Managing Sustainable Brands in the Digital Age: Creating Engagement

Dear Colleagues,

In response to changing trends in the market, branding has evolved over the past few decades, becoming more global, strategic, and interdisciplinary. The call for contributions to this Special Issue is driven by brands’ need to respond to two major trends in our society: the need to live more sustainably (to contribute towards reaching the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)) and increasing digitalisation.

Brands are one of the most valuable organizational intangible assets. When managing brands and brand reputations, one cannot ignore the major trends in today’s organizational performance requirements. Our society is becoming increasingly adherent to a triple-bottom-line evaluation, i.e., evaluating society and organizational performance on the basis of not only economic prosperity (i.e., profits), but also environmental quality (i.e., the planet), and social justice (i.e., people). By aiming to develop sustainable brands, marketers face an array of challenges. A multidisciplinary approach is increasingly envisaged to reach for sustainable brand development as brands generate value for numerous actors, and multiple stakeholders (e.g.,  consumers, employees, and associated brands) are co-creating brands.

At the same time, advanced digital technology development (e.g., interactive Web 2.0, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data, Augmented Reality (AR), and Internet of Things (IoT)) has evoked a paradigm shift in the way many consumers organize their lives, using a multitude of communication platforms. As a result, throughout the customer journey, a multitude of digital touchpoints have gained importance and impacted brand management. The Internet and increasing data generation have created the opportunity to reach a global audience and conduct personalized interactions. Furthermore, brands have become a means of expressing oneself on social media platforms and interacting with like-minded brand followers. On one hand, digitalization has impacted brand-related interaction and consumers’ brand engagement, the branding process, and control over the brand meaning and brand ownership. On the other hand, digitalization empowers brands to impact intention and attitude formation (e.g., through new ways of nudging) and identity formation (e.g., through influencers or values and norms formation), which may open up opportunities to install more sustainable brand choices and behavior patterns in stakeholders. Indeed as they are tightly connected with consumers, brands have the opportunity to become powerful instruments of change.

The shift towards a digital society has transformed the way brands try to get the attention of their stakeholders. From the awareness phase, targeting gains importance. Stakeholders try to connect with brands that truly understand their personal needs, which may lead to niche marketing and micro marketing.  A new marketing funnel is emerging that matches with the new ways to engage stakeholders with brands, taking into account the challenges of integrating their communcation needs.  

For this Special Issue titled “Managing Sustainable Brands in the Digital Age: Creating Engagement”, we invite the submission of articles that elaborate on digital possibilities to engage stakeholders (e.g., consumers, employees, associated brands) in the brand management process of sustainable brands. We wish to foster discussion on the development of socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable brands as well as those that stimulate their stakeholders to engage in more sustainable choices through the development of meaningful encounters.

We encourage contributions that address issues related (but not limited) to the following areas:

• Branding in a circular economy;
• Development of consistency throughout all brand touchpoints and for all stakeholders considering sustainability as a strategic viewpoint;
• Development of an interactive, individualized, yet communal brand experience throughout all brand touchpoints for all stakeholders, considering that not all stakeholders are actively involved in reaching sustainability goals;
• The implications of digitalization on the marketing funnel in the context of sustainable brands;
• Estimation of dynamic and forward-looking brand equity systems, including sustainability parameters;
• Creation of sustainable brand propositions by a diversity of stakeholders in this digital age;
• Nudging of consumers to make sustainable brand choices;
• Appeals to engage consumers in identifying with sustainable brands and fostering their sustainable self- concept;
• Antecedents of consumer engagement in sustainable brands;
• Techniques to increase engagement with sustainable brands (e.g., gamification, mobile applications);
• Creation and consumption, as well as types of content, of brand-related sustainable content;
• The use of personalization to contribute to a positive and sustainable brand perception and attitude.

More established methods and  newer methodological approaches that accurately capture reality are both appreciated. Methodologies should serve an increasing understanding of stakeholder and brand behavior and should underpin the managerial implications of the presented research. Examples of welcomed methodologies include:

• Quantitative surveys;
• Experiments;
• Qualitative case studies;
• More novel data collection methods (f.e. fMri, Netnograph, etc.);
• Data mining;
• Co-creative research processes.

Prof. Dr. Ingrid Moons
Dr. Freya De Keyzer
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• stakeholder engagement
• digital marketing
• sustainability
• multidisciplinary
• brand management