Widen your research with these suggested journal articles. Links to SAGE articles have been provided freely.

1. Aaker, David A. (2012), “Win the Brand Relevance Battle and the Build Competitor Barriers,” California Management Review, 54(2), 43–57.

The Brand Relevance Battle – David Aaker explains how each brand is constantly in competition to have the next “must-have” product or feature. If a brand creates a new subcategory where it has the only product that consumers “must-have”, it is easy to beat out competitors. However, this is not as straightforward as it might seem, as demonstrated by Aaker’s case studies.

2. Aaker, David A. and Erich Joachimsthaler (2000), “The Brand Relationship Spectrum: The Key to the Brand Architecture Challenge,” California Management Review, 42(4), 8–23.

In the age of market fragmentation and global realities, this an article that looks at the creation of “brand architecture”. David Aaker explores how brand architecture allows companies coherence in their image and avoids missed opportunities. He also introduces the brand relationship spectrum.

3. Spiggle, Susan, Hang T. Nguyen, and Mary Caravella (2012), “More than Fit: Brand Extension Authenticity,” Journal of Marketing Research, 49(6), 967–983.

In this article, the authors introduce Brand Extension Authenticity which helps companies understand how consumers view their brand extension based on four aspects: maintaining brand standards, brand heritage, brand essence and avoiding brand exploitation. BEA can also help companies predict consumer reactions and therefore, affect the success of a brand extension.