literature review on brand value

Constructing Brand Value Proposition Statements: a Systematic Literature Review

J Market Anal DOI 10.1057/s41270-017-0014-6

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Constructing brand value proposition statements: a systematic literature review

Deborah Goldring1

Revised: 9 April 2017 Ó Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2017

Abstract This study examines the state of communicating understanding of the beneﬁts of a brand. The importance of the brand value proposition via a systematic literature a strong brand value proposition in the sales process was review from research published in marketing journals from ﬁrst written about by Hanan (1970)inConsultative Selling 1996 to 2015. A sample of 56 articles from high-quality and remains a fundamental part of this sales technique marketing journals examines the components of the brand through eight editions of this popular book, grounded in value proposition statement, applicable theories, and what he termed the Proﬁt Improvement Proposal. The descriptive ﬁndings. There has been an increased interest in brand value proposition was further conceptualized by the research on brand value propositions as value creation McKinsey in the early 1980’s as ‘‘a decision and com- becomes more customer-focused and value-based selling mitment to deliver a speciﬁc combination of resulting becomes more pervasive. This exploratory study suggests experiences, including a price, to a group of target cus- an ongoing need for examining the effectiveness of types tomers, proﬁtably and better than competition.’’ (Lanning of brand value propositions in terms of both the managerial 2000, p. 2). This practitioner-developed concept slowly process in which they are constructed as well as the pre- entered the marketing scholarly literature in the 1990’s cision of such brand promises on customer understanding. (Hughs and Chaﬁn 1996; Maklan and Knox 1997) and has The paper concludes with a suggestion for more robust recently begun to ﬁnally receive attention from a wide empirical research on the construction and deconstruction number of international scholars (Anderson et al. 2006; of brand value propositions, a need for more managerially Frow and Payne 2011; Payne and Frow 2014a, b). How- focused research, and a future research that examines the ever, brand value proposition is barely mentioned in some under-researched area of how value propositions are of the most popular marketing textbooks (Kotler and Keller effectively communicated on branded websites. 2016; Armstrong and Kotler 2017). Moreover, to date, no systematic review has been conducted on the concept of Keywords Brand value proposition Á Citation analysis Á communicating the brand value proposition in the mar- Systematic review Á Customer value Á Brand promise keting literature. The concept of the brand value proposition is essential Introduction in developing marketing plans. The fundamental domains of marketing strategy include the creation of marketing objectives, the selection of appropriate target market seg- A well-articulated brand value proposition is one of the ments, the development of a brand value proposition that most widely used sales and marketing communication tools highlights the beneﬁts of an offering to the customer, and that enable buyers and sellers to create a shared the allocation of resources to deliver and communicate the value of offerings to the customer (Slater 1997). & Deborah Goldring Indeed, the expression of the value proposition as a [email protected] message is usually communicated via the web site. Over 1 School of Business Administration, Stetson University, the years, the ubiquitous ‘‘About Us’’ page has served as DeLand, FL, USA the place for mission statements, biographies of founders, D. Goldring background information on the history of the organization, propositions also exist for the corporate brand as a whole. and perhaps its core values. It is an imperfect location for The purpose of this article is to explore the nature of the articulating the value proposition. A convenience sample of research, how it has progressed, and where the opportuni- the top 25 ﬁnancial planning ﬁrms in a large U.S. city ties for future research exist. A systematic method for uncovered a hodge-podge of approaches to clearly and selecting marketing journal articles is based on the concisely communicating the brand value proposition. methodology of Tranﬁeld et al. (2003). This systematic Approximately 16 of the 24 had no identiﬁable brand value review provides a platform for how research on the brand proposition. Most of their assertions were focused on the value proposition has developed in the past two decades as company itself, using page navigation such as ‘Our Com- a strategic marketing concept and been applied in various pany,’’ ‘‘Our Philosophy,’’ ‘‘Services,’’ ‘‘Who We Are,’’ or empirical contexts. This methodology can identify impor- ‘‘Our team.’’ A few used ‘‘Our Mission,’’ yet mission is tant gaps in our understanding of how brand value propo- quite different from brand value proposition because it is sitions are communicated and can conﬁrm areas of an organizational construct that articulates why you are in agreement in the maturing brand value proposition business. A small minority of our sample had clear navi- literature. gation that contained the value proposition. Navigation To achieve the objective of deepening the understanding buttons such as ‘‘Our Pledge,’’ ‘‘Our Promise,’’ and ‘‘Our of communicating the brand value proposition, the fol- Commitment,’’ and ‘‘Why Choose Us’’ are much more lowing research questions are proposed: (1) How is brand customer-focused on the beneﬁts of engaging with these value proposition deﬁned as a marketing managerial con- ﬁrms. cept? (2) What theories and concepts are applied in the Anderson et al. (2006) proclaimed that brand value literature? And (3) what do the empirical ﬁndings suggest? propositions are fundamental to strategy and performance This article is structured as follows: ﬁrst, the methodology via the communication of all beneﬁts, favorable points of for the systematic review is explained. Next, the answers to difference or parity, and a resonating focus. However, there our research questions are presented. Finally, we discuss are consequences to an imbalance of these factors. An the limitations and propose future research. overemphasis on beneﬁts may overwhelm customers with utility they neither need nor want. Managers may also have an imbalance of beneﬁts that are points of parity and not Methodology points of difference. Managers may not have complete or quality information on what truly resonates with their This study applies the systematic review method of Tran- customers in terms of the value of the brand. An exami- ﬁeld et al. (2003) whose multi-stage approach results in a nation of the value proposition statements on the sample of comprehensive and reproducible literature review. Stage ﬁnancial services ﬁrms also revealed these imbalances, one is planning the review, stage two is conducting the especially over weighted in points of parity and under review, and stage three is reporting and dissemination. weighted in points of difference. The ﬁrst stage of the review includes limiting the scope Lanning and Michaels (1988) proposed a value delivery of the research to include the concept of value proposition system comprising choosing the value, providing the value, in the marketing literature from the level of analysis of and communicating the value. This literature review focu- brands and not employer value proposition, for example. ses on the communicating process of articulating the needs The research questions were also developed at this stage. and key beneﬁts desired by each target market segment, and Stage two involves the identiﬁcation of keywords and the resulting messaging that is constructed to communicate search terms, the selection of studies, an assessment of the brand value proposition via key promotional activities study quality, coding and data extraction, and data syn- including advertising and personal selling. Webster (1994, thesis. Finally, stage three involves reporting descriptive p. 25) summarized the deﬁnition of a brand value proposi- information on the coding categories, providing an inter- tion as a ‘‘shared understanding needed to form a long-term pretation of emerging themes, and answering the research relationship that meets the goals of both the company and its questions. customers.’’ Most recently, the work of Frow and Payne We conducted a broad search of the marketing literature (2011) and colleagues positioned research on brand value unrestricted by date starting with the identiﬁcation of propositions within the domain of service-dominant logic as keywords and search terms. The goal of this research is to a process that enables the alignment of value within all assess the range of deﬁnitional, conceptual, empirical, and marketing stakeholder groups. theoretical approaches to brand value proposition. A systematic review of brand value proposition is nee- The search string included the appearance of ‘‘value ded to reﬂect on the current state of the research on the proposition’’ in either the title, abstract, or keywords in product and service unit of analysis. Brand value high-quality marketing journals (Steward and Lewis 2010). Constructing brand value proposition statements: a systematic literature review

The search strategy was replicated by a research associate. Articles on brand value proposition were published in a Searches were conducted in several databases including broad cross section of marketing journals which are shown Business Source Premier (EBSCO), ProQuest, Emerald in Table 2. Approximately 18% appeared in Industrial Insight, and Science Direct. Google Scholar was also Marketing Management . The next most frequent journals mined for published articles and full conference papers. A in which brand value proposition was found include the total of 93 articles were found that met our initial search Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (9%), criteria. A total of 37 articles were subsequently excluded Journal of Services Marketing (7%), and Journal of Con- from the search because they either did not have any sig- sumer Marketing (5.5%). These four journals account for niﬁcant mention of brand value proposition beyond the 40% of the number of articles published on brand value abstract, or they were primarily concerned with brand value proposition during this period of time. Interestingly, there creation related to product design, development, or manu- are no articles from the ﬁeld’s top three journals, Journal of facture. These latter articles were generally found in the Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of product development literature. The ﬁnal dataset included Consumer Research. 56 journal articles and one published proceeding. The next stage was to classify and code the articles for common characteristics such as year of publication and Data analysis and results journal title, as well as research methodology and conclu- sions. This coding was conducted by one of the authors and The next stage of research involved conducting a more an independent research associate. Disagreements were detailed assessment of the relevancy of each article to the resolved by the authors. The distribution of articles by year concepts of constructing and communicating the brand shows the research dating from 1996 with the number of value proposition. This stage, moreover, involved data articles accelerating after 2010 (Fig. 1). The volume of extraction of additional variables including: how brand articles from 1996 to 2009 stayed relative stable with an value proposition is deﬁned, theoretical frameworks, average of two articles published per year. Starting in 2010, whether the article was conceptual or empirical, and if the the number of articles published per year increased sig- latter, what methods were used, how variables or constructs niﬁcantly, to a high of eight articles in 2012 and 2014, and were measurement, what context and geography was at an average amount in this period of over six articles per studied, and ﬁnally, what were the ﬁndings and contribu- year. This increase in interest may be due to work on tions of the study. service-dominant logic and more speciﬁcally to the modi- The ﬁrst research question for this study was to analyze ﬁcation of a foundational premise (FP7) in which the how brand value proposition was deﬁned as a strategic authors clarify that ‘‘the enterprise cannot deliver value, marketing concept. Not all of the articles articulated a clear but only offer value propositions’’ (Vargo and Lusch 2008, deﬁnition of brand value proposition and most used their p. 7). The subsequent publishing of several articles from own deﬁnition. Lanning (1988) was the most common Payne, Frow and colleagues resulted in a signiﬁcant source for a deﬁnition. There were 26 unique deﬁnitions increase in the research on brand value propositions (Payne extracted from the dataset. et al. 2008; Korkman et al. 2010; Frow and Payne 2011; This followed with a content analysis performed in Ballantyne et al. 2011; Payne and Frow 2014a, b) qualitative analysis software NVIVO (QSR International, (Table 1). version 8 for Windows) which revealed the most common keywords included by researchers in their brand value

9 propositions (Table 3). The most often words were cus- 8 tomer and value followed by more expressive words such 7 as beneﬁts and promises. Additional text analysis resulted 6 in categorization by themes. 5 We then identiﬁed the major themes occurring across 4 the dataset using an open coding technique. This analysis 3 identiﬁed the major themes present in the deﬁnitions as a Number of Articles 2 function of the most commonly utilized keywords 1 throughout the deﬁnitions extracted. The most encountered 0 conceptual theme in the deﬁnitions analyzed refers to 2008 2009 1996 1997 2003 2004 2005 2007 2010 2012 2013 2015 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2006 2011 2014 customer value as the central focus of what a brand value Year proposition should include. The second major theme Fig. 1 Distribution of published articles on communicating brand includes beneﬁts, including how the organization creates value proposition between 1996 and 2015 social and functional beneﬁts for its customers. The third D. Goldring

Table 1 Distribution of articles Journal Number Percent in marketing journals Industrial Marketing Management 10 18.18 Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 5 9.09 Journal of Services Marketing 4 7.27 Journal of Consumer Marketing 3 5.45 Australasian Marketing Journal 2 3.64 California Management Review 2 3.64 European Journal of Marketing 2 3.64 Harvard Business Review 2 3.64 International Journal of Innovation Management 2 3.64 Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing 2 3.64 Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice 2 3.64 Journal of Product and Brand Management 2 3.64 Journal of Product Innovation Management 2 3.64 Journal of Service Research 2 3.64 Marketing Theory 2 3.64 International Journal of Bank Marketing 1 1.82 International Journal of Marketing Studies 1 1.82 International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management 1 1.82 Journal of Business Research 1 1.82 Journal of Financial Services Marketing 1 1.82 Journal of Marketing Management 1 1.82 Journal of Promotion Management 1 1.82 Journal of Service Management 1 1.82 Long Range Planning 1 1.82 Management Decision 1 1.82 Managing Service Quality 1 1.82 main theme, as seen in Table 4, focuses on the value analysis. Because this is a ﬁeld that is still developing, just promise to be included in a brand value proposition, no over half of the total articles (53.3%) are conceptual in matter if they are reciprocal, explicit, or implicit. nature (Table 6). However, in examining the two periods a The theory of service-dominant logic (Vargo and Lusch narrative emerges in which during the early period, 77% of 2008) was overwhelmingly the most common theory the articles were conceptual, and only 9% empirical/ applied in our dataset, with no other theory being used by quantitative, while in the later period, there were just 38% more than two papers. Other theories used include: system conceptual papers and almost 15% empirical/quantitative. theory, equity theory (Adams 1963; Huppertz et al. 1978), The distribution of qualitative research was 13.6% in the social exchange theory (Blau 1964; Cropanzano 2005), early period and 47% in the later period. Chi-square practice theory, consumer culture theory (Arnould and analysis showed signiﬁcance at p \ 0.05 (v2 = 8.53). Thompson 2005), and customer value-based theory of the We examined both the industry focus and the geo- ﬁrm (Table 5). graphic sources of data for the empirical research. While Articles were classiﬁed according to their research the retail sector is the most studied industry, there is a design. The articles in the dataset were divided into two relatively even distribution between retail, manufacturing periods: 1996–2010 and 2011–2015 based on the both the (including telecommunications) and other services. There distribution of articles and on the strong inﬂuence of ser- appears to be an overwhelming predisposition for research vice-dominant logic theory. A typology of classifying activities in the United States, Canada and Europe, with articles based on whether they were qualitative, quantita- these three areas claiming 77% of all research contexts tive, or conceptual was applied (Hanson and Grimmer (Table 7). 2007). Qualitative articles employed methods such as There were only a handful of empirical articles. Two of interviews, case studies, ethnography, and observations. the articles (Melancon et al. 2010; Ling-yee 2011) sur- Quantitative methods included surveys (CFA) and conjoint veyed mangers to explore how brand value propositions are Constructing brand value proposition statements: a systematic literature review

Table 2 Deﬁnitions of brand value propositions Author(s) Brand value proposition deﬁnition Source of deﬁnition

Aaker (1996) …usually involves a functional beneﬁt, is basic to brands in most Author product classes […] value relates more to functional beneﬁts and the practical utility of buying and using the brand Kaplan and Norton (1996) The attributes that supplying companies provide, through their Authors products and services, to create loyalty and satisfaction in targeted customer segments Anderson and Narus (1998) The worth in monetary terms as the technical, economic, service, Authors and social beneﬁts a customer company receives in exchange for the price it pays for a market offering. Bititci et al. (2004) An implicit promise a company makes to its customers to deliver Author, Martinez (2003) a particular combination of values Anderson et al. (2006) (1) All beneﬁts—all beneﬁts customers receive from a market Authors offering. (2) Favorable points of difference—all favorable points of difference a market offering have to the next best alternative. (3) Resonating focus—the one or two points of difference (and perhaps, a point of parity) whose improvement will deliver the greatest value to the customer for the foreseeable future Rintama¨ki et al. (2007) (1) The verbal statement that matches up the ﬁrm’s distinctive Webster (1994), Ballantyne and competencies with the needs and preferences of a carefully Varey (2006), Authors deﬁned set of potential customers. It’s a communication device that links to people in an organization with its customers, concentrating employee efforts and customer expectations on things that the company does best in a system for delivering superior value. (2) Reciprocal promises of value, operating to and from suppliers and customers seeking an equitable exchange. (3) An encapsulation of a strategic management decision on what the company believes its customer value the most and what it is able to deliver in a way that gives it competitive advantage Korkman et al.(2010) Resource integration promises—ﬁrms enhance value creation by Authors providing resources that ‘‘ﬁt’’ into the practice constellations of customers Ballantyne et al.(2011) (1) The marketing offer or value promise formulated and Authors communicated by a seller, with the intent that it be accepted by a buyer. (2) A statement of beneﬁts offered to a customer group and the price a customer will pay Frow and Payne (2011) Reciprocal promises co-created usually between two counter- Authors parties Lidicˇ and Margques da Silva The values a company delivers to customers in order to satisfy Anderson et al. (2006), Lanning (2000) (2011) their needs. A value proposition is about the customer but for the company’s internal use and it also must deﬁne exactly what the organization intends to provide to the customer’s life Hassan (2012) (1) An explicit promise made by a company to its customers that Buttle (2009), Lanning (2000) it will deliver a particular bundle of value creating beneﬁts, (2) a written statement focusing all the organization’s market activities onto customer critical elements that create a signiﬁcant differential within the customer’s decision process, to prefer and/or purchase the organization’s offering over a competitor’s, (3) an entire set of experiences, including value for money that an organization that an organization brings to customers Mason and Simmons (2014) Clusters of functional and emotional values that promise a Alsten and Kostelijk (2008), particular service experience De Chernatony and Segal-Horn (2003) D. Goldring

Table 2 continued Author(s) Brand value proposition deﬁnition Source of deﬁnition

Storbacka (2012) The ﬁrm’s suggestion to the customer on how its resources and Flint and Mentzer (2006) capabilities, expressed as artifacts (goods, services, information, and processual components, such as experiences), can enable the customer to create value Truong et al. (2012) (1) A statement of beneﬁts offered to customers, and the price Lanning and Michaels (1988), these customers are willing to pay for the beneﬁts. (2) The Lanning (2000) experiences customers obtain through interacting with a ﬁrm as against competitors Abdelkaﬁ et al. (2013) An overall view of a company’s bundle of products and services Osterwalder (2004), Johnson (2010). that are of value to the customer […] an offering that addresses the job-to-be-done and satisﬁes customers’ needs whether they know it or not Maglio and Spohrer (2013) Speciﬁc outcomes and key performance indicators that will Author, Anderson et al. (2007) change as a result of accepting an offer. At its core, a value proposition deﬁnes the pattern of shared access to resources among stakeholders over time Mikkola et al. (2013) (1) An encapsulation of what the company believes its customers Authors value the most and what it is able to deliver in the way that gives them the competitive advantage. (2) The core of the company’s marketing communication and its sales message, thus aiming to give companies clear guidelines on what aspects of the customer value they should bring forward in their selling and marketing efforts Byme and McCarthy (2014) General value proposition: The distinctive offering of a company Kaplan and Norton (2004) to its customers. Technical value proposition: That which puts a primary focus on the physical products and services. Relational value proposition: That which puts a primary focus on the relationship between the member and the credit union Frow et al. (2014) A dynamic and adjusting mechanism for negotiating how Authors resources are shared within a service ecosystem Holttinen (2014) (1) Signs to which consumers ascribe intersubjective meanings Author, Lusch et al. (2007) while experiencing them in different socio-cultural, spatio- temporal, and material contexts, (2) A promise the seller makes that value-in-exchange will at least result in value-in-use that meets or exceeds the value-in-exchange Nilsson and Ballantyne (2014) Promises or beneﬁts a customer might value, conveyed through Authors advertising or various modes of engagement through interactive communication Payne and Frow (2014a) An encapsulation of a strategic management decision on what Rintama¨ki et al. (2007) the company believes its customers value the most and what it is able to deliver that gives it competitive advantage Payne and Frow (2014b) An organization’s offering to customers, representing a promise Authors of beneﬁts of value that customers will receive during and after the usage experience Chandler and Lusch (2014) Invitations from actors to one another to engage in service Authors Pires, Dean, and Rehman (2015) All the attributes that suppliers offer to provide to their customers, Authors potentially creating some distinctive perception of value Ska˚le´n et al. (2015) Value creation promises created either by the ﬁrm independently Authors or together with customers and other actors through resource integration based on knowledge and competencies developed, demonstrating the lack of studies with a man- Discussion agerial focus. The remaining empirical articles reﬂected on how brand value propositions are perceived by buyers or The purpose of this research was to identify the growth in customers. Table 8 explains the primary emphasis for the interest and complexity in the communication of the brand empirical studies. value proposition statement. The focus was on the literature Constructing brand value proposition statements: a systematic literature review

Table 3 Most used keywords Word Count Similar words in brand value proposition deﬁnitions Customers 37 Customer, customers, customers’ Value 29 Value, values Offering 16 Offer, offered, offering, provide, providing Company 15 Companies, company, parties Beneﬁts 11 Beneﬁt, beneﬁts Promise 11 Promise, promises Market 10 Market, marketing, seller, selling Experiences 10 Experience, experiences, experiencing Organization 9 Organization, system, union Create 9 Create, created, creating, makes Deliver 8 Deliver, delivering, delivers Service 8 Service, services Gives 7 Give, gives, makes, pays Points 7 Aiming, indicators, point, points, targeted Provide 7 Provide, providing, suppliers, supplying Resources 6 Resource, resources Proposition 6 Proposition, suggestion Functional 6 Functional, operating, performance, using Receives 6 Invitations, meets, obtain, receive, receives Competitive 5 Competitive, competitor, competitors Exchange 5 Change, exchange Firm 5 Firm, ﬁrms Focus 5 Concentrating, focus, focusing Distinctive 5 Clear, differential, distinctive Communication 5 Communicated, communication, conveyed

Table 4 Major conceptual themes Themes Keywords

1 Customer value Customer value offer 2 Beneﬁts Social beneﬁts Functional beneﬁt Creating beneﬁts Beneﬁts customers 3 Promises Value promise Reciprocal promises Explicit promise Implicit promise 4 Market Market offering Marketing efforts Market activities 5 Experience Usage experience 6 Service Service ecosystem Service experience 7 Products Product classes Physical products 8 Communication Marketing communication Interactive communication Communication device 9 Resources Resource integration Providing resources related to the communication of value, not of value cre- There are several major descriptive ﬁndings based on ation or value delivery. A systematic review enabled a the research methodology. First, there has been a recent strong degree of reliability based on the inclusion of the spike in the growth in the number of articles on the brand most relevant and highest quality papers in the marketing value proposition statement, with a signiﬁcant increase in literature. This study was driven by the lack of clear con- volume in the last 5 years. Second, the majority of the sensus on the deﬁnition of brand value proposition. Three articles are conceptual and not empirical which suggests research questions were offered: (1) How is brand value further opportunities for causal research. Third, the retail proposition deﬁned as a marketing managerial concept? (2) sector received the most attention, which indicates future What theories and concepts are applied in the literature? research in the business to business sector. Fourth, over And (3) what do the empirical ﬁndings suggest? 80% of the data were collected in North America or D. Goldring

Table 5 Conceptualizations of brand value proposition in theory Theory or framework applied Exemplary articles

Service-dominant logic Cova and Salle (2008), Payne et al. (2008), Peloza and Shang (2011), Kowalkowski et al. (2012), Mason and Simmons (2014), Truong et al. (2012), Maglio and Spohrer (2013), Frow et al. (2014), Holttinen (2014), Nilsson and Ballantyne (2014), Payne and Frow (2014a, b), Turner and Shockley (2014), Chandler and Lusch (2014), Pires et al. (2015), Ska˚le´n et al. (2015) System theory Breur (2006) Equity theory Lacey and Sneath (2006) Customer value-based theory Ling-yee (2011) of the ﬁrm Social exchange theory Lacey and Sneath (2006), Mason and Simmons (2014). Practice theory, consumer Holttinen (2014) culture theory

Table 6 Research design emphasis on features, although this may be implied by Total 1996–2010 2011–2015 promises. Future research should explore why beneﬁts are seemingly overemphasized when in many contexts, buying Empirical—Qualitative 19/33.9% 3/13.6% 16/47.0% based on features is just as important or sometimes more Empirical—Quantitative 7/12.5% 2/9.0% 5/14.7% important, especially in the context of transactional or Conceptual 30/53.6% 17/77.2% 13/38% commodity-oriented purchases. For example, wine pro- Total 56 22 34 vides consistent beneﬁts to drinkers—pleasure, inebriation, v2 = 8.53, p \ 0.05 health—however, one study found that purchasing behav- ior was most inﬂuenced by three key features: calorie count, sustainability claims, and organic claims (Kelly Table 7 Industry focus and geographic source of data et al. 2015). Another recent study found that features may Number play a signiﬁcant role in the context of B2B marketing (Hallikas et al. 2014). Zablah et al. (2010) found that in a Industry focus B2B context, the highest ranked brand value propositions Retail 6 were for two features: logistics (availability, ease of IT/Telecommunications 3 ordering, lead time, etc.) and price (list and discounts). Manufacturing 2 A B2C study has also found the importance of proposing Other services/e-commerce 3 the importance of feature selling, under the condition Financial services 2 where there was lack of familiarity with a product cate- Geographic source of data gory. Women who did not have experience with fair-trade Europe 7 products made their purchase decision based on features, United States 6 while women who were familiar based their decisions on Canada 2 perceived beneﬁts (Lee et al. 2015). South Korea 1 For the second research question on theories applied, the Australia 1 results clearly show that service-dominant logic is the most China 1 prominently used theory in our sample. This theoretical focus has its advantages in making the formulation of empirical models more integrated. We also note that this Europe. Finally, all the empirical articles used survey predominating theory informs the most cited deﬁnition of research for their data collection method. brand value proposition. For the ﬁrst research question, we conducted a content The last research question on empirical ﬁndings suggest analysis on the extracted deﬁnitions and found that the idea that there are opportunities for more sophisticated research. brand value proposition was naturally focused on cus- The use of surveys and scales has been a signiﬁcant con- tomers and most often in terms of the beneﬁts presented tribution to the study of the antecedents and outcomes of and the promises offered. The most cited deﬁnition of forms of communicated value; however, surveys are brand value proposition was from Frow and Payne (2011), inherently biased and many customers and business people ‘‘reciprocal promises co-created between two counter par- alike suffer from survey fatigue. There were not enough ties.’’ Moreover, the deﬁnitions did not reveal a signiﬁcant articles to conduct a meta-analysis. Future research can Constructing brand value proposition statements: a systematic literature review

Table 8 Empirical focus of models Emphasis Finding Exemplary studies

Sources or practices that enable the formulation of Symbolic and instrumental brand beneﬁts, and product Kim et al. (2014) brand value proposition innovativeness Employee’s knowledge of its customers and competitors Melancon et al. (2010) Built on resources and competencies, not customer needs Mikkola et al. (2013) Customer value-based organizational culture Ling-Yee (2011) Provisioning practices, representational practices, and management Ska˚le´n et al. (2015) and organizational practices Brand equity Wagner and Benoit (2015) Forms of value articulated in the brand value Emotional, functional, and social value Green and Peloza proposition (2011) Expectation, partnership, transaction, and relationship value Kim et al. (2014) Product, service, and relationship value Lapierre (2000) Relational and technical value Byrne and McCarthy (2014) Relationship value Wagner and Benoit (2015) explore opportunities to mine content on web sites or on has been no scholarly research that explores how to optimize social media to establish which brand value propositions the communication of the value proposition on web pages. are the most engaging and socially shareable. Some of the limitations of this study are similar to sys- tematic literature reviews in general. A concerted attempt was made to include every relevant, high-quality, peer-re- Conclusion viewed journal article published on the topic of brand value proposition statements as far back as the databases indexed This study answers the call by Chandler and Lusch (2014) articles. We did not limit our search to B2B or B2C con- for meaning making in brand value propositions such that texts. There may be published work that was not included in research should explore how the communication function of our sample, for example, books and book chapters were value creation contributes to the development of symbols excluded. In addition, our review only examined articles and signs of value. Future research can examine the response written in English. We made a conscious decision to exclude to controlled brand value proposition statements with fea- articles on value creation and value delivery; however, some tures only, beneﬁts only, and with both features and beneﬁts of these excluded articles may have discussed aspects of in terms of the impact on brand attitudes and purchase value communication and speciﬁcally the creation of the intention. A natural extension to this experiment may be to brand value proposition statement. examine the actual brand value proposition statements of A successful marketing strategy depends on both a dif- brands and compare that to the results of the experimental ferentiated positioning strategy that demonstrates a strong conditions. Future research can examine the linguistic con- market position relative to competitors and a superior struction and meaning of brand value proposition statements brand value proposition that clearly articulates how the in a variety of contexts. A study of the most successful brand and all the features tied up in that offering will brands can yield new insights for managers who are making provide a compelling beneﬁt to the customer. The outcome every effort to cultivate their own brand value propositions. should be that customers will see the advantages of making A marketing analytics approach to future research would a purchase and the company will gain enough proﬁt to be be to collect data over time on how web designers are sustainable. The brand value proposition statement articu- treating high-level navigation. A convenience sample of lates the optimal brand-customer ﬁt. ﬁnancial planning ﬁrms indicates that the About Us page is usually reserved for biographies and mission statements and does not prompt customers to ﬁnd a value proposition in Funding This research did not receive any speciﬁc grant from these subpages. Nevertheless, the About Us page does signal funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-proﬁt sectors. legitimacy in line with institutional theory. However, there D. Goldring

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Brand orientation: a systematic literature review and research agenda

Spanish Journal of Marketing - ESIC

ISSN : 2444-9695

Article publication date: 31 January 2020

Issue publication date: 15 April 2020

Various studies dealing with brand orientation were analysed to discuss how the issues identified in this area have been relating over time. This paper aims to identify the key studies, the keywords used and the origin of the studies.

Design/methodology/approach

A systematic literature review (SLR) was performed within the Scopus database to select and summarize the studies that deal with brand orientation. Finally, 90 articles were subjected to bibliometric analysis.

Five major research areas were identified (brand orientation concept, hybrid strategies, internal branding management, brand performance and perceived brand orientation) and discussed.

Research limitations/implications

As the main theoretical contribution, the results showed a focus on research in five areas: the development of the brand orientation concept and proposed extensions; hybrid strategies; the relations between brand orientation, internal branding and brand management; the relation between brand orientation and financial performance; and the perceived brand orientation, mostly applied to higher education sector.

Originality/value

The study offers a general overview of brand orientation, identifying relations on topics of interest, main keywords and sub-themes in this field. The results contribute to fulfilling the research gap about the relationship between all these aspects. Finally, an agenda for future research is proposed.

Se analizaron diversos estudios sobre la orientación de la marca con el fin de discutir cómo se han ido relacionando a lo largo del tiempo los problemas identificados en esta área. Esta investigación identifica los estudios clave, las palabras clave utilizadas y el origen de los estudios.

Metodología

Se realizó una revisión sistemática de la literatura (SLR) con la base de datos de Scopus para seleccionar y resumir los estudios que tratan de la orientación de la marca. Finalmente, 90 artículos fueron sometidos al análisis bibliométrico.

Se identificaron cinco grandes áreas de investigación (concepto de orientación de marca, Estrategias híbridas, Gestión interna de marca, Rendimiento de marca, Orientación de marca percibida) y se discutieron.

Implicaciones de la investigación

Los resultados mostraron un enfoque en la investigación en cinco áreas: el desarrollo del concepto de orientación de marca y las extensiones propuestas; las estrategias híbridas; las relaciones entre la orientación de marca, el branding interno y la gestión de marca; la relación entre la orientación de marca y el rendimiento financiero; y la orientación de marca percibida, aplicada principalmente al sector de la educación superior.

Originalidad/valor

El estudio ofrece una visión general de la orientación de la marca, identificando las relaciones sobre temas de interés, las principales palabras clave y los subtemas en este campo. Los resultados contribuyen a llenar el vacío de investigación sobre la relación entre todos estos aspectos. Finalmente, se propone una agenda futura de investigación.

Palabras clave

Orientación de marca, Marca, Análisis bibliométrico, Revisión sistemática de la literatura

Tipo de artículo

Revisión general

Bibliometric analysis
Brand orientation
Systematic literature review

Sepulcri, L.M.C.B. , Mainardes, E.W. and Marchiori, D.M. (2020), "Brand orientation: a systematic literature review and research agenda", Spanish Journal of Marketing - ESIC , Vol. 24 No. 1, pp. 97-114. https://doi.org/10.1108/SJME-06-2019-0035

Emerald Publishing Limited

Published in Spanish Journal of Marketing – ESIC . Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

1. Introduction

The representativeness of a brand and its relevance can be, along with other aspects, translated into consumer loyalty and consumer willingness to pay a premium price, so that the strengthening of the brand can revert to financial performance gains ( Fischer et al. , 2010 ; Simon and Sullivan, 1993 ). Thus, in the twentieth century, a new organizational strategy of brand orientation was theorized, taking the focus of the company from just meeting the needs of customers to creating a strategic meaning for the brand ( Urde, 1999 ). Since then, studies in this area have evolved from the discussion about brand orientation to the analysis of its importance in companies ( Anees-ur-Rehman et al. , 2016 ).

For Urde (1994 , 1999 ), a brand-oriented company focuses on creating, developing and protecting brand identity, represented as the essence of the firm’s strategy. Since the inception of this concept, different studies have analysed the same concept in diverse contexts ( Cant et al. , 2013 ; Gromark and Melin, 2013 ; Jain et al. , 2018 ; King et al. , 2013 ; Napoli, 2006 ). In addition to empirical implications, several models were proposed to measure brand orientation, and its barriers, antecedents and outcomes ( Apaydin, 2011 ; Boso et al. , 2016 ; Harrison-Walker, 2014b ; Huang and Tsai, 2013 ).

identify the origin of the research (i.e. which institutions and which countries explore more the studies in this area);

identify the key studies and keywords used; and

discuss how the identified issues addressed in this area have been relating over time.

Despite the existence of a systematic literature review on the theme ( Anees-ur-Rehman et al. , 2016 ), we noticed that this study did not use bibliometric analyses, to deepen the understanding of the themes analysed. The use of statistical and mathematical techniques allows researchers to expand their vision about the object of study due to the identification of bibliometric relations on the topics of interest: main keywords and their relations; the relationship between sub-themes; and the main authors in the area ( Börner et al. , 2003 ; Waltman et al. , 2010 ). Thus, the use of statistical techniques, through a bibliometric analysis, enabled us to see some relationships that cannot be seen from a simple content analysis, filling the research gap about the relationship between brand orientation, its extensions proposed by Anees-ur-Rehman et al. (2016) , the sectors and the contexts explored by the studies.

To respond to the objective of the study, we performed a systematic literature review to generate a database to analyse bibliometricaly and better interpret the results. Thus, the bibliographic analysis techniques were applied to a final sample of 90 articles published between 1994 and 2018 in the Scopus database. According to this analysis, the studies concentrate on themes and countries, generating good research opportunities by expanding the areas studied and the issues involved.

2. Brand orientation

Brand orientation can be regarded as a strategic approach, in which the brand becomes the centre around which the organization’s processes are created through interactions of stakeholders. This closely ties it to business development and financial performance ( Gromark and Melin, 2011 ), as highlighted in the studies by Anees-ur-Rehman et al. (2018) and Wong and Merrilees (2008) . The theoretical development of this concept has been increasing since the year 2000, expanding to different extension, as suggested by Anees-ur-Rehman et al. (2016) .

Ewing and Napoli (2005) developed a scale to verify the application of nonprofit brand orientation, whereas Apaydin (2011) suggested a theoretical model of antecedents and consequents to the orientations of brands in that area. Besides that, Liu et al. (2017) found a positive relationship between brand orientation and internal brand mechanisms, which corroborates with the idea that a brand orientation approach contributes to employees who have a better understanding of their role within a nonprofit company.

Furthermore, in the third sector, Mulyanegara (2011a) examined the brand orientation from the consumer perspective ( Casidy, 2013 ), coining the concept “perceived brand orientation” (PBO) ( Anees-ur-Rehman et al. , 2016 ). In his study, Mulyanegara (2011a) concludes that active participation in churches is influenced by the positive evaluation of brand orientation as well as by the spiritual and social benefits derived from church programmes. Casidy (2013) analyses the PBO relationship with satisfaction, loyalty and post-enrollment behaviour in the higher education sector, indicating a significant relation with all the dependent variables. In the same way, Shahijan et al. (2016) also finds a positive relationship between perceived brand orientation and course satisfaction among international students in Malaysia.

In the political field, the political brand orientation consists of how party brand values and party practices are in conformity. That is, how much they are oriented towards developing brand potentials ( O’Cass and Voola, 2011 ). Downer (2016) works this concept to show how the actions of the party and its leaders can add or remove brand value, altering the value perceived by the voter.

In the same way, it is possible to develop the brand of a tourist destination and study it from this perspective. However, the tourist destination brand is an association of deliveries of products and services generated by distinct and often independent organizations ( Hankinson, 2012 ). Therefore, destination brand orientation (DBO) proved to have a strongly positive relationship with brand performance ( García et al. , 2018 ; Hankinson, 2012 ).

Particularly in the service sector, employees play a key role in the quality of service delivered ( King et al. , 2013 ; Terglav et al. , 2016 ). Thus, more specifically in the hotel industry, Terglav et al. (2016) indicate that the commitment employees have with the brand is related to the perception of the alignment between the behaviour of the brand managers. In the same line, King et al. (2013) highlight that there is a positive relationship between service brand orientation (SBO), employee orientation to the client and brand oriented behaviour.

When it comes to retail, the retail brand orientation (RBO) is described by Brïdson et al. (2013) as a strategy in which the organization prioritizes and manages the brand's distinctive, functional, augmented and symbolic attributes. Retailers who aim for a vantage point relative to competitors should invest in building a strong RBO. However, due to retail diversity, Schmidt et al. (2017) highlight that metrics may vary when analysed RBO in different retail sectors. Also, Balmer (2013) presented a concept of corporate brand orientation, where the corporate brand becomes the central pillar of the organization, reflecting the corporation’s values, culture and identity. Thus, employees, customers and other stakeholders are protagonists to build the corporate brand, which may create an emotional engagement with it ( Balmer, 2013 ).

In addition to the proposed extensions, brand orientation may also be linked to other strategies, generating the so-called hybrid strategies such as brand-market orientation and market-brand orientation, suggested by Urde et al. (2013) . Thus, Laukkanen et al. (2016) point out that the market orientation strategy has a positive impact on the financial performance of small companies if it is implemented through the brand orientation, which also proved to be a mediating factor between entrepreneurial orientation and business growth for small business-to-business (B2B) operating in emerging markets ( Reijonen et al. , 2015 ). This symbiosis is also present in political marketing, in which the parties that have the competencies to understand voters (political market orientation) and connect them with its offers (political brand orientation) would provide a unique value proposition, generating a clear differentiation from its rivals ( O’Cass and Voola, 2011 ).

In spite of the various studies of brand orientation, both empirical and theoretical, it was noticed that a bibliometric analysis can contribute to a better understanding of the relations between studies about the subject. This type of analysis has, as one of the purposes, to use statistical and mathematical techniques to structure the information, generating clusters and maps, so that the relationships between the data can be enhanced and visualized in a way that facilitates interpretation ( Börner et al. , 2003 ; Pritchard, 1969 ; Waltman et al. , 2010 ).

In the present study, we used two methodological approaches. Firstly, we conducted a systematic literature review based on Scopus, one of the largest peer-review scientific literature of large databases of scientific journals, also considered a consistent database to perform bibliometric analysis ( Anees-ur-Rehman et al. , 2016 ; Wang and Waltman, 2016 ). Moreover, Scopus uses rigorous criteria to index a journal, and all indexed journals are submitted to periodic evaluations to certify the maintenance of quality ( Elsevier, 2019 ). This review was carried out to generate the database for conducting a bibliometric analysis in which we used the techniques of bibliographic coupling ( Kessler, 1963 ) and analysis of co-occurrence of keywords ( Callon et al. , 1983 ).

3.1 Systematic literature review

The articles analysed in this study were identified through consultation with the scientific journals indexed to Scopus and Web of Science, with no category or date filters having been made, but rather language filters (only in English) and type of work (Articles and Reviews) instead. The terms used in the search engine were “brand orientation”, “brand-orientation”, “brand oriented” and “brand-oriented”, combined with the Boolean operator OR. The search was applied in the article title fields, abstracts, and keywords. We conducted it in June 2018.

did not have any technical information like author, year or abstract;

were not related to the areas of business, marketing, psychology or behaviour;

used the customer’s brand orientation as variable instead of brand orientation as strategy; and

did not use brand orientation as a model variable, that is, they used brand orientation only as a theory to support the article, but did not evaluate it to meet the search goal.

This analysis was carried out by reading the titles, abstracts and introductions of the studies. Those that fit into at least one of the exclusion criteria were removed from the sample. In cases where there were still doubts whether to keep or exclude, we read the full article. Thus, the final sample consisted of 96 papers. In total, 45 were in both databases, 45 only in Scopus and 6 only in Web of Science. Finally, we synthesized the articles and, as Scopus presented a large number of articles, we chose this database to perform the bibliometric analysis.

3.2 Bibliometrics

To perform the bibliometric analysis, we used the VOSViewer software, version 1.6.10 ( Van Eck and Waltman, 2010 ; Waltman et al. , 2010 ). From this tool, we applied technique of bibliographic coupling ( Kessler, 1963 ) and keyword co-occurrence analysis ( Callon et al. , 1983 ). In bibliographic coupling, the more references the articles share, the greater the similarity between them ( Egghe and Rousseau, 2002 ; Kessler, 1963 ). Therefore, we suggest that each cluster formed by bibliographic coupling forms the basis of a determined research front, as that cluster has articles with common references ( Jarneving, 2005 ).

As for the co-occurrence of keywords, the terms are grouped according to their degree of association in the literature, to identify which subjects were treated during the time. Thus, to examine the co-occurrence of keywords, it is analysed the frequency with which they appeared in the sample and how often two distinct keywords appear together in different jobs ( Cobo et al. , 2011 ; Losiewicz et al. , 2000 ).

The interactions formed from the application of these techniques were exposed in network maps ( Li et al. , 2016 ; Marchiori and Mendes, 2018 ), being that, each map is calculated by measuring the force of interaction between terms, which takes into account the number of links between the terms ( Van Eck and Waltman, 2010 ; Waltman et al. , 2010 ). Graphically, the terms (which, in this case, are articles or keywords) are represented by nodes and colour clusters, so that larger nodes represent more relevant terms than smaller nodes. The lines indicate the links between the nodes, as well as the distance, so that the closer one node is to the other, the more related they are Cobo et al. (2011) , Sinkovics (2016) and Van Eck and Waltman (2019) .

4. Results of bibliometric analysis

4.1 main studies and institutions.

When analysing the most relevant studies in the area, we noted that the study by Wirtz et al. (2013) is the most cited among the articles in the sample, even though it is relatively recent, while Urde (1994) , which starts the concept of brand orientation, appears as the fourth most cited. Table I shows the ten papers with the highest number of citations, the journals in which they were published, the number of citations, the total citations (TC) per year and their respective countries.

Among the institutions that have two or more publications in this area, most of them are from Australia and Europe. This happens not only in the production but also in the places where the research samples were collected, as shown by Anees-ur-Rehman et al. (2016) .

4.2 Co-occurrence keywords

When applying the co-occurrence technique with all keywords and with fractional counting ( Van Eck and Waltman, 2014 ), we found 236 different words. Of those, only those that had at least two occurrences were selected, generating 46 items. The keyword “brand orientation” was excluded from the analysis, as it was by this keyword that the articles were initially selected in the search engine. We also did an adjustment for keywords considered synonymous like “b2b” and “business-to-business”. Five groups were found.

Group 1 comprised terms such as brand commitment, internal brand management and employees, possibly relating the effects of the work of internal brand on employee commitment to the brand, with the hospitality sector standing out in this group, as the examples of studies by King and So (2015) and King et al. (2013) . Group 2 suggests papers that have explored small and medium-sized enterprises (SME’s) with the type of business-to-business consumer, directing the studies to the impacts of the brand orientation, as well as the adoption of hybrid strategies, financial performance and business growth. We noticed that, although market orientation does not belong to the same group, the term is very close to Group 2, mainly to b2b branding and strategic hybrid orientation, which indicates a strong relationship.

Group 3 is directed to the internal branding and market orientation, given that these two are the ones of greater relevance in the group. Similarly, both terms appear to be related to the nonprofit sector, internal marketing and perceived benefits generated, for example, by the association of the brand orientation with market orientation ( Mulyanegara, 2011a ). Also, Group 3 gathers keywords such as brand strategy, internal branding and brand equity that can be related to the positive impacts of brand orientation on internal branding and brand equity, as argued by Baumgarth and Schmidt (2010) .

Group 4 indicates articles that seem to relate aspects of the brand such as management and identity and shows how these aspects relate to strategic orientation, given that the terms brand management, brand identity and strategic orientation are in this group. It is important to note that, besides the keywords “financial performance” and “brand performance” which do not belong to Group 4, the proximity shows a relationship between those subjects. Finally, Group 5 includes keywords like innovation, customer loyalty and customer satisfaction suggesting that these aspects may be related to brand orientation ( Wong and Merrilees, 2008 ) with emphasis on the higher education sector ( Casidy , 2014a, 2014b ).

We observed that despite the concept of corporate brand orientation is one of the extensions of brand orientation ( Anees-ur-Rehman et al. , 2016 ; Balmer, 2013 ) this keyword (corporate brand orientation) is not widely used in the articles. On the other hand, corporate brand and corporate branding are the terms most frequently used ( Powell, 2016 ) and appear in this study’s sample.

4.3 Bibliographic coupling

To identify the interactions among the articles from the similarities between the references, we applied, in the sample, the technique of bibliographic coupling by documents, with fractional counting, which gives the same weight to each publication ( Perianes-Rodriguez et al. , 2016 ; Van Eck and Waltman, 2014 ). Thus, the map is shown in Figure 1 , where each of the five clusters found was circled to facilitate visualization.

Therefore, when analysing the most cited studies within each cluster, the first cluster seems to gather studies that deal with conceptual discussions of brand orientation, bringing more theoretical studies, including the study by Urde (1994) , who was one of the pioneers in the brand orientation theory. The most cited study of Cluster 2 empirically measures the effects of the adoption of hybrid strategies, like brand orientation with entrepreneurial orientation or brand orientation with market orientation, mainly in relation to growth and business performance. On the other hand, Cluster 3 presents, in its most cited studies, qualitative and quantitative articles, which relate to the development of the brand internally to the company or locally in a determined microregion. From another perspective, Cluster 4, despite its most cited articles, takes into account the impacts of a company to be brand oriented, usually in financial performance, and explores the concept of brand performance. Finally, the papers in Cluster 5 aim at the area of higher education, containing all the articles of the sample that cover this sector, and analysed the concept of perceived brand orientation. To summarize, Table II shows the four most cited studies, according to the Scopus, within each cluster and its main theme ( Waltman et al. , 2010 ).

5. Cluster analysis and discussion of results

In the bibliographic coupling, we can perceive the formation of five clusters: brand orientation concept hybrid strategies, internal branding management, brand performance and perceived brand orientation. When analysing each one of them it is possible to notice relations between some clusters and the keywords groups.

Cluster 1, titled brand orientation concept, set the base of brand orientation and strategic positioning theories, and it is formed by several qualitative studies. After Urde (1994) defines brand orientation, several studies developed scales to measure this concept, its antecedents, barriers and outcomes ( Brïdson and Evans, 2004 ; Gromark and Melin, 2011 ; Rentschler et al. , 2011 ; Harrison-Walker , 2014a, 2014b ). Besides, some researchers adapted the original concept to different areas such as nonprofits ( Ewing and Napoli, 2005 ; Apaydin, 2011 ), retail ( Brïdson et al. , 2013 ) and politics ( O’Cass and Voola, 2011 ; Downer, 2016 ) and also to different perspectives as perceived brand orientation ( Mulyanegara , 2011a, 2011b ). Furthermore, papers that discuss hybrid strategies ( Urde and Koch, 2014 ) and main positioning strategies ( Urde et al. , 2013 ) from a theoretical point also form this cluster. Thus, as this cluster is considered the base of brand orientation theory and their extensions, the keywords from the studies are spread in the different keywords’ groups, which are analysed below. Also, as declared, the keyword brand orientation and its synonyms have been deleted from the keyword group analysis.

The hybrid strategies (Cluster 2) is formed by articles that are mostly empirical, using methodologies such as factor analysis, structural equation modelling, cluster analysis and regressions. Laukkanen et al. (2013) and Reijonen et al. (2015) suggest that different strategic orientations, in addition to brand orientation, may impact the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and performance, encouraging the study of hybrid strategies. The adoption of another orientation strategy, also called a hybrid strategy, was still proposed by studies such as those by Anees-ur-Rehman et al. (2017) , Lee et al. (2017) and Reijonen et al. (2012 , 2014 ). There are also, in Cluster 2, several articles related to small and medium enterprises ( Ciunova-Shuleska et al. , 2016 , 2017 ; Hirvonen and Laukkanen, 2014 ; Hirvonen et al. , 2013 , 2016 ) and the effects of adopting this positioning strategies in companies of this size ( Chovancová et al. , 2015 ; Laukkanen et al. , 2013 , 2016 ; Lee et al. , 2016 ). Reijonen et al. (2012) suggest that small and medium growing companies are more brand and market oriented than other companies (stable or declining). This relation between hybrid strategies and small and medium companies can be seen in keyword groups, as the keywords “smes” and “entrepreneurial orientation” ( Chovancová et al. , 2015 ; Reijonen et al. , 2015 ) belong to keyword Group 2. Also, although the keyword “market orientation” does not belong to Group 2, the proximity suggests a relation to the keyword Group 2.

Cluster 3 has, as its main theme, the internal branding management. Thus, the application of brand orientation strategy to the internal development of the brand is composed of articles that mostly use the factor analysis, structural equation modelling and multiple regressions. Research, such as Baumgarth and Schmidt (2010) and Zhang et al. (2016) , explores the relationship between internal branding and brand equity. According to them, brand orientation has a positive impact on brand equity through internal branding. From another perspective, Wirtz et al. (2013) , which was the most cited article in the cluster, propose a model that relates brand orientation and consumer engagement in online brand communities (OBCs), suggesting that the consumer engagement in OBC’s can improve the brand equity. The relation between these themes can be seen through the keywords “internal branding”, “brand strategy” and “brand equity” that appeared together in Group 3.

Also, some studies in Cluster 3 explore the relation between brand orientation and internal brand under an employee’s commitment and behaviour, in both nonprofit and for-profit organizations ( Dechawatanapaisal, 2018 ; King et al. , 2013 ; Liu et al. , 2015 , 2017 ). In addition, strong internal brand development helps the employee to deliver services aligned with companies’ promises ( King and So, 2015 ). Thus, the relationship between the keywords on this theme, such as “brand commitment”, “internal brand management and employees”, is showed by Group 1.

The fourth cluster, titled brand performance, consists of both theoretical and empirical articles. Wong and Merrilees (2015) study the antecedents and consequents of brand engagement, showing that the brand orientation precedes this relationship and has positive consequences on brand performance and financial performance. Wong and Merrilees (2007a , 2008 ) have also studied the relationship between brand orientation and brand performance and the gap between brand performance and marketing strategy that, according to the authors, is partially filled by brand orientation. All articles were based in samples from Australia. Also, Varadarajan and Malone (2018) presented, through a case of study in a private international school in India, how branding improves the number of school enrollment. Gisip and Harun (2013) proposed a theoretical model where brand orientation is seen as a part of brand management strategy and has a positive relationship with brand performance.

Thus, the keywords in Group 4 gather together keywords such as “brand management, brand identity”, “business performance” and “Australia”, showing the association between the themes. Also, despite the keywords “financial performance” and “brand performance” (Group 2) belonging to a different keyword group, the proximity between these keywords suggests that these themes are related ( Baxter et al. , 2013 ; Wong and Merrilees, 2008 ).

Finally, the fifth cluster, titled perceived brand orientation, makes use of factor analysis and structural equation modeling and explores, for example, the positive relationships between brand orientation with student loyalty, satisfaction and intention to continue the course ( Casidy , 2013, 2014a ; Shahijan et al. , 2016 ). As perceived brand orientation considers the customer's point of view, those studies using keywords as “customer satisfaction”, “customer loyalty” or “student satisfaction” and “student loyalty” as those words are related with higher education. Keyword Group 5 shows these relationships.

In summary, articles show several relations between them. The internal aspects of the brand, and the adoption of hybrid strategies, mainly with market orientation, has been shown as a line of research that has aroused interest within the academic community, as well as the impacts of using these strategies on company performance. Still, perceived brand orientation seems to be a concept just being explored in a higher education and church context ( Casidy , 2014a, 2014b ; Mulyanegara , 2011a, 2011b ), which reveals the opportunity to explore it in other sectors like in services, given the importance of consumer perception ( Chovancová et al. , 2015 ). Each cluster also show practical implications of adopting brand orientation such as gains in performance, the impact in growth associated with market orientation (Cluster 2), impacts on employees’ commitment, employees behaviour and brand equity (Cluster 3), impacts on performance (Cluster 4) and impacts on customer satisfaction and loyalty (Cluster 5).

6. Research agenda

The results show a latent need for diversification of research in different countries, mainly by comparing the causes and effects of the actions of brand orientation strategy in developed and developing economies ( Laukkanen et al. , 2013 ). In addition, some studies ( Brïdson and Evans, 2004 ; Huang and Tsai, 2013 ; Osakwe et al. , 2016 ) demonstrate that good brand orientation work is related to issues such as differentiation and engagement, characteristics that seem to be even more necessary in sectors such as nonprofit, services and online commerce. In this way, future research can explore the brand orientation in these sectors, considering, for example, if nonprofit companies that are more brand-oriented are more trustworthy, and are thus able to raise more donations or attract more volunteers.

In the field of online commerce, we can verify if the brand orientation impacts on the reliability of this type of retail, thus positively affecting the consumer’s purchase intention. In the service sector, brand orientation can strengthen standardization, especially in companies that operate in different locations, with headquarters and subsidiaries, guaranteeing the same exclusive experience of the brand by the consumer, wherever they use the service ( Boso et al. , 2016 ). Wallace et al. (2013) suggest exploring brand orientation in hierarchical matrixes and branch structures, looking at the role of the local manager in the development of brand identity, and the influence of the local leader and his/her team.

Regarding the metrics used, the financial performance seems to be a very relevant metric and studied as a consequence of brand orientation ( Anees-ur-Rehman et al. , 2016 ). However, other aspects seem to be little explored, such as brand sustainability, innovation, productivity, loyalty and personality ( Anees-ur-Rehman et al. , 2017 ; Biedenbach and Manzhynski, 2016 ; Brïdson and Evans, 2004 ; Gisip and Harun, 2013 ). The public sector is also little explored, with few studies in this context, even though Gromark and Melin (2013) point out brand orientation as an interesting alternative to market orientation in this sector.

Although some studies have explored the use of hybrid strategies in areas such as SMEs and B2B, a few studies advance to the use of other strategies beyond marketing orientation, such as orientation for the technology, for the consumer, for innovation and entrepreneurship ( Anees-ur-Rehman et al. , 2018 ; Ciunova-Shuleska et al. , 2017 ; M’zungu et al. , 2017 ). It is also worth investigating when, how and what market positioning leads to the adoption of a certain strategy ( Urde and Koch, 2014 ). And, the use of hybrid strategies in different contexts might be explored as a U-shape relationship instead of a linear relationship ( Lee et al. , 2016 ). Moreover, within the mix of characteristics that a certain segment can present, putting together, for example, small and medium-sized B2B and B2C companies from different countries with different strategies, the multi-group analysis can be a powerful tool to analyse these distinctions, as in the study by Reijonen et al. (2015) . In addition, Boso et al. (2016) suggest research in the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, China, India and South Africa) and MINT (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey) and studies that compare the results for both developed and developing economies ( Powell, 2016 ).

Relating to internal branding, both external factors (such as market fluctuations, intensity of competition and technological changes) and internal factors (such as sustainability and innovation culture) can influence the development of the internal brand through brand orientation ( Dechawatanapaisal, 2018 ; Huang and Tsai, 2013 ; Iyer et al. , 2018 ). From another perspective, Wirtz et al. (2013) proposed a model that relates brand orientation and consumer engagement in OBCs. They suggested that future research could empirically test the differences between BCs (brand communities) online and offline, exploring when the firm should choose one or the other, as well as the antecedent and consequent model. The authors also suggest developing a scale to measure engagement in OBCs and test that engagement in brand performance. In addition, the authors suggest exploring the criteria to determine in which situations it is most beneficial the company to manage the OBC or the consumers. Otherwise, Ahn et al. (2016) and Hankinson (2012) explore the relationship between the brand of certain locations (country, region) and brand orientation. Thus, some indications for future research are the study of other destinations, and taking into account the size of destinations (whether they are, for example, large or small cities in relation to population size or local development), the levels of brand resources and brand architecture.

Innovation seems to play a crucial role in performance, be it financial performance, brand performance or customer performance ( Agostini and Nosella, 2016 ; Gisip and Harun, 2013 ; Lee et al. , 2016 ; Wong and Merrilees, 2008 ). Lee et al. (2016) argue that an excessive focus on a single strategy (brand orientation or innovation orientation) may decrease returns of brand performance. The authors suggest to future researchers that this relation in the turbulent market, wherein the innovation orientation can be more important than brand orientation because of environmental characteristics. Another suggestion is to analyse performance from the customer’s point of view ( Lee et al. , 2016 ).

Thus, another line for research is to explore the brand orientation of the internal and external perspectives. That is, from the points of view of managers and employees (internal perspective) and also taking into account the perceptions of consumers (external point of view), bringing a holistic view of the effects of brand orientation and possibly linking it with perceived brand orientation. Relating to higher education, perceived brand orientation is still little explored in distance learning ( Casidy, 2014a ; Shahijan et al. , 2016 ).

7. Conclusions

In conclusion, this paper highlighted the relationships between the issues of brand orientation and discussed how the extensions of this concept have been applied. As the main theoretical contribution, the results of the cluster and the keyword groups showed the focus on the research in five areas: the development of the brand orientation concept and proposed extensions; hybrid strategies, mostly applied in SMEs and focusing in brand-market orientation; the relations between brand orientation, internal branding and brand management; the relation between brand orientation and brand or financial performance; the perceived brand orientation as mostly applied to higher education sector. In addition, despite the continued development of the brand orientation theme, many industries and segments still require investigation.

Also, although recent research is diversifying the countries studied ( Ahn et al. , 2016 ; Schmidt et al. , 2017 ; Shahijan et al. , 2016 ; Varadarajan and Malone, 2018 ; Zhang et al. , 2016 ), taking into account the diversification between countries at different economic stages is necessary in an attempt to generalize the proposed models. In addition, given the complexity of adopting this type of strategy, more research can be done to clarify the background, consequents and barriers of brand orientation, their extensions and hybrid strategies, which are mainly useful managerial practices. Also, it would be interesting to perform a meta-analysis to further explore the details about the research questions related to brand orientation.

BC documents

Most cited articles

Source: Research data

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq/Brazil), project 304209/2018-0, by Foundation for Research Support of Espírito Santo (FAPES/Brazil), projects 81870973 (50/2018), 84513772 (599/2018) and 85395650 (228/2019), by Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT/Portugal) through NECE (Núcleo de Estudos em Ciências Empresariais), project UID/GES/04630/2019, and by IFTS (Instituto Fucape de Tecnologias Sociais), project 2018-2021.

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Published: 18 May 2024

Research on the influencing factors of Chinese agricultural brand competitiveness based on DEMATEL-ISM

Huanchen Tang 1 ,
Xiaodong Liu 1 &
Meiyu Li 2

Scientific Reports volume 14 , Article number: 11363 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

331 Accesses

Metrics details

Environmental economics
Socioeconomic scenarios

Agricultural products are pivotal to the national economy, and a comprehensive analysis of brand competitiveness significantly contributes to the support of agricultural structural adjustment and modernization. Focusing on the Yangtze River Delta region of China, this study develops an evaluation index system encompassing four dimensions: core brand competitiveness, brand management, market competitiveness, and innovation in branding. Utilizing a DEMATEL-ISM model, this research elucidates the intrinsic relationships among factors that influence brand competitiveness, resulting in a four-tier hierarchical model. The analysis delineates key factors at superficial, intermediate, and profound levels that influence brand competitiveness. Notably, regional production bases, along with innovations in brand technology and systems, emerge as profound influencers. Drawing on these findings, the study recommends strategies to enhance production foundations, accurately define development trajectories, spearhead technological innovation to foster collective reform efforts, and advocate for institutional advancements to bolster healthy brand growth.

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Introduction.

As a principal agricultural producer, China's agricultural product competitiveness significantly influences the country's agricultural progress 1 . Over the past four decades, due to reform and opening-up policies, China has seen substantial improvements in agricultural productivity. However, its agricultural development remains less advanced compared to developed nations 2 . Agricultural product branding, a critical element of the rural revitalization strategy, plays a pivotal role in fostering agricultural advancement and transformation, enhancing the quality and efficiency of products, increasing farmers' incomes, and broadening consumer demand 3 . Since 2007, the Chinese government has repeatedly underscored the significance of agricultural product branding, advocating for robust initiatives to promote the establishment of regional public brands, corporate brands, and enhance branding efforts, and to implement the 'three products and one standard' (variety optimization, quality improvement, brand creation, and standardized production) strategy to facilitate higher levels of green agricultural development 4 . The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2017 highlighted the critical issues of agriculture, rural areas, and farmers as fundamental to national welfare, placing the resolution of these 'three rural issues' at the forefront of its agenda 5 . Enhancing agricultural product brand competitiveness through the rural revitalization strategy is vital for market expansion, income increase, brand loyalty enhancement, international trade promotion, industrial chain optimization, and rural industry restructuring, establishing it as an essential component of the strategy. The No. 1 central document of 2017 advocated for the development of regional public brands and encouraged local governments to develop regional specialty brands supported by leading enterprises and industry associations 6 . The "National Rural Revitalization Strategy Plan (2018–2022)" explicitly called for a faster development of these brands to boost market competitiveness 7 . Subsequent documents in 2020 8 , 2021, and 2022 emphasized strengthening brand building and creating distinctive, 'small yet beautiful' specialty agricultural brands, reinforcing China's commitment to branded agricultural development 9 . The ongoing refinement of the agricultural branding system, marked by significant enhancements in brand benefits and more diversified distribution channels, underscores its strategic significance in China's agricultural advancement. Currently, China's agricultural product market confronts several significant challenges, including variable product quality, redundant branding for single products, low brand recognition, and inadequate branding efforts. The uneven and insufficient development of agricultural product branding is increasingly evident, becoming a major constraint on the rising consumer demand 10 . The third national agricultural census in China yielded trend charts of agricultural output values across the eastern, central, and western regions from 2011 to 2021 (Fig. 1 ) and for 2021 specifically (Fig. 2 ) 11 . According to Fig. 1 , agricultural output is predominantly higher in the eastern regions, while it is markedly lower in the central and western regions. Figure 2 illustrates that cities with substantial agricultural output predominantly cluster in the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and Bohai Economic Rim—areas known for their strategic economic importance and robust agricultural bases 12 . The "China Agricultural Product Brand Development Research Report" reveals that Chinese agricultural product brands are notably deficient in quality, quantity, scale, and efficiency, complicating the sale of these products and making brand building particularly challenging 13 . National policies have consistently advocated for enhancing agriculture through quality and branding, promoting environmentally sustainable, high-quality, specialized, and branded agricultural development 14 . Specifically, in 2020, the government escalated its expectations, focusing on establishing renowned agricultural product brands and augmenting the supply of premium, eco-friendly agricultural products 15 . What factors influence the competitiveness of agricultural product brands? How can the competitiveness of agricultural product brands be enhanced? Through what channels do these factors influence the competitiveness of agricultural product brands? Answering these questions is also the purpose and significance of this study.

Trends in the value of agricultural products in China's eastern, central and western regions, 2011–2021.

Heat Map of China's gross output value of agricultural products, 2021.

For agricultural product producers and operators, the ability to objectively assess the competitiveness of their brands is vital. Such assessments enable a comprehensive understanding of their brand's current status and challenges, informing strategic planning for brand development. To this end, this study employs the DEMATEL (Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory) structural model to examine the factors influencing the competitiveness of agricultural product brands in the Yangtze River Delta region of China. Building on this analysis, the paper proposes a scientifically sound and rational evaluation system for assessing agricultural brand competitiveness, thereby providing theoretical and practical insights for enhancing China's agricultural branding, boosting brand competitiveness, and supporting rural revitalization. This paper's innovations are twofold: first, it broadens the research perspective by focusing on brand competitiveness; second, it utilizes the DEMATEL-ISM model not only to analyze the determinants of brand competitiveness but also to uncover the underlying mechanisms of these factors.

Literature review

Brand competitiveness of agricultural products.

Agricultural product branding significantly enhances farmers' incomes and elevates the quality and efficiency of agricultural practices. This branding is fundamental to achieving greater market influence, increased market share, and enhanced added value for branded products over unbranded counterparts 16 . Serving as an extension of branding within the agricultural sector, it plays an essential role in facilitating communication between agricultural operators and consumers. Moreover, it boosts consumer recognition of agricultural enterprises, as well as the origin and quality of their products 17 , simultaneously highlighting the company’s reputation and its commitment to consumers.

Branding fundamentally involves an implicit contractual relationship between businesses and consumers, where businesses commit to providing high-quality products or services, and consumers reciprocate by paying a "brand premium," thus establishing a balanced market exchange model. This deepened relationship underpins brand competitiveness 18 . Agricultural product brand competitiveness is defined by a company's capacity to integrate both internal and external resources while considering consumer psychology. Effective branding strategies—including positioning, communication, operation, and management—help cultivate a favorable brand image, enhance consumer recognition, stimulate purchase behavior, and foster brand loyalty 19 . Additionally, Abimbola’s research suggests that the competitiveness of agricultural product brands is intricately linked to commitments to social responsibility and sustainable development 20 .

The millennia-old agricultural civilization of China has created substantial historical wealth. However, due to the smallholder economic structure, cultural traditions, and production practices, Chinese agricultural practitioners often exhibit weak brand awareness, and the development of agricultural product branding is relatively underdeveloped. This shortfall in strong, sustainable competitive brands significantly limits the enhancement of China's agricultural competitiveness 10 . Agricultural products typically feature inherent quality opacity, resulting in informational asymmetry between buyers and sellers and complicating consumers' ability to discern product quality accurately 21 . Consequently, branding, which functions both as a symbol and a quality assurance, has become an essential, competitive necessity in agriculture. As the commercialization of agricultural products advances, domestic brand competition intensifies, compounded by increasing pressure from imported agricultural products 22 . Without robust core competitiveness, Chinese agricultural brands may find it difficult to maintain market presence. Moreover, in an era characterized by rapid technological advancements, faster product iterations, and diversifying communication methods, sustaining a competitive advantage through branding poses growing challenges.

Factors affecting the competitiveness of agricultural brands

The foundational studies on brand competitiveness date back to the 1950s when Levy identified that brands significantly enhance consumer advantages in market competition 23 . Following this, scholarly research systematically explored brand competitiveness theory from diverse perspectives. For instance, Motamenti introduced a global asset model that evaluates brand competitiveness using customer potential, competitive potential, and global potential 24 . Tao Cai and colleagues developed a brand evaluation index system, considering brand value and focusing on six dimensions: positioning, personality, innovation, culture, communication, and customer engagement 25 . From a marketing and strategic standpoint, Suraksha Gupta and associates determined that brand differentiation positively impacts brand competitiveness 26 . Yishu Liu and collaborators examined the relationship between the agglomeration effect of agricultural products and brand competitiveness, concluding that agricultural industry clusters enhance the value of green brands, boost competitive advantages, and augment overall brand competitiveness through collaborative efforts among agricultural research bodies, activities, service organizations, enterprises, and administrative departments 27 . Yaqi Jin et al. highlighted that market environment, regulations, consumer demand, and technological innovation are critical determinants of agricultural product brand competitiveness 28 . Anselmsson pointed out the importance of supply chain management, marketing strategies, and brand reputation in influencing brand competitiveness 29 . Additionally, Abimbola and others emphasized that agricultural product brand competitiveness encompasses brand image, product quality, market position, and consumer perception 20 .

In summary, scholars both domestically and internationally have conducted extensive research on brand competitiveness assessment. Studies specifically addressing agricultural product brands have mainly focused on qualitative analyses of definitions, connotations, and enhancement strategies for brand competitiveness. However, in developing brand evaluation systems, previous research has largely emphasized the intrinsic brand development capabilities of companies and their financial and market performance 30 , while often overlooking the influence of external factors such as competitors and the competitive environment. A comprehensive analysis based on existing literature reveals that factors influencing agricultural product brand competitiveness include industry competition factors (e.g., organizational scale and industry competitiveness) 31 , enterprise characteristics (e.g., information, culture, technology, human resources) 32 , and inherent brand factors (e.g., reputation and awareness) 26 . On a micro level, elements such as technology, design, positioning, marketing, and service within agricultural enterprises can directly or indirectly impact brand competitiveness 20 .

The competitiveness of agricultural product brands exhibits unique characteristics and is influenced by a variety of factors, thus requiring thorough investigation from both macroscopic and microscopic viewpoints that encompass the brands' intrinsic elements and the external environment. Furthermore, there is a notable deficiency in existing research regarding in-depth analysis specific to certain regions or agricultural products, coupled with a scant examination of how emerging technologies can boost the competitiveness of these brands. Consequently, this study, which builds upon previous theoretical frameworks, concentrates on the competitiveness of agricultural product brands in China's Yangtze River Delta. It develops an empirical model to explore the factors affecting brand competitiveness and investigates the direct and indirect relationships among these factors, thereby providing a more scientifically grounded basis for enhancing brand competitiveness.

Overview of the study area and extraction of influencing factors

Overview of the study area.

The Yangtze River Delta, a pivotal nexus for the Belt and Road Initiative and the Yangtze River Economic Belt, includes Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, and Anhui. Renowned as one of China's most open, innovative, and economically robust regions, it plays a significant role in the country's market dynamics 33 . Throughout the integration process, the region's agricultural product market has demonstrated significant potential, becoming an integral part of the broader market integration in the area. Analysis of data reveals that of China's top 100 agricultural enterprises, 22 are located in the Yangtze River Delta, contributing to approximately 15% of the total revenue and 19% of the market transactions 34 . Figure 3 shows that from 2000 to 2021, the overall output value of agricultural products—divided into crops, forestry, livestock, and fisheries—has consistently risen 35 .

Boxplot of gross value of agricultural products in Yangtze River Delta.

The Yangtze River Delta region, a highly developed economic area in China, boasts a notable level of agricultural modernization and leads in financial innovation and reforms nationwide 36 . Despite these advancements, the region encounters challenges such as financial imbalances, suboptimal market structures, and inefficient financial resource allocation 37 . These challenges impede the development of a comprehensive agricultural industry chain, thus preventing the region from satisfying the national strategic imperatives for regional integration. Additionally, the Yangtze River Delta, a key economic hub in China, has experienced rapid enhancements in living standards, which in turn has spurred a strong demand for agricultural products. Consequently, analyzing the competitiveness of agricultural product brands in the Yangtze River Delta is of paramount importance.

Influence factor extraction and interpretation

Initially, the search in the CNKI database employed "agricultural products" and "brand competitiveness" as primary keywords, restricting document types to "CSSCI", "PKU Core", "CSCD", and "AMI". Similarly, in the Web of Science, the query TS = (agricultural products* AND brand competitiveness) was utilized. Redundant and irrelevant studies were systematically excluded, culminating in the selection of 35 papers suitable for detailed review and analysis of evaluative factors.

Subsequently, integrating literature review findings with expert interviews, twelve determinants of agricultural product brand competitiveness were pinpointed and designated S1 through S12. These were organized into four categories: foundational, management, market, and innovative competitiveness, as illustrated in Table 1 .

Moreover, to improve the precision and efficacy of the factor analysis, following Northcutt et al.'s 38 guidelines, a panel comprising 12 to 20 decision-making experts was assembled. This approach has been empirically confirmed as effective in further studies. The paper synthesized insights from discussions with 23 specialists and officials from agricultural management sectors, who assessed the relevance of each factor on a scale from no impact (0 points) to very significant impact (4 points).

Ultimately, the validation of content was achieved. The research conclusively mapped out the factors affecting brand competitiveness in agriculture across the four identified dimensions, detailed in Table 1 .

Research methodology and process

Overall process.

DEMATEL is a methodology devised by BOTTELLE Laboratories, employing graph theory, matrix tools, and expert knowledge to identify and analyze factors, thereby facilitating the resolution of complex real-world problems. This method operates without assumptions, enabling the exploration of logical relationships among elements and the determination of their importance and strategic status within the system 39 . Nonetheless, it lacks the ability to intuitively represent the interactions between internal factors. To overcome these shortcomings, this paper introduces the ISM (Interpretive Structure Modeling) technique. ISM further refines the comprehensive impact matrix using SPSS software, forming a multi-layered, sequential structure model that enhances the understanding of agricultural product brand competitiveness. This compensates for the deficiencies identified in the DEMATEL method 40 . By integrating these methods, a synergistic benefit is achieved, allowing for the intuitive visualization of relationships among factors and assisting in the selection of pivotal factors. This integration enhances the rigor and accuracy of the strategic recommendations and pathway analysis presented in this paper. Detailed procedural steps are illustrated in Fig. 4 .

DEMATEL-ISM operation flowchart.

DEMATEL method

Determine the influencing factors and establish the relationship matrix x.

Identify the set of influencing factors $S = \left\{ {S_{i} \left| i \right. = 1,2, \ldots ,n} \right\}$ , with Sij denoting the degree of influence of factor Si on Sj. For identical indices (i = j), S ij is set to 0. Construct the relationship matrix X, defined as $X=\left[{S}_{ij}\right]n\times n$ .

Calculation of the integrated impact matrix

Normalize using the row and maximum value methods, then compute the relationship matrix X employing Formula ( 1 ) to derive the standardized direct impact matrix Z. In this formula, the indices i and j range from 1 to n.

Building on the standardized direct impact matrix Z, this study elaborates the indirect relationships among factors by constructing the comprehensive impact matrix T, as specified in Formula ( 2 ). In this formula, 'A' denotes the identity matrix, with indices i and j ranging from 1 to n.

Calculating degree of centrality and degree of cause

The calculation for the degree of influence (P i ) is given in Formula ( 3 ). In the formula: P i represents the comprehensive impact value of factor i on other factors, with higher values indicating greater influence.

The calculation for the degree of being influenced (B i ) is given in Formula ( 4 ). In the formula: B i represents the comprehensive impact value that other factors have on factor i, with higher values indicating greater influence.

The calculation for centrality (C i ) is given in Formula ( 5 ). In the formula: C i indicates the level of importance of factor i, with higher values indicating greater importance.

The calculation for causality (R i ) is given in Formula ( 6 ). In the formula: R i represents the impact of factor i on other factors. If R i > 0, it is a causal factor, influencing other elements more; if R i < 0, it is a resultant factor, meaning it is more influenced by other factors.

Create centrality and causality diagrams

In this model, the horizontal axis denotes the centrality value P i (10)B i , and the vertical axis denotes the causality value P i —B i . The first quadrant, showing high i C and i R values, suggests that the factor is significant and causal. The second quadrant, with low i C and high i R values, indicates a less significant but still causal factor. The third quadrant, exhibiting low i C and R i values, marks the factor as less significant and resultant. Conversely, the fourth quadrant, featuring high i C and low i R values, signifies that the factor is significant and resultant 39 .

Calculate the overall impact matrix F that can be used for ISM calculations

The specific calculation of the impact matrix F is shown in Formula ( 7 ). In the formula: i, j = 1, 2, …, n.

Calculate the normalized reachability matrix Y

$Y=\left[{\gamma }_{\text{ij}}\right]n\times n$ , where a threshold is introduced (the threshold $\gamma$ can be obtained by calculating the average value of all items in the comprehensive impact matrix T). If F ij ≥ $\gamma$ , then ${\gamma }_{\text{ij}}=1$ , indicating that there is a connection path between elements; if F ij < $\gamma$ , then ${\gamma }_{\text{ij}}=0$ , indicating that there is no connection path between elements.

Influence factor hierarchy and directed graph construction

Formulas ( 8 ) through ( 10 ) are utilized to derive the antecedent factor E(F i ) and the reachable set G(F i ), followed by the computation of their intersection, denoted as H(F i ). If E(F i ) equals H(F i ), F i is identified as the top-level factor, prompting its removal. This iterative process continues until all factors have been eliminated.

Finally, according to the hierarchical treatment, a directed graph and a schematic diagram of the hierarchical relationships between the influencing factors are created.

Analysis of factors affecting brand competitiveness of agricultural products

Calculation based on dematel method, establish the relationship matrix x.

A five-level scoring method is employed to ascertain the magnitude of the factors' influence. In this approach, 0 denotes no influence of S i on S j , while the influence level progresses incrementally from 1 to 4, with 4 denoting a highly significant influence. Twenty-three experts specializing in agricultural products and brand innovation, either through research or extensive expertise, were solicited to assign binary scores to the qualitative indicators delineated in this study. Subsequently, the relationship matrix X is formulated and presented in Table 2 .

Determination of the integrated impact matrix T

The combined impact matrix T is derived from Eqs. ( 1 ) to ( 2 ) and is shown in Table 3 .

Determine relevant values and construct quadrant plots

The four values were calculated according to Eqs. ( 3 ) to ( 6 ), respectively, and are shown in Table 4 and quadrant plots were created and are shown in Figs. 5 and 6 .

Degree of centrality and degree of cause diagram.

Influence and influenced graphs.

Calculations based on the ISM method

Calculation of the overall impact matrix.

According to formula ( 7 ), the overall impact matrix F is calculated. Through computation, the threshold value $\gamma =0.252$ is obtained, and the reachable matrix Y is obtained, as shown in Table 5 .

Computational hierarchy models and relationship diagrams

According to Eqs. ( 8 ) to ( 10 ), the hierarchical structure between the influencing factors is derived (as shown in Table 6 ), and a schematic diagram of the hierarchical relationship is derived based on the analysis of the relevant data, which is shown in Fig. 7 .

ISM Multi-level recursive structure of factors influencing brand competitiveness of agricultural products.

Based on the findings of hierarchical analysis and in conjunction with the associations among factors depicted in the adjacency matrix, we establish the ISM model for assessing the factors affecting agricultural product brand competitiveness. Illustrated in Fig. 7 , the 12 influencing factors construct a hierarchical structure model with four tiers, demonstrating heterogeneous characteristics among factors across different levels. With the progression of tiers, the influencing factors of agricultural product brand competitiveness shift gradually from surface-level to deeper considerations.

Conclusions and recommendations

Conclusions.

Enhancing agricultural economic growth benefits through branding to promote high-quality development within the agricultural economy is now a critical consideration in the emerging development paradigm. Viewing this issue from a national standpoint, agricultural product branding serves not only as an effective mechanism for expediting agricultural economic growth but also as a pivotal factor in guaranteeing the high quality and efficient supply of agricultural products, thereby contributing to the holistic advancement of the agricultural economy. Furthermore, significant disparities exist in the output value of agricultural products between the eastern and central-western regions, reflecting regional differences. Agricultural product output values tend to be higher in the eastern region but comparatively lower in the central-western region. Consequently, addressing this disparity necessitates regional adjustments to branding strategies tailored to capitalize on and accommodate the distinct conditions and advantages present in each region.

Analysis of surface-level direct influences.

In Fig. 7 , the outermost layer comprises brand awareness (S 7 ) and brand image (S 6 ), constituting direct influencing factors of agricultural product brand competitiveness. Brands with high visibility in the agricultural sector typically engender trust among consumers, who are also more inclined to pay a premium for renowned brands. Consequently, agricultural product brands with high visibility can often command higher prices in the market, thus enhancing brand competitiveness 41 . A positive and consistent brand image also enhances consumer loyalty 29 . Within the agricultural product domain, continuously enhancing product quality, fostering brand awareness, and cultivating a positive brand image serve to bolster consumer perception and distinguish oneself in the market competition.

Analysis of factors influencing mid-level transitions

The seven factors situated at the intermediate level serve as "bridges" linking the surface-level direct influencing factors with the underlying influential factors. Through bridging the surface-level direct factors and the deep-rooted influencing factors, they facilitate transmission and transition. Notably, brand culture (S 1 ), brand product quality (S 2 ), brand service level (S 4 ), and brand market positioning (S 8 ) may directly or indirectly impact consumers' trust and attitudes towards the brand. Emotional connections between consumers and brands can be fostered from these angles, thereby cultivating a positive brand image and attracting more consumers to agricultural product brands. Furthermore, brand marketing capability (S 5 ), market share (S 9 ), and brand cultural innovation (S 12 ) impact the brand competitiveness of agricultural products from internal and external standpoints. Hence, agricultural product brands ought to stay abreast of contemporary trends, guiding consumers towards emerging demands for agricultural products while bolstering the brand's foresight. Moreover, strategic market promotion and active engagement in advertising endeavors can elevate brand awareness and recognition, consequently augmenting market share.

Deep root cause impact factor analysis

In Fig. 7 , the foundational factors for agricultural product brand competitiveness are delineated as regional production foundation (S 3 ), brand technological innovation (S 10 ), and brand institutional innovation (S 11 ). These factors represent the fundamental influences on brand competitiveness. Certain region-specific attributes like soil quality and climate can give rise to geographical indications, facilitating traceability and quality assurance for agricultural product brands. This phenomenon not only boosts brand credibility but also serves as distinctive selling points for the brand 42 . Furthermore, the integration of novel technologies contributes to enhancing the quality of agricultural products. This includes augmenting yields, minimizing losses, and refining processing methodologies, consequently bolstering the competitiveness of agricultural products 43 . Moreover, the optimization of the industry chain necessitates collaborative efforts spanning production, processing, logistics, and other related sectors. Consequently, agricultural product brands can achieve cost reductions and efficiency enhancements.

Recommendations

Investigating the competitive landscape of agricultural product brands stands as a pivotal endeavor within the realm of agricultural advancement. Using agricultural products from the Yangtze River Delta region of China as an illustrative case study, this study provides a comprehensive summary and analysis of the factors influencing the competitiveness of agricultural product brands. This study constructs a hierarchical influence pathway model to elucidate the interrelationships among the factors influencing the competitiveness of agricultural product brands. With regard to the underlying influential factors depicted in Fig. 7 , suggestions and strategies for enhancing the competitiveness of agricultural product brands are put forward, focusing on three dimensions: regional production base (S 3 ), brand technological innovation (S 10 ), and brand institutional innovation (S 11 ).

Enhance the production infrastructure and rationally establish developmental objectives

Enhancing the competitiveness of agricultural product brands from the perspective of regional production bases necessitates the full exploitation of regional characteristics and advantages. Initially, exploring the region's climate, soil, and water resources is crucial to cultivating agricultural products that embody local distinctiveness, thereby establishing unique brand selling points. Additionally, securing geographical indication certification solidifies the association of agricultural products with their specific regions, which significantly boosts their traceability and credibility.

Secondly, to enhance the regional distribution of agricultural products in the Yangtze River Delta and mitigate the issue of homogeneity in market competition, it is crucial to pursue misaligned development strategies and encourage differentiated competition. Establishing robust standards for agricultural product quality and implementing a strategic program to improve varieties based on regional resource endowments are essential. This strategy should include national planning for the layout of variety improvements. Additionally, support the creation of national, regional, and local zones for agricultural product brand innovation to ensure the stability and reliability of product quality. Moreover, increased investment in rural infrastructure is necessary to improve production conditions and the efficiency of agricultural product distribution 44 .

Ultimately, fostering the integration of agriculture with other sectors is essential to developing a diversified economic model and increasing the added value of the agricultural supply chain. Concurrently, it is crucial to develop mechanisms for the dissemination and sharing of scientific findings and to enhance collaborations among universities, research institutions, and businesses focused on scientific exploration and talent cultivation. A collaborative framework should be established, involving governmental intellectual property protection agencies, industry associations, cooperatives, and agricultural enterprises, to support a multifaceted protection system. Embracing contemporary concepts of market supervision, innovating regulatory frameworks, and nurturing organizations that provide social services for agricultural product brands are imperative for advancing this agenda 45 .

Lead technological innovation and form a synergistic force for reform and innovation

From the standpoint of brand technological innovation, considering the high homogeneity and low differentiation typical of agricultural products, the primary objective in their management is to innovate in cultivation and breeding techniques. Such innovation is essential for achieving product differentiation, thereby allowing marketed products to attain high added value attributed to their 'scarcity' and 'innovation'.

Firstly, given the inherent seasonal nature of agricultural products, adopting both basic and advanced processing strategies emerges as an effective avenue for corporate innovation 46 . Investing in the processing of agricultural products—such as dried fruits, canned goods, and dehydrated fruits—and further innovating with reprocessed items like dates stuffed with walnuts, sesame-filled seaweed, and filled persimmon cakes, not only mitigates the seasonal supply gaps but also opens new avenues for product innovation within companies. Moreover, leveraging genetic modification technologies to develop new varieties with enhanced yields and improved pest and disease resistance reduces dependence on chemical pesticides, thereby enhancing product safety and environmental sustainability, which in turn boosts the market competitiveness of these companies.

Secondly, to boost the global competitiveness of agriculture, it is essential to strategically leverage both domestic and international markets and resources. This includes taking a leadership role in establishing relevant international standards and rules, developing world-renowned agricultural product brands, and promoting the trade of unique and advantageous agricultural products to further their internationalization 47 . Additionally, utilizing e-commerce platforms for the digital marketing of agricultural products not only enhances product visibility and expands sales channels but also employs advanced technologies like blockchain to increase supply chain transparency. This approach ensures product traceability, thereby building consumer trust—a crucial factor in enhancing the market competitiveness of agricultural products.

Finally, to effectively advance the integration of agricultural product distribution, developing a strategic spatial layout for agricultural product circulation and removing inter-regional distribution barriers are essential. This strategy involves increasing investment in transportation infrastructure and equipment for agricultural products, enhancing the control capabilities of key logistics nodes, and ensuring seamless agricultural production, distribution, and consumption processes. Furthermore, it is imperative to accelerate the enhancement of informatization in transportation infrastructure, develop multimodal transport operators, and bolster the construction of warehousing, preservation, and cold chain logistics facilities at agricultural production sites to foster the rapid development of rural e-commerce 48 . Additionally, policies should encourage modern distribution enterprises to focus more on the central and western regions, optimize and upgrade internal commercial and logistics networks, and integrate global resources to establish cost-effective, efficient, and highly resilient distribution channels. Exploring a 'Smart+' model for the intelligent and informatized development of agriculture will facilitate the integration of agricultural products from the central and western regions into the new dual-circulation development paradigm, both domestically and internationally.

Promote institutional upgrades to support the healthy development of brands

From the perspective of brand system innovation, agricultural enterprises exert a pivotal guiding role in the market. Firstly, regional policies must focus on enhancing the protection and management of agricultural product brands, particularly by securing certifications based on geographical indications. Such certifications underscore the vital contribution of local specialty agricultural products to rural industrial development, improvement of the primary industry's quality and efficiency, and augmentation of farmers' incomes. Additionally, the benefits of large-scale agricultural operations should be leveraged to optimize and expand the industry and value chains of agricultural products, thereby increasing the brands' added value and leading effectively in market competition and demonstration 49 . Furthermore, a robust collaborative mechanism within the agricultural industry chain should be established to motivate producers to form cooperatives and alliances. This approach fosters close collaboration throughout the agricultural industry chain and facilitates the sharing of resources, information, and market opportunities.

To safeguard the safety of agricultural products, it is advisable to establish a comprehensive safety production system and implement full-process risk management spanning from production to sales, facilitated by digital management systems. This initiative will bolster control capabilities over agricultural product safety, thereby ensuring consumers' access to safe and high-quality agricultural products. Regarding marketing and brand maintenance, enhancing synergies between government entities and market participants is imperative. Specifically, government agencies should selectively support leading enterprises within the agricultural products sector, augmenting their financial, technological, and personnel support to foster innovation and development in the agricultural products market 50 . Moreover, the government should steer agricultural enterprises towards transitioning from traditional offline marketing models to online + offline omnichannel marketing strategies, aligning with the purchasing preferences of contemporary consumers and broadening market reach.

In conclusion, certain local governments and enterprises exhibit inadequate marketing awareness and deficient brand communication capabilities, leading to their brand influence being confined to the local realm. To augment the impact of agricultural product brands, local governments should intensify their focus on brand communication and implement a series of measures to bolster enterprise brand marketing endeavors 51 . For instance, local authorities should proactively facilitate collaborations between media, marketing, e-commerce, and relevant university departments to establish university-enterprise alliances with local agricultural product brand enterprises, thereby furnishing enterprises with high-quality brand communication support. Moreover, local governments can devise incentive policies to recognize enterprises and individuals who have made noteworthy contributions to agricultural industry chain innovation, thereby fostering further institutional innovation and motivating enterprises.

Discussion and limitations

Significance of the study.

From an academic standpoint, this research comprehensively examines the developmental mechanisms and influencing factors of agricultural product brands in the Yangtze River Delta region, elucidates the interplay between brand construction and market competition, and furnishes a theoretical framework for comprehending the operational dynamics of the agricultural product market. Furthermore, delving into the competitiveness of agricultural product brands in the Yangtze River Delta region offers theoretical underpinning for advancing agricultural modernization and rural revitalization. Moreover, delving into the competitiveness of agricultural product brands can generate abundant research avenues and theoretical insights across various disciplines such as economics, marketing, and agricultural economics, thereby offering guidance for regional economic development models, adjustments in industrial structure, and related matters.

Examining the competitiveness of agricultural product brands is crucial for guiding the advancement of the regional agricultural product industry. Comprehending the present competitive landscape and developmental trends of agricultural product markets in the Yangtze River Delta can inform strategic brand positioning and marketing for agricultural enterprises, thereby boosting their market competitiveness and profitability. Additionally, examining the competitiveness of agricultural product brands in the Yangtze River Delta region can serve as a model for developing agricultural product brands in other areas, thus fostering nationwide improvement and elevation of agricultural product brands. Moreover, bolstering the establishment of agricultural product brands in the Yangtze River Delta region aids in augmenting the visibility and reputation of regional agricultural products, facilitating both domestic and international sales, and facilitating the effective realization of strategies for rural economic sustainability and revitalization.

Research limitations

This study examines the determinants influencing the competitiveness of agricultural product brands. However, several deficiencies persist. Primarily, the study centers on agricultural product brands within the Yangtze River Delta region, encompassing provinces exhibiting varied economic development and agricultural production profiles, including Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui. Substantial disparities exist in the developmental status of agricultural product brands and market conditions across different regions. Regrettably, these variations remain unexplored in the study, constituting a significant limitation of the research design. Secondly, the analysis solely examines the influencing factors of agricultural product brands, overlooking their role in regional economic development, social dynamics, transportation infrastructure, and other relevant aspects. Lastly, China is presently transitioning its rural revitalization strategy from macro policy formulation to micro-level implementation. Agricultural product brands emerge as potent instruments in this process. Nevertheless, the empirical investigation into the efficacy of agricultural brands during this transitional phase remains inadequately comprehensive. Government policies significantly shape the trajectory of agricultural product brand development. Given the potential evolution of policy environments and support levels in the Yangtze River Delta region, there exists uncertainty that could impinge upon the long-term applicability and generalizability of the research findings.

Future research could investigate how different provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Delta can collaborate to improve the overall competitiveness of agricultural product brands. This involves examining resource sharing, policy coordination, and market integration strategies among diverse regions, and understanding their impacts on brand development and market competitiveness. Additionally, future research should account for the variations and distinguishing features of agricultural product brands across provinces within the Yangtze River Delta region. Researchers could choose specific agricultural product brands for field studies and conduct thorough research on their contributions to increasing farmers' income and fostering industrial development. Lastly, given the accelerated pace of globalization, future research should examine the adaptation of Yangtze River Delta agricultural products to international market demands, and explore methods to enhance brand competitiveness globally through international cooperation and external market strategies.

Data availability

The datasets used and analysed during the current study available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to the judging experts and all members of our team for their insightful advice.

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support provided for this research by the Shanghai Art Science Planning Project, No.YB2022-F-059, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, 2232021B-03 and research on the Inheritance and Development Mechanism of Rural Traditional Crafts Driven by Innovative Designs, CNACS2023-I-38.

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Conceptualization, H.T.; methodology, H.T.; resources, H.T.; data curation, H.T.; writing—original draft preparation, H.T. and X.L.; writing—review and editing, H.T.; X.L. and M.L.; visualization, H.T.; supervision, H.T. and X.L.; funding acquisition, X.L. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Tang, H., Liu, X. & Li, M. Research on the influencing factors of Chinese agricultural brand competitiveness based on DEMATEL-ISM. Sci Rep 14 , 11363 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-62068-1

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Increasing Importance of Brands and Branding: a brief literature review

The definition of a brand image has been proposed as “the total, global impression of the information that accumulates in the memory of consumers in relation to a band” (Franzen and Moriarty, 2008, p. 241). The terms of branding in particular has been defined as “the process of continuous struggle between procedures ad customers to define the promise and meaning” (Healey, 2008, p.6).

The issues of increasing importance of brands and branding in modern global marketplace have been addressed by a wide range of authors and the most noteworthy contributions to the issue have been made by authors such as Hill et al (2006), Franzen and Moriarty (2008), Clifton and Ahmad (2009), and Kotler and Pfoersch (2010).

Interestingly, Okonkwo (2010, p.9) reasons that “the origin of brands comes from the times when early cattle-rearing men stamped their ownership on their livestock by burning a mark of their name or identity on the cattle, to distinguish one cattle-farmer’s stock from another’s”. However, according to Franzen and Moriarty (2008) the importance of branding has seen a significant boost during the past several decades, and reasons for this have been offered as increase in the level of well-being of consumers (Inkpen and Ramaswamy, 2006), increasing role of media (Steers and Nardon, 2008), and innovations in marketing communications (Alessandri, 2009).

Abbing (2010) addresses the issues associated with the shift in the role and meaning of branding in a detailed manner and presents his findings in terms of differences in branding in the past and present in the following manner:

Branding Past and Present

Source: Abbing (2010)

In justification of increasing importance of brands and branding secondary data authors argue that “the intangible elements of the combined market capitalisation of Standard and Poor’s 500 companies has increased at around 80%, compared with some 30% 20 years ago, and it is likely to grow even further as tangible distinctions between businesses become less sustainable” (Clifton and Ahmad, 2009, p.5). Considerable increase in intangible elements of major multinational businesses can justly be credited to increasing importance of brands and branding in modern global marketplace.

Moreover, to further justify this stand authors mention official statistical data according to which “the 100 most valuable brands in 2008 were worth over $1.2 trillion, which would make them the 11 th biggest country in the world in terms of GDP, ahead of India and just behind of Brazil” (Clifton and Ahmad, 2009, p.6).

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Clifton, R. & Ahmad, S. (2009) “Brands and Branding” John Wiley & Sons

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Hill, C.W., Tim, R. & McKaig, T. (2006) “Global Business Today” McGraw-Hill Ryerson

Inkpen, A.C. & Ramaswamy, K. (2006) “Global Strategy: Creating and Sustaining Advantage Across Borders” Oxford University Press

Okonkwo, U. (2007) “Luxury Fashion Branding: Trends, Tactics, Techniques” Palgrave Macmillan

Steers, R.M. & Nardon, L. (2008). “Managing in the Global Economy”, ME Sharpe

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REVIEW OF LITERATURE BRAND Definition of Brand

The American market association (AMA) defines as a-A name, symbol, design, or some combination which identifies the product differentiate them from those of competition (Keller, 2003, p3) Another definition by Kapferer (2004) says that a brand is a set of mental associations, held by the customer, which add to the perceived value of a product or service. These associations should be unique (exclusive), strong (salient), and positive (desirable). To many, a brand suggests the best choice, while others see a brand as something the customer knows and will react to. Despite the formal definition, the purpose of branding is essentially to build the product's image (Keller, 2003). This image will influence the perceived worth of the product and will increase the brand's value to the customer, leading to brand loyalty (Kapferer 2004). There are various definitions and explanations revolving around the term 'brand.' Taking the literal meaning of the word and encompassing it into a universal business understanding, a brand is a permanent mark that is hot stamped onto a good or service. This brand would have a particular and distinct company name and respective trademark. According to the American Marketing Association (AMA), a brand is composed of several elements, such as a name, a logo, and a design. It is often that a brand has all of those elements working together in a way that uniquely identifies a company and differentiates it from its competitors. As for the Merriam-Webster Dictionary (2013), a brand is not only a collection of goods and/or services

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Acinetobacter baumannii is considered as one of the most virulent and infectious organisms that have an increased ability to both evade host immune response and resist various classes of antibiotics, leading to life-threatening infections. Multiple virulence factors have been implicated in the high prevalence rate of A. baumannii in hospitalized and immunocompromised patients. Moreover, improper use of antibiotics has led to the emergence of extensive drug-resistant strains that urgently require alternative strategies to control this superbug. Unfortunately, the availability of a licensed vaccine against A. baumannii infections is still challenged by the vast diversity among A. baumannii strains. Here, we report the development of a novel pentavalent vaccine candidate composed of two recombinant proteins (Wza and YiaD) and a pool of capsular polysaccharides isolated from 3 clinical isolates. We tested this new vaccine in vivo in a mouse model of peritonitis against the standard stra...

All Business Strategies Fall into 4 Categories

Jerome Barthelemy

Some are more creative than others.

The problem with strategy frameworks is that although they can help you determine whether an opportunity is attractive or whether a given strategy is likely to work, they generally don’t help you in the task of identifying the opportunity or crafting the strategy in the first place. This article introduces a framework, built on an in-depth analysis of the creativity literature, that aims to fill that gap by providing a systematic approach to identifying potential strategies. The framework categorizes all strategies into the following four groups, from the least creative to the most creative: adapting an existing industry strategy, combining different existing industry strategies, importing strategies from other industries, and creating a brand new strategy from scratch.

The problem with strategy frameworks is that although they can help you determine whether a given opportunity is attractive or whether a particular strategy is likely to work, they generally don’t help you in the task of identifying the opportunity or crafting the strategy in the first place. As the legendary strategy expert Gary Hamel put it: “ The dirty little secret of the strategy industry is that it doesn’t have any theory of strategy creation .”

Jérôme Barthélemy is Executive Vice-President, Dean for Post Experience Programs, Corporate Programs and Relations and Professor of Strategy and Management at ESSEC Business School. He is the author of Myths of Strategy (Kogan Page, 2023)

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Brand value and firm performance nexus: Further empirical evidence

Published: 20 July 2007
Volume 15 , pages 322–335, ( 2008 )

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Matthew Yeung 1 &
Bala Ramasamy 1

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Establishing a link between brand value and firm performance is important because (1) like other forms of investment, expenditure on building brand value has to improve shareholder value; (2) it provides marketers with the necessary justification that brand investments have the required pay-off; (3) it allows for brand equity to be included in the balance sheet. Previous research has provided evidence to support a positive relationship between the two variables, but they tend to be based on individual-level data. Studies that are based on secondary and/or third-party information are not rigorous in their methodology. In this paper, we use a panel data framework comprising the leading 50 US companies between 2000 and 2005 to establish the nexus between brand value and various measures of firm performance. We also utilise the price and returns model to show that brand value could provide some value-added information for future share price predictions.

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Yeung, M., Ramasamy, B. Brand value and firm performance nexus: Further empirical evidence. J Brand Manag 15 , 322–335 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.bm.2550092

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Received : 26 March 2007

Published : 20 July 2007

Issue Date : 01 May 2008

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.bm.2550092

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Constructing Brand Value Proposition Statements: a Systematic Literature Review

Brand orientation: a systematic literature review and research agenda

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1. Introduction

2. Brand orientation

3.1 Systematic literature review

3.2 Bibliometrics

4. Results of bibliometric analysis

4.2 Co-occurrence keywords

4.3 Bibliographic coupling

5. Cluster analysis and discussion of results

6. Research agenda

7. Conclusions

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Research on the influencing factors of Chinese agricultural brand competitiveness based on DEMATEL-ISM

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Discursive strategies in the branding of Fortune Global 500 Chinese manufacturing companies

International market concentration of fresh blueberries in the period 2001—2020

The impact of mutual recognition of geographical indications on the quality upgrading of China’s agricultural exports

Literature review

Factors affecting the competitiveness of agricultural brands

Overview of the study area and extraction of influencing factors

Influence factor extraction and interpretation

Research methodology and process

DEMATEL method

Calculation of the integrated impact matrix

Calculating degree of centrality and degree of cause

Create centrality and causality diagrams

Calculate the overall impact matrix F that can be used for ISM calculations

Calculate the normalized reachability matrix Y

Influence factor hierarchy and directed graph construction

Analysis of factors affecting brand competitiveness of agricultural products

Determination of the integrated impact matrix T

Determine relevant values and construct quadrant plots

Calculations based on the ISM method

Computational hierarchy models and relationship diagrams

Conclusions and recommendations

Analysis of surface-level direct influences.

Analysis of factors influencing mid-level transitions

Deep root cause impact factor analysis

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Enhance the production infrastructure and rationally establish developmental objectives

Lead technological innovation and form a synergistic force for reform and innovation

Promote institutional upgrades to support the healthy development of brands

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