumers.
Keywords Consumer attitudes, Brands, Marketing management, Brand name, Consumer behaviour, Product management, Brand alliances,
Statistical analysis, Corporate brands
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
About two decades ago, Balmer (1995) introduced the notion
of corporate brand management. A corporatebrand is a name,
logotype or trademarkdefining the organisation that will deliver
and stand behind the offering (Balmer and Gray, 2003;Aaker,
2004). It is a covenant between the organisation and its
stakeholders (Balmer, 2003). Corporate brands deliver
additional and different information from product brands.
Product brands provide information about product
performance to consumers. Corporate brands, in contrast,
communicate organisations’values, culture and ethos (Balmer,
2013), thereby eliciting key associations among stakeholders
(Brown and Dacin,1997), differentiating the organisation from
competitors and enhancing loyalty among stakeholders
(Balmer and Gray, 2003). Thus,corporate brand management
has become an important topic for managers and a promising
research contextfor marketing scholars.
Managers today are interested in creating and maintaining
well-established corporate brands and reaping the synergistic
effects and opportunities that arise from such investments
(Saunders and Guoqun, 1996). Strong corporate brands “can
be bought, borrowed, sold and, in certain circumstances, be
shared among a variety of organisations”(Balmer and Gray,
2003, p. 992). Consequently, a recently observed marketing
tactic consists of includinga corporate brand in a brand alliance
between one of the corporation’s product brands and another
entity. A brand alliance involves the combination of two or
more brands to achieve a strategicobjective (Rao and Ruekert,
1994;Simonin and Ruth, 1998). It is a mutually beneficial
arrangement between a focal brand (typically incapable of
eliciting favourableconsumers’evaluations by itself) and a well-
known reputable brand ally capable of eliciting favourable
consumer evaluations and transferringthem to the focal brand
(Fang et al.,2013;Gammoh and Voss, 2013). For example,
Dairy Queen recently advertised its Blizzard of the Month,
which featured Rolo brand candy blended in. The name of
Rolo’s corporate parent, Nestlé, was displayed in a small
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on
Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/1061-0421.htm
Journal of Product & Brand Management
27/1 (2018) 41–56
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 1061-0421]
[DOI 10.1108/JPBM-01-2016-1080]
41
typeset above the much larger Rolo brandname. Managers add
the brand ally’s corporate parent’s brand to the brand alliance
with the hope of increasing the total transfer effecton the focal
brand.
Despite the increased popularity of this practice, the
incremental value of adding the corporate brand to a product
brand alliance remainsunclear. Brand alliance researchers have
repeatedly found that adding brand names to a brand alliance
does not produce a significant incremental effect on
consumers’evaluationsof the focal brand (Voss and Gammoh,
2004;Gammoh et al.,2010;Fang et al.,2013). However, more
recently, Cunha et al. (2015) suggest that the effectiveness of
multiple brand allies depends on whether allies provide
consistent or competitive information cues. Following this
recent perspective, in this article, the authors examine when
and why adding a corporatebrand in a brand alliance –one that
includes one of the corporation’s product brands –increases
consumers’evaluations of the focal brand. Based on signalling
theory and consumer learning theory,the authors propose that
a corporate brand can enhance a brand alliance when
the corporate brand meets threeconditions. First, the corporate
brand should be in a position to have superiorknowledge to the
customer (Rao and Ruekert, 1994). Second, the corporate
brand should provide consistent cues (Miyazaki et al.,2005).
Third, the corporate brand should provideunique and relevant
information(Price and Dawar, 2002).
An analysis of 33 corporate brands across 84 brand alliance
scenarios supports these propositions. Specifically, we found
that attitude toward the corporate brand ally (ACA) affects
attitude toward the focal brand (AB) through attitude toward
the product brand ally (ABA) (Figure 1). Furthermore, our
results showed that the effect of the corporate brand ally
depends on the consumer’s level of product category
knowledge (PCK). Attitude toward the corporate brand ally
works through ABA only when PCK is low. These findings
build on existing work on corporate brand management and
brand architecture by identifyingthe role corporate brands play
in brand alliances. Importantly, the results provide managerial
recommendations regarding when and how to use corporate
brands in brand alliances.
We begin by reviewingthe literature on corporate brands and
brand alliances. We then develop our conceptual model and
generate testable hypotheses. Following this, we describe our
study design, data collection and analysis. Finally, we discuss
the research findings and implications along with
recommendationsfor future research.
Background
Corporate brands
In 1950s marketing practitioners and scholars began to
investigate the effect of a corporation’s name on stockholder,
employee, vendor and buyer behaviour (Martineau, 1958).
Over the following decades, this line of inquiry evolved into
robust streams of research on corporateimage (Andreassen and
Lindestad, 1998), corporate identity (van Riel and Balmer,
1997) and corporate reputation (Gray and Balmer, 1998).
These efforts highlight the strategicimportance of developing a
consistent corporate identity to portray a positive corporate
image and attain a strong corporate reputation.However, these
research streams tend to discuss the corporate or “company”
name as a companyidentifier –not as a brand.
In 1995, Balmer introduced the terms “corporate brand”,
“corporate branding”and“corporate brand management”into
the literature (Balmer,1995). Since then, a vast and fertile body
of research has emerged stressingthe utility of corporate brands
to communicate the firm’s values, differentiatethe firm and its
products from competitors and enhance the emotional
connection and loyalty among stakeholder groups (Balmer,
2001b;Balmer and Gray, 2003;Kaufmann et al.,2012). The
emergence of this new research stream reconcilesthe customer
focus of the marketing perspective and the organisational focus
of the multi-disciplinary perspective on brand and corporate
image (Bickerton, 2000;Knox and Bickerton, 2003). At the
same time, new theoretical lenses are applied including the
resource-based view (Balmer and Gray, 2003) and social
identity theory (Balmer and Liao, 2007), marking a notable
pivot towards establishing a theoretical foundation to the
nascent field.
Corporate brands and product brands
Concerning managerial application, several scholars have
devoted their efforts to identify best practices in corporate
brand management. Managing corporate brands requires a
different toolbox than the one used to manage product brands
(Balmer, 2001a). Product brands are typically targeted at a
specific customer segment through traditional integrated
marketing communications(IMC) approaches, often managed
by a marketing team thatis led by a mid-level (brand) manager,
and represent values that are by and large contrived (Balmer,
2003). In contrast, corporate brands target multiple internal
and external stakeholders, demand long-term strategic focus
and are therefore managed by senior executives (i.e. CEO,
COO, etc.) who impart responsibility for managing the brand
on all personnel throughout the organisation (Balmer, 2012).
Likewise, corporate brands require a total corporate
communications strategy that goes beyond a traditional IMC
approach, are affected by all personnel’s behaviours and
Figure 1 Conceptual model of the effect of the corporate brand on a
focal brand as mediatedby one of the corporation’s productbrand
Corporate brands
Mayoor Mohan et al.
Journal of Product & Brand Management
Volume 27 · Number 1 · 2018 · 41–56
42
To continue reading
Request your trial