Country Brand Equity: The Role of Image and Reputation.
| Autor | Mariutti, Fabiana Gondim |
| Cargo | Research Article |
INTRODUCTION
Within the setting of international business, country branding has become necessary to build, manage, and monitor the value of the brand at this stage of the global development of branding (Steenkamp, 2017), because of the strategic function of country branding for any country's competitiveness (Foroudi, Gupta, Kitchen, Foroudi, & Nguyen, 2016). Historically, branding of place has been considered a robust marketing research domain in academia (Bastos & Levy, 2012; Warnaby & Medway, 2013) since the earliest theoretical concepts to support strategies in positioning, advertising, communication, and sales (Kotler & Levy, 1969), which provided the onto-epistemological starting point for place marketing and place branding (country, region, or city) as a core interest-context unit of analysis. Thus, Keller (1998, p. 19) observed that "the brand name is relatively fixed by the actual name of the location," which is relevant when considering the branding of a geographical location (such as a city, region, or country). Indeed, any of these geographic-spatial places holds multifaceted tangible and intangible features that may influence place reputation, due to the many stakeholders and communication channels involved (Warnaby & Medway, 2013). Therefore, sustaining CBE for the long term requires strategic brand management (Kapferer, 1992; Pappu, Quester & Cooksey, 2006). CBE, as a conceptual extension of the theory of brand equity, refers to the value of a country's brand (Zeugner-Roth, Diamantopoulos, & Montesinos, 2008) and acts as an outcome of referred value (Davcik, Silva, & Hair, 2015). Thus, the country brand can be one of the most valuable intangible assets of a country, for brand equity represents a 'relational' type of market-based intangible asset (Veloutsou, Christodoulides, & Chernatony, 2013).
In this scenario, we identify an ongoing debate among scholars regarding the conceptualization of CBE. Specifically, CBE has gained broad attention since 2000 and has gradually advanced in both the theoretical and methodological levels--as has the significance of a country's brand per se (Giraldi, 2016; Papadopoulos & Heslop, 2002; Papadopoulos & Hamzaoui-Essoussi, 2015). Moreover, just as the marketable scope of the country brand has expanded, so has academic interest. However, research on CBE remains in its infancy in the marketing literature (Bose, Roy, Alwi, & Nguyen, 2020; Pappu & Quester, 2010; Zeugner-Roth, Diamantopoulos, & Montesinos, 2008). Most CBE research conducted thus far has been quantitative in nature (Bose et al., 2020; Mariutti & Giraldi, 2019; Pappu et al., 2006; Pappu & Quester, 2010; Zenker, 2014; Zeugner-Roth et al., 2008). These past studies have defined CBE in a consolidated deductive-hypothetic approach for each of its stakeholder groups, markets, or country of origin. In this regard, we discern a crucial gap in the literature regarding perceptual components of the conceptualization of country brand equity (CBE), and, to date, researchers' and marketers' interpretations have not investigated the conceptual distinctions between the image of a country and its reputation. Studies on CBE have neglected the brand reputation construct, forgetting that image per se is part of the reputation (de Chernatony, 1999; Jurisic & Azevedo, 2011; Pappu & Quester, 2010). Therefore, we distinguish and disclose them and their interrelationships with CBE due to the paucity of research regarding the roles of image and reputation as constructs of brand equity (Chatzipanagiotou, Veloutsou, & Christodoulides, 2016; Foroudi et al., 2016; Papadopoulos & Heslop, 2002).
We emphasize that 'reputation' constitutes a significant construct of brand equity because it denotes the overarching concept of the 'image' construct, in accordance with the previous literature, which has interpreted brand image as part of brand reputation (de Chernatony, 1999). In the interim, country image (CI) has been commonly understood as a multidimensional construct (Papadopoulos & Heslop, 2002; Roth & Diamantopoulos, 2009), that is, a generic construct consisting of generalized images that do not necessarily encompass products (Roth & Diamantopoulos, 2009). Consequently, this study seeks to shift our view of CI in a principled way, by adding its conceptual findings to the literature and practice concerning the international business field.
The purpose of this study is to provide a conceptual framework for our inquiry into CBE by incorporating 'reputation' into the brand equity conceptualization at a country level (Suddaby, 2010). We acknowledged CBE by applying two interpretative conducts due to the complex knowledge domain of country brand equity. First, we deductively explored this topic from the existing literature review; second, we inductively unpacked the concept of CBE using qualitative data from international researchers to build a qualitative counterpart of theoretical knowledge for research in business studies. Thus, the rationale for this study emerged from the literature review, which led to the following research question of this exploratory study: 'How are country image and country reputation in the context of country brand conceptualized in extant research?' We argue that CBE is comprised of (a) the image of a country (region or city); (b) its reputation, through development based on a dynamic and forward-looking approach (Veloutsou & Guzman, 2017), and (c) an improved combination of components related to the value of a country (Papadopoulos & Heslop, 2003). Hence, our contributions are twofold: (a) in terms of the literature, as this study assesses the influence of reputation on brand equity, and (b) to practice, as this study also recognizes its potential impact on international business strategies worldwide. To this end, we encourage not only business researchers but also interested scholars and practitioners in other fields to advance the understanding of the multifaceted implications of a country's status quo.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Brand equity
Aaker (1991, 1992), as the founder of the first consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) model, focused on the conceptualization of brand equity through the perceptual and behavioral components mentioned earlier; his significant work is detailed and considerable, but does not consider brand image or brand reputation. That said, Aaker does hint at brand reputation being an intangible attribute of brand (Aaker, 1991). For Keller (1993, 1998), brand equity consists of two main perceptual components, that is, brand knowledge (recall and recognition) and brand image (brand associations). Moreover, as with the CBBE perspective, brand reputation was not taken into consideration when examining brand equity.
Notwithstanding its early conceptual origins, research on brand equity did not emerge as an issue in marketing until the twenty-first century. Yoo and Donthu (2001) developed the first measurement model of CBBE; it was a three-dimensional perceptual construct for measuring brand equity consisting of brand loyalty, perceived quality, and brand awareness/associations (as a single dimension). The Yoo and Donthu model was based on the conceptualizations of Aaker (1991) and Keller (1993). In sum, brand equity is the total value added to the product by its brand name (Yoo & Donthu, 2001). Although their research represented an advance in terms of the dimensions of brand equity and its interrelationships, brand association and brand awareness are treated jointly, and brand reputation was not measured. Since then, a large body of research investigating brand equity regarding products and services has emerged. Undeniably, brand equity currently holds a well-recognized position in marketing theory; yet after almost three decades of research on brand equity (Davcik, Silva, & Hair, 2015), there is little agreement on the concept of brand equity (Veloutsou et al., 2013) and place brand equity (Zavattaro, Daspit, & Adams, 2015; Zenker, 2014).
Grounded in the conceptual fundamentals of Aaker's model (1991) and based on the consumer perspective and Keller's conceptualizations of brand equity, the element 'brand associations' was designated by us, thereby narrowing this study's framework. Along the same lines, Yoo and Donthu (2001) and Pappu et al (2006) studied a conceptualization of brand equity whereby brand associations were empirically acknowledged. Additionally, Keller argued that brand associations "may be created by linking the brand to another node or information in memory that conveys meaning to consumers" (1998, p. 74). Furthermore, place brand associations can influence brand image favorability when related to place brand equity (Bose et al., 2020; Zenker, 2014).
Country brand equity
Despite the prevalence of brand equity studies in marketing and the increasing numbers of studies of CBE in international business, the main publications have neglected the conceptualization of CBE beyond the classical constructs. Scholars' attempts to define CBE have clarified the debate by stating that the concept refers to "the value that may be embedded in perceptions by various target markets about the country, and the ways in which these perceptions may be used to advance its interests and those of its constituents" (Papadopoulos & Heslop, 2002, p. 285). Later, Papadopoulos and Heslop (2002) re-phrased Aaker's (1991) ideas by arguing that CBE suggests "a set of country assets and liabilities linked to a country, its name and symbols, that add to or subtract from the value provided by the country's outputs to its various internal and external publics" (Papadopoulos & Heslop, 2002, p. 581). CBE is a multidimensional model based on several proposed measurements (Papadopoulos & Heslop, 2002, 2003; Pappu et al., 2006; Pappu & Quester, 2010; Zeugner-Roth et al., 2008); however, the conceptualization of CBE has not been treated as the complex phenomenon that it is, one that demands new...
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