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Branding has arguably been the most crucial marketing pillar in the twentieth century. It was effective because of existing consumer behavior, which was constrained by the availability of information and customers’ ability to process it, resulting in a reliance on brands. This paper aims to examine the role of branding (and brand loyalty) in the past and how it has been disrupted recently, and makes recommendations for practicing managers to modify how they manage brands proactively.

This work is based on a review of the latest developments in the theory and practice of branding.

Today, ready access to smartphones ensures the availability of information tailored to customer needs, directing them in making choices. Improvements in the quality of artificial intelligence (AI)-driven algorithms further simplify customer purchase decisions and reduce search costs – a blow to branding. The data, which forms the foundation for information sought by customers and AI algorithms, continues to increase as more buyers leave their digital footprints, resulting in a virtuous self-precipitating cycle of better decision-making for customers and compromising the influence of brands.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to focus on the implications of changes in the marketplace driven by smartphones and AI on the future of branding.

Brand storytelling has been found to be an effective marketing tool. Unlike a brand story that originates from a firm, consumers’ brand storytelling is created, developed and shared by consumers. This research aims to examine whether consumers’ brand storytelling leads to increased favorable brand evaluations and compares its effects on consumer cognition and emotions, to a brand story generated by a firm.

Three experiments were conducted to test the hypotheses. In Study 1, a 2 (story: consumers’ brand storytelling vs brand story by a firm) × 2 (product: coffee shop vs airline mileage programs) between-subjects design was used. Studies 2 and 3 replicated Study 1 and investigated different measurements of the constructs using different brands. Additionally, a mediation analysis was conducted.

The results show that consumers’ brand storytelling increases favorable brand attitudes. Consumers present deeper cognitive processing and higher experienced positive emotions when they read consumer brand storytelling as compared to a firm-created brand story, leading to a more favorable brand attitude.

There is a lack of empirical research investigating how consumers’ brand storytelling is different from brand stories created by firms, and how consumers’ brand storytelling influences brand attitudes. This study extends the literature by clarifying how consumers respond to consumers’ brand storytelling and evaluates brands by exploring the underlying mechanism for the effect of brand storytelling via consumers’ cognitions and emotions.