As the world is recovering from one of the worst global meltdowns that the economies world over have seen in recent times, the corporates are devising new strategies to bounce back with renewed vigor. New opportunities are opening up, corporates are again in hiring mode, consumers are loosening their purse strings and strategists have again started to work overtime to lure the customers. At this juncture the academicians too are looking at the new fields of research with novel zest and enthusiasm.

The first paper of this issue, “Customer Perception About Celebrity Endorsement in Television Advertising for Retail Brands”, by Varsha Jain, Mari Sudha and Aarzoo Daswani, attempts to understand the perception of consumers about celebrity advertising for retail brands. This empirical study used structured questionnaire to collect data from a sample of 186 respondents. The paper brings forth many interesting findings like customers prefer female celebrities over male celebrities, etc. This study also claims that preference for celebrities was more for sensory products than cerebral products, and also, customers want celebrities to entertain them as well as give information pertaining to the products in the advertisements. According to the authors, the factors that customers perceive to be of importance in selecting the celebrities for retail brands are proficiency, reliability, pleasantness, elegance, distinctiveness, approachability and non-controversial.

The importance of a brand personality cannot be overlooked. Many researches are being done to understand the concept, importance and impact of brand personality. The second paper, “Understanding Consumer Perception of Brand Personality”, by Anuja Pandey, also addresses this issue. The author tries to identify how consumers perceive the brand personality of the parent brand. According to the author, the success of any brand extension strategy depends on the strength of the parent brand personality and its brand equity. Hence, before going for any brand extension, the author recommends a thorough understanding of the parent brand personalities. In this study, the author has used Jennifer Aaker’s Brand Personality Scale (BPS) to understand and measure the brand personality of Dove brand.

The concept of brand extension has also been studied in the paper, “Consumer Attitude Towards Brand Extensions: An Integrative Model from the Indian Perspective”, by Sheena. The author introduces a model consisting of the factors that influence the formation of brand extension attitudes based on the dominant cognitive hypothesis. The key elements of the model are characteristics of the parent brand, experience with the parent brand, characteristics of extension category, relationship between parent brand and its extension, and the perception of fit. The author, based on her study, identifies the variables that moderate and control the key elements of the model. She has classified these variables into three groups—individual factors, external factors and extension making strategy. The author claims that this paper has exposed the loopholes of the past research, enabling the construction of an integrative model which shall prove useful for future research.

Influence of Country of Origin (COO) on the branding strategies is another area of research that has been producing interesting insights for both academicians and corporate managers. The paper, “‘Made in Italy’ in China: From Country of Origin to Country Concept Branding”, by Salvatore Snaiderbaur, analyzes the main success components of the Italian brand and the opportunity that they have for further growth in the Chinese market. The author asserts that in order to be successful in China, products made in Italy must evolve from bearing purely a COO mark to a country concept brand that represents a certain style and a guarantee of quality.

During recession, besides India, China was also a blue-eyed boy of the world economists. The paper, “Opportunity for Luxury Brands in China”, by Ronald Jean Degen, contends that if any luxury brand has to dominate the world market, it has to be successful in the Chinese market. The author has analyzed not only the luxury market in China, but also the affluent Chinese consumers and their conspicuous consumption. The author provides the reader his take on the future of Chinese luxury brands and recommends a few pertinent strategies that would enable a seller to be successful in the luxury market of China.

The paper, “Brand Evaluation and Purchase Intention: Impact of COO of Luxury Cars on Indian Metro Customers”, by Jyothsna Priyadarsini K and Goodwin D R, attempts to explore the customers’ perception of the COO of luxury cars, how the luxury car brands are evaluated based on its COO, customer’s preference towards COO of the luxury car brand and how COO influences buyer’s intensions.

The paper, “Corporate Brand as Co-Driver: A Framework for More Transparent Corporate Brand Leverage”, by Henrik Uggla and Per Åsberg, discusses how a corporate brand can develop more expansive brand architecture through image-transfer to and from brands and other entities in the internal brand hierarchy and surrounding brand network. The authors assert that as the corporate brand becomes linked to brands and other entities, a coherent corporate brand architecture becomes a crucial component in a firm’s overall marketing strategy.

The final paper of this issue, “An Empirical Study on Brand Awareness and the Factors Influencing Brand Loyalty Towards Hair Shampoos”, by Lalit Mohan Kathuria and Bhupinder Jit, studies the brand awareness and brand loyalty of consumers towards hair shampoos. Their study highlights that the important factors that influence brand loyalty towards hair shampoos are product quality (dandruff removal, shine and silkiness, and ingredients), availability of the preferred brand and brand image.

- Nitin Gupta
Consulting Editor