In spite of the extensive research that has been carried out on the resource based view (RBV), few studies have focused on a firm’s brands as a key strategic resource. This represents a significant omission since the brands that are developed by a firm clearly fit the criteria – valuable, rare, difficult to imitate and with no substitutes – that define resources that can form the basis of a sustainable advantage. Furthermore, RBV research has not given much consideration to the different strategies that a firm can deploy to manage its brands as a resource.This dissertation draws on the literature in marketing to identify three different strategies that are most commonly used by firms to derive value from their brands. Brand extensions have received the most attention as it can be applied to a wide range of industries that offer products or services that consumers need to acquire on a regular basis. Beyond this, there has been some attempt to investigate brand revitalization, which is typically used to update a firm’s products or services on a regular basis in order to incorporate the development of new features and to accommodate changing consumer preferences.The subject of this dissertation is brand re-creation, which has received little attention as it is mostly limited to industries where each product represents a different brand and each of these have a relatively short life cycle. This is most commonly observed in the entertainment and leisure industries, such as motion pictures, video games and mass market books. Because of the need to regularly introduce new products, firms can draw on a brand associated with a prior successful offering through the use of brand re-creation. This leads to the creation of what is referred to as franchise, which can extend the life of a brand across several consecutive products.
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