The essence of a brand is that it delivers on its promises. However, consumers’ trust in brands (CTB) has declined around the world in recent decades. As a result, CTB has become a major concern for managers. The authors examine whether CTB is influenced by marketing-mix activities (i.e., advertising, new product introduction, distribution, price, and price promotion) implemented by brands.

Marketing academics are keenly aware of the seismic shifts in today's marketing environment caused by digital (dis)intermediation. In this article, we discuss four types of digital (dis)intermediation, and how they affect branding activities of incumbents and new firms.

Consumers’ brand associations are essential to the development of effective marketing strategies. Understanding consumers’ brand associations enables firms to determine their brand’s positioning and informs new product development and marketing mix design. A rich and abundant source for consumers’ brand associations is user-generated-content (UGC).

Brand naming challenges are more complex in logographic languages (e.g., Chinese), compared with phonographic languages (e.g., English) because the former languages feature looser correspondence between sound and meaning.

The use of celebrity endorsements varies across countries; does their effectiveness similarly vary across cultures? The authors propose that power distance beliefs (PDB), a cultural orientation related to the extent to which people expect and accept differences in power, moderate the effects of celebrity endorsements.

Hard discounters are stores that sell a limited selection of consumer packaged goods and perishables - typically fewer than 2,000 Stock Keeping Units - for prices that are usually 50-60% lower than national brands. The best known hard discounters are Aldi and Lidl, but global brands include Trader Joe's, EuroSpin, Biedronka, Netto, and Leader Price. Their rise has been monumental; they have irrevocably changed the face of retail in Europe and Australia, and are making steady inroads into the US. Retail Disruptors explores the very real threat that hard discounters pose to traditional retailers and brand manufacturers.

Private labels have become ever-more important and are slowly turning into brands of their own. Retailers increasingly offer three-level ‘good, better, best’ private-label programs that include economy, standard, and premium private-label tier goods. For each of these tiers, retailers must decide under what name to brand their private label.