Public affairs in China: exploring the role of brand fairness perceptions in the case of Mercedes‐Benz

Abstract

demonstrated his perception of Mercedes-Benz's unfair treatment and insensitivity to Chinese buyers by having his Mercedes sports coupe towed by a water buffalo through his Chinese hometown, Wuhan. But he did not stop there. Next, he ordered workers, specifically hired for this purpose, to pound the car with sledge hammers and sticks until the exterior was completely disfigured. Journalists love the story's inherent drama, and in subsequent days, media reports showed images of the car being towed and ultimately smashed. The event created strong public awareness about both Mr Wang's dissatisfaction about the treatment he received from Mercedes-Benz and the subsequent Mercedes-Benz's management reactions triggered by the event. In our paper, we explore this case in more detail, highlighting the crucial role of brand fairness in managing brands in China. Although brand managers implicitly emphasize the importance of fairness in branding strategies, brand management emphasizing fairness is an underdeveloped research concept. Our paper provides an understanding of theories and concepts of brand (un)fairness and brand fairness management illustrated by what we refer to as the Mercedes-Benz case. We identify three dimensions of Brand Fairness Management: prevention, procedures, and outcomes. This framework will assist brand managers in China in developing successful brand fairness strategies and management programs. We posit that implementing these branding practices will increase the likelihood that consumers perceive the brand in question as fair, leading to an increase in loyalty and positive word-of-mouth.

The dimensionality of corporate communication management (CCM)

“…Marketing communication covers a wide range of external communication that includes advertising, sales promotion, direct mail and sponsorship. Other scholars tend to focus on more external communication that involves public relations and marketing as a key function of CCM (Christensen et al , 2007; Kitchen, 1997; Varey, 1997). Moreover, employee communication and organisational communications are also highlighted as a part of internal communication in organisations.…”

“…This study was conducted based on two main gaps. First the concept of corporate communication management is poorly defined and has been a long-standing debate in the communication and marketing literature (Christensen et al , 2007; van Riel, 1995; Varey, 1997). Second, corporate communications practitioners have different views on the dimensionality of CCM construct (Goodman, 2006; van Riel, 1995) which is make CCM measurement diverse from one to another.…”

“…For instance, a careful review of the extant corporate communication literature reveals that there have been few attempts to define the concept of corporate communication and its dimensions in depth (Argenti, 1998a; Goodman, 2000; van Riel, 1995). Apart from being an unclear concept, the corporate communication academic foundation has crossed to multi-disciplinary subjects, making it difficult to understand (Christensen et al , 2007; Goodman, 2000). In this situation, the corporate communication theoretical foundation cuts across disciplines, drawing from language and linguistics, anthropology, sociology, psychology, management and marketing (Belasen, 2008; Melewar et al , 2018).…”

Fairness management

“…This is the case study discussed inChen, Nguyen, and Klaus (2013), used here with the authors' permission.…”

Five areas to advance branding theory and practice

“…For example, while some parts of Asia are often known to provide platforms for inexpensive manufacturing, other parts are known for high quality, originality and innovativeness. The belief that bottom line profits is enough for a company, is often not favorably viewed by Asian countries emphasizing collective, social and long-term benefits for the people and country 8 (Chen, Nguyen, and Klaus, 2013). Due these challenges, we view the study of brands in Asia-Pacific to be appropriate topics for further investigation, of which, we not only think of Asia in general for branding research, but also, looking at the development of branding across different industries, countries, economic zones, comparative cultures, etc.…”