Purpose

Consumer product firms renowned for marketing appear to be complementing brand creation, extension and acquisition with minority equity investments in entrepreneurial brand ventures (EBVs) for strategic purposes. Similarly, EBVs are looking for growth and resources that can be accessed via inter-organizational partnerships. This flourishing industry practice and the paucity of empirical research indicates the potential for new studies. The research objective was to examine why and how large incumbents were implementing strategic brand venturing (SBV), and with this understanding to develop a framework useful for descriptive and normative purposes.

Design/methodology/approach

This qualitative research study comprised in-depth interviews and multiple data sources across seven case studies drawn from US subsidiaries of global firms within the consumer products industry. Grounded in resource theory, the dimensions of strategic brand equity investments are abductively derived.

Findings

The findings delineate 16 process capabilities within four aggregate clusters entailing, the designing of the SBV program, opportunity identification, brand entrepreneur partnerships and venture portfolio management. Prefaced by endogenous and exogenous antecedents, these process capabilities help to contribute strategic and financial value when implemented.

Research limitations/implications

This qualitative research study yielded analytical rather than statistical generalizations. A range of market and economic factors exist in the United States contributing towards a favorable entrepreneurial and brand incubation climate. This may render the SBV concept as contingent and contextual. Furthermore, the view of brand entrepreneurs' regarding the design of the process model were not explicitly sought but inferred from the discourses of the venturing units interviewed.

Practical implications

The article outlines several important implementation imperatives for corporations endeavoring to competitively advantage their brand portfolios via adoption of a minority equity investing strategy in EBVs. Practitioners are cautioned against myopically adopting this process alone as a success heuristic given other factors may impact success such as changes in corporate strategy or upper echelon sponsorship.

Social implications

Mission preservation for social brand ventures being tethered to a large incumbent may need to be taken into account prior to and during SBV relationships.

Originality/value

The research contributes to the call for greater insights into the investment processes used in venturing relationships as well as coverage of new industry sectors beyond technology industries that often characterize corporate venture capital studies. Several novel findings emerged related to the importance of—the industry ecosystem; symbiosis between the founding brand entrepreneur and brand culture; synchronization of investment strategies with an emerging brand life-cycle model and serendipitous corporate entrepreneurial opportunities.

中文翻译：

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大型企业对创业品牌企业的战略投资

目的

以营销闻名的消费品公司似乎出于战略目的，通过对创业品牌企业 (EBV) 的少数股权投资来补充品牌创建、延伸和收购。同样，EBV 也在寻求可通过组织间合作伙伴关系获得的增长和资源。这种蓬勃发展的行业实践和实证研究的缺乏表明了新研究的潜力。研究目标是研究现有企业为何以及如何实施战略品牌风险投资 (SBV)，并以此为基础开发一个可用于描述性和规范性目的的框架。

设计/方法论/途径

这项定性研究包括深入访谈和多个数据源，涉及来自消费品行业跨国公司美国子公司的七个案例研究。以资源理论为基础，溯源得出战略品牌股权投资的维度。

发现

调查结果描绘了四个聚合集群中的 16 个流程能力，包括 SBV 计划的设计、机会识别、品牌企业家合作伙伴关系和风险投资组合管理。以内生和外生因素为前提，这些流程能力在实施时有助于贡献战略和财务价值。

研究局限性/影响

这项定性研究得出了分析性而非统计性的概括。美国存在一系列市场和经济因素，有助于营造有利的创业和品牌孵化氛围。这可能会使 SBV 概念变得具有偶然性和情境性。此外，品牌企业家对流程模型设计的看法并不是明确寻求的，而是从受访创业单位的话语中推断出来的。

实际影响

本文概述了对于那些致力于通过在 EBV 中采用少数股权投资策略来获得品牌组合竞争优势的公司来说，几个重要的实施要务。鉴于其他因素可能会影响成功，例如公司战略或高层赞助的变化，因此从业者应注意不要短视地单独采用此流程作为成功启发法。

社会影响

在 SBV 关系之前和期间，可能需要考虑与大型现有企业挂钩的社交品牌企业的使命保护。

原创性/价值

这项研究有助于呼吁人们对风险投资关系中使用的投资流程有更深入的了解，并覆盖技术行业之外的新行业领域，而技术行业通常是企业风险投资研究的特点。出现了一些与行业生态系统的重要性相关的新发现；创始品牌企业家与品牌文化的共生；将投资策略与新兴品牌生命周期模型和偶然的企业创业机会同步。