Dear all,

As you may know, due to increasing Coronavirus infection rates and related hospital admissions in the UK, we entered a 3rd national lock-down over Christmas which is likely to continue for some time to come. In addition to this, our Government has recently implemented stricter International travel limitations that require inbound visitors to isolate for a significant period of time. Due to this, alongside the ongoing uncertainty the virus is creating Internationally, it is with great sadness that we have again taken the difficult decision to cancel the 15th Global Brand Conference that was due to be held at Sheffield Hallam University in May 2021.

However, we are pleased to announce that the Conference will still be held in Sheffield, albeit at some point in early May 2022. The provisional dates we are working with are May 4th-6th and will confirm these once we have fully agreed arrangements for keynote speakers, conference social activities, and hotels etc. We will of course email all delegates and update the conference website to share this information once it is finalised.

If you have already had a paper accepted for the conference, we will be rolling these forwards to the new dates unless you choose to withdraw them. Equally, if you have already registered, your registration will remain in place unless you wish to cancel and receive a full refund. However, we appreciate that another full year will pass before the conference in May 22 and that you may wish to update, alter or even replace your accepted paper to account for any progress you have made with your research during this time. In this instance, we will be opening a submission point for revised or fresh papers that will be blind reviewed as before. We will share our plans for this process very shortly.

We fully appreciate that not all delegates will be able to attend the conference in May 2022 and that some submitted papers may have already been published. If this is the case, please send an email to gbc2020@shu.ac.uk with a request to withdraw your paper and cancel your registration. If you opt to do this, you will receive a full refund of the registration fee you have paid. Please note that refunds will be paid through the same method you used to register. However, we kindly ask for your patience with refunds as the University is still in the process of managing the strain and uncertainties presented by the pandemic, as I am sure each of our respective Institutional homes are.

While we are having to push the Conference back to May 2022, the GBC SIG Scientific Committee are pleased to announce plans to hold a 1day online event in May this year that will be free to register and attend. While full details of this are yet to be finalised, expect to hear from Keynote speakers and enjoy time together as a scientific brand management community. The SIG will be sharing specific detail of this event very soon.

On a personal note, I would like to thank you all for your continued support of the conference, and most of all your patience. It is greatly appreciated. These have certainly been very testing times for us all. In particular I would like to extend immense gratitude to the following members of the GBC SIG Committee – Prof. Stuart Roper, Dr Joana César Machado, Dr Oriol Iglesias, Dr Francisco Guzman and Dr Leonor Vacas de Carvalho who have been incredibly supportive and encouraging during this last year. Equally I extend my thanks to Dr Anthony Grimes for his ongoing commitment to the organisation of the conference in Sheffield.

We sincerely wish you all the very best in these turbulent times and look forward to when we can come together to share and develop our work as colleagues and friends.

With very best wishes,

Dr Craig Hirst
Chair, 15th Global Brand Conference