Behavioral Loyalty Metrics for Managing Internal Brand Architecture
(A2026-133001)

AUTHORS

MARK UNCLES, UNSW Business School; Kaye Chan, UTS Business School

ABSTRACT

Described is an approach for analyzing and evaluating internal brand architecture (IBA) where there are prominent parent (or umbrella) brands and several (subordinate) sub-brands. The approach makes use of digitized behavioral information that is now routinely available to both managers and researchers. From such data, three sets of behavioral brand performance metrics (BPMs) are reported: depth of sub-brand loyalty, breadth of sub-brand loyalty, and cross loyalty between sub-brands. With data from an online magazine brand that supports multiple sub-brands, we show how behavioral BPMs can be used to analyze and evaluate the magazine’s IBA. The approach is heavily data-driven, analytical, and rigorous. For media brands like the one studied here, information about user behavior is captured automatically through subscription portals, apps, websites and e-readers. The approach promises to provide more analytical rigor around IBA management than hitherto.