Branding is never an easy job. At every step there are new challenges and opportunities. A brand manager's job does not end once a brand has achieved a certain amount of success in the market. There are new challenges waiting to be addressed. The brand manager has to devise strategies not only to maintain this current level of success but also to aim at higher levels. To do this job, a brand manager is always on the lookout for innovative strategies and studies that enable him to understand his client better and gain new insights from the market as well as contemporary models of branding. In this context, we endeavor to provide our readers with an assortment of research papers and cases that not only enrich their knowledge but also help to apply it in their concerned fields.

The first paper by Sujana Adapa titled, "Discriminant Analysis of Adopters and Non-Adopters of Global Brands: Empirical Evidence From India and Malaysia", examines the adoption process of global brands exhibited by the Indian and Malaysian consumers. The author has integrated the concepts of brand equity and attitude into the existing framework. It was observed that out of the brand equity dimensions, brand awareness is the key aspect that sufficiently discriminates between adopters and non-adopters of global brands irrespective of the level of involvement that the consumers assign to the product category.

Henrik Uggla and Daniel Filipson in their paper titled "Moving Beyond the Brand Relationship Spectrum: A Semiotic Postmortem", discuss the brand relationship spectrum from a semiotic perspective. They explained the brand relationship spectrum and discussed it in terms of the three brand relationship spectrum traps, analyzed through pragmatic semiotics. The authors claim that by combining the brand relationship spectrum with semiotic knowledge about sign and meaning transformation in a semiotic model, a more realistic and subtle approach to brand portfolio management is likely to emerge that can be applied to the traditional brand systems.

The third paper, "The Brand Marketing of Halal Products: The Way Forward" by Patrick Low Kim Cheng, examines the brand marketing strategies by applying 4Ps and other strategic options used for the marketing of Halal products in Brunei Darussalam. From his analysis the author concludes that the positioning of Malay Islamic Monarchy of Brunei, together with the people's way of life or lifestyle, can be a strategic option to market Halal products.

In his paper titled "The Concept and Origin of Brand Architecture: A Comprehensive Literature Survey", Harish R presented a comprehensive literature survey on some of the pioneering work done on brand architecture by renowned researchers and academicians. The author states that extensive use of different models of brand architecture is in evidence, particularly among the larger companies all over the world, but further research is required to determine the extent to which the principles of brand architecture were used consciously by companies as a strategic tool; and the specific impact while doing so.

- Nitin Gupta
Consulting Editor