Journal of Product & Brand ManagementCustomer and brand manager perspectives on brand relationships: a conceptual frameworkColin Jevons Mark Gabbott Leslie de Chernatony

Article information:To cite this document:Colin Jevons Mark Gabbott Leslie de Chernatony, (2005),"Customer and brand manager perspectives on brand relationships: aconceptual framework", Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 14 Iss 5 pp. 300 - 309Permanent link to this document:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/10610420510616331

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Customer and brand manager perspectives onbrand relationships: a conceptual framework

Colin Jevons and Mark Gabbott

Department of Marketing, Monash University, Caulfield East, Australia, and

Leslie de ChernatonyBirmingham Business School, The University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

AbstractPurpose – To provide a conceptual framework to help researchers and managers understand the complex factors affecting the associations betweenbrands.Design/methodology/approach – Brand extension, co-branding and other associative techniques together with an increasingly communicativeenvironment are resulting in an increasingly complex set of networks and relationships between brands, with singular and multiple relationship forms.There are two key perspectives on these complex relationships, that of the customer and that of the brand owner, i.e. what is seen at the point oftransaction and what is expressed by the various brand constructors. Two key perspectives on brand relationships are used that of the customer andthat of the brand owner, to describe and discuss an analytical classification of these relationships.Findings – A conceptual synthesis of the dynamics of brand networks and business relationships is presented and a 2 £ 2 matrix is developed toclassify and describe the four categories that emerge.Practical implications – Different management strategies for different types of business-brand relationships are suggested.Originality/value – The conceptual synthesis is new and some uses of the classification for researchers and brand managers are suggested.

Keywords Brand management, Customers

Paper type Conceptual paper

An executive summary for managers and executive

readers can be found at the end of this article.

Introduction

This paper reviews work on the sources of brand meaning,

understanding brand meaning, and managing brand meaning

before moving towards a discussion of the changing

environment in which brands operate and in which meanings

are communicated. Most of the literature to date has

investigated singular brands, but in practice there is a complex

plurality of brands, brought together by accident or by design.

The brand association literature discussed here demonstrates

that customers make judgements based on association, not

aggregation. In this paper we investigate and conceptualise

deliberate, purposive associations between brands, compare

these with customer perceptions of associations, propose a

2 £ 2matrix to better understand these, andmake consequent

recommendations for brand managers.Hoeffler and Keller (2003), in their meta-analysis of the

branding literature, catalogued 42 empirical findings that

showed the critical importance of brands to organisational

performance. Marketing has an increasing focus on co-

created value and the relationships between organisations and

customers (see Vargo and Lusch, 2004). Despite this, theeffects of various techniques for establishing, modifying, and

understanding relationships between brands are not clearlyunderstood. As brand associations and relationships are

becoming more common in business (see, for example, Aakerand Joachimsthaler, 2000), so too are new and improvedforms of communicating. Communicative or rich

environments such as the internet accentuate the complexityof brand meanings, and interactions within internet

communities emphasize the co-invention of brandinterpretations (de Chernatony, 2001). Thus, increasing

communicativity makes it more important to understand theforms of associations that are made by customers.Brands interact in a variety of different ways, but we can

identify two key perspectives on these interactions: theperspective of the customer and the perspective of the brand

owner. From the point of view of the customer, meaning isderived from a rich diversity of brand experiences that are

themselves dependent on a rich variety of backgrounds andcontexts. This diversity gives rise to a highly complex set of

brand constellations (see, for example, Simonin and Ruth,1998; Lange and Torn, 2002). We seek in this paper to providean analytical mechanism to dissect these constellations and

reduce them into analysable segments and integrate them withthe second perspective: the brand owner. Brand owners do not

exist in isolation and while many relationships betweenbusinesses are purely transactional, brand-related interactions

between brand owners are worthy of consideration since theytoo can impact upon brand meaning.We review work to date on brand extensions and co-

branding to illustrate the strengths of the associations betweenbrands and discuss a possible paradigm shift as a result of the

changing environment of increased communication through

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Journal of Product & Brand Management

14/5 (2005) 300–309

q Emerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 1061-0421]

[DOI 10.1108/10610420510616331]

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networks, often technologically-enabled. We argue that the

associations created in the customer’s mind between two

brands represent an interaction between those brands in an

associative sense, and that there is a different and not

necessarily congruent network relationship between the

businesses that own the brands. This incongruency gives

rise to a variety of issues that we begin to address in this

paper, which integrates the close-distant brand perception

continuum that is customer-based and the strong-weak

connection between businesses. This could be seen as

disaggregating brand constellations into a series of pre-

existing brand associations, which can be separately defined

and isolated for ease of understanding and analysis.We commence by reviewing the sources of brand meaning

and how brand meaning is understood before investigating

how recent developments in networks and communications

affect these concepts and the managerial issues that arise, and

then develop a matrix to classify and better understand brand

relationships.

Sources of brand meaning

Gardner and Levy (1955) postulated that brand success

revolved around operationalising a selected brand meaning

and maintaining that meaning over time. This provides a

simple exposition of the brand management problem. Low

and Lamb (2000, p. 360) found that “brand image, perceived

quality, and brand attitude are separate and distinct

dimensions of a brand impression, but which in turn are

entirely dependent upon customer determined rather than

managerially determined meaning.” This work also recognises

a reorientation of the literature away from brands as assets

that can be managed towards brands as quasi independent

market organisms which are sustained by inputs from both

managers and environment. Brand meaning, therefore, is

informed by a highly complex range of influences, some of

which can be controlled (managerially determined) more than

others, which can only be observed and influenced (customer

determined).

Understanding brand meaning

The proposition that a “brand” comprises meanings drawn

from different sources can be simplified by classifying them

into just two; first the brand identity as codified and

communicated by the brand originator (manager), and

second the brand meanings drawn from the users or

customer environment (de Chernatony, 2001). This

difference of meaning between brand originator and

customer has a number of implications, not least the

potential for “drift” between organisationally determined

meaning and user perceived meanings (see de Chernatony

and dall’Olmo Riley, 1998). The message that is

communicated and understood as the brand is developed

can result in associations with other brands that have a range

of possible outcomes. They are positive and enhancing,

neutral, or positively damaging and weakening. We argue that

in order to fully understand the meaning of a brand

relationship, one must assess the total set of associations

that are perceived by customers, and the total set of

relationships between the brands. Further, that these

associations must be considered together to assess their

collective or aggregate effect on brand meaning. This can be

represented two-dimensionally, see Figure 1.Customer-to-customer relationships and brand-to-brand

relationships are represented by the vertical arrows, which

indicate network associations between customers and between

brands. The vertical arrow between customers highlights that

much brand meaning is inter-customer generated or inter-customer mediated, and the arrow between brands recognises

that much brand information comes from associations

between brands, such as wholesaler-retailer or brandalliances. The horizontal arrow represents the interaction

between brands and customers. The job of management is to

reduce the gap between customer and brand, i.e. to reduce

the length of the arrow, and to manage any perceivedassociations between one brand and another (depending on

whether they are damaging or enhancing) in order to

maximise the congruency between customer brandknowledge and the brand image desired by the brand

owner. For example, the alignment of the manufacturing

and communications functions in a firm can help to do this,

as conflicts between product performance andcommunications can reduce brand loyalty (Haynes et al.,1999).

Business networks

There are indications that the future of competition may be in

value-creating networks rather than individual firms or brands

(for example, Kothandaraman and Wilson, 2001; Vargo andLusch, 2004) and there is increasing attention on the

opportunities for collaboration between suppliers and

resellers (Weber, 2001). Consistency in brand

communications is important in building and maintaining astrong brand image, but often a brand’s ultimate presentation

to customers at the point of purchase is in the control of a

retailer rather than the manufacturer or brand owner.Buchanan et al. (1999) found that context (such as retail)

could create conditions in which customers relied more on

external cues and less on previously formed attitudes. In

examining the retail service brand in an electronic market,Davis et al. (2000, p. 178) found that the retail service brand

“defined the experience of shopping on-line for consumers in

terms of service attributes, symbolic meanings, and functional

consequences of the service encounter . . . the service brandacted as a relationship lever or fulcrum on which trust was

built between consumer and service provider”. These are

examples of one sort of business relationship between twoorganisations; here the brand originators have very little, or

no, formal control (through ownership or otherwise) over

what the retailers do to the brand, unlike in other, closer

business relationships. Thus, in business relationships theformality and extent of associations between one organisation

Figure 1 The interrelationships between customers and brands

Perspectives on brand relationships

Colin Jevons, Mark Gabbott and Leslie de Chernatony

Journal of Product & Brand Management

Volume 14 · Number 5 · 2005 · 300–309

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and another may be stronger or weaker, again along a

continuum analogous to the customer relationships

continuum described in the previous section. The nature

and management of such associations have been considerably

changed in recent years through the adoption of new

communications technologies. The interactions between

customer and customer, and between business and business,

are represented as network associations in Figure 2, and the

distance between customer and brand is represented as

interaction.

The changing branding environment

For a variety of reasons, including business activity on the

internet with its increased communication between

customers, the rise of brand extensions and co-branding,

and the increasing importance of brand association and other

associative effects, brand constellations are emerging. These

brand constellations, defined by Simonin and Ruth (1998,

p. 30) as “. . . a short or long-term association or combination

of two or more individual brands . . . or other distinctive

proprietary assets”, further increase the complex relationships

between brands and also increase the interference of brand

noise through their various structures and intermediaries. As

an example of this increased complexity, Lange and Torn

(2002) built on the work of Aaker and Joachimsthaler (2000)

who discussed the challenges of the increasing complexity of

brand architecture to show that attitude towards a

constellation of brands differs from attitudes towards the

individual brands that make up the constellation and that

perceived fit between customer and brand was more closely

associated with a brand constellation than the individual

brands.A brand may exhibit multiple associations; these tend to be

stored in terms of metaphors and, importantly, they tend to

aggregate in clusters. This is quite explicit in high-

involvement conditions, but less so in low-involvement

conditions (Supphellen, 2000). In fact, in an internet-

enabled era, it is brand communities that take greater

control (Muniz and O’Guinn, 2001); in the terms used here,

increasingly customer-determined rather than manager-

determined. Aaker and Joachimsthaler (2000) point out that

certain unique characteristics of the web – its interactive and

involving nature, its ability to offer current and rich

information, and its ability to personalise, make it a very

strong branding tool. Indeed, the sociologist Castells (1998)

has gone further than this, in conceptualising a new social

system based on productivity through information use – the

power of information flow would take over from traditional

flows of power – and it is the flow of information about

brands that is considered in this article.This paper considers the interaction between brands as

perceived by customers and the business relationships

underlying them, something that may – but not necessarily

– be more easily perceived through the use of highly

communicative media. There is certainly potential for

increased drift between the meanings of brand identity, as

created by an originator, and the meaning drawn from the

user environment by a customer. Examples abound on the

internet of web sites that are clearly outside the control of the

large corporations that they attack, such as www.untied.com

and www.mcspotlight.org that publicise apparent

inadequacies in the business practices of United Airlines

and McDonald’s respectively. In consequence there is a

changing relationship between brand image and brand

identity, customer meaning being a moderating factor

(Jevons and Gabbott, 2000). Criticism, even if it be

inaccurate and based on unfounded rumour, can be much

more damaging to a business with the advent of new and often

uncontrollable communications technology such as the

internet (Kimmel, 2003).Brand associations – perceptions, preferences, and choices

linked in memory to a brand (Aaker, 1991) – have been

shown to “include perceptions of people, places and occasions

that are evoked in conjunction with the brand” and also to

exist in complex associative networks, to the extent that a

brand can be defined by its position in a consumer associative

network (Henderson et al., 1998, p. 307). Henderson et al.

(1998) showed that networks were important in mapping a

range of ten consumer branding effects. The network

relationships described in this paper are much less complex,

being only two-dimensional, although they aggregate many of

the factors described by Henderson et al. (1998) and do not

restrict themselves to consumer markets. We contribute an

advance on most of the previous literature that tends to

examine individual brands in isolation rather than in

relationship with others, as happens in practice.

Managing brand associations

Moving from consideration of the environmental impact upon

customers’ understanding of the brand to managerial

techniques for modifying that understanding, there are a

number of ways in which managers attempt to create and

modify brand meaning in the eyes of customers, for example

through the popular technique of brand extensions. Murphy

(1997) estimated that 95 per cent of the 16,000 new products

launched in the US every year are brand extensions, while in

the supermarket sector alone, Aaker (1990) reported that over

the period 1977-1984, 120-175 totally new brands were

introduced to American supermarkets annually, of which

approximately 40 per cent each year were actually brand

extensions, either stocked or own brand. At its most basic, a

brand extension is an attempt to associate a new product with

an existing one by use of a brand name. The confidence

endowed in a successful brand’s name is one of the primary

reasons that brand extension strategy is so pervasive; the

brand name becomes more than a simple associative prompt

Figure 2 Customer and brand networks and their interaction

Perspectives on brand relationships

Colin Jevons, Mark Gabbott and Leslie de Chernatony

Journal of Product & Brand Management

Volume 14 · Number 5 · 2005 · 300–309

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and becomes a predictive cue (Janiszewski and van Osselaer,

2000).One of the managerial intentions of brand extension is to

link meaning by transferring some positive customer views ofthe pre-existing brand to the newly-introduced one, thus

saving, for example, on advertising costs (Aaker and Keller,1990). Although this is intended to be a one-way process, andlargely has been investigated as such (for example, Aaker and

Keller, 1990) evidence has recently emerged (Sheinin, 2000;Roedder-John et al., 1998) that after experience with a brand

extension customers changed their beliefs and attitudes aboutparent brands (although more so if the parent brand was

unfamiliar than if it were familiar), in contrast to earlierstudies that found no such influence (for example, Keller andAaker, 1992). Further, Martinez and de Chernatony (2004)

clearly demonstrated that the extension strategy dilutes theoriginal brand image. Hem et al. (2003) asserted that

extensions into categories more similar to the original brandwere more likely to be accepted. Consistent with this in the

services environment, van Riel et al. (2001) replicated theAaker and Keller (1990) study and found that customers usedcomplementarity of an extension with the original category as

a major cue to evaluate a service brand extension, andsuggested that brand extension strategies could be used most

successfully where there were similarities in service deliveryprocesses and context. That said, Aaker (1997) pointed out

that brand extensions, particularly vertical brand extensions,can be risky since brand equity is built on factors that can beeasily distorted by an inappropriate move.Co-branding is another managerial technique used in

establishing associations between brands in the eyes of the

customer. This technique has been used to pair new brandswith existing brands that have powerful images attached to

them in the hope of associating those positive images with thenew products, based on the psychological process of classicalconditioning (Grossman, 1997). However, Buchanan et al.(1999) showed that retailers could negate the equity of anestablished brand through display decisions, for example,

despite extensive positioning communication, and conclude“this deterioration of brand equity has obvious implications

for the brand in the long run, but it may even influenceprofitability in the short run” (p. 353). This erosion of brandprofitability is a result of retailers leveraging the value of a

high-equity brand to create sales for other brands carried inthe store as well as for the brand itself; an unwelcome brand

association from the point of view of the owner of the high-equity brand but intentional on the part of the retailer. The

question of whether a company is known by the company itkeeps was answered in the affirmative by Simonin and Ruth(1998) who found that consumers’ attitudes to the alliance

influenced subsequent impressions of each partner’s brand,the so-called “spillover” effect. However, Washburn et al.(2000) found that using co-branding to pair two or morebranded products to form a separate and unique product

improved brand equity perceptions by consumers, regardlessof whether the co-branding partner is a high or low equitybrand, and that their “belief that a high equity brand would be

denigrated by its pairing with a low equity brand was notsupported” (p. 600). Samu et al. (1999) showed that the

success of using advertising alliances (two brands fromdifferent product categories) depended on associative network

memory, categorisation theory, and attribution theory, butthat results varied depending on the circumstances of

complementarity. Rao et al. (1999, p. 266) concluded that

“the credibility of the ‘hostage’ provided by the second brand

in a brand alliance is a useful piece of information regarding

product quality when quality is unobservable”. Englis and

Solomon (1996), in one of the few pieces of research

published to date that investigate multiple rather than single

brands, point out that consumers look for consumption

constellations, and argue that advertisers should respond to

this. There is thus comprehensive evidence that co-branding

works, in the sense that the alliance causes a different effect to

that which would be caused by unassociated brands.We have outlined the sources of brand meaning and how

brands are understood by customers, put this in the context of

recent changes in business and communication infrastructure,

and reviewed techniques for managing brand associations. We

now propose a framework for understanding the impact of the

consequent increased importance of relationships between

and among brands and customers and suggest some

implications for managers concerned with the use of the

resultant effects as marketing tools.

A matrix of business relationships and brandinteractions

Our proposition is that the simplest way of illustrating the

types of relationships involved is to represent them as two-

dimensional. The two defining dimensions are the strength of

business associations between the brands, and the strength of

association between brands by customers. One factor is

therefore business-based, and the other is customer-based.

Business relationships may be inextricably and strongly

associated, or weaker than that. The associations that

customers make between brands, in turn, may be more or

less close or distant. Hence, integrating the two views shown

in Figure 2 gives us a simple two-dimensional set of axes,

shown in Figure 3.

Area 1: perceived brand association close, business

network strong

In the upper right hand part of the diagram customers have a

perception of strong associations between brands, and this is

accurate as formal control is exerted, often through

ownership. The relationship between businesses is

managerial. The Ford family of motor vehicles is a well-

known example of such umbrella branding, with customers

Figure 3 The relationship between business networks and customerperceptions of brand association

Perspectives on brand relationships

Colin Jevons, Mark Gabbott and Leslie de Chernatony

Journal of Product & Brand Management

Volume 14 · Number 5 · 2005 · 300–309

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clearly understanding the associations between various

models offered under that brand, with strong corporate aswell as individual product communication campaigns. This

extends to brand extensions in different markets. The sameLG brand is used for commercial air conditioning systems asfor mobile phone handsets, and customers can be expected to

make a strong association between the product ranges. VirginMegastores, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Credit are in quite

different markets; retailing of recorded music, transatlanticair travel, and Australian credit cards are very different areasof operation but there is a common theme in Virgin’s appeal

to customers and hence the Virgin brand. Factory outlets,where branded products from one manufacturer only are sold,

generally in a less glamorous environment than the brandimagery would suggest, are nevertheless an example in thiscategory because the control of the retail experience is entirely

in the hands of the brand owner.Joint ventures and strategic alliances provide examples of

classic co-branding, such as individually-branded designersproviding interiors for cars – Ford and Eddie Bauer inAmerica, and Ford and Carla Zampatti in Australia. The

potential downside of such an arrangement can bedemonstrated by the Walt Disney subsidiary that was a

majority owner of Toysmart.com, which paid US$50,000 tothat business to have the personal information in its customerdatabase destroyed rather than sell it in its unsuccessful

struggle to survive, thus putting corporate reputation ahead ofshort-term financial damage. While it is true that numerous

lawsuits had been started to try to preserve the privacy of thelist, Disney’s renowned tight control of its image waspresumably a factor in the decision. Disney, acknowledging

that it would never become an internet industry leader,announced the closure of its Go.com portal and the merger of

Disney Internet Group back into Disney in March 2001, withthe loss of 400 jobs (Gentile, 2001).Strongly personal services with named (branded) providers

contracted to and hence contributing to, and drawing from, acorporate brand are further examples with interesting

implications. Tracey at Cutz hairdressers, Professor X at YUniversity, David Beckham of Real Madrid and Englandfootball teams, are all examples of the service provider’s

professional skills and autonomy providing a distinct andseparate identity to the corporate brand, with which there is

interaction nevertheless. This allows and helps to define thevalue of the more or less lucrative transfer of an individualperson, be he or she a hairdresser, footballer or professor,

from one employer to another. Indeed in the case of DavidBeckham, his former employer, Manchester United, had a

policy for some years of insisting that a minimum of threeplayers appeared in any publicity material, thus ensuring thatsome of the glamour of brand Beckham was transferred to

brand Manchester United. There is also the potential for achange in the branded provider’s status to affect the value of

the corporate brand, as happens from time to time whensports personalities indulge in misdemeanours on or off thesporting field.

Area 2: perceived brand association close, business

network weak

On the other hand, brand association can be close in the eyesof the customers for a particular brand although the businessnetwork relationship between the controlling entities is weak.

A customer might buy a mobile phone from Orange in

Australia and be surprised that Orange takes no responsibility

for faults that develop, even though the Orange logo is paintedon some models; the customer must contact the manufacturer

direct, independent of the retail networks, to arrange repairthrough a different and much less convenient agent. This is

represented by the lower right-hand area of Figure 3. Herecontrol is informal and weaker than when the business

network is strong and the nature of the relationship betweenbusinesses is co-operative. Interaction is often advisory, forexample, with the phone retailer putting pressure on the

contracted repair agent to improve customer servicestandards. A similar example would be a utility, such as in

the electricity industry where in a number of countriesgeneration, distribution and billing are performed by separate

businesses, or in more general terms a manufacturer provisionof a merchandising service to a retailer.Other examples of this type of weak network that

nevertheless has strong brand association in the eyes of thecustomer may be useful to consider, for example sponsorships

with naming rights, such as the Volvo Ocean Race (formerlythe Whitbread round the world yacht race). The brands are

strongly associated although there is no suggestion that Volvohave anything to do with the manufacture or design of the

yachts. Manchester United have a multi-million poundsponsorship deal with Vodafone, but despite the magnitude

of the sums of money involved we describe the businessrelationship as distant since neither party intrudes on theother’s professional judgment in either business or sporting

management. Sponsorships with lesser naming rights wouldbe located between area 2 and area 3 on the x-axis as, while

the business network is distant, the customer-perceivedassociation between brands is weaker than in area 2. “Grey

areas” such as these are discussed after the four main areashave been outlined.An approval process of creative works on moral or religious

grounds, such as censorship classifications or a process suchas that used by the Catholic Church to approve publications is

an example of a distant business relationship with a strongbrand association in the perception of customers. The

Catholic Church has a two-stage approval process, the firstbeing the “nihil obstat”, where a senior member of the

Church hierarchy examines the content and decides that thereare no theological grounds for refusing publication, and thesecond being the “imprimatur”, a further approval that

formally allows the printing and distribution of the text. Theofficial responsible for each process is acknowledged in each

copy of the publication, although the creative content isentirely the separate responsibility of the author, who is of

course acknowledged in the usual way.Some customers perceive stronger associations between

airlines than actually exist at present (Goh and Uncles, 2003).Strategic alliances are emerging, such as One World (which

includes, inter alia, British Airways, Qantas, Finnair andCathay Pacific, see http://www.oneworldalliance.com). Apassenger arriving on a trans-Pacific flight into Los Angeles

can find directions in the Qantas in-flight magazine on whichterminal a Finnair flight might depart from but no

information is printed about domestic US airlines that arenot part of the OneWorld alliance, although more travellers

would find this useful. These brand and marketing alliancescan be expected to influence the direction of future corporatemergers and acquisitions, being positioned towards the

stronger business relationship end of the spectrum. Indeed

Perspectives on brand relationships

Colin Jevons, Mark Gabbott and Leslie de Chernatony

Journal of Product & Brand Management

Volume 14 · Number 5 · 2005 · 300–309

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code-sharing between airlines is already increasingly used, the

more so since the downturn in air travel volume sinceSeptember 2001 and SARS, with the resultant overcapacity

providing significant cost pressure. The giants British Airwaysand American Airlines, the largest partners in the OneWorld

alliance, launched code-sharing in September 2003.Consumers, particularly in the UK and US, are finding

affinity card schemes increasingly popular. A card-issuing

bank uses an association with a charity, to which it donatesmoney without control over its activities. The bank leverages

the charity’s endorsement to improve its brand positioning(Schlegelmilch and Woodruffe, 1995). There is a triangular

relationship between the card issuer, the affinity group andthe cardholder, although this triangle is not symmetrical(Worthington, 2001).Visiting distinguished professors in a university are an

interesting example of this sort of relationship. The professor

has her or his own reputation, and also carries the reputationof the institution that is her or his primary affiliation, which

has been described in the discussion of area 1. The industryworks in such a way that the reputation of all those involved isenhanced when the professor takes up a visiting position at

another, distant institution for a period of time. The hostinstitution makes a limited financial commitment but the

mutual enhancement of brand reputation is great. Similarly,in a vocationally-oriented business school, sessional tutors

with strong industry reputations are paid relatively little butthe mutual enhancement of reputation can be great.

Area 3: perceived brand association weak, business

network distant

Many consumer experiences fall into this category. Littleassociation is perceived between the businesses involved in

selling a well-known author’s books through amazon.com,Louis Vuitton luggage in Harrods, and other strongly-brandedproducts sold through a strongly-branded retailer. Indeed,

there is little association made when one of the brands is weakand the other strong, such as non-Country Road brand

merchandise sold in a Country Road store, or a little-knownauthor’s book being sold through amazon.com, perhaps as a

result of a recommendation by the on-line retailer.Business relationships with equal power can also fall into

this area, no matter the magnitude involved, for example

where the amount of business done is insignificant to bothparties, such as a local newsagent supplying papers to a

nearby office. University-based business incubators, wherethe common factor bringing the businesses together is the size

and inexperience of the business and a shared need forinfrastructure are an example, as are unrelated retailersphysically located close together – shopping complexes under

one roof, or traditional high street shopping strips. Some ofthese associations may be less welcome, such as the placement

of branded products in a retail establishment to leverage thevalue of a high-equity brand to create sales of lesser brands.This can occur with on-line retailers; “people who bought this

book also bought . . . ” which is a feature of amazon.com is aparticularly good example of this area.In this case control and interaction is according to market

conditions only. Such interaction as there is tends to be

transactional, for example sales calls by employees of onebusiness to another, and ad hoc alliances. The network

relationship between businesses is project based. Anyunrelated organisations can provide examples of this

relationship, or lack of it, such as health care and credit

cards – although bonus loyalty points can be a potentialassociation, as can ad hoc sponsorship deals that do not result

in any great publicity (as opposed to sponsorships that includenaming rights, for example, which tend towards area 2).

Area 4: perceived brand association distant, business

network strong

Customers see little association between Jaguar, Volvo andFord, although there is common ownership. The facetious

comment that Ford would re-name Volvo “Fiord” after theacquisition a few years ago goes against the purpose of the

transaction, which was to provide an established anddistinctive luxury brand for Ford. Similarly, GM owns both

Cadillac and Saab. The four-wheel drive BMW X5 is said tohave some technical features derived from BMW’s brief

ownership of Land Rover. These examples have been ofacquisitions but organic growth can also result in such a

relationship, such as Toyota’s luxury brand Lexus which isdeliberately kept distinct from Toyota in manufacture,

communication and distribution. So in this area control isstrong, either formal or informal, with information and

technology shared between the businesses, but customerperceived association between the brands is weak.The consumer products group Diageo owns a number of

well-known prestige drinks brands, including Guinness, but

functions merely as a brand holder, with little perceived brandassociation between the holding brand and the product brand,

or between the product brands themselves.Air France’s 2004 takeover of KLM has created the largest

airline in the world by turnover but the brands are expected toremain clearly separate, as this is important for operational

reasons, including vital allocation of landing rights, as well asthe imagery associated with national pride.Knowledge-based partnering between suppliers and

retailers, such as between Procter & Gamble and Wal-Mart,provides advantage to both parties but there is little strong

brand partnering.It is interesting to note that there are some potential ethical/

disclosure issues raised by the invisible nature of the networksbetween the parties involved in this area, where there is a

strong business relationship of which customers are unaware.The possibility of corruption, either deliberate and formal or

coincidental and informal, is real here. A well-known exampleof this is “sugging”, selling conducted under the guise of

market research, and the related and also unethical practice ofpush-polling.

The “in-between” areas

Clearly not all business relationships or perceived brandassociations fall neatly into one category or the other, so noboundaries have been drawn around any of the notional areas

discussed above to reflect this. An interesting example is thesponsorship by the American agribusiness giant Simplot of

the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia; thefood business believes that exposing its local managerial staff

to the creative artists at the college will provide insights thatwill provide an advantage in the highly competitive Australian

agribusiness market. Such links between business and thecreative arts are becoming increasingly important (Florida,

2004) although business leadership itself was defined as an artin itself many decades previously (Levitt, 1963). Sponsorships

generally fall into area 2, as brand association can be expected

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to be close as this is the aim of most sponsorship, but in this

case it comes close to area 4, as although the business

relationship is the main purpose of the sponsorship it isdesigned for a specific purpose: to increase the creativity of

managers.A slightly stronger association than that found in the centre

of area 3 is the opportunistic relationships between businesses

in different sectors such as specific arrangements betweengraduate employment agencies and universities; or Qantas,

Telstra, ANZ Bank, Mobil petrol, and Visa credit cards that

are all associated in the one loyalty points program.These examples show that a strict taxonomy of

relationships, with any example fitting neatly into a clearly

defined cell, is inappropriately precise. Accordingly, both theanalysis of the relationships and the conclusions drawn from

that analysis must be carefully considered.

Managerial implications

The range of examples provided above shows the depth and

richness of the variety of networks between businesses and the

associations that customers make accordingly. In the light ofthe increasing richness of the communications environment,

both controlled and uncontrolled, it is becoming increasingly

important for managers to close the perceptual gap betweencustomers and brands. While this has of course been a

concern of brand managers for decades, the example of

Disney and Go.com outlined in the description of area 1 is anexample of the importance of understanding the implications

of internet-based communication. A recent example of aninnovative attempt to close the gap between brand and

customer is the practice of “roaching”, where drink

companies pay attractive people (usually female) to go tobars as if they were ordinary customers and ask other

customers (usually male) to buy them specific brands of

drinks. It could be speculated that this and other forms ofdirect interpersonal communication, such as the use of peer

educators in campaigns against drug abuse, is a response to

increasing “noise” on the internet such as spam and fraud thatmight be reducing its effectiveness as a communications

medium.Whether or not this speculation is justified, it is vital that

managers understand the significance of the issues that arise

from the changing communications environment and developstrategies for managing them. There is potential upside, with

the development of positive brand associations and potentially

an integrated branding approach to deliver better customervalue. From a risk management point of view there is the

potential for customer confusion by inappropriate mixing of

brand messages, which would reduce hard-won brand value.There is the potential for the intended synergies arising from a

new network relationship, be that a short-term opportunistic

deal or a corporate merger, to go unrealised. Of course,outside the boundaries of the relationships discussed in this

paper, the broader strategies of managed brand portfolios

(Aaker, 2004) and an understanding of consumer portfoliopurchasing (as summarised by Ehrenberg et al., 2004) are

useful risk reduction tools for the manager.The managerial value of our classification is that a situation

analysis can be performed, after which management can

consider whether the area it finds itself in is appropriate, or ifa different type of relationship should be sought to better

deliver value to stakeholders. A variety of different approaches

could be taken in seeking such a change, in the case of

business networks for example creating a new network abinitio, buying into an existing network, or selecting a form of

international market entry. If the problem lies primarily in themanaging of the closeness of perceived brand associations,

new brands could be created, existing ones could be acquired,or a new communications strategy could be developed, for

example. Clearly with the significant investment costs for suchchanges, managers need to prioritise the various options. Itmay also be that a brand’s managers are forced into a different

area through corporate activity, such as a merger oracquisition, in which case the examples described previously

and the characteristics and suggested managerial strategies inthis section will provide a reference guide for action.In area 1 the brand interaction perceived by customers is

close and the business network is strong. We suggest that

communication between the managers in the businessesconcerned in such a relationship should be supervisory innature due to the formal managerial control exerted by one

business over the other and the consequent necessity forcontrol of the brand message. The strength of the relationship

suggests that for efficient management formal contractsshould exist between the parties, not just concerning business

matters in general but in matters to do with the brands, suchas visual identity manuals and common or strongly related

communications campaigns. Here, one business hasconsiderable formal power over the other and such asituation can be expected to last until or unless the

relationship is broken or weakens in some way.Documentation should be extensive and unambiguous, and

clear procedures should be established for authorisation ofactivities before they are initiated. Organisations wishing to

pursue such a relationship and move into this area fromanother one would be advised to do so by merger, acquisition,or other binding legal relationship such as an agency

agreement to establish beyond doubt the formality of theassociation.In area 2 the business network relationship is weak but the

interaction perceived by customers between the brands is

close. Here control is less formal and weaker than when thebusiness network is close, such as in area 1. Communication

between the managers in the businesses concerned in such asituation should be advisory, for example, manufacturerprovision of a merchandising service to a retailer. The

businesses are distinct from each other, although their brandsare associated in the eyes of the customer. From the point of

view of efficient management of an existing situation,documentation is even more important than in area 1,

because although the brands are reliant on each other theyhave no ownership or managerial associations. The

documentation should cover the responsibilities of theparties to their own brands and other brands in the networkrelationship, since the relative power of the brands is similar.

It should also include consideration of the expected length ofthe relationship. The literature on strategic alliances between

businesses should be helpful to managers here. Organisationswishing to pursue such a relationship and move into this area

from another one would be advised to do so by negotiationwith suitable parties: there is a wide range to choose from

since no business network relationship is required. A formaljoint venture could be one outcome.In area 3, where interaction is transactional and managerial

communication is project-based, documentation and

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discussion is important for the smooth running of both

businesses, particularly where goals are not congruent, for

example in the case of a retailer seeking to leverage increasedsales of a higher profit margin line by associating it with a

strong brand. The business network is distant and theinteraction perceived by customers is weak. Such interaction

as there is should be transactional, for example sales calls by

employees of one business to another, say a retailer, and adhoc alliances. There is little beyond the obvious supplier/

retailer relationship that is visible to the individual customerof the retailer concerned – in many cases this is an accurate

perception of course. The potential for disputation here is

great and agreement through frequent contact, both formaland informal, supported by documentation, is important.

Organisations wishing to pursue such a relationship and move

into this cell from another one would be advised to do so byseparating ownership and brand relationships, although such

situations would be rare.In area 4, where the businesses are in a strong network

relationship but the association perceived by customersbetween brands is distant, the strength of the association –

either formal or informal – is not brand-related. As a

consequence, little inter-organisational documentation isrequired as regards to brand management and

communication between managers of the businessesconcerned is likely to focus on matters other than the

respective brands, such as finance and other corporate

concerns. The business network here is not necessarilyvisible to the customer. Interaction between the businesses

should be more co-operative, for example joint managementseminars and information sharing. Efficient management of

such situations includes ensuring that branding decisions are

made the overriding necessity of maintaining the brand(s)identity and not imposed because of the power of ownership.

The temptation to move towards umbrella brands for the

purpose of demonstrating corporate unity or aggregatedbrand ownership for the sake of investors should be carefully

avoided. However, organisations wishing to pursue such arelationship and move into this cell from another one would

be advised to do so by acquiring brands that are managed in

such a way that they remain independent and separate, orcreating separate brand management units for each product

line. The brand trajectories are parallel rather thanconvergent. Synergies and efficiencies should be achieved

through corporate management, such as back office

rationalisation, rather than through branding. Even moreimportantly, the ethical issues that may arise when closely

associated businesses have disparate brands must bethoroughly understood, for both legal and moral reasons.

Conclusions

This paper has presented a conceptual synthesis of work onthe dynamics of brand networks and the dynamics of business

relationships with particular attention to new business

environments, and has proposed a framework for betterunderstanding the networks and associations between brands.

The model represents a range of strengths of businessnetworks and perceived distances of brand associations. The

underlying reasons for the differences are based on associative

links in the perception of a customer and the networkrelationship between the businesses that own the brands, and

this is the taxonomic basis on which the examples are

classified. One of the important effects of this classification is

to raise the issue of different management strategies to deal

with issues that arise for businesses with different types of

business-brand relationships, and these have been outlined.It is of critical importance for future researchers and

practitioners to understand the increasingly complex variety

of factors underlying and influencing the associations between

brands. Future work could further investigate the operational

implications of the framework proposed here. For this analysis

to be useful to practitioners and researchers, it is important to

test it in practice. The validity of the assumptions made in

classifying the networks and interactions in this way needs to

be validated and then, if confirmed, the nature of the dyadic

networks should be investigated in detail to determine

whether brand management and communication strategies

should indeed differ from one area to another. The extent and

methods by which migration between areas can be facilitated

will be of value to managers. This could be further tested in

the context of business networks, which are of growing

significance, partly as a result of new technologies and this

would provide an interesting test of the concept of brand

congruency, with views of it from inside and outside pairs and

networks of organisations.

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Executive summary

This executive summary has been provided to allow managers andexecutives a rapid appreciation of the content of this article. Thosewith a particular interest in the topic covered may then read thearticle in toto to take advantage of the more comprehensivedescription of the research undertaken and its results to get the fullbenefit of the material present.

Brands do not always mean just what we want them to

mean

Brands do not operate in isolation but, as managers

responsible for those brands we tend to think and plan our

strategies as if these brands do operate unconnected to therest of the world about them. Only when we have to consider

the relationship between brands (competitor assessment,

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co-branding, brand extension, etc.) do we consider that whathappens to other brands is of any relevance to our strategy.Jevons, Gabbott and de Chernatony challenge this tendency

and, in doing so, present us with a conceptualised rationalefor the importance of appreciating the interaction betweendifferent brands. And this concept considers two dimensionsthe relationship at a business level and the relationship in themind of the consumer. The resulting 2 £ 2 matrix has themerit of being simple (which means I can grasp it and applyit) and relevant to brand analysis. In addition it recognisesthat the “no brand is an island” approach fits in with thegrowing realisation that networks are as important to businessperformance as internal management processes.Jevons et al. describe the four quadrants of their concept

and provide examples allowing us to appreciate how we mightapply the concept. So, rather than describing this all overagain, I am going to consider some of the strategicconsiderations that flow from application of this brandassociation model.

Networks and modern businessThe network – even if not described as such – has alwaysbeen important to business and especially to the distributionof products and services. Such networks deliver marketasymmetry and through that the opportunity for profit and, atthe authors here note, are becoming more and moresignificant to modern businesses. What Jevons et al. argue isthat the bonds within these networks vary in strength. Theauthors opt for a simple strong versus weak distinctionallowing for us to assess the strategic consequences moreeasily.More significantly, the authors argue that the critical

relationships are not those between business and customerbut the brand-to-brand and customer-to-customerrelationship. It is the strength of these associations that needto get more strategic attention. The consumer has a range ofreal and virtual networks plus a set of associations linkingdifferent brands together. Since our brand strategy is foundedon the exploitation of associations understanding the mentallinkages between different brands is very important.Brand managers need, therefore, to assess the associations

and connections that the consumer makes between brands. Itis not enough to know that tea goes with biscuits but toexplore the wider connotations of that association. Thisappreciation is important where consideration is given to co-branding and critical in brand extension decisions. Sometimesa link points towards deliberate brand association (e.g.through co-branding) whereas in other circumstances the linksuggests a valid brand extension.

Making the right business linksJevons et al. observe that some consumer assumptions aboutbrand-to-brand links are not reflected in business-to-business

links supporting that association. At the same time there can

be close connections between brand owners (often reflecting

strategic priorities unrelated to the brand such as distribution

advantages) that do not connect with similar links brand-to-

brand for the consumer.If our central focus is on the management and development

of the brand, then we need to seek out associations that take

advantage of established connections in the perception of

consumers. The development of strategic alliances is, at least

in part, driven by the strengthening of brand meaning and

equity as it is by financial or production considerations. There

is a case to be made for the development of brand networks

that reflect the mental map of brands experienced by

consumers.This network approach to brand management recognizes

the observation made here by Jevons et al. that we are “. . .

moving away from brands as assets to be managed towards

brands as quasi-independent market organisms which are

sustained by inputs from both managers and environment.” If

we fail to appreciate that the value of the brand is influenced

as much by environmental factors as it is by marketing input

we risk seeing drift between our brand meaning and the user’s

brand meaning.

The link has to mean somethingClearly, the link between brands has to result in some

meaning – either to the manager or to the consumer.

However, we tend to concentrate either on the managerial

benefits (often perceived) or on fairly prosaic references

within the real world. What we must accept is that every

association we make has some sort of meaning above and

beyond the meaning associated with the different elements.

The outcome we seek from making the association or linkage

is for the resultant meaning to be substantially positive for the

consumer. So for a brand extension we want to transfer

positive views from the existing brand to the extended brand.This search for new and extended meaning is central to a

more nuanced, networked view of brand management. It is

the dynamics of consumer networks that begin to guide our

strategy – we do not make the brand on our own but do it in

partnership with the consumer. As a result brand strategy

becomes as much about following the flow of associations as

about creating those associations in the first place. The

meaning of the brand sits within the mind of the consumer

and incongruity with what we think the brand’s meaning

might be represents a real threat to developing the brand.

(A precis of the article “Customer and brand manager perspectives

on brand relationships: a conceptual framework”. Supplied by

Marketing Consultants for Emerald.)

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