From Offline to Online

### **Chapter 2**

## Internet Marketing

*František Pollák and Peter Markovič*

#### **Abstract**

The issue of brand management is taking on new dimensions at a time of accelerated digitization. The aim of the chapter is to approach selected areas of the issue by pointing out the basic forms of promotion in the digital environment of the Internet. An appropriate mix of these forms is essential for effective marketing communication in the digital environment. Where appropriateness and efficiency are necessary factors that need to be taken into account in the process of building a brand in the eyes of reference markets. Understanding the fundamentals of the issue of promotion in online environment creates a precondition for a holistic approach, which in combination with scientific knowledge tools reduces uncertainty and increases the assumption of market success. The chapter in the form of a theoretical overview study presents the results of ongoing research into the topic of Internet marketing. It synthesizes the knowledge of the authors, as well as the results of the work of selected reference authors, who at the beginning of the millennium shaped the issue into the form in which it is known to the wider professional public by today. The theoretical overview, supplemented by highlighting the key context, presents a relatively clear starting point for an introduction to the study of the topic of Internet marketing.

**Keywords:** e-marketing, digital marketing, online environment, Internet, marketing communication

#### **1. Introduction**

The issue of the application of marketing communication tools in the Internet environment has been of interest to both practitioners and researchers from academia for more than three decades. The chapter summarizes the core results of continuous research by the authors. The basic foundations of the topic will be presented in the following parts of the chapter in the form of a theoretical overview of the state of knowledge, so that a comprehensive view of the issue can be created from the synthesis of knowledge accumulated in individual parts of the work.

The topic as such is extremely dynamic, in any case, the cornerstones of marketing communication do not change over time. On the contrary, they complement each other and thus expand the knowledge and tool base. With the optimal combination of these tools, it is possible to significantly contribute to brand building in this hyperinformation time period.

As the authors of the study, we refrained from formulating the initial research question, as in such a vast topic, unambiguously answering any more ambitious research question would be quite problematic. Especially considering the already

mentioned dynamics of the topic itself. Instead, we define a research problem, which in our case is the existence of the foundations of the topic, which defines the issue toward its further development.

Therefore, let us look at the topic from the point of view of context analysis. The following subchapters synthesize the findings of the state of knowledge. Following the introduction, in sections 1 and 2, the basic definitions, as well as the basic division of Internet marketing tools will be presented, which we will follow up with a detailed description of specific tools in individual parts of the work ending with conclusion.

#### **2. Marketing on the Internet**

David Meerman Scott [1] states that before the emergence of the website, organizations only had two significant options to draw attention to themselves. They could either buy expensive advertising space or get mentioned in the media. Then the web changed these rules. The Internet is not television. Organizations that understand the new marketing rules create direct relationships with their consumers.

Marketing on the Internet is referred to by various terms such as Internet marketing, web marketing, e-marketing, and so on. However, it should be noted that the concepts of digital marketing and online marketing also include marketing via mobile devices. E-marketing uses the basic marketing principles, which it applies to the Internet. This form of marketing, like traditional marketing, involves many activities related to influencing, preserving, and maintaining customer relationships. It focuses mainly on communication, but it also sometimes influences the formation of prices. Emarketing is considered a continuous process because the Internet environment is constantly changing. The Internet has greatly contributed to differentiated customization. Under this term, we can understand a sort of compromise where companies understand different customer needs and therefore adapt their products as well as the communication with them. It also explains mass customization, which means that the customer builds their product from basic components. For mass personalization, the company will contact the customer individually and suggest a standard product. As a result, the Internet gives us the opportunity to focus on customers with higher, but also lower values [2].

Addressed approach is the key to efficiency, and efficient use of corporate resources is the way to greater competitiveness.

#### **3. Forms of Internet marketing**

In this section, we briefly list and describe the forms of Internet marketing, which are increasingly being used every year and are gradually replacing the so-called old marketing rules. The selected forms of e-marketing will then be described in more detail in separate subchapters.

Although e-marketing offers many benefits to businesses, it is important to think about how to use it. Traditionally, there are four ways in which e-marketing can be applied in practice [3]. These ways are as follows:


#### **3.1 Websites**

The costs for classic marketing and business are growing dramatically, but the results are stagnating. Therefore, it is imperative that organizations are adapting to modern trends in order to maintain a company's viability. Costs spent on classic marketing nowadays represent an inadequately expended effort.

Most companies would have difficulty maintaining a high share of sales, production, or employment without their own website. If companies did not innovate in the areas of Internet marketing, they would be forced to sell at "any cost," which would lead to lower prices for their own products with time. Finally, profits would also fall, and, with limited funding, the company would be forced to make cuts in human resources and product and technology innovation, areas that are an essential prerequisite for maintaining competitiveness. The Internet undoubtedly is one of the most extensive on-line information sources [4, 5]. And information is an important factor in company management and decision-making processes.

Great emphasis is placed on the need to access important facts in real time. Information available in real time in one place is essential to optimize business performance. The best place to maintain, collect, sort, update, and share information is a company's own website.

#### **3.2 Internet advertising**

In most countries of the world, the Internet is fully commercial. A significant number of the World Wide Web users use it for trading purposes. The overwhelming majority of the population begins, and finishes, shopping right on the Internet. Therefore, targeted and accurate online advertising is an important part of the sales strategy of each company [6]. It is, therefore, possible to generalize the assertion that Internet advertising is one of the tools of Internet marketing.

#### **3.3 E-mail marketing**

E-mail marketing, or in other words, the sending of advertising emails or emails with informative value and an advertising message, is one of the basic tools of marketing on the Internet [7]. However, in some circumstances, this form of ecommunication may be considered as unwanted interference with privacy or harassment, in which case e-mailing becomes spam (junk mail).

#### **3.4 Marketing on social networks**

Social networks mean a revolution in performance marketing as they allow people to search for groups according to very specific criteria. Sites like Facebook allow companies to filter profiles based on gender, age, education, employment, status, or based on keywords in pastimes and hobbies. This means that every business now can save financial costs by focusing on a group of potential customers through the abovementioned filters. Thanks to effective social networking, companies can reduce costs and gain a lot of new customers.

#### **4. Website marketing**

The basis of all marketing activities on the Internet is the web. That is why it is very important to create the right website marketing. Website marketing is a way of attracting enthusiastic users to website based on its content and services [8].

#### **4.1 Website**

With today's Internet penetration [9, 10], every company having a website is almost a matter of course. The quality of these sites often lags the average, but their very existence speaks to the purchasing power of the Internet. The service providers in this area are numerous and choosing a company to prepare you for a high-quality web presentation can be difficult without basic knowledge of functionality. A web presentation is prepared in HTML (x) and has been an indispensable part of the CSS cascading style for a year. The demanding nature of the programming languages in which the page is built is also directly proportional to the functionality requirements of the site. The quality and power of website processing can be evaluated by four crucial criteria, which are as follows:


If a website is to be competitive, company needs to be aware of the basic rules of its creation. These are issues such as:


How should the home page look? According to Janouch [2], it should not be an unnecessarily long introductory presentation, as few will watch it to the very end. This was also reported by a survey conducted by Akamai on a sample of 1000 respondents. From the sample survey, up to 75% answered that if the presentation takes more than 4 seconds, they will leave the website. Then, 3 years later, Forrester

#### *Internet Marketing DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107918*

conducted this survey, which revealed that this time had fallen to just 2 seconds. Therefore, home pages should avoid this, but also attempt to eliminate similar clichés, such as "Enter," "Select Language," "Welcome," and so on. Another problem is missing text and site links, because not only a visitor, but even a search engine robot cannot navigate it because of the lack of keywords [2].

As far as the content of the website is concerned, it should be possible on to discover a minimum amount of information, such as the company description, contact information as company history, company structure, other company information, a description of products or services, or technology used. The company should have an available catalog for each target country, price information (if the company does not want to list the price list, it should at least provide indicative prices), and the possibility of feedback (by email, form, opening a discussion group, etc.). However, if subjects want to differentiate themselves from competitors, they must move their site to a higher level, as described by Hajsaleh [11]:


#### **4.2 The use of the subconscious of the customer**

There are several simple ways to increase the credibility of website:


• Verifying the trustworthiness of the website – There are companies on the Internet that, under certain conditions, must be complied with, given various certificates of the trustworthiness of a website.

#### **4.3 Website certification**

In order to find out if the website has standard source codes, companies can use websites designated for validation. They are determined by the type of scripting. Only some logos are listed in the following **Table 1**. Site encoding is contingent on W3C w3. org standards, that is, the validator.w3.org [12]. If these logos are placed on a site, the visitor will be sure that there is no bad source code on the site that could be left behind by the programmer through an oversight. They are also placed to provide assurance that the web page is properly displayed on any Internet-connected device.

#### **4.4 Website creation**

If company wants a website, it must have a marketing plan drawn up as part of the communication strategy on the Internet. Therefore, it is necessary at the beginning to realize and clarify the benefits that the website will bring to them and whether the costs and investments will be reimbursed. Benefits from own website are as follows [13]:



**Table 1.**

*Summary from the list of W3C validation icons. Source: [12].*


Creating own website could be summarized in the following steps [2]:


The allure of the heading itself consists of attracting attention, providing basic information about the offer, and motivating to read more content (**Figure 1**).

As the eye-catching design and appearance are concerned, when a visitor arrives at the website, they must be able to easily navigate it. Visitors are divided into two categories:

**Figure 1.**

*The procedure for creating web pages. Source: [14].*


#### **4.5 Search engine optimization**

The term search engine optimization (SEO) is simply a particular technique dealing with ways to place the site in the best position in the search [15]. The actual goal is not to be optimized for search engines, but for a customer who is looking for specific information and is orientated according to the content posted on the site. Therefore, when creating a site, it is necessary to focus primarily on the content side, while also using the search engine robot to automatically index the keywords it finds in the text. This method takes a little longer if the search engine robot records a full site, but thanks to keywords a greater number of customers are brought to the website. Therefore, if the company does not want to wait, it can increase this traffic through paid form of Internet advertising described below. However, these options also belong to the issue of SEO.

#### **4.6 Web search engines and SEO**

An explanation of how web search engines work can be described by a two-part structure from a robot (called a crawler, spider, bot, fish, or worm) and a web interface. A robot, whose algorithm is patented works automatically. Its main task is to browse websites on the Internet and index pages, text documents, PDF, Flash, and so on. The web interface is the search engine page itself [16]. Douglas Merrill from Google defines a Googlebot as a modern cartographer that creates a detailed map of everything it sees around itself [17].

#### **4.7 Factors affecting SEO**

The factors influencing SEO are many, we will describe some of the most basic ones:


As for the issue of link baiting, it is a relatively large construct. We will try to explain it with examples as follows [2]:


The following image illustrates the differences in the exchange of links between two domains, as well as exchange of links between related pages as follows (**Figures 2** and **3**):

Other examples of how link baiting can occur are as follows:

• Purchased links – It is a banned tactic. If it happens, there is a risk of damage to placement in the search engine. Company can pay for the links in several ways. One way is to buy a link, that is, sign up for a paid catalog (dir.yahoo.com, business.com, jayde.com, rambler.ru, and others), for an article on a foreign or news site that links to our site, but company should consider the cost by comparing the PPC campaign.

**Figure 2.** *Exchange of links between two domains. Source: [2].*

**Figure 3.** *Exchange of links between related pages. Source: [2].*

• Buying older websites – Another option is to buy outdated sites. It is best if they are from the same industry as our company. Since links are already created on them, which can serve as a micro website for our needs, then it is preferable to buy such sites.

#### **5. Internet advertising**

Advertising, marketing, and trading on the Internet is one of the world's most recent topics of last decades. In most countries of the world, the Internet is fully commercial. More than half of its users in the world use it for business purposes [18]. In the long years of the Internet, certain rules have been developed for marketing purposes, which are followed by most companies. Internet advertising should have a good visual effect [19]. We should focus on its objective on the visual side. The aim should be to determine which group of consumers the company wants to reach. The content is also important. It should be worthwhile for the group of consumers that the company has chosen to focus on. It is inappropriate to use large files whose download is lengthy and unattractive to potential consumers. In content, a company should primarily focus on valuable information that consumers would most likely be interested in if they were interested in our products or services. An important part of the ad should also be an effort to highlight the brand and image of the company. In this way, a company shows consumers on the Internet how it differs from others. Since advertising is part of a marketing strategy, it should also be accordingly formulated. Finally, it should be so persuasive that consumers should be convinced and decide to visit the site again. If all the above tips are met, the ad will be of interest to prospective customers. Such advertising on the Internet may then:


It follows that Internet advertising has its own look, graphics, and idea to engage customers to maximize its impact. Therefore, advertising is something that will help our product, lure Web users to visit website, and eventually sign up on it too. Internet advertising is a needs-based advertising. Consumers ask for advertising if they need it, and then it should be delivered to them as well. With the flexibility and creative potential of the Internet, it is easier to create and fine-tune an ad than ever before. This means companies can launch a web ad immediately, and the results will arrive in just a few hours.

#### **5.1 Contextual advertising**

The contextual advertising philosophy is built on providing the user, after searching for a keyword, with relevant text links [20]. Most portals, as well as other sites, should have a search feature. In this way, the user can easily browse the content of the page or the database of indexed pages in case of a portal or search engine. The

#### *Internet Marketing DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107918*

contextual advertising system offers the use of this functionality for commercial purposes, so that the result display space is divided into unpaid (organic) results and paid (commercial) results that are made up of advertising links to advertisements. Advertisers have space in their keyword search results that they determine themselves. Contextual advertising is shown in addition to the search even on the relevant pages, respectively articles related to that keyword. The content of the page is analyzed, and the relevance of the keywords is evaluated in relation to its content. Depending on the related keywords, relevant contextual ad links appear on the part of the page specified by the company. This display method is called the display of contextual links to content.

#### **5.2 Graphic advertising**

Graphic advertising, usually represented by the banner is another type of ad used on a website [21]. Banner is typically a rectangular image or animation, respectively interactive graphics, most often displayed near the edge of the screen. Banners are still one of the most common forms of advertising on the Internet. Graphic advertising is represented by different types of ad formats. Some banners enable the provision of more information or use more creativity to create a banner. The division of banner ads by formats is as follows:


The effectiveness of this form of Internet promotion is currently questionable, but in any case, there are factors that need to be considered when preparing campaigns, such as the following:


#### **6. E-mail marketing and webcasting**

Considering the dynamics of the industry, we are expanding the e-mail marketing tool with the topic of webcasting, as a phenomenon of an authentic form of ecommunication.

#### **6.1 E-mail advertising**

E-mail-based advertising, or e-mail marketing, is a solution that is cheap, easy to access, relatively efficient, and requires little expertise [21]. But it also has its own risks. The main risks are the very benefits of this solution. This especially involves the low price. The low cost to reach any number of recipients is a good reason to use precisely this solution. With a minimum cost, companies can reach many potential customers. They also should send emails to those who ask for it. For example, when subscribing to web portals, the customer agrees to being sent emails on the site. In this case, these are authorized emails. There is also the second option of sending mail to interested users, whether they have requested it or not. In this case, however, it is SPAM. Apart from the legal aspect, SPAM has one disadvantage that in most cases, due to the antispam filter, they do not reach the user to whom they are addressed. Email ads may encounter several obstacles. The above-mentioned antispam filters have a significant share of nondelivery of mail directly to the addressee. They furthermore include overcrowded email boxes, the email content, poor integration with other forms of communication, inefficient customer segmentation, inadequate personalization, low user interest in sign-up, or irrelevant content.

In general, e-mail advertising can be divided into two ways [22]:


#### **6.2 Webcasting**

Weblog, or in abbreviated blog, is a web application that contains chronologically sorted posts [21]. It integrates possibilities as it is a valuable source of news, trends, and attitudes, both for readers and for classical media. According to the content, weblogs are made up of personal diaries, newsletters, political campaigns, or journalism. A personal weblog is based on an individual, a collaborative small group of friends, or a broad community.

Other formal variants of weblogs have been developed:


*Internet Marketing DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107918*


In general, weblogs are classified between social and community media. The benefits of blogs have recently been understood not only by individuals but also by companies. Thanks to blogs, commercial organizations can make use of the unimaginable ability to communicate widely with customers. With the help of blogs, companies can better prepare new products, offer, and sell goods, promote their brand, and stay in constant contact with customers [23].

#### **6.3 Blog content**

In the virtual environment of the Internet, we encounter several parts and tools that characterize the blog such as follows:


post. After clicking on the selected day, all the posts that were written on that day will appear.


When creating a blog, companies need to choose one of the options for distributing news:


#### **6.4 Weblog and promotion**

Almost all commercial companies spend a lot of money on market research in their areas of interest to disseminate information about their business and the products. For most successful business companies, blogging is a way to spread general awareness of their activities.

We generally know four types of marketing blogs [23]:


Blogs helping companies better understand the market and communicate with it:

#### *Internet Marketing DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107918*

• Authors and blog readers create a "virtual group" in which companies follow and respond to comments. The lessons learned from these discussions are used to improve their products or services. That is, if it is in our interest to get a response from the target audience we want to reach, just post a product post on the blog, allow comments, and ask readers for a response. It is also important to pay close attention to what's happening in the blog, in which readers contribute their comments to have control over the activity and exchanges of opinions that are going on here. Such monitoring is primarily based on authorizing comments and removing inappropriate texts.

Blogs promoting awareness and visibility of a company:

• The goal of many companies is to make users encounter their offers as often as possible when browsing the site. Blogs with many visitors differ from others in visibility and findability. Web servers that are often spoken about and to which links from many other websites lead are more visible than servers that are less discussed and less linked to. The same goes for blogs. The more sites that link to the posts in company blog, the more visible company will be. The sites that search engines place in the top places are findable because they are the most interesting for the given name. This means that the sites listed in the highest places have more customers than sites in the lower places. Such sites, which are in the leading places, must meet certain parameters that make them highly rated by the search engines, which prioritize them. As a result, the more interesting the site per search engine, the more visitors it will have. Therefore, it is clear that if company wants to get the highest possible placement, it must make sure that as many users as possible link to it. A company can achieve this by writing on a regular basis and by making a lot of interesting posts to get readers so interested that they want to alert other users via links.

Product sale blogs:

• Sales promotion blogs should not be written in a way that exerts pressure, forcing customers to buy, as readers will feel very negative, and this will be reflected in the content of the comments. Such blogs should include a brief introduction of the company with a link to the product overview. It is also beneficial if they contain descriptions of products and information about the good experience customers have with their products. Many potential customers do not trust buying through unfamiliar and unverified blogs, so companies should use the services of intermediaries that customers trust. Such online purchasing systems, which are often used to mediate sales, include, for example, Amazon, PayPal, Yahoo!, or eBay.

Blogs to support increased website traffic:

• Blogs can greatly increase business website traffic. Companies that want to set up a blog to increase the number of visits should first decide which Internet domain they want to place their blog on. Of course, most companies first consider running their blog in the same domain their company website is on. This means that when users visit a company blog, they are also in the domain of the business, and it follows that all links that point to blog posts improve the rating of the

entire web presentation in the eyes of Internet search engines. However, such a solution is technically much more challenging than creating an account on a blog server such as Blogger.

#### **7. Marketing on social networks**

Social media enables people to exchange ideas and opinions, share site content, and network online. Social media differs from classical mainstream media, in which everyone can create their content, contribute to it, or comment on it. Social media can have various forms, such as audio, video, photo, and other image forms. They connect communities and reach out to people who want to join [1]. In short, social media can be defined as mutually open online applications that help create informal user networks. The positive thing about social media is that the user becomes an active content creator. They select what they want to receive and then comment on it.

When considering the use of social media for promotional purposes, it is necessary to set the target and the timeframe for achieving this goal in advance. Next, it is necessary to identify the target group of customers that we must observe, and based on this, it is then possible to determine where the group is moving and through what tools it gets to the relevant information. Social media include social networking sites, blogs, video and photo download sites, chat rooms and mailing lists, listservs, wikis, and social bookmarking.

Social media allow users to:


obviously varies. However, there is a lot of evidence of the successful use of social media for effective promotion.

#### **7.1 Social networks and promotion**

Functions and options that are the content of social networks and that offer them for marketing purposes are important advertising channels that can be very targeted to marketing activities. The possibility of accurate targeting based on sociodemographic parameters offers space for very effective advertising campaigns. On the other hand, the ability to create a custom profile for both commercial and noncommercial purposes is represented by a PR channel that can be obtained and created by a community of fans of the product.

The profile page is then the place where all activities can be communicated very effectively and operationally. In addition to automatically posting messages to other fans' profiles, they will also be able to be seen by their friends. If the profile is interesting for the friends, they, can, and often do become new fans [24].

The use of social networks for marketing purposes includes:


Within marketing, social networks can be used to achieve the following goals:


• ad campaigns with precise targeting.

Any organization or business can have a profile page on the social network. Depending on the business, the range of social networking options offered to meet marketing goals also varies. If the goal of promotion is sale, in this case, it is possible to promote in particular:


Otherwise, social networks serve as PR support and good relationship building, as well as regular communication with customers. For success on social networks, the following steps need to be reconsidered [25]:


Making real customers from fans is not easy, but it is possible. A well-organized competition attracts many social network users and some of them can be persuaded to purchase [26]. Active communication and creativity are the basis. The way to success is to not be afraid and to promote your company on social networks, not just be there.

Marketing and social networks today form an inseparable pair to help meet corporate goals [27–29]. It is a constantly effectively developing area, that should be included in the marketing plan of companies and organizations that can utilize the potential of social networks.

#### **7.2 Promotional errors on social networks**

Most small businesses know that they want to use social media for marketing [30–31], but they often make critical mistakes in creating this strategy, which also costs them resources. The top 10 promotional mistakes include:


a social networking survey on which social networks are best suited for business, where they can potentially flourish, and which network is being used by the competition and customers.


#### **8. Conclusion**

The issue of effective promotion in the Internet environment is a constantly evolving construct. The synthesis of knowledge of traditional marketing and inhomogeneous virtual market creates an almost uncontrollable number of variables. Increased addressability in conditions of reduced authenticity creates even more discomfort in this context. Building brands and maintaining relationships with customers is therefore a challenge. In the Internet environment, not only players from the environment of small and medium-sized companies are challenged, but also big market players are literally waging a daily struggle with a turbulent environment in which, under certain circumstances, the voice of the individual carries the weight of the whole corporation.

Today's Internet market offers a wide portfolio of communication tools. Adequacy and efficiency are key determinants of success. At the beginning of the new millennium, the very foundations of e-marketing communication represented a relatively homogeneous tool set for progressive marketers. Internet sites, as a basic communication element, were a relatively simple ecosystem in which the supply and demand sides of the market interacted. With the gradual development of technologies, the need to optimize this ecosystem arose. This involved both the optimization of the technical solution and the optimization of the content. With the advent of search engines, Internet marketing is entering a completely new era. Personalized content has increased the efficiency of spending resources on marketing communications. At the same time, it helped to better satisfy the needs of the market by revealing its latent needs. Content advertising support systems were able to generate relatively significant volumes of Internet traffic in the search engine-website direction. An evolutionary shift was noted by the establishment of virtual social networks in the environment of information flow. All these milestones represent the foundations of the topic as such. In the context of the research results, it can be concluded that the research problem identified by us, that is, the existence of the foundations of the topic, which define its further development, was examined in an adequate way. The chapter thus presents a clear and compact knowledge base from the point of view of the basic tools of Internet marketing. Understanding the fundamentals is key to understanding the broader context. From the website to the virtual social networks, this chapter is the starting point for an introduction to the study of the issue.

#### **9. Limitations and perspectives for further research**

From the point of view of limitations, it is necessary to point out that the text is almost dominantly based on the literature, which corresponds to the time in which the individual foundations were codified in practice. The topics of Internet marketing are extremely dynamic, individual tools are undergoing continuous development. In any case, the basics of the theme do not change, innovation as such expands the theme. It was this fact that was considered in processing the text.

From the perspective of further research on the topic, authors consider it necessary to point out the trends of accelerated digitization, which arose from market changes during the global pandemic. This trend is likely to determine the further development of the issue. It, therefore, needs to be given due attention.

#### **Acknowledgements**

This research was funded by the Slovak Republic Scientific Grant Agency VEGA, grant number 1/0140/21.

This research was funded by the Institute of Technology and Business in České Budějovice, grant number 05SVV2201.

#### **Conflict of interest**

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **Thanks**

The authors of the chapter would also like to thank the students who over the years participated in the processing of creation of content for presented chapter.

Without their active involvement in the processes, the production of knowledge to the extent presented in the present text would not be possible.

#### **Author details**

František Pollák<sup>1</sup> \* and Peter Markovič<sup>2</sup>

1 Institute of Technology and Business in České Budějovice, České Budějovice, Czechia

2 Faculty of Business Management, University of Economics in Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia

\*Address all correspondence to: frantisek.pollak@mail.vstecb.cz

© 2022 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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[21] Pollák F. E-business a jeho Aplikácie v Podmienkach Slovenského Trhu. Prešov: Bookman; 2013

*Internet Marketing DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107918*

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#### **Chapter 3**

## Perspective Chapter: The Transition from Offline to Online Marketing Strategies to Build Brand Equity

*Munyaradzi Mutsikiwa*

#### **Abstract**

The chapter discusses a paradigm shift from offline to online marketing strategies that organisations may employ to build customer-based brand equity. The rationale for online marketing is fully discussed in the chapter. This chapter considers how business practitioners would select best fitting strategies to build brand equity. The chapter discusses among others the virtual presence, the marketing activities, the product, the price, and the distribution strategies. In addition, online strategies to enhance brand awareness and image, elicit a brand response and increase brand resonance are discussed. The chapter will include strategies that are contextual to developing economies.

**Keywords:** offline marketing, online marketing, marketing strategies, brand, brand equity

#### **1. Introduction**

The advent of the internet has transformed the way communication in business and community is done. It has greatly impacted the traditional media – the offline media – which had been the major media for business communication for thousands of years. The offline media face a threat of extinction because of the rivalry it is facing with online approaches to advertising which are more compatible with the current epoch. Unlike the traditional media, the internet offers facilities for companies to use social media, which in turn permits advertisers to tailor-make advertisements to specified groups of consumers. Through the internet, companies can deliver information to a targeted audience. It has been realised that targeting enhances the quality of communication between businesses and their target market arena [1].

Online marketing offers a platform for intense competition because even small companies can compete through online marketing with a limited budget. Contrasted to offline marketing such as the use of television, newspapers and radio among others, online marketing is less expensive and more importantly online audiences exceed offline audiences [2]. Online media has been promoted by the arrival of social network sites, which has greatly facilitated e-commerce. Thus, online media has created a breakthrough in the marketing of products and/or services online. Of particular importance is the interactive nature of online media which permits a reciprocal flow of information from both the organisation and its customers. This implies that users of social media can modify the content in real-time. As such online media is superior to traditional marketing media which affords users a one-way flow of communication messages. More so, the online approach to advertising has eliminated the effect of geographic distance because businesses can now communicate with global customers with a click of a button [3].

In the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) online media has become a business stall for business practitioners. Online media are platforms that are used by marketers and business people to launch products and services, communicate brand messages, develop customer loyalty and build customer-based brand equity among others. To attain this, business people must design online business strategies that are compatible with the platforms and with the needs of virtual customers. Although countless business people are getting used to the use of online media, the applications of such media might not be the same across the global markets due to disparities existing among economies. One of the major challenges facing online marketing strategies is the wealth gap existing between the developed, the emerging and developing countries.

Because of the improved interactivity of online brand communities, the sharing of different types of content between brands and customers and among customers has afforded brands to create exceptional brand image, identity and more importantly customer-based brand equity [4, 5]. Social media marketing strategies are essential in building strong brand equity [6]. The speed of message dissemination and the abundance of information sources have attracted marketers to shift from offline to online media to create brand awareness and enhance consumer preferences towards brands [7]. The development of strong brand equity is the final goal of all marketing and branding activities. A brand with positive brand equity can create customer loyalty and engagement with the brand since customers will have positive perceptions and attitudes towards the brand [8].

Positive brand equity denotes customer loyalty and their active engagement with the brand. In addition, creating community feeling in favour of the brand in the mind of the customer is also a crucial issue for a better brand. On the other hand, a favourable brand image represents customers' positive perception of a brand [8]. According to [9], social media platforms offer settings for customers to engage in sincere and friendly communications with the brand and other users, thereby creating relationship equity and brand equity. Social media is impactful in creating brand equity through users' social media engagement [10]. While marketing practitioners agree that social media provides valuable support for marketing activities in general this chapter focuses on the transition from traditional marketing approaches to online marketing strategies to build brand equity. Therefore the chapter is organised as follows; the chapter begins by defining the key terms, followed by a discussion of the challenges that companies encounter as they change from offline to online marketing strategies, after which a discussion on the reasons for implementing online strategies is done, thereafter the chapter discusses the online strategies that organisations may employ to build brand equity and upon completion of this a summary of the chapter is given at the end.

*Perspective Chapter: The Transition from Offline to Online Marketing Strategies to Build Brand… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105483*

#### **2. Research methodology**

In the process of writing this chapter, an integrative review was employed wherein the researcher attempted to go slightly beyond the description of the identified articles but also included a certain extent of analysis of the reviewed information. The methodology entails the presentation, analysis and synthesis of information that was obtained from different sources (Grant and Booth, 2009). In real terms, the researcher reviewed and synthesised representative literature on the transition from offline to online marketing strategies to build brand equity. This methodology involved the presentation of existing literature, and an attempt to consolidate information on various factors was done. This permitted the author to discuss ideas under specific topics as identified in the extant literature and permitted the researcher to contribute to the development of the topic and also to a limited extent pointed to the gaps that may need further scrutiny in future studies. Even though this researcher employed the critical or integrative review it should be noted that it has a weakness in that the approach lacks an objective and structured approach that is endowed in the systematic review approach (Haddaway et al. 2014). However to mitigate against such biases an attempt was made to be rigorous in the write-up. By so doing the researcher made sure that the topic could enable readers to understand how the transition of marketing strategies from offline to online has progressed over years.

#### **3. Definition of key concepts**

This section looks at the definitions of the key terms in this chapter as operationalised by the writer.

#### **3.1 Offline marketing strategies**

Offline marketing strategies entail any advertising or promotional practice that leverages traditional offline media. An offline marketing strategy normally uses channels that include television, newspapers, magazines, radio, direct mail, billboards, and in-person events among others. Because of the transformation that is currently happening in marketing, modern-day offline marketing strategies are used to support or supplement online strategies [11]. Though studies confirm the effectiveness of offline marketing strategies in certain contexts, these strategies cannot stand the test of time as most organisations are embarking on online marketing strategies.

The transition that is currently happening does not imply that offline marketing strategies are useless but they are effective at edifying online brands and the equity of the brand. In real terms, a combination of offline and online marketing strategies has a considerable impact on building a brand reputation. When combined, offline and online marketing strategies can complement one another and produce an amplified impact. Because of the effectiveness that offline offers to companies a brief discussion on its importance is discussed next.

First, despite the transition, face to face meetings are still important as they play a significant part in networking. They can help to direct traffic to the website of a company, especially when you meet people and later on they visit your website to learn more about the company and its products. Depending on the context, handshaking is still crucial because it eliminates abstraction from your brand. Second, offline marketing strategies offer opportunities for companies to attend conferences and trade shows. These events are quite critical since they offer avenues to distribute company and brand-related literature. Third, company representatives can engage with the target audience through speeches. Speeches play a significant role in creating credible companies. Fourth, consultations and demonstrations are more realistic when there is a direct link between the seller and buyer. Generally, live demos offer additional confidence to the would-be buyers of the products of a company. Ultimately, offline marketing strategies increase the company's visibility.

#### **3.2 Online marketing strategies**

Ref. no. [12] define online marketing as: "the use of the internet and all associated digital electronic technologies to achieve marketing goals" by reaching various users at their convenience". According to [13], online marketing strategies entail the campaigns and activities that are employed to promote products and services and in most cases create long-run relationships with the virtual community [14]. The most inclusive definition is the one that is given by [15] who notes that online marketing is the application of "digital technologies which form online channels (Web, e-mail, databases, plus mobile/wireless & digital TV) to contribute to marketing activities aimed at achieving profitable acquisition and retention of customers (within a multichannel buying process and customer lifecycle) through improving our customer knowledge (of their profiles, behaviour, value and loyalty drivers), then delivering integrated targeted communications and online services that match their individual needs". Thus online marketing is an avenue to communicate and target consumers with the use the digital technology – social media and the internet. This definition entails the contention that online marketing is hinged on the interaction of users of social media. This is a major characteristic that set it apart from traditional and offline marketing.

#### **3.3 Customer-based brand equity**

The concept of brand equity was coined in the 1980s and since then, there has been a proliferation of studies on the subject. As a result, there has been an ongoing debate on the concept. Several definitions have been suggested [16]. Brand equity is defined as added values that are endowed in a brand [17]. Aaker [18] defined brand equity as a set of assets and liabilities linked to a brand's name and symbol that add to or subtract from the value provided by a product or service to a firm. Another definition of customer-based brand equity is developed from a customer's perspective whereby brand knowledge, familiarity and associations regarding the brand are considered. Keller [19] defined customer-based brand equity as "the differential effect of brand knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of the brand." The understanding of brand equity from a consumer's perspective is important as this would allow companies to generate profits and build the equity of the brand.

According to [20], brand equity is a multidimensional construct that is grouped into five categories namely perceived quality, brand loyalty, brand awareness, brand association and other proprietary assets that include trademarks, patents and relationships. Thus, in the discussion of this chapter attempt is made to explain how online marketing strategies help organisations build brand equity.

*Perspective Chapter: The Transition from Offline to Online Marketing Strategies to Build Brand… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105483*

#### **4. Challenges of online marketing strategies**

Despite the proliferation of online marketing strategies, they are also challenges that emanate from inexperienced users. Consumers lack confidence in the use of the internet. There are a lot of people who find it difficult to trust the online marketing processes, for the developing world both the urban and rural people do not have access to the internet. This makes it imminent for marketers in developing to rely on both offline and online marketing strategies.

When customers want to buy products in most cases they prefer to feel or touch the product before making a purchase decision. Customers are afraid to purchase defective products and for perishable items, there is a fear that they may buy stale products. The lack of personal contact in online marketing strategies has made this approach less appealing to some of the virtual customers. Because of the lack of personal interaction, some customers who prefer face to face interaction are scared away from shopping online and still prefer shopping in brick and mortar stores. For such customers talking to store personnel, socialising with them and touching the products before making a purchase decision is critical. For these reasons online marketing strategies are less appropriate for this group of customers despite the factor that it is growing substantially.

One of the most threatening issues related to online marketing strategies relates to fraud – customers from most developing countries are afraid of online fraud. Regardless of the proliferation of online transactions, many people do not trust electronic methods of payment and neither do they trust that the purchased product will be delivered after purchase Because of such fears customers are scared away from using the online platforms to purchase products and services. Online trust entails the perception of the website's ability to meet the consumers' expectations. Organisations that use online facilities must have deliberately built trust and persuaded virtual customers that online purchases are as real as offline purchases.

The advent of the digital revolution is a threat to business models. A business model refers to how a business creates customer value and how it provides revenue to companies [21]. A more comprehensive definition was given by [22], who conceptualised it as "a well-specified system of interdependent structures, activities, and processes that serves as a firm's organising logic for value creation (for its customers) and value appropriation (for itself and its partners). The changes in business models affect value creation and appropriation. In the majority of situations, companies have integrated digital technologies into existing business models considerably affecting existing business models. For example, one of the striking challenges that Network Service Providers face relates to the rapid adoption of free digital services like WhatsApp. In a way, these companies are facing a reduction in revenue emanating from free facilities.

One of the most important challenges of digital marketing is the ability to generate and leverage customers' opinions and insights. In online marketing a lot of data – big data is generated – which is difficult to process by the use of hand databases management tools. Challenges related to this include capturing the data, storing data, sharing data and analysing the data generated online [23]. On the other hand, big data provide opportunities for companies to follow customers from the point of awareness to the point of purchase until they become loyal customers. Despite the need to track customers, there is still a challenge to attain this goal because of the complexity and quantity of data. In addition, these data lack structure, they are volatile and sometimes there is a lot of missing data.

The problem of integrating online and offline marketing strategies which involve many channels such as e-mail advertisements, social media, press, brochures, catalogues, TV, cell phone and the internet among others has to be addressed. It is important to prioritise the coordination of all marketing activities. Online marketing strategies should be done alongside offline marketing strategies. Thus harmonising both approaches to marketing the products and services of a company will help in the attainment of marketing goals. Therefore marketing practitioners should acknowledge the role of integrated marketing communications – since all marketing activities are inextricably linked to each other. When going online all elements of marketing should play complementary roles.

#### **5. Rationale for changing from offline to online marketing strategies**

The advent of the digital age has brought about a proliferation of technological innovations in the form of online media. The development of information technology has facilitated the use of e-commerce – which entails the buying and selling of products through the use of the internet. In real terms, online marketing strategies have been invigorated by the advent of social network sites or social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and Instagram among others. These online media play an important role in online marketing strategies. It is reported that the number of social media users has grown to 3.96 billion in 2022, with Facebook as the leading medium with a subscription base of 2.9 monthly active users [24].

Social media are considered platforms on which users build networks and share information and/or sentiments [25]. Because of their unique nature of being "dynamic, interconnected, egalitarian, and interactive organisms" [26], social media have caused three fundamental changes in the marketplace. First, social media permit companies and customers to associate in ways that were impossible in the past. Such connectedness is allowed by several platforms, such as social networking sites (Facebook), microblogging sites (Twitter), and content communities (YouTube), that permit social networks to be built from shared interests and values [25]. Thus based on the use of social media, organisations have found platforms that cut marketing costs and increase the effectiveness of marketing efforts [27].

The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has become an impactful lesson to business practitioners and consumers that business should be done online. It has taught people the importance of doing business online. Based on this, companies have to spend more on social media advertisement and because of the Covid-19 pandemic, people spend more time on social media platforms [28]. Because of the restrictions that Covid-pandemic imposes on consumers, online marketing strategies are offering a better option for informing people about a company's products and services. For example, Facebook advertisements are less expensive for businesses [29]. Advertisements on Facebook can be appealing and maybe well-designed to meet the needs of a target group.

One of the most important factors that enhance online marketing strategy is that consumers can be provided with timely information due to its availability 24 hours a day, and 7 days a week [30]. Because of this customers can access information and shop online at any time of the day. Thus, there is no limit on time since online businesses do not have opening and closing times. Since online and offline businesses are closely associated consumers may visit the brick and mortar markets after surfing online for suitable prices. For consumers, online purchases bring with them the

*Perspective Chapter: The Transition from Offline to Online Marketing Strategies to Build Brand… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105483*

advantage that the customer does not go out of the home to visit stores and be burdened by comparing. Comparatively, online marketing strategies are not resources consuming and as such are cost-effective [31]. Even companies that employ these strategies expend less when they launch new advertisements online as compared to placing them in a magazine or on billboards. Since the cost of establishing a virtual presence is less expensive most companies have gone online.

One of the key merits of an online marketing strategy is that it eliminates all geographical limitations from the practice of buying and selling. As long as the internet is available, there is no limit in terms of global reach [32]. Offline marketing strategies had challenges of overcoming geographic barriers, but today marketers can market their products and services to a large clientele base across the globe [33].

Despite the nature of a company online marketing strategies are important as they can assist organisations to position themselves in the market and be able to set themselves apart from competitors. Moving from offline to online marketing strategies is a good opportunity that companies should not avoid despite them keeping operating their brick and mortar facilities [34]. Since most organisations are going online, it is important to discuss if online marketing strategies lead to the creation of customerbased brand equity.

#### **6. Online strategies to build brand equity**

Brand equity is a consequence of many factors that include among others initial purchasing experience [35]. It is also important that the product and/or service offer additional value so that strong relationships with the client are developed. This experiential marketing is important in the provision of this value [36]. The value so provided is brand equity, which is discussed in this section, but with an emphasis on how online marketing strategies edify such value from customers' perspective. As the discussion unfolds it is important to note that online marketing strategies similarly create brand equity to offline marketing strategies in that both strategies influence the main sources of brand equity namely brand awareness, brand image and loyalty.

Extant literature shows that social media communication has a significant impact on brand equity as it creates brand awareness. Even though online brand experience, was not regarded as good as offline strategies in creating brand equity [37], it is now crucial in such endeavour. Online marketing strategies permit companies to communicate, create and deliver marketing offerings through social media platforms to keep relationships with a diverse range of stakeholders. By so doing marketers interact, collaborate, and share information with customers [38], because of this as many organisations use social media for advertising and marketing activities, they create value and build brand equity [39]. As companies and consumers interact on social media platforms – the interaction permits the individual's ability to recall and recognise the brand [40]. Thus as a result social influence affects brand equity. For example, activities on social media activities can encourage consumer engagement and help companies to build relationships, brand image and brand value. As participants on the social media platforms share videos and pictures, this may create trust and strong ties with brands which impact brand equity.

Online marketing strategies enhance brand experience which may end up building brand equity. For example, customised digital content facilitates the creation of consumer-brand relationships [41]. It is crucial to note that if an organisation uses this trendy marketing approach and posts stimulating content consumers are more

likely to have long-lasting memories which form the foundation of brand equity. In the same vein, the use of professional pictures helps to motivate the sensory and affective experiences of consumers. In real terms, content marketing is the cornerstone of online marketing strategies which entails the distribution of valuable, relevant and consistent which is meant to attract customers. With proper online content, organisations can attract, keep customers and transform general customers into advocates [42].

One of the most significant aspects of building brand equity is web functionality. Web functionality entails the website design elements that facilitate ease of interaction – which should be user friendly, fun, and enjoyable. The website has to offer several options that may include the speed of the download, 3D images, video and audio which is available 24/7. If the website is properly designed it can create unique and memorable experiences in the minds of the consumers which in turn generates brand awareness and recall. This may in the end create brand loyalty [43]. The website should have navigation aids to reduce the cognitive load, and the steps for search and confusion, this creates additional value for customers.

One of the antecedents of brand equity that marketing practitioners have exploited to build brand equity is e-service quality. Santos [44] defined e-service quality as the assessment and judgement of the customer's experience and how the customer perceives the quality of online services offered by the virtual market. In the initial stages, when an organisation starts selling online products customers may not adapt quickly, but may gradually come aboard depending on the availability of several factors such as website functionality, product attributes, customer e-service and security among others. One of the commonly employed scales to evaluate the quality of online service is the e-service quality scale (ESQUAL) which was proposed by [45] in 2005. The main dimensions of the scale include reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and tangibility. Extant literature shows that e-service quality has been studied in association with marketing stimuli, outcome and ultimate behaviour. Scholars have linked e-service quality with several outcomes such as satisfaction, loyalty and behavioural intentions [46].

Satisfaction is one of the determinants of customers based brand equity. In online marketing, such satisfaction is regarded as e-satisfaction. Anderson and Srinivasan [47] defined e-satisfaction as 'the contentment of the customer with respect to his or her prior purchasing experience with a given electronic commerce firm'. This happens after assessing if the gratifications so experienced from online purchases meet the needs and expectations of customers. The understanding of the extent of customer satisfaction is important because satisfaction influences the behaviour of customers on whether they will continue patronising the website or not [48]. According to [49], satisfaction is a result of positive emotional and cognitive states.

A satisfied customer always refers other customers to the websites and remains loyal to the organisation. In addition, e-satisfaction increases traffic to the website and the number of hours spent by customers on the website also increases. Thus the behaviour of online consumers is dependent partly on e-satisfaction. Despite the fact that e-satisfaction is a subjective experience it helps in edifying brand equity. For e-satisfaction to be attained it is expected that the website of the organisation has to be adaptable, interactive, and user-friendly to permit ease of transaction and customer engagement [47]. Studies have shown that e-satisfaction in online companies depends on the website quality and e-service quality, information quality and product quality among others.

#### *Perspective Chapter: The Transition from Offline to Online Marketing Strategies to Build Brand… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105483*

E-loyalty is one of the antecedents of brand equity. It refers to the long-run relationship that customers have concerning the brand. Odin et al. [50] define loyalty as the extent to which consumers are committed to the brand and this is shown by the positive attitude and behaviour towards a particular brand. Repeat purchases are one of the indicators of loyalty. Because of the advent of the internet and social media, the concept of brand loyalty is now operational in the online context and it is regarded as e-loyalty. Anderson and Srinivasan [47] e-loyalty refers to a favourable attitude towards an online business, which results in repeat purchases. The same concept has been defined by [51] as a consumer's commitment to revisit an organisation's website without switching to other websites. In the extant literature, brand loyalty is segmented into two categories namely behavioural and cognitive loyalty. When consumers repeat buying brands, this is regarded as behavioural loyalty and cognitive loyalty entails the consumers' intention to purchase the brand as the first choice [19]. Both types of loyalty form the building blocks for brand equity.

In an attempt to build brand equity electronic word of mouth (eWOM) has become one of the tools used by many organisations. The concept of eWOM has been adapted from word of mouth. eWOM has been defined as "all informal communications directed at consumers through internet-based technology related to the usage or characteristics of particular goods and services" [52]. The concept emerged as a result of online technologies that enabled the use of social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp among others. The merit that EWOM is that it can reach millions of people who have access to the internet. Because of the unique characteristics of eWOM, it allows web users to create virtual relationships and share a lot of content. As web users share opinions about a company's products and services on social media platforms, in the end, this affects buying behaviour [53]. In instances where positive information is shared the result is that brand equity is edified in the process.

As much as eWOM is quite useful in building brand equity, the same can transmit negative opinions. Negative e-WOM is a strong determinant of consumers' overall attitude towards products and services [54] since it draws more attention than positive information. If such information is shared companies' reputations and images are tarnished. For example when online interaction takes place and negative opinions and comments are made this may end up affecting brand equity negatively. Because of the reach of online marketing approaches, marketing practitioners should be concerned about how best they can minimise the volume of negative reviews on the online platform as a way to reduce harmful effects on brand equity.

#### **7. Chapter summary**

The chapter looked at the transition from traditional marketing strategies to online marketing strategies that companies use to build brand equity. The chapter discussed the concepts of offline strategies, online strategies and customer-based brand equity. Offline marketing strategies were described as the use of marketing media such as television, newspapers, billboards and radio among others. Online marketing strategies relate to the use of digital technologies to promote products and services and establish long-term relationships with online users. Customer-based brand equity was discussed from a customer perspective viewpoint where it was summarised as the value that accrues to a customer after using the brand.

A discussion was also done on the number of challenges that are associated with online marketing strategies. Some of the challenges encountered by companies include the lack of trust in the processes, especially from rural consumers and fear of online fraudulent activities that result in customers not using online platforms. More so, the online marketing strategies have affected the traditional business models such that companies have to transform their models so that they are compatible with the online ways of marketing products and services. In adopting online marketing strategies, companies have encountered challenges in managing big data – where a lot of content is shared on social media platforms. Despite the reality that companies go online, they still need to use offline marketing strategies and as such, there is a problem with how best companies can harmonise the two approaches.

Adopting online marketing strategies has been facilitated by technological innovations in the form of the internet and social media. We have seen the birth of platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube among others where virtual communities share information about products and services. Because of the outbreak of Covid-19 business practitioners have been forced to do business online due to the restriction associated with the disease. More importantly, the cost implications are far much less than that of traditional ways of marketing and the fact that the business is open for 24 hours makes the online approach to business a more preferred option.

Despite the fact that brand equity can be built from several factors, not all factors were included, but only a few selected factors. The chapter indicates that social media communication is good at building brand equity; communications unfolds between the company and consumers in an interactive way, where both parties make contributions, unlike the unidirectional way that is common in the traditional approach to communicating. A discussion on the effect of brand experience on brand equity was done. One of the factors that are responsible for building brand equity relates to web functionality, which also entails ease of use and interaction. Among other factors discussed in this chapter is the role of e-service quality, the effect of e-satisfaction and e-loyalty on brand equity. A discussion on the role of eWOM in edifying brand equity was precisely done.

#### **8. Limitations and perspectives for future research**

Because of the dynamic nature of the transition from offline to online strategies to market brands, it is important that future research may continually undertake reviews to examine the changes in the domain area. An integrative approach to review the extant literature on the transition from offline to online marketing strategies was done here, it is important that future reviews may take a systematic approach to present, analyse and critique literature.

*Perspective Chapter: The Transition from Offline to Online Marketing Strategies to Build Brand… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105483*

#### **Author details**

Munyaradzi Mutsikiwa Great Zimbabwe University, Masvingo, Zimbabwe

\*Address all correspondence to: mmutsikiwa@gzu.ac.zw

© 2022 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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#### **Chapter 4**

Perspective Chapter: A Systematic Review and Research Agenda on Standardization versus Adaptation of Brand Elements in International Markets

*Tamer Baran*

#### **Abstract**

This paper aims to systematically review and critically examine marketing research on the standardization/adaptation of brand elements and explain its importance, given its increasing influence internationally. 46 journal articles indexed in Scopus and Web of Science databases examine with focus on research theme with broad scope approach, one of the types of literature review. The findings show that there is a live stream about the standardization/adaptation of brand elements in the marketing discipline, and contextual, methodological, and thematic diversity. Moreover, the findings of the review also highlight various literature trends and gaps. Results of the current review offer deep insights and create an ambitious research agenda that raises exciting new research questions for researchers. Besides results help to encourage the development of future theories on international branding.

**Keywords:** branding, brand elements, standardization, adaptation, systematic review

#### **1. Introduction**

In the last few decades, a significant and major change in terms of globalization has taken place as a result of the liberalization of countries' trade policies, the realization of regional economic integrations, faster flow of goods compared to previous periods, and rapid development in logistics and information and communication technologies [1–3]. Companies with different national origins from almost every sector have caused an increase in the intensity of competition in the globalizing world [4]. Consequently, the problems related to the design of robust branding strategies to compete effectively and efficiently in the international market have been the focus of relevant research. Perhaps the most important reason for this is that the brand is the most valuable asset of a company [5]. For example, BrandZ's report states Amazon's brand value is over \$415 billion, Apple's brand value is over \$350 billion, and Microsoft and Google's brand value are over \$320 billion. Moreover, many brands on the list increase their brand values year by year.

The value of a brand is closely linked to the effective use of brand elements. This is because, through brand elements, companies can create a quality perception, associate their brands with some positive features, and reach a high level of brand recognition [5]. In addition, the brand can have a respectable identity, personality, and a high level of awareness and recognition in the consumers' perspectives [6]. These features will, undoubtedly, give the brand a competitive advantage in the market.

At this point, one of the important issues about branding that international companies need to address is the standardization/adaptation of brand elements in the target market [7]. In international branding, the decision regarding the aforementioned strategies is directly related to the target consumer audience, legal environment, the transferability of the company's marketing skills, and the characteristics of the product [6]. Therefore, international branding is more complicated than local branding [8], and, for this reason, it is not possible to state that standardization/ adaptation strategies should be preferred over the other.

Due to the importance of the topic, it has become inevitable for both academics and decision-makers to seek an answer to the question of how to manage brand elements successfully in international markets [7]. In the literature reviews on the topic, some authors [9–11] discussed the topic within the framework of international marketing. On the other hand, in the limited number of systematic literature reviews on branding, some authors [12, 13] studied brand orientation, while others [14, 15] focused on brand loyalty. However, studies failed to attach enough importance to the standardization/adaptation of brand elements. Therefore, the lack of studies on the standardization/adaptation of brand elements draws attention in the literature.

In this context, the present review aimed to consolidate extant research, establish links with different literature studies, identify gaps between and within research streams, and bring together all the components as much as possible. To this end, I conducted a systematic review of research on brand elements to make suggestions for further research. At this point, I specifically aimed to highlight, clarify, rationalize, and interpret the similarities and differences among studies in terms of content and methodology and draw conclusions about future research directions. Since only a limited number of systematic reviews have been conducted on the topic, the current review is expected to make a meaningful and profound contribution to the field.

The paper is organized as follows: the following section provides an overview of the employed review protocols and the rationale behind them. Next, the results of the systematic review are presented. Then, both a descriptive and thematic analysis of the extant literature and show the breadth and depth of the available knowledge are provided. The review is ended with a discussion of the main gaps in the literature that were detected and suggestions for future research directions.

#### **2. Methodology**

Despite numerous studies on the standardization/adaptation of brand elements in international marketing literature conducted over the last few decades, no effort has been made to systematically review these studies findings. The present review aimed to examine the studies on the topic comprehensively and systematically reveal the research evidence. In their comprehensive study, [16] categorized review types according to their characteristics and obtained 14 review types, including the systematic literature review (SLR). Accordingly, a SLR is the process of systematically searching for, evaluating, and synthesizing research evidence, often adhering to

*Perspective Chapter: A Systematic Review and Research Agenda on Standardization versus… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.103866*

guidelines on the conduct of a review. In this type of review, the subject is handled carefully and clearly [17, 18].

SLRs have some important advantages over other review types. An SLR improves the quality of the review process and outputs [19], reduces the level of error in the research and the bias of the researcher [20, 21], increases the validity of the process since the review process is carried out without leaving any details open to interpretation [22], allows the researcher to focus on a specific research area [23], and finally, provides information to the stakeholders in a comprehensive framework [20, 24]. Due to these superior characteristics, studies employing the SLR method in various research areas such as blockchain technology [25], preventive medicine [26], and sustainability [27] have been published in a fairly high number of prestigious journals. For these reasons, the current review, aiming at a comprehensive, valuable, and advanced review of the standardization/adaptation of brand elements, employed the SLR method.

Several approaches have been put forward regarding the stages of a SLR. Tranfield et al. [21] suggested that the SLR process basically consists of three stages: planning the review, conducting a review, and reporting and dissemination. The authors also proposed a total of 10 steps under these three main stages. On the other hand, Khan et al. [28] discussed the stages of a systematic review under five headings: framing questions for a review, identifying relevant work, assessing the quality of studies, summarizing the evidence, and interpreting the findings. Magarey [29] grouped the stages of an SLR under six headings: formulation of a research question, literature search, selection of studies to be included in the review, data extraction, analysis and synthesis, and reporting the results. Vrontis and Christofi [18] employed a 7-step process consisting of the following steps: question formulation, inclusion criteria, search strategy, exclusion criteria, selecting relevant studies, further search processes, and extraction, analysis, and synthesis. One of the most comprehensive definitions of the process belongs to Okoli and Schabram [30]. The authors defined an 8-step guide to conducting an SLR: defining the purpose of the literature review, protocol, and training, searching for the literature, practical screen (inclusion criteria), quality appraisal (exclusion criteria), data extraction, synthesis of studies, writing the review. This review employed the 7-step process proposed by Vrontis and Christofi [18].

#### **3. SLR process**

#### **3.1 Question formulation**

Although some authors [18, 28, 30] define this stage with different words, the point on which all authors agree is that the most important step for an SLR, as in all research in the field of marketing [31–34], is the formulation of the research question. Formulating the research question clearly plays a key role in the success of the research as it shapes the future stages of the research. While formulating the research question of the present review, I focused on the standardization/adaptation of brand elements. Following Vrontis and Christofi [18] and collaborating with marketing researchers who have studied on the topic, I formulated the research question: What is the main focus of studies on the standardization/adaptation of brand elements in the marketing literature?

#### **3.2 Inclusion criteria**

Vrontis and Christofi, Dada and Wang and Chung [18, 20, 22] applied three inclusion criteria to decide which studies to include in their systematic review: (1) to determine the search boundaries; (2) to identify the search strings, and; (3) to specify the search timeframe. In this review, I employed the first two criteria: to determine the search boundaries and to identify the search strings. Considering the previous SLRs, some authors [35, 36] conducted the SLR process on a journal basis whereas many other authors [17–20] conducted their review on a database basis. Since the database-based process is preferred more in SLRs, the present review followed this process. In the studies mentioned above, the researchers focused on EBSCOhost Business Source Complete, ScienceDirect, and Emerald databases but overlooked Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases. For this reason, WoS and Scopus databases formed the boundaries of this review. Furthermore, following the suggestions put forward by Kauppi et al. [23], I created a comprehensive list of search terms related to the research topic. My purpose here was to minimize the possibility of excluding search terms related to the research topic. As stated above, I did not specify a specific search timeframe; therefore, I included all the studies on the topic, regardless of when they were conducted. I did this to eliminate the possibility of excluding important studies on the topic.

#### **3.3 Search strategy**

Khan et al. [28] state that researchers can use at this stage many criteria as research criteria such as title, abstract, full text, keywords, language, category, words other than keywords, etc. At this point, the researcher has the freedom to choose data sources and selection criteria [35]. In this context, the present review used all of the criteria mentioned above, and the first review was conducted to cover all relevant studies. I identified the search terms following [7]. These authors found that standardization and adaptation are stated with different terms in marketing terminology. Accordingly, some authors [37–40] used the term "standardization," while others (e.g., [1, 2, 41–44]) used the term "globalization." Also, some authors (e.g., [1, 3, 45– 49]) used the term "adaptation," while some others (e.g., [2, 3, 50, 51]) used the term "customization." Apart from these, some authors [48, 52–54] preferred the British spelling of "standardization" ("standardization"), "globalization" ("globalization") [55, 56] and "customization" ("customization") [52, 57, 58]. In this review, I used all the terms mentioned above in the database search to minimize the possibility of missing the studies on the topic.

On the other hand, the brand elements forming this review's topic were collected in three groups name, symbol, and slogan by Aaker [5] and Kotler and Keller [59]. Moreover, the symbol element consists of the components of logos, packaging, human, scenes, and cartoon characters. On the other hand, regarded name, slogan, symbol, logo, packaging, and character as well as URL and jingle as brand elements [6]. Kapferer [60] defined brand elements as name, slogan, symbol, logo, packaging, brand character, and color and sound. In the present review, as brand elements, I used the keywords of name, slogan, symbol, logo, packaging, and character, on which the above-mentioned authors agree, to identify the studies on brand elements. Thus, not only did I cover the studies on the topic at a maximum level but also determined the boundaries of the review.

Accordingly, I formulated the following search formula: (brand) AND (name OR slogan OR symbol OR logo OR packag\* OR character) AND (standardi\* OR globali\* OR adaptation OR customi\*). My first search with the inclusion criteria yielded a total of 1571 (Scopus, 577; WoS, 494) articles in databases.

*Perspective Chapter: A Systematic Review and Research Agenda on Standardization versus… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.103866*

#### **3.4 Exclusion criteria**

The sample of related studies that emerged after the first search was in need of a new appraisal to further clarify the most relevant studies. In this context, I followed the suggestions of various authors. First of all, although the field of the current review was business, the first sample contained articles from many different fields (e.g., environmental science, dermatology, pharmaceutical science, civil engineering, etc.). For this reason, following Khan et al.'s [28] suggestions, I selected the category of business. Next, following advanced SLR studies [35, 61], I selected full-text articles. Thus, I was able to exclude non-academic studies such as reviews, conference papers, book chapters, and books. As a result of the second exclusion, I noticed that there were articles in languages other than English (e.g., French, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, etc.). Therefore, in the third exclusion step, I excluded non-English articles. I did this for two reasons: Firstly, I do not know the mentioned languages, and secondly, and more importantly, I wanted to focus on a common scientific knowledge base represented by the majority of prestigious scientific journals [23]. Thus, I accessed a total of 208 articles (Scopus, 131; WoS, 77), including duplicate records. As a result of the detection and removal of duplicate records, the two databases yielded a total of 173 articles on my research topic.

**Figure 1.** *Research process.*

#### **3.5 Identifying relevant studies**

I completed carefully the inclusion and exclusion processes described above. Next, adhering to the processes of Nolan and Garawan [62], I first examined the titles and then the abstracts of the new list that emerged. At this point, I preferred not to comply with very strict rules. In other words, without stipulating a condition such that the titles of the studies fully or partially fit the research question of this review, I tried to identify the studies that would help explain the topic as much as possible. I excluded the studies that were not related to both standardization/adaptation and brand elements. By doing so, I aimed to include articles that would contribute to developing an insight into the standardization/adaptation of brand elements, even though they focused on other topics. Subsequently, I started the full-text review process. The full-text review process yielded a total of 37 articles that I deemed appropriate to be included in the review.

After this stage, I carefully examined all selected studies reference lists and tried to identify major relevant studies that I had failed to include in the review. Cross-referencing helped me to retrieve nine more articles, thus increasing the number of studies to 46. **Figure 1** demonstrates the research process steps of the current review detailed above.

The remainder of the paper focuses on mapping the field by making use of the descriptive and thematic analysis obtained from the final list resulting from the systematic review and reporting the findings in an integrative framework. In the analysis stage, Gaur and Kumar's [35] "focus on research theme with broad scope" approach, one of the types of literature review, was used. Accordingly, the findings of selected articles reviewed by two academics with Ph.D. degrees in marketing were presented.

#### **4. Findings**

#### **4.1 Descriptive findings**

The analysis of the existing literature on standardization/adaptation in international branding contributed to the determination of the focus of the relevant studies and the gaps in the literature and the development of suggestions for future research directions. This section reports the publication outlets from which the data were collected, fields of research, year of publication, the type of articles published, author's characteristics, and industrial analysis of the reviewed papers to provide a preliminary map of the existing literature and identify possible gaps that need further research.

#### **4.2 Studies by year of publication, type of paper, and methods**

According to **Table 1**, which outlines the studies by year of publications, there has been an increase in studies on standardization/adaptation in branding since the 2000s. Studies on the topic reached a peak in 2015 (n = 4). Although the topic started to be studied by academics more than 30 years ago, the number of studies has been increasing recently. The number of studies on standardization/adaptation in branding has increased significantly in the second decade compared to the previous decade (30% increase compared to the first decade). Moreover, approximately 30% of the studies have been carried out in the last five years. This indicates that researchers interest in the topic has increased over the years, and the research area has evolved. The review yielded that the listed articles were published in a wide range of journals. The studies were mainly (46%, n = 21) published in marketing journals, followed by

*Perspective Chapter: A Systematic Review and Research Agenda on Standardization versus… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.103866*



**Table 1.**

*Distrbution of studies by years and journals.1* *Perspective Chapter: A Systematic Review and Research Agenda on Standardization versus… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.103866*


#### **Table 2.**

*Authors' information of studies.*

brand-related journals (20%, n = 9). Seven studies (15%) were published in journals on general business, and others (20%, n = 9) were published in journals focused on different fields. The journal with the highest number of published studies on the topic (13%, n = 6) was the Journal of Product and Brand Management, followed by International Marketing Review (11%, n = 5).

#### **4.3 Studies by the number of authors and authorship origin**

As can be inferred from **Table 2** indicating the number of authors of the studies, the studies with a single author constituted the least number (15%, n = 7). In other words, most of the studies were conducted by more than one author, and the highest number (33%, n = 15) belonged to the studies conducted by three authors. Moreover, the majority of the studies (63%, n = 29) were conducted by researchers from the same country. The lowest rate (9%, n = 4) among the studies that included information about the authorship origin belonged to those published by academics from three different countries.

As regards the authorship origin, authors from the USA were in the first place (n = 19), followed by Australia (n = 14), Spain (n = 8), and China (n = 7) (**Figure 2**). In addition, considering the regions from which author contributions come from, the majority of authors (46%, n = 47) come from Europe, followed by America (21%, n = 22), Asia (18%, n = 19), and Australia (15%, n = 15).

#### **4.4 Studies by geographic coverage**

According to **Figure 3**, where the studies are presented in terms of geographic coverage, most of the studies (30%, n = 14) are based in more than one country. As can be inferred from the figure, the geographic coverage is narrow in studies based in a single country. Most of the studies based in a single country were conducted in China (24%, n = 11), followed by the USA (4%) and Pakistan (4%), with two studies each. Studies based in a single country focused on five countries (11%), both from Europe and Asia each. On the other hand, Australia was examined in only one study (2%), while the African continent was completely ignored. In fact, none of the studies

**Figure 2.** *Origins of studies' authors.*

**Figure 3.** *Geographical coverage of the studies.*

focused on Central Asia and the Middle East. Finally, eight studies (17%) included no information about their geographic coverage.

#### **4.5 Thematic analysis**

As part of SLR, thematic analysis develops an integrative perspective on the focus of relevant research [17]. In this context, in this review, following Aakers approach [5], three themes, namely name, symbol, and slogan, related to international branding, were determined. Since some authors [5, 60] divide the symbol into three sub-themes, namely, logo, packaging, and character, this review also considered these three sub-themes, thus increasing the number of elements to five. Appendix A presents the studied articles according to their themes. As can be inferred from the table, a majority of the studies focus on the brand name, followed by studies on

*Perspective Chapter: A Systematic Review and Research Agenda on Standardization versus… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.103866*

multiple brand elements. On the other hand, none of the reviewed studies focuses solely on the slogan.

Appendix B describes the sectors on which the studies are focused. 30% of the reviewed articles contain no information regarding the studied sector due to either their nature (conceptual study, literature review, etc.) or failure to specify the topic. On the other hand, those that mention the studied sector mostly focus on more than one sector (28%, n = 13). Besides, those that focused on a single sector were mostly (11%, n = 5) conducted in the context of consumer goods.

Following this, the review on each of these themes revolved around the main research focus of the reviewed articles. Findings of the current study show that studies on the topic mostly deal with consumer behavior towards different brand elements. For example, some studies [63–65] aimed to determine the effect of the brand name on consumer behaviors, while others [66] sought to determine the effect of the packaging on consumer behaviors. On the other hand, the most studied topic is standardization and adaptation in branding. At this point, some researchers [67] focused solely on standardization in branding, while others [68, 69] focused solely on adaptation. In addition, some of the studies on the field discussed the topic more specifically and dealt only with the standardization or adaptation of brand elements. For example, Alashban et al. [70] and Okazaki [71] examined the standardization of the brand name, whereas Barnes et al. [72], Usunier, and Shaner [73] studied the adaptation of the brand name. Khan et al. [74] investigated the standardization of symbols, another brand element, while Khan et al. [75] studied the adaptation of the packaging. The analysis also yielded cross-cultural studies, one of the important topics of international branding. In this context, some authors [76, 77] dealt with the topic from a broader perspective, while others [78] investigated it in the context of packaging, which is one of the brand elements. Furthermore, some studies [79, 80] tried to reveal the relationship between brand elements and the country of origin in the context of consumer behaviors.

On the other hand, it was found that some issues related to the topic were not addressed in the reviewed studies. For example, the effects of positioning in international branding [81], and branding on firm performance [82] were each the topic of only one study.

#### **4.6 Gaps for future research directions**

This section is devoted to the gaps thought to guide future research (in terms of theory, methodology, authorship, and scope) in hopes of helping future studies. I believe that these research gaps will provide fruitful research avenues for further research.

#### *4.6.1 Theory*

As a result of the present review, several issues emerged in terms of theory. First of all, though some authors have contributed to the field using several theories (brand name standardization/adaptation, consumer behavior, etc.), some issues related to international branding still lack a clear theoretical basis. Our finding is similar to and supports previous studies in other fields (e.g., [83–85]). Therefore, I suggest that academics studying the standardization/adaptation of brand elements should focus on studies that are blended with other disciplines such as sociology, psychology, etc.,

where the ideas and theories in these disciplines are used more, and they should try to present a wider perspective.

Second, the reviewed studies give little coverage to Aaker's [5] brand equity and Keller's [6] brand elements, which are generally accepted in the literature. Brand loyalty and perceived quality concepts were encountered in a few studies [5], whereas brand elements were almost never encountered [6]. Therefore, it is recommended that future research focus on brand association, brand awareness, brand identity, brand personality, brand recognition, and brand recall.

Third, when the suggestions for future research were evaluated in terms of literature themes, it was found that the studies focused on a certain theme, as was seen in previous reviews [83]. A significant portion of the studies [63–65, 68, 69, 72, 86] was found to focus on the brand name while those on symbols were found to focus on the packaging [74, 78, 87]. Our findings reveal that the literature still needs studies on slogans, logos, and characters. Therefore, I anticipate that studies on standardization/ adaptation related to these elements, which will be supported by different theories, will attract significant attention.

Additionally, our findings showed that the standardization/adaptation of brand elements in international marketing concentrates especially on China in terms of cultural theory but fails to notice different cultures. For this reason, it is recommended that scholars who are interested in the topic carry out studies to reveal the perspectives of consumers from different cultures.

#### *4.6.2 Methodology*

The results of the current review highlight the obvious insufficiency of qualitative research on the topic. It is probable that the main reason for this insufficiency is the difficulties in analyzing the data obtained through the qualitative research design. However, information obtained through various approaches is needed to reach more in-depth information about standardization/adaptation in branding, which is predicted to make important contributions to the field. Identifying the antecedents and successors of the complex structures of the topic and adding them to the existing knowledge base and valid research methods require significantly more qualitative inquiry.

#### *4.6.3 Authorship*

The findings of the review may lead to the interpretation that South American and African authors have made no contributions to the field. It is obvious that studies to be carried out by South American and African writers in their own regions or in other regions with international cooperation will enrich the field.

As stated above, researchers from the USA and Australia make up more than half of the total authors. Therefore, I recommend that researchers from other countries conduct research and enrich the field. Moreover, it was found that coauthorship was not at a sufficient level in the reviewed studies, and most of the studies were carried out by academics from the same country. For this reason, this finding presented an important opportunity for international authors on the topic. In this context, I believe that studies to be carried out by researchers from different cultures and different continents or regions will make significant contributions to the field.

*Perspective Chapter: A Systematic Review and Research Agenda on Standardization versus… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.103866*

#### *4.6.4 Context*

*Industrial focus:* First, most of the reviewed articles clearly support the literature on the manufacturing industry. Therefore, there is an obvious need for studies that can reveal more findings related to the service sector to generalize the results of the reviewed studies. Second, although there has been an increase in the number of studies focusing on more than one sector, studies comparing different sectors will always maintain their importance in every period. This is because cross-sectorial differences are subject to inconsistencies between the findings of studied sectors and those of other sectors [17]. Therefore, conducting research to compare sectors that have not been studied in the literature is an important opportunity that the present review offers researchers. Third, the studies on the topic conducted so far have focused on consumer goods. Hence, examining a wide variety of industry contexts and a better understanding of the relationships between models through analysis at the sectoral level are expected to enrich the literature.

*Geographical scope*: Undoubtedly, one of the important factors that make a theory robust is the test of applicability in the context of different geography and development levels and the comparability of findings. In this direction, developing economies cover a wide variety of countries in terms of both their geographical locations and development levels. Considering our findings in this context, the researchers, who planned to address the standardization/adaptation of brand elements at a single country level, focused on the USA and Australia but overlooked developing economies such as Brazil, Russia, and India, which are defined as BRIC. It was seen that the country among the developing economies that received the most focus was China. Similarly, regarding MINT countries, no studies focused on Mexico, Indonesia, and Nigeria, whereas only one study was conducted in the context of Turkey. The findings of the present review revealed that future research to be conducted in these countries would fill an important gap in the literature.

One of the most important points in international branding is cultural influences and consumers reactions in different cultures to the standardization/adaptation of brand elements [76, 77]. When our findings are considered from a cultural perspective, China attracts the most attention in the studies. This is acceptable from a cultural perspective as China hosts one of the worlds most interesting cultures. However, apart from China, it was seen that India, the Middle East, the African continent, and Northern European countries such as Sweden and Norway failed to attract enough attention. Although the highest number of studies in the geographic context belongs to the studies comparing countries, the fact that these studies did not focus sufficiently on the above-mentioned cultures stands as an important opportunity for researchers who want to enrich the literature. Doing so will also help companies find an answer to the question of what kind of strategy they should implement in different cultures.

Based on the above comments, an important gap that emerged as a result of the review is the tendency to focus on relatively few regions and countries. Over-focusing on contexts such as China, the US, and Europe can lead to false generalizations about other contexts, about which I still know very little. The extant literature obviously reveals invaluable information on the topic. However, studies in geographic areas such as Brazil, Russia, India, Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey, and even Japan, which have been researched in only a small number of studies, are likely to reveal new theoretical developments and novel insights into the topic. Moreover, the field deserves to be enriched in the context of these regions. In this context, to expand the

geographic coverage of the field, I recommend reaching out to academics or industry stakeholders from countries where research is planned, who are likely to have a deeper contextual understanding and can assist scholars in accessing data that is often difficult to retrieve in such countries.

#### **5. Conclusion and limitations**

#### **5.1 Theoretical contributions**

First of all, the current review is the first systematic review of studies on the standardization/adaptation of brand elements in the field of international marketing. In this regard, the review has the potential to substantially enrich and expand the literature on the standardization/adaptation of brand elements. Further, systematic approaches to the topic are still very limited. As emphasized by some scholars (e.g. [88]), systematic reviews contribute to resolving definitional ambiguities and outlining the scope of the topic, offer an integrated, synthesized overview of the current state of knowledge, identify inconsistencies in prior findings and potential explanations, appraise extant methodological approaches with unique insights, present conceptual frameworks related to previous research, and describe existing gaps and future research directions. Similarly, this review mapped research on the standardization/adaptation of brand elements, structured results from the extant literature, and provided unique and general insights that allowed for an easier and better understanding of the relevant literature.

Secondly, the present systematic review made a substantial contribution to the identification of theoretical synthesis and development opportunities on the topic. Moreover, given that the strength of using the systematic review approach is to provide a solid evidence basis for future research directions, I hope that researchers interested in this topic will use this work as a basis for further expanding the research on the standardization/adaptation of brand elements.

Thirdly, the results of this review highlight a number of knowledge gaps to be filled by future research regarding the following purposes: developing a stronger theoretical basis on the topic, achieving a better contextual positioning, and adapting methodologies that are more exploratory in nature. These arguments can lay the groundwork for the emergence of research that can make significant contributions to the development of the field because the gaps highlighted in the literature reveal the issues overlooked in previous studies on the standardization/adaptation of brand elements. Such an analysis can at least provide a more holistic understanding of the nature of research on standardization/adaptation of brand elements and encourage conceptual expansion and empirical research in a field of review that may have more theoretical and practical relevance than ever before.

#### **5.2 Contributions to practice**

Besides significant insights on theory, our findings also make important contributions to practice. Most importantly, our review contributes to determining appropriate strategies in the context of the standardization/adaptation process of brand elements in geographical, cultural, etc. For example, should decision-makers prefer standardization by using the brand image in different cultures, such as the Far East, Middle East, Europe, USA, etc., or should they prefer adaptation by considering

*Perspective Chapter: A Systematic Review and Research Agenda on Standardization versus… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.103866*

differences in different geographies? Moreover, what strategies to be used for consumers of countries with different levels of development will provide more benefits to the company? Decision-makers can determine the best strategy by considering the findings of this review.

In conclusion, I hope that, with this review, researchers can be encouraged working and planning to work in the field to appreciate the rich data of previous research. Through the relevant structures that I uncovered using the process in the review, I think it would be beneficial for new ideas to benefit from the present review.

#### **5.3 Limitations**

As with all studies, this review has a number of limitations, which should be considered when examining the findings. First of all, since the focus of this review was previous research on the standardization/adaptation of brand elements, I did not provide detailed recommendations linking the elements, which would be the logical next step. Second, this review covered studies indexed in certain databases: Web of Science and Scopus databases, which seemed to have been overlooked in previous reviews, were reviewed. Although I tried to eliminate this problem as much as possible by thoroughly examining the reference lists in the articles included in the review, I may have still failed to observe studies indexed in databases outside of these databases. Third, I used certain keywords to identify the studies to be examined. Doing so may have potentially led us to miss some relevant research. Nevertheless, I believe that our rigorous systematic review process reduces the likelihood that the studies that were unintentionally left out contain information that would critically change our results. Finally, I carried out the analysis process only thematically, in line with Gaur and Kumar's [35] classification. Moreover, our approach was carried out in light of one of the thematic classifications. This, in turn, inevitably resulted in the failure to evaluate some of the information in the studied studies.


#### **A. Research themes of reviewed papers**


#### **B. Industrial analysis of studies**

### **Author details**

Tamer Baran Pamukkale University, Denizli, Turkey

\*Address all correspondence to: tbaran@pau.edu.tr

© 2022 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

*Perspective Chapter: A Systematic Review and Research Agenda on Standardization versus… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.103866*

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Section 3
