An attempt of intergration and its consequences for research and management英文资料.pdf

What the Heck is a Brand? An Attempt of Integration and its Consequences for Research and Management Hans Mühlbacher University of Innsbruck School of Management Department of Strategic Management, Marketing and Tourism Universitätsstrasse 15 A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria Tel: +43 512 507 7200 Email: hans.muehlbacher @uibk.ac.at Andrea Hemetsberger University of Innsbruck School of Management Department of Strategic Management, Marketing and Tourism Universitätsstrasse 15 A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria Tel: +43 512 507 7213 Email: andrea.hemetsberger @uibk.ac.at 0 What the heck is a Brand? An Attempt of Integration and its Consequences for Research and Management Summary Contemporary marketing literature overwhelmingly describes brands from either a managerial or a consumer-centric perspective. The level of analysis is either individual or social. In most cases brands are conceived as tangible or intangible obj ects. Another stream of research conceives brands as mental representations or socially shared meanings. Each perspective has provided rich insights but bears the danger of being restrictive. Attempting to integrate extant knowledge the paper first presents a brief review and discussion of how the brand phenomenon has been approached in the literature. Secondly, it proposes an integrative perspective, which conceptualizes a brand as encompassing brand manif estations, brand meaning, and a brand interest group that co-produces brand manifestations and co-constructs brand meaning in an ongoing public discourse. Finally, the implications of such an approach for future research and brand management are discussed. Keywords: brand concept, brand interest group, brand meaning, brand manifestations, brand discourse