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| 33. |
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| 34. |
- Aagerup, Ulf, 1969-, et al.
(author)
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How image and awareness relates to internal and external stakeholders' acceptance of B2B rebranding
- 2023
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The acquisitions of brands by companies have become more frequent, representing a significant and effective way for firms to reach international new markets. This recent trend has led to a rise in rebranding, particularly in the business-to-business (B2B) sector. Since marketing literature primarily focuses on B2C brand strategies, literature on the field constantly overlooks B2B characteristics. This is sorely needed, because, despite massive investments, many acquisitions fail, especially international acquisitions where one faces cross-country differences. This is unsurprising because most companies' M&A considerations do not place much weight on brand strategy, and brand equity is typically not handled very well but is often treated as an after-thought compared to more pressing financial matters (e.g. how rebranding affects stock returns) and operational matters (e.g. descriptions of enablers and barriers to the rebranding process). Previous studies in this field emphasise how to do rebranding. However, they treat the brand itself as a black box —it is only how you execute the B2B rebranding process that is investigated, not which dimensions of the customer's brand knowledge should be prioritised. This is unfortunate, because rebranding an acquired brand without an idea of the desired end result is like navigating without a destination —even if you execute well, you will most likely not end up where you need to be. This paper addresses this gap by providing insights into the significant factors that drive B2B rebranding strategies, focusing on the transfer of brand equity from the acquired B2B brand to the acquiring company's brand.This study was conducted in one B2B firm going through rebranding process in the life science sector. Getinge was founded in 1904 in Sweden and is a global medical technology firm. The company provides equipment and systems in the healthcare and life sciences sector and has become a global leader in the field of Surgical Workflow. The international growth has been possible through incorporating new innovative offerings. These have been both internally developed, but also acquired internationally. A significant number of international acquisitions have been made throughout the years. In 2021 the company employed over 10,000 people worldwide, with products marketed in over 135 countries.Besides being one of the most valued companies in the sector, Getinge was chosen since the firm has initiated a rebranding process after a long-time international growth strategy, including acquisitions of many different international brands. Moreover, since B2B companies commonly rely on corporate, rather than product branding. Getinge is an appropriate choice since this study, therefore, focuses on a company that uses the same name for its company and its products.By examining an in-depth single case study of a multinational B2B company in the life sciences industry, this paper contributes to the research in international rebranding by validating that brand equity is a relevant consideration for B2B rebranding processes. Specifically, it argues that brand awareness transfer plays an essential role during the rebranding process, especially when it comes to external branding. Customers generally accept the new brand if the value proposition remains unchanged. However, they need to be made aware of the change to avoid confusion. Internally by contrast, the most significant challenge seems to be the transfer of brand image. Awareness is easy; during a rebranding process employees immediately become aware of the change. They however exhibit strong opinions for or against rebranding depending on their emotional connections to the old brand.These results extend the theory on international rebranding after M&As by demonstrating that the B2B context requires different prioritizations than consumer goods rebranding. The study shows how various stakeholders respond throughout the rebranding process. Firms can plan their rebranding process in mind that both brand image and brand awareness are important for brand equity during the rebranding process. However, firms need to prioritise one over the other depending on their specific audience (internal and external). Moreover, the realisation that awareness is a crucial success factor in B2B rebranding might help companies leverage brand equity in international M&As.
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| 35. |
- Aagerup, Ulf, 1969-
(author)
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Intermediate Luxury Fashion : Brand Building via Fat Discrimination
- 2016
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In: 11th Global Brand Conference. - Saltaire, UK : Greenleaf Publishing. ; , s. 23-28
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate if intermediate luxury fashion brands discriminate overweight and obese consumers.Design/methodology/approach: 1,454 intermediate luxury garments were tallied and measured in-store in London. The physical sizes of the garments were matched to the body sizes of the population, and a gap analysis was carried out in order to determine whether the supply of clothes match the relative importance of each market segment.Findings: While previous research shows that mass-market fashion companies do not discriminate overweight and obese consumers, intermediate luxury garments come in very small sizes compared to the individuals that make up the population.Research limitations/implications: The findings show that purveyors of intermediate luxury fashion limit assortments of garments so they avoid fat typical user imagery.Practical implications: Companies that market products that are sensitive to the typical user imagery can optimize their brands by limiting undesirable customer types access to their brands, provided that 1) they have the financial strength to reject customers whose image would be detrimental to the brand, 2) the companies are active in an industry in which people would tolerate customer rejection, and 3) they sell a product that actually can be denied undesirable customers.Social implications: The study shows that fat consumers are relegated to mass-market fashion but are excluded from intermediate luxury fashion. This constitutes a social inequality.Originality/value: The result of this study provides quantitative evidence that companies control assortments to exclude undesirable typical user imagery. It also delineates under which conditions they do it. This adds to the theory of user imagery.
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| 39. |
- Aagerup, Ulf, 1969, et al.
(author)
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Self-enhancing green consumer behavior
- 2015
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In: The 10th annual Global Brand Conference, Turku, Finland, April 27-29.
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In the last few decades, the topic of environmental sustainability has received much attention within the marketing literature (Powell, 2011, Leonidou et al., 2013). As our world faces many environmental challenges, both large and small, the thought that part of the solution to these problems is in the consumption based arena has become more popular. To steer toward a more environmentally sustainable consumption is thus seen as desirable for many actors in society. However, while the concepts of green, sustainable, or environmental marketing have existed for several decades, the actual results of these initiatives are discouraging from both research and sustainability perspectives (Crane, 2000). There is a vast " attitude - behavior gap" (Moraes et al., 2 012, Carrington et al., 2010, Carrington et al., 2014) which means that although consumers profess to be positively disposed towards organic products, they do not act accordingly. Traditionally, research in this field has focused on how products’ functiona l benefits and consumers’ values and norms affect green consumer behavior (Salazar et al., 2013) . There is however an emerging understanding that consumers may seek more than functional value from their environmentally friendly brands, value like e.g. stat us (Griskevicius et al., 2010) and identity (Sexton and Sexton, 2011). Thus, for green products to be successful it may not be sufficient to only to be good; they must also make their user seem good. While building on the symbolic/expressive meaning of consumption is a commonly accepted idea within brand building (e.g. Park et al., 1986, Aaker, 1997, Fang et al., 2012) , it has received limited attention within the green consumer behavior domain. We propose that from the symbolic consumption perspective, environmentally friendly products that are consumed conspicuously should represent greater value than those that are consumed inconspicuously. Against this background, the purpose of this paper is to investigate if consumers choose environmentally friendly options to a greater extent if the consumption setting is public rather than private consumption situations.
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