Digitisation and branding evolution: An integrative conceptual framework

By systematically analysing academic literature between 1960 and 2016 (July), this article aims to fill a significant gap in the existing literature, offering a broad interpretative framework of branding evolution in the long term. As a result, it establishes three key research perspectives for understanding the evolutionary dynamics of branding (i.e. conceptual, managerial and organisational). These research perspectives are used to interpret, on the one hand, the different phases of branding evolution by defining five branding paradigms (i.e. sign, image, identity, relational, social) from a theoretical and managerial standpoint and, on the other hand, the main innovative aspects of branding that are more closely related to digitisation.