The influence of marketing innovation on store image

Knowing and managing the store ́s reputation and, especially, to assess which components directly affect the image of the firm are essential factors to manage a retail enterprise. This study proposes to investigate if innovative institutional events promoted by a supermarket and not imitated by competitors, act as influence in customer’s perception about the image of the store. Therefore, it was performed a quantitative descriptive research from the perspective of 395 customers of a supermarket company. Data were collected through structured questionnaires. For the analysis of the results produced, measures of proportion, descriptive statistics, reliability, correlation and regression were used. For the results, descriptive statistics, correlation and multiple linear regressions were performed. The survey results suggest that innovative institutional events positively and significantly affect the store image. Therefore, from the results of the study, it is believed that the understanding of the dimensions of the image of the store with the inclusion of the construct "innovative institutional events" can help practitioners and theorists to better understand the retail component dimensions of store image. In conclusion, this finding demonstrates that innovative institutional events can best be observed by managers. Key-words: image store, marketing innovation, retail, supermarket sector Introduction Retailing is facing changes globally. In the retail sector, the growth of the Internet has generated changes that are revolutionary in scope and unprecedented. Some companies have created new markets and some have changed their existing ones. As a result, retail practice is increasingly covering a wide range of retail activities, such as expanding the boundaries of target markets and developing new ways of interacting with customers and partners (Sorescu et al., 2011). There has also been a paradigm shift in the socio-economic, demographic and geographic characteristics of consumers and the proportions shopping in what were once traditional retail stores – small businesses – resulting in stores of different formats designed to meet the evolving needs and tastes of more demanding consumers. Moreover, consumer psychographic variables (such as values, activities, interests, opinions, motivations and lifestyles, for example) have contributed immensely to the growth of various store formats, such as convenience stores, discount stores, supermarkets and hypermarkets (Prasad and Aryasri, 2011). Despite the importance of the relationship between a brand’s image and its market performance, neither the long-term management of a brand image nor the joint relationship between brand image and sales marketing strategies have fully been considered in the literature (Kunz and Hogreve, 2011; Park, Jaworski and Maclnnis, 1986). Since the introduction of the notion of the store’s image as an antecedent of store choice, this concept has received much attention both in theoretical and practical terms. Moreover, in the last decade, with rising prices, competition has forced traditional retail stores to seek differentiation strategies within and outside the store. Store image is an antecedent of competitive positioning and the interior of the store (e.g. variety, climate, image, price, service) has a clear influence on this positioning (Cornelius, Natter and Faure, 2010) In markets that are mature, competitive strategies are critical for addressing the development of attributes that characterize a company seeking sales growth. Such firms need to transform elastic demands into inelastic by delivering value to the consumer, building a positive image in society compared to competitors through marketing innovation, identifying and meeting the needs of customers, opening new markets, or repositioning company