Symbol-intensive brand

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A symbol-intensive brand is a brand adopted not only for its functional benefits, but above all, for the strong symbolism and significance that it is able to transmit, allowing a consumer to express his or her identity, to signal status or manifest a sense of belonging to a group.

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Concept

Businesses might be based on three different types of knowledge: analytical; synthetic or symbolic. [1] [2] Creative or cultural businesses, such as entertainment, publishing, design, or fashion, draw heavily on a symbolic knowledge base. They serve important symbolic functions such as capturing, refracting, and legitimating social knowledge and values. [3] [4] The essence of a brand or a product in these industries resides in its meaning for the consumer rather than in its function. [5]

A symbol-intensive brand is a brand adopted not only for its functional benefits, but above all, for the strong symbolism and significance that it is able to transmit, allowing a consumer to express his or her identity, to signal status or manifest a sense of belonging to a group.[ citation needed ] The symbol-intensive brand [6] definition was introduced by Stefania Saviolo and Antonio Marazza in the book Lifestyle Brands – A Guide to Inspirational Marketing. Analyzing a brand's choices in terms of competitive scope (number of targets and categories served) and type of benefits provided to the customer, [7] five classes of Symbol-intensive brands are identified:

  1. Authority brands
  2. Solution brands
  3. Icon brands
  4. Cult brands
  5. Lifestyle brands

Symbol-intensive brands are able to maintain a relationship with their clients that goes beyond the usual brand loyalty. Clients tend to become ambassadors, fans, champions, that find the brand fundamental or irreplaceable in their lives. Researchers have noted superior economic and financial performances in brands capable of engaging people or influencing a social context proposing an original point of view. [8] [9]

List of symbol intensive brands

Related Research Articles

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Marketing research is the systematic gathering, recording, and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data about issues relating to marketing products and services. The goal is to identify and assess how changing elements of the marketing mix impacts customer behavior.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Consumer behaviour</span> Study of individuals, groups, or organisations and all the activities associated with consuming

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A lifestyle brand is a brand that attempts to embody the values, aspirations, interests, attitudes, or opinions of a group or a culture for marketing purposes. Lifestyle brands seek to inspire, guide, and motivate people, with the goal of making their products contribute to the definition of the consumer's way of life. As such, they are closely associated with the advertising and other promotions used to gain mind share in their target market. They often operate from an ideology, hoping to attract a relatively high number of people and ultimately become a recognised social phenomenon.

Knowledge Intensive Business Services are services and business operations heavily reliant on professional knowledge. They are mainly concerned with providing knowledge-intensive support for the business processes of other organizations. As a result, their employment structures are heavily weighted towards scientists, engineers, and other experts. It is common to distinguish between T-KIBS,, and P-KIBS, who are more traditional professional services - legal, accountancy, and many management consultancy and marketing services. These services either supply products which are themselves primary sources of information and knowledge, or use their specialist knowledge to produce services which facilitate their clients own activities. Consequently, KIBS usually have other businesses as their main clients, though the public sector and sometimes voluntary organisations can be important customers, and to some extent households will feature as consumers of, for instance, legal and accountancy services.

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Service innovation is used to refer to many things. These include but not limited to:

  1. Innovation in services, in service products – new or improved service products. Often this is contrasted with “technological innovation”, though service products can have technological elements. This sense of service innovation is closely related to service design and "new service development".
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  3. Innovation in service firms, organizations, and industries – organizational innovations, as well as service product and process innovations, and the management of innovation processes, within service organizations.

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Netnography is a specific type of qualitative social media research. It adapts the methods of ethnography to understand social interaction in contemporary digital communications contexts. Netnography is a specific set of research practices related to data collection, analysis, research ethics, and representation, rooted in participant observation. In netnography, a significant amount of the data originates in and manifests through the digital traces of naturally occurring public conversations recorded by contemporary communications networks. Netnography uses these conversations as data. It is an interpretive research method that adapts the traditional, in-person participant observation techniques of anthropology to the study of interactions and experiences manifesting through digital communications.

Corporate architecture refers to the use of architectural design to construct physical spaces that can promote the corporate image of a corporation. During the 20th century corporate architecture was able to transition from designs with mainly function in mind to more creative endeavours, which are able to be an architectural expression of the firm’s institutional identity and play a role in stakeholders’ image of the organisation.

The hedonic music consumption model was created by music researchers Kathleen Lacher and Richard Mizeski in 1994. Their goal was to use this model to examine the responses that listening to rock music creates, and to find if these responses influenced the listener's intention to later purchase the music. The article begins with a discussion of why the issue of music consumption is important. Music is then explored as an aesthetic product, prior to a discussion of what hedonic consumption is, as well as its origins, and concludes with an in-depth look at the model itself.

Science-to-business marketing entails the marketing of research conducted at research institutions, particularly universities, to industry or other interested parties. The acronym S2B follows a series of marketing acronyms used to shorten and popularise marketing specialisations, including (B2C) and (B2B).

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A cult brand is a symbol-intensive brand usually tied to a single customer segment or a specific product category. Cult brands deliver a sense of belonging between people who share the same culture and passions. Harley-Davidson is a typical example of cult brand because they effectively express open roads culture, free spirit mythology, and connotations of Hells Angels’ machismo. These ideas amass a following of the company's brand.

An icon brand is a symbol-intensive brand that carry powerful universal values making it instantly recognisable thanks to ownable and distinctive codes. Becoming an icon is the peak of the marketing. Icon brands include various luxury brands and fashion brands, though any brand—regardless of its origins and sector—can become an icon brand if marketed competently.

Social media use by businesses includes a range of applications. Although social media accessed via desktop computers offer a variety of opportunities for companies in a wide range of business sectors, mobile social media, which users can access when they are "on the go" via tablet computers or smartphones, benefit companies because of the location- and time-sensitive awareness of their users. Mobile social media tools can be used for marketing research, communication, sales promotions/discounts, informal employee learning/organizational development, relationship development/loyalty programs, and e-commerce.

Knowledge-intensive services, abbreviated as KIS, are services that involve activities that are intended to result in the creation, accumulation, or dissemination of knowledge, where knowledge-intensiveness refers to how knowledge is produced and delivered with highly intellectual value-add. Knowledge intensive business services are the knowledge-intensive service activities for developing a customized service or product solution to satisfy the client's needs and they are provided mainly for other companies or organizations. These concepts are continuously discussed, formulated, and developed as a part of the constantly evolving academic discipline of knowledge management.

References

  1. Asheim, B.; Coenen, L.; Moodysson, J.; Vang, J. (2007). "Constructing knowledge-based regional advantage: implications for regional innovation policy". International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management. 7. 7 (2/3/4/5): 140–157. doi:10.1504/IJEIM.2007.012879.
  2. Cooke, P.; et al. (2005). "Research, knowledge and open innovation: spatial impacts upon organization of knowledge-intensive industry clusters". Paper Presented at the Conference of Regional Studies Association "Regional Growth Agendas": 1–27.
  3. Caves, Richard E. (2000). Creative Industries: Contracts between Art and Commerce. Harvard University Press.
  4. Roman, Martin; Jerker, Moodysson (2011). "Innovation in symbolic industries: the geography and organization of knowledge sourcing". European Planning Studies. 19 (7).
  5. Jones, Candace; Thornton Patricia H. (2005). "Transformation in Cultural Industries". Research in the Sociology of Organization. Research in the Sociology of Organizations. Emerald Group Publishing Limited. 23: xi–xxi. doi:10.1016/S0733-558X(05)23009-4. ISBN   0-7623-1240-8.
  6. Saviolo, Stefania; Marazza, Antonio (2012). Lifestyle Brands - A Guide to Aspirational Marketing. Palgrave Macmillan.
  7. Aaker, D.A. (2009-09-30). "Beyond Functional Benefits". Marketing News.
  8. Jacobson, R.; Mizik N. (2009). "Valuing Branded Businesses". Journal of Marketing. 73 (6).
  9. Ravasi, D.; Rindova V. (2008). Handbook of emerging approaches to organization studies. Sage Publications.