A Strategy Typology for Decisions on Brand Styles: An Empirical Investigation on Styling in the German Automotive Market

Designers play a strategic role for companies in styling their branded products. However, while there are ample strategies for styling and branding, there are few typologies delineating the main strategic paths that companies can follow in styling new products, and even fewer typologies which link styling strategies to the branding strategies of companies. In this paper, we present a strategy typology for decisions on brand styles. Based on a cluster analysis of 173 car models, we distinguish four clusters of styling decisions, and discuss how these clusters relate to the branding strategies of automotive brands