The paper formalizes the intuition that brands are consumed for image reasons and that advertising creates a brand's image. The key idea is that advertising informs the public of brand names and creates the possibility of conspicuous consumption by rendering brands a signalling device. In a...

Researchers and brand managers have limited understanding of the effects of firm-created and user-generated social media communication on brand equity, brand attitude, and purchase intention. Thus, we investigated 504 Facebook users using a standardized online survey across Poland. To test the...