Correspondence: Julia R. Pennington, Marketing Department University of Nebraska-Lincoln 315 CBA, P.O. Box 880492 Lincoln, NE 68588-0492, USA. Tel: +1 (402) 472 2316; Fax: +1 (402) 472 9777; E-mail: juliepennington@global.t-bird.edu

¹is a PhD candidate in marketing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her areas of interest are branding, agribusiness, international marketing, macromarketing and strategy.

²is Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His research interests are in the explanation of customer loyalty, measurement of consumer behaviour constructs and marketing systems.

Received 27 September 2007; Revised 27 September 2007; Published online 16 November 2007.

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the process and implications of customer branding of commodity products. Customer branding is defined by the authors as a process in which a customer or customers define, label and seek to purchase an otherwise undifferentiated or unbranded product. The customer(s) can be anywhere along the value chain and may be intermediate, industrial or end-user customers. There are many historical examples of customer branding (which sometimes turned into strong corporate brands), and customer branding may be much more common today than marketers realise. As the authors show, it still exists in modern commodity markets. Marketing theory has lost the understanding of this concept. By considering the product chain and the process of branding when customers rather than marketers enact it, the paper provides a new insight into the process of branding in general, and proposes that the evolution of brands can move from a customer-branded product to strong corporate brands. The authors contend that customer branding exists and by understanding the phenomena, value chain participants can increase revenue and improve product movement.