Brand building efforts and their association with SME sales performance

The objective of this paper was to investigate the association between branding, captured by the combined use of the number of corporate and product trademarks and marketing expenses, and small- to medium-sized enterprise (SME) sales performance in the fashion industry. The results of the panel regression model indicate that corporate trademarks and marketing expenses do have a positive association with SMEs sales performance, and in particular, marketing expenses show the highest estimates. These results suggest that branding may also play a relevant also in the SME context, thus opening new paths for research within this field.