Brand activations is claimed as a notion found within experiential and behavioral contexts of branding. There are empirical studies claim brand activation is inline within the scope of event marketing. As per some arguments, brand activation finds itself imprecise foundation to explain its theoretical foundation. Supportively, studies are highlighting theoretical and empirical scant in examining influence of brand activation though practices are extendedly found. Alongside, this paper attempts to review the notion of brand activation in relation to empirical explanations, cases and its presence in different scenarios. Authors followed literature review as the main research strategy whilst specific attention was made to Asian market context in explaining cases and practices. Accordingly, paper investigates the concept of brand activation in relations to different scopes including branding, consumer behavior whilst digital or viral marketing platforms are also referred. Authors discuss the influence and association of brand activation with reference to different scenarios and cases directing future research requirements. Paper concludes research propositions in line with the empirical justifications encouraging future research priorities.

The main objective of this study was to identify the critical factors that affecting the implementation of environmental management systems (EMSs) of manufacturing SMEs in Sri Lanka. Out of twelve factors, management commitment, professional expertise, financial resources, stakeholders and environmental information are identified as key factors. Based on the survey results, it is proposed that the government should play an important role in promoting environmental management in SMEs. It is necessary for the government to provide active support in the aspects including mandatory policy, encouraging policy and supporting policy.

Celebrities act as a credible communication source for many marketing and community-related communications. Community commitment for brands has been researched across the countries. Commitment of communities is an important matter for brands to meet desired responses within community-based brand building programs. Community commitment within disaster management is one of the national level priorities in many countries including emerging economies in Asia. Celebrities are used as a credible source to educate and motivate communities to get aware or actively participate in disaster management activities. This paper employed a quantitative survey method aiming the communities who actively engaged with disaster management programs sponsored or endorsed by celebrities in Sri Lanka, a country extendedly applies community-based disaster management strategies. Hypotheses were formed on how celebrity credibility influences brand community commitment to engage with disaster management activities whilst mediating effect of brand community trust is also hypothesized. A size of 230 sample was contacted for the survey. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was executed testing the hypotheses by using AMOS 20 software. Results verified celebrity credibility influences brand community commitment. Analysis proved brand commitment trust acts as a mediator on the effect made by celebrity credibility on brand community commitment within disaster management programs.

Sri Lanka is emerging as service sector driven economy with the GDP penetration of 50%-60% from service sector. After imposing the open economy policy in 1977, local brands had to gear ahead with intensive competition came from international brands. Telecommunication industry of Sri Lanka has been dominated by international brands, but local brands are strategically promoting the concept of country of origin (CO) or being local as a motive for citizens to deliberately purchase locally originated brands. In this context researchers viewed this branding practice, and selected 200 respondents from four geographical areas under the stratified probability sampling method to investigate the effect of country of origin in terms of brand performance. Both descriptive and inferential statistical analysis executed by PCA (principal component analysis) factor analysis accompanied with testing two hypotheses revealed that Country of Origin (CO) or promoting as being local had impacted less significantly on brand awareness and recalled power development of telecommunication brands against the competitive foreign brands. However, it has a significant impact on brand recalling power.

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