This study delineates the process of brand longevity: the achievement of social salience and ongoing consumer engagement over a sustained period. Our study contributes to branding theory by proposing a multilevel approach to understanding brand longevity through application of an assemblage perspective to answer the question: how do serial brands attain longevity within evolving sociocultural contexts? By applying assemblage theory, we scrutinize the enduring success of a serial media brand over the past 55 years. To address this question, a wide range of archival brand-related data were collected and analyzed, including: analysis of films, books, marketing materials, press commentaries, and reviews, as well as broader contextual data regarding the sociocultural contexts within which the brand assemblage has developed. Our findings empirically support the study of brand longevity in and of itself, and conceptualize brand longevity as relying on an evolutionary approach to assembling the brand, which looks outward from the brand in order to consider the potential of brand elements to prevail in contemporary contexts and to ensure both continuity and change.

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Purpose This paper aims to contribute to the literature on value creation by examining value within the visual arts market and arguing for a broader, socio-culturally informed view of value creation. Design/methodology/approach The authors develop an original conceptual framework to model the value co-creation process through which art is legitimised. An illustrative case study of artist Damien Hirst demonstrates the application of this framework. Findings The findings illustrate how value is co-constructed in the visual arts market, demonstrating a need to understand social relationships as value is dispersed, situational and in-flux. Research limitations/implications The authors problematise the view that value emerges as a result of operant resources “producing effects” through working on operand resources. Rather, adopting the socio-cultural approach, the authors demonstrate how value emerges and is co-constructed, negotiated and circulated. The authors establish the need to reconceptualise value as created collaboratively with other actors within industry sectors. The locus of control is, therefore, dispersed. Moreover, power dynamics at play mean that “consumers” are not homogenous; some are more important than others in the valuation process. Practical implications This more distributed notion of value blurs boundaries between product and service, producer and consumer, offering a more unified perspective on value co-creation, which can be used in strategic decision-making. Originality/value This paper illustrates that value co-creation must be understood in relation to understanding patterns of hierarchy that influence this process.

Purpose -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. Design/methodology/approach -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. Findings -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.Research limitations/implications -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. Practical implications -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. Originality/value -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.

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