A broader view on brands’ growth and decline

Abstract

What does it take to grow a brand? How to avoid its decline? Some popular answers to these questions can be found in the research by Byron Sharp and others from the Ehrenberg-Bass (EB) Institute on “how brands grow.” In this article, we propose that such an approach, despite its strengths, lends itself to some limitations when taken too literally. We maintain that a broader notion and role of branding—encompassing brand equity, brand portfolio, and circular relationship of attitudes and behaviors—should be adopted by marketeers to derive better managerial implications for sustainable brand growth. We, therefore, invite marketers to not oversimplify Dirichlet evidences by thinking of availability as the only (costly) response to all marketing challenges.

How MRS′ Journal has Contributed to the Development of Market and Social Research

“…Obviously, these examples do not show the full picture of the full and varied spectrum the journal has covered over its life to date, such as the rise of semiotics within market research methodologies (Lawes, 2002; 2018; 2019; Silhouette-Dercourt & de Lassus, 2016; Barnham, Gold Medal 2020; Aming, 2021) ; new product development/co-creation (Roberts et al 2005, 2017; Maklan, Knox & Ryalls 2008); brands (Romaniuk & Nicholls, 2006; Barnham, 2009; Formisano et al, 2020) and brand strategy (Barnham, 2012); ethics (Robson, 1991; Nunan & Di Domenico, 2013; Yallop & Mowatt, 2016); researching children and young people (Baxter, 2012; Nairn & Clarke, 2012); presenting data (Collins, 1992); conjoint analysis (Blamires, 1987; Lines & Denstadli, 2004; King et al, 2019); behavioural economics (Gordon, 2011); the evolution of earlier technologies in today’s world, such as the eye-movement recorder (Purucker et al, 2013); and experimental studies (Ryals & Wilson, 2005).…”