Does the impact of corporate brand name changes differ between online and offline channels? The case of McDonald’s China

A corporate brand name change is an important decision for managers. Leveraging the real-world case of an actual name change event, involving McDonald’s China (from “McDonald’s” to “Jin Gong Men”), the authors of this study collected store-level sales data to investigate whether the impact of the corporate brand name change on consumer demand differs across online and offline channels. Using regression models and counterfactual analysis, they find that the corporate brand name change exerted a positive impact on consumer demand, moderated by channel type, such that the positive corporate brand name change effect is stronger online than in offline channels. The study represents a pioneering attempt to bridge brand renaming literature and marketing channel literature to provide valuable guidance for corporate brand renaming practices.