Building the connection between nation and commercial brand : an integrative review and future research directions

Purpose: This paper aims to provide an integrative review on nation branding literature and to identify new avenues for future research on embedding nation equity into commercial brands. Design/methodology/approach: Integrative review and analysis with conceptual development and future research directions. Findings: The authors firstly identify conceptualizations and measurements of nation brand as national identity and as national image. Consistently, three theoretical perspectives investigating nation branding were given: first, the macro view focusing on nation brand broadly as political and cultural identity; second, the micro view focusing on nation brand as a country image; and finally, the integrative view using the emerging construct of nation equity. Inspired by the last theoretical view, the authors discuss four research foci that examine nation equity in commercial brands for future research. Originality/value: The paper provides an integrative understanding of nation branding and identifies novel research opportunities to study this research field – building the connection between nations and commercial brands through nation equity.