Projects

High-quality research

Strategic focus areas

To publish high-quality, influential articles in top international research journals.

1. Active and visible participation at top international research conferences.
2. Engaging in joint research projects with international collaborators.
3. Acquisition of research funding to enable the employment of post docs and Ph.D. students at the Cluster.

The Cluster is highly active in research and teaching, where we see a synergistic relationship between the two. The research environment is open and international, which is reflected in the composition of members of the Cluster and in its activities. The Cluster seeks to balance the desire to publish in highly ranked journals at the AJG 4 and 4* levels and the desire to achieve impact through journals with high h scores. Furthermore, we aim for publications that specifically address our research community and work on making our research findings accessible for practitioners (e.g., dissemination of core results of academic studies in practitioner-oriented magazines).

The Cluster seeks to engage the international research community through joint research publications and through the organization and facilitation of research fora on branding research. Furthermore, the Cluster aims to involve selected network partners in major funding applications (on a national and eventually international level, if applicable) that support research projects advancing the branding discipline and that allow developing strong research teams, also involving young researchers such as post-docs and Ph.D. students.

The Clusters’ research has won multiple awards and has been published in top journals such as Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Business Ethics, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Advertising, Journal of Interactive Marketing, Journal of Business Research, and Psychology & Marketing.

Educational excellence

Strategic focus areas:

1. Developing and refining a teaching portfolio that builds upon our research expertise.
2. Using teaching platforms to engage international colleagues and branding practitioners in our Cluster.
3. Promoting teaching-based research through inter alia publications based on high quality MSc theses.

The Cluster delivers innovative and research-based teaching in the area of branding. We deliver high-quality teaching using class-based, blended and fully online courses. Our members have spearheaded the implementation of advanced blended learning pedagogies particularly on our M.Sc. in Brand and Communications Management program. Our teaching evaluations are consistently high. Richard Gyrd-Jones is the coordinator of the M.Sc. in Brand and Communications Management, where Cluster members offer a range of core courses related to the Cluster. Teaching platforms are consciously used to engage international colleagues and branding practitioners in our Cluster.

Societal engagement, impact, and transformation

Strategic focus areas

1. Developing research with societal relevance and impact.
2. Dissemination of relevant research results to non-academic audiences and stimulation of a research-based discourse amongst non-academics.

We aim to be an innovative and outward looking group that seeks to challenge orthodox thinking: in research, teaching, and outreach. As is evident from current activities, Cluster members are active in promoting a healthy societal debate around brand and brand management. Our primary medium is our high quality, internationally relevant research. This drives critical thought in branding and brand management to promote a critical discourse on brands in society. This feeds into our teaching and outreach activities. We aim to transform:

• Brand thinking within the marketing field. By being a critical voice in the field. By creating a network of researchers who share this critical view. By supporting and educating young researchers through education and exchange.
• High quality research provides the basis for a deep understanding of brands and their impact on society, both for the health and vitality of the commercial sector, or their impact on consumers’ wellbeing and their impact on macro-societal trends (such as consumerism, the emergence of new forms of emotional labour, etc.). To this end, the critical approach adopted by Cluster members in relation to their research provides fodder to these societally relevant questions.
• Research education reflects our commitment to educating the next generation of researchers and practitioners to think critically about the role of branding in society. How it can promote growth, sustainability and equality, whilst at the same time acknowledging that brands also have a dark side that can rhetorically promote freedom whilst undermining and imprisoning actors into commercial logics of exploitation.
• Brand management teaching through our flagship M.Sc. program in Brand and Communications Management (BCM) and through new pedagogical initiatives and content.
• Our teaching activities are perhaps our largest contribution to enabling the next generation of practitioners to understanding the power of brands to motivate organisational members to strive for new goals in environmental, economic, and social sustainability. Through our flagship M.Sc. program in Brand and Communications Management, our members are active in developing and delivering state of the art teaching that pulls from our world-class research.
• The divide between academia and practice by focusing on and developing value creation pedagogies where value is created simultaneously for students and organisations and collaborating across Copenhagen Business School with, for example, Copenhagen School of Entrepreneurship, GoGrow, etc.
• Business practice by collaborating with business, business organisations and wider society such as Copenhagen Business Hub, Dansk Industri, and Wonderful Copenhagen in co-creating research agendas and providing insights into new brand practices.