Editorial

Citation

Veloutsou, C. and Guzman, F. (2015), "Editorial", Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 24 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-05-2015-0869

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Product & Brand Management, Volume 24, Issue 4

The current issue of the Journal of Product and Brand Management (Vol. 24, No. 4) has in total eight contributions: seven on product and brand management and one on pricing strategy and practice.

Taking the Nobel Prize brand as a case study, Urde and Greyser examine the identity of corporate heritage brands. Data were collected using multiple methods, including interviews, documents and observation. They use the heritage quotient framework with the elements of heritage and corporate identity matrix to provide insights of a platform that can be utilized to manage corporate heritage brands.

Ruane and Wallace examine the relationship between social influence and consumers’ self-expression through brands. In a study of 675 Generation Y respondents from Ireland who exhibit tribal behaviour around a fashion brand, they find that consumers of self-expressive brands are loyal and are engaging in positive WoM. Their findings also suggest that consumers might be loyal to the tribe rather than to the brand.

Ferreira and Coelho’s research reports findings from 535 consumers and 8 different grocery products in Portugal. It examines product involvement and price perceptions as predictors of brand loyalty. The study suggests that the link between product involvement and loyalty is partially mediated by price perception.

The prediction of brand loyalty is also the core focus of the work presented by Lu and Xu. Survey data collected from 333 young Chinese consumers in Shanghai, in the context of sportswear products, are used in this research. The findings of the study suggest that brand self-congruity has a significant effect on consumers’ brand associations and perceived quality, which influence brand loyalty.

Azhari and Afiff also examine the effect of congruence, but in this case the goal congruence and the goal coherence when developing new utilitarian and hedonic products. The study develops an experimental design with 288 first-year undergraduate students in Indonesia across multiple product categories. The study finds that the overall consumption goal coherence elicits higher value added irrespective of goal congruence or incongruence on utilitarian or hedonic consumption goals.

The paper from Khan, Lee and Lockshin also looks at hedonic and utilitarian consumption and the role of packaging foreign food brands in Pakistan. The paper looks at religious issues, as the data are collected via an experiment with 370 Muslim consumers. The results show that packaging is more important for hedonic rather than for utilitarian products. The results for the choice decisions though were similar for both product categories.

Yousaf and Li’s work focuses on place branding. The paper is looking at the reputation of a country from its citizens’ perspective. In total, 415 people completed a questionnaire in Pakistan, a country that went through a reputation crisis. The findings suggest that public collective self-esteem is a good predictor of the perceptions of the nation brand. The findings also imply that certain aspects of the internal perceptions of the country brand predict membership esteem, private collective self-esteem and are important for self-identity. The study findings support that when a country is negatively stereotyped then it becomes more difficult for its citizens to live the nation’s brand.

The pricing strategy and practice contribution from Zhuang and Alford examines the mediation effects of sticker shock on the relationship between price discount and buying intention. An experiment with 389 undergraduate students in the USA was used. Based on the analysis of the collected data, it can be argued that the effect of price discount on buying intention is partially mediated by sticker shock.

We would like to thank the reviewers who were involved in the assessment of the papers in this issue and for providing guidance to the authors on how to further improve their submissions. The reviewers who reviewed the papers included this issue are the following (in alphabetical order):

• Aldas-Manzano, Joaquin, University of Valencia, Spain.

• Argyriou, Evmorfia, Ipsos MORI, UK.

• Baruk, Agnieszka, Lodz University of Technology, Poland.

• Bennett, Roger, London Metropolitan University, UK.

• Cova, Bernard, Kedge Business School, France.

• Delvecchio, Devon, Miami University, USA.

• el-Manstrly, Dahlia, University of Edinburg, UK.

• Indounas, Kostis, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece.

• Lopez, Carmen, Plymouth University, UK.

• Miniero, Guilia, Bocconi University, Italy.

• Moutinho, Luiz, University of Glasgow, UK.

• Pantin Sohier, Gaelle, University of Angers, France.

• Parsa, Haragopal “HG”, University of Denver, USA.

• Robert, Thomas, Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK.

• Schmitt, Berndt, Columbia Business School, USA.

• Simões, Claudia, Open University, UK.

We hope that you find reading this issue enjoyable.

Cleopatra Veloutsou and Francisco Guzman