Abstract
A new brand entering a market often finds itself in competition with sibling brands (those owned by the same parent company). In a case study of a retail coffee market, the authors examine how these brand relationships might influence the sibling and competitor brands' responses to entry. Using an empirically validated brand-share attraction model, the authors compare the actual responses to entry with the optimal responses under different incumbent objectives. The authors find that the responses by sibling brand are more accommodating than those of unrelated brands whose responses are consistent with the preservation of preentry levels of sales.
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Thomas S. Gruca (Ph.D., University of Illinois) is a Lloyd J. and Thelma W. Palmer Research Fellow and an associate professor of marketing in the Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa. His research on defensive marketing strategy has appeared in the International Journal of Research in Marketing, the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Management, and Marketing Science. His research on health care has appeared in Contemporary Accounting Research, Health Care Management Science, and Strategic Management Journal. He is currently working on electronic prediction markets and modeling hospital network formation. He is a member of the editorial board of Marketing Letters and a reviewer for a number of management science journals.
D. Sudharshan (Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh) is a professor of business administration in the College of Commerce and Business Administration at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests lie in the areas of marketing strategy, new product and service development, and marketing technology management. He serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Marketing and the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. His articles have appeared in various journals including Marketing Science, Management Science, the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Marketing Research, the Strategic Management Journal, the European Journal of Operational Research, the Journal of Service Research, and the Journal of Market Focused Management.
K. Ravi Kumar (Ph.D., Northwestern University) is a professor in the Department of Information and Operations Management, Marshall School of Business, at the University of Southern California. His current research interests include the embedding of information systems within global physical operation and the development of sustainable information technology industries in developing countries. He is the author or coauthor of articles appearing in Management Science, Marketing Science, the Journal of Economic Theory, Production and Operations Management, and the Journal of Operations Management. He serves on the advisory boards of Production and Operations Management and Technology and Operations Review.
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Gruca, T.G., Sudharshan, D. & Kumar, K.R. Sibling brands, multiple objectives, and response to entry: The case of the marion retail coffee market. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 30, 59–69 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1177/03079459994326
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/03079459994326