ABSTRACT
After the short introduction to the seven brand approaches, in this chapter, we provide an overview of the different perspectives on key subjects in brand management reflected in the seven approaches to brand management. The taxonomy (Figure 3.1) sums up the key learning points from the seven approach chapters. The background of this book and taxonomy is a systematic analysis of 500+ brand management research articles spanning the period of 1985-2015. The analysis has been executed in accordance with the logic of the methodology in the Dynamic Paradigm Funnel (Berthon et al. 2003, Bjerre et al. 2008). The Dynamic Paradigm Funnel is based on theory about how science evolves: the philosophy of science developed by Thomas Kuhn. As mentioned briefly in Chapter 1, this proposed taxonomy of 30 years of brand management is based on an analysis of 500+ articles from the most influential marketing journals (Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Harvard Business Review and European Journal of Marketing). The journals are selected due to their academic influence (Hult et al.1997) (the first four) and the last one to add a European perspective to the data set. The criteria for selecting the articles are that they feature the words ‘brand’ or ‘branding’ in either the title or abstract (as we wanted a dedicated focus on the subject). These 500+ articles emerging in this search became our data set and are thus not chosen on a subjective basis. According to the Kuhnian logic, the 500+ articles were then assigned a number:
• 1: the main focus of the research article is empirical observations. The existing set of assumptions, theories, methodologies are not questioned in the article;
• 2: methodologies are questioned; • 3: theories are questioned; • 4: assumptions are questioned.
