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Article

Branding in a Hyperconnected World: Refocusing Theories and Rethinking Boundaries

Vanitha Swaminathan , Alina Sorescu, Jan-Benedict E.M. Steenkamp, Thomas Clayton Gibson O’Guinn, and Bernd Schmitt

Abstract Technological advances have resulted in a hyperconnected world, requiring a reassessment of branding research from the perspectives of firms, consumers, and society. Brands are shifting away from single ownership to shared ownership, as heightened access to information and people is allowing more stakeholders to cocreate brand meanings and experiences alongside traditional brand owners and managers. Moreover, hyperconnectivity has allowed existing brands to expand their geographic reach and societal roles, while new types of branded entities (ideas, people, places, and organizational brands) are further stretching the branding space. To help establish a new branding paradigm that accounts for these changes, the authors address the following questions: (1) What are the roles and functions of brands?, (2) How is brand value (co)created?, and (3) How should brands be managed? Throughout the article, the authors also identify future research issues that require scholarly attention, with the aim of aligning branding theory and practice with the realities of a hyperconnected world.

Keywords brands, branding, brand management, brand equity, cocreation, digital branding, hyperconnectivity, networks, platforms

Online supplement: https://doi.org/10.1177/0022242919899905

Over the course of a century, branding has moved from an

occasionally studied activity to a major concern for both busi-

ness and society. Traditional commercial brands are omnipre-

sent and compete for consumer attention with newer branded

entities, such as platform brands (e.g., Airbnb), direct-to-

consumer brands (e.g., Warby Parker), smart brands (e.g., Goo-

gle Nest), idea brands (e.g., #MeToo), and person brands (e.g.,

Kim Kardashian). The manner in which consumers interact

with brands is also changing due to the rise of digitally native

brands, the ubiquitous access to information and products via

digital and mobile channels, and the broad availability of smart,

connected devices.

To inspire next-generation conceptual and empirical work

on branding, this article examines how existing perspectives

need to be refocused and rethought to address the realities of

contemporary society. We examine broader types of entities,

ranging from smart branded devices and entities that operate in

networks of brands to ideas and person brands. We also inves-

tigate the blurring of brand boundaries brought about by

technology-induced hyperconnectivity. In doing so, we expand

on new frontiers in branding research and argue that these

topics need to be a larger part of research agendas.

Our review of the marketing literature suggests that extant

theoretical perspectives—from the vantage points of the firm,

the consumer, and society—have resulted in certain models

and assumptions that may no longer be adequate or sufficient

in a hyperconnected world. The concept of hyperconnectivity

refers to the proliferation of networks of people, devices, and

other entities, as well as the continuous access to other people,

machines, and organizations, regardless of time or location

(Fredette et al. 2012; Quan-Haase and Wellman 2005). In this

Vanitha Swaminathan is Thomas Marshall Professor of Marketing, Katz

Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh, USA (email: vanitha@

katz.pitt.edu). Alina Sorescu is Paula and Steve Letbetter ‘70 Professor of

Marketing, Mays Business School, Texas A&M University, USA (email:

[email protected]). Jan-Benedict E.M. Steenkamp is C. Knox Massey

Distinguished Professor of Marketing, Kenan-Flagler Business School,

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA (email: [email protected]).

Thomas Clayton Gibson O’Guinn is Professor and Irwin Maier Distinguished

Chair in Business, Chair, Marketing Department, Professor of Sociology,

University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA (email: [email protected]).

Bernd Schmitt is Robert D. Calkins Professor of International Business,

Columbia Business School, Columbia University, USA (email: bhs1@

gsb.columbia.edu).

Journal of Marketing 2020, Vol. 84(2) 24-46

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sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0022242919899905

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environment, information is always accessible and abundant,

search costs are low, goods and services from across geo-

graphic boundaries are easier to reach than ever, and firms may

no longer be the primary source of information about brands.

Hyperconnectivity has led to two major changes in brand-

ing. First, brands are shifting away from single to shared own-

ership, as heightened access to information and people is

allowing more stakeholders to cocreate brand experiences and

brand meanings alongside traditional brand owners (or entities

who market the brand). We call this phenomenon the “blurring

of branding boundaries.” Second, hyperconnectivity has

allowed existing brands to expand their geographic reach and

societal roles, while new types of branded entities are further

stretching the branding space, which constitutes a “broadening

of branding boundaries.”

In this article, we elaborate on the consequences of hyper-

connectivity on the “blurring” and “broadening” of branding

boundaries. We focus on both challenges and opportunities that

brands face in a hyperconnected environment. We first briefly

review three core perspectives that have underscored tradi-

tional branding research and then examine the implications

of this expanded view of brands through three fundamental

questions: (1) What are the roles and functions of brands? (2)

How do brands (co)create value? and (3) How should brands be

managed? We provide initial answers to these questions and

outline areas of inquiry for future research.

Key Theoretical Perspectives in the Branding Literature

Many conceptualizations of brands have been proposed across

various domains of inquiry, each with its own particular

focus. We distinguish three theoretical perspectives (firm,

consumer, and society) and two approaches within each per-

spective. The firm perspective views brands as assets and

examines the various functions and roles that brands serve for

firms, both strategically and financially. The consumer per-

spective views brands as signals (economic approach) and

mental knowledge cues (psychological approach). The soci-

ety perspective presents brands in societal and cultural con-

texts affecting individual consumers both directly and

indirectly through social forces, structures, and institutions.

The sociology of brands applies to all manner of commercial

and noncommercial entities (e.g., ideas, people). We briefly

introduce each perspective in this section while acknowled-

ging the overlap and spillovers of knowledge across various

approaches used in the literature. One source of this overlap

comes from the nested structure that underlies how these per-

spectives relate to each other. For example, societal macro-

environments host institutions (including the firm) that, in

turn, interact to shape consumer-level outcomes.

Firm Perspective

Strategic approach. Key issues examined in this approach

include the development and implementation of brand identity;

positioning, targeting, launch, and growth of brands; brand

portfolio architecture; and management of brands across geo-

graphic boundaries (Kapferer 2012; Steenkamp 2017). Topics

studied range from how to effectively construct and manage

brand portfolios (Morgan and Rego 2009) to how to extend

brands into new categories or as new brands, endorsers, sub-

brands, descriptors, product brands, umbrella brands, and

branded differentiators (Völckner and Sattler 2006). Marketing

alliances of various types, including cobranding alliances and

collaboration with customers, along with brand acquisitions

and divestitures are strategic challenges and opportunities that

have also been addressed in this literature.

Financial approach. Researchers leveraging a financial approach

to branding have focused mainly on measuring the effect of

brand equity and branding actions on the stock market value of

firms. Specifically, one research stream has focused on demon-

strating the relevance of consumer-based brand equity (Mad-

den, Fehle, and Fournier 2006; Mizik and Jacobson 2008;

Rego, Billett, and Morgan 2009), while another stream has

focused on measuring the stock market impact of corporate

actions, such as brand extensions (Lane and Jacobson 1995),

brand and marketing alliances (Cao and Sorescu 2013; Swami-

nathan and Moorman 2009), brand acquisitions (Bahadir, Bhar-

adwaj, and Srivastava 2008; Wiles, Morgan, and Rego 2012),

and brand architecture decisions (Hsu, Fourier, and Srinivasan

2016). Keller and Lehmann (2006) provide an overview of

research that has examined the impact of brand actions on a

variety of financial (and nonfinancial) firm outcomes.

Consumer Perspective

Economic approach. Firms tend to know more than consumers

about the quality of their brand. This information asymmetry

has given rise to a field of study that treats brands as market

signals (Erdem and Swait 1998). The brand extension literature

has leveraged the information asymmetry–reducing role of

brands to determine (1) how a multiproduct firm can brand a

new product, (2) the relationship between the reputation of the

new product and that established by the firm in other markets,

and (3) the perceived quality of a new product (Erdem 1998;

Wernerfelt 1988).

Psychological approach. Schmitt’s (2012) “consumer-psychol-

ogy-of-brands” model summarizes the key concepts of the psy-

chological approach, which proposes that brand equity resides

in the minds of customers. Brand knowledge, which is the

mental representation of brand awareness (recall and recogni-

tion) and brand image (types, favorability, strength, and

uniqueness of brand associations), constitutes the key construct

for conceptualizing and measuring brand equity from the cus-

tomer’s point of view (Keller 1993). Other mental representa-

tions include affect and emotions, leading to constructs such as

brand trust (Rajavi, Kushwaha, and Steenkamp 2019), emo-

tional brand attachment (Thomson, MacInnis, and Park

2005), brand coolness (Warren et al. 2019), and even brand

Swaminathan et al. 25

love (Batra, Ahuvia, and Bagozzi 2012). This perspective also

includes brand experiences and defines them as including sen-

sory, affective, and intellectual impressions as well as beha-

vioral actions toward brands (Brakus, Schmitt, and

Zarantonello 2009; Schmitt, Brakus, and Zarantonello 2015).

Society Perspective

Sociological approach. Researchers approaching brands from a

sociological perspective focus mainly on brands as portable

containers of meaning that are shaped by institutions and col-

lectives from the time the brand is conceived, produced, and

marketed, through the postpurchase stage (O’Guinn, Muñiz,

and Paulson 2018). Sociological models are typically dynamic

and recursive. Sociological scholars do not view brands as

static entities or as mere information sources or knowledge

structures; rather, they have a keen interest in how brand mean-

ings are generated, changed, and dynamically reinvented. An

important notion in this literature is brand community, a non-

geographic space in which admirers of a brand connect with

one another and demonstrate all three necessary distinctions of

community: consciousness of kind, rituals and traditions, and

moral obligation (Muñiz and O’Guinn 2001).

Cultural approach. Both sociologists and anthropologists study

culture, and their work in branding and marketing mean-

ingfully intersects. One of the main insights from this

research is that branded goods, as cultural meaning produc-

ers, enhance consumers’ lives (Miller 2010). Probably the

best-known perspective on how brands become popular

through their production of cultural capital is the wide-

spread adaptation of Bourdieu (1986) in consumer culture

theory (Thompson and Arnould 2005). Among other things,

consumer culture theory addresses the dynamic relationships

among consumer actions, the marketplace, and cultural

meanings. Research in this stream focuses on how iconic

brands (Holt 2004), or brands infused with cultural referents

(Cayla and Eckhardt 2008), contribute to culturally bound

consumption practices (Epp, Schau, and Price 2014). Invok-

ing the same dynamic, these scholars demonstrate how anti-

brand activists and other cultural intermediaries can

introduce a competing set of brand meanings (e.g., doppel-

gaünger brand images) that can significantly influence con-

sumer behavior and market creation (Giesler 2012;

Thompson, Rindfleisch, and Arsel 2006).

We summarize key insights from each perspective (firm,

consumer, and society) in Table WA1 in the Web Appendix.

As this table is structured by substreams of research, it also

illustrates how several of the theoretical perspectives have

helped advance each area of inquiry. We next leverage these

perspectives into a discussion of how the boundaries of

branding have blurred and broadened in response to changes

occurring in a hyperconnected environment. We revisit them

subsequently as we advocate a multidisciplinary approach to

address current opportunities and challenges in the branding

domain.

Boundaries of Branding in the Era of Hyperconnectivity

We noted that the hyperconnected world is characterized by

networks of people, devices, and other entities that are con-

tinuously interacting and exchanging information. Several

aspects of hyperconnectivity are relevant to branding research

and management (Tybout and Calkins 2019). We highlight

three aspects: (1) information availability and speed of infor-

mation dissemination; (2) networks of people and devices, and

the growth of platforms; and (3) device-to-device connectivity.

We next examine each of these in greater detail.

Information Availability and Speed of Information Dissemination

The scale of information availability and the speed of informa-

tion dissemination have grown exponentially as technology

that connects people and devices has become widely available

and more affordable. The broad and fast access to information

calls into question foundational assumptions of several of the

theoretical perspectives we discussed in the previous section.

For example, high search costs and information asymmetry

have been the core assumptions of the economic view of brands

as signaling mechanisms (Erdem and Swait 1998; Wernerfelt

1988). However, brands may no longer serve as primary signals

of quality in an environment in which search costs are low and

information asymmetry is reduced by various stakeholders who

abundantly share opinions about brands across their networks.

Because access to information is much easier in a hypercon-

nected world, consumers need to expend less effort in learning

information about brands. Models of memory activation and

learning need to be updated to account for consumers’ increased

reliance on external sources of information as opposed to infor-

mation that is retrieved from memory. Moreover, the sheer vol-

ume of external information can lead to information overload—a

situation in which not all communication input can be processed

and used (Broniarczyk and Griffin 2014; Schwartz 2004). The

velocity and volume of information that consumers are exposed

to, along with the potential information overload that results

from it, reduce brands’ ability to capture the attention of their

target segment (Lurie 2004), which calls for a reexamination of

models of attention.

Networks of People and Devices, and Growth of Platforms

The rise of networks of people and devices and the develop-

ment of platform technology have led to an environment in

which brands and their meanings are cocreated. Firms are not

the only entities that can disseminate branded information

quickly and broadly—they now compete with other stake-

holders who can do so just as easily (e.g., Libai et al. 2010).

Brand conversations are happening online, and consumers may

listen to their peers or to online influencers just as much as, if

not more than, they listen to branded messages generated by

26 Journal of Marketing 84(2)

firms. A growing stream of research is documenting the effect

of this loss of control on brand meaning (Chevalier and May-

zlin 2006; Fournier and Avery 2011) and brand experiences

(Perren and Kozinets 2018).

Device-to-Device Connectivity

Device-to-device connectivity has affected brands in several

ways. First, branded experiences are significantly more com-

plex in an environment in which consumers can access the

brand via multiple channels that seamlessly connect with one

another. Second, the heightened connectivity among devices

has led to brands themselves being integral components of net-

works of smart products that are populating the Internet of

Things (Hoffman and Novak 2017). This again calls into ques-

tion which entities contribute to brand meaning and associa-

tions, how these associations can be managed, and to what

extent consumers anthropomorphize branded products that

communicate with other products.

Blurring and Broadening of Branding in a Hyperconnected World

We next discuss how these manifestations of hyperconnectivity

have resulted in a “blurring” and “broadening” of branding

boundaries. We reexamine these issues as we highlight the

changing roles and functions of brands, how they create value,

and how they should be managed.

Blurring of Branding

Traditionally, brand management methods were designed for a

world in which consumers were exposed to (and influenced by)

firm-controlled television, print, and radio advertising (Aaker

1996). Today, as information becomes available widely across

multiple channels, consumers’ attention is scattered across many

media and channels, forcing a multitude of branded entities to

compete to gain consumers’ awareness and potentially to form

an emotional connection. As brand meaning is increasingly

cocreated, it is even sometimes hijacked by consumers and firm

partners (Fournier and Avery 2011; Wipperfürth 2005).

Beyond the cocreation of brand meaning, brand stakeholders

(ranging from customers and employees to firm partners, com-

munities, and society at large) are increasingly shaping various

aspects of product and marketing-mix activities. For example,

firms that use a platform-based business model often bring

together partners that help cocreate the entire brand experience.

Alternatively, firms that allow their products to interact with

voice-controlled smart devices such as Amazon’s Echo or with

home automation hubs such as Wink Hub are also relinquishing

some control, as brand associations can transfer to and from

these partner brands to the focal one with potentially serious

consequences for brands’ performance and business survival

(Wu, Chen, and Dou 2017). The blurring of brand boundaries

is a key consequence of the rise of the sharing economy, which

“offers temporary access as an alternative to permanent

ownership” (Eckhardt et al. 2019, p.2), and which has expanded

the role of customers to span both the demand and supply sides.

Broadening of Branding

As marketers are losing some control over the meaning con-

sumers associate with brands, more brand-related stakeholders

are involved in shaping brand associations. Entities other than

corporations (e.g., ideas, people) are becoming more systema-

tic in their branding efforts (Fournier and Eckhart 2019; Thom-

son 2006), as hyperconnectivity has allowed them to easily

reach multiple stakeholders around the world. The reach of

both traditional brands and newer branded entities has also

broadened to include stakeholders who have not necessarily

been consistently targeted in the past, such as employees,

donors, partners, citizen-voters, and activists, as well as local

communities, governments, and society as a whole.

The role of brands has also broadened, with commercial

brands increasingly expected to have a mission (or purpose)

beyond shareholder value maximization. As societal norms

change, companies are feeling the pressure to act in a sustain-

able manner or to take activist stances that may help society

attain its goals or even support stakeholders who oppose such

goals. Brand activism has led to new responsibilities for brand

managers and chief executive officers, as well as the need to

protect the large amount of customer data that companies col-

lect in their efforts to manage brands.

Mapping the Blurring and Broadening of Branding

Figure 1 maps the blurring and broadening of branding. It

illustrates—using four types of brands and the stakeholders that

shape them—the potential dilution of brand ownership

(depicted by dotted circles in the picture) and the broadening

of branding entities, brand roles, and brand stakeholders. Fig-

ure 1 also shows that brand meaning is more dynamic when

brand ownership is more porous and that brand meaning is

cocreated by the brand with its stakeholders.

Next, we examine the shifts in branding across four broad

headings: (1) rethinking the roles and functions of brands, (2)

rethinking brand value creation and cocreation, (3) rethinking

brand management, and (4) rethinking the boundaries of brand-

ing. As we highlight fundamental changes that are taking place,

we also outline a future research agenda for each topic. As an

example, Table 1 summarizes research topics that pertain to our

first question relating to roles and functions of brands.

Rethinking the Roles and the Functions of Brands

Researchers investigating brands have construed brands in many

different ways, including as signals of quality (Erdem and Swait

1998; Wernerfelt 1988), knowledge structures held in an indi-

vidual’s memory (Janiszewski and Van Osselaer 2000; Keller

1993), instruments of identity expression and goal achievement

(MacInnis and Folkes 2017), social actors and structures of both

Swaminathan et al. 27

stasis and change (Muñiz and O’Guinn 2001), and cultural icons

(Holt 2002). As technology has vastly improved access to infor-

mation, products, and people, these existing conceptions of

brands need to be reassessed—that is, refocused, rethought, or

abandoned altogether. We discuss future directions for this reas-

sessment in the remainder of this subsection (see Table 1).

Brands as Weak Quality Signals

In the past, when consumers were faced with information

asymmetry and imperfect information, brands served as quality

signals that facilitated consumer choice. However, in a hyper-

connected economy in which consumers can easily access

information about brands using online channels, information

asymmetry between brand owners and consumers has

decreased, as search costs are lower (Lynch and Ariely

2000). Thus, a brand’s quality signal could face interference

from alternative signals of quality derived from the collective

reviews and opinions available online.

Researchers need to understand the conditions under which

consumers still trust firm communications about brands (vs.

information intermediaries such as Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Rot-

ten Tomatoes) and the impact of firm-generated versus

marketplace-generated brand information on brand trust. How

can firms manage a brand communication process that faces

significant signal interference? How can brands shift the bal-

ance in their favor if the signals generated by the marketplace

are mixed, reflecting a high level of consumer heterogeneity?

What types of message content, form, and media placement

have the best chance of reducing and counterbalancing poten-

tially undesirable external brand signals?

Brands as Mental Cues in Information-Rich Environments

Brand information processing (how consumers acquire, use, and

remember brand knowledge) depends on consumers’ motiva-

tion, ability, and opportunity to process information (MacInnis,

Moorman, and Jaworski 1991). Studies have proposed and tested

multiple models of learning about brands, leveraging the notion

that brands can act as cues that access knowledge held in con-

sumers’ memories (Janiszewski and Van Osselaer 2000). As

consumers increasingly process information in a hyperconnected

Firm, consumers, and market participants

Broader conceptualization:

• What: Traditional branded entities plus people and idea brands

• Objective: Profit maximization and fulfillment of purpose-driven mission

• Brand role: Vessel of social meaning, architect of value in networks, arbiter of controversy, steward of data privacy

Narrower conceptualization:

• What: Products and services, places, organizations

• Objective: Profit maximization

• Brand role: Quality signal, mental cue, instrument of identity expression

Rigid boundaries

• Single- owner brand

Porous boundaries

• Shared- ownership brand

Blurring of branding

Broadening of branding

Firm

Society and brand stakeholders

Person who owns the brand

Product brand

Person brand

Idea brand

Platform brand

Figure 1. Ownership of branded entities and changes in the branding landscape. Notes: The figure depicts interactions between various types of brands and their owners and primary stakeholders. Inner circles represent a specific type of brand; outer circles encompass the brand owners or main stakeholders. Dotted circles indicate more porous boundaries of brand ownership. We have labeled the brand owner and used arrows to illustrate whether the relationship between the brand and its owner/stakeholders is unidirectional or dynamic.

28 Journal of Marketing 84(2)

Table 1. Rethinking the Roles and Functions of Brands: Future Research Opportunities.

Extant Research Future Research Research Questions

Brands as quality signals sent by firms

Brand meaning and quality perceptions crafted by market feedback. Weakened role of firm communications in shaping brand signals

� Under what conditions do consumers still trust firm communications about brands (vs. information intermediaries such as Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Rotten Tomatoes)?

� What is the impact of firm-generated versus marketplace- generated brand information on brand trust?

� How can firms manage a brand communication process that faces significant signal interference?

� How should firms respond to signal interference, and what types of message content, form, and media placement have the best chance of reducing and counterbalancing potentially undesirable external brand signals?

Brands as mental cues Brand information processing models that account for information being conveyed in a multisensory way

� How can researchers best conceptualize brand information processing when consumers deal with high volume and velocity of information?

� What is the role of sensorial brand information in models of information processing?

� How are brand meanings constructed under high volume and velocity of information? Can they be more easily manipulated? Under what conditions?

� What is the balance of voluntary versus involuntary attention in a context of information overload, and what type of cues can brands use to elicit voluntary attention?

� What are the structure and balance of text, image, and sound that can make a brand message stand out in a context of information overload?

Brands as tools of identity expression and as relationship partners

Brands as tools of multifaceted identity expression and goal achievement

� Can brand associations be constructed and revised to allow for a more flexible view of identity?

� Does a more flexible meaning lead to stronger long-term brand performance?

� Do consumers prefer that brands have a well-defined meaning that helps them anchor and retrieve one particular facet of their identity, or are they drawn more to brands with flexible meanings that accommodate a broader range of self-expression?

� How do social groups leverage brands to help them achieve their social goals?

� How can the strength of brand relationships be maintained and increased under information overload?

� How can brand anthropomorphism powered by artificial intelligence contribute to brand choice, loyalty, and trust and to building stronger brand relationships?

Brands as cultural icons Brands as containers of socially constructed meaning

� How do different target segments respond to brands capitalizing on or opposing rising social trends?

� How can researchers conceptualize brands as purpose-driven entities?

� How can brand conversations and engagement foster greater social connections?

� What are the facets, determinants, and consequences of “social brand engagement” or the propensity of consumers to engage in meaningful connections using brands? And will this hurt the brand?

� How does social brand engagement play out for global brands in a world of diverging values and political and social fragmentation, as well as antagonism?

Brands as individual entities or dyad partners

Brands as architects of value in networks

� What strategies should brands adopt to enhance the effective functioning of the brand ecosystem?

� How can brands establish successful partnerships with other network participants, and what is the impact of platform design on maximizing positive and minimizing negative spillovers from partner brands?

(continued)

Swaminathan et al. 29

and attention-scarce environment, understanding of brand infor-

mation processing may need to be augmented and extended

(Yadav and Pavlou 2014). Existing dual-processing models

(visual or verbal, heuristic or systematic, piece-by-piece or hol-

istic; Sherman, Gawronski, and Trope 2014) assume that con-

sumers can switch back and forth in real time from one channel

to another and from one processing style to another. As consu-

mers utilize multiple devices and channels in the context of

hyperconnectivity, dual-processing models need to be further

refined to examine how and when people switch from one pro-

cessing style to another and how simultaneous processing of

information from multiple devices or channels occurs over time

(e.g., when consumers engage in multitasking).

Brand information processing models should also consider

how sensory information contributes to brand awareness and

choice. The impact of sensory information on processing of

brand information has been previously investigated (e.g.,

Krishna 2010; Krishna and Schwarz 2014). For example, Saini

and Lynch (2016) show that familiar brands are preferred in

online settings (relative to offline) when sensory information is

diagnostic and plays a role in brand choice. However, hyper-

connectivity offers additional research opportunities in this

area. Although many brands are experienced online in an

arguably less sensorial environment, companies now have

access to multisensory and highly interactive new technologies

that appeal to multiple senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, and

smell) simultaneously. For instance, sensory-rich retail envir-

onments, as well as augmented and virtual reality, allow people

to experience the power of multisensory stimulation and con-

sider brands in environments that may be dynamic and virtual.

Online stores such as Wayfair, Amazon, and Target have

launched mobile augmented-reality apps that allow consumers

to shop for furniture by placing items in their own room settings

(O’Shea 2019). In sensory-rich environments, the voluntary

attention to brand stimuli and sensory cues may be more diffi-

cult to elicit and more likely to be replaced by involuntary

attention or arousal to stimuli unrelated to the focal brand.

Therefore, current models need to be revised to incorporate the

paucity of consumers’ voluntary attention and also account for

the possibility that the role of sensory cues may change how

brand information is processed.

Brands as Instruments of Identity Expression

Brands can be used to support a desired consumer identity

and may be associated with humanlike traits (referred to as

Table 1. (continued)

Extant Research Future Research Research Questions

� What are the main drivers of satisfaction with the user experience on brand networks, and how do consumers derive utility from a branded network?

� How can brands establish themselves into entities that can protect consumers from harmful content or products available on networks?

Brands as tools of individual self-expression

Brands as catalysts of communities � How can branded entities facilitate the emergence of an online branded community, and what is the best way to enable, support, and help expand it?

� What are the mechanisms through which online brand communities create value for various stakeholders?

� What are the nature and quality of human interactions in the online space, and how can brand communities positively assuage loneliness and social isolation?

Brands as neutral entities Brands as arbiters of controversy � How does brands’ participation in controversy (political, social) affect their customer base?

� How can brands maintain their authenticity and align their associations with social issues that are shaping current values and perceptions in society?

� What are some new metrics (e.g., polarization, controversy score) that can capture how to track the nature of conversation about brands in controversial settings?

Brands as guarantors of quality Brands as stewards of consumer data privacy

� Should brands establish an association with strong guardianship of customer data, or would it be easier to partner with brands that have already built such associations?

� What type of safeguards can be established at every level of society to allow individuals and social groups to interact with brands and to provide them with sufficient information to strengthen the brand relationship, without adverse consequences, such as identity theft, loss of privacy, or economic losses?

30 Journal of Marketing 84(2)

“brand personality”; MacInnis and Folkes 2017). The iden-

tity view of brands is based on the notion that brands

become imbued with associations through their use. For

example, consumers can use these brand associations in an

instrumental way to construct and signal something about

their own identity (Aaker, Benet-Martinez, and Garolera

2001), whereas employees can use corporate brands owned

by their employer to convey professional status or to send a

signal about their expertise (Tavassoli, Sorescu, and Chandy

2014). The identity view has more recently focused on the

complex nature of identity, with brands being tied to mul-

tiple individual and group-based identities (Escalas and

Bettman 2005; Swaminathan, Page, and Gürhan-Canli

2007), as well as being symbolic of culture (Torelli and

Ahluwalia 2011). The consumer culture literature has also

considered the instrumental role of brands as authenticating

narratives for consumers’ “identity projects” (e.g., Thomp-

son, Rindfleisch, and Arsel 2006).

A consequence of hyperconnectivity is that consumers can

now adopt multiple personae on their devices and change their

identities frequently (Turkle 2017). As consumers increasingly

spend time online, there is the potential for their online (or

“virtual”) self and their offline (or “true”) self to diverge, pos-

sibly leading to identity conflict (Suh 2013). The multiple

(sometimes conflicting) dynamic identities of consumers, par-

ticularly across online and offline settings, require rethinking

about how to leverage brands to build identities (Reed et al.

2012). Can brand associations be constructed and revised to

allow for a more flexible view of identity, or would this create

confusion from the perspective of the user or those who view

such signals? Would consumers prefer that brands have a well-

defined meaning that helps them anchor and retrieve one par-

ticular facet of their identity, with greater potential for sending

stronger signals about a particular self, or would they be drawn

more to malleable brands that accommodate a broader range of

self-expression? A multidisciplinary approach that leverages

both the consumer and society perspectives could examine the

manner in which social groups can use brands in instrumental

ways to achieve their social goals.

Finally, hyperconnectivity can facilitate access to a broader

set of brands in the digital space that can be used by consumers

to express their identity. This would afford consumers a richer

set of identity-building tools. At the same time, digital posses-

sions have been shown to have lower self-relevance (Bardhi

and Eckhart 2017), which calls into question the strength of

identification with brands in the digital space. Additional ques-

tions center on how consumers choose brands to identify with

in this online, hyperconnected environment and the nature of

relationships that consumers form with brands.

Brands as Containers of Socially Constructed Meaning

Researchers using a sociological lens have examined the role of

brands as arbiters of social trends, as catalysts for social inter-

action, and as societal symbols in the case of brands that attain

iconic status (e.g., Holt 2002). Brands are expanding their

social role, however, by increasingly becoming activist tools

aligned with various social and political issues. Purpose-driven

branding argues that brands should uphold societal values

because doing so gives consumers an opportunity to use them

in instrumental ways to show support for social causes. For

example, Procter & Gamble’s recent Gillette “The Best Men

Can Be” and “My Black Is Beautiful” campaigns took contro-

versial positions with regard to gender and racial stereotypes,

respectively (Jardine 2019).

It is tempting for brands that want to remain relevant, par-

ticularly in the eyes of millennial consumers, to take a stance

on important social issues, but prescriptions on how to do so

effectively are lacking. Yet it is increasingly clear that “the

future of brands is also inextricably tied to the future of soci-

ety” (Clifton 2009, p. 246), and brands can act as vehicles for

bringing about social change. As hyperconnectivity can

amplify brands’ social message, scholarly insights are neces-

sary to understand the role of brands as purpose-driven entities

and how firms can best align the social message of brands with

the desired brand associations. The consumer and society per-

spectives could be utilized in exploring the implications of

brand conversations and brand engagement for stronger social

connections, as well as other determinants and consequences of

this “social brand engagement” (Kozinets 2014).

Brands as Architects of Value in Networks

Marketing scholars have extensively investigated brand part-

nerships and alliances from a dyadic perspective (Park, Jun,

and Shocker 1996; Simonin and Ruth 1998). However, in a

hyperconnected environment, brands are increasingly

embedded in complex networks consisting of users, partners,

cocreators, and co-owners. Prior research that has examined

the performance impact of networks on value creation at the

firm level (Swaminathan and Moorman 2009) can be

extended to show how brands can extract value from their

position in the network.

Leveraging network theoretic constructs to examine value

creation in branded networks is a useful avenue for future

research. Brands can provide value in networks in at least two

ways. Due to advanced search and navigation capabilities,

brands can simplify users’ navigation through brand-

embedded networks, thus contributing to seamless user experi-

ences on online platforms. Furthermore, brands can create

value by ensuring compatibility across branded entities in the

network, in terms of both attributes and quality standards.

A case in point is Apple, a company that strives to make its

products compatible with a broad range of complementary

devices and ensures that all applications sold in the App Store

meet its stringent quality standards. But not all brands can easily

extend their networks; for instance, Google failed to successfully

launch Google Health, a platform where consumers could con-

solidate their health information and interact with providers. As

noted by Van Alstyne, Parker, and Choudary (2016), participants

on both sides of the platform were not ready to engage at a level

that would render the platform successful.

Swaminathan et al. 31

Additional research is necessary to identify strategies that

brands can adopt to enhance the effective functioning of the

brand ecosystem. The traditional conceptualization of user

experience that relies primarily on product or service usage

could be broadened to include interactions across an entire

network or ecosystem that is linked to a specific brand. We

term this “brand network user experience.” A better under-

standing of the brand network user experience and how con-

sumers derive utility from such a network is warranted. Finally,

brands can not only help organize informational content on

networks but also serve as gatekeepers of information (or prod-

ucts) they want consumers to see or purchase. The ongoing

spread of “fake news” on social media platforms highlights the

potentially critical (and controversial) role of branded plat-

forms as entities that censor harmful content or products; how

brands can achieve this role and perhaps derive value from it

should be the focus of further research.

Brands as Catalysts of Communities

Researchers have examined brand communities and how they

deliver value to their members (Muñiz and O’Guinn 2001) and

affect the cocreation process. In this context, brands serve as

catalysts of social interaction and community through shared

consciousness and brand use, loyalty, and engagement among

community members (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010). Hypercon-

nectivity has increased the potential for individuals to establish

and join brand communities, be it newer types that are appear-

ing on social networks or communities established by tradi-

tional brands online, such as the Sephora or Jeep brand

communities, in which users post reviews and share informa-

tion about brands and their new products.

New research on how brand communities emerge in a

hyperconnected environment and what type of governance can

make such potentially large communities successful is a worth-

while avenue for research. Branded communities can create

value not only by enhancing the brand experience for users but

also by providing firms with a forum to test out new ideas,

collect feedback on brand actions, and better understand how

brands are consumed. Brand communities may also offer social

benefits, particularly in the context of growing social isolation

and “aloneness” in society (e.g., Turkle 2017). Thus, it would

be valuable to understand how brand communities can help

combat loneliness despite the larger scale of social connections

facilitated by hyperconnectivity.

Brands as Arbiters of Controversy

In addition to the role of brands as signals or nodes in memory,

brands have been construed as symbols (Levy 1959). These

symbols could be used in various forms of self-presentation

to give meaning to consumers and their social position (e.g.,

Goffman 1959). While not denying their other functions, Levy

(1959, p. 205) states that “things people buy are seen to have

personal and social meanings” and that people use branded

symbols to reinforce their view of self (both actual and ideal).

When brands are strong enough to serve as symbols, some

also transition into roles of arbiters of controversy within the

identity and sociopolitical realms. These brands often adopt

controversial stances on key topics such as feminism,

LGBTQþ rights, and racial issues and, in doing so, appeal to

consumers at the epicenter of cultural controversy. Nike’s use

of Colin Kaepernick’s cause was widely debated but is now

deemed as having galvanized thought on the issues of social

justice and race in sports, particularly considering that such a

large percentage of professional athletes are nonwhite. Nike

was awarded the 2018 Marketer of the Year for the campaign

by Advertising Age (Pasquarelli and Schultz 2018), and Nike’s

profits and stock valuations have climbed in the aftermath of

this controversial stance. In this way, brands appear to have a

stronger voice in a hyperconnected world, in which their mes-

sages on social and political issues can quickly spread and

multiply. With a stronger voice comes the added responsibility

of addressing important social issues in ways that can help

society move forward.

Hyperconnectivity has not only afforded brands the oppor-

tunity to have a stronger voice but also reduced their ability to

stay “above the fray” on controversial topics. Absent a stance

on such topics, consumers with deep brand connections may

question the authenticity of the brand. Research has shown

that perceived brand authenticity has four dimensions: con-

tinuity, credibility, integrity, and symbolism (Morhart et al.

2015). Integrity, which captures a brand’s intentions and the

values it communicates, along with symbolism, which reflects

values that are meaningful to consumers, are particularly rel-

evant in situations where brands face conflict. Failing to take

a clear stance may lower perceptions of brand integrity and

foster identity conflict among those consumers who use the

brand in symbolic ways to communicate certain values. At the

extreme, activist consumers can punish passive brands: for

example, activist consumers and movements fueled by them,

such as #GrabYourWallet, have caused retailers to drop cer-

tain brands or companies to drop their top executives, as was

the case with the #DeleteUber movement, which led the then-

chief executive officer of Uber—Travis Kalanick—to step

down from the company (Bedat and Shank 2017). In this way,

brands that try to avoid conflict can become the target of

activist consumers who yield a louder megaphone in a hyper-

connected environment.

Research in the context of brands as arbiters of controversy

is only in its infancy. Many questions remain unanswered. For

example, how does brands’ participation in controversy (polit-

ical or social) affect their customer base? How do message

content and the emotional tone of messages in a controversy

affect brand perceptions? How does brands’ participation in

controversial issues propagate on social media, and what is the

role of the structure of their online social network (e.g., net-

work centrality, network density) in the spread of brand infor-

mation following a crisis incident? What new metrics (e.g.,

polarization, controversy score) can track the nature of conver-

sation about brands in controversial settings?

32 Journal of Marketing 84(2)

Brands as Stewards of Data Privacy

As brand boundaries become blurred, data that brands can

access about their customers have increased, shedding new

light on what drives consumer attitudes and behavior. These

data are a potential source of value for branded entities, which

can use them to better target and customize their offerings to

consumers. At the same time, increased access to customer data

poses legal and ethical challenges, as consumers have grown

more concerned about the confidentiality and security of their

data (Steenkamp and Geyskens 2006). Brands that have mis-

used customer data (or suffered from data breaches) have faced

significant backlash and penalties from consumers and public

policy officials.

Policy makers and consumers have begun emphasizing the

important role of governmental regulations in moderating pri-

vacy concerns. Concomitantly, scholars have shown greater

interest in understanding the implications of recent privacy

regulations (e.g., General Data Protection Regulation in Eur-

ope) for both customers and firms (Goldfarb and Tucker

2011). As data themselves become a resource, understanding

the implications of privacy concerns for brands and the trade-

offs inherent in achieving greater personalization through data

versus ensuring data privacy is a topic that needs greater

research attention (Aguirre et al. 2016; Martin, Borah, and

Palmatier 2017).

Even as regulations pertaining to data usage become more

stringent, brands should take the lead in ensuring compliance

with data standards both for themselves and to ensure transpar-

ency across all third parties that belong to their ecosystem.

While taking such a stance would strengthen their value pro-

position, more research is needed on understanding how

branded entities should enforce data standards throughout their

ecosystem and the downstream consequences of such strategic

actions on consumer response to brands. Theoretical insights

from the firm and consumer perspectives can be leveraged to

understand how brand associations change if the role of brands

as stewards of data becomes more salient, and to what extent

this role can strengthen the relationships between brands and

their customers.

Rethinking Brand Value Creation and Cocreation

We previously alluded to how hyperconnectivity has led to

brands and their messages no longer being exclusively shaped

by their owners. In this subsection, we elaborate on how firms

can cocreate brands’ experiences and meaning with their stake-

holders, including customers, partners, and the public at large.

We summarize pertinent future research questions in Table 2.

Cocreating Brand Experiences

Perhaps the most significant change in how brands deliver

value in the digital economy is the cocreation of brand experi-

ences with consumers or partners. So far, cocreation research

has focused mostly on new product cocreation (Hoyer et al.

2010; Vargo and Lusch 2004), but recent work has begun

examining the cocreation of brand experiences (Nysveen and

Pedersen 2014).

Importantly, cocreation of the brand experience often occurs

on digital platforms, defined as enterprises that “use the Inter-

net to facilitate economically beneficial interactions between

two or more independent groups of users” (Demary and Rusche

2018, p. 8). Examples of digital platform brands are Uber,

Airbnb, and LinkedIn, among others. Most digital platforms

are branded, and their brand associations result from the inter-

actions of multiple players who contribute to the creation and

delivery of the brand experience. For example, property owners

on Airbnb contribute to the success of the brand experience as

much as the technology that enables this platform. Emerging

research on platforms has focused primarily on the structure of

such exchanges (Perren and Kozinets 2018) and how to mon-

etize them (Landsman and Stremersch 2011) rather than on

how the interactions between the firm and its stakeholders

shape the brand.

Recent research highlights the unique drivers of engagement

for platform brands (Eckhardt et al. 2019), but there are other

important branding aspects of cocreation on digital platforms

worthy of further research. For instance, how should firms

design an optimal governance mechanism that will still allow

them to maintain reasonable control over brand reputation and

meaning? How can firms influence platform participants to

reinforce the brand message and deliver a brand experience

consistent with this message? What differential branding ben-

efits (e.g., awareness, preference, resonance) accrue from the

various types of platform designs (e.g., open vs. closed, cen-

tralized vs. decentralized)? Are branded platforms in the shared

economy disrupting employment, and if so, what are the soci-

etal consequences of these disruptions and subsequent impact

on the brand?

More generally, researchers should try to understand how

much control firms should relinquish over the brand experi-

ence, while still maintaining the desired associations, and to

what extent firms should formalize the cocreation process.

Should all interested consumers be given an opportunity to

cocreate, or should the firm work to identify segments of

consumers who can yield better outcomes for the firm? By

contrast, how should firms interact with the segment of pas-

sive, low-involvement consumers, and what are the conse-

quences of cocreation by other consumers in this particular

segment? Are certain brand types more malleable to cocrea-

tion efforts? What are the consequences (i.e., benefits and

risks) of cocreated brand experiences on brand outcomes such

as brand engagement?

For traditional brands that are incorporating digital plat-

forms and channels into their strategy, there are interesting

questions pertaining to the consumption experiences. For

example, it is worth examining how brands effectively can

effectively merge online and offline experiences. Theorizing

the brand cocreation process from the firm perspective (how

firms should manage and respond to cocreated brand

Swaminathan et al. 33

experiences), the consumer perspective (how consumers cocre-

ate and react to brand experience cocreation), and the society

perspective (how cocreated brand experiences contribute to

well-being and life satisfaction) could offer important insights.

Cocreating Brand Meaning

Companies not only cocreate brand experiences with their cus-

tomers, but some are even offering consumers the opportunity

to design brand advertisements (Steenkamp 2017). While

research has begun examining the cocreation of brand meaning

through outsourced advertising campaigns (Thompson and

Malaviya 2013), extensions of this work should address various

facets and consequences of outsourcing the design of brand

communications to consumers (Wang et al. 2019).

Even if firms wish to maintain full control over how they

design and promote brand meaning, the rise of social media

has led to weakened firm control over the brand meaning in

the marketplace (Herhausen et al. 2019). Many-to-many

communications on ubiquitous social media platforms

Table 2. Rethinking Brand Value Creation and Cocreation: Future Research Opportunities.

Extant Research Future Research Research Questions

Designing the brand experience Cocreation of brand experience � How much control should firms relinquish over the brand experience while still maintaining the desired associations, and to what extent should the firm formalize the cocreation process? � Should all consumers be given an opportunity to

cocreate, or should the firm work to identify classes of consumers who can yield better outcomes for the firm? � Are certain brand types more malleable to cocreation

efforts? � What are the consequences (i.e., benefits and risks) of

cocreated brand experiences on brand outcomes such as brand attachment and loyalty? � On branded platforms, how should firms design an

optimal governance mechanism that will still allow them to maintain reasonable control over brand reputation and meaning? � How can firms influence platform participants to

reinforce the brand message and deliver a brand experience consistent with this message?

Designing firm communications that shape and reinforce brand associations

Cocreation of brand meaning � What is the optimal balance of firm-generated content versus user-generated content that can enhance consumers’ perceptions of brand authenticity and increase their willingness to engage with a brand? � Which online platforms or media can shape and

significantly influence the meanings associated with particular brands? What are the best methods and metrics that can mine the data collected from these sources? � How are branded ideas collectively constructed and

refined in society through powerful social media platforms?

How to design brands that operate independently and are under firms’ control

Creating new brands that dynamically interact with the firm postpurchase, with their users, and with other products

� How should managers retain control of the design, promotion, and equity of branded products that interact with complementary products manufactured by other firms? � To what extent will consumers allow firms to collect data

about product usage in exchange for firms’ ability to update branded products as technology improves? What structures can be put in place to more effectively use these data and feed it into the redesign process? � What goods and services can benefit more from a change

of business model from consumer ownership to access- based and occasion-based ownership? � How will brand equity accrue and be measured in an

environment where the brand ownership model is complemented by access- and occasion-based liquid consumption?

34 Journal of Marketing 84(2)

have ushered in an era in which dynamic and real-time

conversations are taking place among consumers on a

massive scale (Berger and Milkman 2012; Tellis et al.

2019). This has created a large volume of user-generated

content that has made it easier for marketers to “listen” to

consumers on social media platforms. Such listening has

allowed marketers to derive unique insights into customer

needs and wants, thus allowing them to replace costly

traditional marketing research with low-cost, granular data

available through social listening via user-generated con-

tent (Netzer et al. 2012). At the same time, research has

highlighted the amplification of positive and negative

information in social media and its effects on brands

(Hewett et al. 2016).

Understanding the implications of consumer-generated

content on downstream outcomes, such as customer engage-

ment, and the motivations for consumers to engage in gener-

ating word-of-mouth communications are two broad areas

that have garnered research attention (Barasch and Berger

2014; Lovett, Peres, and Shachar 2013; Meire et al. 2019).

Further research should build on these findings to determine

the optimal balance of firm- versus user-generated content

that can enhance consumers’ perceptions of brand authenti-

city and increase their willingness to engage with a brand. All

three theoretical perspectives can be leveraged to understand

how consumers respond when brand meaning is cocreated by

others. Finally, additional research is necessary on which

online platforms or media can shape and significantly influ-

ence the meanings associated with particular brands, along

with the best methods and metrics that can mine the data

collected from these sources.

Creating New Brands in a Hyperconnected World

Extant research on the determinants of new brands’ perfor-

mance has focused mainly on the consumer packaged goods

industry and on marketing-mix and firm-strategic actions,

such as discounting, feature/display, advertising, or distribu-

tion, with the breadth of the latter playing the greater role in

the success of a new brand (Ataman, Mela, and Van Heerde

2008). Going beyond packaged goods categories, further

research should focus on branding aspects in emergent cate-

gories of new goods and services. The breadth of new offer-

ings, ranging from digital platform brands (e.g., TaskRabbit),

to smart products (e.g., artificial intelligence toothbrushes

such as Ara by Colibree), to new business models powered

by new technologies (retail stores without a cashier such as

Amazon Go), requires a fresh perspective on how to brand and

manage complex products that interact in newer ways with

their owners and with complementary products than more

traditional products.

What are the key success factors of such new branded

products? Owing to disintermediation (involving switching

or elimination of traditional intermediaries in distribution

channels) and reintermediation (addition of new forms of

intermediaries in distribution channels), we expect traditional

channels of distribution, and related factors examined in prior

research, to be less important in the future (Gielens and Steen-

kamp 2019). Rather, success will likely depend on the degree

to which a brand can leverage hyperconnectivity among net-

works of people and devices. One manifestation of the easy

access to consumers is the proliferation of direct-to-consumer

brands such as Bonobos (men’s clothing), Harry’s (shaving),

Glossier (cosmetics), and Warby Parker (eyewear). Yet

direct-to-consumer brands do not only leverage hyperconnec-

tivity by selling their products online; rather, they try to pro-

vide a distinct brand experience that sets them apart from their

brick-and-mortar competitors by tapping into their network of

consumers. Maras (2018) describes how Glossier aimed to

make the customers an integral part of the buying experience.

Glossier invites its customers to share product ideas and

incentivizes them to share their Glossier brand experiences

with their followers across social media channels such as

Instagram. In this way, Glossier’s network of customers are

evangelists for the brand.

Three facets of hyperconnectivity are particularly relevant

in the context of new brands: networked communications, net-

work value creation, and data collection. In terms of networked

communications, information and positive word of mouth

about innovative new products can spread quickly via global

social media and buying platforms, thus securing early adopters

faster than ever before (Nguyen and Chaudhuri 2019). Network

value creation in a hyperconnected world will require smart

products that connect with other products and provide value

as a network or system; that is, they need to be “connectable”

and connected with other brands (Novak and Hoffman 2019).

Brands have formed partnerships and alliances for decades to

create add-on value; in the future, connecting with other brands

will be at the very core of a brand’s value creation and will

precipitate the growth of a variety of related applications, such

as augmented reality, blockchain, wearable technology, chat-

bots, and gamification (Simões, Filipe, and Barbosa 2019).

Finally, new brands are more likely to be perceived as innova-

tive and valuable for the firm, consumers, and society if they

collect data and make those data, or the features built on them,

available to relevant stakeholders. For example, streaming ser-

vices (e.g., Netflix, Hulu) leverage data gathered from consu-

mers to recommend new shows to their audiences. Scholars

should investigate ways in which data can be leveraged to be

a central aspect of the value creation of a new brand. For

instance, the brand Proven was created by applying artificial

intelligence algorithms to vast quantities of data pertaining to

ingredients, customer reviews, and scientific journals with the

goal of identifying the most effective ingredients and creating a

customized, data-driven line of skin care (Taylor 2018). In

doing so, data can not only help improve firms’ operations but

also, if done responsibly, be of benefit to society.

If the ability to connect to other brands is key to a new

brand’s success, how should the brand be built? Product

designs of the brands of the future will need to include sensors

and receptors to leverage the device-to-device connectivity as

discussed previously (Novak and Hoffman 2019). Researchers

Swaminathan et al. 35

need to determine conditions under which it is more effective

for brands to establish their own ecosystem, as Apple has done,

or plug into another one that allows them access to consumers

and other brands. Moreover, brands of the future—whether

smart home appliances, office equipment, cars, or industrial

products—will not be fixed and static; they will be updated

constantly, some even in real time, because their core design

will also include software, not just hardware. As noted by

Schmitt (2019), the digital revolution has moved the focus of

brands “from atoms to bits” (i.e., from tangibles to intangibles),

but the next wave of this revolution may involve incorporating

smart technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain,

and augmented and virtual reality into brands. Some of these

technologies require deeper access to consumers’ lives that

may be perceived as intrusive. The extent to which consumers

are willing make a trade-off between privacy concerns and the

ability to have their products updated and maintained in real

time is an interesting area of research inquiry.

Finally, new brands will not be about ownership. The own-

ership model will likely be complemented by access- and

occasion-based liquid consumption (Bardhi and Eckhardt

2017; Eckhardt et al. 2019). The very notion of brand as a

clearly defined entity that needs to create awareness and image

among stakeholders to induce loyalty among them may even

become obsolete and be replaced by a more transient model of

value creation among interconnected devices that do not

require much labeling and branding. If the importance of

brands diminishes, what mechanism will replace brand equity

to induce loyalty and trust in consumers? What factors will

determine product choice in this new world? The new reality

of branding described in this section calls for significant

changes in the management of brands, which we examine next.

Rethinking Brand Management

In this section, we discuss several key aspects of brand man-

agement that have been affected by hyperconnectivity. Table 3

presents pertinent future research questions in this domain.

Blurred Control of Brand Positioning and Brand Communication

Before the advent of the internet, firms chose the positioning of

their brands and sought to achieve it through carefully con-

trolled and designed communications. Hyperconnectivity has

fundamentally changed the way firms both position their

brands and talk about them. Firms now must contend with three

major changes. First, their competition has significantly broa-

dened as connectivity has heightened consumer access to a

large set of brands. Second, the internet and mobile devices

offer a much broader space and more ways to communicate

brand messages, making it more difficult to optimize message

placement (Goldfarb and Tucker 2011). Second, as we alluded

to previously, firms’ brand communications are supplemented

and may even be dwarfed by those generated from outsiders

(e.g., Tellis et al. 2019). Thus, firms’ brand messages may be

not only blurred but also substantively modified by brand opi-

nions generated by outsiders.

In terms of positioning, branding’s pervasiveness across

products, people, places, and ideas makes it more difficult for

firms to clearly delineate their competitive space and to find a

unique message that cuts across digital clutter. At the same

time, just as consumers have access to numerous brands in the

digital space, firms’ potential consumer base is also increasing,

which raises important questions about how firms should han-

dle consumer heterogeneity and to what extent they should

modify their message and offering to cater to such heterogene-

ity. Prior research has shown that differentiation is a double-

edged sword, as it is associated with both higher customer

profitability and lower acquisition and retention rates (e.g.,

Stahl et al. 2012). More research is needed on strategies that

can enable companies to wield this sword more effectively.

This is of particular relevance in a hyperconnected context

where consumers may find it impossible to engage deeply with

the multitude of brands they encounter.

In terms of the design and placement of brand messages,

firms face an almost infinite number of advertising formats and

channels. However, the effectiveness of these ads is being

questioned, as firm communications in general and brand mes-

sages in particular are fighting information overload. Many

firms are coping with the complex task of ad placement by

relinquishing some control to algorithms that help with ad pla-

cement. This also has potential downsides, as ads may be

placed alongside content that is deemed unsafe or controver-

sial. Research on the consequences of brand advertising online

and on mobile apps is emerging (e.g., Du, Xu, and Wilbur

2019; Wang, Xiong, and Yang 2019), but it is far from being

able to provide clear prescriptive implications about the con-

sequences of advertising for brand safety in a given digital

space. How do consumers react if a brand inadvertently adver-

tises on a webpage that is associated with content (such as hate

speech) consumers may find offensive? What are some effec-

tive approaches to ensuring transparency throughout the adver-

tising and media supply chain so that brands can evaluate and

enforce safety of their advertised content? More research is

needed to examine these questions in greater detail.

We highlighted the cocreation of brand meaning as one of the

main consequences of hyperconnectivity. Firms are still search-

ing for optimal ways to monitor, gather, analyze, and respond to

brand information generated online. Many firms are investing in

social media–listening control rooms or in engagement plat-

forms that can help them better manage brands on an ongoing

basis (Ramaswamy and Ozcan 2016). From a capability stand-

point, future research should offer stronger insight into how data

scientists (responsible for gleaning insights from social media

listening) can work with brand strategists within a firm to design

optimal communications that leverages the insights from a con-

tinually evolving in online conversation spaces.

From a brand management standpoint, firms need a consis-

tent approach for identifying which consumers have more influ-

ential voices, what metrics best capture this influence, and what

is the best response (in terms of message and medium) to shifting

36 Journal of Marketing 84(2)

brand associations driven by outside stakeholders. This topic has

recently received greater attention in scholarly research (e.g.,

Herhausen et al. 2019), and it is generating more interest in what

firms can do to manage the conversation. As brand dialogues

evolve in online conversation spaces, the effectiveness of firms’

engagement in these dialogues will determine the extent to

which they can control the brand message, at least in part. Scho-

larly insights into how firms can optimally design metrics dash-

boards are also necessary to ensure that firms can quickly

disseminate relevant insights gleaned from big data. Finally,

research needs to develop theory-rooted risk mitigating strate-

gies that will allow brand managers to identify and correct devia-

tions from the main brand message when these become prevalent

in online conversations.

Blurred Control of Brand Crises

The more porous ownership of brands carries with it the risk of

crises arising from the actions of platform partners. Digital

platform brands as well as traditional branded entities operating

in a hyperconnected world must design and implement govern-

ance and response mechanisms that can minimize the loss of

brand equity, when even trusted stakeholders such as firm part-

ners and employees can take actions that hurt the brand. Brand-

ing researchers should therefore conceptualize and empirically

test the effectiveness of governance mechanisms that safeguard

against stakeholders’ nefarious actions. Building on prior find-

ings (Dawar and Pillutla 2000), research should evaluate the

impact of various types of brand crises (precipitated by differ-

ent stakeholder groups) on how consumers’ attribute blame

across platform partners.

Hyperconnectivity does not stop at country borders (Dinner,

Kushwaha, and Steenkamp 2019). Consequently, novel metrics

for tracking both short- and long-term impacts of brand crises

on both a local and an international basis and across both

financial (e.g., stock market reaction) and nonfinancial (e.g.,

brand trustworthiness, engagement) factors represents a fruitful

area of research inquiry. Identifying the structures of brand

Table 3. Rethinking Brand Management: Future Research Opportunities.

Extant Research Future Research Research Questions

Brand positioning and message controlled by firm

Brand message as an output of multimedia online consumer communications

� What types of stakeholders exert more influence on brand communications, and what metrics best capture this influence? � How can brand communication by outside stakeholders

be incorporated into firms’ brand strategies, and should it be? � What are the best metrics to mine and extract insights

from multimedia social media data related to brands? How can static and video images and sounds be mined for branding insights?

Brand crises limited to product failures Brand crises resulting from the behavior of a broader class of stakeholders

� What are the best governance and response mechanisms that can minimize the loss of brand equity in the event of stakeholder nefarious actions? � How much blame do consumers attribute to firms in

brand crises depending on which stakeholders cause the harm, and how does this influence their brand relationship going forward?

Brands as identifiers of static consumption objects

Brands as identifiers of intelligent, interactive, and networked devices

� How can artificial and virtual reality create unique brand experiences for consumers before, during, and after purchase? � How should firms brand and manage nontangible

information and nonhuman, but humanlike, autonomous agents? � What is the best way to design branded experiences

delivered with the help of artificial intelligence and robots, while keeping safety and privacy concerns in mind?

Brand value measured as customer- based brand equity, price premium, or change in stock market value

Develop new metrics of stakeholder value that can take into account the blurred ownership of brands

� Is it possible to develop an internationally recognized, standardized way to measure “traditional” brand equity? � How can the marketing academic community contribute

to putting brand value on the balance sheet? � How can the value of platform brands that derive their

value primarily from networks be measured? � What are the best metrics and time horizons to assess

stakeholder value? � Can firms increase value for various stakeholders without

damaging shareholder value?

Swaminathan et al. 37

teams that will facilitate optimal responses to brand crises will

also be an important area for further research. Finally, under-

standing the implications of brand crises for employee engage-

ment and satisfaction is also a key research issue.

Blurred Control of Brands as Identifiers of Intelligent, Interactive, and Networked Devices

Radical new technologies have transformed brands from mere

consumption objects to intelligent, interactive devices. As the

next wave of the digital revolution is taking shape, the Internet

of Things will allow branded devices to interact and exchange

information with one another (Hoffman and Novak 2017; Ng

and Wakenshaw 2017). Brands are mostly trademarked goods;

in the context of hyperconnectivity, it is even more important to

monitor how they are presented and identified across a broad

range of devices, settings, and channels. Some of these settings

could be outside brand managers’ control, raising questions

about the best way to manage the operations and promotion

of brands that operate as part of networks of products.

The rise of artificial reality (i.e., the creation of an interac-

tive experience of a real-world environment through computer-

generated displays) and virtual reality (a complete simulation

of the environment also has a bearing on brands and their

boundaries. Researchers need to understand how these technol-

ogies, which are able to seamlessly blend the real and virtual

worlds, can create unique brand experiences for consumers

before, during, and after purchase. Entertainment brands

(e.g., video games such as Pokémon Go) and museums (e.g.,

Metropolitan Museum of Art) have combined aspects of real

and virtual worlds to maximize the user experience across

online and offline channels. The advent of artificial intelligence

and its physical substrate (robots ranging from chatbots to full-

fledged humanoids) raises questions of how to brand nontan-

gible information and nonhuman, but humanlike, autonomous

agents and how to use artificial intelligence as part of brand

decision making and service delivery.

Measuring Brand Value

Traditional brand valuation methods revolve around consumer-

based brand equity, often measured with survey instruments

such as the Brand Asset Valuator, the revenue premium that

accrues to the brand, and brand discounted cash flows (Datta,

Ailawadi, and Van Heerde 2017). These methods need to be

updated to reflect the role of brands in a hyperconnected world.

For example, as brands are increasingly deriving their appeal

from cultural meanings, some pillars of brand equity (e.g.,

meaningfulness) may become more important than others

(e.g., salience) (Fournier and Alvarez 2019). A revenue pre-

mium–based approach to assessing brand equity can still help

assess short-term brand value but might not adequately capture

the extent to which some brands may be better connected with

their customers than with other stakeholders.

However, more exciting research challenges may be found

in valuing brands that are born in and directly leverage

hyperconnectivity—in particular, platform brands. How to

value these brands, which typically have limited assets and

sometimes little income, is both a managerially and academi-

cally important question. Practitioners’ evaluation of platform

brands varies significantly. For example, in 2018 Facebook had

a brand value of $162.1 billion according to BrandZ versus

only $45.2 billion according to Interbrand. For Netflix, the

numbers were $20.8 billion and $8.1 billion, and for Spotify

$15.7 billion and $5.2 billion, respectively.

One approach to measuring the value of these types of

brands would be to use the standard financial approach: brand

value ¼ current profit/(interest rate � profit growth rate). How-

ever, this standard approach may not be valid for networks,

particularly if the network does not yet have any profits or if the

profit growth rate exceeds the interest rate. Another approach

suitable for subscription-based businesses is to calculate the cus-

tomer lifetime value for each network member from his or her

own discounted cash flows (Gneiser et al. 2012). This alternative

is based on customer equity theory (Rust, Lemon, and Zeithaml

2004) but may not be particularly robust in a world in which

people can easily cancel or change subscriptions.

Recent approaches to brand valuation in the context of net-

works take the user base into account, assuming that networks

are more valuable if the social capital of its members is higher

(Adler and Kwon 2002). Bourdieu (1986, p. 248) defines social

capital as “the sum of total resources, actual or virtual, that

accrue to an individual (or group) by the virtue of being

enmeshed in a durable network of more or less institutionalized

relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition.” Thus,

the value of a brand that operates on a network increases as a

function of current profit and size of the user base, but also with

the social capital and social structure of its user base. However,

consensus is lacking on the functional form of this relationship

(Zhou and Van Alstyne 2019) and, in particular, on how to

incorporate the intangible value that resides in the relationships

between users into the value of the platform brand. Further

research is necessary to understand whether social capital

should be measured at the individual level and then aggregated

to the network or directly at the network level to capture unob-

served synergies in social capital. In addition, the role of the

quality of social capital needs further examination. Bourdieu’s

“relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition” may be

weak in networks such as LinkedIn, in which connections may

be distant and nonconsequential. A more contemporary view

on social capital seems essential to future research (e.g., Field

2017) and acknowledges branding to be of societal importance

beyond the goals of the individual marketer (Putnam 2000).

Another important component of the valuation of brands on

networks is the structure of the network. What kind of structure

is more valuable? Is a tight-knit, cohesive structure (niche

strategy) with many redundant ties more valuable (Coleman

1988), or a sparse network with few redundant ties (undiffer-

entiated market saturation strategy), which facilitates wider

diffusion of information (Burt 1992)? Finally, researchers

focused on this type of valuation will need to determine the

relative importance of the various inputs (current profit, user

38 Journal of Marketing 84(2)

base, social capital, and network structure) and assess whether

their weights may differ by industry and type of network. Mea-

suring brand value of idea and person brands also poses unique

challenges that marketers need to address.

Rethinking the Boundaries of Branding

In recent years, branding research has broadened its scope to

include brands from emerging countries (Melnyk, Klein, and

Völckner 2012), branding in a digital environment (e.g., Tellis

et al. 2019), and the branding of new entities such as place,

organization, idea, and person (e.g., Fournier and Eckhardt

2019; Steenkamp 2020). We chose to focus primarily on three

types of noncommercial, nonmarketplace entities—ideas, peo-

ple, places—because these entities have leveraged hypercon-

nectivity in unique ways to attract large numbers of followers,

but we also briefly refer to branded organizations. Table 4

presents illustrative future research questions that can advance

knowledge on newer branded entities.

Idea Brands

We evaluate idea brands as an example of a newer branded

entity, though ideas have had a long history of being branded.

For example, ideologies such as Puritanism, Calvinism,

communism, and neoliberalism have also leveraged branding

to gain adherents and to articulate their principles in a consistent

manner. The American Dream, the New Deal, Reaganomics,

and the Green New Deal are examples of branded initiatives

originating from political entities and parties who make con-

certed efforts to obtain support, gain followers, build emotional

relationships, and raise funds. We define idea brands as ideolo-

gies, initiatives, or other abstract, noncommercial notions that

are identified by their stakeholders and the public at large using

the same specific name. In other words, a set of ideas becomes

branded when its stakeholders and the public at large use a

specific label to refer to it, to affiliate with it, or to promote it.

Idea brands span many domains—social, political, cause-related,

and religious—and can evolve across domains; for example,

cause-related ideas can morph into social causes as their popu-

larity and supporter base increase (Fine 1981). They are rela-

tively ephemeral and highly dynamic entities, susceptible to

hijacking, change, or even elimination. The dynamic nature of

idea brands is further exacerbated by hyperconnectivity, as

online social networks and platforms can sanction and spread

them, reshape them, or oppose resistance to them.

In light of these important differences, additional systematic

research is required on how, when, and why certain idea brands

are more successful than others. The hyperconnected era has

Table 4. Rethinking the Boundaries of Branding: Future Research Opportunities.

Branded Entities Studied in Prior Research

Branded Entities in Need of Further Study Research Questions

Commercial product and service brands, celebrity brands, corporate brands, place brands in the tourism literature

Idea brands � How do branded ideas emerge and spread? What are the factors impacting the diffusion of positively versus negatively valenced ideas?

� How are associations with branded ideas formed and what is the role of opinion leaders? How do mixed societal responses contribute to shaping these ideas brands and what constituencies play a greater role in refining the idea brand message?

� How can the authenticity and strength of idea brands be assessed and measured and what are the factors that contribute to this authenticity?

Person brands � How can noncelebrities build a person brand with clear brand associations that can help them attain specific personal or professional goals?

� What are the psychological consequences that consumers can experience from managing their personal brand, including the potential for higher narcissism, self-promotion focus, and individualistic tendencies?

Place brands � How can places promote their brands without increasing the conflict between various classes of stakeholders, such as the residents and visitors of a city?

� What are the implications of social density and social class perceptions for place brands?

� How can place brands mitigate the negative consequences associated with unfavorable social, economic and climate changes?

Organizations as brands

� How can organizations create and deliver a purpose within society that aligns with their brand associations and mission?

� How can organizations manage brand associations faced with an increasingly large set of relevant stakeholders that can contribute to these associations, from consumers and employers, to activist investors and other organizations?

� What drives brand perceptions for organizations that serve the common good and what could disrupt the branding efforts of infamous organizations?

Swaminathan et al. 39

increased the speed and scale at which ideas are disseminated,

creating an urgent need for new models of how ideas diffuse

and when and how ideas morph into social movements.

Researchers could combine insights from research on diffusion

and contagion theory (Centola 2018) with elements from socio-

logical theories related to social movements to elucidate the

spread of different types of ideas (e.g., political, religious,

social). An in-depth examination of the distinct ways that good

ideas spread (e.g., humanitarian causes) relative to bad ideas

(e.g., terrorism, racial intolerance) is also necessary. Further-

more, the consumer and society perspectives could come

together to elucidate the differences between more and less

authentic ideas to identify the characteristics of groups they

appeal to and to evaluate their impact on the social actions of

the individuals who adopt or oppose them.

Person Brands

A second type of branded entity that is gaining prominence in

the context of hyperconnectivity is a person brand. Research

has referred to a brand that is also a real person as a person

brand (Fournier and Eckhardt 2019), human brand (Thomson

2006), or celebrity brand (Kerrigan et al. 2011). These types of

brands have been used by everyone from a publicly visible and

public-relations-conscious celebrity or politician to any person

who uses a platform or engages in a form of self-promotion that

is visible to his or her constituency. For example, Banet-Weiser

(2012) shows how teenage girls create and try out their many

personal brands online, and how marketers, in turn, scrape the

web for these incredibly rich data that, before the hypercon-

nected world, would have been too expensive, lacking eco-

logical validity, and highly restricted and regulated by law

and practice. The ability to create and promote a person

brand online has led to the rise of influencers, a category

of individuals who appear to have high potential as brand

promoters and whose impact on brands and their meaning is

the focus of recent scholarly research (Hughes, Swami-

nathan, and Brooks 2019).

In analyzing the distinct characteristics of person brands,

Fournier and Eckhardt (2019) stress the challenges involved

in unifying person and brand, as they are inextricably linked,

mutually interdependent, but not identical. They argue that the

key characteristics that define a person (mortality, hubris,

unpredictability, and social embeddedness) can upset this

mutually interdependent relationship and cause inconsistency

and imbalance. In highlighting this aspect, Fournier and

Eckhardt (2019) argue that this distinctive aspect of person

brands (i.e., integrating across the person and the brand) creates

unique risks for their management.

More research is needed to identify how these risks occur and

can be mitigated. The downstream consequences (monetary and

nonmonetary) of reputational losses associated with crises and

scandals involving person brands are also worth examining, as

hyperconnectivity can magnify the scale and scope of such

losses, particularly in the short run. By contrast, the conse-

quences of reputational losses may diminish over long-term

windows from the volume of information and velocity with

which information is continually updated. Building on the notion

of interdependencies between person and brand, research could

also investigate how this delicate balance shifts in the aftermath

of a reputational crisis and whether a greater shift in focus on the

shortcomings of the “person” actually improves overall percep-

tions of authenticity associated with the person brand.

As more people begin to adopt branding principles to pro-

mote themselves, understanding the societal implications of

such actions is important. On the one hand, adoption of

person-branding principles by noncelebrities could strengthen

the ability of these individuals to become more attractive

employees or more attractive dating partners. On the other

hand, an excessive focus on self-promotion may also have a

variety of negative consequences. For example, McCain and

Campbell (2018) highlight the unhealthy self-obsession and

growth of narcissism as one potential consequence of lever-

aging social media to build one’s brand. Understanding these

effects of person branding on narcissism and its consequent

implications for feelings of belongingness, happiness, and

well-being are research issues that merit further investigation.

Furthermore, research should investigate the differences

between brands built by average people and celebrity brands

and identify the optimal approaches for reputation building

across these two types of person brands. Another useful

approach would be to distinguish between economic

(“commercial”) and noneconomic (“noncommercial”) person

brands. Commercial person brands such as celebrities, (micro)

bloggers, and digital opinion leaders have their own following,

and they derive income from sponsorships and sales recom-

mendations and by branding their product lines (e.g., Kylie

Jenner’s Kylie Cosmetics). Much of the value of these person

brands resides in their network, and future research should try

to evaluate novel brand valuation approaches for this context.

Place Brands

A place brand can be defined as “a network of associations in

the consumers’ mind based on the visual, verbal, and beha-

vioral expression of a place, which is embodied through the

aims, communication, values, and the general culture of the

place’s stakeholders and the overall place design” (Zenker and

Braun 2010, p. 5). Place branding is more than merely measur-

ing the perceptions of the individuals who interact with that

locale: place can be a sociological construction or an actively

managed image-building and management strategy (Kotler and

Gertner 2002). Place brands develop as a result of complex

interactions among residents, influenced by culture and history,

and are thereby seen as dynamic, socially constructed, cultu-

rally dependent, and communally owned entities (Ballantyne

and Aitken 2007).

Like idea brands, the ownership of place brands is spread

over multiple stakeholders (e.g., city governments, residents,

tourists). These stakeholders could potentially have conflicting

objectives, as exemplified by the opposing goals of tourists and

residents in cities such as Amsterdam and Berlin (Cancian

40 Journal of Marketing 84(2)

2019). The differential role of multiple stakeholders in the

development of place brands would be worth investigating,

drawing on multiple disciplines such as political science,

sociology, anthropology, cross-cultural psychology, urban

planning, geography, and tourism research. Insights from the

consumer and society perspectives could be integrated to con-

ceptualize and measure place branding outcomes across vari-

ous stakeholders, as well as to better understand intangible

outcomes (Potapov, Shafranskaya, and Bozhya-Volya 2016),

such as life satisfaction of citizens and overall societal well-

being. Spaces smaller than a city but commercially vital, such

as Times Square, or trendy-shopping spaces such as Ginza

(Tokyo) could also be researched in this day of the decline of

the shopping mall. Factors such as the social density, social

class perceptions and the implications for place brands should

be examined (O’Guinn, Tanner, and Maeng 2015), particularly

in the context of a hyperconnected world.

Place branding research has so far focused on how place

brands are created and consumed, and how place brand identity

develops (Lucarelli and Berg 2011). Place attachment has

examined how people forms associations with a place based

on their childhood experiences (Morgan 2010). More recent

research (Thomas and O’Guinn 2019) draws on the large urban

sociology literature to understand how branded spaces work

through community, moral codes, and symbolic boundaries.

Place brands share commonalities with other types of branded

entities (e.g., their meanings are cocreated, as are those for idea

and platform brands) but also differ in important ways: brand

communications have to account for the diverse and potentially

heightened social sensitivities that result from these conflicts.

Organizations as Brands

A fourth type of branded entity that is worth closer scrutiny in

the era of hyperconnectivity is organizations. Research has

investigated organizations mostly in their corporate form and

corporate brands mostly along the notions of corporate identity

and corporate reputation (Abratt and Kleyn 2012; Ind 1997).

Yet there is much more to organizations as brands. They have

responsibilities to communities, to the environment, and, of

course, to their own employees. The best manner in which

organizations can create and deliver a purpose within society

that aligns with their brand associations and mission is an area

that still requires research. In addition, more nefarious organi-

zations (e.g., terrorist organizations) that aim to overthrow the

existing order through violence keenly understand the power of

branding as well (Beifuss and Bellini 2013). Developing a

deeper understanding of what drives brand perceptions for

organizations that serve the common good and what could

disrupt the branding efforts of infamous organizations might

be a worthy research endeavor.

Metrics for Newer Branded Entities

We previously discussed challenges and opportunities associ-

ated with measuring brand value in a hyperconnected

environment. Newer branded entities such as noncommercial

idea and person brands are uniquely difficult to value because

generating cash flow may not be their purpose. Rather, their

relevant metrics may be influence, power, votes, societal well-

being (e.g., social justice, fighting climate change), or converts.

Might consumer-based brand equity be a useful point of depar-

ture for valuing such brands? If so, what would be the relevant

dimensions? Are traditional consumer-based brand equity mea-

sures such as those in the Brand Asset Valuator (Datta, Aila-

wadi, and Van Heerde 2017) relevant or sufficient? What

would a properly-conceived-of consumer-based brand equity

measure for noncommercial idea and person brands indicate

about the actual strength of the brand? To answer these ques-

tions, researchers need to link this measure to the relevant

outcome metrics for such brands. Another factor to consider

when developing new methods to value idea and person brands

is the greater risk associated with inconsistency and potential

threats of scandals or crises (Fournier and Eckhardt 2019). This

may require a different approach to risk management than what

has been used for traditional brands.

Conclusion

This article focuses on future contributions to brand research,

management, and measurement in a hyperconnected world in

which the boundaries of branding have been blurred and broa-

dened. In light of both broadening and blurring of brand bound-

aries, we address three key questions that form the focus of our

inquiry: (1) What are the roles and functions of brands? (2)

How is brand value (co)created? and (3) How should brands be

managed?

We take a dual perspective in this article. On the one hand,

we describe how hyperconnectivity has led to several new roles

for brands. On the other hand, we reexamine how some tradi-

tional roles of brands (e.g., brands as signals of quality or as

mental cues) have changed in a hyperconnected environment.

We do so using firm, consumer, and society theoretical per-

spectives. We describe how hyperconnectivity contributes to

several new roles in which brands are containers of socially

constructed meaning, architects of value in networks, catalysts

of communities, arbiters of controversy, and stewards of data

privacy, among others. Many of these new roles can be the

focus of research from multiple disciplinary perspectives, and

we highlight a variety of research questions that can draw from

different theoretical perspectives throughout the article. As

brand boundaries are blurring, we also discuss the shift toward

cocreated brand meanings and experiences enacted via digital

platforms that facilitate such cocreation.

Given the complex nature of brands today, we hope

researchers will engage in future boundary-breaking research

on topics like those outlined here. As our review attests, one

implication of hyperconnectivity for branding research lies in

the fact that brands will need to be conceptualized more

broadly within each of the theoretical perspectives in the extant

brand literature. The consumer and firm perspectives should

focus more on consumers and firms as part of networks, rather

Swaminathan et al. 41

than on their roles as individual buyers or managers of brands.

The society perspective should go beyond the role of brands as

cultural symbols and examine them as agents of social change.

Moreover, we propose that brands are more than symbols

attached to products that are owned by individual firms. They

can be ideas, people, and places.

There is also an opportunity to examine topics that cut across

these theoretical perspectives. For example, the firm perspective

will need to embrace societal questions as organizations or cor-

porate brands are asked to address broader issues including

social responsibility, sustainability, and human-resource prac-

tices that go beyond profit maximization. Brands need to fulfill

a broader mission and purpose. The consumer perspective will

also have to be more rooted in the society perspective as con-

sumers form networks that are becoming distinct and occasion-

ally vociferous entities that can shape both managerial practice

and societal trends. The impact of network on brands, like that of

communities, requires additional sociological, psychological,

and cultural insight. Given our experience, we believe that such

work would benefit from increased collaboration among brand-

ing researchers of different backgrounds, including teams of

marketing strategists, economists, modelers, psychologists,

sociologists, and consumer culture researchers.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the JM review team for their very

helpful suggestions and feedback on previous versions of this

manuscript.

Editors

Christine Moorman and C. Page Moreau

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to

the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, author-

ship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Vanitha Swaminathan https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8752-8881

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