How do brand managers conceptualise brands? An investigation in the age of the internet-based democratisation of brand management

Brand management has been undergoing radical changes in a world of internet- empowered individuals, groups and organisations. These changes have led to an internet-based democratisation of brand management. Subsequently, the co-creation of brands has been increasingly emphasised in brand management practice as well as theory, especially the co-creation between an organisation’s internal and external brand stakeholders. However, no brand conceptualisation has yet been developed which fully addresses these technological and managerial changes. The purpose of this research is therefore to investigate empirically this research gap – how the term brand is conceptualised by brand managers in the current age of the internet-based democratisation of brand management. Interviews with 20 UK-based brand managers across a range of industries and types of organisation have been conducted, following a social constructivist grounded theory methodology. The key finding of four core components and four core processes which brand managers use as integral parts of their brand conceptualisations led to two contributions: (1) a new conceptual framework and (2) a new brand definition both of which fully integrate the phenomenon of brand co-creation between an organisation’s internal and external brand stakeholders. Together they can be used as a foundation for the development of a new co-creative brand management paradigm which integrates the brand management-related activities initiated not only by internal but also by external brand stakeholders. Two more contributions could be made. Firstly, the identification of the different key developments which led to the internet-based democratisation of brand management can help brand managers to better understand the challenges they are facing in current brand management practice, particularly, due to the evolution of social media. Secondly, the identification of the key brand conceptualisation approaches in the literature makes a contribution by providing evidence that stakeholder-oriented brand conceptualisations are more diverse than identified in current literature. Overall, these contributions all help to move brand definition discourse forward.

Grantor dc:publisher

Oxford Brookes University

Year dc:date

2016

Author dc:creator

• Asmussen, Bjoern

Contributors dc:contributor

• Occhiocupo, Nicoletta
• Quinton, Sarah
• Ekinci, Yuksel

Statement dc:rights

• All rights reserved

Language dc:language

en

DOI dc:identifier

https://doi.org/10.24384/epnr-pm98

OAI identifier oai:identifier

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