Abstract
Title: Consistency in Constant Change: A Sensemaking Perspective to Uncover How
Marketers Justify Budget for Branding Activities.
Background: Branding activities are part of marketers’ everyday work life and have increased in organisational importance of how marketing is conducted. However, due to the lack of a direct linkage to conversion, branding activities are challenging to know the output of. Despite this, marketers continue to spend part of the marketing budget on branding activities. To understand how marketers justify decisions for branding activities, this Thesis views justifying branding activities as a wicked problem. It uses decision-making theory with a sensemaking lens to uncover patterns of decision input and output.
Purpose: Taking the organisational perspective, this study seeks to clarify and bring in-sights into how branding decisions are justified by surfacing underlying patterns when marketers justify decisions for branding activities.
Methodology: This Thesis uses an abductive qualitative study approach. To uncover the problem and guide the study direction, 12 pre-interviews were conducted. Then, a literature review and 12 in-depth, exploratory and semi-structured interviews with marketing professionals were conducted to understand directly from the budget owners regarding how budget is justified for branding activities.
Findings: The introduced conceptual framework shows that justifying branding activities is an ongoing process that faces constant change. Three main patterns are found for how marketers justify budget for branding decisions. First, marketers clarify what identity and preference to use by identifying ‘what matters’ during the decision-making process and they either claim or share the right of deciding. Second, a general understanding is that branding activities are immeasurable in nature and marketers tell a plausible story of their effectiveness by measuring what can be measured, measure changes, or use financial results as a final judge. Third, internal and external constraints exist throughout the process of justifying branding activities, including technology limitations, loss of other’s branding sense, and limited budget and resources.
Keywords: branding activities; wicked problem; sensemaking; decision-making input; decision-making output.
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