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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how visual aesthetic referents used in branding can help foster a transnational imagined community (TIC). The authors use brands embedded with Middle Eastern visual aesthetics as a research context. As such, the study aims to examine how Middle Eastern non-figurative art is used by non-Middle Eastern brands to foster an imagined Middle Easternness.

Through a critical visual analysis, the authors apply a visual social semiotic approach to Middle Eastern art canons to better understand the dimensions of transnational imagined communities.

The study finds and discusses six sub-dimensions of Middle Easternness, which compose two overarching dimensions of TIC, namely, temporal and spatial. These sub-dimensions provide brand managers and designers with six different ways to foster transnational imagined communities through the use of visual aesthetic referents in branding.

This research identifies the specific visual sub-dimensions of brands that enable transnational communities to be imagined.

Understanding the visual aesthetic sub-dimensions in this study provides brand managers with practical tools that can help develop referents that foster transnational imagined communities in brand building to achieve competitive advantage and reach a transnational segment.

Prior studies have primarily focussed on how visual aesthetics help in understanding issues related to national identity. In contrast, this paper examines the use of visual aesthetics in branding from a transnational perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the strategic importance of visual aesthetics and presentation modality for consumer responses to fashion luxury brand content posted on Instagram.

A content analysis of 40,679 posts on the official Instagram accounts of 15 global luxury brands was conducted.

Brand posts using expressive aesthetic image received more likes and comments on Instagram than those with classical aesthetics. Brand video content received more likes and comments than static content. There was also a significant interaction between visual aesthetics and presentation modality in generating likes and comments. Brand content adopting expressive aesthetic and audio-visual modality generated more responses when using audio-visual modality, while content using classical aesthetics produced more responses in a visual-only format.

As visual aesthetics and modality resulted in different responses to Instagram ads, luxury marketers should consider using appropriate approaches when creating brand posts on Instagram.

This is one of the few studies examining the effectiveness of visual aesthetics and presentation modality in Instagram advertising, especially in luxury fashion brand context.

This paper aims to empirically explore the influence of website aesthetic attributes (classical and expressive) on customer brand engagement (CBE) intention.

This research develops a framework and a few research hypothesis based on available literature on the concept of aesthetics, aesthetic attribute of websites and CBE, as well as other reliable resources, relevant theories, wherever required and tested it on the data collected from 400 respondents of the Y generation (Gen Y) of India by means of structural equations modelling using SPSS AMOS 21.

The findings indicate that expressive aesthetics of the brand Web pages of the beauty products is positively associated with drawing attention. Expressive aesthetics and classical aesthetics together explained 16% of the variance in attention. This indicates that aesthetic attributes indeed play a role in drawing the attention of the customer. However, mere attention is not sufficient to form the behavioural intention in the customer to engage with that particular brand unless the customer does get fully absorbed with aesthetic attributes of the brand Web pages.

The outcome of this research is based on the view of only 400 Gen Y individuals from the city of Indore in India. This limits its generalizability across India and other country context. This study makes important contribution to brand website aesthetic and CBE literature by empirically investigating the concept of brand website aesthetics as important in interactive marketing approach to initiate CBE intention formation. It further argues that cognitive engagement is the first and foremost engagement dimension and underscores aesthetic attributes as important in forming the customer first perception based on which subsequent CBE behavioural intention develops.

This research adds novel insight in the relationship of the brand website aesthetic attributes and CBE by studying the impact of the aesthetic attribute of brand Web pages on the two cognitive elements, namely, attention and absorption and further its effect on brand behavioural intention taking as sample of Gen Y of India.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of brand design consistency (BDC) on consumers’ aesthetic judgment and purchase intention; and whether this effect of BDC is moderated by a brand’s luxury status.

A mixed-factorial experimental design that manipulated the BDC of handbags (prototypical/high/low) and brand luxury status (luxury/non-luxury) was conducted among 311 female participants to test the proposed hypotheses.

Results obtained from t-tests and repeated measures ANCOVA demonstrate that prototypical brand designs, followed by high, and then low BDC products, evoked the most positive consumer responses. Additionally, brand luxury status moderated the effect of BDC on consumer response, such that the effect was more salient for non-luxury than luxury brands.

Luxury brands are able to leverage the halo effect, as perceived brand design inconsistency has a lesser impact on consumers’ purchase intentions than for non-luxury brands. Non-luxury brands have less latitude to deviate from their brand aesthetic, and maintaining BDC in new products is imperative for these brands.

Designers constantly navigate the thresholds of their brand’s aesthetic in design decisions; however, few studies have investigated consumer responses to deviations from brand aesthetics. To the authors’ knowledge, no studies have examined this phenomenon in relation to a brand’s luxury status, a factor that critically impacts consumers’ design expectations.

This paper aims to investigate how and when visual referents in brand visual aesthetics (i.e. colours, shapes, patterns and materials) serve as design applications that enable consumer diasporic identity.

This paper uses an innovative methodology that triangulates 58 in-depth interviews with diasporic consumers, 9 interviews with brand managers and designers and a visual analysis of brands (food retailer, spices and nuts, skincare, hair and cosmetics, ice cream and wine) to provide a view of the phenomenon from multiple perspectives.

This study illustrates how and when particular applications and compositions of product and design referents support diasporic identity for Middle Eastern consumers living outside the Middle East. Specifically, it illustrates how the design applications of harmonising (applying separate ancestral homeland and culture of living product and design referents simultaneously), homaging (departing from the culture of living product and design referents with a subtle tribute to ancestral homeland culture) and heritaging (departing from the ancestral homeland culture product and design referents with slight updates to a culture of living style) can enable diasporic identity in particular social situations.

Although applied to the Middle Eastern diaspora, this research opens up interesting avenues for future research that assesses diasporic consumers’ responses to brands seeking to use visual design to engage with this market. Moreover, future research should explore these design applications in relation to issues of cultural appreciation and appropriation.

The hybrid design compositions identified in this study can provide brand managers with practical tools for navigating the design process when targeting a diasporic segment. The design applications and their consequences are discussed while visually demonstrating how they can be crafted.

While previous research mainly focused on how consumption from the ancestral homeland occurred, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine how hybrid design compositions that combine a diaspora’s ancestral homeland culture and their culture of living simultaneously and to varying degrees resonate with diasporic consumers.

Logos are a critical component of brand aesthetics. Frequently companies redesign their logos, and many redesigns result in more rounded logos. How do such redesigns affect consumers' brand attitudes? The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of brand commitment on consumer response to logo shape redesign.

This research uses a field experiment with 632 respondents and examines two athletic shoe brands: New Balance and Adidas.

The greater the degree of change in the roundedness of a previously angular logo, the more likely it is that strongly committed consumers will evaluate the redesigned logo more negatively (in terms of brand attitude). Such logo evaluations, in turn, mediate the joint effect of logo redesign and commitment on overall brand attitude. Conversely, weakly committed consumers react positively to such changes.

The literature on aesthetics and brand attitude are combined to show that not all consumers view changes in brand elements such as logos similarly. Strongly committed consumers view these changes negatively; weakly committed consumers view them positively. An information‐processing approach provides the underlying theory for this finding. Thus, logo evaluation partially mediates this change in brand attitude, but it does not fully explain the change in brand attitude after exposure to logo redesign.

Strong brands gain strength by developing a base of strongly committed customers. Attempts to change brand elements – such as logo redesigns – can affect customers differently depending on whether they are strongly committed, mildly committed, or not committed at all. Thus firms attempting to change brand elements, particularly their logos, should be fully aware of the potentially negative impact on their most important customers – those having the strongest brand commitment.

To one's knowledge very little research has examined the relationship between logo redesign and brand attitude. Henderson et al.'s call to examine consumer responses to changes in design stimuli is followed. Importantly, the study is the first to show that visual elements of a brand (e.g. logo) can differentially impact consumer response based on brand commitment to such an extent that strongly committed customers react more negatively than weakly committed customers to redesigned logos.

This research aims to explore how consumer responses to logo redesign (from angular to rounded) are contingent on brand commitment and self‐construal. The authors aim to explore two issues. First, what is the role of brand commitment on response to logo redesign and underlying brand attitude? Second, how does situational accessible self‐construal influence brand commitment in situations like this?

This research uses two field experiments; one using the general public via mall intercepts and the second with undergraduate college students.

In two studies the authors show that brand commitment negatively influences evaluation of inconsistent information (i.e. rounded logo), and this negative logo evaluation mediates the impact on brand attitude. They also find that motivated reasoning may be at play showing that when faced with inconsistent information brand commitment not only increases thought generation but, specifically, negative thoughts about the logo. Study 2, using more realistic stimuli shows that the deleterious effect of inconsistent information (i.e. new logo) is attenuated when the inconsistent information – i.e. rounded logo – is congruent with the consumers' self‐construal (i.e. interdependent self‐construal).

The authors advance the literature on self‐construal in advertising by identifying that self‐construal framing of ads may impact consumer response regardless of individual differences in self‐construal. They build on the work of Tsai who examined the effects of consumer characteristics such as product involvement and product knowledge in light of self‐construal differences on ad evaluation and purchase intentions.

The findings presented here suggest that consumers' responses to atypical brand information may be dependent on their level of brand commitment. This research shows that logo redesign in particular, and introduction of inconsistent information in general is a process that should be carefully managed. The second experiment shows that the independent message frame is the preferred approach for multi cultural/global marketers. In primarily independent cultures, one should target highly committed customers. In primarily interdependent cultures one can target both strongly and weakly committed consumers. These findings can help companies entering international markets or dealing with global brands. Beyond advertising, this research has application to other forms of brand aesthetics including packaging and web site design.

This study is the first to show that self‐construal framing can act as a boundary condition on the role that consumer commitment plays in shaping ad evaluations and purchase intentions regardless of chronic self‐construal.

Sustainable fashion.

Bachelor Degree/Master Degree, Master of Business Administration (MBA), PhD.

The case focuses on Osklen, one of the world’s first eco-fashion brands, founded in 1989 by Oskar Metsavaht. For the past 26 years, Osklen had become Brazil’s foremost sustainable luxury venture, and since 2012, under first minority and then majority corporate ownership, pursued an aggressive global expansion strategy. The dilemma of the case juxtaposes Osklen’s creative aesthetics, which leverage unique Brazilian beauty in nature and heritage, with the financial pressures of global expansion. The tension is exacerbated by the 2015 corruption scandal, which decelerated the Brazilian economy and reduced consumer spending on sustainable luxuries in Osklen’s home market; it also risked compromising the appeal of Brazilian brands elsewhere. The case explores the complex interconnections between local and global aspects of sustainability and brings forward the environmental, social and cultural aspects of brands and business to the foreground. The case also illustrates how economic crises impact brands from the initial creative inspiration to the prospects of global expansion.

Students will master tools for strategic analysis (VRIN framework and scenario planning) to a company evolving in an emerging economy. They will learn about the ways to consider and communicate sustainability. Students will be exposed to the importance of aesthetics and multi-sensoriality in business activities.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 11: Strategy

This article aims to explore the potential of Dewey's theory of aesthetic expression to expand knowledge about aesthetics in branding and better understand how brands work. The paper aims to mine the pragmatic theory of aesthetic expression as involving artistry, intention and imagination to reveal the role beauty plays alongside usefulness in defining and refining brand image and meaning.

Dewey's dialectical method of holistically combining tensions such as beauty and usefulness is applied to brand theory and used to critique current brand management practices.

The application of the theory of aesthetic expression emphasizes: understanding humans holistically in order to explain how beauty and expression create value and enrich lives; redefining brand ownership and use to accommodate the aesthetic ways people handle expression/expressiveness; and managing brands with appreciation of how beauty empowers them to attract users.

Seven dialectical tensions featured in Dewey's theory are identified and developed into holistic propositions for the future study of brands and branding: beauty/usefulness, act/object, inner/outer material, private/public, expression/statement, appreciation/control, symbolic/instrumental.

The primary practical implication derived from application of the theory of aesthetic expression to brands and branding is that the most beautiful brands emerge from acts of co‐creation that respect the artistry, intention and imagination of the brand's stakeholders.

The article offers increased depth to the study of the expressive/emotional/aesthetic aspects of branding and offers an enriched aesthetic foundation for studying and practicing brand co‐creation.