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The ever-growing popularity of social media platforms is evidence of consumers engaging emotionally with these brands. Given the prominence of social media in society, the purpose of this paper is to understand social media platforms from a “brand” perspective through examining the effect of consumers’ emotional attachment on social media consumer-based brand equity (CBBE).

This paper develops a model that outlines how emotional brand attachment with social media explains social media CBBE via shaping consumer perceptions of brand credibility and consumer satisfaction. An online survey of 340 Australian social media consumers provided data for empirical testing. The inclusion of multiple context-relevant covariates and use of a method-variance-adjusted data matrix, as well as an examination of an alternative model, adds robustness to the results.

The findings of this paper support the conceptual model, and the authors identify strong relationships between the focal variables. A phantom model analysis explicates specific indirect effects of emotional brand attachment on CBBE. The authors also find support for a fully mediated effect of emotional brand attachment on social media brand equity. Further, they broaden the nomological network of emotional brand attachment, outlining key outcomes.

This paper offers a conceptual mechanism (a chain-of-effects) of how consumer emotional brand attachment with social media brands translates into social media CBBE. It also finds that a brand’s credibility as well as its ability to perform against consumer expectations (i.e. satisfaction) are equally effective in translating emotional brand attachment into social media CBBE.

Social media brands are constantly challenged by rapid change and ongoing criticism over such issues as data privacy. The implications from this paper suggest that managers should make investments in creating (reinforcing) emotional connections with social media consumers, as this will favorably impact CBBE by way of a relational mechanism, that is, via enhancing credibility and consumer satisfaction.

Lately, social media in general has suffered from a crisis of trust in society. The enhanced credibility of social media brands resulting from consumers’ emotional attachments will potentially serve to enhance its acceptance as a credible form of media in society.

Social media platforms are often examined as brand-building platforms. This paper adopts a different perspective, examining social media platforms as brands per se and the effects of emotional attachments that consumers develop towards these. This paper offers valuable insights into how consumers’ emotional attachments drive vital brand judgments such as credibility and satisfaction, ultimately culminating into social media CBBE.

Despite increased emphasis on diversity marketing, much remains unknown about how brands should approach diversity. This paper aims to understand what constitutes a brand’s approach to diversity (BATD), establish a categorisation of such approaches, outline the effects on audience connectedness and establish a future research agenda.

This conceptual paper draws on critical theory and practical exemplars to present a conceptualisation of BATD.

Using two determinants, depth of diversity integration and order of entry, it is possible to categorise BATD into four types: transformative, adaptive, passive and performative. Early adoption and greater depth of diversity approaches (i.e. multidimensional to an intersectional representation of identities) provide optimal opportunities for evoking connectedness.

The conceptual typological framework for BATD helps delineate how varying levels of diversity depth and order of entry influence audience connectedness. A detailed agenda for further research can guide ongoing diversity research.

Creating a typology reduces complexity and helps marketers recognise the differing components, manifestations and effects of their diversity approach. To increase connectedness and reduce audience scepticism, marketers must seek deeper-level diversity integrations and adopt approaches earlier.

This study offers a novel conceptualisation of BATD by defining it, distinguishing it from related research themes and moving beyond single diversity dimensions and marketing mix elements. Further, audience connectedness is positioned as a critical consequence as it can instigate desirable brand outcomes, benefit those identities represented and promote a more inclusive society.

As brands progressively become instruments for consumers to advocate for social change, many feel pressure to engage in social purpose branding (SPB) through addressing social issues. In a rush to remain socially relevant, brands have approached SPB differently; some genuinely intend to advance the social issue, while some intend to capitalise on social movements to mobilise the brand. This paper aims to explain these differences by theoretically outlining various approaches to SPB.

This mixed method paper draws on theory, interviews with marketing practitioners, and practical exemplars to present a typology of SPB approaches. 

Using institutional logics theory, SPB is categorised into four approaches: social purpose-driving, social purpose-driven, social purpose-aligning and social purpose-washing.

The typological framework for SPB advances this domain to outline effective and ineffective ways for brands to engage with social issues. A detailed agenda for further research is provided to guide ongoing SPB research. 

The typology presented reduces complexity and helps marketers understand the different approaches to engaging with a social issue. Given the growing intertwinement of brands and social issues, this research is essential for brands seeking to advance a social issue and remain relevant.

This paper offers a novel conceptualisation of SPB by defining it, identifying a framework of its characteristics, and detailing four SPB approaches. 

The continued evolution of influencer marketing has created a need to better understand influencer marketing effectiveness. With brands increasingly partnering with influencers, research is yet to provide an integrated perspective examining the critical role of both parties. This study aims to draw on the source credibility model and signaling theory to explain the mechanisms that matter in influencer marketing effectiveness.

The proposed model of influencer marketing effectiveness is analyzed using partial least squares with data from 281 followers of social media influencers.

The authors establish influencer characteristics of popularity and attractiveness as heuristic cues that inform judgments of influencer efficacy. Further, category involvement and altruistic motives for collaboration are shown to moderate followers’ reliance on these heuristic cues. Then, a sequential mediating effect demonstrates the critical roles of the influencer and partner brand in three desired outcomes: enhanced perception of brand authenticity, enhanced brand engagement and positive attitudes toward influencer posts.

Future research should consider other heuristic cues that could inform influencer efficacy judgments and switch the focus toward the partner brand’s impact on such judgments.

A step-by-step visual framework is presented to help marketers and influencers translate these findings into key responsibilities for developing more effective and collaborative partnerships.

Besides presenting an integrated perspective, signaling theory provides an original lens for explaining influencer marketing effectiveness, addressing the need to expand the theoretical boundaries of influencer marketing research. 

This study aims to examine leader–follower interdependence from a different perspective to learn whether variations in the market leader (ML)’s level of market strength require followers to pursue different strategies Literature investigating this interdependence largely focuses on the market share consequences for the ML, considering the strategies that followers pursue.

A consumer scanner data set containing 375 followers provided input for a regression model, aimed at explaining the market share performance of followers.

The ML’s products and level of market strength influence whether a follower should be more similar to or different from it, as well as the performance outcomes of distinct product development strategies.

This analysis uses unique measures of market strength and product difference; both are significant, but their robustness is limited without further substantiation.

Managers must consider three factors that influence the outcomes of their product development strategies: the ML’s products, its market strength and the sum of product attribute differences across their range.

This study empirically validates several theoretical arguments for how an ML influences followers’ performance, including the existence of preference asymmetry toward the ML. In turn, it makes recommendations of optimal strategies that followers should pursue. Finally, this article details a method to measure overall differences and highlights the significance of this measure for explaining a follower’s performance.

Relational engagement is offered as a framework to describe how buyers and sellers conduct exchange. Relational engagement is conceptualized as a higher-order construct comprising three dimensions: legal bonds, knowledge exchange and co-production. This paper aims to examine the efficacy of the construct by testing its influence on buyer–perceived seller brand equity.

An online survey of 401 US-based industrial buyers was conducted. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Empirical analysis supports the proposed conceptualization of relational engagement, as well as its influence on seller brand equity through influencing buyer-perceived relationship effectiveness.

Relational engagement offers a template to sellers for engaging organizational buyers. A relational engagement strategy has favorable implications for seller brand equity.

Relational engagement offers a comprehensive strategic perspective on inter-organizational exchange, moving beyond tactical approaches. The framework reflects the continuum of exchange, incorporating transactional-dominant and relationship-dominant forms of inter-organizational marketing practices.

The enormous growth in publishing in Victorian England is surveyed from its origins in the eighteenth century to the demise, or survival, of principal publishing houses in the twentieth century. The major publishers ‐ Longman, Murray, Smith Elder, Chapman and Hall, Colburn, Bentley, Heinemann, Methuen and Macmillan ‐ are discussed in relation to their authors and publishing successes and failures. The relation between the full‐length book and the major literary journals is discussed and the capitalist, risk taking nature of publishing as a commercial enterprise is emphasised.

IF SONS DID NOT EXTOL, many a worthy father would sink into oblivion and forever go unsung. As filial biographers, however, sons customarily meet with intimidating scorn and derision. There is a generally accepted notion that consanguineous biography is fraught more with fealty and filial frailty than with disinterested depiction. The best way to disprove this false assumption is to muster meritorious biographies written by scions and compare them with representative biographies of the ‘blame and blemish’ variety. Sympathetic assessment always stands up stronger than ostensible objectivity, for writers of the ‘warts and all’ kind of biography lose track of virtues and nearly always become engrossed in the imperfections of their victims.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the genesis of the first Macro‐Marketing Seminar and to review the institutionalization of macromarketing which resulted from it.

The paper briefly reviews the history of macromarketing, the changes in society and marketing thought, and the seminal research which led to the first Macro‐Marketing Seminar.

Early macromarketing research was supplanted by a managerial marketing focus in mid‐twentieth century while at the same time society was awakening to the interconnections between human behavior and a broad range of societal problems. The early marketing theory seminars provided a template for the first Macro‐Marketing Seminar.

The paper explains the resurgence of macromarketing which from that first pivotal Macro‐Marketing Seminar has blossomed into a multifaceted and institutionalized area of study.

It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.