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The chapter proposes to investigate online reputation of hospitality brands and its measurements. Brand reputation is generally defined as an overall appraisal of a company by its stakeholders, which is the result of the company's past actions and predictions about the company's future (Ferguson, Deephouse, & Ferguson, 2000). Being viewed as the opinion shared among a group of stakeholders (Dowling, 2008), it plays an important role in the tourism industry. With the progress of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), reviews and user-generated contents of destinations and of hospitality companies together with the related emerging brand reputation can influence consumers' behaviors and choices. Brand reputation analysis could be more useful in the hospitality brand management when integrated with brand image and brand identity analysis, mainly because in tourism businesses and destinations, brands are typically affected by an inherent fragility determined by the service nature of products (Casarin, 1996). According to Biel (1991), the meanings that consumers assign to a brand are synthesized into brand associations formed by the components perceived to underlie the brand's image. As well as brand reputation, strong, positive and unique associations reinforce a brand and increase its equity that requires significant internal brand identity efforts, which should create a corresponding brand image through integration in overall marketing programmes (Keller, 2003). It makes sense to develop an analytical research approach that compares online brand reputation (OBR) with brand association matching as a measure of the alignment between brand identity and brand image in hospitality companies. This comparative analysis emerging from brand reputation, brand image and brand identity analysis can reveal divergent situations (i.e., high brand reputation and low brand association matching) and orient brand managers in reviewing online brand communication. Brand reputation and brand image analysis will be contextualized in an online community as a social setting that is considered to be a new type of market (Muniz & O'Guinn, 2001). We focus on hospitality online communities populated by consumers and other actors such as influencers and bloggers: their brand perception could be separately compared with brand identity that we will extract from company communications including presentational information and brand-related press releases found on websites, nonfinancial narrative from annual reports, and interviews with managers published in mainstream media sources. In our analysis we will focalize on a cluster of luxury hospitality companies integrating a netnographic and text-mining techniques. We will use both the techniques in order to (1) extract and study brand associations in terms of brand reputation, brand image, and brand identity; (2) develop indicators of brand reputation and brand association matching; and (3) discuss their utility in the management of the hospitality company brands.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) continues to evolve as a theoretical concept that increasingly integrates social aspects such as diversity, equity, and social justice (DEI). The study reported in this chapter tests the effects of inclusion as a CSR strategy on key characteristics that develop brand connection with female millennial consumers. Using the Self-Brand Connection theory, we test such components of brand connection as values, identity, and perceived connection. Using an example of a cosmetic brand that chooses to either offer an inclusive or noninclusive lineup of skin care products, the study uses an experimental design to present these two scenarios to two independent samples of female millennials. Results suggest support for the importance of inclusion as the respondents exposed to the inclusive scenario had a more positive attitude toward the brand in all components of brand connection versus respondents exposed to a noninclusive scenario. The difference between the groups was statistically significant in every case. We conclude that inclusion as a component of CSR has a significant impact on female millennials' self-brand connection. As a result, corporations should consider CSR effects in terms of inclusion when developing their branding strategies.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Federal Trade Commission v. Actavis, Inc. is a challenge to conventional antitrust analysis. Conventional civil antitrust cases are decided by a preponderance of the evidence. This means that conduct challenged under the rule of reason is only condemned if the conduct resulted in more competitive harm in the actual world than a world without the alleged violation. Under conventional analysis, the intent of the parties also plays only a supporting role in determining whether the conduct was anticompetitive. A holder of a valid patent has a right to exclude others practicing the patented technology. And, the patent holder is not assumed to have market power because it expended resources in maintaining exclusionary rights. Actavis creates doubts about these propositions in circumstances beyond the “reverse” payment settlement of a patent suit that may have delayed an alleged infringer market entry. This chapter explores whether applying Actavis logic to antitrust litigation can result in condemnation of practices where there is little chance of an anticompetitive effect, where the patent holder likely has a valid and infringed patent, where there is little reason to believe that the patent holder has market power, and where only one party, or no parties, to an agreement have an anticompetitive intent. This chapter also investigates whether Actavis creates new problems with standing analysis, damages calculations, and the balancing of efficiencies against anticompetitive effects. Nevertheless, the lower courts have begun to extend the logic of Actavis. This is apparent in the condemnation of no-Authorized-generic settlements.

Corporate branding has broadened its reach to include delivering the brand's promise to the full range of organizational stakeholders both inside and outside the firm. In turn, new approaches to corporate social responsibility (CSR), involving employee, community, and stakeholder engagement, dovetail neatly with this idea of enterprise branding. This chapter will look, first, at the connections between corporate branding and CSR, and then at how design thinking and processes can be applied to join the two. Next it examines, from our firsthand experience, how several global companies linked the two to (1) rebrand their relationship to society or (2) repurpose their CSR efforts. All the firms have taken what seem to be serious brand-driven moves to create sustainable value for their businesses and society. The chapter concludes with a look at how corporate branding and CSR can be applied to organization design, product innovation, and the transformation of an organization.

In our present economy, producers by definition seek to maximise profit through minimising cost. If there is no explicit societal or regulatorily mandated value in ensuring that environmental and social welfare costs are evaluated and included in business-as-usual functioning, these attributes may be omitted and are typically referenced as ‘externalities’ or market failures. At the consumer level with an increased understanding of the impact of externalities on human and environmental welfare, there is an interest in both operational transparency in the production of goods and services and in evaluating the resource and justice footprint of consumption choices. As a result, companies that are publicly pursuing operationalised sustainability across all their functions have an opportunity to establish a brand premium; however, the marketing of sustainability may differ from the implementation of sustainability highlighting that a degree of transparency is required to provide credibility. This chapter analyses an emerging marketing channel, ‘social marketing’. Social marketing is a strategy that promotes the perception of an alignment between individual values and business objectives by encouraging positive behaviours, like caring for the environment. This chapter provides a case study of Levi Strauss and reviews portions of the company's sustainability marketing program to address how marketing is being used to engage, educate and empower customers, while simultaneously establishing a sustainability brand identity for the company.