Customer Relationship Marketing and Brand Management for Business Sustainability

Dear Colleagues,

During the last decade, the global economic/financial crisis, the more intense competition related to the globalization of the business environment, the fast-changing customer expectations and behaviors, and the greater complexity of business environments have challenged the sustainability of firms. In such a context, successfully establishing and managing customer relationships becomes fundamental to gain a sustainable competitive advantage. In fact, the ability to maintain long-term customer relationships contributes to increased and more stable revenues, without incurring the high costs of acquiring new customers. Customer relationships marketing (CRM) represents a fundamental approach to influencing customers’ (rational and emotional) attitudes, such as the involvement and attachment to a firm or brand and price tolerance, and behavioral reactions such as repurchasing behavior, intention to recommend, and positive word-of-mouth. Effective CRM strategies require effective brand management to develop brands that are sustainable and that are able to intercept sustainability issues and conversations to arouse customer loyalty, commitment, and engagement (both in business-to-consumer and in business-to-business contexts). Moreover, through social media and online brand communities, businesses have increasing opportunities to create brand experiences and involve customers in value co-creation paths for building shared and sustainable brand image and value.

This Special Issue aims to collect up-to-date, high-quality research articles covering a wide range of multidisciplinary aspects related to business sustainability and brand management. In particular, selected topics will include but not be limited to:

• Supporting business sustainability through CRM and brand management;
• The influence of social corporate responsibility on brand image;
• CRM strategies for brand loyalty, brand engagement, and brand equity;
• The use of social media to manage the relationships with customers;
• Brand communities as places for customer engagement and value co-creation;
• Differences and relationships between customer variables: satisfaction, loyalty, involvement, commitment, engagement, empowerment;
• Brand management and sustainability across different cultures and types of markets.

We invite you to contribute to this issue by submitting comprehensive reviews, case studies or research articles. Papers selected for this Special Issue are subject to a rigorous peer review procedure with the aim of rapid and wide dissemination of research results, developments, and applications.

Prof. Andrea Moretta Tartaglione
Prof. Fabio Cassia
Dr. Ylenia Cavacece
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• customer relationship marketing
• brand management
• business sustainability
• brand communities
• social media
• customer engagement
• value co-creation