Suddenly the business environment in India and many other parts of the world has taken an upward swing. The optimism considering the expectations from the
forthcoming financial quarters is quite high. With the business world buzzing with hope and excitement, the major decision makers across the board are now set to lead their businesses towards much higher growth rates and expansion. In such a dynamic environment full of positive anticipation, insightful research would enable the managers to develop newer strategic orientations and be equipped to deal with all sorts of unforeseen circumstances.

The first paper, “Applying the Theory of Planned Behavior to Understand Indian Housewives’ Purchase Behavior Towards Healthy Food Brands”, by Kirti Dutta and Swati Singh, studies the purchase behavior of Indian housewives towards healthy food brands utilizing the framework provided by theory of planned behavior. The paper looks at the relationship of behavioral intention with variables like attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control finally culminating into consumption behavior. According to the authors, the study brings forth important implications for marketers of healthy food brands. The structural model proposed by them for healthy brands among Indian housewives shows that attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control positively impact the behavioral intention, which in turn positively impacts the behavior.

The second paper, “Energy Versus Relevance in a Comparative Brand Equity Context: Implications for Brand Portfolio Management”, by Henrik Uggla, attempts to align brand portfolio management with the concepts of energy and relevance in brand management based on a comparative analysis of three brand equity models. The author claims that despite the extreme focus on brand relevance during the last years, brand energy might be an even more crucial concept for long-term brand survival. According to the author, the paper offers a response to an urgent quest for a deeper discussion on the importance of brand relevance in brand portfolio management. In contrast to more recent works that suggest relevance is a final end in and by itself, this paper unfolds several new and interesting perspectives such as the Brand Asset Valuator (BAV), suggesting that relevance in general and brand knowledge in particular is not only proactive but can also be a really precarious thing.

The third paper, “The Impact of Brand Loyalty on Consumers’ Sportswear Brand Purchase”, by Pankaj Kumar Singh and J K Pattanayak, seeks to find out the factors of brand loyalty towards sportswear brand purchase. In their study, the authors have considered seven factors of brand loyalty—price, brand name, style, product quality, promotion, store environment and service quality. Their results showed that there is a positive relation between some of the factors of brand loyalty and the sportswear brand purchase.

The last paper, “Rebranding of Bharti Airtel Ltd.: A Case of Logo Change”, by Vikas Singla and Nupur Aggarwal, attempts to provide an insight into the interesting process of rebranding by studying the drivers and methodology adopted by Airtel—India’s largest private wireless service provider in telecom space. The consumers’ perspective, brought forth through the authors’ analysis, revealed that the old logo was still more popular than the new logo, which was found to be lagging behind the old logo in terms of familiarity and liking.

- Nitin Gupta
Consulting Editor