I am excited to share that our research paper, titled "Brands are calling your AVATAR in Metaverse–A study to explore XR-based gamification marketing activities & consumer-based brand equity in the virtual world," has been honored with the prestigious JCB hashtag#Best_Paper_Award for the year 2023 by the Journal of Consumer Behaviour (ABDC-A).

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all those who contributed to the success of this paper, including my co-authors (Dr. Anshuman Sharma Rachita Sambyal & Professor Yogesh K Dwivedi), Guest Editors (Dr. Achint Nigam & Prof. Abhishek Behl), and anonymous reviewers whose direction and support made this paper outstanding. Your support and collaboration have been invaluable throughout this journey.

I also extend my sincere thanks to the editorial team at the Journal of Consumer Behaviour for their rigorous review process and for recognizing the significance of our work.

This study was talking about the Metaverse environment and the brands’ presence for intangible products and nonfungible tokens (NFTs). This paper aims to establish the role of a “gamification of marketing activities” and its influence on consumer-based brand equity for intangible products (NFTs) in the Metaverse. A cross-cultural data from two India and Morocco = 516 and 172 Responses respectively were analysised using PLSE-SEM & ANN. This study provides insights into the Metaverse–a new taxonomy of technology, in the context of embodiment, presence of AVATAR, and interactivity in the virtual world, supported by the social exchange theory. This study also suggests practitioners focus on brand authenticity while projecting their brand in the Metaverse. The full manuscript is available at: https://lnkd.in/deEngRjN

Rabat Business School UIR
#ResearchExcellence hashtag #metaverse hashtag #nfts #avatar #AcademicAchievement hashtag #BestPaperAward #ScholarlyRecognition #ConsumerBehaviour #JournalPublication #morocco #india

Honored to receive the best paper award for the paper entitled “Immersive Experience–New Dialogue to Deliver to your Customers. A Study to Explore Intangible Assets Offered by Luxury Brands in the Metaverse “ framed along with my scholar Bouchra OUKHAYI and presented at the international conference on Marketing Innovation hosted by Indian Institute of Management Kashipur during 16-18 December 2023.

I extend my heartful appreciation to Prof. Kulbhushan Balooni (Director IIM-Kashipur) and Prof. S.P. Raj (Syracuse University – Whitman School of Management, USA) for bestowing this prestigious award upon me. Gratitude to Track_Chairs, Prof hShivam_Rai & Prof Arun Kaushik for their support and appreciation.

Excited to contribute to the discourse on metaverse fashion and innovation in design in luxury fashion.⭐️💐💐⭐️

Rabat Business School UIR

hashtag#bestpaperaward hashtag#marketinginnovation hashtag#luxuryfashion hashtag#ResearchRecognition
hashtag#metaversemarketing hashtag#metaversefashion hashtag#metaverse hashtag#metaversenews hashtag#highereducation hashtag#morocco hashtag#india hashtag#researchimpact hashtag#metaversemagic

Dr. Vikas Arya presented a Research Paper “Immersive Virtual Appeal: A Study of Psychological Inspiration, Brand Engagement, and Intangible Assets in the Metaverse” at the Global Brand Conference at Edinburgh Napier University, UK, 22-24 April 2024

Excited to share my experience attending the 17th Global Brand Conference and presenting our work in progress paper titled “Immersive Virtual Appeal - Metaverse”✨

This is descriptive study based on two studies: quantitative and experimental data base to observe how users perceive luxury brands in immersive environments-Metaverse.

Colleagues’ feedback and enthusiasm at the conference were invaluable!

Here's to continuing the conversation and working towards more dimensions to explore METAVERSE. 🌍

Thanks to Prof Nathalia C Tjandra for hosting a wonderful conference and giving us a harry-potter experience in Edinburgh with Global Brand Conference

Place marketing is not a new term but in the context of the tourism industry, it has become the most important tool to generate revenue. Place-marketing referrers to generate the feeling which comes quite natural in a travellers’ mind. Place-marketing strategy is used by marketers to brand a city in a specific way and make the city more famous in a crowed of multiple cities. A smart city project is also helping to build brand value for the city. But, major development is possible only when place-making efforts are drawn from a place of attachment. Every city is having its own characters which make the city lively, like as; a community who live there, their culture and customs, nature of business – Manufacturing business, government jobs, education hub, medical tourism & Nature proximity, etc. Historical background of the city is also considered strongly while designing place-marketing strategies. On the other side, to do place-marketing, targeting specific community is in trend these day, and that too is online-based communities where people have joined based on their mutual common interest. For example; various online communities active on Facebook or twitter influencing people to travel leh-laddak, India in a group of people travelling through bike. The practice of hosting the community on virtual platforms and engaging the people in online- communities to have a conversation on place-branding is not that much easy as it seems to be. The responsibility to do the place-marketing is the combined job of marketers, non-profit organizations, local authorities, common civilians, who can take charge to showcase the best version of their city and make the city environment more friendly, full of fun with a sense of safety and security tourist can have.

Considering the growth of independent travel, people are interested to take short breaks from their routine work and travelling to their short-distance place. Inbound traveller is most frequent who prefer to visit a place nearby 500 Kms of their home city. For the same, he always prefers low cost airlines, Internet facilities, comfortable stay facilities, and flawless traveling. All these factors helps to develop brand personality of the place. The place –developed personality always remain fresh and motivate others to visit the place via their post on Facebook, WhatsApp status and Instagram, twitter post. It must be capable of evolving to meet the changing attitudes and behaviors of the tourist today and in the future. It must also be capable of encouraging repeat visits, and capable of advancing the interests of related economic activities and employment. The amount of information obtained regarding tourists’ perception is very valuable and should be the basis for the development of effective differentiation strategies. This type of study should be done in a continuous manner, so destination managers can monitor how brand perceptions are evolving.

Dr. Vikas Arya is a strategist for the digital practices involved in Destination Branding. He is having various research articles in his bucket, which has been published in top level International Journals (A-Star – ABDC). He is currently associated with Rajalakshmi School of Business as an Assistant Professor in Marketing domain. He is exploring new and emerging area of destination branding, place-marketing, role of virtual communities in place-marketing, HENRY’s tourist behaviour etc. & role of mobile apps in decision making system.

The effective brands’ equity or brand value helps in place-branding. Brand equity is a combination of place image, customers’ brand satisfaction and their loyalty towards the place and wider visibility of the place name. It’s important to have awareness of place names on a large scale to build the place brand. Awareness, Perceived Image & loyalty, and projected image are important factors to consider while designing strategies for brand monitoring for place-marketing.

Awareness: Brand awareness is the existence of your brand in the target groups’ members. It can be measured with a simple mechanism, to ask people from the targeted group “name the branded place you remember or aware”. If your brand-place name is in their wish list means you have visibility, and this will help you in a long way to get brand-place recognition as and when it is mentioned to them directly or indirectly. This phenomenon is known as brand recall.  

Perceived Image, and Loyalty: Perceived image by the tourist, investors, the businessman is being checked pre – and post-visit to the brand-place. Also, their satisfaction level and loyalty are to be measured. These constructs could be the valuable antecedents of brand equity of place, and help to build place-marketing value.

Projected Image: Projected image is also an important factor which contributes to position place as a branded place for tourist. What is the general consideration people have built about the place, what media coverage is talking about, how city image is being discussed over online communities, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, blogs, online platforms talking about the city? Whether it is good or bad for the branding of the city. Another dimension to notice is; what travel writers suggesting about the place, whether investment agencies are having trust in local authorities, travel agents are supporting the place-marketing campaign. 

Execution: To make tourism market globalized and more profitable, we have to universalized the inbound and outbound tourists’ preferences, have to consider their principle requirements. Local authorities along with the government support are always on beneficial side to make and implement global strategy for tourist destinations’ promotion (for example, substantial budget, access to local and industry information, possibility of strategic initiatives’ implementation and so on). The main factors of Indian tourism brand development and implementation, based on studying the international experience directly from foreign tourists (who visited India) along with the inbound tourist as well. The basic recommendations on tourism branding strategy would be; to invest on digital marketing, build online communities, trained local authorities to handle the crowed at large level, imergency services. And, most important the complete package for travel assistance, local guide support, supportive and humble conversation from the local people and safety during travel is major concern, we have to provide.

Dr. Vikas Arya is a strategist for the digital practices involved in Destination Branding. He is having various research articles in his bucket, which has been published in top level International Journals (A-Star – ABDC). He is currently associated with Rajalakshmi School of Business as an Assistant Professor in Marketing domain. He is exploring new and emerging area of destination branding, place-marketing, role of virtual communities in place-marketing, HENRY’s tourist behaviour etc. & role of mobile apps in decision making system.