SMU-Cox School of Business
(Refurbished in 2024)
Dallas, Texas, USA
Brand management has mostly been viewed as marketing manufacturers' national brands, such as Kellogg, Pepsi, Colgate, and Tide, to final consumers. Practitioners and researchers in this area have addressed questions such as: What consumer segments should we target for these brands? How should these brands be positioned for those target segments? What portfolio (forms, packaging) should we carry for these brands? What price, advertising, promotion, and distribution channels should we use to sell these brands to consumers? While these questions on how to effectively reach end-users are of paramount importance to marketers, it must also be recognized that retailers act as intermediaries and play a crucial role in the passage of goods from the manufacturers to the final consumers. Brand manufacturers do recognize this crucial role, so much so that some call retailers as their customers, and end-users as brand consumers. Academic scholars also recognize the retailer's role in brand marketing, but this area needs more research.
This conference aims to inspire, encourage, and exchange research on global retail brand management – brand management that explicitly incorporates the retailer in marketing goods and services. Our main focus is on three broad research topics:
Category Management: How do retailers determine which brands to carry in the category, and how to manage those brands?
NB-PL Marketing: How do national brand (NB) manufacturers compete with retailer's private labels (PLs), and how do retailers market NBs and PLs?
Online Retailing: How do brand marketers and retailers manage their brands in the online retail space?
In addition to these three focal areas, we encourage analytical, behavioral, conceptual, and empirical research on all topics pertaining to retail brand management. We particularly welcome futuristic and forward-looking research in the global retailing arena.