A typology of brand knowledge associations projected in brand-generated signals
| Date | 15 November 2024 |
| Pages | 376-397 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-03-2024-5022 |
| Published date | 15 November 2024 |
| Author | Cleopatra Veloutsou,Estefania Ballester |
A typology of brand knowledge associations
projected in brand-generated signals
Cleopatra Veloutsou
Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK, and
Estefania Ballester
Department of Marketing and Marketing Research, Universidad de Valencia, Valencia, Spain
Abstract
Purpose –The extensive brand associations research lacks organisation when it comes to the used information cues.This paper aims to
systematically map and categorise the brand knowledge associations’components and develop a typology applicable to any brand.
Design/methodology/approach –Using the restaurant and hotel industries in four different European cultural clusters as contexts, this work uses
well-established systematic qualitative analysis approaches to categorise, code and model pictorial content in two studies. A four-stage sampling
process identified Instagram brand-posted signals (photos), 243 from 26 restaurants in Madrid, Paris and Rome for study one and 390 from 29
hotels in Moscow, Berlin and Stockholm for study two. Adhering to relevant guidelines, the manual coding proceduresprogressed from 246 for
restaurants and 231 for hotels initially generated free information coding inductive codesto a theory-informed categorisation. Quantitative analysis
complemented the qualitative analysis, revealing the information cues relative utilisation.
Findings –For both studies, the analysis produced a typology consisting of two high-leveland five lower-level brand knowledge association
categories, namely: (a) brand characteristics consisting of the brand as a symbol, the brand as a product and the brand as a person, and (b) brand
imagery consisting of user imagery and experience imagery. The five lower-level categories comprise of sub-categories and dime nsions, providing a
more comprehensive understanding of the brand associations conceptual structure relevant to brands operating in any industry.
Research limitations/implications –Researchers can use this typology to holistically encapsulate brand associations or design projects aiming to
deepen brand knowledge association aspects/dimensions understanding.
Practical implications –Managers can use this typology to portray brands. Some of the identified lower-level catego ries and/or sub-categories and
dimensions are likely to need customisation to fit specific contexts.
Originality/value –The suggested categorisation offers a solid, comprehensive framework for effectively categorising and codi ng brand knowledge
associations and proposes a new theory in the form of a typology.
Keywords Brands, Brand associations, Brand meaning, Brand knowledge, Brand-generated content, Signalling theory, Restaurants, Hotels
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Brands have a meaning, comprising of a combination of
specific brand related, oftenerratic across the various audience
members, cues (brand knowledge, attributes or emotional
associations) (Black and Veloutsou, 2017;Crawford
Camiciottoli et al., 2014;Karangeset al.,2018;Ranfagni et al.,
2021) and act as effective offer-relatedinformation carriers (Oh
et al., 2020). For consumers, brand meaning (brand
reputation) serves as the foundation of brand understanding,
brand evaluation, emotional and rational brand connections
(Gaustad et al., 2018;Veloutsou, 2023) and as purchase
journey facilitator (Baima et al., 2022); increasing brand
preference (Romaniuk and Gaillard, 2007). It produces many
behavioural outcomes, including brand purchase/re-purchase/
revisit intention (Errajaa et al.,2021;Zhou et al., 2021), brand
usage (Oakenfull and McCarthy, 2010) and higher purchase
frequency (Romaniuk and Nenycz-Thiel, 2013). In this sense,
it is imperative for brands to manage their meaning in
consumers’minds,to enhance and strengthen consumer-brand
relationships (Chua and Banerjee, 2013), increase brand
strength (Mühlbacheret al.,2016),brand equity (Keller, 1993;
Krishnan, 1996) and brand value (Lee et al., 2022). Other
brand meaning actionable uses may be its ability to support
market segmentation (Bouzdine-Chameeva et al.,2015)or
brand-relatedmanagerial decision-making (Veloutsou, 2023).
Brand knowledge is a key brand meaning elementand
consists of the built over time through accumulatedandstored
in the audience members’memories brand information,
originating from the brand and its actions or other sources
supporting, complementing or contradicting the brand-
generated content(Berthon et al., 2009;Crawford Camiciottoli
et al.,2014;Keller, 2003;Romaniuk and Gaillard, 2007;
Tierney et al.,2016;Veloutsou and Delgado-Ballester, 2018;
Veloutsou, 2023). In accordance with signalling theory
The current issue and full text archiveof this journal is available on Emerald
Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/1061-0421.htm
Journal of Product & Brand Management
34/3 (2025) 376–397
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 1061-0421]
[DOI 10.1108/JPBM-03-2024-5022]
Received 7 March 2024
Revised 12 July 2024
16 October 2024
Accepted 26 October 2024
376
(Connelly et al.,2011), companies (signallers) are advised to
share clear, credible and consistent brand information
messages (signals), sometimes varying in content (Garavan
et al.,2022), via a range of communication channels. Research
on this topic often focuses on consumers’brand associations
learning process (du Plessis et al., 2024) and the brand
associations’connectionin an associative network (Böger et al.,
2017), with less work on the brand meaning components
content.
Company-initiated signals typically incorporate brand
meaning components and brand promise cues (Garavan et al.,
2022;Karanges et al.,2018), encompassing brand knowledge
(information) in the form of functional and symbolic offer
attributes (Oh et al.,2020). The brand signal research either
focuses on the overall brand understanding and its origins
without listing any associations (Garavan et al.,2022), or
randomly identifies and reports broad (i.e. Crawford
Camiciottoli et al., 2014;Ranfagni et al.,2021;Ranfagni et al.,
2023), or a very specific (i.e. Lee et al., 2022;Ranfagni et al.,
2016) brand associationcues list. This research does not clearly
concentrate on the identification of all possible brand
knowledge components.
The recent shift from traditional to online marketing
communicationschannels and the ongoing “digitalisation”(i.e.
Estrella-Ram
on et al.,2019) designate brand-generated
content as a crucial communication tool (Berger et al.,2020),
especially in social media. The use of online brand-generated
sensory, particularly pictorial,content is on the rise (Petit et al.,
2019), and practitioners appreciate the unique and authentic
visual encoding’s effective brand positioning ability (Ries,
2015). Visual-based social networks, such as Instagram, gain
popularity (Frier and Grant, 2020;Lee et al.,2021),
accelerating companies-customers knowledge sharing and
information diffusion (Shwartz-Asher et al.,2020). The
interactive brand posts on these platformsoffer unprecedented
opportunities to experimentwith various messages (Ashley and
Tuten, 2015), boosting the content development needs. The
expanding research stream on projected brand association
online cues (Crawford Camiciottoliet al.,2014;Ranfagni et al.,
2016;Ranfagni et al.,2021;Ranfagni et al., 2023) is not
surprising, but the focus on pictorial online brand association
cues is still very limited.
Despite extensive research and the proven companybenefits
of social media communication and brand-generated content,
the brand-generated signal information composition or
structure is unknown for all signalling information types. Most
of the brand-generated content research engages with the post
attributes (Ballester et al.,2021;Ballester et al.,2023;Casal
o
et al.,2021). Research appreciates that pictorial information
differs from textual in processing and is easier to memorise and
recall than textual information (Leeet al.,2024). Regardless of
the wide use of visuals to encode complex brand messages and
advice to increase their use to better understand brand
associations (Supphellen, 2000), very few studies analyse
brand-generated pictorial content in social media (photos).
When they do so, they focus onthemes that may attract viewer
attention (i.e. Zhou and Xue, 2021), typically without
considering brand associations cues information (brand
knowledge associations), leaving the visual signal content an
uncharted area.
The extensive brand associationsresearch neglects the brand
signals information (knowledge)content. Research appreciates
that gaining in-depth insight into brand associations is a
difficult and challenging (Supphellen, 2000). To date, there is
no comprehensive framework classifying the essential for
academic researchers and practitioners involved in developing
brand-generated content or segmenting the market for
potential brand associations. The brand positioning
information categories are uncharted in the existing literature,
leaving the information cues marketers use to visually portrait
brands (brand promise) unexplored, especially in the
increasingly used online pictorial brand-generated content.
This work aims to develop a framework for the brand
knowledge associations by proposing a conceptual
categorisation suitable for theorganisation and presentation of
these association, thus informing theory (Doty and Glick,
1994;Sandbergand Alvesson, 2021).
Given that complex service brands offer a diverse range of
tangible and intangible, varying in nature and availability,
offered online and offline and targeting a wider range of
consumers than other offers (Brown et al., 2020), two studies
analysed brand-generated pictorial signals projected by firms
operating in two sectorial contexts (restaurants and hotels).
Data from major pre-selected European capitals in different
cultural contexts, 243 Instagram company-posted photos from
26 restaurantslocated in Madrid, Paris and Rome for study one
and 390 company-posted photos from 29 hotels in Moscow,
Berlin and Stockholm for study two, was collected.
Concentrating solely on the post content and not the
communication tone or appeal, the data was systematically
analysed to identifythe projected brand cues (brand knowledge
associations) and establish meaningful brand association
content categories. These categories were organised in a
framework comprising two overarching categories containing
five sub-categories each encompassing a wide variety of
possible brand signals. Due to its unique structure and
characteristics,this typology makes a significant contribution to
proposing a brand associations theory (Doty and Glick, 1994;
Sandberg and Alvesson, 2021) by providing empirical support
and further enriching the composition of the broad distinct
brand knowledge association types proposed from recent
conceptual brandmeaning creation work (Veloutsou, 2023).
The subsequent sections define brand associations and the
concepts using it, present the signallingtheory and its relevance
to this research and detail the gaps in the current body of
knowledge. They then outline the used methodology and
present the findings. Finally, they offer a comprehensive
discussion of the findings’implicationsfor theory and practice.
Brands, brand knowledge and related terms
Brand associations are the specific mental links or connections
constituting the brand components, ultimately stored in
individuals’memories. A brand association is a subjective,
individual, deep-rooted brand perception or belief, reflecting
information (knowledge) nodes related to a brand attribute, a
brand benefit or an aspect independent of the brand but
perceived as linked with its use or consumption (Bergkvistand
Taylor, 2016;Divakaran and Xiong, 2022), sometimes
reported as brand connotation (Brunner et al., 2016;
Brand-generated signals
Cleopatra Veloutsou and Estefania Ballester
Journal of Product & Brand Management
Volume 34 · Number 3 · 2025 · 376–397
377
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