Abstract

Contemporary marketing literature overwhelmingly describes brands from either a managerial or a consumer-centric perspective. The level of analysis is either individual or social. In most cases brands are conceived as tangible or intangible objects. Another stream of research conceives brands as mental representations or socially shared meanings. Each perspective has provided rich insights but bears the danger of being restrictive. Attempting to integrate extant knowledge the paper first presents a brief review and discussion of how the brand phenomenon has been approached in the literature. Secondly, it proposes an integrative perspective, which conceptualizes a brand as encompassing "brand manifestations", "brand meaning", and a "brand interest group" that co-produces brand manifestations and co-constructs brand meaning in an ongoing public discourse. Finally, the implications of such an approach for future research and brand management are discussed.