SIM Conference 2024: Brands and purpose in a changing era IULM Milan, Italy, October 17-18, 2024 |
| Conference website | https://www.simktg.it/attivita/education/social-events/sim-conference/ |
| Submission link | https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=simconference2024 |
| Abstract registration deadline | September 8, 2024 |
| Submission deadline | September 8, 2024 |
XXI SIM Conference
IULM University, Milano
October 17 -18, 2024
Brands and Purpose in a changing era
Call for papers
Climate crisis, energy transition, wars, ideological polarization, pandemics, social inequalities, civil rights are just some of the challenges that citizens today directly ask business and brands to face and resolve. On the other hand, trust in business has continued to be higher than trust in institutions for years (Edelman Trust Barometer 2024). The interdependence among the transformations that occur in the social context, the way in which individual needs and desires are formed and expressed, the configuration that goods and services take on to satisfy these needs, the complexity of managerial, symbolic and value processes that companies implement is increasingly profound.
In this environment, purpose would emerge as a response to a more authentic request for value creation. Today, brand distinctiveness also comes through knowing how to question oneself about the position with which to identify in this changing environment and how to project one's commitment into the present and future. However, the risk is exposing oneself to issues that harden the brand's positions and excessively polarize preferences. Today, the amount of information generated by incessant media production prevails over the quality, authenticity and even the truth underlying the brand. Here the interrelationship among brand, purpose and society crystallizes in activism practices, filled with symbolic narratives, amplifications in digital arenas, flows of even antagonistic and critical conversations with stakeholders.
To maintain brand values, companies carefully orchestrate their marketing activities through a series of strategic branding tools, designed to associate the brand with positive cultural symbols (Holt, 2004; McCracken, 1989) and ensure that consumers perceive it as a leader in its category (Beck, Rahinel, & Bleier, 2020). This focus on value has generally led traditional research to recommend overcoming or counteracting any manifestation of brand contestation (Dutta and Pullig, 2011; Herhausen et al., 2019). However, contestation should not necessarily be eliminated but channeled and cultivated (Collier et al., 2006; Freeden, 2004): a brand can learn from its failures and become more solid with each contestation experienced. The brand becomes a much more adaptive, contextual, antifragile concept.
The boundaries of “product brands” or “company brands” on the one hand are expanding, and on the other they are becoming increasingly blurred, causing brands to emerge in new and unpredictable ways (Swaminathan et al. 2020). The SIM 2024 conference questions one of the concepts that represent the heart of the marketing discipline, the brand, reflecting on the role and configurations of value that it can take on in an unstable, fluid and interconnected context. Scholars are therefore invited to present contributions that outline the state of the art of the brand today, as well as to hypothesize future development scenarios.
The SIM Conference 2024 confirms what was proposed in the latest editions:
- Participants can present short and/or full papers.
- There is an active poster session dedicated to contributions relating to research still in the preliminary or developing phase.
- The Italian Journal of Marketing, official journal of the Italian Marketing Society, will publish a special issue dedicated to the SIM Conference and reserved for the full papers presented at the conference. This Special Issue will include - following a review procedure - the articles of all the thematic sections. The coordination of the special issue will be entrusted to the conference organizers who will take care of the related editorial presentation.
- The best Marketing Cases may be published in the Pearson Management & Marketing Cases published by Pearson on the initiative of SIM and SIMA.
- Awards and recognitions:
- Best Conference Paper Award for the best paper (short and full) presented at the conference.
- Selected paper award for the best papers in each thematic section (short or full) from which to choose the Best Conference Paper.
- All contributions presented at the conference (short papers, full papers, posters, marketing cases) will be included in the proceedings, even if reworked in the form of extended abstracts.
The thematic sessions will take place on October 18, 2024. In order to have the work included in the program, at least one author’s SIM membership has to be up to date by September 30, 2024. Registrations will only be possible online. All details will be published on the SIM website (www.simktg.it).
Papers that are not regularly presented in the respective sessions will not be considered for inclusion in any proceedings, for awards or for publication opportunities. When submitting the paper proposal, authors must indicate the relevant Thematic Section by selecting one of those listed below:
1. International Marketing
2. Consumer Behaviour
3. Marketing Communication & Branding
4. B2B Marketing
5. Retailing & Channel Management
6. Tourism, Culture and Arts Marketing
7. Technology and Innovation Marketing
8. Digital Marketing
9. Sustainable Marketing
10. Services Marketing
The programme will also include the special track “Marketing cases”, which welcomes business case studies focused on marketing topics. Presented cases may be published in the Management & Marketing Cases series edited by SIM and SIMA and published by Pearson.
Short and full papers, posters and marketing cases drawn up according to the editorial rules reported below, must be submitted by September 8, 2024.
Authors will receive the feedback about acceptance of the proposed contribution by the Coordinators of the thematic sections by September 20, 2024.