The projective paradigm of the Louro and Cunha categorization resembles the
identity approach in our framework. It focuses on the usefulness of the brand on a
strategic level as opposed to the tactical approach to branding reflected in the
product paradigm. The brand is seen as a strategic entity that should be used as a
template for the overall business model. Thus, the brand reflects purpose, ethics as
well as core competences in an organization and vice versa. The theoretical back-
ground of the projective paradigm is the resource-based perspective. The conse-
quence of this is that value and brand meaning are found internally. In this
paradigm, competitiveness of the business is based on the organization’s ability to
find its own internal strengths and cultivate them with the purpose of creating a
unique business culture and unique competences difficult to imitate. This idea of
creating unique concepts based on sender identity is the foundation of the
projective paradigm in brand management.
Where the projective paradigm stresses the internal business resources and compe-
tences as the source of brand meaning, the adaptive paradigm stresses the consumer
as the source of brand meaning: ‘The power of the brand resides in the minds of the
consumer’ (Keller 2003, p. 59). The adaptive brand management paradigm thereby
resembles the consumer-based approach in the taxonomy of this book.
The relational brand management paradigm in the Louro and Cunha framework
is the opposite of both the lack of review of the actions of the customers in the
projective paradigm and the ‘excessive’ focus on the active customer in the adaptive
paradigm. The relational paradigm conceptualizes brand management as a dynamic,
dyadic process, in which an interaction between the creation of brand value (inter-
nally) and brand meaning (externally) on a strategic level results in a strong and
relevant brand equity through an experienced meaningful relation between
consumer and brand. In this paradigm, the marketer can benefit from constructing
the brand as a personality because it furthers the consumer–brand relationship. This
is done by implementing the acknowledgement of the consumer’s active contri-
bution to the creation of brand meaning and at the same time making brand
management and brand identity the kernel of the formulation of strategy and the
external business communication. In that way, both customer and brand centrality
are high-ranking priorities in this paradigm. It goes without saying that this brand
management paradigm covers the personality and the relational approach.
The categorization by Louro and Cunha is created through the use of other
discriminators and using an entirely different way of sorting existing brand
models, but the proposed brand management paradigms are indeed comparable
to the taxonomy of this book. As described above, the first five approaches are
covered by the four brand management paradigms, and the latter two emerged
around and after the publication of Brand Management Paradigms in 2001.
Four branding models
In How Brands Become Icons (2004), Holt proposes four different branding
models; cultural branding, mind-share branding, emotional branding and viral
branding. Holt does not embed the four branding models in a chronological
Taxonomy 253