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MM Hosts Third Branding Research Symposium – Corporate Strategy and Branding
The annual Research Symposium on Holistic Branding was held on 8 December featuring various international and local scholars. A range of topics were discussed from functional strategies such as customer loyalty, advertising, leadership, financial measures, to more innovative strategies such as virtual world branding.
Prof. Raj Srivastava from Singapore Management University shared his research on the “Role of Marketing in Managing Business Risks.”
Prof. Shugan from the University of Florida, shared his insights on loyalty programs and dismissed its credibility. Customer loyalty programs, Shugan, warned are “shams” as they create liabilities for organizations through future obligations by compromise of short term revenue. Shugan recommends investing in programs that are true marketing assets which increase customer utility and deliver promises.
Prof. Jan Mattsson from Roskilde University, assessed the brand value of real life brands in an virtual community, Second Life. Mattsson stressed, virtual worlds are “rich, complex and go beyond traditional online games”, “the use of multiple senses can make marketing more effective in new stimulating environments”. His study highlighted the difficulty of achieving a high-end brand value, emotional value in a virtual work. He suggested the following recommendations of using interactivity and utility to shape emotions of brands and to incorporate Second Life into the marketing strategy, hence accumulating a carry over effect from real life marketing communications.
In the following session, Prof. Sinha from University of Wellington explored the relationships between marketing actions, consumer response and financial measures such as variability of cash flows and shareholder value.
Dr. Matthew S. Pan from the Reputation Institute, Greater China, explored how the branding of corporations differs in China in comparison to USA and Europe and touched on challenges of increased foreign competition and internationalization of local firms.
Dr. Huang Xu discussed his research on the relationship on leadership, employee commitment and the corporate brand. Xu states that leadership is important as employees interact with consumers and determine the corporate brand. This is especially relevant within service industries where heterogeneity and perishability calls for personal interactions.
Dr. Vincent Ching of the School of Accounting and Finance shared his work on the relationship between cost of debt and brand equity. This is relevant as brand equity is an intangible asset and a result of marketing activities. It is hard quantify and to measure a brand equity’s impact on the accounting. He advised that “corporate branding strategies are more effective than mixed branding strategies and house brand strategies, in lowering cost of debt.”
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