Since social media has become an essential tool in the contemporary hotel industry, companies are now building social media communities to engage customers online (Leung & Bai, 2013) and to maintain satisfaction, trust, commitment, loyalty, and brand relationship quality (Harrigan, Evers, Miles, & Daly, 2017). Despite global hotel companies’ increasing adoption of social media platforms to promote customer engagement, research in this area is still sparse (Harrigan et al., 2017; So, King, & Sparks, 2014). To fill this gap, the authors developed a theoretical model incorporating two antecedents (hotel brand experience and customer involvement to social media) and a consequence (brand relationship quality) of customer engagement (CE) in the context of hotel brand communities embedded in social media. Additionally, the authors included hotel brand reputation (HBR) in the model as another predictor of brand relationship quality (BRQ). This study obtained data from a panel survey consisting of the responses of hotel customers who had stayed at one of ten famous hotel brands in the U.S. within the past 12 months and were simultaneously followers of the hotel brand’s page on Facebook. The findings reveal that both antecedents (ISM and HBX) positively and significantly influence CE and that hotel brand experience (HBX) has a stronger impact on CE than ISM. The findings also demonstrate that CE has the strongest, positive effect on BRQ, followed by HBX and HBR. Furthermore, the findings indicate that the relationship between HBX and BRQ is partially and significantly mediated by CE. This research provides theoretical and practical contributions to the field. First, unlike previous studies, the current study utilized the concept of CE with hotel brand communities embedded in social media as a mediator between HBX and BRQ and found partial and significant mediation effects. Second, the study identified two new and crucial antecedents of CE with brand communities embedded in social media—customer brand experience and customer social media involvement. Third, this study found brand relationship quality as one of the primary outcomes of customer engagement with hotel brand communities in social media. Lastly, the findings confirm that social media-based brand communities (i.e., Facebook) are one tool companies can use to build long-lasting customer-brand relationships.

Using Service Dominant Logic (SDL) to place marketing research, this paper conceptualizes and empirically tests the triadic relationship of place branding, souvenir branding, and consumers‟ perceptions of souvenir brands. We propose place branding to be the dominant strategy that encompasses destination product branding and brand personalities of such brands.

Immersive Virtual Environment Technology (IVET) has emerged as a relevant technology in the marketing environment, with increased use in the retail context (O’Brien, 2016). As its use increases, there is a need to better understand its impact on consumer behavior and the experience that it delivers. Therefore, this study proposes a research model that captures the key constructs in understanding consumer acceptance behavior of the innovative technology used in marketing and how it impacts the brand experience. The objective of this study is to examine 1) antecedents (i.e., message fit and personal innovativeness) that may impact user’s attitude toward the IVET advertisement and self-image congruence, and 2) the transfer of positive or negative IVET advertisement attitude to behavioral intention. Survey was distributed at a large Southern university in USA. Out of 213 survey completed, 143 was usable. Hypotheses were tested using the structural equation model (SEM) analysis with maximum likelihood method (AMOS 23). The results showed that message fit had no significant impact on ad attitude and self-image congruence. Personal innovativeness had positive impact on ad attitude, but not on self-image congruence. Ad attitude had no effect on self-image congruence while having significant positive impact on offline store and online store visit intentions. Lastly, self-image congruence influences both offline and online store visit intentions. The results demonstrate that evaluation of the virtual world brand experience (i.e., attitude toward the IVET advertisement) is a strong predictor of user behavior toward the brand. A consumer’s interactions with a brand in the virtual environment may provide important information about the consumer’s desire to develop a relationship with the brand in other marketing channels, and serves as an opportunity for the marketer to assist in the buying process. Further, personal characteristic such as personal innovativeness may have a significant impact on a their attitude toward the IVET marketing which further leads to consumer’s decision to visit the online and offline store. In addition, self-image congruence were found to positively affect user’s intention to visit the stores, such that consumers who perceive their brand experience as more consistent with their self-image are more likely to consider purchasing the brand in the real world. The results suggest that some consumers may tend to behave in ways that are congruent with their self-identity across marketing channels.

Every day, billions of messages about news, rumours, and experiences are shared by consumers through different kinds of social network medias (Berger, 2014). These shared messages, so called word-of-mouth (WOM), have crucial influence on the success of products and services (Dubois, Bonezzi, & De Angelis, 2016). WOM is a kind of interpersonal communication about products and services between consumers. Thus, it can be significantly influenced by interpersonal relationships. We conducted three experiments to investigate the effects of interpersonal relationships on brand evaluation. In three experiments, we examined how interpersonal relationship affects consumers’ evaluation of brands when they receive a eWOM message in the setting of closed virtual group of friends. The results make several contributions. First, we provide a framework to understand how interpersonal relationships affect the effects of eWOM in a closed virtual group of friends. Second, the effects of interpersonal relationship can be moderated by different situation of agreements, which extends the researches on eWOM. Third, the results reveal the reasons why different dimension of interpersonal relationship can play different role in the relationship between eWOM and brand evaluation.

This paper examines how to create customers’ advocacy and demonstrates that “Ambassador program” brings out Brand Advocates. Introduction This paper aims to identify how to effectively develop brand advocates from customers. Brand advocates are enthusiastic customers who promote a specific brand (Fuggetta, 2012) and expected to be a powerful marketing force by firms. In marketing literatures, “advocate” has been augured as an ultimate objective (Kotler et al., 2016) or a goal of customer decision journey（Batra and Keller, 2016）. It suggests that the importance of consumer-to-consumer (C-to-C) communication has been increasing. In marketing communication, it is necessary to manage paid/owned/earned media (POEM). Paid media means advertising; owned media are their own media such as shops, DM, and website; and earned media consists of publicity and word-of-mouth (WOM). Though the influence of WOM grabs attention, it is uncontrollable and unmanageable. However, in Japan, some major firms such as Nestle, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Seven-Eleven have adopted a brand new approach called “Ambassador program,” which is a long-term collaboration with customers. Though the activities are different from each company, they commonly involve their customers to create a brand experience (Brakus et al., 2009) and promote advocacy from the participants. In other words, first, they provide brand experience through owned media and then expand it to earned media. This study examines the following key research question: Does the “Ambassador program” bring out a Brand Advocate? NESCAFE Ambassador Program To examine this research question, I selected the case of NESCAFE Ambassador Program, which is the largest in Japan and in the world. The program details are as below: 1. A person who wants to introduce NESCAFE coffee system to his/her office applies as a NESCAFE Ambassador through online application. 2. After an investigation, the person is authorized as a NESCAFE Ambassador. 3. After purchasing a coffee cartridge subscription, the Ambassador and his/her colleague can enjoy this coffee machine free. The program started in 2012 and the number of Ambassador has reached 280,000 until June 2017. The Ambassadors are required to invest time and efforts in collecting money from colleagues to pay for the coffee cartridge, water, cups and so on; however, they voluntarily introduce the system to their office. They seem to be similar to brand advocates and this paper examines the relationship between brand advocates and ambassador program. Method and Data To examine the research question in this study, an online survey was conducted on NESCAFE machine (NESCAFE Barista and NESCAFE Dolce Gust) users (n = 2,000). The respondents consist of 492 NESCAFE ambassadors, 508 ambassador program participants (not the ambassador itself but ambassador’s colleagues), and 1,000 non-program participants (average 42.9 years old, male 61.5％, female 38.6％). The following data were collected through an online questionnaire: (a) The frequency of advocacy in eight different ways; 1: Never 2: Seldom 3: Sometimes 4: Often (b) The level of fandom on a 7-point Likert scale (c) Touch point with the brand; touch points exhibited by Duncan (2005) (22 items, including 13 of pre-purchase information resource), the frequency and period of using NESCAFE machine, and expenditure toward NESCAFE Data analysis was carried out as follows: (1) Extract brand advocates from the respondents by the responses to questions (a) and (b); a person who “often” advocates NESCAFE in any ways in question (a) and also chooses 6 or 7 about the level of fandom in question (b) was regarded as a brand advocate. (2) Multiple regression analysis was used to verify the difference between brand advocates (BAs) and non-BAs. (3) Chi-square test was used to examine the relationship between brand advocates and ambassador program. Result As a result of the questionnaire, 201 BAs were found out from 2,000 respondents (see tables 1 and 2). There are significant differences between BA and non-BA in average age (BA 41.4 y.o., non-BA 43.1 y.o.) （t (1998) = 2.49, p < .05）and gender balance (male: BA 52.7%, non-BA 62.4%) (χ² = 7.16, df = 1, p < .01). The features of brand advocates First, multiple regression was calculated in order to predict being BA on the basis of “the way of advocacy” variables. The results showed that each of the following variable, such as “Have a coffee together at home” (β = 0.31, p < 0.001), posting to the community (β = 0.17, p < 0.001), and face-to-face communication (β = 0.14, p < 0.001) were significant predictors of being a BA (F (3, 1,996) = 237.91, p < 0.001) (Table 3). Consequently, multiple regression analysis was made to predict being a BA on the basis of “touch point” variables. The results showed that multiple prepurchase variables such as face-to-face WOM (β = 0.25, p < 0.001), both in-store (β = 0.10, p < 0.001) and out-of-store trial (β = 0.07, p < 0.001), which means that the respondents had used NESCAFE machine at a friend’s home, the contact rate for the brand such as customer service (β = 0.07, p < 0.001) and financial contribution to the brand such as monthly expenditure (β = 0.08, p < 0.001) were significant predictors of being a BA (F (12, 1,987) = 60.51, p < 0.001) (Table 4). In addition, a BA’s frequency of usage was significantly higher than a non-BA’s (χ² = 148.67, df = 6, p < .001) (Table 6). The relationship between brand advocates and ambassador program Finally, a chi-square test on participation to the ambassador program revealed that it significantly brought out brand advocates (χ² = 67.17, df = 2, p < .001) (Table 5). Interestingly, not only ambassadors themselves but also participants, ambassadors’ colleagues, showed higher rate of being a BA than the nonprogram participants. Conclusion Several important findings are derived from this study. First of all, “Ambassador program” brings out BAs. It makes the participants to take NESCAFE as a dairy habit and then percolate advocacy voluntarily. It is also revealed that BA’s communication is often among peers and face to face. Both academic researchers and managers tend to focus on digital communication; however, this paper showed the importance of offline communication. Furthermore, this study showed that BAs follow the brand’s own media. It means that firms can access BAs through their own media. Based on these findings, this paper recommends to managers that WOM is still not within their control; however, they can increase customers’ advocacy by enhancing their brand experience through their own media; and Ambassador Program is one of the solutions for them.

Thanks to their competitive price, store brands have important opportunities in emerging countries where customers have greater experience with modern retail products. However, less research has been devoted to the effect of store brand price while it is well known that price image is a critical factor that drives purchase behavior. The aim of this research is to understand how store brand price image factors (relative price, perceived benefit and perceived value) and perceived risk dimensions (functional and financial) affect attitude toward store brands in Colombia. Store brand relative price, store brand perceived benefit and store brand perceived value affect significantly attitude toward store brands in the Colombian context. However, neither store brand perceived functional risk, not store brand perceived financial risk affect attitude toward store brands. These results highlight the specificity of Colombia among emerging countries and have both theoretical and managerial implications.

Despite the plethora of articles and research in marketing and retailing literatures focused on enhancing customer loyalty, the topic of how to best allocate resources to various loyalty-building efforts has always attracted interest from both academics and practitioners (Kamran-Disfani, et al., 2017). Much research has examined that satisfaction is a strong relative factor of loyalty. However, Kumar, et al. (2012) and Kamran-Disfani, et al. (2017) stressed that the satisfaction-loyalty link could depend on various moderators and mediators. And they pointed out the difference between two types of loyalty—attitudinal and behavioral, and the mediating effect of attitudinal loyalty within the satisfaction-behavioral loyalty link. Thus, there is a need for more studies empirically investigating the satisfaction-loyalty link and how satisfaction effects loyalty in different contexts. On the other hand, many companies have recently been building a greater variety of store formats and attempting to provide a superior shopping experience through their stores in order to increase the possibility of customer revisitation and customer loyalty. Also, consumers not only switch to different retailers in the same product categories but also change to different store formats for the same product purchasing (Anand and Sinha, 2009). The reasons can be considered as customers’ attitudes toward stores and preference of store atmosphere and environment (Wakefield and Baker, 1998). However, few research pays attention to the issue of how, and to what extent, the different store formats have on impacting customer satisfaction and loyalty building. This is especially true of retailers having entered a new overseas market, and how its loyalty building is effected by its store format choice during its developing stages. This study adopts a conceptual model from Kamran-Disfani, et al. (2017) and aims to examine the satisfaction-loyalty link and test if attitudinal loyalty could be a mediator between satisfaction and behavioral loyalty. And if so, do store formats matter to the satisfaction-loyalty link. In short, we develop hypotheses of how store atmosphere, customer satisfaction, attitudinal loyalty, behavioral loyalty are related, and how store format moderates these relationships. In order to improve the understanding of the satisfaction-loyalty link in the context of retail internationalization, we survey a Japanese fashion company — Nice Claup who segmented the Chinese market by operating multiple retail stores, and each retail store plays a discrete role of cultivating customer loyalty. In our analysis, we compare two store formats of Nice Claup, which are the single brand specialty store and the multi-brand store (defined as ―house brand store‖ in this paper). House brand stores aim to offer novel shopping experiences by gathering several Japanese fashion brands into one large store, with each brand having their own detached areas for keeping each brand’s identity separate and recognizable, but are connected to each other by an integrated store design. Both of these two types of stores are named ―Nice Claup‖, and operated by the same retailer. We choose a 388-customer survey data as our sample. All of these customers have purchased clothes at Nice Claup’s stores over 5 times per year and have been given special member’s card by Nice Claup in Shanghai, China. This 388-customer data obtains 180 consumers who always purchase at house brand stores, and 208 consumers who always purchase at single-brand specialty stores. Hypotheses are tested using an ordinary least squares regression model with a cross-store format comparative analysis. The results suggest that while attitudinal loyalty positively and directly influences behavioral loyalty, satisfaction indirectly drives behavioral loyalty through the mediating effects of attitudinal loyalty. This implies that we should focus on the process of building loyalty and there might be a potential stage before gaining customers’ behavioral loyalty. We also find that there are some important differences between the two store formats, i.e., (1) the effect of store atmosphere (ambience cue, design cue, social cue (Kumar and Kim, 2014)) on satisfaction; (2) the moderating effect of store formats on the relationship between attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty. The findings explore different perception of the two types of stores and influencing factor on building loyalty from an emerging market perspective. By extension, it also shows an application of implementing retail internationalization with adopting multiple store formats on different developing stages, and customer loyalty can be enhanced by offering store novelty in the Chinese market.

Continuing the research stream of Gwinner and Eaton (1999) and Kwon, Ratneshwar et al. (2016), this study proposes a 3x2x2 mixed model experiment to extend the investigation of sport sponsorship‟s influence on the image of the sponsoring brand by perceived brand localness. It is assumed that a brand‟s country of origin presents an integral part of its image. Perceived brand localness either ease or hamper the assessment of image congruence with the sponsored entity via the brand‟s country of origin. As a result, the influence is supposed to be larger for brands local in the sponsored team‟s home country, and lower for brands non-local. A further distinction is drawn for nonlocal brands regarding their belonging to either a western or eastern cultural sphere. The influence is supposed to be less low for brands in the same sphere and additionally low for brands in different spheres. Furthermore, the study replicates Kwon, Ratneshwar et al. (2016)‟s finding that the increase in image congruence is moderated by functional similarity in a cross-country setting. The experiment is conducted in Germany, the UK, China, and Japan with a corporate brand‟s shirt sponsoring of a soccer team as stimulus.

Introduction - Dubois (2002) said that luxury is identical with perception of comfort, beauty, and sumptuous lifestyle. There are five key factors of perceived luxury goods such as uniqueness, quality, hedonic, conspicuousness, and extended self (Vigneron and Johnson, 2004). So that, the definition of luxury fashion brand itself is goods (in terms of fashion) that has brand image and perceived as something that has uniqueness, quality, hedonic, conspicuousness, and extended self and could give comfort, beauty, and sumptuous lifestyle. Online visual display nowadays is one of maketer’s channel to promote the product. In terms of exclusivity, there is only few channels that has been used by marketer, such as website of the luxury brand itself, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, and so on. This research of online luxury fashion brand is focused on one mobile app, named Instagram. Instagram is choosen because the usage of Instagram is increasing over time, especially in Indonesia. This research is focused on pre-loved luxury fahion brand on online shop at Instagram. There is one problem of this research, which is the percentage of middle to high income is increasing in 5 years (2010-2015) in Indonesia, but consumer is less likely to buy pre-loved luxury fashion brand. The tendency that consumer is less likely to buy because of decreasing sales of some pre-loved online shops in Indonesia. Exploratory research was taken and it can be concluded that the root cause of decreasing sales happens because visual display of pre-loved online luxury fashion brand is not too attractive. Method - The method that which is used is experiment design. The respondent of this research are choosen by non-probability sampling, which is judgemental sampling (we already know the priority characteristic of respondent, such as middle to high income) and female (because the online shop that will be observed is only offer luxury fashion for female). This research will use eye tracker, named Gaze Point. To get the quantitative experiment data, the minimum respondents that will be need is 39 people if we want to generate until get the heatmaps (Kara Pernice and Jakob Nielsen, 2009). Users will be given some oral question after they finished the experiment with eye tracking. There are some contents that will be measured in this reseach, such as caption, image clarity, and background of product. This research will be conducted only for consumer in Bandung. Respondents are female with middle to high income that has been bought pre-loved luxury fashion bag. The variables which are used in this research are the result of combination of construct from previous research about luxury brand perception and attractiveness of visual display. Sensory stimuli of sights will make automated perception actives and determine whether the information attractive or not. Findings – This research found that pre-loved online luxury fashion brand is currently growing rapidly. However, more respondents still prefer to buy online product if the visual display could be more attractive and the longer respondent saw the visual display, means that the respondents tend to be more interested of that posting. Author made proposed design improvements. Author then recommend them to the owner of pre-loved online luxury bag.

In today’s highly inter-connected market environment, a holistic understanding of the emergence and transfer of brand meanings is essential to design well-grounded marketing strategies. Yet, research to date has grasped the phenomenon of brand meaning alteration mostly within isolated, theoretical concepts, such as Consumer Brand Sabotage (Kähr, et al., 2016), Doppelgänger Brand Images (Thompson, Rindfleisch, & Arsel, 2006), or Conspicuous Brand Usage (Ferraro, Kirmani, & Matherly, 2013). Hence, the present research was conducted to develop a systematic understanding of how unintended brand meanings emerge outside of marketer’s control. Based on Gioia’s case study approach, the two brands Birkenstock and New Balance were qualitatively explored, as both companies experienced a serious socio-cultural meaning transition over the last years. The findings indicate that marketers need to be aware of consumers taking psychological brand ownership – a possessive state of mind that evokes unpredictable interpretations and ostentations of brand symbols due to consumers’ desire for self-identity construction (Pierce, Kostova, & Dirks, 2001). Psychological ownership is identified to impact both consumption practices and the process of meaning movement (cf. McCracken, 1986). In both cases, marketers lost control of their brands, as consumers utilized them to construct their self-identity and therefore altered the brands’ publicly perceived meaning. Whereas the brand meaning alteration had a positive outcome for Birkenstock, New Balance suffered badly under its brand disruption. Based on the researched insights, three key propositions are developed, which should support marketers to foresee, prevent, and countervail the emergence of unintended brand meanings.

Relationship between consumers and brands has become an important issue both for managers and marketing scholars (Fournier 1998, Fournier et al 2012,Alba and Lutz 2013, Loureiro 2015). This becomes even more important when brands misbehave. This paper studies the situation in which consumers are disappointed with the brand and feel hate toward it. Building on the Triangular Theory of Hate (Stenberg 2003), a qualitative and quantitative content analysis of 349 posts written on a facebook public group, is performed. The goal of the analysis is twofold: i) understanding which are the more recurrent types of hate for consumers and its causes; ii) testing, in light of the expressing writing theory, whether writing and sharing their brand hate online is a way for consumers to vent away their feelings and hence to restore their wellbeing. Results show that consumers mainly experience burning hate that is composed by anger, disgust and devaluation and wish the brand death. Also, given the specific relationship consumers have with the brand, the catharsis effect does not take place for them.

Introduction In the last years, luxury has experienced a multiplicity of transformations from different perspectives. The opening up of the fast-growing economies to luxury has disrupted its essence and identity by bringing in a stratification of the levels in luxury, an expansion of customers’ segments and a new mode of operationalization for luxury brands: the digitalization of luxury. However, luxury brands identity should still be characterized by their rarity, originality and exclusivity. Luxury capitals and their urban ecosystem represent a significant space where luxury brands had and still have anchored their essence, customer experience and all those values that represent their identity. Luxury industries are threatened by a progressive loss of mystique, market analysts say, as consumers search for something more than aesthetics and shallow status symbols (Boston Consulting Group, 2010). Consequently, luxury brands should rely more consistently on their heritage and history, in order to strengthen their appeal (Atsmon et al, 2012). In-store experience is increasingly important in luxury markets (Atsmon et al, 2012) and the shopping destination plays a key role. In fact, besides being an instrumental occasion for getting the needed products, the shopping experience becomes an end valued for its own sake (Rintamaki et al, 2007, p. 628). As a result of the changing context and new priorities, this research will focus on the case study of one main French luxury brand – Christian Dior – and will explore how the brand has capitalized on the local “brandscape” effect of Paris as a luxury city to reinforce the brand heritage and keep its own identity in “turbulent times”. The results of this study are preliminary ones at this stage but they already provide an overview of how the brand has capitalized on the brandscape orientation. Theoritical Development In order to understand how Christian Dior has capitalized on the local “brandscape” effect of Paris and reinforce its brand heritage, this article will first review the main concepts of brandscape and brand heritage. Brandscape City branding literature has overlooked the role of individual brands that, being somehow associated with the city, contribute to city brand building (Pasquinelli, 2014). In city branding literature, a variety of geographical units may be relevant for brands, especially at a smaller scale: the ‘region of origin’ or the ‘city of origin’ (as in this article) may turn out to be of much greater significance. However, the geographical fragmentation of global value chains caused the breakdown of the ‘origin’ into a set of geographical associations (Insch and McBride, 2004), such as the “Made in”, “Designed in”, “Assembled in” and “Headquartered in” (Papadopoulos, 2011). Consequently, origin will not simply be the geographical context where the product is manufactured. Rather, the brand origin becomes ‘the place, region or country where a brand is perceived to belong’ (Thakor and Kohli, 1996, p. 26). The origin is, thus, a matter of perception and, in addition to the physical or material attachment to the place of production, other spatialities may add value to product brands, such as the ‘usage context’ (Gerr et al, 1999), in relation to specific situations and rituals of consumption. In this perspective, rather than a simple and static place–product identification, there is a need to look at the process of constructing geographical associations, where spatial circuits of value and meaning are activated in the production, circulation, consumption and regulation of product brands (Pike, 2009, 2010, 2011). Consequently, cities may become the host of these spatial circuits and, because of their nature in a globalized economy, they play a distinctive role in the ‘local origination’ of product brands, helping local firms to construct globally competitive brands (Pike, 2011). Brand heritage A brand is often represented by s a set of functional attributes and symbolic values, branding being the process of associating the attributes with the product in order to add value to it (Hakala et al., 2011). According to Kapferer (2004), a brand’s success is based on its saliency, differentiability and intensity, and on the trust attached to the associations. In addition to these, Davis (2000) underlines the role and accumulation of experiences in brand recognition. Brand preference ultimately depends on what the brand means to the customer and on the impact of its emotional effect, in other words on its place in the heart (Ballantyne et al., 2006). Related to the same idea, brand attachment is characterized by a strong linkage or connectedness between the brand and the self (Kleine and Kleine, 1993). In this context, brand heritage is one of the associations that marketers can use to differentiate their brands from those of their competitors, ultimately helping them to create a unique image for the offering (Keller and Lehmann, 2006). For Aaker (1996), heritage is a key component of brand equity and this heritage represents an essential value for the customer and other stakeholders (Keller and Richey, 2006). The main advantages of brand heritage is as a matter of fact to add stability, familiarity, sincerity and differentiation (Merchant and Rose, 2013) in order to bring authenticity (Fionda and Moore, 2009; Kapferer and Bastien, 2008), and to reduce purchasing risk (Steewart-Allen, 2002). In difficult times, consumers become less confident in the future and wish to protect themselves from the hazards of the outside world and as a result it increases the interest in brands with a heritage: skillfully exploited, they can evoke past events (Brown et al., 2003) and reassure the consumer. The word heritage is generally associated with inheritance: something transferred from one generation to the next. As a concept, therefore, it works as a carrier of historical values from the past (Nuryanti, 1996). But the concept of heritage is different from history (Urde et al. 2007) and retro (Wiedmann et al. 2011). Heritage corresponds to different meaning. On the corporate perspective, heritage is defined as “all the traits and aspects of an organization that link its past, present, and future in a meaningful and relevant way” (Burghausen and Balmer 2014b, p. 394). This link between the different time strata, called omni-temporality, is a cornerstone of corporate heritage (Balmer 2011). Finally, Banerjee (2008, p. 314) describes the four pillars of the heritage of a brand as its history, image, expectancy and equity. History represents its rich and eventful past, the image "an after effect of the brand communication and positioning based on the perceived benefits by consumers”. Brand expectancy refers to the physical and emotional benefits that consumers receive from the brand. Finally, equity comprises two subsets: a homogeneous and heterogeneous set of competencies that facilitate progression and give advantages over the competition. With the exception of its history, the elements of the brand's heritage in Banerjee’s description (2008) are difficult to measure. Methodology In order to provide specific responses from the field, the empirical research methodology chosen follows the case analysis method (Yin, 1984). Following Yin (1984) case study approach and guidelines, a unique emblematic and successful case study is proposed to be analyzed in its unicity. Data reported will be authorized when required or based on primary evidence from public sources such as online, offline media, press, and advertisement and communication campaigns. The research data collection process has started with a pilot work in order to be oriented by experts in the field with respect to the coherence of the research covered. A focus group has been created and has provided indications to build a guideline for the empirical data collection. As a result, it has been decided to start the empirical data collection through an analysis of public sources on a 2 years timeframe. The length of the public sources analysis is related to the need to provide a consistent evaluation of the brand positioning heritage. The following empirical data will be concentrated on interviews with Christian Dior brand in a timeline of 2 months in order to have access to diverse sources of information and to integrate data necessary to build a coherent case study. The interviews are going to be carried in Paris headquarters and in the diverse flagship stores in Paris. Paris as location of data investigation and collection has been decided in relation to its central role in the research questions of the paper and in the historical development of the brand. Christian dior as a successful case of fashion city brandscape and heritage Christian Dior French New Look appeared in 1947 during the first Christian Dior couture fashion show in Paris. At the time, the Paris couture trade was in a precarious state. What it needed was excitement, and Christian Dior delivered it in a collection of luxurious clothes with soft shoulders, waspy waists and full-flowing skirts intended for what he called flower women. ‘It’s quite a revelation, dear Christian Dior’ pronounced Carmel Snow, the editor of US magazine Harper’s Bazaar. ‘Your dresses have such a New Look.’ And here it was: the New Look dresses were born. Dior brand is specifically embedded on the name of the founder, fashion designer of the brand, very inspired by the atmosphere and history of Paris : “ The air of Paris is really the air of couture” (Dior, 2011). The logo itself reminds the founder of the brand. Its simplicity and elegance reinforce the brand identification for consumers; in the logo, it is possible to find the sophistication and elegance representative of the personality of its creator. The company has made efforts to keep the same values promoted by its original founder Christian Dior. Indeed, Dior was primarily a female brand. Dior’s company is also synonymous of dreams. The designer always wanted to reach the excellence in every pieces he created and it’s on the same motto that the company has reached the success known today. Though earlier Dior focused only on women, it diversified into products for men under the brand of Dior Homme, and for children under the brand of Baby Dior as well as other products lines such as parfumes and cosmetics with the same aspect of perfectionism. Preliminary results and conclusion In order to evaluate Christian Dior relationship with the urban environment -Paris-, a first collection of on line data has shown the following. Christian Dior bought his first couture house in Paris in 1946 after working for Robert Pigue and Lucien Lelong. His first house, 30 avenue Montaigne, was the place where the Dior Label would flourish. Considered as one of the greatest couturiers of this century, Christian Dior never ceased to develop his image and fame around the "great Parisian chic", anchored in the mythical and symbolic history of the famous "light city". His latest exhibition at the “Musée des Arts Décoratifs” celebrating the 70th anniversary of Maison Dior, says a lot about this position. The brand strategy has always been in fact, to bring beauty by respecting the tradition and heritage of the company. In this environment, Dior shows the implementation of a very specific brand communication policy. As in the following examples, the ad is always really elegant and sophisticated with quite often the appearance of a famous person being the “muse” of the brand. And the story always takes place in Paris and is illustrated by short anecdotes in the heart of the capital, next to its most famous monuments such as the Eiffel Tower. The logo is also present in a simple way, reflecting the strength of the brand with a clear recognition and association with French luxury and high quality products. If these ways of communicating remain more classical, where the consumer can easily rely on the values of the brand with a “dream” touch, the real power of Dior’s brand is the way it communicates on the brand itself and its history. The continuation of our research will consist in deepening these preliminary results by analyzing supplementary data coming from public sources and interviews led with Dior's brand.

Despite the importance of retail atmospherics documented in the literature, little empirical research has been done on the issue of what specific aspects of retail atmospherics can enhance experiential marketing. Therefore, the primary purpose of this study is to compare the effect of product display (lifestyle vs. product-centric) on consumer satisfaction and retail patronage intentions. In so doing, this study examines the mediating role of hedonic shopping experiences operationalized through 3 separate subdimensions (i.e., brand experience, shopping enjoyment, and cognitive pleasure) while controlling a brand effect (i.e., testing two types of product display in a single brand context). Demminga et al. (2012) state that lifestyle display is a cross-merchandised, integrated, aesthetically attractive theme or scene through which consumers could envisage themselves in the scene or nature. On the other hand, product-centric display does not necessarily present a coherent theme. Instead, this type of product display is frequently used in a traditional retail format focuses on merchandise presentation appealing to target customers (Foster and Mclelland, 2015). This study was conducted using two product display stimuli: lifestyle and product-centric displays in the context of a specialty apparel store, Anthropologie. One image of Anthropologie was selected as a lifestyle display because it contained a thematic prop, which illustrates a natural scenario in that store. The results showed that the lifestyle display creates higher brand experience, shopping enjoyment, cognitive pleasure, satisfaction, time spent, and patronage intentions compared to the product centric display. This study provides empirical evidence supporting the importance of experiential marketing. Theoretically, this study demonstrates that lifestyle display could be applied in an apparel store. Rather than focusing only on products retailers could easily develop thematic props in a store because they are easy to set up, cost-effective, and less time-consuming. By setting up a lifestyle display, retailers could easily differentiate their brands from other competing brands.

Many commercial vendors provide brand valuation measures, which have important practical implications for many stakeholders on how brands are bought and sold and how they are managed. These commercial measures, however, differ to a great extent from one another, which raises serious concerns about their accuracy. In this study, we assess the measurement properties of brand valuation measures provided by the four dominant commercial vendors: Interbrand, Brand Finance, Millward Brown, and Corebrand. We find that the brand valuation measures from the four commercial vendors measure the same underlying construct in a reliable and valid way according to established psychometric test methodology. However, it appears that they measure a construct that does not predict actual brand transaction prices well. In most cases, they significantly overestimate the transaction price. The magnitude of systematic bias varies by method and industry. Our results suggest that an upward bias is more likely to occur in situations when the relevance of tangible assets and non-brand intangible assets is high. These empirical findings challenge current practical and academic thinking on brand valuation. A main conclusion is that brand valuation for transaction purposes needs to first value all assets of the company in their totality and then allocate a fair share to the brand.

Introduction The concept of brand equity has been receiving considerable interest from academia and practice in the past decades. While mutual understanding exists on the importance of establishing high-equity brands, less agreement among academics and practitioners prevails regarding its conceptualization and operationalization. Many approaches have been proposed to measure brand equity in academic literature and numerous competing companies such as Millward Brown, Interbrand, or Young & Rubicam offer commercial metrics and brand evaluations, which are likely to estimate different values to a specific brand. This study reflects a consumer-based perspective on brand equity, which resides in the heart and mind of the consumer and captures the value a brand endows beyond the attributes and benefits its products imply. Growing calls for the accountability of marketing has resulted in increasing interest in marketing metrics, which includes mind-set metrics to address the “black box” between marketing actions and consumer actions in the market. Theoretical Development One of the most prominent conceptualizations of brand equity is based on the premise that brand equity is “the differential effect of brand knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of the brand” consisting of brand awareness and brand image as the predominant dimensions that shape brand knowledge. In this model, a crucial role is ascribed to consumer’s associations with a brand as a reflection of its image. Accordingly, brand building and differentiation is based on establishing favorable, strong, and unique associations. Human associative network theory is a widely accepted concept to explain the storage and retrieval of information and has been largely applied in the context of brands. Associative network theory suggests that brand information is stored in long-term memory in a network of nodes that are linked to brand associations such as attributes, claims or evaluations. Consumers use brand names as cues to retrieve associations. Once cues activate corresponding nodes and consumers retrieve information from memory, the activation spreads to related nodes. Consequently, a transfer of associations can also occur through associative chains in a process of attitude formation. Consumer response to a brand can be of attitudinal and behavioral character and research on attitudes supports the general notion that both, affective and cognitive structures, explain attitude formation. The predictive properties of attitudes regarding actual behavior have been acknowledged by prior research and the attitude-behavior relationship has been established. Research Design Operationalization of Brand Equity This study distinguishes between attitudinal and behavioral measures of brand equity. The behavioral measures of brand equity should reflect the attitudinal brand equity components in predicting product-market outcomes. High brand equity should lead to a willingness to pay a price premium, purchase intention and willingness to recommend. Survey Brand equity measures are tested with two waves of data collection2 from online surveys conducted in 2015 and 2016. Respondents were recruited from a professional panel provider to ensure that the same respondents participated in wave two after a year from the first wave. Participants were selected according to a quota regarding age and gender to increase representativeness and were then randomly assigned to one of the three industries beer, insurance, and white goods capturing brand equity from different perspectives and allowing for a more holistic view. Sample The sample for the first wave consists of 2.798 respondents. The sample was matched with the response from wave two and only those respondents were selected who participated in both waves. Given the panel mortality rate, the final sample size for longitudinal analysis is 1.292 observations. The respondents’ age ranges from 18 to 74 with 52 percent being male and 48 percent female. Analysis Panel regression is used to estimate models assessing the relative importance of various brand equity metrics regarding the three outcome variables for the three categories included. The results suggest that no universal brand equity metric dominates that can be applied to predict behavioral outcomes across categories. Yet, category-specific brand equity metrics prevail across outcomes. Consumers seem to evaluate a strong brand as an entity they can personally connect to in the insurance category. In the beer category, consumers’ evaluation of strong brands reflects deep affect and the perception of product quality. High equity brands relate to loyal consumers with strong affective evaluations in the category of durable household products. Moreover, the results indicate that brand equity measurement can be simplified to a small subset of metrics without risking loss of model fit and predictive power. Discussion While a plethora of brand equity metrics exists, the results of this study suggest that brand managers can apply a small subset of available metrics to track their brands’ equity and predict behavior without implementing long surveys that require considerable time and effort from increasingly overloaded consumers. Yet, adjustments to the composition of brand equity metrics might be inevitable in light of category-specific effects. Moreover, the results reveal that a consideration of metrics capturing affective components such as brand self-connection and deep feelings such as brand love is indispensable for brand equity measurement. Including emotional measures and extending established brand equity metrics that are deeply rooted in extant research might provide a considerable advantage when it comes to measuring brand value in different product categories. References are available upon request.

In recent years brands have come under the spotlight for delivering unique and authentic brand experiences. Consumers find themselves looking for brands that add experiential value to their daily life, from a sensory, behavioral, intellectual and relational perspective (Brakus et al., 2009). Moreover, there is a growing demand for brands that are able to deliver their brand promise authentically (Morhart et al., 2015; Schallehn et al., 2014). On this background, our research was conducted in order to examine the role of brand experience and brand authenticity in generating brand love. In addressing this issue, the present study attempts to perform a test on research hypotheses by empirically validating the proposed conceptual model in a cross-country context (Japan and Portugal) for the brands Apple and Samsung. Additionally, it analyses the moderating effect of self-authenticity in relation to brand experience and brand authenticity. Data collection was done using a structured questionnaire to final consumers, who are owners of Apple and Samsung devices. A total of 574 valid questionnaires were collected regarding Apple brand (Japan = 300; Portugal = 274). Following the testing of the structural equation model, results demonstrate the correlation between brand authenticity and brand experience and show that the greater the self-authenticity, the higher is the effect of brand authenticity on brand love. It is worth noting however that the direct and moderating effects are different for Apple and Samsung in Japan and Portugal. This accounts for the cultural differences in how consumers perceive the experiential and authentic brand value propositions and how they relate emotionally to brands. Our study also provides important managerial implications by helping brand managers to understand how to drive passionate and intense feelings towards brands and to target consumers who are looking for compelling, meaningful and authentic brand experiences.

This study aims to gain insights into consumers’ motivations when purchasing mimics of luxury cosmetics goods and their evaluation towards mimicry products. Consumers’ desire for mimicry luxury cosmetics hinges on their motivations underlying their consumption of luxury cosmetics. Attitude functions are applied to measure consumers’ underlying motivations towards luxury products. Consumers’ attitude and familiarity with luxury cosmetics and mimicry cosmetics also influence their choice between luxury brands and mimicry brands. In addition, consumers’ personality factors and perceived risk of purchasing mimicry cosmetics and their brand loyalty towards the original luxury brands restrain their purchase intention of mimicry brands. Finally, the study examines the effect of products conspicuousness (private/public visible goods) and the effect of mimicry types (feature/theme) on consumers’ preferences on concerning mimicry consumption. The findings will provide insights for policymakers, brand managers, and academics, and better understand mimicry in the luxury cosmetics industry.

The purpose of this research was to examine simultaneously health halo and health horn effects across two fast food restaurant brands that have healthful or unhealthful images (i.e., McDonald's and Subway). Specifically, we investigated the moderating effects of nutrition information disclosure and dietary restraint on behavioral intention of four menus from the two brands. Two menus from the McDonald’s and two menus from the Subway, respectively, had been selected as stimuli, and each menu represented health halo confirmation (the Roast-Chicken sandwich) / disconfirmation (the Italian-Spicy sandwich), and health horn confirmation (the Big Mac burger) / disconfirmation (the McSpicy-Cajun burger), respectively. This study employed a mixed factorial design: 2 (nutrition information: present vs. absent) X 2 (dietary restraint: restrained eater vs. unrestrained eater) X 4 (menu type: a health halo or a health horn (for the Subway and the McDonald’s with objective healthfulness). The survey was conducted on October 11- 17, 2016, by a research company, Macromill EMBRAIN in Korea, which possessed more than 1 million panel members. Cell sizes were 149 and 146 for the between-subjects factor. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the nutrition information disclosure experimental conditions (either present or absent) and presented with all four menus. The results showed that the behavioral intentions of all three menus, except health horn disconfirmation menu, were decreased. In particular, the effect size of health halo disconfirmation menu (decrease in behavioral intention) was the greatest. There was no difference in the behavioral intention of four menus between the restrained eater and unrestrained eater. Thus, brands positioned as healthy should well manage the expectation levels of their customers. A brand positioned as healthy, such as the Subway, has to manage the health expectation of its customer not get too high, or the brand has to continuously strive to satisfy its client's expectations. A brand positioned as unhealthy (eg, McDonald’s) needs to actively develop low-calorie menus, healthy menus or similar side dishes. Although indulgent menus would account for the majority of the revenue, existence of healthy menus / side dishes would lessen the guilty feelings of the customers of the restaurant and the brand. This is the first study which identified both the health halo effect and the health horn effect on restaurant brand image. The results of this study confirm the need to provide nutrition information on dining out menus and would help consumers choose healthy menus.

Recently, brand managers have widely adopted brand anthropomorphism as positioning strategies to differentiate from other competitors. Aggarwal and McGill (2012) anthropomorphized brand as two specific roles. Brand-as-partner refers its role as “the co-producer of benefits”, a relationship in which the brand and consumers work together to co-create the benefits as equals. However, brand-as-servant represents its role as “the outsourced provider of benefits”, a hierarchical relationship in which the brand works for consumers to create benefits. Our research extends prior literature by investigating how a brand can improve consumers’ responses with the anthropomorphization of being either a collaborative partner or a supportive servant, depending on consumer’s mind-set  aptly termed implicit theories. Implicit theories are the beliefs that people have about the nature of human characteristics. In specific, entity theorists believe human traits are relatively fixed and stable; and incremental theorists believe human traits are substantially changeable (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). These two implicit theories trigger many distinctive cognitive and behavioral patterns. For example, entity theorists prefer effortless success and receiving assurances to signal their abilities. In contrast, incremental theories emphasize on self-improvement through high effort to realize their self-enhancement and intentions (Park & John, 2014). We generalize this theory to anthropomorphic brand positioning and adopt consumer’s efficacy (confidence) to explain the underlying mechanism. We hypothesize a servant brand is more appealing to entity theorists, because they prefer situations in which they are guaranteed of being satisfied effortlessly (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). Therefore, they are more confident about their abilities when a servant brand acts as an assurance for providing benefits. In contrast, a partner brand may be more attractive to incremental theorists, because they believe their abilities can be improved through working with the partner brand. Thus, they should be more self-assured about their abilities, and increase their perceived efficacy to realize their intentions. Three studies were conducted to test the hypotheses by both manipulating and measuring implicit theories. The consistent results revealed the significant interactions between brand roles and implicit theories on brand evaluation as well as the mediation effect of consumer efficacy. In sum, this research contributes to brand managers by advising them to cultivate appropriate brand role position in accordance with the target and potential consumer’s distinct mind-set.

Newly extended brands may use the retailers as a channel for new products in order that consumers can become familiar with them, since retailers as an initial contact point of transactions have become empowered to supply products to consumers. Related research has suggested that horizontal or vertical extensions enable brand companies to introduce new products by collaborating with retailers to offer a one-of-a- kind product line to differentiate their products and to gain the attention of consumers. Even though brand companies often produce different products through more than one extension, the effects of multiple extensions in a brand are not clearly investigated. In this regard, the current study aims to focus on how consumers evaluate extended brand products depending on the brand extension types (vertical and horizontal) when a brand collaborates with a retailer. Drawn from the attitude accessibility theory (Fazio, 1986), the conceptual framework was developed. The hypothesized relationships were examined using structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques with survey data of 218 responses for the vertical extension and 226 responses for the horizontal extension. The results show that the image fit between a brand and retailer has a significant relationship with attitude toward brand and consumers’ evaluations of brand extensions. However, the results highlight that the quality fit is only directly related to retailer attitude in the case of horizontal extension. Overall, the findings provide empirical evidence on how perceived fit between brand and retailer influences consumers’ attitude and brand extension evaluations. The current study makes several key contributions to both academia and industry practitioners by explaining how new products from extended brands may have different evaluative processes depending on the types of brand extensions when collaborating with a retailer.