Ulla Hakala

Operationalising brand heritage and cultural heritage

Purpose – Brand heritage is acknowledged as one of the future priorities in branding research. Adopting it in an international context is challenging. In order to maximise its use it is necessary to know how strong it and the target countrys cultural heritage are. Accordingly, the aim of the study is to construct a pioneering operationalisation of both brand and cultural heritage.Design/methodology/approach – The study begins with a discussion on the focal concepts. Definitions are proposed and suggestions for operationalisation put forward. Thereafter, the concepts are applied in an analysis of brand heritage in different countries.Findings – It is suggested that brand heritage is a mixture of the history as well as the consistency and continuity of core values, product brands, and visual symbols. A countrys cultural heritage could be conceived of as homogeneity and endurance.Research limitations/implications – The preliminary operationalisation of the concept needs to be further tested. Nevertheless, ...

Consumer‐based brand equity and top‐of‐mind awareness: a cross‐country analysis

Purpose – The study focused on dimensions of consumer-based brand equity, and especially the recall level of brand awareness. The purpose was to identify any statistically significant differences i ...

Country image as a nation‐branding tool

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the country image of Finland among potential travellers and potential consumers of Finnish products. Three research questions are addressed, each of which contributes to the overall aim: What is the level of awareness about Finland among the respondents? How is the awareness constructed in terms of dimensions? Where does the image stem from (the source)?Design/methodology/approach – A survey was conducted among US, French and Swiss university students. Given the high number of respondents who had not visited Finland, the analysis focused on non‐visitors. Six hypotheses were formulated based on existing theory.Findings – Awareness is a key indicator of peoples knowledge about the existence of a country. Branding may be an elementary tool in enhancing awareness as well as altering or reinforcing stereotypical views. The results of this study bring out the cross‐cultural aspects.Research limitations/implications – Including the respondents’ sources of inform...

Co-creating a nation brand ''bottom up''

Purpose – The paper aims to apply the co‐creation paradigm to nation branding in order to analyze how the identity and image of a nation brand are inter‐twined in terms of levels and dimensions, respectively.Design/approach/methodology – This explorative study was conducted among 178 Finnish university students, who were asked to build a program for branding Finland. The students worked in small groups of two or three. In all, 75 reports were handed in, of which those (67) targeted at tourists were taken for analysis. The analysis was conducted in accordance with a model modified from Gnoth.Findings – Its image is a critical stimulus in motivating tourists to visit a destination. A nation brand is at the crossroads of three levels of identity and a fragmented set of images. The idea is to exploit the right fragments in line with the destination and the target groups.Research limitations/implications – The empirical analysis was based on data gathered from MBA students. The intention is to extend the sampl...

Toponyms as carriers of heritage: implications for place branding

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of a place’s name as the carrier of identity and heritage from the residents’ perspective. The authors assess the extent to which names of municipalities carry the place’s heritage, and how this can further be transferred to the place brand. The context is a situation in which a municipality changes its name, or is at the risk of doing so, as a result of municipal consolidation. Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted a large survey in the south-western Finland in spring 2013. The survey questionnaire was posted to 5,020 randomly selected residents, and the final sample comprised 1,380 recipients. The authors offer a framework for operationalising place heritage, comprising four components: history, place essence, symbols and residential permanence. Findings – Most respondents attached importance to the name of their home town. The majority also felt that a name change would mean losing part of the place’s history. A strong place herit...

Case A: The Role of Nokia in Branding Finland – Companies as Vectors of Nation Branding

This chapter discusses how a product brand can create leverage for a nation brand; that is, the country of origin of the product. Traditionally, countries have been considered to function as umbrella brands for product brands – for example, France for French perfume, Italy for Italian sports cars, and Japan for Japanese electronics. But can a product brand also boost recognition, exposure and credibility for a nation?

Revealing Possibilities for Co-Branding – Focusing on Finnish Higher Education of Creative Economy

Increasing competition for students, funding and support has made universities, MBA programs and other educational parties realize a growing need to market themselves to their key stakeholders as well as to differentiate themselves from their competitors, i.e. to brand themselves. Discourse about branding higher education has emerged in marketing literature during the last few years but is still rather scarce and fragmented. This paper contributes to yet limited higher education (HE) branding literature, the purpose being to explore co-branding possibilities of a Master’s degree program, its host city and an annual international cultural event arranged in the city. The qualitative empirical data covers both interviews with the employees of the program and other stakeholders, as well as a survey among the students of the program. The results suggest that educational programs and institutions could obtain differentiation and brand synergy from related city and festival brands through close cooperation and networking with surrounding stakeholders, i.e. co-branding. Moreover, the results show that even if the host city is not considered a strong brand itself, it is possible to benefit from the place brand ‘entity’. Close cooperation is favourable to the host city and the cultural event, as well as to the program.

Towards Improved Performance: A Model for Testing Email Newsletter Design

This study concentrates on the opportunities of developing email marketing performance based on testing the design of an email newsletter. Drawing from existing literature, the paper presents a model for testing email newsletter design. The model consists of email marketing response process, factors affecting response, and corresponding metrics that are based on clickstream data. Multivariate tests were used to test permission-based newsletters sent by a European airline company regularly to its clients, verifying that the model has potential to be used in real decision-making situations. The paper shows how messages can be tested easily, accurately and objectively with retrievable results that are interesting from a marketing perspective.

Tracing for One Voice — The 5Cs of Communication in Place Branding

What makes a brand successful? The question has been covered extensively from the perspective of consumer goods, but do the same rules apply to place brands? One of the challenges in the branding of places is the excessive number of stakeholders and too little management control (Skinner, 2005). The aim in this chapter is, from an integrative analytical perspective, to design a strategic communications framework that will enable cultural entrepreneurs to deal effectively with the problem of maintaining two-way communication in good times and bad. It is worth pointing out here that there are various rational, social, emotional and aesthetic strategies that cultural entrepreneurs can use to build a multiplex of identities, in other words identities with many facets that engage stakeholders in different ways cognitively, emotionally and aesthetically (Rindova, 2007: 169). This is where integrated communication (IC) may be of use. As compared to the familiar concept of integrated marketing communication (IMC), IC covers all strategic organizational communications (see e.g., Niemann-Struweg, 2014). This chapter discusses five key strategic requirements for communication — consistency, continuity, commitment, coordination and content — from the perspective of place branding. The assumption is that the strategic control and integration of the branding and IC processes via the 5Cs foster synergy, one-voice benefits and profitability.