The corporate brand naming process in the net economy

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine whether classical brand naming concepts are sustainable for entrepreneurial firms in the net economy.Design/methodology/approach – A prior study of Kohli and LaBahn covers the formal brand naming process and gives insights into brand name objectives and criteria. To follow the research purpose, their findings have been adapted for entrepreneurial firms in the net economy based on some prior interviews conducted with entrepreneurs for the present research. On basis of these results, a questionnaire was designed and sent to 319 e‐entrepreneurs located in German business incubators, of which 105 were fully completed.Findings – The availability of an appropriate domain name is found to be a basic driver for deciding on a brand name. The domain name influences the course of action during the naming process. Two groups were found that significantly differ in proceeding with the naming process. One group of e‐entrepreneurs follows the traditional process of Kohli...

[1]  Ellen Garbarino,et al.  Recall and recognition of brand names: A comparison of word and nonword name types , 2002 .

[2]  Kevin Lane Keller.  Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Managing Customer-Based Brand Equity , 1993 .

[3]  Kirthi Kalyanam,et al.  Principles of Internet Marketing , 1999 .

[4]  Sankar Sen,et al.  The Effects of Brand Name Suggestiveness and Decision Goal on the Development of Brand Knowledge , 1999 .

[5]  D. Aaker.  Building Strong Brands , 1995 .

[6]  D. Shipley,et al.  The Brand Name Development Process , 1988 .

[7]  Kevin Lane Keller.  Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity , 1997 .

[8]  William E. Baker,et al.  Does brand name imprinting in memory increase brand information retention , 2003 .

[9]  Leslie de Chernatony,et al.  Creating powerful brands in consumer, service and industrial markets , 2003 .

[10]  Christine Vallaster,et al.  Corporate Branding for Start-ups: The Crucial Role of Entrepreneurs , 2005 .

[11]  John R. Anderson.  The Architecture of Cognition , 1983 .

[12]  Kevin Lane Keller,et al.  The Effects of Brand Name Suggestiveness on Advertising Recall , 1998 .

[13]  Stephen King.  Brand‐building in the 1990s , 1991 .

[14]  S. Leitch,et al.  Corporate branding in the new economy , 2003 .

[15]  Horst Treiblmaier,et al.  E-Adequate Branding: Building Offline and Online Brand Structure within a Polygon of Interdependent Forces , 2004, Electron. Mark..

[16]  Peter D. Bennett.  Dictionary of marketing terms , 1995 .

[17]  Markus Will,et al.  Corporate branding of e-business ventures , 2001, Proceedings of the 34th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[18]  L. Turley,et al.  Brand name strategies in the service sector , 1995 .

[19]  M Schultz,et al.  Are the strategic stars aligned for your corporate brand? , 2001, Harvard business review.

[20]  W. Olins.  The corporate personality: An inquiry into the nature of corporate identity , 1978 .

[21]  John M. T. Balmer,et al.  Corporate identity, corporate branding and corporate marketing ‐ Seeing through the fog , 2001 .

[22]  Tom Duncan,et al.  Imc: Using Advertising and Promotion to Build Brands , 2001 .

[23]  Geoffrey A. Moore.  Crossing the chasm : marketing and selling high-tech products to mainstream customers , 1999 .

[24]  Jean-Noël Kapferer,et al.  The New Strategic Brand Management: Creating and Sustaining Brand Equity Long Term , 2004 .

[25]  Brand equity as an evolutionary process , 1994 .

[26]  Michael R. Ward,et al.  Internet shopping, consumer search and product branding , 2000 .

[27]  Jamie Murphy,et al.  The Use of Domain Names in e-Branding by the World's Top Brands , 2003, Electron. Mark..

[28]  Kevin Ibeh,et al.  E-branding strategies of internet companies: Some preliminary insights from the UK , 2005 .

[29]  Sabine A. Einwiller,et al.  Engendering trust in Internet businesses using elements of corporate branding , 2000 .