EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

The brand architecture of grocery retailers: Setting material and symbolic boundaries for consumer choice

Lars Esbjerg and Tino Bech-Larsen

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2009, vol. 16, issue 5, 414-423

Abstract: This article discusses how the brand architecture of grocery retailers set material and symbolic boundaries for consumer choice, thus limiting consumer sovereignty. The article first discusses previous work on store atmospherics, servicescapes and brand architecture. It is argued that work based on these concepts has taken an internal management perspective on how retailers can manipulate aspects of the retail setting to serve their own interests. Then, we develop an alternative conceptualisation of retailer brand architecture that takes into account that consumers (and other constituents) are active co-constructors of material and symbolic aspects of retail settings. It is discussed how consumers participate in constructing retailer brand architecture and how this concept differs from previous research. Implications for both research and practice are discussed.

Keywords: Branding; Co-construction; Grocery retailing; Retailer brand architecture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969698909000411
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joreco:v:16:y:2009:i:5:p:414-423

DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2009.06.002

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services is currently edited by Harry Timmermans

More articles in Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:eee:joreco:v:16:y:2009:i:5:p:414-423