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Despite the numerous works on multifaceted relationships between customers and brands, such relationships remain complex and poorly understood in retailing. This research analyses the direct effects of brand images (hedonic, symbolic and functional) on three specific relationship variables (brand trust, brand attachment and brand social identification). It also investigates their indirect effects on three types of loyalty (cognitive, affective and normative) in retailing.

This paper is based on quantitative research involving 417 respondents. It uses structural equation models to test relevant research hypotheses.

The results show that hedonic brand image affects brand attachment, while functional brand image influences brand trust. Symbolic brand image has similar effects on the three relationship variables (attachment, trust, identification). Moreover, the relationships between brand image dimensions and brand loyalty types are positively mediated by attachment, trust and brand identification. Therefore, the authors highlight a more complex process in customer–brand relationships than previously thought.

This article focusses on the cosmetic retail sector. It would be interesting to empirically test/extend the model in other industries/sectors. Future studies could also include brand attitude in their research model.

To strengthen affective loyalty, retail managers should focus on both hedonic image and brand attachment (e.g. emphasise the brand personality traits that refer to both affect and hedonism). To develop normative loyalty, they should improve symbolic brand image and facilitate customer brand identification.

This research provides a new three-dimensional model of customer relationships with brands to account for the dynamic nature of customer loyalty in retailing. It shows how three dimensions of brand image (hedonic, functional and symbolic) affect three types of loyalty (affective, cognitive and normative) through the mediation of three specific relationship variables (brand attachment, brand trust and brand identification).

The recent rise of economic nationalism intensifies consumers' patriotic attitudes toward goods or services and thus encourages enterprises to build patriotic brand images. Nevertheless, few studies have discussed how a patriotic brand image is developed. The purpose of this study aims to fill the gap by examining whether and how a positive corporate image helps a domestic brand establish a patriotic brand image and in turn enhances consumers' purchase intentions in relation to domestic brand products.

A research model identifying the antecedents of patriotic brand image (the components of corporate image) is proposed and empirically tested using structural equations with a questionnaire investigating Taiwanese college students' attitudes toward Taiwanese smartphone brands. Three competing models are also proposed and tested to confirm the appropriateness of the research model.

In addition to the widely recognized impact of perceived quality on purchase intentions, patriotic brand image is found to be effective in enhancing local consumers' intentions to purchase domestic brand products. To shape a patriotic brand image, perceived quality, perceived corporate ability and perceived corporate integrity are the direct approaches, while perceived corporate social responsibility works through perceived corporate integrity, and perceived employer brand enhances only perceived corporate social responsibility.

Potential sampling (college students) and subject (smartphones) biases may limit the generalizability of the presented findings

While patriotic appeals have long been used in marketing communication, they are also likely to precipitate negative brand associations (e.g. nationalism), offending consumers in other countries. By contrast, the development of a positive corporate image serves as an implicit and neutral approach to building a patriotic brand image and can help domestic brands attract local consumers with less harm to foreign markets.

This study is one of notably few studies discussing patriotic brand image and its impacts on purchase intentions. This study also identifies the antecedents of patriotic brand image and how each of them affects patriotic brand image. The findings can help guide domestic brands in building a patriotic brand image.

Extant research has largely treated country image (CI) as an exogenous variable, focusing mostly on its consequences for consumers’ evaluations and purchases of products or brands originating from a country. Scant research has examined the instrumental role of a country’s brands and products in the evaluations of CI. This study aims to investigate how the brands of a country contribute to CI ratings and the conditions underlying their effect on CI.

Three experimental studies test the hypotheses, one pertaining to the effect of brands on CI (N = 227), the second to the effect of products on CI (N = 116) and the third to the effect of brands and products on industry image (N = 215). The experimental approach overcomes the limitations of cross-sectional surveys commonly used in CI studies to detect the direction of the observed effects. Furthermore, respondents (British consumers) were allowed to determine the brands and products associated with a country.

Drawing on memory schema theory, across three studies, the authors identify two types of reverse inferences: from brand to CI and from product category to CI. The reverse inference from a brand to a superordinate image is stronger for industry image than for CI.

This research focuses on consumers’ evaluations from only one country (the UK). Further research could replicate the studies across different countries and with different countries of origin (COOs). Researchers could also examine the influence of brands misidentified with the wrong COO and mistakenly stored as such in consumers’ memories.

The results are relevant for managers and consultants working with country- (place-) branding campaigns. Brands and industries can help strengthen the evaluations of the economic dimension of different countries; however, these assets are underdeveloped in country-branding campaigns. Linking countries with brands and industries in campaigns could result in positive associations, which, in turn, could enhance the reputational rating of the countries.

This research extends previous studies on the effects of a country’s products and brands on CI by incorporating the mediating role of industry image between brands/products and CI, separating the effects of brand and product category on CI, allowing consumers to determine, which brands and products are associated with a country and adopting an experimental methodology to ascertain the causal direction of the effects.

The chapter focuses on brand image and its role in business relationship initiation. The chapter takes the perspective of personal brands, CEO branding in particular, and discusses how brand image of the CEO affects the establishment of new relationships. The corporate brand image provides a first insight into, for instance, perceived quality, while the CEO brand is a strategic combination of the CEO image and CEO reputation. An empirical case study exemplifies and illustrates how the corporate brand and the CEO brand interlink. The reader learns that a strong CEO brand may outperform the corporate brand in the initial stage of establishing new business relationships. Trust and commitment are highlighted through the case, inducing that business relationship performance is dependent on personal interaction and network bonds between the actors. The personal brand of the CEO is an important element in branding strategies and a strategic tool for organizations active in the B2B domain. This relates specially to partner selection and the stage of initiating business relationships. Furthermore, both rational and emotional factors are considered when business partners evaluate each other, in search for information and cues as regards the history of the partner. Eventually, trust is created between the partners, and the relationship is initiated.

Companies in all industries are searching for new sources of competitive advantage since the competition in their marketplace is becoming increasingly intensive. The resource-based view of the firm explains the sources of sustainable competitive advantages. From a resource-based view perspective, relational based assets (i.e., the assets resulting from firm contacts in the marketplace) enable competitive advantage. The relational based assets examined in this work are brand image and corporate reputation, as components of brand equity, and customer value. This paper explores how they create value. Despite the relatively large amount of literature describing the benefits of firms in having strong brand equity and delivering customer value, no research validated the linkage of brand equity components, brand image, and corporate reputation, simultaneously in the customer value–customer loyalty chain. This work presents a model of testing these relationships in consumer goods, in a business-to-business context. The results demonstrate the differential roles of brand image and corporate reputation on perceived quality, customer value, and customer loyalty. Brand image influences the perception of quality of the products and the additional services, whereas corporate reputation actions beyond brand image, estimating the customer value and customer loyalty. The effects of corporate reputation are also validated on different samples. The results demonstrate the importance of managing brand equity facets, brand image, and corporate reputation since their differential impacts on perceived quality, customer value, and customer loyalty. The results also demonstrate that companies should not limit to invest only in brand image. Maintaining and enhancing corporate reputation can have a stronger impact on customer value and customer loyalty, and can create differential competitive advantage.

This study explores the relationship between brand image and brand equity in the context of sports sponsorship. Keller's (1993, 2003) customer-based brand equity models are the conceptual inspiration for the research, with Faircloth, Capella, and Alford's (2001) conceptual model – adapted from the work of Aaker (1991) and Keller (1993) – the primary conceptual model. The study focuses on the sponsorship relationship between the New Zealand All Blacks and their major sponsor and co-branding partner, adidas. The sporting context for the study was the 2003 Rugby World Cup held in Australia. Data were collected from two independent samples of 200 respondents, utilizing simple random sampling procedures. A bivariate correlation analysis was undertaken to test whether there was any correlation between changes in adidas' brand image and adidas' brand equity as a result of the All Blacks' performance in the 2003 Rugby World Cup. Results support the view that Keller (1993, 2003) proposes that brand image is antecedent to the brand equity construct. Results are also consistent with the findings of Faircloth et al. (2001) that brand image directly impacts brand equity.

All touristic cities have their unique attributes to showcase and differentiate themselves from others. This distinctive attribute is the unique selling product or tourism product of a particular city. It could be an art form, culture, regional climate, food and festival. Literature indicates that the identity of the entire city would be affected by such tourism products. The purpose of this study is to analyse the influence of the ‘image’ of an Art-event to city branding. The study also examines the mediating role of ‘city attachment’ in the relationship between event image and city brand equity.

In all, 432 samples have been collected from visitors to one of the biggest contemporary art events in India – the “Kochi-Muziris Biennale – 2018,” conducted in the city of Cochin, situated in Kerala, the southernmost state of India.

Results show that the direct relationship between event image and city brand equity is stronger than the hypothesised path through the mediating role of city attachment.

This study provides a better understanding of the event image and its importance in creating the host city’s brand equity. It contributes to both the practitioners and tourism researchers.

This study looks at the event image through functional and affective aspects and its influence on city attachment and city brand equity.

The purpose of the paper is to contribute to the extant sport marketing literature by positing fan engagement, team brand image and cumulative fan satisfaction with the team as factors influencing attitudinal and behavioural soccer (football) fan loyalty, with enduring involvement with the team as a moderator.

A convenience sample of Australian A-League soccer fans completed a paper-and-pencil, self-administered survey to evaluate their team on the focal constructs. A total of 207 participants were recruited from a major Australian east-coast university.

Using partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), the study found that fan engagement influences both team brand image and cumulative fan satisfaction, while team brand image also influences cumulative fan satisfaction, and both of these constructs influence attitudinal loyalty and behavioural loyalty. The moderating role of enduring involvement was also found for two relationships: team brand image → attitudinal loyalty and team brand image → behavioural loyalty, along with a mediating role of attitudinal loyalty.

This study increases our understanding of the reasons why soccer fans are committed to and exhibit fan-related behaviours for a team, thus contributing to the sports-marketing literature on the relationships amongst fan engagement, team brand image, cumulative fan satisfaction, attitudinal loyalty and behavioural loyalty, along with the moderating role of enduring involvement. The findings also assist sports-marketing practitioners to formulate more effective, fan-centric marketing-communication strategies leading to a larger loyal fan base.

There is growing interest among marketers in advertising and promoting their brands by adopting an online celebrity endorsement strategy. However, how online celebrities build their own brand equity and how online celebrity brand equity impacts fans’ purchase behavior have not been extensively researched in the extant literature. This paper aims to explore the factors that contribute to online celebrity branding and improving fans’ purchase intentions.

A survey and an experiment were conducted among consumers from the mainland of China. A total of 12 hypotheses were proposed to exam how self-congruity and virtual interactivity impact online celebrity branding and to explore the moderating role of perceived quality and product type.

This paper reveals that customers’ perceived self-congruity with online celebrities’ image and virtual interactivity positively impact the brand equity of online celebrities. Additionally, compared with virtual interactivity, the effect of customer perceived self-congruity on a brand is more significant. The brand equity of online celebrities thereby drives followers’ purchase intentions and the perceived quality of products positively moderates this relationship.

The research conclusions provide managerial implications for marketing practitioners for how to use human brands on social media platforms in the web 2.0 era and ultimately enhance consumer purchase intentions.

This paper aims to apply the concept of traditional branding constructs, i.e. brand image, brand perceived quality, brand satisfaction, brand trust and brand loyalty to a less explored field of halal brand products – halal brand image, halal brand perceived quality, halal brand satisfaction, halal brand trust and halal brand loyalty. Second, the present research is an effort to empirically validate the interrelationships among branding constructs such as brand image, brand perceived quality, brand satisfaction, brand trust and brand loyalty in a holistic framework to confirm whether these branding constructs also work for the halal brand in the same way to gauge Chinese Muslims consumers’ purchasing intentions.

This research used cross-sectional data from 481 Chinese Muslim students at 9 universities located in 3 cities of China through face-to-face and online survey methods. Data were collected from the consumers of halal milk brand. A theoretical model with the hypothesized relationships was tested with the help of the structural equation modelling procedure.

The results suggest that halal brand image has a significant and positive influence on the halal brand perceived quality, halal brand satisfaction, halal brand trust and halal brand loyalty. Similarly, the halal brand perceived quality, halal brand satisfaction, halal brand trust and halal brand loyalty significantly influence consumer halal brand purchase intention.

This study is conducted in the halal food sector of China and specific religious and migration contexts. Further investigations of the halal food purchasing behaviour of local Muslims, as well as international Muslim students in those Western countries which are famous destinations for international students for education, could yield varying results.

The outcomes achieved are helpful for commerce and government organizations for policy development to better meet the burgeoning demand for halal products by Chinese Muslims. These are also very helpful for producers and exporters who intend to penetrate the halal market in non-Muslim-dominant countries such as China.

Studies on understanding Muslim consumers’ purchasing behaviours in non-Muslim countries are limited. Given the fact, numbers of Muslims seem a smaller amount of China’s total population, but their total numbers are large compared with total numbers in many Muslim countries. Therefore, understanding their purchasing behaviours for halal products and influential determinants concerning such purchasing behaviours adds to the literature and helps the industry to better serve and capitalise on the growing market.