Value of Regional Brands in Europe: How Consumers in Five European Countries Co-Construct Meaning of European Brands

摘要

While companies generate a substantial part of their revenues from trading within regions rather than on a global scale, there has been little research conducted on regional marketing initiatives (such as regional branding strategies) (Cayla/Eckhardt 2007). In the understanding that brands - embedded in a cultural context - are co-created and co-constructed by consumers in a dialogue with marketers (Bengtsson/Bardhi/Venkatraman 2010; Cay-la/Arnould 2008), we explore the concept of regional European brands from a consumer perspective. Specifically, our interests focus on consumers' construction of Europe as a region, what European brands mean to them (or not), what they associate them with and whether there are tensions in the understanding of European brands compared to localational or global brands. Based on focus group discussions in five European countries, our findings indicate that Europe as a region is a social construction based on geography and cultural similarity. Brand associations related to European brands are distinct from local and global brands, and are self-contained and quite elaborate at certain levels. More-rnover, respondents expressed strong feelings of community, while still preserving idiosyncrasies in conjunction with regional (European) brands.