Question

Topic: Student Questions

Branding Dissertation Ideas

Posted by Anonymous on 5/17/2006 at 8:37 AM ET 75 Points
I am currently a 3rd year marketing student and will soon be starting my 4th and final year, requiring me to write a dissertation. I have decided to write this dissertation focused on branding in general, but need to develop this into something more substantial. I would be interested in focusing on brand value and what a brand should incorporate, resulting in building a successful brand in either a B2B or a B2C environment. Can anyone suggest any titles or areas that could help me develop this idea further, or help me expand this via their knowledge of writing previous journals/papers themselves? I realise that this is a very broad question, but am struggling to expand this and take it into a suitable direction, enabling me to write a professional piece of work based both academic and real life case studies.
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  • Posted on 5/17/2006 at 11:18 AM Member
    Every brand goes through a tipping point (term borrowed from malcom gladwell). An survey and study of this point for various brands can expose the mental makeup, reactions and behaviour of consumers. Can be an interesting topic.
  • Posted by wnelson on 5/17/2006 at 5:40 PM Member
    Well, since Randall threw my name into the hat, I would be remiss if I didn't contribute, huh? I should change my forum name to Pavlov's dog. I think I heard the bell ring.

    First, with respect to your dissertation, I would like to comment. You have said that you posted here because you thought that the forum was, "going to provide enough literature do be able to competently complete this project without resorting to dodgy 'academic resources' off the internet..." Let me give you some advice: The feedback from the forum and the internet stuff to which you referred is unsubstantiated opinion only. For the most part, no basis or proof will be provided. From your standpoint, this is about as good as going to any street corner and asking any passer-by what they think of branding. What you get with the dodgy academic resources is a document that is based on previous work - all of which is documented in a way so you are able to built your knowledge up the same way the author did and further, the document is reviewed by academic peers for consistency to a standard of scholarly research. You WILL NOT get that here or with the internet in general. AND your professors will look for this same kind of effort in your paper - building conclusions based on very logical arguments and reason, based on the peer reviewed work of others that is clearly and specifically documented such that they can follow the chain of reasoning. I have said numerous times on here: The internet DOES NOT have every piece on information and the information on the internet is suspect at best.

    The way to use the "opinions" here or on the internet is as a basis of idea or argument. Then, it is up to you to put the effort in to substantiate it - either by primary research - conducting experiments yourself - or secondary research - finding the write-ups of results of others' experiments that have been written in periodicals and journals that are rigorously peer reviewed. What I am suggesting is that for every expert opinion delivered on here, you will need to find a method to substantiate it or prove it.

    Second, with respect to B2B branding, this is an area ripe for academic exploration. Let's take Siemens. You think mobile phones and appliances. I think medical devices, factory automation products, power products....I think this because I know Siemans as a customer and competitor - depending on which stage in my career. BUT, as you say, most people don't think of that - probably because their brand hasn't been promoted strongly enough. So, the whole B2B world needs help on branding.

    That being said, the branding process is fairly consistent. The "brand" is what's in the customers' minds. As a marketer, our job is to control that perception and to control the branding so that it is consistent. It is through consistent efforts that the brand gets established in the customers mind. If the branding isn't consistent, the image in the customer's mind is muddled and the value of the brand grows faster. Also, the brand becomes dilluted when it takes on many disjointed products. Example: Siemens phones, medical products, power products. Brand extension is successful when the extensions are more closely related to the base product. For instance, Nike has gone from sports shoes to sports clothing.

    So, areas for which you may develop riveting dissertations might be B2B branding - successful actions and methods and unsuccessful actions and methods. If you tied real world experiences with theory, this would make a good topic. Another would be contrasting B2B with B2C branding - what are the differences in the two? Again, grounding this in the "dodgy" academic work would make the paper useful, interesting, and good. Or, if you take almost ANY academic paper and apply it to the real world, this would be good.

    I hope this helps!

    Wayde
  • Posted by wnelson on 5/18/2006 at 9:06 AM Accepted
    What I was trying to convey to was that branding is a very simple concept. So if it's such a simple concept, why are there so many failures at it? And in particular, why is the B2B space so terrible at it? Suppose you started out on your paper by defining a criteria of what successful branding it and what unsuccessful branding is. This definition would be based on accepted, peer-reviewed academic literature. Here, based on sound reason and argument, you have an opportunity to synthesize several ideas into one definition - an extension of several other works. This could be a new definition that takes into account both monetary and psychological factors - and maybe a few others like internal branding - how has the company molded the way the employees act? How has it used branding internally to improve employee satisfaction and fostered unity. Then, you could forward a classical model of branding - any one from any text or literature that is well accepted as the process for branding. Then, you can use your criteria to find several companies that fit the successful branding criteria and several that fit the unsuccessful branding criteria you forward. It would be very interesting to reveal how closely successful companies kept to the model and where they deviated. And unsuccessful companies - where they deviated from the model. Are there any patterns that emerge? And if there are, what about those patterns make a company's efforts in branding successful or not? And if you look at a cross section of B2C and B2B companies, are there differences in how successful and unsuccessful companies brand between the spaces? If so, you could pose suggestions as to why those differences occur based on the customer set and psycho graphic elements, goals, the buying process...a host of areas. These areas could be found in literature concerning B2B and B2C marketing and extended to the branding area.

    So, yes, there is a lot said on branding. However, I am not familiar with anything that so thoroughly examines the topic with respect to defining what is and isn't successful branding and how companies who fit the criteria on either extremes from both market spaces - B2B and B2C - stack up against the well accepted, tired and true process for branding. I would find such a paper interesting. Possibly you are yawning through this and if this isn't a thread that excites you, then I wouldn't recommend you pursue it. Above all, you should pick a topic about which you are passionate, wanting to learn about, wanting to further the understanding of the marketing community about. That's very key to how your paper will be perceived and ultimately your grade.

    Wayde
  • Posted on 1/30/2007 at 4:17 AM Member
    HI,i am vikram, already into my dissertation stage and my topic is 'is branding at all important in B2b'. i am falling is short of ideas and books in my library to write a comprehensive and quality work.Can any one help?
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