A Conceptual Study of Brand Communities

-- Harsh Arora

It is a common strategy for every brand in the world to develop a strong base of brand loyal customers. Due to immense competition, brand loyalty has become a `Holy Grail' for the brands. All brands are running to build brand loyal customers. Therefore, the pertinent question is how to develop this base of brand loyal customers? According to Porter (1990), in the world of competition, the companies, which want to get success, have to follow any of the three generic strategies. These are cost leadership, differentiation and focus. Some international brands have followed the strategy of differentiation and initiated `brand communities'. These brand communities are not specific to any particular product category. Be it a motorcycle brand as Harley Davidson, or Apple Computers, all are putting considerable emphasis in developing brand community for their brands. Through these brand communities, they will be able to develop a strong bonding of their customers with their brands, which can further deepen the brand loyalty. This paper studies the concept, and its positive and negative facets by emphasizing on its management perspectives for the international brands.

© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

Internal Branding: Aligning Human Capital Strategy with Brand Strategy

-- Bilal Mustafa Khan

In brand management, service and promise are crucial, and the role of the employee is paramount in delivering the brand. Customer satisfaction is the holy grail of any large organization. The higher the customer's valuation and satisfaction, the larger will be organization's loyal customer base. To treat kindly and pamper employees and regard them as `strategic human capital' will motivate them to perform to their fullest potential. Successful internal branding helps employees to better understand and shape their awareness, behavior and commitment towards the brand. The stepchild to external branding in the past, today internal branding is quickly being recognized as critical to a company's success. The paper delves into the process of internal branding in organizations and crafts a strategy of application for delivering superior performance.

© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.

Does Entry of Global Financial Services Brands Influence Commercial Borrowers in a Lesser Developed Economy?

-- Bhaskkar Sinha

A global brand is a valuable intangible asset as it can create demand pull and consumer satisfaction. But is it same for a global financial service brand when it enters a local market? There is no definite answer. Making use of the recent liberalization of the banking sector in India, the author empirically examines the impact of the entry of global brands to the regional firms. To capture the firm level heterogeneity and factoring for the time effect, the author uses the firm fixed and year fixed effect, respectively, in the panel regression. The result shows that for the lesser known firms in the district where the global brands have extended the service for the first time, there is a decrease in credit access. This result is important as it is against the objective of financial inclusion as proposed by the regulators in India.

© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved

The Brand Relationship Cycle: Incorporating Co-Branding into Brand Architecture

-- Per E Åsberg and Henrik Uggla

This paper presents and explains a model for how co-branding can be integrated into the brand architecture and how it can be strategically leveraged from different sources in a system of brands. The model adopts a more balanced perspective than existing models that tend to make an artificial dichotomy between co-branding and brand architecture. The model enables assessing co-branding options in relation to brand architecture within the context of the Brand Relationship Cycle (BRC).

©2009 IUP . All Rights Reserved.

CASE STUDY

Acer vs. Lenovo: Asian Brands' Global Ambitions

-- Saradhi K Gonela

In mid-2007, Acer, one of the world's largest branded PC vendor with 5.9% market share, reached a milestone. It became the third largest by acquiring Gateway, the world's eighth-largest PC vendor with 2.2% market share. The combined share of these two companies is enough to dethrone Lenovo from its third spot, with 7.3% market share. The acquisition also provided required scale for Acer, to challenge the top 2 PC vendors, Dell and Hewlett-Packard (HP).

© 2009 IBS Case Development Centre. All Rights Reserved.