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Sustainability has become an important driver in defining business strategies, affecting most critical corporate functions and changing the way in which value is created, communicated, and distributed. This is increasingly impacting marketing practices, in particular, through promoting the development of sustainable marketing in the food sector. In line with this, our study aimed to investigate if and how sustainable marketing practices affect consumer loyalty to a specific brand. To answer our research questions, we relied on the results of a survey submitted to a sample of 907 Italian consumers of biscuits. Results showed that the consumers’ attention to sustainable issues (in the absence of adequate information that can guide them in choosing a brand) did not result in brand loyalty. The same outcome was found when consumers were overloaded by marketing campaigns, which had the effect of confusing users and making them unfaithful. Ultimately, when consumers showed both engagement with sustainable concerns and sensitivity to marketing initiatives (i.e., they are sensitive to sustainable marketing practices), a positive effect on brand loyalty was observed. Our results contribute to the emerging stream of literature discussing the relevance and potential impact of sustainable marketing.

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This paper examines how to outline and adopt innovative business models for the Smart Cities of the future. Smart Cities are intelligent and efficient communities and ecosystems employing digital technologies to respond a growing waste of resources, unsustainable environmental impact, and inefficiency in traditional processes. Considering the greatest benefits of Smart Cities on economies, societies, and environment, many countries have now introduced national Smart City projects in order to transform life, improve business operations and market competitiveness. However, despite growing interests towards Smart Cities, it remains still difficult to adopt this paradigm due to digital transformation, interaction strategies, social and cultural problems. Therefore, this paper aims to break down the barriers to these problems and support the literature and management to understand how to implement profitable business models for Smart Cities of the future. Specifically, we identify four main areas characterizing Smart Cities (i.e., Smart Mobility, Smart Living, Smart Energy, and Smart Public Ecosystems) where digital technologies have shown greater progress with large savings. For each area, multiple case studies have been discussed and Business Model Canvases have  been  developed  for  generalizing  effective  methodological  approaches toward  efficient implementation of Smart City paradigm. Results are threefold. As for digital transformation problems, we show how digital technologies (e.g., Cloud, IoT, Big Data and AI) are applied profitably through innovative business models; as for interaction strategies problems we indicate how to organize innovative ecosystems involving public and private actors to  promote  Smart  Cities;  as  for  social  and  cultural  problems  we  delineate  change  management  and communication practices useful to instill in all stakeholders a culture towards the Smart City. With these findings the paper aims at enriching scientific knowledge about the Smart City Paradigm by means of a business model perspective and to offer public administrations insightful guidelines for the transition toward Smart Cities.

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