New study: Survival strategies of professional magicians

As a small contribution to support live art in the existence-threatening pandemic, Prof. Baumgarth, with the support of the Magic Circle of Germany (MZvD), conducted a study on the effects and survival strategies of professional magicians in November 2020. Over 180 magicians participated in the study. The study showed, among other things, that the artists lost on average more than 80% of their income in 2020 due to the pandemic and also that they do not expect the situation to recover until 2022. The full study can be downloaded here (only in German).

B*lab Reports

Research results should be available as quickly as possible. Therefore, we have decided to launch the working paper series B*lab Reports. Issue 1 will publish the best papers of master students of the course “Advanced Brand Management” from the summer semester 2019. The spectrum ranges from the handmade effect to influencer marketing and brand co-creation in the streaming world to start-up branding. You can find the first issue as a download here.

100 days “Brückenbau Marke”

100 days ago, Prof. Baumgarth opened the Instagram channel “Bridge Building Brand – Science Meets Brand”. In the meantime, 25 episodes have been produced and published. The channel is currently followed by about 520 people (and cats) and the episodes reach an average of about 300 users on Instagram and about 1300 views on LinkedIn. We have summarized our experiences in a field report. We are now approaching the next 100 days highly motivated and reactive and try to further improve the transfer of knowledge from science to practice. Because we are convinced that there is nothing more valuable for brand practice than (good) brand science.

B*talks: Digital practical impulses for our students

Digital teaching is compulsory due to the current pandemic. Even though this teaching and learning format has many disadvantages, there is also a big advantage. It is easier for us to integrate great and exciting practical impulses into the courses. This winter semester, we are looking forward to seven B*talks, ranging from start-up brands to sustainability, luxury and sports brands and the use of AI in brand communication. Thank you very much to the interview partners who are supporting us so great. We are looking forward to the brands  Crafty, veganz, NAKT, Vfl Wolfsburg, Burmester, Du bist hier der Chef and AX Sematnics.

New Instagram Channel! “Brückenbau Marke – Wissenschaft trifft Praxis”

Brand Science and Brand Practice should benefit each other. However, in reality they are moving away from each other. Studies show that practitioners are not familiar with academic journals – the main channel of Brand Science communication.

There are several reasons for this such as the decreasing relevance of science through the increasing focus on micro problems as a result of the „Publish-or-Perrish“ mentality. Additionally, the methodologies described in journal articles are often hard to understand and last but not least there is a sheer overload of information with around 6000 journal articles being published on Marketing every year.

Prof. Baumgarth has been trying to close this gap for years through an intensive collaboration with practitioners and innovative formats (e.g. the Pop-up Exhibition „Farbrausch trifft RAL 4010“).
His latest project is the Instagram channel „Brückenbau Marke – Wissenschaft trifft Praxis“. Via the Instagram-Account prof.baumgarth Prof. Dr. Baumgarth shares interesting and practicable insights into brand science. He vividly and accessibly explains relevant journal articles especially for practitioners and students.

He presents the major classic articles among them Aaker, Keller and Fournier as well as „newcomers“ written in 2019 and 2020 together with cases explaining concepts using well-known brands and news from B*lab – research he and his team are involved in.

By now, his channel counts about 400 followers. If you would like to find out more about his motivation, and the function of the channel, you can find an interview in markenartikel and a blog post on the brand blog by Dietrich Identity.

We invite you to get to know the channel and to follow, like and share!

Pepper strengthens our team

A new recruit joined Prof. Baumgarth’s team yesterday – the humanoid robot, “Pepper”. Through the acquisition of extensive funds from the Institute for Applied Research (IFAF), our B*lab at the HWR can be significantly expanded once again. The humanoid robot Pepper of the Japanese company Softbank represents a flexibly applicable humanoid robot in the field of social robotics. The robot, which weighs around 30 kilos and is 1.30 m tall, can communicate and interact with consumers through its visual and tactile sensors, its facial expression and emotion recognition as well as its voice output and display. Over the next few months, we will familiarize ourselves with the robot and the software solution provided by the German company Entrance. Starting in early 2021, we also plan to use Pepper in research projects on humanoid brand-touchpoints.

Master & and bachelor thesis in the winter semester

Dear students,

as in the last semesters, you can apply for the supervision of your thesis by me. It is important that your planned topic fits to my fields of research. Therefore I have formulated both my fields of research and potential topics. Of course you can also apply with your own topic. However, in your application you should then make a connection between your topic and my research topics. The application deadline is 13.7.2020. All important details can be found here.

Brand Work Manifesto & COVID-19

The new Real Estate Brand Book 2020 contains a short article on the relationship between our Brand Work Manifesto and the current corona crisis. Prof Baumgarth interprets current brand examples against the background of the four metaprinciples of the Brand Work Manifesto: open, agile, digital and authentic. Although the Brand Work Manifesto was developed and discussed well before the current crisis (summer/autumn 2019), it is astonishing how well the considerations fit the current position. The contribution can be downloaded here.

Is it the end of the AI Brand Winter? Artificial Intelligence in Brand Management

The book chapter Is it the end of the AI Brand winter? Artificial Intelligence in Brand Management by Carsten Baumgarth, Alexandra Kirkby and Anja Lambrecht has recently appeared in the publication Digitalisation in Business Management. The conversation and interest in artificial intelligence is ever increasing across multiple different fields, yet in the area of brand management and brand science, the topic has seemingly not yet made itself felt.  Our book chapter provides an up to date definition of artificial intelligence and examines AI applications in selected areas of brand management, while also working in other areas of businesses like trading with markets like fx trade as well. The applications considered in this chapter include social listening, AI-supported brand management, media planning, voice as a branding element, personalization, challenges and more.