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This paper aims to contribute to the development of a film brand theory and in doing so, illustrate the utility of a socio‐cultural approach to branding. The purpose is to develop the conceptual framework within which the film brandscape may be considered. An illustrative case study of the James Bond franchise is provided so that the potential application of the framework can be clearly understood.

The paper approaches the topic from a socio‐cultural perspective in order to take particular account of the symbolic nature of film offerings. It combines insights from contemporary production and consumption practices in the film industry with theoretical perspectives from marketing, branding, consumer, cultural and film studies. Although a conceptual paper, it incorporates an illustrative case, the James Bond franchise, in order to support the proposed brandscape.

Films are marked with signs of ownership and may carry other cues which function as risk‐reducing shorthand devices. Consumers look to brand characteristics as communicated through brand cues. Particular brandscapes can be viewed as loosely bounded sites within which meaning is derived from making sense of the various, interrelated brands within this brandscape. Such meaning is dependent on cultural cues which evolve over time.

This paper presents a theory of film branding which is primarily applicable to mainstream commercial films. The implications for marketing and branding scholars are highlighting the need to view brands within their wider brandscapes in order to understand how consumers understand brands in relation to one another. There is also a need to move beyond dominant relational modes of thinking about brands and consumers to consider the temporal nature of brand meanings.

The paper offers a theoretical approach enabling scholars in a range of disciplines to engage in cross‐disciplinary dialogue about film brands, thus facilitating debate and opening up new lines of research inquiry. The case study included is merely illustrative and further empirical studies are needed to test and develop the brandscape.

The paper develops the cultural approach to branding through introducing the idea of the granularity of the brandscape: particular brandscapes can be viewed as loosely bounded sites within which meaning is derived from making sense of the various, interrelated brands within this brandscape. Such meaning is dependent on cultural cues which evolve over time. Managerial decision making can be understood through considering the various cast and crew decisions, genre and positioning. Through understanding the granularity of the brandscape, marketing and branding practitioners can have a greater understanding of consumer sensemaking which can be used in strategic decision making.

This paper aims to use embodied theory to analyze consumer experience in a retail brandscape, Hollister Co. By taking a holistic, embodied approach, this study reveals how individual consumers interact with such retail environments in corporeal, instinctive and sensual ways.

The primary source of data was 97 subjective personal introspective accounts undertaken with the target age group for the store. These were supplemented with in-depth interviews with consumers, managers and employees of Hollister.

The authors offer a conceptualization of consumers’ embodied experience, which they term The Immersive Somascape Experience. This identifies four key touch points that evoke the Hollister store experience – each of which reveals how the body is affected by particular relational and material specificities. These are sensory activation, brand materialities, corporeal relationality and (dis)orientation. These may lead to consumer emplacement.

The authors propose that taking an “intelligible embodiment” approach to consumer experiences in retail contexts provides a deeper, more holistic understanding of the embodied processes involved. They also suggest that more anthropological, body-grounded studies are needed for the unique insights they provide. Finally, they note that there is growing consumer demand for experiences, which, they argue, points to the need for more research from an embodied experience perspective in our field.

The study reveals the perils and pitfalls of adopting a sensory marketing perspective. It also offers insights into how the body leads in retail brandscapes, addressing a lack in such approaches in the current retailing literature and suggesting that embodied, experiential aspects of branding are increasingly pertinent in retailing in light of the continued growth of on-line shopping.

Overall, the study shows how an embodied approach challenges the dominance of mind and representation over body and materiality, suggesting an “intelligible embodiment” lens offers unique insights into consumers’ embodied experiences in retail environments.

Since the late 1980s, brands have gained centre stage in marketing and in the managerial discourse. From having been a mere marker that identifies the producer or the origin of a product, the brand is today increasingly becoming the product that is consumed. For the corporation, the brand is conceptualised as the essence of the firm, its most crucial “asset”. In the literature, branding is described as a process of expressing core values through the use of persuasive stories. By questioning the conception of brands as corporately managed stories, the article aims to re‐conceptualise branding as a process of aesthetic expression, where the conventional distinctions between senders and receivers become blurred. The paper looks into how brands have become depicted in the branding literature, and thereafter discusses the narrative and pictorial modes of communication. On the basis of this, the article finally discusses how images are used and reused in the joint construction of brands, thus challenging the idea of brands as stories crafted and controlled by the corporation.

This paper aims to investigate the role of store brands as a time- and money-saving heuristic in the context of an omnipresent store brand hierarchy. Drawing on the work of Tversky and Kahneman (1982), it proposes that the store brand hierarchy is characterised by many of the traits of frequently used heuristics employed by grocery shoppers.

Based on Chaiken’s (1980) model of information processing and Stigler’s (1961) perspective on the economics of information search, the study deductively establishes a model of store brand proneness to reveal the role of store brands as time- and money-saving heuristic. The model is tested on a sample of 535 US households using structural equation modelling and subsequent multigroup analysis based on two subsamples of households experiencing high financial pressure but who differ in terms of time pressure.

The findings provide strong support for store brands as a time- and money-saving heuristic and as a substitute for price search among households experiencing financial and time pressures.

The main limitation is that the study is based on a sample of households located in one region of the US market.

Retailers need to be aware that any extension of the store brand portfolio beyond the traditional multi-tiered price/quality hierarchy risks undermining what has emerged to be a valuable heuristic used by certain shoppers.

This study extends our understanding of the role of store brands in the marketplace by going beyond their conceptualisation as a competitive device used by retailers to instead position them as a decision-making tool used by consumers. It also deepens our understanding of the boundary between rational search activities and the transition to the use of frequently flawed heuristics within the shopping process.

The purpose of this paper is to present a response to papers written by Professors Samiee, Belk and Özsomer as commentary pieces on my original paper, “The uncertain future of globalization: implications for global consumer culture and global brands.”

The paper is in the form of an essay.

The commentaries highlight many areas of agreement with the overall thrust of the original paper, and also pinpoint novel and important additional avenues for reflection and research.

The paper builds on the commentaries, identifying additional ways forward for the field.

The brand management literature argues that the standardization of branding strategy across global markets leads to consistent and well‐defined brand meaning. The paper aims to challenge this thesis by empirically examining whether and how global brands travel with consumers. The paper studies how consumers create brand meanings at home and abroad as well as the impact of context (e.g. place) on the meaning of global brands for the same consumers.

The paper takes a qualitative approach to examine brand meanings for two prototypical global brands, McDonald's and Starbucks, at home and abroad. Data were collected through photo‐elicited interviews, personal diaries, and essays with 29 middle‐class American consumers before, during, and after a short‐term trip to China. Interviews lasted from 30 to 90 minutes and the data were analyzed using a hermeneutic approach.

Taking a cultural branding approach, the paper demonstrates that despite perceived standardized global brand platforms, consumers develop divergent brand meanings abroad. While at home, global brands have come to symbolize corporate excess, predatory intentions, and cultural homogenizations; abroad they evoke meanings of comfort, predictability, safety, and national pride. In foreign contexts, global brands become dwelling resources that enable travelers to sustain daily consumption rituals, evoke sensory experiences of home, as well as provide a comfortable and welcoming space.

The paper challenges the brand management literature assumption of a consistent brand image for standardized global brands. It shows that the cultural context (e.g. place) impacts consumer‐derived brand meanings even among the same group of consumers. Further, it argues that standardization offered by global brands provides an important symbolic value to mobile consumers of serving as an anchor to the home left behind.

The purpose of this paper is to add to the growing literature addressing whether, and to what extent, brand meaning is determined by corporate and consumer-generated processes. To do this, the authors compared the expression of brand meaning across three key sources i.e. first, brand strategy (i.e. traditional marketing mix); second, corporate-generated media (i.e. web site); and third, consumer-generated media (Facebook).

To address the research question of this study, the authors conducted an in-depth investigation into consumer co-creation experiences in the context of Facebook brand communities. The authors then interpreted the findings in relation to the brand strategy (i.e. marketing mix) and brand meaning expressed via corporate-generated online media (i.e. corporate web site). The authors achieved this by applying a narrative discourse analysis to textual data. To effectively handle the high quantity of textual data spawned via consumer-generated media (i.e. Facebook), the authors used a computer-assisted content analysis application (i.e. Leximancer).

In the analyses the authors found that brand expressions varied considerably across the chosen retail brands, but in all cases strong integration and alignment were present between the corporate and consumer-generated media. Specifically, the authors found that Facebook interactions echoed the brand meanings espoused on the corporate web sites. The findings indicate that online marketers can define the nature of brand co-creation, especially in the context of Facebook interactions.

For marketers who are eager to take advantage of Web 2.0 to build their brand, the findings of this research are highly significant. The authors showed that the brands developed their own interaction profiles, which allowed them to align the Facebook content with their core brand values. The results indicate that sound brand governance is articulated through the effective management of social media touchpoints by providing interactive, content rich, and relevant Facebook sites that echo core brand values.

Even though businesses have now started to penetrate the online social networks and offer direct links from corporate web sites to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, little is known regarding the relationship between social media and traditional media in brand building. This research addresses this gap by undertaking an exploratory study of Facebook brand communities with implications for brand co-creation and brand governance.

Starting from these premises, the aim of the paper is illustrating the role of experience in urban regeneration projects and to explore how the experience of high quality product luxury places can be sustainable with existent place identity or new place identity to be suitably created.

The experience of a place may become an integral part of a product experience. The enhancement of products (Splendiani, 2013): assumes a meaning which goes beyond the simple sale of material goods. It covers the supply of complex experiences … enriched by intangible elements capable to stimulate and involve the sensory and experiential component of consumption. It deals with attracting people to the places where local products are made by inserting the products in the most extensive offers covering the entire territorial system of reference The experience may also be used for the spectacolarisation of a place and its commercialisation, as in the case of “brandscapes” (Klingman, 2007). In this case, it is important not to clone every place everywhere because they could inevitably resemble each other without be able to really engage the people who move into them (Lehtovuori, 2010). The methodology approach is based on a wide bibliography and internet research based on the main terms connected to the topics of the paper, including experience, place identity, quality product, regeneration; on case studies – even though not illustrated – concerning places of interest for the research topics, such as: Hafencity in Hamburg, the Albert Dock in Liverpool, Abondaibarra area in Bilbao.

The planning of places of quality product cannot be separated from interpretation of the territory as a cultural system resulting from an ensemble of historical, economic and social processes. In such a system, the contribution of the cultural factor must be considered propulsive, not only for its qualitative meaning but also, and especially, for the role of “trait d’union” of a number of actions taken to protect and enhance places.

The increasing importance of the use of experience in the urban regeneration process is leading cities to be involved in constructing suitable images and symbols of their transformed areas to meet the new trends, also according with luxurious ones. Even though globalisation is one of the main dangers in innovative itineraries, the proper planning of quality architecture and public spaces could prevent it by creating a suitable mix between innovation and culture.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the planned urban renewal and re-scripting of Riyadh’s downtown as part of the capital’s aim to become a globally recognized city. Specifically, this paper examines in how far internationally established values and narratives are leveraged in the creation of an urban mega-destination that seeks to attract a transnational class of knowledge workers and tourists. The question is explored, in how far and to what extent urban heritage sites and iconic architectural projects are used as strategic tools to promote a process of cultural and economic transformation and in how far the resulting symbolic capital is leveraged to create a status of singularization that appeals to a national and international audience. This study investigates several neighborhoods in the area, analyzing how these will be transformed by Riyadh’s plan to turn the downtown into a commercially viable mixed-use destination by means of designated heritage destinations and iconic architecture.

This paper examines the views and experiences of governmental agencies, architects, developers and residents who are directly or indirectly involved with the planned restructuring of Riyadh’s historical downtown. In total, 40 semi-structured interviews were drawn from this stakeholder group to investigate their current understanding of the downtown associated with the effort to convert Riyadh’s historical downtown into a profitable urban destination. Five of these interviews were conducted with involved planning offices, and 35 with current residents in the area. In addition, a detailed site survey was conducted through a series of maps to reveal existing land uses, building typologies, states of disrepair, activity levels, pedestrian and car circulation patterns, as well as landmarks, and public spaces in each of the areas.

The subsequent data show that despite many positive outcomes in terms of commercial redevelopment, the adaptive reuse of the existing urban fabric is not considered, nor the preservation of underutilized or abandoned buildings along with its resident diverse communities, activities and milieus, many of which carry on evolving traditions.

This is significant because this paper presents a massive case study that ties into a larger debate on cultural globalization where similar practices around the world entail a spatial reorientation of urban districts to attract a transnational cosmopolitan middle class along with a simultaneous displacement of diverse and migrant communities, albeit on a much larger scale. While highlighting the rationale and effectiveness of this approach to create a well-packaged commodity, this paper also underscores the ambiguous consequences of this strategy, which entails the loss of a layered urban fabric that documents the city’s evolution through different economic periods, along with the dispersal of migrant communities and their vernacular practices.

Within this context, the current cultural value of the downtown as a heterogeneous, dynamic and multilayered fabric is debated, which documents the socio-economic conditions of the times in which these layers were formed. Departing from the UNESCO’s 2011 Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape and globally accepted sustainability standards, this study contrasts the proposed top-down tabula rasa approach proposed by the local authorities with an inclusive bottom-up approach, which would focus on the adaptive reuse of existing structures by taking into consideration the social meanings of belonging that heritage has for contemporary communities while fostering a more inclusive understanding of heritage as an ongoing cultural process.

The implications of the planned conversion of Riyadh’s historical downtown into an urban destination have not been previously explored and as a result, there is a conflict of interest between the creation of a marketable image, the preservation of heritage values, sustainable urban practices, social inclusion and Riyadh’s aim to become a globally recognized city.

This paper explores the employment of urban renewal and city branding within the context of Riyadh’s aim to become a world city. Within this framework, the paper examines the capital’s plan to convert the historic downtown into a mega-destination for the country’s middle class and national and international tourists.

The purpose of this study is to present a theoretical framework to demythologize Asian consumers' cultural and ideological narratives in relation to the newly emerging popular culture developed in Korea, widely known as “Korean wave.” In addition, methodological considerations for the understudied consumption phenomenon are also discussed.

From the extant literature on popular culture and globalization, a theoretical overview of Korean popular culture (KPC) is provided. Subsequently, a condensed presentation of netnography employing critical discourse analysis (CDA) is provided.

A netnography fused with CDA suggests a reflexive process in which a range of sociocultural tensions in the globalization process of KPC dynamically hybridize and transform into new cultural tastes in respective cultures.

Cultural branding can be revisited, as the new discourse generated in Asia envisions new entries into the global brandscape. Moreover, this endeavor helps explicate how a globalized trend is replaced with another through a paradoxical discursive process.

As this article discusses popular culture as a product to be consumed just as are other tangible products, it assists researchers in visualizing and theorizing about the globalization process of incorporeal, cultural products. The application of discursively enriched netnography facilitates pertinent analysis and ultimately theory‐building.