Essence: The Structure and Dynamics of the Brand

Abstract

The concept of ‘brand essence’ is relatively well established in marketing circles. It has come to the fore as a way for marketers to better understand their brands and also as a benchmark to evaluate brand activities. In some quarters, however, the concept has encountered more resistance. It is seen by many in the creative community as something that oversimplifies the marketing process and limits the power of the brand. The main argument of this paper is that brand essence has been fundamentally misunderstood. This has resulted in a number of negative consequences for the branding process. However, this paper will also show how the concept still has much to offer marketing professionals. A new, and more relevant, interpretation of brand essence is put forward in this paper, which recognises the intrinsically relational and dynamic aspects of the concept. As such, it creates a new platform upon which we can build our understanding of brands.

Consumer Reality: How Brands are Constructed

“…Some of this discussion has already been covered in previous papers in this occasional series for the IJMR (Barnham 2008(Barnham , 2009(Barnham , 2010 . In these papers we looked specifically at how essences are constructed in 'propositional hierarchies' .…”

“…There are essentially two dimensions that are at work here -a horizontal one and a vertical one (see Figure 3) . This structure will be a familiar one to readers with a background in structuralism or semiotics, and it also reflects the hierarchy of essence discussed in my previous paper (Barnham 2009) . We now need to identify how each of these two dimensions works and how it impacts on the meaning of a brand .…”

Quantitative and Qualitative Research: Perceptual Foundations

“…We understand it by identifying how different consumers frame the world and make distinctions through their 'perceptual judgments' . Every distinction that a consumer makes is, of course, relational because it includes certain things and excludes others (Barnham 2009) . Underpinning this methodological approach is the concept of 'qualis' and the classificatory qualitative mind-set that it entails .…”

How MRS′ Journal has Contributed to the Development of Market and Social Research

“…Obviously, these examples do not show the full picture of the full and varied spectrum the journal has covered over its life to date, such as the rise of semiotics within market research methodologies (Lawes, 2002; 2018; 2019; Silhouette-Dercourt & de Lassus, 2016; Barnham, Gold Medal 2020; Aming, 2021) ; new product development/co-creation (Roberts et al 2005, 2017; Maklan, Knox & Ryalls 2008); brands (Romaniuk & Nicholls, 2006; Barnham, 2009; Formisano et al, 2020) and brand strategy (Barnham, 2012); ethics (Robson, 1991; Nunan & Di Domenico, 2013; Yallop & Mowatt, 2016); researching children and young people (Baxter, 2012; Nairn & Clarke, 2012); presenting data (Collins, 1992); conjoint analysis (Blamires, 1987; Lines & Denstadli, 2004; King et al, 2019); behavioural economics (Gordon, 2011); the evolution of earlier technologies in today’s world, such as the eye-movement recorder (Purucker et al, 2013); and experimental studies (Ryals & Wilson, 2005).…”