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Shtovba, S., Shtovba, O. and Filatova, L. (2019), "The current state of brand
management research", The Bottom Line,
https://doi.org/10.1108/BL-08-2019-0106
The Current State of Brand Mangement Research: An Overview of Leaders and
Trends in Branding Research Over the Past 20 Years
Abstract
Purpose. The aim of the paper is to identify leaders and trends in branding researches,
undertaken during 2000 – 2019. Identification was made in the following categories: 1) most
popular subjects; 2) most productive countries; 3) most productive institutions; 4) most productive
scholars; 5) most productive sources; 6) most cited publications; 7) most cited scholars.
Design/methodology/approach. Bibliometric analysis based on data from Scopus and
Dimensions.
Findings. The majority of branding publications belong to Business and Management. The
interest towards this research field however declines mostly in favour of Cultural Studies,
Psychology, Sociology, etc. The majority of publications on branding are concentrated in the
USA, United Kingdom and Australia. Griffith University has become a leader in the number of
branding publications within 2000 – 2019. T C Melewar is a leader by the number of branding
publications among scholars. Journal of Brand Management has been a leader among sources.
Journal of Marketing is a leader by the number of the most cited papers.
Research limitations/implications: we analyse the automatically formed results on search
query without human meddling.
Practical implications. –
Originality/value. For the first time, bibliometric analysis was carried out simultaneously
upon the two bases – Scopus and Dimensions.
Keywords: branding, scientometrics, leaders, trend, research field, Scopus, Dimensions.
Article classification: general review.
Introduction
The aim of the paper is to identify leaders and trends of branding researches, carried out within
the 2000 – 2019. We will make an identification upon the bibliometric approach following the
data bases of scientific publications. Such an approach to scientific research is becoming more and
more popular in marketing and management. For example, according to the bibliometric methods,
(Seyedghorban et al., 2016) analysed publications in B2B-branding during the 1972 – 2015,
(Lucarelli and Berg, 2011) analysed publications of city branding during the 1998 – 2009,
(Fetscherin and Heinrich, 2015) analysed publications of consumer-brand relationship during
the 1998 – 2010, (Llanos-Herrera and Merigo, 2019) analysed publications related to researches
in brand personality during the 1995 – 2017 , (Barahona et al., 2018) analysed publications for
identification of market research topics during the 2005 – 2014, etc.
We shall make the analysis of branding researches in the following categories: 1) most popular
subjects; 2) most productive countries; 3) most productive institutions; 4) most productive
scholars; 5) most productive sources; 6) most cited publications; 7) most cited scholars. The results
of the research will focus on the primary source of knowledge in branding – key universities,
journals, articles, and scholars. The results of the analysis may be used for forecasting trends of
further researches in branding, building of partnerships for mutual scientific activities,
headhunting, etc.
Databases of publications and search queries
Our study shall be carried out upon the data of Scopus and Dimensions. The above systems
are large scale since Scopus indexes over 70 million of publications and Dimensions – more
than 100 million. More than that, all research fields are represented by a large number of
issues. Search query shall be formed as follows: Branding OR “Brand management”. The
search area in Dimensions will be “Title and abstract” of a paper. Scopus allows to make more
specific exploration – with more accuracy and little worth recall than Dimensions. The search
area shall be «Article title» and «Keywords», which we connect by a logical operator OR.
Publication years shall be restricted by an interval [2000, 2019]. Searching results show that on
July 1, 2019 Scopus contains information on 8459 publications in branding. Dimensions has
1438 9 such publications.
Popular research fields
Scopus refers each publication to one or more subject areas. There are just 27 such areas.
Such a categorization is somewhat rough since it does not allow to reveal tendencies as for the
content of branding researches. Dimensions uses a two-level version of Australian and New
Zealand Standard Research Classification for categorization. Science in Dimensions is divided
into 154 fields of research. The search result presents some publications which refer to each
field of the research. Therefore, using Dimensions allows to obtain more detailed distribution
of the research scope.
Figure 1 presents the distribution of branding publications on fields of research within the
four of the five-years intervals. It takes into account only those research fields, which have
more than 2% of branding publications in some of the five-years intervals. The majority of
publications belong to Business and Management, but the interest to it gradually declines.
Significant positive momentum is observed for Cultural Studies and Psychology. There is a
steady growing interest in branding researches to Human Geography, Political Science,
Sociology, and Public Health and Health Service. An interest to legal matters of branding
became statistically insignificant from 2005.
Figure 1. Distribution of publications in branding by the research fields in Dimensions
Subject matters of hot publications – publications within the 2018–2019 are presented on
Figure 2. It shows the further decline in share of branding publications in Business and
Management, as well as in Marketing. Research field of Business and Management has now
only 19.5% of publications, whereas in 2005–2009 this share made up 28.8%. Research field
of Marketing has 5.4% of publications, whereas in 2000–2004 this share made up 8.4%. But
there is a growing interest to the non-economics research fields. Sociology demonstrated the
most rapid growth and increased its share up to 4.7%.
Figure 2. Distribution of hot publications in branding as for the research fields in Dimensions
The most productive countries
According to Scopus, scholars from the USA, United Kingdom and Australia are reported to
be the most productive. They are mentioned among the authors in more than 41% of all
branding publications within the 2000–2019.
Let’s analyse the dynamics of branding publications of each country (Figure 3). We shall
consider the main contributors, i.e. countries, the share of which exceeded 2% in some of the
five-years intervals. There are 14 of them. The X-axis on Figure 3 presents the percentage of
publications in branding, the authors of which are scholars from the corresponding country.
Figure 3 shows positive momentum of Spain, Germany, Italy, Sweden and France. India has
significantly increased its share recently. This country overcame the five-percent threshold
during the last five-years interval and hold the fourth rank in the number of publications thus
coming close to Australia.
Figure 3. Dynamics of countries’ contribution to branding publications
Statistics in 2018–2019 (Figure 4) shows that two newcomers – South Africa and Malaysia
appeared among the main contributors. They are among those most productive countries that
make branding researches. Spain, Canada and especially India improved their positions in
ranking. Scholars from India are co-authors of 7.8% of all branding publications. The
peculiarity of Indian scholars’ publications is a very low level of cooperation with scholars
from other countries. Only 11% of Indian branding publications are written together with
scholars from other countries. For comparison, the level of cooperation in the neighbouring
ranked countries is as follows: USA – 29%, United Kingdom – 56%, Australia – 52%, Spain –
43%. The second peculiarity is that Indian publications mostly adhere to one journal. 13%
Indian branding publications are issued in the same journal. This factor in the neighbouring
ranked countries is the following: USA – 5%, United Kingdom – 8%, Australia – 9%, and
Spain – 8%.
Figure 4. Countries’ contribution to branding publications during 2018–2019
Most productive institutions
The list of the most productive institutions is presented in Table 1. We see that three of them
are from Australia and three from the United Kingdom. On the national level the most
concentrated are branding researches in Hong Kong and Denmark. Hong Kong Polytechnic
University issued almost a half of branding publications in Hong Kong, and Copenhagen
Business School – more than one-third of branding publications of Denmark.
The list of the most productive institutions over the past five years is the following: Lunds
University, University of Leicester, Griffith University, Temple University, Middlesex
University, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Brunel University London, Copenhagen Business
School, Bournemouth University, University of Manchester, and University of Groningen.
Each of the listed universities published from 29 to 18 papers. Comparing this list to that in
Table 1 we see that the number of British universities increased from 3 to 5.
Table 1 – The most productive institutions in branding researches within the 2000–2019
Institution
Country
Number of
publications
Share in national
product
Griffith University
Australia
70
13.7%
Copenhagen Business School
Denmark
65
38.7%
Brunel University London
Great Britain
59
5,3%
Erasmus University Rotterdam
Netherlands
54
26.1%
Lunds Universitet
Sweden
44
20.9%
University of Queensland
Australia
41
8%
Manchester Metropolitan University
Great Britain
40
3.6%
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hong Kong
39
45.3%
University of Leicester
Great Britain
38
3.4%
Monash University
Australia
37
7.2%
Most productive scholars
The list of 10 scholars that published the largest number of branding publications is
presented in Table 2. The table also indicates the current affiliation of the scholars. Therefore
not all scholar’s publications belong to the university that is mentioned. For example, Mihalis
Kavaratzis is an author of 33 branding publications, which are indexed in Scopus. 20 of them
the author published in the University of Leicester. Correspondingly, Mihalis Kavaratzis is a
co-author of more than a half of branding publications of the University of Leicester, in
particular, 20 from 38 papers (see Table. 1). The other «monopolist» – Bill Merrilees, who is a
co-author of half of publications of Griffith University.
Table 3 presents the most productive scholars of branding over the last 5 years. Comparing
Tables 2 and 3 we see that the top list is updated by one-half. Both lists are headed by
T C Melewar.
Table 2 – The most productive scholars in branding researcher in the 2000–2019
Scholar
Current affiliation
Country
Number of publications
Scopus
Dimensions
Melewar T C
Middlesex University
United Kingdom
36
50
Merrilees B.
Griffith University
Australia
33
32
Kavaratzis M.
University of Leicester
United Kingdom
33
28
Balmer J.
Brunel University London
United Kingdom
23
35
Nguyen B.
East China University of
Science and Technology
China
16
30
King C.
Temple University
USA
20
22
Keller K.
Dartmouth College
USA
18
21
De Chernatony L.
Aston University
United Kingdom
9
30
Esch F.
EBS University of Business
and Law
Germany
1
35
Warnaby G.
Manchester Metropolitan
University
United Kingdom
14
20
Table 3– The most productive scholars in branding researchers over the past 5 years
Scholar
Current affiliation
Country
Number of publications
Scopus
Dimensions
Melewar T C
Middlesex University
United Kingdom
15
26
Nguyen B.
East China University of Science
and Technology
China
13
25
Kavaratzis M.
University of Leicester
United Kingdom
16
10
King C.
Temple University
USA
11
10
Arku G.
Western University
Canada
9
10
Cleave E.
Western University
Canada
9
10
Warnaby G.
Manchester Metropolitan
University
United Kingdom
8
9
Pich C.
Nottingham Trent University
United Kingdom
6
11
Zenker S.
Copenhagen Business School
Denmark
9
6
Duffy B.E.
Cornell University
United States
8
7
High productive sources
We have selected 5 sources with the largest number of branding papers (Table 4). Two
sources are in the top 5 list as in Scopus as in Dimensions, therefore Table 4 contains 8
sources. Among them there are 6 scientific journals, 1 conference proceeding and 1 magazine
(Drapers) from the fashion industry. Three of six scientific journals are good cited, their
Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) exceeds 1.
The situation changed a bit over the past 5 years. The top five from Scopus and from
Dimensions differ by only one journal. So, the list of the most efficient branding publishers
contains 6 journals. Their order totally corresponds with the first six from Table 4.
Table 4 – Highly productive sources in branding
Rank
Source
Publishing
house
Number of
publications
SNIP
in
2018
Scopus
Dimensions
1
Journal of Brand Management
Palgrave
Macmillan &
Springer
Nature
203
389
0.87
2
Place Branding and Public
Diplomacy
Palgrave
Macmillan &
Springer
Nature
159
252
0.95
3
Developments in Marketing
Science: Proceedings of the
Academy of Marketing Science
Springer
–
221
–
4
Journal of Product and Brand
Management
Emerald
Publishing
178
195
1.13
5
Journal of Business Research
Elsevier
101
143
1.92
6
European Journal of Marketing
Emerald
Publishing
109
117
1.01
7
Corporate Reputation Review
Springer
Nature
173
47
0.66
8
Drapers
Emap Media
152
–
0
The most cited publications and scholars
The pair of the most cited publications in each five-years interval is presented in Tables 5
and 6. There are 15 publications, since the paper written by Douglas Holt got into two tables.
Journal of Marketing published 5 most cited papers. Two scholars – Albert Muñiz and Lucia
Malär published 2 most cited branding papers.
Comparing Tables 5–7 with Tables 2–4 we see that only 1 out of 14 most cited papers are
published in high productive journal – Journal of Business Research. As for the 15 most cited
scholars, we see that Kevin Lane Keller is a co-author of one most cited paper. Only 2 out of
15 most productive institutions – Erasmus University Rotterdam and University of Groningen
are work places of authors of the most cited branding publications.
Table 5 – Most cited branding publications in Scopus
Authors
Affiliation
Title
Source
Cited
by
Holt D.
Harvard Business
School
Why Do Brands Cause
Trouble? A Dialectical
Theory of Consumer
Culture and Branding
Journal of
Consumer
Research, 2002
876
Brown S.,
Kozinets R.V.,
Sherry Jr.J.F
University of Notre
Dame,
University of Southern
California
Teaching old brands new
tricks: Retro branding
and the revival of brand
meaning
Journal of
Marketing,
2003
521
Schau H.,
Muñiz A.,
Arnould E.
University of Arizona,
DePaul University,
University of Wyoming
How brand community
practices create value
Journal of
Marketing,
2009
950
Verhoef P.C.,
Lemon K.N.,
Parasuraman
A.,
Roggeveen A.,
Tsiros M.,
Schlesinger L.
A.
University of
Groningen,
Boston College,
University of Miami
Babson College
Customer Experience
Creation: Determinants,
Dynamics and
Management Strategies
Journal of
Retailing, 2009
768
Whan Park С.,
Maclnnis D.,
Priester J.,
Eisingerich A.,
Lacobucci D.
University of Southern
California,
Imperial College
London,
Vanderbilt University
Brand attachment and
brand attitude strength:
Conceptual and empirical
differentiation of two
critical brand equity
drivers
Journal of
Marketing,
2010
590
Batra R.,
Ahuvia A.,
Bagozzi R.P.
University of
Michigan,
University of
Michigan–Dearborn
Brand love
Journal of
Marketing,
2012
435
Govers R.,
Go F.
University of Leuven,
International University
of Languages and
Media,
Erasmus University
Rotterdam
Place Branding: Glocal,
Virtual and Physical
Identities, Constructed,
Imagined and
Experienced
A book of
Palgrave
Macmillan,
2016
132
Baldus B.J.,
Voorhees C.,
Calantone, R.
California State
University,
Michigan State
University
Online brand community
engagement: Scale
development and
validation
Journal of
Business
Research, 2015
126
Table 6 – Most cited branding publications in Dimensions
Authors
Affiliation
Title
Source
Cited
by
Muñiz A.,
O’Guin T.
DePaul University,
University of Illinois
Brand community
Journal of
Consumer
Research, 2001
2199
Holt D.
Harvard Business
School
Why Do Brands Cause
Trouble? A Dialectical
Theory of Consumer
Culture and Branding
Journal of
Consumer
Research, 2002
837
Jansen B.,
Zhang M.,
Sobel K.,
Chowdury A.
Pennsylvania State
University,
Twitter
Twitter power: Tweets as
electronic word of mouth
Journal of the
Association for
Information
Science and
Technology,
2009
872
Keller K.,
Lehmann D.
Columbia University,
United States
Dartmouth College,
United States
Brands and Branding:
Research Findings and
Future Priorities
Marketing
Science, 2006
764
Marwick A.,
Boyd D.
New York University,
Microsoft
I tweet honestly, I tweet
passionately: Twitter
users, context collapse,
and the imagined
audience
New Media &
Society, 2011
1077
Malär L.,
Krohmer H.,
Hoyer W.,
Nyffenegger B
.
University of Bern,
University of Texas at
Austin
Emotional Brand
Attachment and Brand
Personality: The Relative
Importance of the Actual
and the Ideal Self
Journal of
Marketing,
2011
366
Morhart F.,
Malär L.,
Guèvremont A
.,
Girardin F.,
Grohmann B.
University of Lausanne,
University of Bern,
University of Quebec at
Montreal,
Concordia University
Brand authenticity: An
integrative framework
and measurement scale
Journal of
Consumer
Psychology,
2015
101
Marine-
Roig E.,
Clavé S.
University of Lleida,
Rovira i Virgili
University Spain
Tourism analytics with
massive user-generated
content: A case study of
Barcelona
Journal of
Destination
Marketing and
Management,
2015
80
Services of Dimensions calculate a Mean Field Citation Ratio (FCR) for authors of branding
publications. FCR is pretty much a universal feature – it is normalized both, for research area
and for publication age. The list of the best authors of branding publications following FCR is
presented in Table 7. The table includes authors that have minimum 6 branding publications.
FCR shows that one American scholar Avery Holton stands out. The seventh in ranking is
Mihalis Kavaratzis, but he significantly dominates among other authors by the number of
papers. Mihalis Kavaratzis is the only one who is at the same time in the ranking list of the
most productive scholars and in that of the most cited scholars in branding researches.
Table 7 shows that 6 out of 10 scholars affiliate with the most productive universities. As
for the relation between productivity and citation in the top part of branding distribution, we
may draw the following conclusion: productivity and citation on the level of authors and
journals are weakly correlated figures; correlation takes place on the level of universities.
Table 7 – Authors of branding publications with maximum Mean FCR according to
Dimensions
Scholar
Affiliation
Number
of
publicatio
ns
Mean
FCR
Holton A.
University of Utah
6
26.39
Gertner D.
Pace University
6
17.92
Lucarelli A.
Lunds Universitet
6
14.64
Eshuis J.
Erasmus University Rotterdam
10
13,88
Kalandides A.
Manchester Metropolitan
University
6
13.34
Kavaratzis M.
University of Leicester
28
11.65
Klijn E.
Erasmus University Rotterdam,
8
11.53
Brown B.
Virginia Commonwealth
University
6
11.53
Ewing M.
Deakin University
8
11.32
Braun E.
Erasmus University Rotterdam
6
11.1
Conclusions
The paper presents the bibliometric analysis of branding publications in the 2000 – 2019.
This is the first analysis which is made simultaneously in two bases – Scopus and Dimensions,
and this allowed to make a deep research in the matter by combining different services of both
bases. It was well established that the majority of branding publications belong to the research
field of Business and Management. But the interest to this research field declines. At the same
time there is a strong tendency to an increase in the share of branding publications which relate
to Cultural Studies and Psychology. Analysis over the last 2 years shows a further reduction in
branding publications in Business and Management, and Marketing. The share of branding
publications which relate to Sociology is rapidly growing. So the focus of branding researches
is becoming more and more multidisciplinary.
The most part of branding publications are concentrated in the USA, United Kingdom, and
Australia. During the last decade we observe a downward trend in hegemony of the top three
leaders of XXI century due to an increase in publications which come from Spain, Italy,
Germany, France and Sweden. But India demonstrates a rapid growing and following the data
of 2018–2019, it outstrips Australia. India branding researches are characterized by a low level
of international cooperation and high concentration of publications in one journal.
Griffith University in Australia is a leader by the number of branding publications in 2000 –
2019. Over the past five years the leader changed for Lunds University in Sweden. At the same
time British universities create more and more branding publications. British universities now
take 5 out of 10 places in the ranking list of the most productive institutions.
T C Melewar is a leader by the number of branding publications among the scholars in
2000 – 2019. He is the number one in Scopus and in Dimensions. Statistics over the past 5
years shows that the list of highly productive scholars had half changed but T C Melewar
remained a leader.
Journal of Brand Management is a leader among sources. In 2000 – 2019 this journal issued
2.4% of all branding publications in Scopus and 2.7% in Dimensions. The group of leading
journals did not change over the last 5 years.
For each of the five-years intervals we have found the most cited publications in Scopus and
in Dimensions. These publications must get into folders “Must read” of each of the branding
scholars. Journal of Marketing published 5 out of 14 most cited papers. This journal must
obviously get into the checking-list of branding scholars. Two scholars – Albert Muñiz and
Lucia Malär published 2 most cited branding papers each.
We have also formed a ranking list of authors of branding publications following the Mean
Field Citation Ratio. American scholar Avery Holton is leading in this rating by a large
margin. Mihalis Kavaratzis – the only scholar from the top list of the most productive branding
researches is also in the list.
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