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This study aims to investigate how price and other service brand attributes (such as website attractiveness, efficiency, privacy, fulfilment) determine e‐brand promise/reputation and the e‐loyalty of shoppers in an online setting.

Using the convenience sampling method, a survey research was carried out during a two‐day airline exhibition among experienced respondents who had purchased online tickets in the past. To identify what determines online brand reputation and its effect on e‐loyalty, structural equation modelling using the two‐step approach was performed.

Fulfilment and competitive price offers have the most significant impact on e‐loyalty, with a full mediation impact (via online brand reputation), whilst website attractiveness has a partial impact. These simultaneously confirm the role of e‐brand reputation as a mediator construct and its antecedents and its relationship with e‐loyalty.

The mediation impact further increases the strength of brand reputation as a construct when modelling consumer responses in an online setting. In particular, the full indirect impact (price and fulfilment) was able to explain how online brand reputation was formed and brand promise can be achieved.

The practical contribution of the study and its managerial implications can be seen in the context of defining strategy and positioning. By confirming that different brand enactments are found in different settings (for example, price, fulfilment, site's attractiveness), this study offers some insights into a company's site strategic brand positioning and differentiation. For example, appropriate enactments, such as price, fulfilment and the attractiveness of the site, could be addressed when designing and enhancing online brand reputation and e‐loyalty. Sample size limitation and generalisation is limited to within the internet airline setting.

While existing research mainly focuses on the effect of service quality and image attributes of e‐loyalty, the current research focuses on other aspects of brand differentiation – e‐brand reputation and the important influencing elements, such as price and website attractiveness – which hitherto have often been ignored in an online setting. In other words, this study highlights the most important attributes that will help to “meet” the online service brand promise through e‐brand reputation.

Given the importance of performance consistency of chain hotels in customers’ decision-making and service evaluation, this study aims to explore how consistently chain hotel brands offer quality service and carry out their performance from the eyes of customers through online reviews on TripAdvisor of the top five US hotel chains (i.e. Choice, Hilton, InterContinental, Marriott and Wyndham) and their brands.

The research objectives were achieved through methodological triangulation: business intelligence, data visualization analytics and statistical analyses. First, the data collection and pre-processing of consumer-generated media (CGM) (i.e. TripAdvisor online reviews) were performed using business intelligence for further analyses. Using data visualization analytics (i.e. box-and-whisker plot by region and brand), the geographic patterns of performance attributes (i.e. online review ratings, including location, sleep, cleanliness, room and service) were depicted. Using a series of analyses of variance and regression analyses, the results were further assessed for the impacts of brand performance inconsistency on consumers’ perceived value, sentiment and satisfaction.

The empirical results demonstrate that there are significant performance inconsistencies in performance attributes (location, sleep, cleanliness, room and service) by brands throughout the six regions in the US hotel market. More importantly, the findings confirm that brand performance consistency significantly influences consumers’ perceived service quality (i.e. perceived value, satisfaction and sentiment).

This study is one of the first attempts to empirically explore hotel brand performance consistency in the US hotel market from customer reviews on CGM. To measure hotel brand performance in the US hotel market, this study collected and analyzed user-generated big data for the top 5 US hotel chains through business intelligence, visualization analytics and statistical analysis. These integrated and novel research methods would help tourism and hospitality researchers analyze big data in an innovative data analytics approach. The findings of the study contribute to the tourism and hospitality field by confirming hotel brand performance inconsistency and such inconsistent performance affected customers’ service evaluations.

This study demonstrates the significant impact of hotel brand performance consistency on consumers’ perceived value, emotion and satisfaction. Considering that online reviews are perceived as a credible source of information, the findings suggest that the hotel industry pays special attention to brand performance consistency to improve consumers’ perceived value, emotion and satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to examine which brand attributes need to be emphasised/addressed by retailers in order to achieve a positive representation of the corporate brand images in an online setting. Using bookstores as the research context, the research's main aim is to investigate the association between the functional brand evaluation (represented by brand attributes in this study) and emotional brand evaluation (represented by the corporate brand image). Specific research questions are: Are there any associations between the brand attributes and corporate brand image of an online e‐tailer?; What are the most important corporate brand attributes/drivers of online corporate brand image?

Using the brand triangle framework developed by de Chernatony and Christodoulides, the current study investigates the associations between brand attributes and corporate brand image of an online e‐tailer.

The findings show that factors such as ease of use, “personalisation”, security and customer care are significant in determining the corporate brand image of the online e‐tailer.

The practical contribution of the study and its managerial implications are in the provision of strategic directions and positioning the corporate brand in an online context.

It has been suggested by recent branding literatures that both functional and emotional brand characterizations should be adopted in order to better model consumer responses. Ailwadi and Keller pointed out that the priority of research should be to understand how corporate brand image and retailer brand attributes interact. The impact of corporate brands on the internet has been the object of study (e.g. Phillips; Lindstrom). The originality of the work is in linking online brand attributes and online corporate brand images and the role of functional and emotional attributes in brand evaluation in an online context.

The purpose of this paper is to report on exploratory research that aims to contribute to knowledge on online branding, and the way in which the online channel is being used to support brands. The focus of this research is the top multi‐channel UK fashion retailers.

Content analyses were performed on the web sites of a number of top fashion and clothing retailers, plus three supermarket chains with a strong presence in clothes retailing. An analysis of the extent to which the retailers were using their web site to provide online services and information provided a context for a more detailed analysis of online branding strategies, including communicating brand identity and presence, and building brand relationships.

Most top “non‐value” fashion retailers offer transactions through their web site, offering extended opportunities for brand engagement and experience. While all fashion retailers achieve consistency of visual identity between the online and other channels, their use of the online channel to communicate brand values, and to promote brand relationships is underdeveloped. There is evidence of some innovative practice, but also scope for considerable further development of the notion of online branding. Research into online and multi‐channel branding has a role to play in supporting this process.

This study makes an important contribution to the under‐researched area of online branding, through a study of the online branding activities of top multi‐channel UK fashion retailers.

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.

The main aim of the present study is to empirically test a model of antecedents and consequences of corporate brand image (CBI) in two book retailers, one selling exclusively online, and the other selling exclusively offline in a British context.

The study employed a survey to investigate the relationships of the antecedents and consequences of the CBI. The sample (n=511) comprised experienced customers of these two bookstores (visitors and shoppers of the site or bookstore). The antecedents of CBI which were the functional aspects of brand attributes (such as ease of use, secured web site, interactivity/building relationship, customer care and reliability) were combined with the CBI itself (emotional aspects of the corporate brand or personality traits of the company) and, further, the consequences of these emotional aspects such as customer satisfaction and loyalty were tested using a cross‐sectional study.

Using two separate structural equation models, the study found an empirical relationship between the brand attributes and the corporate brand image (the emotional values). This relationship in turn influences the customer's responses (loyalty).

By combining two methodological approaches of brand image evaluation: cognition (assessed through tangible and intangible brand attributes) and affect/emotion (assessed through brand personality scale) this study intends to add to the current understanding of consumer brand knowledge, in particular when the consumer is assessing a company's brand image (the CBI) and also learn how important the effect of cognitive attributes (such as brand attributes of a store and web site) is in explaining the subsequent CBI, and the integration effect on consumer responses such as brand loyalty. Do cognitive evaluations drive conative, behavioural actions in retail buying decision making? Are cognitive evaluations directly related with satisfaction with the retailer and consumer loyalty?

Explicitly, the present study offers practitioners a research framework, aimed at guiding them as to how they could understand their defined or desired brand values (the corporate core values) among their consumers.

In general, the present study adds to the existing literature in cognitive and affective attributes in consumer judgement and corresponding conative or behavioural attitudes in branding and reputation management. It brings together the concept of functional brand attributes, emotional brand attributes (the CBI), and the dependent variables such as customer satisfaction and loyalty in a unique context (internet), and compares this with the bricks and mortar context.

This study aims to assess how department store websites can add online retail brand equity. A quick, relatively easy and low-cost diagnostic tool for stakeholders (e.g. retailers, investors) is presented.

A content analysis of department store websites in the USA and Latin America was conducted.

The findings show that Latin American and US department store websites exhibit acceptable use of online retail brand equity dimensions related to emotional connection and trust. In contrast, compared to their US counterparts, Latin American department store websites show weak usage on some of the dimensions of responsive service nature, online experience and fulfillment. The results also show that higher online retail brand equity is positively associated with average daily time on site. This indicates the usefulness of this index for developing effective websites to creating online retail brand equity.

This study suggests that Latin American department stores should improve three dimensions of online retail brand equity: responsive service nature, online experience and fulfillment. The online retail brand equity index presented can serve as a diagnostic tool for department store managers to monitor the online retail brand equity they are building on their websites. It is also possible to analyze the websites of competing department stores and monitor the long-term impact of modifications made to their websites and those of competitors.

This paper proposes an easy-to-apply index to assess online retail brand equity through website design partially. In addition, this research is the first to evaluate how Latin American department store websites, compared to those in the USA, are building online retail brand equity.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the dialogic communications potential of bank web sites in Ghana.

The authors undertook a qualitative content analysis of bank web sites in Ghana, drawing upon Kent and Taylor's dialogic communications framework.

Banks in Ghana have been fairly successful in creating web sites with high dialogic value, with over half the banks sampled scoring on more than half of all the dialogic principles (dialogic loop, ease of use, usefulness and conservation of visitors). Most banks, however, scored rather poorly on the principle of return visit.

The revelation that the communication content of banks’ web sites in Ghana does not encourage visitors to return poses a serious challenge for banks in their bid to leverage favourable brand dispositions associated with strong customer relationships.

The paper contributes to the scarce literature on dialogic communications potential of bank web sites in an emerging market context.

This chapter describes the main issues in scientific literature related to industrial branding. First, we set the background focusing on industrial branding, followed by brand equity and measurement, and brand orientation in business markets. The second section relies on controversies and problems inherent in the gaps in theory and implementation of branding. The third section proposes several solutions and recommendations for academics and practitioners, followed by proposals for future research directions and conclusions. We also present a case study and several case questions arising.

The purpose of the research paper is to examine customers' online purchase intention towards apparel in the online environment, with a focus on the role of conviction and brand reputation of the e-retailer.

Hypotheses are based on an extensive literature review and tested using adapted existing scales for the constructs-social media usage for apparel, electronic word of mouth (EWOM), conviction, apparel e-retailer's brand reputation and online purchase intention towards apparel, and data are collected from 362 online customers of apparel brands in eight major cities across the country. Structural equation modelling (SEM) is applied to analyze data and test hypotheses because of multiple dependent variables.

The quantitative results indicate that impact of social media and EWOM on online purchase intention towards apparel is mediated by conviction. The results also explain the moderating effect of apparel e-retailer's brand reputation.

Findings provide suggestions for the apparel business in an online environment that address the issue of breach of trust and implications for apparel e-retailers, managers and researchers. The study contributes to the existing retail literature by proposing concept of conviction and role of apparel e-retailer's brand reputation in this context.