BBR is focused on advancing thinking about brands and brand relationships. The Institute’s umbrella is intentionally broad because we think this will bring together and excite diverse audiences and because it’s the best way to provide an arena for sharing and fostering the most creative and impactful ideas.
Conference Dates:
May 18 – 20, 2016
Submission Deadline:
January 15, 2016
Notification of Acceptance:
February 29, 2016
Ivey Business School, Western University
Ivey Tangerine Leadership Centre
130 King Street West, Toronto, Canada
We hereby call for your work: We are looking for your research about brands and brand relationships, and have a preference for innovative, risky, in-development, non-traditional ideas.
There are a number of topics that intrigue us and may inspire others, but the list below could be complemented or replaced by the contents of your own scholarly imaginations:
(1) Much BBR research focuses on generating insights to improve profits or loyalty, but other, more unconventional applications are worthy of exploration too. How can BBR-research be used to improve voter turnout, reduce gun violence, encourage healthy habits… In short, how can BBR theories influence consumer or societal well-being, broadly construed?
(2) In the 90’s, marketers started in earnest to use interpersonal theories to focus on consumer-brand relationships, moving away from satisfaction and trust to the notion of engaging closer relationships. There has been a transformation since then, with marketers explicitly pushing the human-like qualities of the brand (e.g., the anthropomorphized and mindful brand) and the interpersonal nature of the brand relationship (e.g. Pizza Hut asked consumers to “imagine pizza was your boyfriend”). What is the effect of this change? If people are as lonely as reports suggest, will this transformation help or hurt them? Are brand relationships substitutes or complements to interpersonal relationships? What are the consequences of the anthropomorphized brand?
(3) What do we do with hybrid person-brands (e.g. reality-stars, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump) and are there systematic ways to understand or manage them by leveraging BBR ideas? Celebrity branding is a huge business but most of the interesting work is going on in political and communications journals.
(4) There has been a proliferation of metrics to assess CBR’s: BRQ, attachment, brand love, trust, identification, commitment, etc. Each metric is different and contributes something unique, but to a manager, the array is confusing. What is the ‘right answer’? What insight can BBR contribute in terms of systematically documenting the differences/similarities, strengths/weaknesses of each metric in a diagnostic and predictive capacity?
Authors are invited to submit non-published work that has a focal point of brands and/or brand relationships. There are two types of submission. Submissions should clearly identify the type of submission (Full paper vs. Work in Progress). Full paper submissions should clearly identify whether the affiliated author(s) is a doctoral student.
Authors submit their advanced, ground-breaking research that has not been published elsewhere (but that may be under review).
Authors submit less advanced works using a shorter format with the purpose of generating discussion and feedback. These are theoretically sound projects for which empirical work has been initiated but data collection and analysis are not yet complete. These also require a written commitment to complete enough data collection and analysis by conference time to allow for scholarly discussion.
During the review process, the conference chairs assign accepted papers to either a traditional 20-minute or 10-minute “Snap Talk” presentation format. We will assign papers based on their stage of completion and contribution.
Authors may serve as lead author and presenter on only one submission. Any PhD student who submits a Full Paper will be considered also for the Doctoral Research Mentor Workshop where students are invited to discuss their work with a panel of BBR fellows.
All submissions require the following:
(1) First Page: type of submission, title, author names, author affiliations.
(2) First Page: short abstract (50-100 words). This abstract will be printed in the conference program overview and should concentrate on the big picture contributions of the paper.
(3) Second Page: 750-1,000 word Extended Abstract that provides a summary of the paper in five categories: Conceptual Background, Research Questions/Hypotheses, Method, Major Findings, and Contributions to Theory/Practice. Works in progress may or may not include a description of Interim Findings (instead of Major Findings), but should include the other sections. Extended Abstracts are reproduced in the conference program, are used to assign reviewers, and form the content of some of BBR’s marketing.
(4) Body of Paper (restates title at top). Full papers are limited to 6,000-8,000 words or approximately 20 pages (12 pt. font, double spaced) including tables, figures and references (i.e. does not include the cover page or extended abstract). Works in progress are limited to 2,000 words or approximately 5-7 pages (12 pt. font, double spaced) including tables, figures and references (i.e. does not include the cover page or extended abstract). Papers should follow the current JCR style. The body of the paper should not contain author identifiers (to permit double-blind review).
(5) Author Commitments: All authors must express written confirmation that (a) at least one author of each accepted submission agrees to attend the conference and present the work and
(b) all authors on submitted papers agree to provide thoughtful, quality reviews of up to three papers.
Reviewers will evaluate submissions on the basis of: (a) relevance of the topic to branding researchers and practitioners, (b) conceptual rigor, (c) methodological rigor and quality of the research, (d) contribution to the BBR fields, (e) innovation and riskiness of the perspective, and (f) coherence and readability. Works in progress will also be evaluated based on the stage of completion of the research (more advanced is preferred).
We ask that authors submit their papers electronically no later than January 30, 2016 by emailing a single PDF file to Carly Vanderheyden. Please contact either Carly or Matt Thomson with questions about the submission process.
Conference Personnel
• Host & Co-Chair: Matt Thomson, Ivey Business School, Canada
• Host & Co-Chair: Michael Breazeale, Mississippi State University, USA
• BBR Conference Advisor: Susan Fournier, Boston University, USA
• BBR Conference Advisor: Jill Avery, Harvard Business School, USA
For more information about the Institute for Brands and Brand Relationships or its BBR conference, please visit:
BrandRelationships.org