Interpreting Brand Development as Entrepreneurship – The Role of Brand Strategies

Abstract

Our research has been driven by the
apparent lack of rigorous theory within the
branding literature. Theoretical concepts have
seldom been linked to business theory. This
article presents an approach to branding which
links branding to different approaches to
entrepreneurship and uncovers the essential role
of brand strategies when connecting branding to
the management literature. Strategy and
branding overlap and strategy links
contemporary branding and entrepreneurship
literature. There are various approaches to
entrepreneurship which is relevant to the
analysis of brand strategies. For the sake of
simplicity we have divided them into two
strands, the business school approach and the
Schumpeter school. Essential to our
understanding of brands is the ability of brands
to decrease the transaction cost and reduce the
information asymmetries between consumers
and producers in the market. By relying on
brands the actors in the market can reduce their
search and information cost and the total cost of
performing a market transaction.