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The purpose of this article is to investigate the state of research on multinationals and emerging markets. For this we look at existing literature from the disparate fields in which multinationals and emerging markets have been explored in the last forty years (1968‐2008). The paper finds that there is a plethora of material on multinationals and emerging markets and our bibliographical search resulted in 1,282 articles with 2,174 authors published in 514 journals. The three dominant disciplines and their underlying journals are management, business and economics accounting together about seventy percent of all publications. In the case of the management and business journals, the top ten percent account for fourty‐three percent of all publications and fifty percent of all citations. The most productive and influential journals are JIBS and HBR.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a discussion, testing and comparing two different relationship theories and their underlying scales as applied to brand love. Current brand love studies neglect a detailed discussion and analysis of the appropriate relationship theory and underlying measurement scale to be used.

We use a 2 × 2 experimental design where we compare two relationship theories (interpersonal versus parasocial) across two samples (USA and Japan). Model testing were conducted using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and multi-group structural equation modeling techniques assessing the type of relationship consumers have with loved brands.

Our results show conceptualizing and measuring “brand love” as a parasocial relationship, as compared to interpersonal relationship, leads overall to equal and, in some instances, better results. For both samples, we get stronger relationships between brand love and purchase intention, as well as for brand love and positive word of mouth (WOM). We also get higher explanation power for dependent variables purchase indentation and WOM.

This paper compares different relationship theories and underlying measurement scales and proposes an alternative relationship theory to conceptualize and measure brand love relationships. With the parasocial interaction scale, we provide researchers and practitioners an alternative and very suitable instrument to measure brand love relationships.

This paper aims to examine how scholarly research on corporate branding has evolved using bibliometric author co‐citation analysis of articles published between 1969 and 2008 on corporate branding.

The bibliography was compiled using the ISI Web of Science database. The authors searched articles published between 1969 and 2008 that used terms in their title related to their research scope. Then they used citation mapping to visualize the relationships between and among key works in the field.

The search resulted in 264 papers by 412 authors in 150 journals. The field is notably interdisciplinary, with articles published mainly in business, management, architecture, arts and communications disciplines. The authors found three main approaches to corporate branding research (internal, transactional, external) with seven core research streams: product, service and sponsorship evaluation; corporate and visual identity; employment image and application; corporate crime; financial performance; brand extension; and corporate image. They also identified emerging fields such as corporate branding combined with corporate social responsibility.

This research is limited by the database and the terms used for the search. Self‐citations were also included. The authors used citation mapping and content analysis to identify core research streams.

The article is singular in using bibliometrics by means of author co‐citation analyses to identify, analyze and visualize key articles about corporate branding in the last 40 years. The results demonstrate the impact of selected institutions, journals, and key articles and authors on the research field.

The purpose of this paper was to conduct an experimental design of Americans’ preferences for the English version of Chinese brand names by drawing from prior research in psychology, linguistics and marketing. The impact of string length and semantic relevance to English on meaningfulness, memorability and likeability of brand names from Chinese companies was assessed.

A 2 × 2 experimental design was used, whereby brand names are categorized by string length (short vs long) and semantic relevance to English (with vs without). Respondents’ perception of the Chinese language in terms of pronounceability, language familiarity and language attitude is used as covariate.

Results reveal shorter brand names, and those with semantic relevance to English are perceived as more memorable. It was also found that pronounceability of the brand name does influence brand name preference in terms of their meaningfulness, memorability and likeability.

This exploratory paper is limited to Americans’ perceptions of the English version of Chinese automobile brand names.

Chinese companies should therefore carefully consider the brand name characteristics in terms of string length and semantic relevance, as well as their ease of pronunciation when choosing and introducing their brand name in the USA.

This is the first paper which assesses Western consumers’ perception of brand names from Chinese automobile companies in terms of their brand meaningfulness, brand memorability and brand likeability.

The purpose of this paper is to measure and analyze industry export competitiveness of India and it tries to achieve this by presenting a multi‐dimensional framework for measuring and illustrating industry export competitiveness.

The framework considers industry specialization, industry export growth rate, and relative export market share for a dataset of 97 different Indian industries over a five year period (2001‐2005).

The analyses identifies four different types of industry groups, namely domestic static, domestic dynamic, global dynamic and global static. The result shows that the majority of Indian industries are dynamic and growing faster than the world export growth rate for the period of study. A total of 40 percent of India's industries are more global, in terms of industry specialization, compared to the world average, with such highly specialized industries as silk, gums, carpets and textiles, floor coverings, pearls, precious stones and metals. The authors show that industry specialization leads to dominance in worldwide export market share. India's global dynamic industries are mainly in the raw materials, commodities and skilled manual labor rather than high tech or manufacturing sectors.

The framework allows us to measure and illustrate industry export competitiveness and permits an intra‐country comparison, a comparison of various industries of one country, or permits an inter‐country comparison, a comparison of one industry across different countries.

The framework should help policymakers, government officials, industry associations, and company executives to assess their export competitiveness and focus on protecting or promoting certain industries by directing scarce resources to sectors where they may count the most. The findings of the study can also be useful for international bodies such as UNCTAD and world‐bank in identifying regional industry that can foster growth of trade and economies in the South‐Asian region.

The framework used is conceptually innovative and applicable to a variety of contexts for modeling industry export competitiveness. The framework also facilitates inter‐ and intra‐country export benchmark analyses.

This paper aims to investigate visual exaggerations of fragrance advertisements by comparing subjects' expectations resulting from print ads to their subsequent product evaluations. It then considers whether the actual scents fall short, meet or exceed these expectations.

By means of a semiotic analysis the authors capture the corresponding literary attributes of the ads to develop adjective pairs describing the meaning of the ads. Interviews are conducted to assess the meaning that consumers draw from the fragrance ads and the authors supplement these findings by performing a blind olfactory product evaluation of the fragrances. Paired sample t‐tests are used to compare subjects' ad expectations to their subsequent product evaluation of the actual scent.

These results show that the visual cues and imagery in the fragrance ads appear, under certain conditions, to result in product expectations that exceed actual product evaluations, suggesting the existence of visual puffery. The authors also found that the more abstract descriptors of the ad resulted in significantly higher expectations, while the more concrete descriptors resulted in significantly lower expectations than the actual product evaluation.

A small sample size of homogenous consumers limits the generalizability of the results. No measures of attitude effectiveness were taken.

Visual puffery may be effective and help marketers, even in countries where verbal puffery is illegal, to use another means to reach consumers.

This paper investigates an under‐researched area in advertising. A multi‐method approach and primary data are used to assess subjects' ad expectations of a fragrance and the actual product evaluation and demonstrate the existence of visual puffery.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of product category on consumer brand relationships.

Based on a total of 800 consumers, respondents evaluated their relationship with their favorite brand in one of the four product categories studied (soft drink, mobile phone, shoes, cars). EFA, subsequent CFA, SEM and ANOVA were used to assess these relationships and the product category effect.

The authors find that brand love positively influences brand loyalty and both, influence positively WOM and purchase intention. Looking at the directionality of these relationships, the results show no product category differences. However, the authors found significant differences in terms of their intensity and their effect on the explanation power of the brand outcome variables WOM and purchase intention.

The survey was conducted in Brazil and future research should assess the same product categories in other cultural settings as well as consider other product categories to assess the external validity of these results.

This paper demonstrates that consumer brand relationships are not product category specific. However, certain product categories tend to have more intense relationships than other product categories.

Despite the importance of the product category effect in the branding literature, this study shows that consumer brand relationship theory can be applied to different product categories. This suggests, the product category is less important in the study design than the unit of analysis which requires to be consumer's favorite brands.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the opportunity of utilizing Tang dynasty history, heritage, buildings and names in the effort to place brand the contemporary city Xi'an.

The paper presents a conceptual framework for place branding cities consisting of two main dimensions. The first describes the continuum of functional versus emotional values within a city; the second measures the degree to which the image of a place is historical or contemporary. The paper then employs historical analysis to examine the meaning and construction of a Tang dynasty brand for place branding twenty‐first century Xi'an.

While Xi'an may possess an illustrious historical identity, the contemporary city is still searching for an image. Xi'an's glorious heritage attracts considerable tourism, but has not yet drawn substantial business, foreign direct investment or talents to contribute to and support economic development of the metropolitan region.

Historical analysis of a city can allow a reconstruction of identity in the modern context. Since this is a case study of one key Chinese city, additional cases are needed for other historically important cities to see their influence on business and marketing development.

Cities that are attempting to grow should consider their historical legacy. Building on images of the past, they can leapfrog development and establish a brand identity. Modernization was often thought of as a practical developmental tool. Building on the history of a region, modernization can take unique characteristics and differentiated developmental patterns.

Few, if any, studies examined the historical antecedents of a remaking and a re‐branding of a city. Destination marketing is an emerging area of research. Xi'an was a great, pivotal city in the past. This paper explores how one region built on the greatness of the past can re‐emerge in modern society.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a new perspective of country of origin effects on consumers' brand personality perceptions of domestic and imported automobiles. It aims to assess the perceived similarities and differences between automobiles from two countries with respect to the country of origin of the brand (COB) and the country of manufacturing (COM) of that same brand.

An experimental design was used to investigate developed country consumers' brand personality perceptions of three cars: a domestic car; a car manufactured in a developing country by a developing country manufacturer; and a car from a developing country manufacturer that is manufactured in the developed country. Data were collected in the USA and therefore a US car was used as the developed country car. China was selected as the developing country of origin. A structured questionnaire was used to collect primary data.

Multivariate analysis of variance indicates that consumers' brand personality perceptions varied according to the country of origin (COB) of the brand and the country of manufacture (COM) of the brand. The COM of a car influenced the perceived brand personality of the car more than the COB. In some respects the Chinese car made in the USA was perceived to have a stronger brand personality than the US car made in China. This suggests that for cars the COM exerts a greater influence on the perceived personality of a brand than the COB.

Future research should take a larger respondent pool, respondents from other countries, other automotive manufacturers as well as assess the impact of COM and COB on purchase intention and behavior.

Manufacturers of cars must understand the effect of COM and COB in order to build, position and protect their brands in international markets.

This paper provides an important contribution to the existing literature and business practice by providing a new perspective on country of origin research by using the multi‐dimensional construct of brand personality and analyzing the relationship between country of origin of a brand and country of manufacturing of that same brand.