The meanings of brand and branding have been evolving over the past several decades. This evolution is converging on a new conceptual logic, which views brand in terms of collaborative, value co-creation activities of firms and all of their stakeholders and brand value in terms of the stakeholders' collectively perceived value-in-use. The authors argue that this new logic parallels and reflects the related, evolving service-dominant (S-D) logic in marketing. They provide an historical account of the branding literature, organize it into eras, and connect it to the evolution in marketing as captured by S-D logic. The analysis provides further support for the S-D logic of marketing and suggests a related research agenda for furthering the understanding of brand and branding. It also suggests that marketing managers might benefit from investing resources in building strong brand relationships with all of their stakeholders and a service-dominant firm philosophy built around brand value co-creation.Keywords Service-dominant logic . Goods-dominant logic . Branding . Brand creation . Brand evolution . Brand value . Brand logic . Co-creation of brands . Co-creation of value Firms are increasingly recognizing that brands are among their most valuable assets (Madden et al. 2006;Simon and Sullivan 1993) and are, therefore, intensifying the level of resources directed toward building them. At least partially in response, academics are also intensifying the attention directed toward understanding the meaning and value of brands and the process of branding (e.g., Berry 2000; Keller 1993; Schouten et al. 2007). This development in the branding literature, together with a more general evolution in academic marketing thought, is causing marketing scholars to rethink the logic of brand and branding.Vargo and Lusch (2004a) posit that marketing is evolving toward a new logic, which they identify as service-dominant (S-D) logic. This logic (1) considers service to be the common denominator of exchange, (2) embraces a process orientation ("service"), rather than an output orientation ("goods and services"), and (3) makes the customer endogenous to value creation by arguing that value is always co-created with customers (and others), rather than unilaterally created by the firm and then distributed. From this perspective, goods remain important, but are identified as vehicles for service provision.This evolution in the logic of marketing in general is paralleled by and reflected in the branding literature and, therefore, we believe that S-D logic and the brand literature can reinforce and inform each other. That is, the logic of brand and branding is also evolving and has shifted from the conceptualization of brand as a firm-provided property

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Purpose-This study attempts to contribute to the knowledge of how service climate improves customer satisfaction in the hospitality industry based on evidence from mainland China. It considers different dimensions of service climate separately, including customer orientation, managerial support and work facilitation, and introduces an important mediator-employee commitment-to examine the relationship between service climate and customer satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach-A theoretical framework is proposed to suggest links among the three dimensions of service climate, employee commitment and customer satisfaction. A structured questionnaire was developed to collect data from employees in the hospitality industry of China. The constructs were measured by using established scales. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the theoretical hypotheses. Findings-Empirical results indicate that different dimensions of service climate have different effects on customer satisfaction. For instance, customer orientation, as one dimension of service climate, has a direct and positive influence on customer satisfaction, while two other dimensions of service climate, managerial support and work facilitation, have indirect positive influence on customer satisfaction, through improving employee commitment. Practical implications-The results indicate that managers should create customer orientation in hotels, including clarifying the value of providing customers with high quality service, and developing a system of emphasizing the importance of customer feedback. Meanwhile, managers need to pay attention to two neglected components of service climate, managerial support and work facilitation, rather than focusing on physical infrastructure only. Originality/value-This paper makes an important empirical contribution by treating various dimensions of service climate separately, and exploring their relationships with customer satisfaction by introducing a mediator, employee commitment. The results indicate that various dimensions of service climate play different roles in improving customer satisfaction. This study contributes to the theories of service climate and customer satisfaction.

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PurposeThis research investigates the effects of multidimensional brand experiences (i.e. behavioral, intellectual, affective and sensory) on brand authenticity and brand love from the Asian consumers' perspective.Design/methodology/approachThis research collected primary data from 418 consumers on global brands, and it tested the proposed hypotheses by using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).FindingsThe findings indicate that sensory and affective experiences have direct significant impacts on brand love, while intellectual and behavioral experiences have nonsignificant impacts on brand love. Overall, intellectual, behavioral, affective and sensory experiences positively influence brand authenticity, which in turn have substantial positive impacts on brand love.Research limitations/implicationsThis study investigated consumer behavior in a broader sense, and consumers from 13 Asian countries participated in this research. Future research may collect data on a larger scale from Asian countries to generalize the results.Practical implicationsBy following brand authenticity as an essential positioning tool and implementing several experiential marketing strategies, global managers can develop brand-loving consumers in Asia.Originality/valueUnder the parasol of attribution theory, this research explores the relationships among the multidimensional brand experiences, brand authenticity and brand love from the Asian perspective.