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The purpose of this paper is to explore the brand selfie phenomenon on two different levels. On the level of consumer brand experiences, the focus is on how brand selfie practices add new features to brand experiences and consumer–brand relationships. On the level of marketplace brand image, the authors explore how consumers contribute to marketplace conversations by posting brand selfies in social media and how this practice shapes and changes brand image.

The researchers conducted an extensive search on different social media platforms to collect various types of brand selfies. The authors approach brand selfies as rich visual texts and their analysis comprises four key steps: descriptive analysis, response analysis, formal analysis and polytextual thematic analysis.

On the level of consumer brand experiences, the findings illuminate how different types of brand selfies extend the brand experience in space and time and transfer it into the hybrid space of the consumer-defined social networks. On the level of marketplace brand image, it is illustrated how brand selfies contribute to the process of co-creating brand meaning in the social media.

The study proposes a typology of brand selfie assemblages showing how consumers contribute to the visual production and consumption of brand meanings. The brand selfie is a unique material and expressive reality enabling us to theorise new perspectives on how consumers consume brands and how aggregates of brand selfie production and dissemination affect marketplace dynamics.

This paper explores the peculiarities of sustainable crowdfunding from the project perspective. The research question is: what are the distinctive features of sustainable crowdfunding, in terms of crowdfunding motivation, platform choice, crowdfunding costs and relationships with backers?

The current study follows a qualitative approach, through conducting in-depth interviews with representatives of sustainable projects, which have had successful crowdfunding campaigns. The selected projects represent various industries and crowdfunding models.

Sustainable entrepreneurs have both financial and non-financial motivations for crowdfunding. A distinctive feature is the importance of community engagement, since the community spirit of crowdfunding is well suited to sustainable projects. The choice of the crowdfunding platform is more complex for sustainable entrepreneurs, as they need to consider the platform's sustainability. Sustainable entrepreneurs also have to put more effort into their communication activities with potential backers, to compensate for the intangibility of sustainability claims. Moreover, they need to have a greater focus on building relationships with backers due to both the community spirit of their projects and legitimacy issues.

The current paper contributes to the limited literature on sustainable crowdfunding and the literature on funding of sustainable businesses and can act as a foundation for further research in this field. Current findings also have high practical value. Crowdfunding platforms may use the insights provided here to better meet the needs of sustainable entrepreneurs, while sustainable entrepreneurs can better understand what they need to pay attention to in their crowdfunding campaigns.

The purpose of this research paper is to uncover the relations between brand and human personality by identifying brand preferences of consumers with different personality types.

Based on the existing literature, 15 propositions are suggested linking Ekelund's DI types as parsimonious proxies of human personality and brand personality dimensions as suggested by Aaker. Propositions were tested through statistical analysis of survey data collected in two stages.

It was found that consumers prefer brands with personalities that match their own. For example, consumers with Blue DI type exhibit clear aversion from the excitement dimension of brand personality, whereas consumers with Red DI type exhibit clear preference for the sincerity dimension of brand personality. No clear findings emerged concerning the Green DI type, mostly likely linked to the individualistic, non‐conformist and innovative orientations of such individuals. In addition data revealed a possible hierarchy of brand personality dimensions' influence.

Findings provide guidelines for better tailoring of promotional materials based on target customer groups, as well as the ability to evaluate underperforming brands in terms of a brand‐human personality mismatch.

The paper fills a gap in the literature about the congruence between brand and human personalities, and demonstrates how brand personality dimensions impacts brand preference among different consumer types.

This paper seeks to examine the significance of various aspects of consumers' perception of a collective label as predictors for consumers' intention to buy the labelled item and willingness to pay for the label.

The online survey was organised based on random sampling from a panel consisting of 46,000 people who had previously agreed to serve as online consumer panellists for a large market research firm. A total of 2,844 invitations were sent out and 684 panellists answered the invitation. The final sample consisted of 522 subjects.

The authors have developed and tested a model looking at the significance of various aspects of consumers' perception of a collective label as predictors for consumers' purchase intentions and willingness to pay for the labelled commodity.

By defining which factors influence consumers' purchase intentions and willingness to pay for the labelled product the paper suggests what managers should pay attention to when they introduce a new label for a commodity.

The current article contributes to the literature in three ways. First, the paper replicates the results of the previous studies on branding and extends the literature through introducing a new model defining consumers' purchase intentions and willingness to pay. Second, the paper develops and tests a model that can be applied to collective labels. Third, the paper introduces a new label specific variable – importance of the label.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the relative importance of four main attributes of food products for consumer’s choice. These are price, taste, environmental friendliness and healthfulness, tested across hedonic and utilitarian food products (milk and ice-cream). The weighting of attributes involved in food choices is a complex phenomenon, as consumers must consider contradictory requirements when making their choices. Consumers’ decision-making processes might also be influenced by food category. Some food products are mostly consumed for pleasure, whereas others are consumed because of their nutritional value.

The study employs a choice-based conjoint technique, which addresses how consumers make trade-offs across a set of product attributes.

The results indicate that price and taste attributes are rated as the most important for both hedonic and utilitarian food products. However, when the authors group consumers according to their product preferences, the relative importance of product attributes changes. Specifically, the importance of environmental friendliness and healthfulness is much higher among the health-conscious and environmentally conscious segments than for other segments.

To the knowledge, this is the first study comparing the importance of this combination of product attributes (price, taste, calorie content and eco-label) across hedonic and utilitarian foods in a choice-based conjoint setting. Moreover, a new way of grouping consumers according to their ethical-value profiles enables the authors to create a psychographic description of these segments, and to relate it to their food attribute preferences.

The purpose of this paper is to serve as an introduction to the usefulness of means‐end chain (MEC) theory and analysis for branding in health tourism.

An online survey was conducted within the transnational EU‐project Alpshealthcomp and with two of the largest public health insurances in Germany. Research design is based on hard laddering according to Walker and Olson. MEC items were derived from Rokeach and from Hiesel and from results of a consumer survey (n=1.607) for Alpine health and wellness tourism.

Several research questions are proposed regarding consumer association structures for health tourism using principal component analysis, cluster analysis and t‐test contrast of hypothesis. Personal values have proven to be most valuable for establishing brand associations. Here an identifiable and describable common structure exists for Alpine health tourism. With increasing product experience, consumers concentrate on viewer values closely linked to their personality. If product experience is low, consumers depend on a multitude of values.

The proportion of female participants in the sample is very high. A more balanced sample and analysis for gender differences could be valuable. Also it should be tried to replicate findings for other types of intangible services.

The identified value structure can be addressed in brand communication and could complement the concept of brand personality. When shifting emphasis in staging and communicating values according to product experience, tourism managers can establish a stable and strong brand. Behavioral branding can be a useful tool in this context.

Branding started to expand into the tourism industry only recently. Specific research work on branding in health tourism is scarce. To the best of the authors' knowledge, there exists no article in which MEC analysis was applied in order to analyze possible carrier of brand associations in health tourism. This work aims to bridge the gap.

The purpose of this study is to bring theories of branding and relationship marketing together under the lens of the brand manager and reseller relationship for integrating into a single paradigm. The conceptualization bridges a gap in theory and practice by explaining how a brand can be managed by brand managers building empathetic relationships with resellers and understanding their requirements.

It draws upon qualitative methodology and data collected from 12 business-to-business resellers for brands and 8 brand managers working for international brands in India.

Brand personified and represented in research questions investigated showed the enablement aspects of brand representatives in competitive reseller networks.

The findings of this study will be very useful for brand managers aiming to penetrate markets through individuals who could represent their brands to resellers.

This study will help brand managers to create a stronger brand-reseller relationship marketing strategy by incorporating the emotional aspect of personification to benefit a socially driven relationship.

This study offers new insights into the temporal aspects of branding for business-to-business markets.