Boundary Blurred: A Seamless Customer Experience in Virtual and Real Spaces

Several studies have demonstrated how narrative ads can be effective in persuading consumers’ attitudes and behaviours (Adval and Wyler 1998; Green and Brock 2000; Escalas 2004; Shank and Abelson 1995; Woodside 2010). While much has been said about the “why” aspects of narrative, less is known about the ways in which narrative ad “tell” stories. Still no research, to the best of the researchers’ knowledge, has investigated whether the type of language used in narrative ads influences the persuasiveness of the advertising. The present study wants to address this gap by investigating how the degree of concreteness/abstractness of language in a narrative ad can influence consumer’s willingness to recommend the brand featured in the ad. In order to explore this interplay, the research applies the Linguistic Category Model (LCM) framework to narrative ads (Semin and Fiedler 1988, 1991).Recommendation is a persuasive form of word of mouth (Peluso et al. 2017), and the consumers’ willingness to recommend represents an influential behavioural intention. Previous studies on financial disclosures have demonstrated that communications written in concrete language facilitate visualization compared to abstract stimuli, resulting in behaviours (Johnson and Kisielius 1985; Paivio 1969). Narrative ads, too, can be very effective in eliciting attitude and behavioural changes (Deighton et al. 1989; Van Laer et al. 2014). Congruently, we expect that narrative ads might lead consumers to increase their willingness to recommend the brand featured in the story, especially when the ad is written in concrete language.Two laboratory experiments in the context of hospitality service were conducted. Findings of the two studies revealed a significant main effect of narrative structure on willingness to recommend (Study 1, F (1119) = 3.79, p = .05; Study 2, F (1181) = 4.416, p < .05). The results of Study 2 showed that for narrative structured advertisement, the consumer’s willingness to share positive information is higher when the advertisement is written in concrete language (F (1181) = 4.545; p = .03). No differential effects in type of language were found in argument-based advertisements.Overall the results confirm the role of narrative ads in triggering consumer’s behaviours (Chang 2009); also, they suggest that firms can increase consumers’ responses by writing narrative ads in concrete language. From a theoretical perspective, the study extended previous research on narrative features by applying the LCM framework to narrative advertisements, and it sheds light on the role played by the type of language in the persuasiveness of the narrative ads.

Empowering consumers in new product idea generation or selection is getting increasingly popular. Dell, PespiCo and Starbucks are examples of firms relying on those customer empowerment strategies (CES). Labelling new products as user driven has proven to have impacts on brand preference and evaluations even on people not participating in the CES, i.e. the non-participating brand audience (Dahl et al. 2014; Fuchs et al. 2013; Fuchs and Schreier 2011; Meissner et al. 2017; Schreier et al. 2012). Besides, through field experiments, Nishikawa et al. (2017) showed an increase in a product’s actual market performance when marketing it as “customer-ideated” at the point of purchase.

In recent years, one emerging stream of research has drawn on social identity theory to examine customer-brand relationships as captured by the customers’ identification with brands, which refers to the overlapping between the customer’s identity and the brand’s identity and underscores the self-definitional values of the brand (Dimitriadis and Papista 2011; Lam et al. 2012). But research mostly neglected a critical notion of this social psychological theory that customers can categorize themselves into social groups and then adjust their self through socially interacting with others (Tajfel 2010). Accordingly, this study incorporates the other symbolic aspect of the brand that is socially adjustive underlain by important social comparison processes, as well as addresses the important question whether a brand’s symbolic values are sufficiently motivating customer-brand relationships by examining the linkages between brand identification, social adjustive, sense of brand community, and relationship-related behavioral outcomes (sustaining and promoting behaviors). This is significant since the relative importance between identification with brand and with social group may be bound by cultures (Fournier et al. 2012). The results of a survey of 400 fashion clothing customers in the emerging market context of Vietnam revealed that sense of brand community, which taps into the customer’s perceptions of relational bonds with the community of brand users/admirers (Carlson et al. 2008), mediates the effects of brand identification and social adjustive on relationship-related behavioral outcomes. Additional analyses on the direct effects of brand identification and social adjustive on behavioral outcomes provided insignificant results at p < 0.05. In addition, perceived value and hedonic value, tapping into, respectively, the perceived brand’s utility and ability to evoke positive emotions, were also found to have strong effects on behavioral outcomes directly. With the integration of utilitarian, hedonic, and symbolic influences on behavioral outcomes, the implications deduced from the findings can provide marketers with directions to devise effective relationship-building strategies to achieve marketing performance. A brand may only serve as a rallying point around which the brand community is created. Customer’s perceived own fit into an important group or receipt of social approval may be the condition for the customers to sustain and foster their relationships with the brand community and brand relationships. Apart from symbolism-related values, the core of marketing is to provide product or service that provides customers with utility and hedonic experience. Further research is warranted in other market contexts (including emerging ones) and with other product categories.

Brand relationships can take the similar characteristics and dynamics as interpersonal relationships. Previous research showed that individuals form different types of relationships with brands that are similar to interpersonal relationships: committed partnerships, marriages of convenience and best friendships, or short-term relationships such as flings or negative relationships such as enslavements (Fournier 1998).One of the factors that impact interpersonal relationships is the attachment style of the individuals. As brand relationships are similar to interpersonal relationships, the current research investigates the impact of attachment style on brand relationships.Attachment theory proposes that amount of care and comfort that infants receive impact their future relationships (Bowlby 1969). Two dimensions of attachment theory include avoidance (seeking independence) and anxiety (fear of rejection) which are used to define attachment styles in individuals. Previous research showed that individuals who are low in both avoidance and anxiety dimensions are more likely to have trust, friendship, and positive emotions in their relationships (Hazan and Shaver 1987). Previous research in the marketing literature showed that attachment styles can impact repurchase intention, trust, and satisfaction in a B-2-B context (Paulssen 2009).Current research investigates the impact of anxiety and avoidance on forming brand relationships. This research proposes that high level of avoidance in individuals has a negative impact on brand relationships at the beginning stage, because individuals who are high in avoidance are not willing to form close relationships with brands. However, anxiety does not influence this relationship at the beginning stage, as highly anxious individuals are preoccupied with their current relationships. Using an experiment with a fictitious brand for a consumer good product, the research hypotheses were tested and supported. This research extends theory in brand relationships and attachment styles, and it has important contributions for practitioners. Future research might study the impact of attachment styles on other stages of brand relationships.

This research explores the concept of endorser transgressions and its effects on the endorsed brands. Further exploring the meaning transfer model, which suggests that the positive traits of endorsers are transferred unto the consumer goods which they endorse, we explore whether the opposite principle holds true; do the negative traits associated with a transgressing endorser transfer unto the brands they endorse.We employ Metts’ (1994) definition of a transgression as a violation of the implicit or explicit rules guiding relationship performance and evaluation. Our main focus is to see if the nature of an endorser’s transgression influences the way consumers respond to that endorser, and the endorsed brand, post-transgression. We key in on transgressions within vs. outside an endorser’s essence, where essence is defined as “the significant individual feature of the endorser, which is inseparable from his nature.” For example, the essence of Lebron James is basketball, while the essence of Meryl Streep is acting. We posit that transgressions within endorsers’ essence (vs. outside) will be viewed more negatively by consumers and that brands that stick with the endorser post-transgression will also be negatively viewed.We test the proposed hypotheses with an experimental design and find that differences exist between consumers on their evaluations on attitudes toward the endorser when the transgression is within the core essence of the endorser vs. outside the essence (e.g., athlete cheating with performance-enhancing drugs vs. marriage infidelity). We also find that when the transgression is within the context for which the endorser is employed by a brand, it negatively impacts consumers’ intent to patronize a brand that sticks with the endorser. This is a particularly interesting finding in giving brand managers directions for dealing with transgressing endorsers.

Brand loyalty has been at the heart of marketing strategy as one of the key factors that drive revenues and success of a brand. Consumers’ emotional connection with a brand is considered key to assess strength of loyalty for long-term sustainability of a brand. Affective certainty toward a brand as a result of brand experience can lead to brand loyalty. This paper investigates influence of emotional confidence and brand association on brand loyalty. Further, it investigates whether there is statistically significant difference between consumers having low emotional confidence and those showing high emotional confidence in terms of their brand loyalty.Data was collected outside fast-food restaurants across Karachi, using systematic sampling. Every fourth person exiting the restaurant was approached to fill a questionnaire (n = 252). The data was analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results suggest that both brand association (β = .72 P < .001) and emotional confidence (β = .19 P < .001) have statistically significant influence on brand loyalty. The variance explained in brand loyalty was higher when emotional confidence was included in the model. Independent-samples test suggests statistically significant difference (t (250) = −6.99, P < .001) between consumers having low emotional confidence and those having high emotional confidence in terms of their brand loyalty. Consumers with higher emotional confidence showed higher brand loyalty.

In the past 10 years, Portugal has received more than 60,000 Erasmus students. However, little is known about the impacts of their stay, namely, how they can promote Portugal as a destination to visit or study in. Just as an example, a news story about Erasmus students in Portugal reported that Erasmus students’ family normally visited them during their stay (Ferreira 2015), which shows one of the many facets on how Erasmus students can have an impact in the country they choose to study.This study proposes a model to evaluate these impacts based on brand concepts that are normally associated with products and services, which are brand love, brand uniqueness, brand image and brand identification. Several studies have been conducted using these concepts, but not applied to a country. Based on the literature review carried out, 11 hypotheses are proposed.This conceptual study indicates how the constructs can be measured, using items from several studies (Carroll and Ahuvia 2006; Schouten et al. 2007; Harrison-Walker 2016; Goyette et al. 2010; Maxham III and Netemeyer 2002; Amaro and Duarte 2015; Lam et al. 2010; Netemeyer et al. 2004; Zhang et al. 2017).This is a conceptual article and, therefore, has not been empirically tested. Nevertheless, the study identifies several possible antecedents and consequences of Erasmus students’ love for Portugal. To the best of knowledge, the concept of brand love has never been applied to a country. Yet, it seems pertinent since it provides marketers with important insights. Indeed, on the one hand, the consequences of loving Portugal are important in promoting it as a destination whether to travel, live, study or recommend. On the other hand, a better understanding of the causes that drive Erasmus students’ emotional attachment to Portugal is vital to create strategies that will develop and increase these feelings. It is anticipated that the quantitative study will highlight the importance of Erasmus students in promoting a destination and that DMOs can enhance strategies to further enhance this promotion.The framework presented is also a response to the call for more research regarding brand love in other categories and the need to identify other antecedents and outcomes of brand love (Batra et al. 2012; Carroll and Ahuvia 2006).

Whereas corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been an established concept in the world of business and academia for several decades, in the hotel industry, CSR has become a subject of more intensified research only recently. Consumer perceptions about CSR and the communication thereof as well as the inclusion of such matters in their hotel online reviews have not received deeper attention in literature so far, although it is of vital importance to gain this information as feedback on the success of hotels’ current CSR engagement. This paper reports on the results of four studies that investigated consumers’ perceptions of CSR measures in the hotel industry, online CSR communication of hotels, consumers’ references to CSR in online reviews and hotel responses to customer online reviews.To uncover consumers’ perceptions of CSR measures and their opinions towards including comments on a hotel’s CSR engagement in online reviews, we conducted three semi-structured focus groups. To study which CSR activities smaller hotels communicate to their stakeholders via their webpage, a website analysis was conducted, based on a sample of CSR-certified hotels. To investigate which aspects of hotel CSR engagement guests reference in online reviews, we analysed all customer reviews provided for these hotels on TripAdvisor® over a 1-year time period. Finally, to learn how hotels use their responses to online reviews to communicate their CSR engagement, we analysed the responses of the hotels to customer reviews of their hotel on TripAdvisor®.The focus groups revealed that CSR initiatives of hotels were unanimously considered positive. Generally, the view was held that hotels still do not engage themselves enough and much more CSR action should come from them. There is still great consumer unawareness regarding the potential to talk about CSR issues in online reviews. The review analysis uncovered that most guests that do address CSR activities reference food-related CSR measures, e.g. offering organic food. Hotels do not yet interact much with customers on online review platforms, particularly not regarding CSR activities, but rather communicate CSR via their websites.Implications for hotels are to include customer reviews as a vehicle for involving stakeholders in dialogue and also online review responses in the CSR communication strategy to make it more successful. Focus group participants specifically said more communication from hotels is necessary, also for customer education purposes. For hotels, listening to these stakeholder responses would be crucial for advancing to two-way stakeholder response or even involvement strategies.

The growing practice of adventure tourism reflects a change in the behaviour of tourists, with motivations based on the nature and on the practice of more active and challenging activities. Although these activities may involve some risks and difficulties, their demand has been growing among individuals with disabilities. With this, the offer of accessible products to individuals with disabilities has been a growing concern between tourism organizations, seeking to focus on corporate social responsibility. However, this dimension is not always welcomed and valued by all organizations, justifying the low relevance attributed in part to the weak impact of the accessibility in its operating results. With the purpose of analysing if the activities and services offered are adequately adapted to the audience that makes up accessible tourism, an online survey was developed and sent to 451 adventure tourism companies from the central region of Portugal. It is concluded that, of the 73 adventure tourism companies that responded to the survey, about half have activities and/or services adapted to individuals with disabilities. However, the adaptation is not done with the objective of increasing sales, but rather as a matter of betting on corporate social responsibility.

Recent literature demonstrates that consumers hold an implicit association that sustainable products have lower quality than conventional ones (Luchs et al. 2010; Mai et al. 2017). This research contributes to literature on sustainable consumption by exploring the impact of the use of recycled materials in the fashion industry. Fashion is tied to a human necessity to express both individuality and belongingness (Berger and Heath 2016). Hence, clothing assumes a role of signification through which the consumption of symbolic meanings helps individuals to construct their identity (Firat and Venkatesh 1995). Considering the role of fashion consumption on self-identity, we propose that the moral value of sustainability will uplift product evaluation, increasing quality perceptions and purchase intention. We propose that this positive sustainability-quality association will hold in private consumption contexts when consumption is motivated by the personal identity but not the social identity. In other words, consumers may attribute a higher quality to recycled products to mask the expected spillover of symbolic meanings on self-identity. Therefore, we propose that the positive sustainability-quality reasoning will be stronger when consumers are more prone to use the rational decision-making path to justify their decisions over more sustainable choices (i.e., private consumption). Two studies show the positive sustainability-quality association in fashion consumption. Study 1 demonstrates that participants (n = 97, Mage = 37.1, 51.5% females) inferred a marginally higher quality when a sneaker was made of recycled materials (Mrecycled = 5.32, Mcontrol = 4.99, F(1,95) = 2.84, p < .1). In Study 2, participants (n = 146, Mage = 35.4, 66.4% males) imagined purchasing a jacket made of recycled material (vs. no information) while being alone (vs. among other customers). Results revealed a significant interaction of recycled and consumption context (F(1,107) = 8.79, p < .01) on product quality, morality (F(4,142) = 6.45, p = .012), and purchase intention (F(4,141) = 4.60, p < .05). In the public context, the fact that a product is made of recycled materials did not influence quality, nor purchase intention (all p’s > .05). In the private context, participants attributed higher quality (Mrecycled = 5.0, Mcontrol = 4.3, F(1,142) = 6.91, p < .01) and higher morality to the recycled jacket (Mrecycled = 2.9, Mcontrol = 3.6, F(1,142) = 5.54, p < .02). Participants also reported higher intention to purchase the recycled product (Mrecycled = 3.3, Mcontrol = 2.6, F(1,141) = 4.20, p < .05). Further analysis shows that product morality mediated the impact of recycled materials on quality and purchase intention. In a private consumption context, consumers judged the recycled product as more moral, increasing quality [ab = .436; CI 95%: .095; .798] and purchase intention [ab = .387; CI 95%: .109; .772]. These results support our proposition that the sustainability liability does not hold for fashion products.

Many research studies have been aimed at understanding the relationship between religious faith and sustainability (Leary et al. 2016; Weaver and Agle 2002; Hope and Jones 2014; Mathras et al. 2016). However, these studies have not shown how attitudes toward these constructs have changed over time. The current research uses publicly available data gathered over a 20-year span to show how the relationships between these constructs have evolved.Our results show that religiousness (perceiving yourself as a religious person (Brammer et al. 2007) is positively related to environmental concern, but the strength of this relationship has decreased over the 20 years of study. Our results also show that life satisfaction mediates the relationship between religiousness and environmental concern. More importantly, the mediated effect is significantly positive in the first data set and significantly negative in the most recent. Where life satisfaction reinforced the positive relationship between religiousness and environmental concern in the past, it now competes with this positive effect.There are several implications for this research. Firms engaging in CSR programs may have traditionally viewed the religiousness as indifferent to environmentally focused campaigns. The positive link between religiousness and environmental concern shows that these programs may generate real value for religious individuals.While life satisfaction significantly mediated the link between religiousness and EC, the indirect path was relatively weak when compared to the direct path. More importantly, while the mediated link through life satisfaction complemented the direct effect in Wave 2, the indirect effect competed with the direct effect in Wave 5 (Zhao et al. 2010). Additional research is needed to understand why this indirect effect changed valence and how this will affect the relationship between religiousness and environmental concern in the years to come.

How do people conceive of an ethically good action? How do people link their perceptual arguments which are compelling? Do people not simply line up reasons for a specific course of action? Many of us will say differently, and it somehow depends on the situation they are in. Ethics refers to the moral principles and standards that guide individuals or groups as they obtain, use, and dispose goods or services. What is perfectly legal could possibly violate the ethical standards of a society. No exception that marketing activities could become unethical when they market products that are considered as harmful to vulnerable consumers who are susceptible to physical, economic, or psychological harm. For example, while the cigarette industry is considered legal, the health, safety, and social problems associated with cigarette consumption lead to intense public discussion. In this context, the present paper contributes to our understanding about ethical perception.Responding to the above questions, the study conducts an inquiry into people’s perceptions on key cigarette marketing activities that exist in a society where cigarette industry plays a significant economic role. The ethics model of this study consists of four constructs—one extraneous antecedent of perceived freedom of business enterprise (PFBE), one intravenous antecedent of perceived reputation (PReput), and two pure consequences of perceived ethics of advertising (PAdv) and perceived ethics of company’s social responsibility (PCSR)—with five hypotheses. Convenient sampling was adopted in this study with a total of 500 questionnaires which were distributed face to face in participating urban villages.Analyzing a data set of 491 respondents, the findings reveal the significance of perceived freedom of business enterprise influencing societal perceptions on cigarette business’ reputation and tobacco advertising, but not on perception of cigarette firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR). Nevertheless, perceptions on reputation mediate perception on freedom to impact perception on CSR. The mediated influence of perceived freedom toward perceived CSR indicates a virtuous aspiration of society about how cigarette firms should run their CSR activities. Future research may examine the perceived ethicality of specific reputation-building activities over specific advertising and CSR. Another route can explore how freedom of business enterprise influences other marketing communication mix such as promotion and sponsorship.

Based on the premise that any expectation of firm loyalty to consumers (FLC) emanates from perceived organizational support for consumers, this research explores perceived firm loyalty to consumers in the context of the new era of business-to-customer relationships. Given the likely shifts in the flow of loyalty in B2C relationships and intense competition among firms, marketers are faced with increased challenges in developing and sustaining key relationships with consumers. Drawing on the organizational support theory, this research suggests that firm marketing strategies may influence consumers’ perception of firm loyalty. Specifically, a conceptual framework is developed that identifies (1) perceived organizational support to consumers as a source of perceived firm loyalty to consumers; (2) trust, affective commitment, and relationship satisfaction as relationship mediators between perceived organizational support and perceived firm loyalty to consumers; (3) perceived fairness, after sales support, and relationship investments as antecedents of perceived organizational support; (4) relationship equity as the moderator of the relationships between perceived fairness, after sales support, and relationship investments and perceived organizational support; and (5) consumer loyalty, lessened withdrawal behavior, and relationship maintenance as the consequences of firm loyalty to consumers (FLC). We conclude with a discussion of the implications of this research for relationship marketing strategy.

Just as trends suggest that co-creation is becoming a competitive necessity for organisations, researchers are paying increasing attention to the notion of co-creation in contexts of higher education. Co-creation in teaching and learning (T&L) has particular significance as higher education institutions are finding themselves in a market context where students have choice in their learning and where they are in the best position to judge what they want to get from their higher education. Although recent studies have explored learners as active partners and co-producers in staff–student partnerships, the concept of co-creation in T&L is still relatively new. Embracing the student as active participant challenges conventional ideas of students as subordinate to the expert tutor in the classroom.Co-creation is an example of a student-centred T&L strategy which places the student at the centre of the T&L approach, recognises student voice in the process, and focuses on the creation of value for both students and university. This exploratory study involves action research into the use of co-creation in a third year undergraduate Contemporary Advertising module, where the aim is to develop students’ critical ability and involve them as true collaborators in the learning process. The process draws on co-creation in marketing contexts, and by using the frameworks and concepts in the classroom, students experience first-hand a practice which is increasingly becoming more commonplace in business.The module provides both lecturer and students with a blank canvas from which to co-create content, and in keeping with knowledge on the subject of co-creation in T&L, the process led to an increase in students’ motivation and an improvement in their critical analysis skills. Although a small-scale study, the findings are nonetheless interesting. Co-creation facilitated interaction between tutor and learners, stimulated creativity and interest, broadened minds, provided valuable experiences, and enabled students to develop academically. The process also enabled students to experience first-hand the value of the sum of knowledge generated as opposed to the individual parts.Co-creation learning spaces are dynamic; no two sessions or two cohorts are the same, and as such the process of co-creation in the classroom will require ongoing evaluation and self-reflection. Despite the uncertainty, the opening of a space that invites interaction and stimulates passion provides for rewarding experiences. By creating an experience environment within which individual students can create their own unique experiences has the potential to transform higher education learning.

The relationship marketing literature shows that identity salience, an important construct from the field of social psychology, can be used to understand consumers’ behavior and loyalty. However, no known research has examined the role of identity salience in the context of tourism destination marketing in relation to some fundamental antecedents of tourism destination loyalty. Therefore, this research proposes and tests a relationship marketing framework in a coastal tourism destination setting, integrating the construct of identity salience with important determinants of destination loyalty drawn from the tourism literature, such as cognitive destination image, affective destination image, and visitor satisfaction. The findings indicate that positive word-of-mouth (WOM) recommendations and intention to return are not only determined by the destination’s perceived image dimensions and visitor satisfaction but also by the degree of tourists’ identity salience, in consistency with the image congruence hypothesis and self-congruence theory. Importantly, the significant effects of visitor satisfaction become nonsignificant when incorporating identity salience, revealing a full mediation effect on WOM and intention to return. This suggests that other attributes of a destination, rather than satisfaction, were the most important determinant of destination loyalty.

Fundamental to CRM theory is the establishment of a relationship which becomes deeper and more meaningful over time and will result in customer loyalty and increased customer equity. What happens however, when a customer “in a relationship” is ready to make a purchase? Do they purchase from the firm who has invested in them over time or become seduced by a more attractive offer?In this experimental study design study, 130 Amazon Mechanical Turk workers were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Each group was conceptualized to be serviced by a combination of artificial intelligence and customer service representatives which communicated with consumers via chat and e-mail. One group was made to feel that they were dealing with an individual personalized agent, while the other group was made to believe that they were dealing with a team of specialists. This investigation provides evidence that while consumers may feel an obligation to purchase from a firm if they are actively engaged in a relationship, they can be fairly easily enticed by a competing offer. Further when an individual is made to feel that they are dealing with an individual person rather than a team of specialists, they are more likely to feel embarrassed about considering the alternative offer. At the end of the day, most respondents preferred to accept a more attractive offer at the moment of influence than to purchase from someone they have an ongoing relationship with.Drawing on theories of reasoned action and planned behavior, consumers are driven by multiple attributes, and intended behavior may differ from actual behavior. The implications are that while individuals may be positively predisposed to a firm that is practicing CRM, the firm that concentrates their efforts at the moment of influence rather than building a relationship over time may be more successful in capturing the business.

In recent years at “Meet the Journal Editors” sessions at academic conferences, many editors indicate that they desk reject 50% or higher manuscript submissions and have annual acceptance rates ranging between 7 and 18%, implying that journal reviewers provide editors with information that results in rejecting approximately 32–43% of the manuscripts that enter the journal review process. While there are many potential factors for explaining the extremely high journal rejection rates, there is a growing concern suggesting that journal editorial review systems are broken and need radical fixing. A recent JAMS editorial by Lehmann and Winer (2017) provides some excellent insights to the current role and impact of journal reviewers in the marketing discipline, but those insights are entrenched more from the editors’ (current and past) perspective rather than editorial reviewers’.As the title suggests, the main objective of this special panel session is to provide a meaningful interactive dialogue with the audience and several acknowledged excellent editorial reviewers that creates invaluable instructional and tactical insights on not only understanding reviewers but also on how to read, interpret, and respond to reviews.While the following topics/questions initially frame the session, topics might change based on the audience’s interactions. 1. What is review process integrity? 2. What is (or should be) reviewer integrity? 3. In what way (s) can the review process be unfair? 4. What can authors do when reviewers are wrong? 5. How does an author provide convincing arguments that the research results support significant (meaningful) contributions to the marketing literatures? 6. Is there a “best practice” approach in handling reviewers’ concerns/suggestions for manuscript changes? Providing insights to these topics/questions will not only increase authors’ understanding of reviewers, the journal review process, and the inherent subjective biases but also gain insights to how to better interpret and develop tactful responses to reviewers’ confusing and/or unreasonable requested manuscript changes. While no journal review process is perfect, information from this special session will give researchers/authors insights on how to deal with both revise and resubmit (R&R) and rejected (R) manuscript situations.

Natural objects such as mountains, seas, and tress are often anthropomorphized. Previous green research focused on the comparison between anthropomorphization and non-anthropomorphization and is largely silent regarding the taxonomy of anthropomorphic styles. This research proposes two types of anthropomorphic styles based on facial emotion, happy and sad, and examines how issue proximity impacts the selection of anthropomorphic style. Two experiments are conducted with various dependent measures (i.e., attitudes toward the green product, purchase intentions, and donation amount). Results indicate that a sad face is more effective when the green issue is framed as more proximal (i.e., feeling closer with shorter physical distance or near future). However, a happy face works better when the green issue is perceived as less proximal (i.e., feeling far away in physical or temporal distance). Perspective taking serves as the underlying mechanism to explain the interaction between anthropomorphic style and issue proximity.

Advertising represents one of the most important means in marketing. However, there is often uncertainty about how to exploit advertising most effectively, for example, which content to set to convince the consumer best. This paper examines the influence of ad content on product evaluation in the context of food products. For ad content, we consider two ad elements, text (either comprising sensory, functional or symbolic messages) and picture. To check for significant differences, two studies are performed. Study 1 only incorporates text; Study 2 investigates the three combinations of text and picture. When only considering advertising text, the results reveal no significant differences, which show the relevance of all three dimensions—sensory, functional and symbolic—for food products. When a product picture is added, the findings do identify significant differences. The data analysis indicates that ad effectiveness increases with the complementarity of text and picture. Accordingly, the combination of the primarily sensory picture and the symbolic text providing the most diverse information scores best. The findings provide new insights on advertising design that food firms can use to enhance the consumer’s product evaluation in terms of expected taste, perceived experience and quality, overall attitude and purchase intention.

The aim of this research is first to compare and examine the effectiveness of an emotional, shock and humour advertising strategies in terms of brand recall, image and attitudes towards the advertisement and purchase intentions towards the brand, secondly to determine the moderating effects of generation Y on these three types of advertisements, and, lastly, to provide marketers with a better understanding of the effectiveness of the three types of advertisements and emphasize the importance of alternative methods of breaking through the advertising clutter and to measure the impact of the different types of advertisement, six advertisements from each of the three categories, i.e. shock, humour and emotional are shortlisted and linked together. These advertisements (18 in total) are then shown to respondents. Respondents recorded their views in the questionnaire. A total of 345 respondents participated in this study. Brand recall is high in both emotional and humorous ads, but the purchase intention is high in emotional advertisement in Eastern culture. Type of product should influence the advertising approach in the promotion of a brand.

Extant research on the drivers of consumer’s purchase behavior has focused either on the influence of consumers’ personal predispositions, brand-/product-related perceptions, or external factors, such as the prevailing business and social environment variables. There is a dearth of studies, which have considered the collective impact of influences that may drive the buying preferences of consumers, a more realistic scenario. The impact of these factors may also get differentiated across product category involvement (high vs. low) and/or by brand ownership (domestic vs. foreign), particularly in the context of global brands. Further, processes governing the mechanisms that transform individual predispositions and consumers’ brand perceptions into specific behavioral responses need to be further explored. This research is an effort to fill this research gap and shed some light on the drivers of consumer’s purchase behavior in a multidimensional perspective using two product categories, midsize sedans and sportswear, each involving a domestic and a foreign global brand. With four separate studies, using structural equation modeling (SEM), the findings reveal differences in the strength of relationships based on product involvement and ownership, leading to valuable insights for managerial practice, and contribution to enrich the existing global branding literature. Avenues for future research are also suggested.

The consensus in research suggests a negative correlation between consumer age and counterfeit consumption, explained by younger consumers’ lower income and different values. This study explores this culture-based explanation further by considering the influence of age on counterfeit consumption in the GCC countries, controlling for differences in income. A pilot study reveals an unexpected positive correlation between age and counterfeit consumption. Drawing on the functional theories of attitudes (Katz 1960), a qualitative study of 25 UAE (United Arab Emirates) female consumers examines the psychological functions served by UAE consumers’ attitudes toward genuine and counterfeit luxury goods. The findings show important generational differences in the psychological functions served by attitudes toward genuine and counterfeit luxury goods. A clear distinction emerges between attitudes of the pre-oil generation that serve more utilitarian and ego-defensive functions, while the post-oil generation’s attitudes serve more hedonic and social-adjustive functions. Results suggest that public policy makers and luxury brand managers fighting counterfeiting in the region should tailor their segmentation, communication, and overall strategy according to the generation targeted. This study expands the research on counterfeit luxury goods and contributes to more detailed knowledge of the functional theories of attitudes enhancing the existing research in international management and marketing.

Luxury is related to high quality, aesthetic appeal, high investment and opulence. Moreover, luxury consumption has seen a consistently high-growth market in many different countries. Specifically, this is seen in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) market. Thus, in countries such as India, household incomes are growing at 12–15% per year over the past years. This growth has been supported by a high degree of luxury brand awareness among the Indian consumers. One area where this pattern is most observable is Indian weddings. Despite this prevalence, there is a dearth of research about the role of luxury in Indian weddings. Thus, this research addresses this lacuna. In order to do so, we have extensively studied the literature with regard to luxury, weddings and weddings in the Indian context. This extensive study was integral to understanding luxury consumption during weddings in South India. In order to achieve this objective, we used qualitative research. We conducted field observations and semi-structured in-depth interviews. The observations were conducted during weddings. The interviews were conducted after the weddings. This ensured that the immediacy and relevance of the insights were preserved. Based on the application of these methods, we developed three key results: greater flexibility of luxury usage by the parental generation in weddings, the importance of luxury goods and gifts as a part of wedding rituals and luxury goods as insurance rather than a necessity in weddings. The first theme is related to a unique sociological development in the Indian context. The younger generation of brides and grooms considers luxury in their wedding as a personal achievement. They strongly feel that this achievement should be earned by them and not foisted on them by their parents. The second theme is related to the contextualised use of luxury in Indian weddings. Here, our study discovered that luxury was strictly seen as a ritual observance and not as a means of appropriating wealth. The final theme was related to the treatment of luxury vis-a-vis the future. Thus, participants felt that the luxury goods that they had invested in on the strength of their financial abilities act as a safety net for the future. The themes we have thus developed are integral to the understanding of the luxury consumption during weddings in South India.

Data breaches have resulted in massive corporate and consumer losses. According to the Breach Level Index, 1.9 billion data records were compromised worldwide during the first half of 2017 due to 918 data breaches. Both businesses and consumers have incurred massive losses from companies’ inadequate privacy protection measures. Cases of data and information use infringement have resulted in reduced consumers’ confidence in the data security measures that most companies provide. Information privacy is one of the most essential issues facing managers (Mason 1986; Safire 2002), and if a firm is not careful, it might face the repercussion for overstepping the bounds of expected information practices (Awad and Krishnan 2006).One of the reasons for rising privacy concerns can be attributed to the firms’ negligence and the tendency to act only after privacy has been breached or until some external event such as a threat of legislative action forces them to take action (Smith 1993). Even with efforts that take a regulatory approach to address privacy issues, incorporation and acceptance of privacy regulations are still not a reality. Consumers’ privacy research recommends companies to take online privacy as a form of corporate social responsibility (Pollach 2011). This study explores three objectives; first, what is the role of proactive and reactive corporate social responsibility (CSR) as an extrinsic cue in mitigating privacy concerns? Second, how online vs. offline channels influence consumers’ privacy concerns? Most of the focus regarding consumer privacy has been directed to online transactions; however, most incidences of identity fraud originate from offline traditional channels (Better Business Bureau, 2004). Third, how the size of the firm (small vs. large) influences the consumers’ privacy concerns? Small- and midsized businesses are now the preferred targets for cybercriminals, since they are easy targets and less secure, and automation allows modern cybercriminals to mass produce attacks for little investment.In addition, this study examines the relationship between privacy concerns and the adoption of privacy-protecting behaviors such as refusal to provide personal information, misrepresentation, request for removal from a mailing list, anonymity, and less disclosure. These protective behaviors limit marketers’ data access. Lastly, we investigate the relationship between privacy concerns, trust toward a company, and purchase intent.

Product-harm crisis causes severe damage to firm’s financial performance due to dramatically dropping consumers’ intention to purchase. For example, after identifying a disastrous product quality flaw in its premium Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, Samsung Electronics Co. announced its net profit fell 16.8% in the third quarter of 2016, and its market share is expected to drop over 3.3% (from 23.3 to 20.0%) as it shipped 11.3 million fewer smartphones compared to same period in 2015 (Cheng and Jeong 2016; Protalinski 2016). Research shows that increasing product complexity and globalizing production processes exacerbate the frequency and severity of these kinds of crises (Chen et al. 2009).This study proposes a theoretical framework that analyzes the advertising effects and argues that the effects on consumers’ purchase intention are different depending on the timeline of a product-harm crisis and the segmentation of target consumers. This study aims to answer two questions: (1) Are advertising effects different depending on the timeline of implementation during a product-harm crisis? (2) Should an MNE use different advertising strategies based on different consumer groups in a product-harm crisis?In dealing with product-harm crises, the knowledge of theory and practice still remains limited (Smith et al. 1996). Because advertising can be instrumental in convincing consumers to trust the company and maintain brand loyalty, it is important to optimize when and how to provide an advertising campaign during a crisis management process. By statistical analysis based on a cross-sectional model, this study finds that generally speaking, the overall effect of advertising after a product-harm crisis is greater compared to advertising beforehand. However, these ad effects are moderated by consumers’ status (existing vs. potential). Specifically, for existing consumers (potential consumers), advertising after (before) a product-harm crisis creates weaker expectation effect and stronger signal effect compared to advertising beforehand, thus diminishing the negative impact of the crisis and maintaining (encouraging) purchase intention.This paper provides methodology and guidance to assess the advertising effects in the matrix of a crisis, focusing on crisis timeline and consumer status. By examining if and how an advertising campaign affects different groups of consumers during a negative corporate publicity, this study contributes to MNEs’ international business literature and provides managerial implications for marketing practitioners.

Retailers use ambient scent as a strategic tool to create an overall ambience and influence consumers. Food-related ambient scents are especially common in stores and restaurants. This research examines how indulgent (i.e., unhealthy) as opposed to non-indulgent (i.e., healthy) food-related ambient scents influence consumers’ food choices. The results of three field studies with children and adult consumers show that indulgent (vs. non-indulgent) food-related ambient scents lead to lower sales of unhealthy food items. Follow-up studies replicate this finding in the laboratory and provide evidence for cross-modal sensory compensation as the process driving the effects of indulgent food-related ambient scents on unhealthy food choices. Implications for retail design and consumer well-being are discussed.

Ambient sound, which includes both ambient music and noise, is present in nearly all retail stores and restaurants. Yet, there is great variation in the volume of this ambient sound. Specifically, some restaurants have very high levels of sound and others have very low levels of sound. This research examines how the volume of ambient music and noise influences consumers’ food choices. A series of field and laboratory studies show that low (vs. high)-volume ambient music and noise lead to healthier food choices. Process evidence suggests that the effects of ambient sound on food choices are driven by greater relaxation induced with low-volume ambient sound. The findings of this research suggest that restaurant, cafeteria, and supermarket managers wanting to nudge healthier food choices might simply need to adjust the volume on ambient sound systems.

Nowadays, growing online retailers threaten traditional offline retailers. Stationary retailers need to find ways to differentiate themselves from competition and enhance customer experience. In light of this, the physical store itself with its specific atmosphere can serve as a unique environment that positively stimulates customers’ senses and increases their visiting, purchase, or patronage intention. Transforming traditional offline stores from simple outlets to multisensory arenas might trigger positive emotions in the customers and could positively affect their in-store behavior.From a practical background, atmospheric stimuli can be implemented rather easily without incurring major costs. However, retailers still lack guidance on how to successfully orchestrate a multisensory environment, in particular how to optimally vary and match atmospheric stimuli to their target groups and product assortment. While previous studies have focused on examining the main effects of atmospheric stimuli, research on interaction effects is limited.This is the first study that investigates the effects of light and music on shoppers’ responses in combination. We propose that a mismatch of environmental stimuli lowers shopper perceptions of their in-store shopping experience. When the arousal qualities of two atmospheric stimuli match, i.e., high (low) arousal light and high (low) arousal music, this stimulus congruency should lead to an enhanced perception of the retail environment. Conversely, incongruence should have an adverse impact on the shopper’s perception of the environment, including actual behaviors such as time and money spent.To test our model, we conducted a field experiment in an action-clothing store in Germany. We applied a between-subject scenario experiment and varied both atmospheric stimuli in terms of two levels (dim vs. bright light and slow vs. fast music) resulting in a 2 × 2 experimental design. To measure customers’ in-store behavior and feelings, customers completed a survey at the exit. Further, we observed their time spent in store and collected information on money spent and units purchased. The preliminary results indicate that when arousal levels of light and music are congruent, the average basket value increases and customers spent significantly more time and money.The present study contributes to an improved understanding of the effects of an (in)congruence of music and light on shoppers’ responses. Furthermore, the findings show that retailers may actively influence shoppers by systematically varying the environment via light and music and detailed guidance for the process is given.

As today’s e-commerce environment becomes increasingly competitive, there is an inevitable trend for marketers to employ strategies of providing better online shopping experiences to consumers. One of the strategies is to embed live customer service platforms into e-commerce websites. Live help service is distinguished from other online consumer support functions in that consumers interact directly with human or computerized customer service representatives using an online medium (Aberg and Shahmehri 2003). This study aims to shed light on how live customer service provides online shoppers with greater narrative engagement on e-commerce websites. Moreover, we explore individual difference in locus of control (LOC) (Potosky and Bobko 2001; Griswold 1983), which moderates the effect of control on engagement.Through an online experiment, this study examines the relationship between control over information received during live chatting and consumer narrative engagement. A total of 371 college students were recruited as study participants. The results show that when having the chance to choose what types of information to get, online consumers will be more engaged in the interactions with live sales agents. Furthermore, locus of control plays an influential role in aspects of online shopping. Customers with high internal locus of control generally feel highly engaged in chatting with live sales agents, regardless of the availability to choose information type. On the contrary, external LOC consumers will find it hard to concentrate on the conversations with live agents if they don’t get to choose the topic. The study has three major contributions. First, this study supports Busselle and Bilandzic’s (2009) emphasis on the importance of how information is communicated. Our findings indicate that same set of information generates different feelings for consumers when the ways of information delivery are different. Second, the analysis further contributes to the literature on digital consumer experience by investigating narrative engagement as one unique aspect of it. Control over information received from online interaction is identified as an important influencer of consumer engagement. Third, it deepens the understanding of digital communication through the less examined role of live customer service. Our findings demonstrate that merely pushing information through live customer service might upset a certain group of online shoppers, in our case, external LOC consumers. We suggest giving autonomy for consumers to decide on live chat topics. Practically, our research helps marketers and e-commerce brands better understand and utilize live help service as a new technological tool.

To win online shoppers back, some brick-and-mortar retailers have started to adopt robotic shopping assistants. Latest robotic shopping assistants can interact with consumers more human-like than before and may enable brick-and-mortar retailers to enhance the store experience of consumers and improve profitability. Some researchers argue that this robotic technology may potentially alter the landscape of retailing business in the next decade (Parasuraman and Colby 2015; Bertacchini et al. 2017; Keeling et al. 2013). However, some consumers still show negative responses to robotic shopping assistants. Thus, to take advantage of this technology, more research is needed to understand how consumers respond to this technology (Huang and Rust 2017). In this study, we explore how consumers form imagery and attitude toward a robotic shopping assistant (Study 1). Second, we investigate how the style of a robotic shopping assistant (humanoid vs. nonhumanoid) and its feature types (hedonic vs. utilitarian) affect the imagery, attitude, and willingness to try (Study 2). Our results show that the willingness to try a robotic shopping assistant can be improved through enhancing imagery. Furthermore, our results suggest that the feature types affect imagery and willingness to try only for a humanoid robotic shopping assistant, but not for a nonhumanoid robotic shopping assistant.

Virtual reality (VR) is a phenomenon of creating experiences, thanks to the technological advances that allow inducing scenarios that appear to be real in the minds of those who are exposed to different situations through perceptions (González-Franco and Lanier 2017).This abstract aims to contribute to the emerging body of VR literature by eliciting deep meaning of VR experiences in consumers who have had VR experiences and discuss the broad implications for marketers.Through a qualitative research, using Zaltman Elicitation Metaphor Technique (ZMET), a projective methodology spanning photographs and metaphors, this abstract shows VR meanings and consumers’ responses at psychological and, interestingly, physiopsychological levels. With a sample of 350 undergraduate business students and under the stimulus of a recent VR, the resulting constructs were grouped into a hierarchy map whose dimensions are the following: emotional consequences, product attributes of gadgets, physiopsychological responses, and values and consumers’ traits.Results from this projective study shed light on the consumer’s profile, consumer’s motivation, and deep meanings to VR experiences. First, physiopsychological responses lie in positive-negative continuum emotions and thoughts that were elicited during the process: tranquility, joy, and euphoria were the most positive emotions, whereas fear, despair, and disorientation in the negative side of the projective spectrum. Marketers need to be aware that VR categories are not one-size-fit-all tactic in experiential marketing. Instead, different consumers show different responses. Marketers need to provide valuable, vivid, immersive VR experiences to deliver emotional value and brand value. Second, physiological responses are noteworthy. Participants reported body responses during the VR experience. This suggests an under-researched dimension of customer experience. Until recently, affections have been included in research frameworks, but to the best of our knowledge, physiological responses remain absent. Researchers can use theories as flow theory, which postulates that the individual can enter into mental states while performing an activity or task—the VR experience. Such mental states represent instants of complete involvement, energized focus, and are related to joy and other positive emotions. This would avoid negative consumer’s reactions. Third, participants associated VR experiences to values as happiness and freedom. Brands utilizing VR need to fit the experiences with consumers’ values. This study shows that VR experiences involve cognitive, emotional, and physiological dimensions, a fact that calls to develop such branding dimensions.

There has been much discussion within the marketing literature about marketing’s influence both within the firm and within the family of academic business disciplines (e.g., Clark et al. 2014; Eisend 2016; Homburg et al. 2015). This begs the question of whether or not marketing provides the relevant answers and knowledge base needed in areas of theoretical and conceptual innovations that reflect the changing social-, technological-, ethical-, and global growth-oriented realities of the twenty-first century (Webster and Lusch 2013; Ferrell and Ferrell 2016). These issues signal significant change to business models, growth strategies, marketing channels, customer relationship management, as well as the domain of mainstream marketing research, its methodology and relevance. Inquiries into the adequacies of marketing’s extant knowledge base for continued development may uncover intellectual, methodological, and conceptual ruts that further distance marketing scholarship from its proper place in knowledge creation at every level of the firm.The purpose of this special session is to stimulate critical, forward-looking conversation on the nature of marketing and its place in the firm and in the family of business disciplines. Questions of marketing’s ability to create relevant understanding within various contexts, in the marketplace, in the lives of consumers, and in the society, will be taken up, with a view to addressing marketing’s ability to answer “the right questions.”

Social networking sites provide consumers with the opportunity to easily and rapidly obtain information about brands, products, and services. Considering the effect that online word-of-mouth can have on important marketing outcomes, such as product sales and brand loyalty, it is important to understand the factors that drive consumers to seek product-related information on social networking sites. The present research focuses on whether and how cultural collectivism influences the extent that consumers seek product-related information through discussion with others on social networking sites. Study 1 uses archival data which includes the collectivism score for 53 different countries and the extent that consumers in those countries seek product-related information on social networking sites. The results suggest that collectivism exerts a positive effect on the extent that consumers seek product-related information on social networking sites. The results of a second study using primary data suggest that the positive effect of collectivism on information seeking is mediated by trust in the members of social networking sites.

While there are many social and economic positive consequences of social media, the idea here is to focus on the dark side of social media facing consumers and brands via social media in three areas: digital drama and digital over-engagement, consequences to consumers, and consequences to brands. Digital drama refers to occurrence of and reactions to negative online consumer behaviors such as sexting, cyberbullying, fear of missing out, abuse, and related online happenings. Digital drama can occur with other forms of technology; digital drama can occur with e-mails, list-serves, and texts but seems especially salient with social media. Digital drama entails topics such as revenge pornography, cyberbullying body image/body shaming, and trolls. A related topic is digital over-engagement, or an online behavior resulting from a consumer’s thoughts, emotional connection, and intrinsic motivation to interact and cooperate with a brand or its community members in a social media setting. These topics that fall under the umbrella of digital over-engagement or digital drama may bring some (largely unintended) consequences to consumers and brands. For instance, social media has been associated with topics of addiction, self-authenticity, emotional intelligence, and issues with self-esteem. Consumers are in control with social media when there is a corporate misstep or corporate mistake. Consumers have a voice to call companies out on a mistake such as tone-deaf ad or marketing campaign. The consumer voice to companies on social media is in a more public and interactive way than the letters or phone calls of the past. The pace becomes quicker and corporate reactions to missteps have become faster. For instance, Pepsi pulled an ad within hours of airing it, and the speed of this decision may relate with the influx of consumer reactions and disdain on social media. This interactive nature, exposure to networked audiences, and speed in corporate reaction times are a massive change in marketing. Collectively, it is crucial to acknowledge that there is a dark side to social media in addition to its many positive virtues. These virtues and dark side topics apply at times to both consumers and brands, and as such, the working framework here includes a consumer level and a brand/business/organization level. As such, here are three research questions that may spark continued scholarship: What are antecedents and consequences of digital drama or digital over-engagement (consumer or brand level) with other consumers or brands on social media platforms (digital drama and digital over-engagement)? What are short-, mid-, and long-term psychological or physical consequences to consumers’ social media use (unintended consequences for consumers)? What public relations strategy/social media tactics are best for brands when the business or organization is in crisis (unintended consequences for consumers)?

Facing digitalization and ecological considerations, catalogues are at a crossroad. Technology now allows digital versions of catalogues that can be enriched, thanks to videos, pictures or rich media tools. As literature highlights the similarity between websites and digital catalogues, what is the point to develop both and to display an online version of the catalogue along the website? What is the point for consumers in using one or the other? What is the utility and experience offered by the digitalized catalogue, as compared to the website? What is the effect of enriching online catalogues? This research deals with understanding stakes of the digital version of a paper catalogue, especially when enriched, as compared to a website and adopts a dual perspective tackling utilitarian and experiential elements and outcomes. Two experimental studies were conducted in order to examine the potential adoption determinants for the digital catalogue and then to examine differences between website and digital catalogues in terms of utilitarian and hedonic values, their impact on behavioural intentions and the potential impact of types of enrichments. Results mainly highlight potential differences between websites and digital catalogues, whether enriched or not, in adoption determinants as well as in values driving behavioural intentions.

This study, based on means-end chains (MECs) and push-pull-mooring (PPM) model, aims to reveal the functional attributes of Facebook (FB) and Instagram (IG), classify them into PPM model (i.e., push, pull, and mooring effect), and then integrate the nature of MECs (i.e., attribute-consequence-value linkages) to analyze young people’s perceptions toward FB and IG and their switching intention. By integrating MEC results and PPM model, a hybrid hierarchical value map (HVM) was constructed to provide a complete picture of FB/IG users’ switching intention. The hybrid HVM shows that “hiding posts from someone” and “privacy settings” (push effects) are the unfavorable attributes of FB to push FB users to migrate to IG, while “direct function” and “‘tag’ function” (pull effects) are the favorable attributes of IG to attract FB users to migrate. Moreover, the “photo filter” and “tracking public figures or fan pages” (mooring effect) are the attributes that facilitate or impede FB users to migrate. By understanding the hybrid HVM, it is possible to provide designers with valuable insights for FB/IG design and improvement, so the managers and designers of social networking sites are able to develop their effective business strategies.

Prior literature has shown that the acceptance of new technologies can improve the long-term performance of sales forces and firms. However, new technologies are likely to introduce obstacles to acceptance, especially for those technologies that represent a massive change for the user. Sales force members who drastically change their work processes in order to integrate a technology sacrifice both time and effort and may be distracted from their primary goals (e.g., hitting deadlines or sales goals). Thus, we investigate how perceived technological change can negatively moderate individual motives to accept a new technology. Furthermore, we analyze how managerial support can help overcome the acceptance issues caused by perceived technological change.Data for this study was collected from 163 sales force members via an online survey. Respondent data was collected using a private market research firm that provides access to online panels. We utilize structural equation modeling for factor analysis and OLS regression for testing the hypotheses.We find that perceived technological change negatively moderates the influence of individual goal orientation onto acceptance of new technology. We also find that managerial support, as opposed to team goal commitment, will positively moderate an individual’s goal orientation onto acceptance of new technology. This suggests that managerial support is necessary in order to encourage acceptance of technologies that present drastic change for the end user. Post hoc analysis takes a deeper look into potential curvilinear effects, a three-way interaction, and differences among categories of technologies. This analysis reveals that the negative influence of perceived technological change specifically affects the acceptance of behavioral-based technologies, as opposed to outcome-based technologies, thus necessitating the moderating influence of managerial support.This study demonstrates the acceptance issues presented by technologies associated with drastic perceived technological change. This article identifies and suggests how to more appropriately enhance acceptance of technologies that introduce drastic changes by sales force employees, thus enhancing potential long-term organizational performance.

Salespeople play a vital role in presenting information, discovering needs, and building relationships with customers. Salespeople in the service sector, retail and direct selling and industrial selling, all interact with customers directly. The communications, both verbal and nonverbal, of salespeople contribute to interaction outcomes.Back in 1972, Hulbert and Capon (1972) suggested that interpersonal communication in marketing could be studied from the communication signs perspective. Compared to marketing research on mass communication, interpersonal communication has been less investigated. After more than 40 decades, marketing research has investigated the effects of nonverbal signals on customer outcomes, such as customer perceptions and evaluations of salespeople, customer ratings, and purchase intention (Leigh and Summers 2002; Kulesza et al. 2014; Esmark and Noble 2016). This paper intends to provide a review of literature on nonverbal signals of salespeople and reveal gaps in knowledge that could be addressed in future research. We list the nonverbal signals, study contexts, moderators, and mediators proposed in both conceptual and empirical studies in major marketing journals.This research reviews current studies that investigate the effects of nonverbal signals on customer evaluations and perceptions in the marketing literature. Most of the studies reviewed look at the interactions between salespeople and customers in an in-store context, which is limited to face-to-face interactions. Future research can shed light on the study of interactions in other spaces such as phone call, chat, and social media. Video content can convey rich information of the communicators through auditory and visual aspects.

This study is rooted in the literature associated with the development of sales relationships (transactional and relational) and key account management, as well as the literature on the growing importance of aligning sales interactions with the buyer’s value perceptions. Relationship marketing continues to advocate the importance of sellers building long-term value in their relationships with their customers. However, there are very few studies investigating what it is that buyers really value in their interactions with sellers or that clearly identifies different types of interaction required. Engaging with customers at the right way by providing the correct level of interaction contributes to the realisation of the relationship potential, but not all customers want the same experience in their interactions with sellers, nor do they require the same type of interaction. This study explores which types of interaction buyers require, depending on the type of relationship that they wish to develop with sellers.The success of the sales interaction is dependent on the adaptation of the offer through the buyer and seller interactions. Interaction consists of intertwined exchange episodes developed over time, and it has been found that buyers and sellers do not always understand which attributes are valued by the other party. Our research reveals that many buyers felt that their suppliers did not always understand the type of interaction that they were seeking, and therefore they were not always interacting in the manner that was appropriate. If the selling organisation does not understand what is valued in each type of interaction, the salesperson’s time spent in front of the customer may be wasted. To support a new targeted sales operation that leverages different customer relationships, it is necessary that salespeople should interact in a way that is aligned with the attributes that the customer values. However, this research indicates that many organisations were often treating all their customers in the same way, rather than focussing on which type of interaction each customer valued. Sellers should not impose homogeneous messages on all buyers, and by accurately identifying the type of relationship that the customer requires, they should be able to ensure the most productive and beneficial sales outcome for both parties.

The sharing economy has seen tremendous growth in the past decade. The existence of peer-to-peer exchanges is predicated on both the technology that brings buyers and sellers together and the rating and review process which builds a foundation of trust among strangers.A unique aspect of the peer-to-peer economy is that both buyers and sellers participate in the rating process. Much research has examined how consumers evaluate other consumers’ ratings of goods and services; however, consumers’ responses to suppliers’ ratings of their own contributions to the sharing economy have been less studied. A star rating for the buyer holds no monetary or material value; however, we propose that the perceived value of a good or bad review is extremely high. Humans have an intrinsic need to be perceived as likeable and competent, and consumers may respond to negative reviews by reciprocating, retaliating or avoiding conflict. We propose that giving and receiving reviews involves a complex social system in which a good or bad review can be deeply personal, eliciting feelings of pleasure and pride as well as negative emotions such as betrayal, embarrassment, guilt and shame. Confounding the process is a lack of criteria or guidelines for which the ratings are given, leaving the possibility that the ratings may be arbitrary and potentially unfair.This study contributes to current literature by demonstrating that negative reviews do in fact elicit strong negative emotions of betrayal, shame, guilt and embarrassment and that the feeling of betrayal is not just directed towards the homeowner who wrote the negative review but also towards the booking platform. Further these emotions negatively impact consumers’ evaluations of the entire vacation experience, their likelihood of using the booking platform in the future and their intention to spread negative word of mouth. The investigation also provides evidence that feelings of psychological ownership towards the home will intensify feelings of betrayal. In other words, individuals who feel a personal sense of ownership towards the vacation home, even though they don’t legally own it, will feel even more betrayed by the negative review.

This study investigated how Generation Y men’s body dissatisfaction would influence their appearance-related behaviors, including appearance management and clothing purchase behavior, and whether public self-consciousness would play a moderator role in the relationship between body dissatisfaction and those appearance-related behaviors. Specifically, this study investigated heterosexual men only as they may have different perceptions toward their body and appearance-related behaviors compared to homosexual men.Body dissatisfaction refers to negative feelings that are caused by a discrepancy between an individual’s perceived ideal body appearance and his perceived actual body appearance (Grieve 2007). Appearance management is described as individuals’ behaviors such as dieting, exercising, and hairstyling to manage their overall appearances (Reilly and Rudd 2007), with an exception of clothing behavior which is incorporated in this study through clothing purchase behavior. Clothing purchase behavior is defined as individuals’ purchasing activities of clothes that reflect an individual’s aesthetic preference and taste, present his individuality, and do not necessarily follow the latest trends. Public self-consciousness refers to the degree of individuals’ concerns about their appearance and behaviors in a social context (Buss 1985). Built upon the symbolic self-completion theory, this study tested the following hypotheses: Hypothesis 1 : Body dissatisfaction of men in Generation Y would positively influence their appearance management behavior. Hypothesis 2 : Body dissatisfaction of men in Generation Y would positively influence their clothing purchase behavior. Hypothesis 3 : With higher level of public self-consciousness, the positive relationship between body dissatisfaction of men in Generation Y and (a) appearance management and (b) clothing purchase behavior will be strengthened. Data collected from 277 participants (Mage = 31.93) through an online survey posted on the Amazon Mechanical Turk platform were included for analyses. Reliabilities of those measures ranged from .82 to .92. A series of multiple regressions were conducted to test the three hypotheses. Results showed that three factors of body dissatisfaction (i.e., weight, muscles, and height) had different influences in how Generation Y men would manage their appearance and purchase clothing that fitted their personal styles. Public self-consciousness did not moderate the relationships between Generation Y men’s body dissatisfaction and appearance-related behaviors (i.e., appearance management and clothing purchase behavior). Discussion and implications are discussed.

Combining emotional regulation and role/script theories, this conceptual paper proposes a model that explores how firms can harness insights from big data to augment emotional labor, optimize the service encounter, and thus provide positive outcomes for the firm. Specifically, emotional regulation theory suggests that surface acting decreases and deep acting increases the customer’s perceived customer orientation (PCO), resulting in increased positive word of mouth (WOM). Role/script theory proposes that big data analytics provide firms with information that can be used to shield FLEs from emotional dissonance and depletion, moderating the relationships between the strategies used by employees to regulate their emotions and PCO. The paper furthermore argues that the benefits streaming from big data analytics are largely determined by firms’ data verification ability. Therefore, managers are urged to effectively leverage big data techniques in managing emotional labor in the service dyad while strengthening their data verification capabilities. Empirical research to quantify the effects of firms’ verification ability on successful deployment of big data analytics in the service encounter is encouraged.

Service managers strive to ensure both service efficiency and effectiveness, and as such, a growing stream of research has been devoted to the “job resourcefulness” (JR) construct (Harris et al. 2013; Licata et al. 2003). Introduced by Licata and colleagues (2003) as “an enduring disposition to garner scarce resources and overcome obstacles in the pursuit of job-related goals,” the construct was developed at a time when calls were made for work on productivity and how services can “do more with less.” Today, doing more with less remains a critical part of service success, as when uncertainties in the economy lead to either increased or decreased hiring.JR has been shown to influence objective sales performance (Harris et al. 2013), supervisor- and self-rated performance (Licata et al. 2003), job satisfaction, and intentions to leave the firm (Harris et al. 2006). Research also indicates that JR is influenced by conscientiousness and openness to experience from the five-factor model (Costa and McCrae 1985) of personality. The extant research stream has focused exclusively on personality variables, leaving researchers and managers alike the question of what contextual factors influence the construct. That is, other than providing personality testing, what can managers do to foster JR in their employees? The current work addresses this issue by exploring the impact of supervisor support, job fit, and job attractiveness on JR while controlling for the influence of conscientiousness and openness to experience.An online survey tool (Qualtrics) was used for data collection. The setting was the banking industry. Results indicate that both supervisor support and job fit influence JR. Beyond simply hiring employees who have the right personality profiles, managers can encourage resourcefulness not only by ensuring job fit but also by providing adequate levels of supportiveness. It is noted that job attractiveness did not influence JR. This is the first study to consider the impact of three important organizational climate variables—supervisor support, job fit, and job attractiveness on JR. Though preliminary in nature, the results provide evidence that these climate variables impact the JR of service employees.

As an apparent trend, more and more firms are adopting cause-related marketing to promote a green corporate image (Leonidou et al. 2011) in an effort to improve market share and performance. Although consumers consider a product’s environmental attributes as “structurally important features” (Gershoff and Frels 2015, p. 101), this study provides additional evidence that marketing efforts in the financial industry can also target peripheral rather than central attributes to maximize greenness perceptions by establishing the connection between consumer values and the choice of environmental cause. The existing literature highlights the importance of brand-cause fit by arguing that “a perceived match between the product’s brand and the cause it supported” could greatly improve consumer perceptions toward cause-marketing campaigns and brand image (e.g., Chéron et al. 2012, p. 362). In our research, however, the brand-cause fit is moderated by the individuals’ previous philanthropic experiences and biospheric values. Therefore, marketers should understand the environmental concerns of targeted audiences to effectively communicate with consumers. More importantly, marketers should clearly indicate the benefits of environmental consumption if they hope to convince ambivalent consumers (Burke et al. 2014).Consistent with the existing literature, individuals in the present study are more likely to have positive attitudes toward the brand and purchase intentions when they are presented with 1% cash and annual percentage rate (APR) donation compared to 0.5 and 1.5% donations. Thus, marketers should promise a sufficiently large donation when targeted consumers have positive attitudes toward helping behaviors (e.g., Koschate-Fischer et al. 2012). Companies may choose to donate a medium amount when brand-cause fit is low, and this donation amount matters if “the product is utilitarian or consumed privately” (Koschate-Fischer et al. 2012, p. 923), such as a credit card in this study.Finally, the overall results suggest what mattered in our research was the donation framing in selecting “green” credit cards. Generally speaking, when the donation is framed as cash rewards, it has stronger effects on a consumer’s perception and consequent reactions to the “green” credit cards than when the donation is framed as APR. When people believe that expenses “will recur infrequently, they may fail to book the item in their budget, encoding the infrequent expense as trivial or irrelevant to their budgets at large” (Sussman et al. 2015, p. 131). As a result, cash reward donation framing has stronger effects on an individual’s perception of “green” credit cards than APR. These findings provide financial institutions with an inexpensive and easy-to-implement method to encourage more generous donations to existing green causes.

Consumers spend less than 90 s making up their minds about a product after their initial interaction with it. Most of their assessments in this short amount of time are based on the visual attributes of the products. The overall purpose of this study is to take the first step toward understanding consumer attitudes toward environmental claims on packages by using low- and high-involvement products and then determining how different product claims (verbal and visual) affect their decision-making processes. Specifically, based on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), this study examines consumer responses to environmental verbal statements and green visual components of product packages. The research utilizes a 2 (claim: eco-friendly or high performance) × 2 (color: green or yellow) factorial experiment (n = 256) to understand how packaging elements can affect buying decisions of consumers by varying product packaging on both high-involvement (laptop computer) and low-involvement (dishwashing detergent) products. The results show that green color packaging elicits better attitudes than nongreen for low-involvement products because these products are perceived as being more environmentally friendly. The results also demonstrated that for the eco-friendly claim, the color-product fit was significantly higher for green products than nongreen products. However, for performance claim (i.e., Ultra Clean), the results did not show any significant difference in terms of color-product fit. Also, for the high-involvement product claims, the study results did not show any significant difference in consumer responses.The study has several important contributions. First, the research addresses the significance of visual (i.e., color) and verbal claims on high- and low-involvement product packages and purchase reactions in the environmental sustainability context. Second, the research furthers evidence suggesting the important role of environmental color in mediating relationships between perceived environmental friendliness and consumer reactions. Third, in the same environmental context, the study furthers knowledge of how consumers cognitively store and respond to product color and claim. Thus, the paper has both practical and theoretical implications.

Like the energy-based economies of Alaska and North Dakota, Wyoming’s economy entered a recession in 2016 due to low energy prices. This thrust the state into a budget crisis that remains unresolved. In May 2016, researchers deployed state-of-the-art marketing research methods to shed light on how Wyoming citizens feel about budget options for the state legislature in the current times of economic recession in the state. These researchers used a discrete-choice modeling approach to better understand relative preferences among budgeting options facing the state legislature. Their findings suggest that Wyomingites generally align with actions of the state legislature taken in February 2016 with the exception of the legislature’s decision to not accept federal funding for expanding Medicaid to all Wyoming residents. The study’s success suggests that other levels of government (such as cities, counties, public utility commissions, as well as the federal government) can gain collective intelligence by accessing citizen preferences in a timely manner for their own policymaking efforts.

Due to scarce resource allocation, many nonprofit organizations suffer from low levels of staffing and depend on volunteers. The act of volunteering has been conceptualized as an act of symbolic consumption. Thus, the directors of nonprofits should strive to create volunteer experiences that provide value to the volunteer. This study is the first step in developing scales that measure value to the individual who volunteers at a nonprofit organization. The researchers began by conducting in-depth interviews with six female volunteers from a free medical clinic with extensive experience as volunteers.Interviews consisted of a list of questions that were asked of the participants but were also flexible so that participants could provide additional insight based on their personal experiences and opinions. Step 1 of the interview process was designed to create a level of comfort for the respondents; thus, the questions focused on life history and personal reasons for volunteering with the organization (e.g., tell me about you, your experiences as a volunteer in general over the years, and your experience with this organization). In step 2 of the interview process, questions moved into specific details of the respondents’ volunteer experience at the medical clinic (e.g., what are your responsibilities). In step 3, questions focused on the meaning, level of commitment, and value of volunteering (e.g., is there any relationship inside or outside the organization among the volunteers—in other words do you get together socially, what makes you want to volunteer here, do you enjoy volunteering here, why do you volunteer) to the participant. By following this structure, each interview provides “a foundation of detail that helps illumine the next.” This provides “a rational process that is both repeatable and documentable.” Interviews were taped with the consent of the participants.Two major themes emerged: (1) volunteers enjoyed the experience, or they moved on to a different organization, and (2) many wanted to learn new skills, expand their knowledge, or stay current in their field. Results from this qualitative study based on depth interviews provide guidance for future research and a recommendation for items to measure hedonic and utilitarian value. An existing scale, the 1994 Babin, Darden, and Griffin utilitarian and hedonic value of shopping scale, was identified as one which could be adapted for the act of volunteering.

During the recent years, there has been more programming in media which contain violence (Wilson et al. 2002; Anderson et al. 2007; Gentry and Harrison 2010). Previous research established that exposure to violence in media leads to aggressive responses (Huesmann et al. 2003; Anderson et al. 2010).Accordingly, many advertisers use violence portrayals in ads as well (Gulas et al. 2010). Previous research studied different affective, cognitive, and attitudinal responses to such portrayals (Brocato et al. 2010). More than 50% of the ads portraying violence also feature humor (Scharrer et al. 2006). Also, previous research showed that in almost 70% of the ads featuring violence, there were some elements of humor in the Super Bowl 2009 halftime show program (Gulas et al. 2010).There are also gender differences in responses to violence in the ads that feature both violence and humor. Previous research showed that men compared to women have a higher positive attitude toward such commercials (Swani et al. 2013). In a related study, researchers showed that this difference does not depend on the sex of the individuals, but it depends on their gender identity (Yoon and Kim 2014).Current research aims to investigate the mechanisms that lead to individual differences in responses to violent portrayals in ads. General Aggression Model (GAM) established that responses to exposures to aggression are resulted from “person” and “situation” inputs (Anderson and Bushman 2002).Building on the GAM, the current paper posits that differences in knowledge structures in different genders explain the existing gender difference in attitudes toward violence portrayals in ads. Knowledge structures are the ways that knowledge is stored and retrieved in individuals’ minds. Three main types of knowledge structures are perceptual schemata, personal schemata, and behavioral scripts. Knowledge structures can be formed and strengthened by experience; they can impact the perception and interpretation of a situation; influence behavioral, cognitive, affective, and arousal responses of an individual; and become automatic by repetition and use (Anderson and Bushman 2002). The current research offers a conceptual model to explain the gender differences in knowledge structures regarding violence and the impact of these differences in response to aggression in media.

In the USA, approximately 50% of food expenditures and a third of total calories come from foods prepared away from home (ERS, https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-expenditures.aspx , 2017). Since many consumers don’t know or underestimate the nutritional content of these foods, many hypothesize that this contributes to the prevalence of obesity in the USA. To address this problem, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 requires the disclosure of certain nutrition information for standard menu items in certain restaurants and retail food establishments (Federal Register, Office of the Federal Register, 79:71155–71259, 2014). Using the model proposed by Burton and Kees (Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 31:232–239, 2012) and adapted by Breck et al. (Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 36:227–235, 2017), this study uses the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data collected by the US government to assess which consumers actually notice and use the nutrition information on menus. Results show that in fast-food restaurants, noticing the information does not equate to using it; those who use the information are predisposed to its use, including those who are already conscious about their diets; and the information is not used by those who are overweight but by those who are trying to lose weight. The major problem is that less than half of the respondents even noticed the information.

Job stress, lower job satisfaction, and role stress (role conflict and role ambiguity) result in deviant behaviors which could be directed toward the organization, colleagues, or customers (Darrat et al. 2010). Various forms of inter-role conflict have been found to significantly affect job outcomes. Conflict resulting from family and work roles has been studied extensively in the literature. Grounded in role theory and conservation of resources theory, this study investigates work-school conflict (WSC) and school-work conflict (SWC) and their effects on restaurant service providers.A 2011 US Census Bureau survey showed that of the 19.7 million students aged 16 and over enrolled in undergraduate college, 72% held some full-time or part-time job, and 82% of the 4.1 million graduate students were holding some job position too (Davis 2012). WSC was first conceptualized by Markel and Frone (1998) who found that workload, number of hours worked, and job dissatisfaction were positively related to WSC and negatively related to school outcomes. They called for WSC and SWC to be investigated more in the research. Inbar Kremer (2016) investigated the relationship between school-work-family conflict, subjective stress, and burnout and found that SWC was the only one of the six forms of inter-role conflict that contributed significantly to subjective stress and burnout. This may suggest that SWC may be a more significant form of inter-role conflict than all the other forms of inter-role conflict. SWC has been found to have a negative relationship with health outcomes (Giancola et al. 2009).However, taking up multiple roles can also have positive effects. Studies have found some positive relationships between work-school enrichment and some organizational and school-desired outcomes. What factors determine when the school and work roles enrich each other? When do they conflict? How can this conflict be resolved? The current study makes the following contributions: (1) The conceptualization of interrole conflict as asymmetrical expands our understanding of role conflict, (2) investigates the impact of Work-School and School-Work conflict on both school and work-related outcomes (specifically objective turnover which is very important for service providers), and (3) uses multigroup analysis to investigate the differential effects of conflict on men and women.

Mobile shopping (m-shopping) is increasing in worldwide usage but remains the least trusted means of shopping for products/services online, with only approximately 30% of UK consumers adopting it in 2017. Understanding why UK consumers are not adopting m-shopping at the same rate as other countries is essential for future retailer competitiveness and overall successfulness. To provide guidance on how to enhance the customer m-shopping experience, this paper proposes a conceptual model, based on UTAUT2, which is tested using quantitative data and confirmatory factor analysis. Findings reveal that consumers are influenced by practical benefits of using m-shopping alongside their personal inclinations surrounding their enjoyment, trust and risk perceptions and their past experiences. These findings provide guidance for online retailers and propose further avenues for academic insight.

This study aims to identify the motivations explaining why customers are willing (or not) to engage in a shopping activity in which a digital screen is physically shared. While face-to-face interactions in the private sphere occur today around screens (Willman and Rainie 2013), “screen-sharing” practice between shop assistants and consumers constitutes a new phenomenon. The analysis of 20 semi-structured consumers’ interviews reveals three motivational dimensions of screen-sharing (utilitarian, social, and individual) in line with McClelland’s (1985) three big needs theory. Additionally, the findings underline that the perception of symmetric or asymmetric temporal relative availability of the partner impacts the intensities of the distinct motivational dimensions of the consumer to share a screen. These results lead to significant theoretical contributions about consumers’ willingness to experiment “phygital” hybrid experiences. By sharing a screen, they appear to anticipate the advantages of aggregating the real and virtual realm in a shared and simultaneous journey. The findings implicate that a screen-sharing activity with a shop assistant may satisfy customers’ needs when their relative perception of the shop assistant’s availability is in line with their dominant motive. This study constitutes a relevant contribution for retailers, regarding their stores’ digitalization and hybridization strategy.

Self-service technologies (SSTs) allow customers to experience service without directly dealing with service employees; however, these have drawn a mixed response from the customers especially in retail shopping context. Hence, it is still not clear how the perceived service quality and satisfaction with SSTs may influence customers’ overall satisfaction and loyalty towards a retail store. This study addresses this research gap using a field survey with 313 retail shoppers in the UK, a relatively new market for these technologies. Results show a lower overall preference for SSTs (e.g. self-checkout machines and online shopping) with the customers in our sample because of their higher perceived service quality and satisfaction with staffed checkouts, which in turn seems to also drive overall perceived quality, satisfaction and loyalty towards the store. We also find significant differences in these effects based on age, gender, education and income, wherein relatively younger and male customers with higher education and income levels show significantly greater preference for self-checkout and online shopping methods. These findings highlight the importance of giving customers more options to choose from, based on their personal preferences, rather than trying to make all customers use SSTs, which may lead to lower customer satisfaction and loyalty.

One of the most stressful times for a marketing doctoral student is entering the job market to find a suitable academic position. Navigating the job market becomes a “rite of passage,” marking the transition from a student to a professor. Preparing for the job market requires doctoral students to juggle several responsibilities, including writing application materials, completing lengthy interviews, and visiting multiple campuses, all while staying on track with their dissertation, research pipeline, and teaching. The job market is fraught with uncertainty and stress for rookie Ph.D.’s, and many receive little guidance from their peers or professors at their university.While each doctoral student has a unique experience in the job market, the process includes a variety of common steps that each candidate has to master. This special session is designed to discuss the various aspects of the academic job market and will answer a fundamental question, “how can doctoral students be more successful in the job market?” The special session will begin with a discussion of what success in the job market means (e.g., placing at a R1 school), followed by an interactive discussion of specific strategies and steps doctoral students can take to be prepared for the job market. We envision discussing what to include in job application packages, how to find and apply for jobs, phone call interview etiquette, preparing for job market conference interview questions, thriving on campus visits, tips on staying calm while waiting to hear back from schools, and maintaining momentum on the dissertation.The uniqueness of this special session comes from the interactive nature of the session—panel participants will present information on the abovementioned topics but will also take questions from the audience throughout the session. Thus, the major benefit for attendees will be the opportunity to raise questions and concerns about the job market and receive real-time, diverse feedback from panel participants who have recently gone through the process. In addition, panel members will share examples of documents showing how to effectively structure a CV, cohesively discuss streams of research in the research statement, concretely discuss pedagogical approaches in the teaching statement, and tailor cover letters. After attending the special session, candidates will be better prepared for success in the job market and connected with other students on the market.

As automotive industry and automobiles are subject to incremental changes, customer’s evaluation of passenger vehicles also changes. Indeed, classic criteria such as engine performance have been paramount in consumer’s buying decision processes for decades, but additional technical systems and features such as advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) gain importance. With regard to emerging vehicle system features such as ADAS, the main challenge for a long-term and broad product demand is consumer’s acceptance. Against that background, the current work focusses on the evaluation of the technology acceptance of a so-called head-up display (HUD). Within a first step, a web study (including a real driving situation video) was performed to check the general suitability of a theoretically derived advanced system acceptance model based on literature review considering acceptance measures and frameworks. Overall, the empirical evaluation of the introduced system acceptance measurement model confirmed a high level of explaining and predictive quality. Specifically, usefulness, ease of use and society were revealed as key drivers of system acceptance for positive product performance in the current study. However, limitations regarding study design, sample and procedure require further research to gain more insights into human-machine interactions related to system acceptance in an automotive context.

Mixed reality media, which blend digital content with aspects of the physical world (e.g., IKEA’s AR-enabled catalogue, Snapchat filters, etc.), provides new opportunities for marketers to tell brand stories. While previous research on narrative transportation theory explains how consumers are immersed into and persuaded by brand stories (van Laer et al. 2014), central assumptions of the theory are called into question when such stories are told through mixed reality media in consumers’ everyday environments. In our research, we explore how the experience of narrative transportation differs when brand stories are emplaced in the physical world amidst a nexus of spatial and social relations, instead of in a separate imaginary story world.We draw on qualitative data from the case of Pokémon GO to develop a conceptual model that explains how narrative transportation functions in mixed reality storytelling. Under these conditions, transportation morphs from being a mental journey in an imaginary, external world to being a joint cognitive and embodied process that interacts with the lifeworld of the consumer. Consumers take on character roles as they move about the hybrid story-physical world, interacting with fictional characters while simultaneously engaging with other players and bystanders. Transportation is borne by effectively enmeshing the narrative across the physical world and validating it through spatial and social means.Narrative transportation in mixed reality thus requires researchers and marketers to rethink the environment in which a story is consumed, as well as how the story is produced. It emphasizes environmentally propping mental imagery (Kuzmičová 2015), which is typically ignored in narrative transportation research. It also conceptualizes the consumer as an active story co-creator, rather than simply a story receiver, which is typically overlooked in studies on narrative transportation (van Laer et al. 2014). Marketers should be aware that emplacing stories into everyday environments requires high levels of consumer cooperation, which might be more reasonable to expect for iconic brands such as Pokémon than for newer and more obscure brands such as Ingress.

Retro products are reinterpretations of products from the past complying with contemporary standards of performance, functioning, or taste. This paper explores consumers’ acceptance of retro products by investigating their inherent paradox of being old and new at the same time. The effect of nostalgia proneness and consumer innovativeness on acceptance of a retro product is assessed and compared to their effect on acceptance of (1) the original version of the retro product and (2) a product which is similarly modern. Results of an empirical study (N = 262) indicate that nostalgia proneness has a positive effect on consumers’ acceptance of the original product, this effect being mediated by positive emotions. However, this effect is not observed for the retro product. In addition, consumer innovativeness has a positive effect on consumers’ acceptance of the retro product and of the similarly modern product, this effect being mediated by perceived newness. These results suggest that consumer innovativeness is a better driver of acceptance of retro products than nostalgia proneness. Theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are discussed.

By allowing individuals to think about their future, temporal consciousness enables existential anxiety, the awareness and fear of one’s own mortality (Becker 1971; Routledge et al. 2008). Prior work has suggested that individuals may protect themselves from existential anxiety through state nostalgia (Routledge et al. 2011), defined as “sentimental longing for one’s past” (Sedikides and Wildschut 2017). Individuals’ ability to reflect on past events as a compensatory strategy in response to existential anxiety is likely to foster a defensive and reassuring looking-backward mindset, thereby in opposition to a looking-forward mode necessary to favor product innovation adoption (Castellano et al., 2013). Zhao et al. (2012) showed that the evaluation of new products is less favorable when consumers have difficulties in mentally projecting new uses. Conversely, forward-looking consumers adapt their buying behavior by anticipating future product improvements (Krishnan and Ramachandran, 2011).Because newness encompasses uncertainties and risks (Conchar et al. 2004), product innovation implies the potential disruption of an individual’s reassuring values and habits. Hence, since innovative products are likely to be in conflict with the nostalgic mindset triggered by existential anxiety, state nostalgia is predicted to mediate the negative impact of existential anxiety on consumers’ attitude toward product innovation.The present paper examines in finer detail the relationship between existential anxiety and nostalgia by measuring its impact on consumers’ attitude toward product innovation. The findings of three experimental studies using various technology-based products that were expected to be introduced to market in the near future (see Truong et al. 2014) suggest that by triggering nostalgia, existential anxiety may negatively affect the evaluation of product innovation.The present research adds to the growing body of literature on innovation by showing that existential anxiety can inhibit new product adoption. These results also offer a glimpse of how existential anxiety impacts the various facets of the consumption of new products by contrasting the effect of the awareness of mortality on innovative and retro-innovative products. Prior work has argued that the success of retro-innovation depends on how the celebration of the past can represent a way of looking forward (Castellano et al. 2013).

Secrets involve deliberately hiding information from other people. They are widely used in marketing: from “secret” recipes and ingredients of Heinz ketchup to the notably vapid trailers of the “Game of Thrones” latest season. In this paper, I set out to develop a conceptual model for the use of secrets in marketing and support the model with a naturally occurring quasi-experiment in the context of the computer games industry.The very fact of having a secret involves a critical distinction between those in the know—insiders—and those from who the secrets are kept, outsiders (Simmel 1950). I argue that keeping a secret about soon-to-be released products might be a source of value for both insiders and outsiders. From the outsider’s perspective, the effect is based on the positive customer uncertainty and optimism bias (Tanner and Carlson 2009). Brand equity plays a moderating role as brand knowledge decreases perceived risks (Keller 1993), thus performing a positive framing of uncertainty. That is, the stronger the brand, the more value it can create by going secret.In computer games industry, publishers routinely invite customers to participate in either “open” or “closed” beta testing of their products to get a feedback and fix the software bugs. In the “closed beta,” participants are required to sign nondisclosure agreements that prevent them from sharing any information about the product. I analyze the use of the “open” vs. “closed” beta testing strategies as a naturally occurring experiment. The hypothesis is that the leading brands are more likely to choose the closed beta strategy, and this choice is more beneficial for their new products.The multivariate ANOVA employs a type of beta-testing and a brand’s TOP-10 status in the industry as independent variables, sales volumes and customer ratings as dependent, and price as a covariate. The results support the hypothesis. The between-subject analysis reveals that there is a significant main effect of beta testing on sales volumes (but not on customer ratings) and an interaction between brand equity and beta testing strategy.These findings extend the consumer behavior literature on positive uncertainty (Lee and Qui 2009) and contribute to the discussion on new product pre-announcements. They depart from the view that the companies must seek to reveal as much information as possible early (Ofek and Turut 2013) and demonstrate that doing the opposite might be even more effective.

Advances in digital technology and innovation have fundamentally changed the way Higher Education (HE) communities interact, consume and co-create value (Neier and Zayer 2015; Merle and Freberg 2016). In particular, how technology influences the dynamics between the actors (e.g. students and lecturers) involved in HE is of interest to both HE and service managers and researchers (Diaz-Mendez and Gummesson 2012). Taking a value co-creation lens, we develop a model, drawn from our own preliminary qualitative findings with students and staff, as well as the technology adoption literature (e.g. Davis 1989; Parasuraman and Colby 1985, 2015) in order to address the theoretical deficiency of how technology readiness influences value co-creation behaviour in a service setting. The model proposes that an individual’s Technology Readiness (TR) acts as an antecedent to Digital Technology Satisfaction which has a positive and facilitating influence on value co-creation behaviours. In addition, this study addresses concerns regarding ambiguities surrounding the conceptualisation of value co-creation and adopts a multidimensional hierarchical measurement of this construct.This paper presents the findings from a quantitative pilot study (98 participants), and the results show strong support for our hypotheses and theoretical model. Given that the emphasis in the literature has focused on actor value co-creation, it is vital to examine a dyadic interaction between two key HE actors, e.g. students and employees, and the influence that digital technologies can have on their value co-creation behaviour. Our research addresses these concerns by examining the relationship between technology readiness and value co-creation behaviour in a credence-based service setting.Following the pilot test at the student level, our research will take a cross-cultural perspective (Ireland, South Korea, the UK, the USA) and examine the proposed model at the student and lecturer level. In so doing, this multi-level dyadic perspective deepens our understanding of how a service environment can augment the service experience for both cohorts by integrating digital technology platforms and resources. By adopting the TR 2.0 scale (Parasuraman and Colby 2015) and the recent value co-creation behaviour scale (Yi and Gong 2015), this paper deepens our understanding of students and lecturers perceived likelihood to adopt emerging technologies and the influence this has on their value co-creation behaviour. Future research could apply the model to other service environments, in particular where digital technologies are enhancing the service offering and providing more opportunities for value co-creation to occur.

Business schools that have been slow to embrace digital education have limited resources for instructors who want to experiment with online teaching. This paper follows the process in which a marketing instructor turns to former students to assist with the challenges of online content delivery inside of a business school that has not yet created any infrastructure to support the effort. It provides an overview of the course, online course implementation details, overall insights and finding, and steps for other instructors to follow in developing and delivering high-quality online education. While this instructor was primarily focused with online content delivery, he unexpectedly discovers that online education offers increased participation in a digital medium that today’s students feel more comfortable with than the confines of a traditional classroom setting.

There has been significant growth in the number of digital marketing courses, certificates, and programs in marketing departments. This growth is noteworthy as competency in digital marketing is increasingly important in the marketplace, and these skills can help job placement (Staton 2015). Reviews of marketing curriculums suggest there is a variety of ways of teaching digital marketing (Munoz and Wood 2015). We argue that integrated marketing communications (IMC) is a useful framework to use teaching digital marketing as it helps tie the tools to marketing strategy. Today’s omnichannel customer experience requires more sophisticated approaches to communication on how consumers reach purchase decisions with the existence of more complex IMC programs. A fresh way of structuring this framework is through tying IMC tactics to customer journeys.The essence of a customer journey has been equated as a process and the sum of all interactions in a customer’s path to purchase with a firm (Lemon and Verhoef 2016). A customer journey map is a visualized iteration of a potential number of media or interactions (like TV ads, retail store visits, mobile reminders) a consumer may take in the process to moving from ignorance about a product to purchase (Richardson 2010; Rosenbaum et al. 2017). Each step of the customer journey represents a potential omnichannel brand interaction a consumer may have, either offline or online, and components of integrated marketing communications strategy are enacted for those interactions that involve the brand as origin of the message.The method begins with IMC and then overlays that onto the customer journey. This approach starts with walking the student through a detailed example of a successful IMC campaign. Next, the professor discusses the notion of customer journeys. A customer journey maps a diagram that shows the steps your customer(s) go through in interacting and engaging with a company. This interaction can be online, in-store, a service, or some combination that includes every touchpoint with a consumer (Richardson 2010). The ma initiates the first interaction with the customer and continues for the life of the relationship.We offer a teaching method that incorporates IMC and customer journeys. The notion of customer journey and how it feels into an AI system is a new concept for most students. Therefore, we developed a hands-on approach that entails developing a customer journey and linking that with IMC. In our experience, students understand the material to a greater degree after this exercise versus receiving it in lecture format. We will demonstrate this process at the conference and involve attendees in building a customer journey.

The effects of mood and gender on consumption and decision-making are well documented in consumer behavior research. While a lot of research focuses on the effect of mood, gender, or their interaction on purchase likelihood, very few studies, if any, explore those effects on luxury perception. This paper tackles that very question. We begin by reviewing literature on gender, mood, luxury perception, and materialism, among other variables, and then build a conceptual model that explores interaction between mood and gender on luxury perception.Our results show that males rated the products as more luxurious when they were in a negative mood than when they were in a positive mood. In addition, males in a negative mood had a significantly higher luxury perception than females in a negative mood. Alternatively, females rated the products in the experiment as more luxurious when they were in a positive mood than when they were put into a negative mood state. Females also rated the products as more luxurious than males when both genders’ moods were positive. Further supporting previous research, males also exhibited a higher product attitude than females did when participants were in a negative mood. Males also rated a higher product attitude evaluation when they were in a negative mood than in a positive mood. The results also confirm that the high-priced luxury item was rated as more luxurious than the lower-priced product when participants were in a positive mood. This research contributes in the luxury perception literature by recognizing the gender and mood effects on perception and product attractiveness.

Social trends and technological advances are driving an increase in the volume of unsolicited consumer feedback received by firms. This research contributes to the literature by characterizing and contrasting different forms of unsolicited customer feedback in terms of the motivations behind each, their communication valence, and customer expectations for a firm response. The results suggest that compliments, complaints, suggestions, requests, and problem fix communications can each be described by distinct characteristics that can be used to promote feedback and respond to each in an appropriate manner. The research thus provides an initial step toward defining a typology of unsolicited customer feedback.

Marketers and other scientists use constructs to represent phenomena that are not readily observable. In order for constructs to prove useful, they must have definitions that are clearly interpretable. If vagueness occurs in a construct’s definition or in the items used to measure it, producing valid and reliable research may be difficult.Certain disciplines have looked deeply at vagueness in language. Philosophers have used the so-called sorites paradox to find vagueness in words that exhibit gradations such as tall, long, or red. That is, if we have a group of men ordered from shortest to tallest, which is the first man who can be said to be tall? This is not mere ignorance of what it means to be tall but rather an intrinsic lack of specificity within the word. This causes fuzzy boundaries where deciding which class a case belongs to is sometimes impossible. Thus, the extension of the definition is unclear. Philosophers and linguists have also found many other classes of words that can impart vagueness by simply being present in a sentence.Thus, adjectives that exhibit any form of gradability or prescribe degrees of obtaining a property will impart vagueness. Other modifiers such as adverbs may be similarly gradable. Nouns and verbs may also impart vagueness. For instance, what rate of travel constitutes running? Qualifiers like “some” and comparators like “more” are also sources of gradability. Conjunctions like “and” and “or” are not sorites susceptible but may well impart a different kind of vagueness.The words described here are ubiquitous in language. Vagueness in language can never be eliminated. However, recognizing the vagueness that some words introduce can aid marketers and other researchers in writing less vague definitions and scale items. This will improve clarity of conceptualization. It will also increase the accuracy of measurement results. The validity, reliability, and thus repeatability of research will improve when vagueness is reduced.

Considering that midpoints on linear scales wrongly aggregate indifferent, uncertain and ambivalent responses, this research investigates the ability of the evaluative space grid (ESG) to disentangle uncertainty from manifest ambivalence. Uncovering situations in which respondents hold simultaneous and conflicting but certain evaluations, manifest ambivalence reveals of utmost significance for market researchers. Using a mixed approach, both qualitative and quantitative, this research confirms that the ESG isolates manifest ambivalence in its upper-right zone and provides implications for practitioners involved in service quality and consumer satisfaction measurement.

Prior research shows that visual ad content dominates over verbal ad content in capturing consumer attention (Pieters and Wedel 2004). Previous advertising research has explored the effects of visual saliency, product shape, and product centrality on consumer attention and volume perceptions (Atalay et al. 2012; Raghubir and Krishna 1999). We investigate the impact of incorporating a product’s shadow in the ad frame on perceived product volume, as well as its effect on how much the consumers are willing to pay for the featured product.When present in the visual frame, an object’s shadow contrasts the object’s shape and draws attention towards it (Dee and Santos 2011; Mamassian 2008). Similarly, presence of a shadow in the ad frame enhances its visual salience and noticeability (Raghubir and Valenzuela 2006; Sharma 2016). A distinct stream of research shows that product packages that attract more attention are considered to hold a greater amount of volume (Folkes and Matta 2004; Hagtvedt and Brasel 2017). Hence, we propose that presence (vs. absence) of a product’s shadow in the ad will increase the product’s volume estimates (Folkes and Matta 2004; Mamassian 2008; Tatler et al. 2005). Furthermore, we expect that enhanced volume perceptions will increase the consumer willingness to pay for the product (Hagtvedt and Brasel 2017; Yang and Raghubir 2005).Study 1 was a 2 (shadow, present, absent) × 2 (product category, laundry detergent, tea) mixed design with the first factor (product shadow) manipulated between subjects and the second factor (product category) manipulated within subjects. The results revealed a higher willingness to pay for the products, when their shadows were present in the ad (M shadow = $5.03, M no-shadow = $3.93, p < 0.05). Study 2 replicated our effects on willingness to pay using a different product category, instant coffee (M shadow = $8.40, M no-shadow = $5.74, p < 0.05). In addition, volume estimates for the featured coffee were significantly higher in the presence (versus absence) of the product shadow (M shadow = 13.23 oz., M no-shadow = 10.25 oz., p < 0.05), which in turn mediated the impact of product shadow on consumer willingness to pay (95% CI = [0.0729, 2.1953]; Hayes 2013).Our findings can guide marketers towards appropriate use of product shadows. In particular, we find that using product shadows in ad frames can benefit products attempting to convey large quantities and also have downstream effects on important marketing outcomes such as consumer willingness to pay.

The use of social media has been increasing at a phenomenal pace over the last few years, with over 2.3 billion people worldwide being on social media in 2016 (Stephen et al. 2017). While different types of pictures are posted, the two most common types of pictures posted are pictures of people and food (Shaw 2015). Would being pictured next to a healthy versus unhealthy food item influence the impressions other users form of the pictured person as well as their online reactions toward the image overall? We examine the behavioral, managerial, and ethical aspects of this phenomenon.The mere presence of another object/person in the vicinity leads to perceived transfer of essence from the other object/person (Morales and Fitzsimmons 2007). Having a stimulus in the vicinity of a person has been shown to influence perceptions about the person (Argo et al. 2006, 2008). Further, low-calorific (high-calorific) foods are more strongly associated with being feminine (masculine) (Rozin et al. 2012; Sobal 2005). Therefore, a person pictured next to a healthy (unhealthy) food item would be perceived as more feminine (masculine). This in turn would influence the overall evaluation of the person. In a social media or advertising context, a female model will be evaluated more favorably in terms of appearance (e.g., rated as being more attractive) when she is pictured next to a healthy (vs. an unhealthy) food, and this effect will be mediated by perceived femininity.We primarily focused on females pictured next to healthy/unhealthy food items since social media posts related to physical attractiveness and sociability are more strongly associated with females (Sifferlin 2013). However, to show the contrasting effects for females versus males pictured next to foods, in one of our studies, we examine the effects for both females and males.We tested our hypotheses across five studies, with two being field studies and three being lab studies. The results show that in the context of social media posts, females are more favorably evaluated when pictured next to a healthy (vs. an unhealthy) food. This effect reverses for males. Process evidence suggests that the effects are mediated by the perceived femininity/masculinity associations induced by adjacent healthy/unhealthy foods.Since managers can influence consumer perceptions related to attractiveness of online models by strategically placing different types of foods adjacent to models, serious concerns can be raised about the ethical and moral aspects of such practices.

Packaging is one of the most powerful mediums for firms to appeal to the consumer because of its presence in the crucial moment of buying decision. Especially packaging form can be an effective instrument to stand out in the market. In particular in the food industry, representing a highly competitive market, packaging design represents an essential issue. Most firms use a packaging form that is squared and prototypical within their product category. However, the question arises if changing the packaging alignment may give a competitive edge. The objective of this paper is to examine the differences between vertical and horizontal packaging with regard to consumer perception and behavior. For this purpose, we present an experiment in the context of utilitarian food products. The results show that the vertical package elicits higher perceived aesthetics based on prototypicality in the given product category and more estimated package content due to the elongation bias. In contrast, the horizontal package evokes a higher perceived utilitarian value in consequence of an enhanced efficiency when processing the packaging text (utilitarian claims) horizontally. This effect surpasses the first two effects, so that finally the use of a horizontal package leads to a higher willingness to pay.

The penetration and use of smartphones worldwide has shown a significant increase. This provides a context for the growth of mobile marketing as a channel to interact with consumers with different characteristics and functions to those offered by traditional media marketing. It is important then to study the mechanisms of adoption and use of mobile technologies, since the rise of e-commerce facilitated the emergence of a third screen, mobile marketing, which now allows users to access an almost unlimited amount of information on brands at any time and place through mobile devices. These new tactics take advantage of attributes such as larger screens and resolution, the possibility of browsing the network and the option of downloading and using thousands of applications, which are opportunities to develop new mechanisms of interaction with customers. In this context, there is a need to perform more research from a theoretical perspective about digital consumer behaviour issues, in order to support decision-making in organisational and management science, specifically those related to the marketing function. In order to address this phenomenon, this project proposes to apply an alternative model known as behavioural perspective model. The BPM proposes the search for an interpretation of buying patterns that is centred on the principles of consumer behaviour analysis. This is an alternative to the cognitive paradigm that has prevailed since the 1970s as the main theoretical and methodological source for researchers in the area of consumer behaviour. The problem with the use of cognitive constructs in this field is their inability to predict consumer behaviour reliably from previous measurements that can be performed on multiple cognitive variables. This is mainly because attitudes and other organ-based processes are unable to predict behaviour except under very rigorous conditions where the situational correspondence between the construct and the intended behaviour is ensured. Thus, consumer behaviour is established as the most significant predictor variable to explain other purchasing behaviour, which has led to the development of a research approach where greater importance is given to the analysis of situational factors that relate to the behaviour of individuals in the contexts of purchase and consumption.

The notion that authenticity increases value remains an accepted concept in the authenticity literature. But does that hold to be true across every consumer? Some consumers may not care about the presence of authenticity. Depending on one’s goals in purchasing a product or service, the state of whether a brand manager has a passion for doing his or her job may not matter. Authenticity is defined as a trait of being intrinsically motivated, with actions driven from being “true to self.” Grounded in self-determination theory, the current research examines how the intrinsic motivation of brand managers affects consumers’ value assessments of a restaurant. The focus remains on consumer perceptions of authenticity. For example, brand managers may demonstrate authenticity by giving the perception that they are more product oriented rather than consumer oriented. Authenticity also has been found to have a connection to uniqueness. Consumers who are authentic and less motivated by the thoughts and actions of others tend to have a greater desire to acquire unique products. Consumers who avoid businesses that are highly frequented by the majority of consumers may be more likely to value an authentic restaurant. Further, consumers aiming to self-identify with products or services that are unpopular may look to authenticity as a way to achieve similarity avoidance. Also, value orientation may play a role in valuing authenticity. Consumers dining out for an experience rather than to simply complete the task of eating a meal may value authenticity more.Specifically, the conceptual framework proposes that perceived authenticity and popularity of a restaurant positively influence a restaurant’s perceived value. Perceived value positively influences behavioral intention. Additionally, similarity avoidance and consumer value orientation moderate the relationship between the independent variables of perceived authenticity and popularity and the mediator of perceived value. Expected findings include the result that those high in similarity avoidance will consider perceived authenticity as providing more value than those low in similarity avoidance. Also, the author expects that consumers who highly value authenticity will place greater importance on hedonic value in restaurants.

When shopping online, consumers can’t be as certain of the characteristics or quality of what they’re buying as they would be when shopping in a retail store. This uncertainty is often due to a lack of visual information about the product, which can lead consumers to be less likely to make a purchase.To help alleviate this uncertainty, online retailers typically present pictures of the product on their website. However, these pictures often display the product without any product-relevant context, i.e., displaying an office chair against a simple white background instead of in an office environment. A lack of product-relevant context adds to consumers’ uncertainty due to a lack of visual information with which to evaluate the product. Displaying the product in a relevant visual context can help reduce the perceived risk associated with purchasing the product.In addition to perceived risk, perceived quality is also an important determinant of consumers’ online purchase intentions. Intrinsic product cues such as durability, comfort, and style are difficult to evaluate online. Zeithaml (1988) suggests that when intrinsic cues are difficult to evaluate, consumers will likely rely more on extrinsic cues, such as price, brand name, and rating, to infer quality. The author proposes that a visual product-relevant context is an extrinsic cue that consumers can use to infer quality and will increase perceived quality vs. those products that have no visual product-relevant context.Providing visual product-relevant contexts may also promote consumers to higher-order thinking. In an online shopping scenario, visual product-relevant contexts can help show why a consumer should buy a product by showing what it would be like to own the product or what benefits it would provide them. Such a perspective is indicative of a higher-level construal, which people generally take when thinking about the outcomes of their actions (Trope and Liberman 2010). Alternatively, depicting the product using greater details may nudge consumers toward a lower level construal of the product as more of consumers’ attention will be brought to the peripheral rather than the central features of a product. Promoting either a high or low construal can change whether they use price to infer quality or monetary sacrifice (Borneman and Homburg 2011). The author proposes to study whether visual context promotes high- or low-level construal using an adaptation of the implicit association test (Lee et al. 2014).

This article aims at testing and validating the use of a scale recently developed in psychology: the Need for Drama (NFD, Frankowski et al. 2016). The transposition of the scale led on Portuguese and French consumers, extracting the scale from its original context (workplace and interpersonal relationships with US respondents). The results concur to assert the good validity of the scale and of its structure on both populations. Interestingly though, both samples lead to the conclusion that in these countries, the results are correlated with gender, when it was not the case in the American original study. The research avenues and managerial implications are discussed.

Why do people shop? The famous and seminal article written by Tauber (1972) can be considered as the root for new kinds of research in marketing, focusing less on consumer decision-making and more on consumer motives, practices, experiences, and obviously, shopping. Since then, the marketing literature has highlighted the concept of experience in numerous fields (Schmitt 1999; Verhoef et al. 2009), including shopping. As consumers are increasingly taking control of their online shopping processes (including information search, product selection, and decision-making), providing them with relevant experiences in this context has become an essential issue for marketers. Indeed, if the firms want to interact with consumers at the right time, they need to understand how to best reach and engage with them. The specific case of “online shopping experience” (OSE) is of particular interest as both the context and the experience itself are co-designed by marketers and consumers. The OSE and its impacts on online shopping (conversion and repurchase) have attracted increasing attention in academic research (Pentina et al. 2011; Rose et al. 2012; Kawaf and Tagg 2017). However, there is still no consensus on what the “online shopping experience” (OSE) lived by the consumers is.The “online shopping experience” (OSE) and its impacts on online shopping (conversion and repurchase) have attracted increasing attention in academic research. However, there is still no consensus on what the OSE lived by the consumers is. This gap poses two main challenges: (1) at a conceptual level, the construct of the OSE is still ill-defined, and (2) at an operational level, the lack of a reliable construct prevents from evaluating such an OSE and its impact.A preliminary exploratory work suggests that OSE represents a construct that incorporates four constituent dimensions: physical characteristics, ideological aspect (values), pragmatic aspects (practices and tools), and social aspect. The research proposed herein focus on exploring the validity of this conceptual framework in an American context, based on a qualitative study with US online shoppers.While the findings in general support the existing theoretical framework of OSE, we have noted some unique aspects characterizing the US sample and interesting new aspects of this phenomenon that deserve future research effort. This study is an incremental step towards the development of a measurement instrument of the OSE and its nomological network.

The marketplace is continuously evolving and is transforming into a collection of various locations, micro-experiences, and shopping means that constitute the overall consumption experience. Retail outlets are streamlined into comprehensive store networks that are supplemented by digital shopping platforms creating a transformed consumer experience (Shankar et al. 2010; Verhoef et al. 2015). In this increasingly complex shopping context, the nature of the physical shopping experience and related constructs need to be reconsidered. While original shopping environments consisted of physical store, current shopping experiences are characterized by an interconnection between physical stores and other (digital) touchpoints; thus, consumers’ expectations associated with physical store outlets might have evolved. Most research so far considers value in a single-channel context, yet this new digitalized environment calls for revisiting physical shopping value (Kumar and Reinartz 2016), by acknowledging the influence of different touchpoints on value derived in physical shopping experiences.Recent research suggests that customers’ expectations regarding visits to physical stores challenge existing conceptualizations and measurements of shopping value (Huré et al. 2017). The goal of the current study is to advance results by extending previous research in France and replicating it in the USA. To reconsider physical stores’ SV, a qualitative survey based on semi-structured interviews of experts (practitioners and marketing academics categorized as either value or retail specialists) is implemented. Preliminary findings support the idea of an increased focus on multiple touchpoints and an integrated multichannel strategy of retailers. Furthermore, rather solely relying on the physical retail store as the major touchpoint, companies seem to integrate additional solutions, such as ship-to-store and online reservation of products. Practitioners also note a generational shift regarding consumers’ purchase behaviors. In addition, while academic experts agree that needs and wants of consumers are still the same and that only the process of shopping is changing, they do agree on the need to refine and develop accurate measurement tools to capture the increasing trend of digitalization within retailing and value research.

While advertising planners often seek matching media content, some research suggests ad-medium incongruence can be more effective. We analyze the effects from a dual-process viewpoint and find that ad-medium incongruence can evoke a negative deliberative process, involving persuasion knowledge (pk), which is different from the standard fluency explanation. Experiment 1 shows that under incidental exposure, consumers focus their attention on incongruence, but not congruence. Experiment 2 confirms that incongruence leads to conscious suspicion about manipulative intent. Experiment 3 yields supporting process evidence by showing pk moderates skepticism toward the incongruent media tactic. Managerial implications for advertisers are discussed.

The amount spent by pharmaceutical companies on direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising was over $6.4 billion in 2016, up from $6.1 billion in 2015 (Statista 2018). Some advertisers have used different treatments of audio and visual messaging to maximize the positive messages about the use of their products while staying within the FDA guidelines for fair balance. This study seeks to explore the relationship between the presentation of different video effects in the presence of audio information about risks and possible side effects of prescription drugs and believability of the ad claims and attitudes toward the advertisement and manufacturer of the product.A cursory examination of typical DTC drug advertising suggests that most ads follow a “formula” in presenting the required benefit and risk information for a drug while presenting the product in the most positive light, seeking to produce believability of the advertisement, along with positive attitudes toward the company, which may lead to purchase intention toward the drug. As part of this formula, risks and benefits are usually presented through an audio voiceover while a video message is being played. Generally, the benefits are presented early in the advertisement, and the risks are presented later. According to Day (2005), the nature of the visuals being presented limited an individual’s cognitive accessibility, leading to a lowered ability to comprehend the presented audio message. If manipulation of the video in an advertisement affects the audio message in this way, what other effects might different video presentations have on consumer beliefs and attitudes?Participants in a consumer panel screened one of four conditions in a series of 30-s, professionally produced television advertisements for an imaginary cholesterol-lowering medication. After viewing the advertisement, participants answered a series of survey questions to measure accepted advertising-related outcomes from exposure. Questions were from established scales to measure believability of the ad, attitude toward the ad, perceived social responsibility of the advertiser, and then perceptions of risk of using the product, including performance risk and health risk.

While magazine circulation has declined (Davis 2016), the persisting audience remains a critical target for pharmaceutical manufacturers. DTC advertising expenditures benefit pharmaceutical companies (Millman 2017) in addition to being a major advertising revenue source for the selected magazines. To remain a sustainable promotional tool, DTC advertisers should examine what messages are effective to readers. Two advertising techniques—financial inducements and comparative appeals—are examined in a content analysis of 82 magazines and 432 ads to determine existing practices and provide insights for academicians and practitioners into possible message improvements in these two key advertising areas.Relying on theoretical underpinnings founded in reactance theory (Brehm and Brehm, 1981), and relevant to this study, this study is based on product advertising comparisons. Bambauer-Sachse and Heinzle (2018) contend comparative advertising can trigger different reactions. Individuals challenged with threats of freedom respond toward the menace adversely. Reactance theory therefore suggests comparative advertising can be seen as a threat designed to shape buyer attitudes. Consumer reactance relies on tangible benefit comparisons (see Snyder 1989), and those comparisons lacking substantiation may generate greater reactance (Bambauer-Sachse and Heinzle (2018)). Therefore, substantiation offered by comparative pharmaceutical advertising (e.g., benefits) should be purposefully strategic.The study results indicate 198 ads (45.8%) of the total DTC magazine ads had some type of financial incentive. A comparison of categories (RQ1) indicated financial inducements 69.1% savings, 18.2% free trial, 11.6% some form of copay reduction, and 1% guarantee program. The results indicate (Χ 2 = 207.346, df = 3; p < 0.05) significant differences with cash savings were used most often compared to copay reductions. The presence or absence of comparisons to the advertised drug (RQ2) was also studied. The extent to which the DTC ads indicated some form of comparison to other treatment options indicates 88.7% of the ads did not provide any comparison, while 11.3% did provide a comparison to other brands or treatments. Of the ads with a comparative appeal, 26.5% of the ads specifically named another brand over which the advertised brand was more effective. 4.1% made claims that the advertised brand was superior to generic or other option. 69.4% provided an indirect comparison either indicating the advertised brand was superior to other treatments that may have been used in the past or to other medications without mentioning specific brand names. The analysis supports the theory that indirect comparisons are more often used for their preference over direct comparisons.Implications for theory and practice addressing current levels of incentive usage and comparative appeals within DTC magazine advertising are discussed.

Brand orientation is a critical factor in driving the differential advantage for firms. However, there are gaps in which the construct and its antecedents/outcomes are defined. Content analysis, of various definitions, implies that it should be a multidimensional construct which is guided by several parameters, namely, corporate vision, organizational culture, market dynamics, and stakeholder objectives. Thus, a systematic literature review integrates structure-conduct-performance theory, resource-based theory, and market orientation concepts to redefine brand orientation as a three-dimensional construct with the following interdependent components: cognition, creation, and calibration. Secondly, it suggests that organizational factors (culture and philosophy, interdepartmental coordination, and growth intention) and market factors (competitor intensity, brand sensitivity of stakeholders, and market life cycle) affect the degree of brand orientation. Thirdly, it extends that brand orientation leads to the brand value which comprises of three elements, existential value, experiential value, and economic value, drawn on the theory of existentialism and the meanings associated with consumption. Thus, firms cannot transform themselves into brand-oriented companies until systemic arrangements are made to consider organizational and market factors. A firm should formulate a “brand development plan” by “knowing thyself and environment,” “investing into brand identity and image-building programs,” and “brand review.”

“Innovation, part of Lyon’s DNA” is the slogan used by ONLYLYON, the place brand developed by the French city of Lyon, to align its community around three roles: raising awareness about Lyon, attracting people, and helping recruiting new ambassadors. But, why do Lyon citizens voluntarily promote the city? Is innovation, a mode of conduct that relates to instrumental values, the best argument for engaging various stakeholders to join the ONLYLYON community? Should the city brand be better of insisting on end-states of existence, aka terminal values, like sense of accomplishment?Grounded on the value place brand community framework—particularly the conceptualization of terminal and instrumental values (Rokeach 1973)—this article seeks to draw a parallel between place brands and commercial brands by reflecting on the community marketing strategies that place brand managers develop to manage the relationships among and coordinate various stakeholders.The authors propose a two-step research design. First, a content analysis of websites provides a description of French integrated region brands according to an observation grid. Two categories of French integrated region brands are found according to their degree of communal orientation. Among communal region brands, in contrast with non-communal region brands, one form reflects terminal values, and the other is based on instrumental values. Instrumental values appear more efficient for promoting the place through members than terminal values. Second, two French region brands are further investigated based on the communal orientation they display. Using in-depth interviews, the authors explore the wide range of terminal and instrumental values that twenty stakeholders express for joining their region brand community.This exploratory research highlights some particularities of place brand communities and adds instrumental value to the classic terminal value identified within commercial brand communities. First, literature on community marketing stresses the importance of terminal values for federating consumers, for example, animal rights for vegans (Dinhopl et al. 2015). However, this research further proposes that in the context of a place brand, it is possible to federate the members of a brand community around more instrumental values. Second, this research contributes to the field of integrated marketing communications by including in the integration process, the values around which stakeholders of a place brand can align; notably, instrumental values might represent a good opportunity to unify place branding efforts. The practical implications for place brand managers include insights into the values around which they can align stakeholders of their brand.

Although brand logos are essential communication means for brand management, there is still little understanding of the effects of specific brand logo design elements regarding consumer perception. Brand logos are able to convey impressions about the brand itself but also about the products of a brand. With regard to this, this paper takes up a relevant research gap by focusing on the relationship between brand logo symmetry and product design expectations. As consumer personality is highly important for brand and product evaluation, we propose that brand logo associations should be in congruence with the consumer’s personality to have a positive effect on product design expectations. Accordingly, we conducted an experiment to test if symmetry in brand logos has a significant effect on product design expectations and further if this effect is moderated by the consumer’s personality. The results of this study support our assumptions by showing that brand logo symmetry has a significant impact on the consumer’s expectations of product design when consumer personality is taken into account. Consumers tend to associate asymmetry, not symmetry, with excitement and compare their own personality with these perceived associations. Consequently, consumers transfer positive imagery effects to their expectations of product design, if the brand logo associations match their own personality. This impact varies with regards to the dimensions of product design. More specifically, the findings demonstrate that expected product aesthetics and symbolism are indeed affected whereas expected product functionality is not.

The online image of an individual helps distinguish themselves through positioning of their online activities. This distinction helps individuals project themselves as brands. Online image development is supplemented by the global increase in internet penetration and usage which has increased exponentially. This global increase ensures that relatively young people can use the technologies via digital platforms to create and augment online image. Further, individuals are using digital platforms for a wide range of online activities as well. Additionally, online image is developed in a manner that becomes a component of an individual digital brand. This development can be understood through surrogate branding which is a major means that individuals use to utilise their online image. However, there is a dearth of appropriate studies in the literature. Therefore, this paper aims to study the development of surrogate branding.To address this, we use a qualitative approach given its exploratory nature. We conducted two studies: market-oriented ethnography and netnography. These methods were applied for a period of 4 months. Stage 1 involved market-oriented ethnography to study the behaviour of consumers in terms of products or services. Stage 2 involved netnography where the online behaviour of consumers in terms of image development was studied. As a result, we developed three key related themes which are elements of individual online image, elements of implanted individual online image(s) and elements of individual exalted online image. The first theme relates to individual searching for and positioning information to enhance their well-being. This serves the specific functions of social status, security and power. The second theme involves the strengthening of individual online image which can be achieved by increasing an individual’s involvement and engagement with his/her social circle. The third theme expands into the exaltation of the individual’s image developed on the basis of the two previous stages. This particular theme is based on the dual functions of blaring and boasting.These three themes are integral to the stabilisation of the framework of our study. This framework will be invaluable to practitioners and academicians for the discovery of surrogate branding via online image development.

Firms are increasingly extending their customer relationship management (CRM) strategies to social networking sites (SNS), moving from just communicating with their customers to learning more about them (Forbes 2016). Customer relationship management performed on SNS is called social CRM, which is defined as “a philosophy and a business strategy, supported by a technology platform, business rules, workflow, processes and social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted and transparent business environment” (Greenberg 2010). The use of social CRM helps organizations to engage more with customers (Malthouse et. al. 2013). Engagement helps in building trust with the company (Vivek et. al. 2012).Also, social CRM, being a social setup, homes other factors that can impact trust, one of which being other consumers generated content (OCGC), which involves “opinions, experiences, advice, and commentary about the company that exist in consumer-created postings” (P2P Foundation 2012). Online trust among customers arises from reputation of the organization or its website (Riegelsberger et al. 2005). Since OCGC is not in control of the company, it can affect the reputation of a company positively or negatively. The current study attempts to provide a solution to this uncontrollable impact of OCGC by examining the role of company intervention on SNS. With company intervention (addressing customer complaints) (Ma et al. 2015), customers might judge the organization more positively, which can improve customer relationships. The findings of this study would support Morgan and Hunt’s (1994) commitment trust theory, which acknowledges that communication, coordination, and discussion, which can be achieved through customer engagement, can help in building trust toward an organization. Second, the proposed findings show the moderating effect of positive and negative OCGC on the relationship between customer engagement and trust toward a company. Finally, the key proposed finding demonstrates that company intervention can lead to reduction in the impact of negative OCGC on the relationship between customer engagement and trust.Regarding managerial implications, the current study emphasizes that company intervention, within a company’s page/community, on SNS should be one of the company’s strategies to reduce the effect of negative comments/queries/information provided by other consumers.

This study explores the motivations for green product consumption in Vietnam—a populous developing country heavily influenced by climate change, under the presence of moderators and mediator variables. A sequential mixed method with two studies was conducted to archive the objectives. Study 1 interviewed 29 Vietnamese consumers to explore their main motivations for green products’ purchase intent. These motivations were examined in Study 2 with 682 consumers from 32 provinces and cities in Vietnam. The results conveyed that Vietnamese consumers purchased green products mostly because of health, environment, and quality motivations. Environmental motivation was also a mediator between health and purchase intent. Consumers seemed not concerned about hedonism and social responsibility when considering the purchase. Product category (nonfood green products or organic food), gender, and age did not moderate the motivations’ power. However, high-income consumers tended more concern of health, and child presence might enhance the concern for environmental protection. From the findings, the authors draw some implications for the stakeholders in the end.

The fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs) industry continues to increase its sales and visibility in the USA and global markets. This industry is also a major player in emerging markets and developing countries. The topic of FMCGs in the marketing literature is particularly important because of consumer convergence, globalization, and MNCs’ well-known brands. No wonder well established MNCs are the main beneficiaries in this industry and its related segments. Major firms include P&G, Nestle, Unilever, AB InBev, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Philip Morris, Mondelez, and others. At the same time, there are many local and regional firms from emerging markets which remain active and profitable in these markets.To investigate corporate- and industry-specific issues, the paper uses a case-based research approach (see Eisenhardt and Graebner 2007; Siggelkow 2002, 2007) and aims at FMCGs-related firms and their operations in South Asia. We purposely selected a case-based approach because of the companies’ evolutionary growth and well-established market share. These MNCs are corporate behemoths in the FMCGs industry in South Asia and beyond. The paper first reviews over 50 studies which were published in credible journals on the topic of FMCGs. The work reviews and analyzes those investigations which specifically investigated FMCGs and their industry-specific issues.Preliminary findings of the paper reveal that South Asia is witnessing a “consumption boom” (Spender 2013, p. 14) because of urbanization, new infrastructure, and economic growth. In the FMCGs industry, we observe promotional activities on the part of MNCs and local firms. At the same time, there are many local rivals which sell in the same industry and remain profitable in their respective segments. No wonder a selected number of MNCs have started to strengthen their brand portfolios via local acquisitions and promotional activities. These firms include Mondelez, Nestle, Unilever, and others which are seeking efficient global value chains and transferring production to low-cost countries. In short, the FMCGs industry is a major part of South Asia, and its brands remain good cash cows in the market. Since FMCGs-related research remains sparse in marketing, it is important to seek investigations that generate new knowledge and value added.

Traditional unidimensional scales with bipolar measures are often used to assess the overall favorability of consumer attitudes toward genetically modified (GM) foods, despite the limitations such measures carry when used to examine consumer attitudinal ambivalence and indifference (Poortinga and Pidgeon 2006). Given that GM foods are still relatively new and controversial in China and that the country is becoming one of the biggest food importers globally, it is imperative that food marketers and researchers develop a comprehensive understanding of Chinese consumers’ attitudes toward GM foods.The goal of this research is to explore the structure of Chinese consumers’ attitudes through a multivariate-oriented approach aimed at separating perceived benefits, perceived risks, attitudinal ambivalence, and attitudinal indifference using the four-way typology approach developed by Poortinga and Pidgeon (2006). A questionnaire concerning GM foods was distributed to the students of a large-scale university in Northwest China. Respondents represented students from all across the nation and were asked to indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree with the risk and benefit statements provided in the questionnaire.Results show that Chinese consumers’ attitudinal valence, ambivalence, and indifference can be separated using factor analysis due to the various degrees of perceived benefits coexisting with various degrees of perceived risks in a consumer’s attitude formation process. Additionally, both positive and negative attitudes are largely related to food safety concerns in China. Nevertheless, consumers with positive attitudes are optimistic and believe that GM food technologies could help increase agricultural efficiency; whereas consumers with negative attitudes are pessimistic and worry that GM crops may do harm to the ecosystem and human body in the long run.

Soft drink consumption and child obesity are increasing in South Africa. Parents of primary school children influence their children directly through the choices they make when purchasing products. Parents often purchase a soft drink for the school lunch box, picnics, sporting events, and consumption at home. This study investigates the influence brand loyalty has on parental purchases of soft drinks for children. It also incorporates the nutritional value elements to determine its influence when a parent purchases a soft drink for their primary school children. A convenience sample of 800 parents was drawn; 603 responded. The analysis consisted of the nine brand loyalty influences and six nutritional elements. The results indicated that parents are indeed cognizant of the nutritional value above brand loyalty influences. Parents do consider nutritional value before purchasing a soft drink for their children, and they do consider the sugar content. They, however, do not consider kilojoules before buying the soft drink. Regarding brand loyalty, culture-orientated brand performance did not play a significant role in buying behavior, while parents did value customer satisfaction and brand benefits as important brand loyalty influences.

In this research, we propose an analytical approach for studying the influence of two structural elements of brand’s packaging design, accessible by haptic exploration (Lederman and Klatzky 1987): texture and shape. We developed a conceptual framework detailing how these elements can facilitate the transfer of meaning to the brand and enhance its positioning in the consumer’s mind, especially in the case of a congruent gendered symbolic information.Previous research has confirmed the role of symbolic meaning on brand evaluation in single-mode contexts. However, the process whereby meaning interaction from different sensory cues impacts brand personality development and evaluation is limited. In this context, we conceptualize texture and shape as sources of symbolic information and examine how they will impact brand image and positioning through perceived fit between associations related to packaging attributes (Bridges et al. 2000; Keller 1993). The experiment’s main goal is to demonstrate the direct and interaction effects of texture and shape on gendered dimensions of brand personality (Grohmann 2009), perceived quality, attitude toward the brand (Batra and Ahtola 1990), and purchase intention, as well as the moderating role of NFT (Peck and Childers 2003). The study is based on a 2 × 2 between subjects’ experimental design. Each experimental group is composed of around 50 students. So, a total of 200 respondents. We have used two shapes of chocolate bars (rectangular and oval) and two packaging textures (velvet-like and leather-like). According to previous research and researchers’ qualitative study, the rectangular shape and leather-like texture represent the masculine symbolic information, while the oval and velvet-like represent the feminine one. We also draw on research testifying on stimulus congruence and processing fluency in studying the role of meaning connoted by shape and texture within a marketing context. We argue that a clear packaging message with coherent symbolic cues will induce greater message accessibility by the customer, thus strengthening the brand image and positioning as well as resulting in an enhanced evaluation.In line with our predictions, the results show that semantic congruence between texture and shape positively enhances the gendered positioning of the brand and its evaluation. Results also highlight the role of NFT on gendered dimensions of brand personality. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed as well as future research.

Customers admiring celebrities tend to have a more favorable evaluation of the brands endorsed by their idols (Rockwell and Giles, 2009).Yet, brands are still facing failures, and the combination brand-celebrity does not automatically assist the brand (Zhou and Whitla 2013). Although the literature on congruence in endorsement is rich, no study has yet contemplated congruence from a triple point of view (brand-celebrity, consumer-celebrity, consumer-brand). On the other hand, there is still a debate about the role played by the affection and cognition in consumer experiences.The objective of this project is threefold. First, it aims to show the utility of being interested in the congruence between three actors: brand, celebrity, and consumer. Then, it aims to distinguish the impact of congruence on the affective and cognitive process of consumer. Finally, it aims to show how this schema can vary according to the celebrity, the brand, and the constructed relationship between the consumer and the brand.A quantitative study will be launched in order to test our research model. This study can be carried out with the use of advertising stimuli, featuring different brands and celebrities, to assess their congruence with each other and with consumers, to check the effect of this congruence on the relationship with consumers, and to measure their attitudinal and behavioral responses.A contribution of this project could be linking of two concepts: on one hand the congruence in advertising endorsement and on the other hand the cold and hot BRQ. Deepening research on triple congruence would make it possible to better grasp it as an antecedent of the relationship to the brand.This project proposes an explanatory model of the role of congruence on the BRQ, as well as the role of hot and cold BRQ on consumer behavior. Moreover, providing answers to questions about the congruence and contributing to a better understanding of affection and cognition roles in the brand relationship.The results of this project are likely to show that each type of congruence does not have the same impact on the BRQ. They would reveal the role played by the brand-celebrity, celebrity-consumer, and consumer-brand congruence on each facet of the BRQ.This project emphasizes the importance of the role played by a brand’s endorser, how it influences the consumer brand relationship, and its impact on its behavioral response. It could provide a basis for reflection in the selection criteria of a celebrity.

Building on the signaling theory and its applications in marketing (Erdem and Swait 1998, 2004; Erdem et al. 2006), this research views brand heritage as part of brand signal content (Pecot et al. 2018). Academics and practitioners recognize the increasing influence of heritage in brand management (Aaker 1996; Rose et al. 2016; Urde et al. 2007). One of the most visible signs of heritage is the indication of the founding date (Beck et al. 2016). In this research, we wonder at which point longevity starts to pay off. Is it possible to model the relationship between the longevity, the perception of brand heritage, of quality, and of willingness to pay a premium?One pretest performed on a single product category with a limited sample (N = 206) shows encouraging results. Consumers were exposed to two fictitious logos for a chocolate manufacturer: one emphasizing brand heritage and the other not. Consumers had to indicate the founding date, to evaluate the company perceived brand heritage on a 10-item scale, its perceived quality, and to indicate the price they would be willing to pay for a standard product from this brand in comparison to an average price observed on the market. Results show correlations between the founding date and brand heritage r(203) = − .45, p < .001; perceived quality r(203) = − .39, p < .001; and price premium r(202) = − .16, p < .03. Based on these initial results, we prepared a larger data collection (N = 1424) surveying similar variables for 27 brands across 9 product categories. The analyses will aim to find the optimal point in terms of brand heritage depending on the product category.These results would contribute to the signaling theory by exploring a temporal dimension. At a more managerial level, it would provide managers with a guide for making the most of their heritage (when should a company start to emphasize its founding date? Either directly or through its logo).

The purpose of this study is to investigate the negative service encounter by aiming to understand how and if the employee’s negative service encounter experience affects the customer being served following that negative encounter. This exploratory study expands the understanding of the complex and multidimensional phenomenon of service-encounter spirals among customers and employees.The preliminary evidence sheds some light on how a negative encounter may affect the next customer in line. A qualitative approach was initially chosen to explore both positive and negative encounter spirals through multiple focus groups in which respondents described their working experiences. Three themes emerged after the analysis of the data, namely, maintaining the customer focus, long-lasting emotional impact of dysfunctional customer behavior, and informal coping mechanisms.The analysis of the data also showed that most of the respondents agreed that the vast majority of service encounters are of positive nature and their positive effect on employees’ psychological state does seem to last long. This preliminary finding challenges existing work in the area that strongly emphasizes the impact of customer citizenship activity on positive employee reactions and enhances their reciprocal intentions toward customers (Gong et al. 2013).The data also suggests that disruptive customer behaviors toward employees are more impactful than the positive ones. These preliminary findings pinpoint toward a more severe and long-lasting impact of dysfunctional behavior on employees’ mindset, confirming the initial expectations of the researchers that appropriate organizational responses should be developed so that employees avoid such disruptive experiences. Negative memorable experiences can throw employees off of their best practices. While respondents prioritize their customer consciousness over their intention to retaliate, however, a bad encounter can immensely ruin the positive things done up until then.A third interesting preliminary finding is that employees do not seem to follow any kind of formal or standardized processes, address to their line manager, or look for service scripts to overcome such disruptive incidents. Instead, they intuitively opt in for informal support from their peers. This is an important finding that companies should take into account when designing and implementing responses for such situations. More planning should be undertaken in the prevention of the trickle-down effect of a negative encounter, rather than merely reacting when a negative encounter happens. Businesses should focus on how to deal with negative encounters and thus protect their own employees and their customers and prevent the negative encounters theft would follow them.

When consumers face a service failure, they make attributions about the causes of the failure. This research compares the attributions made during the industry-wide service failure of the financial crisis. The attributions of systemically important bankers (SIBs), non-SIBs, and consumers about the causes of the financial crisis were compared to gain managerially useful insights.SIBs’ views of the crisis were extrapolated through a literature review of testimony, regulatory pronouncements, and peer-reviewed journal articles. Face-to-face interviews of non-SIBS provided access to their attributions. Consumers’ attributions were elicited via an online qualitative survey.Exposing how the attributions of different actors contrasted led to managerially useful ideas on how marketers can employ attributions and attribution theory. The misattributions of actors followed the implications of attribution theory and were thus both damaging to service recovery efforts and predictable.The findings showed that managers and consumers have the same attribution biases as attribution theory predicts which has serious implications for marketers. They revealed that analysis by attribution theory is managerially useful in a service failure. The research also showed that actors may make implications differently based on whether they are acting within an organization or as individuals. Attributions may also vary depending on whether they concern organizations or individuals.The study is limited to one industry, geographical area, and time period and needs to be replicated in other venues.

Mass protests, demonstrations, and armed conflict which are now known as the “Arab Spring” revolution have swept across countries such as Iraq, Egypt, and Libya. These disruptive events are occurrences which change over time (Giesler and Thompson’s 2016) and uncover rich service encounters within a complex service ecosystem (Blocker and Barrios 2015). To date, transformative service research (TSR) has attended to our understanding of service ecosystems. However, we argue that institutions (i.e., the norms, rules, meanings, symbols, and practices which connected actors share) and how service ecosystems evolve in disruptive events also warrant attention. Through 67 semi-structured interviews, this paper closely examines the role of consumption practices in challenging institutional boundaries during periods of disruptive conflict in Egypt, Libya, and Iraq.As outlined by Baron et al. (2018), in taking an institutional lens, we are able to delve deeper into the daily lives and activities of actors. We asked our respondents: How do they go about their daily consumption practices? How do they react to any institutional boundaries? And who do they interact with? We embed our analysis according to the macro (State), meso (community), and micro (individual) levels and apply typologies of formal and informal institutions and concepts surrounding incumbents and challengers to better understand the interrelationships (micro to meso) and intrarelationships (meso to meso) between actors within a service ecosystem.Firstly, we establish that social conflict theory can better contribute to understanding a service ecosystem across disruptive events. We found that two important concepts can help mediate conflict, namely, disruption and community building and disruption and consumer wellbeing. Secondly, through exploring the daily activities of various actors, we gained a deeper understanding of how the ordinary is made extraordinary during periods of conflict. We identify how challengers, adopting new norms and practices, opposed incumbents and mediated conflict in order to bring about a normality and well-being to themselves and the community.

One of the most important premises in the field of marketing is satisfying consumer needs and desires (Kotler and Armstrong 2010). Over the last decades, the literature has focused on understanding how companies can better attend to consumers’ needs to better perform in the market (Kearney et al. 2017). Employees’ compliance to consumers’ desire, however, often increases production costs and the complexity of a frontline employee’s work, while it can also modify the product composition, compromising the producer capacity to control the product integrity. This research investigates the consequences of employee non-compliance with consumers’ desires.According to services marketing literature, not complying with consumer requests can be deleterious to consumers’ experience (Vargo and Lush 2008). Employees can be perceived as unfriendly and indifferent, leading to negative evaluations (Albrecht et al. 2016). The guiding premise of this research is that this assumption can be misguided. We show that although non-compliance can be assumed as unfriendliness, it can also remind consumers of the how much effort the producer (chef) has dedicated to the product (dish) creation, increasing product evaluation (i.e., taste inferences) and willingness to pay.In this research we present three studies demonstrating that non-compliance with customers’ request can increase food taste inferences. Study 1 shows that in fine dining restaurant context, the non-compliance leads to better taste inferences (M non-compliance = 7.6, vs. M compliance = 6.9, p = .003) and higher willingness to pay (M non-compliance = 35.9, vs. M compliance = 27, p = .034). Study 2 reinforces the positive effect of non-compliance when it is informed in the restaurant menu (e.g., no-substitution policy). Study 3 shows that the non-compliance effect is moderated by consumers’ judgment of the chef expertise. When consumers believe the chef is an expert (e.g., fine dining), non-compliance increases taste inferences (M non-compliance = 7.9, M compliance = 7.1, p = .01) and willingness to pay (M non-compliance = 40.54, M compliance = 31.6, p = .039). When consumers do not believe the chef is an expert, non-compliance decreases taste inferences (M non-compliance = 6.5, M compliance = 7.5, p < .01) and willingness to pay (M non-compliance = 17.4, M compliance = 25, p > .05). This study also shows the mediation role of effort. In the low expertise scenario, the non-compliance leads to the perception that less effort was dedicated to the dish creation, what decreased taste inferences (ab = − .5088; CI95%:.1159; .9875), and willingness to pay (ab = 2.7024; CI95%: .5056; 5.8177). Meanwhile, when participants assumed the chef had high expertise, the non-compliance leads to the perception that more effort was dedicated to the dish creation, what increased taste inferences (ab = − .4564; CI95%: −.8875; −.0766), and willingness to pay (ab = − 2.8664; CI95%: −5.9776; −.6781).

Wellness and spa tourism represents a leading role in the tourism industry. In Portugal, health and wellness tourism has also had a significant growth and is considered one of the ten strategic products of the country. The aim of this paper is to analyze the use of information and communication technologies, more specifically websites, as an essential tool for advertising the health and wellness offer of the 19 thermal spas in the central region of Portugal. Thus, the quality of these thermal spas’ websites was analyzed using various indicators. Seventy items were used to analyze website contents and grouped into nine categories: location and contact information, general information, health and wellness services information, spa facilities information, booking information, surrounding area information, communication with customers, social networks, and languages. In addition, updated and website functionality was analyzed. This study provides useful insights that thermal spas in the central region of Portugal should consider to improve their webpages. In doing so, they can attract other segments, enhance customer loyalty, and increase sales. Having an Internet presence is not enough; the webpage has to stand out among the others so that the thermal spa will have a competitive advantage.

Developing new and enhancing existing products are core drivers for the competitiveness, success, and survival of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), in particular in the B2B sector. However, recent studies found that most of the newly launched products fail in the market (e.g., Armstrong et al. 2008). One of the reasons is an insufficient effort in customer-oriented research due to limited financial resources of SMEs. This is surprising, because SMEs have close contacts with their customers in the B2B sector. Therefore, gathering information on customer needs and requirements for product innovations and improvements could be less difficult for SME, but it seems that managers in SMEs are not aware of the potential of ethnographic research. However, the general problem of ethnography methods in B2B—in contrast to B2C—is that the producer has to overcome two distances and consequently two barriers. While producers in the B2C context directly communicates with the end user of their product, in B2B producer must convince the customer (first distance) and subsequent the end user (second distance) with their products. This working paper—based on eight qualitative interviews with CEOs—shows that the acceptances of ethnography of SMEs are higher when companies produce a standardized product and have frontline employees with close contact to customers. Nevertheless, the CEOs see the limited resources (e.g., money, time, and personal) of small- and midsized companies as an important barrier. Because of this, SMEs prefer traditional research methods in contrast to ethnographic approaches with uncertain results. Another barrier for the CEOs is the acceptance of their customer and end users to implement ethnography at their working place. However, the companies assume that the customer acceptance will be higher when the reasons of the research will be clarified previously and when they identify a benefit for themselves. Moreover, trust in each other is identified as a key factor for successful ethnography because the privacy of B2C customer is not comparable with the private data of business companies. One main driver for a trustful ethnographic approach can be a strong and long relationship.

The need to measure the financial return toward marketing actions and demonstrate the role of marketing as a critical function in companies has been a top priority for marketing scholars and practitioners. Accordingly, it has been demonstrated that various marketing actions, such as new products, advertising expenditures, and product promotions (e.g., Joshi and Hanssens 2010; Pauwels et al. 2004) positively affect stock market reactions as they accelerate the amount of a firm’s expected future cash flows. One marketing action that has attracted considerable attention in the literature is the new product development (NPD) and innovation efforts due to their vital yet costly and risky nature (Barczak et al. 2009). In this study, we examine the impact of new product preannouncements (NPPAs), a relatively under-researched component of the NPD strategy, on firm value (e.g., Lee et al. 2015; Sorescu et al. 2007). Our purpose is to contribute to the existing knowledge by further examining the contingency factors that influence the relationship between NPPAs and a firm’s stock returns in response to those preannouncements.This study specifically examines whether the relationship between NPPA specificity and firm stock returns is enhanced if the new product is highly innovative; the brand has high customer satisfaction score and advertising expenditures and competes in a highly competitive segment. Our research context is the US automotive industry for the period of 2001–2010, and our dataset includes NPPAs for 187 car models and 10,954 model-month pairs. Consistent with prior research, we used the event study methodology to estimate cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) in efforts to examine the short-term predictive power of the stock markets. To test our hypotheses, we used a hierarchical multiple regression analysis.Our findings demonstrate that despite being an important factor in alleviating information asymmetry between firms and investors, preannouncement specificity solely is not a significant determinant of stock market abnormal returns to NPPAs. The results also reveal that a variety of product-, brand-, and environment-related factors can significantly influence the impact of preannouncement specificity on firm value. Specifically, while a higher level of product innovativeness, brand customer satisfaction index, and advertising expenditures enhance the impact of preannouncement specificity, a highly competitive environment deters the impact of specificity on stock market returns.

Given the increasing complexity of customer-salesperson relationships, salespeople face unprecedented pressures to acquire, retain, and build enduring customer relationships to enhance the firm’s bottom-line performance. In examining these growing pressures, this study introduces an original construct derived from the attention afforded to relationship selling, the relational incongruity that exists within the buyer-seller exchange. This research addresses the inimitable role of human and relational capital, exemplifying the salesperson’s role set as a crucial resource and cost to the firm. This study has strong theoretical implications that contribute to advancing the knowledge of sales and marketing literature. This timely and relevant research explores resource-advantage theory (Hunt and Morgan 1995) as the theoretical grounding to view salespeople as an essential component of human capital reinforcing the intangibility and psychological capital that is conspicuously absent from the firm’s balance sheet. Additionally, the research examines the strategic implications of a customer-oriented sales force through a conceptual model that is unique in its positioning of independent variables concurrently at the seller-customer and the seller-organizational interaction. The insights into how customer orientation and customer ownership influences sales performance directly tie the importance of salespeople to a firm’s market position and performance. Empirical testing of the conceptual model supports the impact of relational incongruity on customer ownership and salespeople’s performance. The critical part of this research from the managerial side is that it provides a clearer understanding of how salespeople influence the extremely complex and ever-changing firm-salespeople-customer relationship. This clearer understanding helps organizations to understand how their salespeople act as a boundary spanner and a linchpin resource that provides a competitive advantage within the marketplace. These findings also assist sales organizations’ understanding of their unique ability to develop human capital, i.e., salespeople as a resource.

Negative publicity and the company’s response to it are among the most critical factors affecting consumers’ buying decisions (Advertising Age 1995). Because corporate publicity is considered one of the most credible sources of information, it has more influence than other means of communications (Bond and Kirshenbaum 1998). The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (2016) in recent research estimated that the overall cost of corporate negative publicity to businesses globally is 5% of annual revenue. Furthermore, consumers are more sensitive to negative information as opposed to positive information (Fiske 1980). As of now, theoretical framework for how consumers respond to negative publicity and the mechanisms for optimizing strategies to offset the negative effects are inconclusive. Kroloff (1988) compared the impact of negative and positive media exposure and found that negative publicity has a larger impact on corporate brand image than positive news. Some literature studies find that consumers respond in a homogeneous manner to negative publicity (Pearson and Mitroff 1993).WOM effect on purchase intentions is a complex issue that has generated much debate over many years. Prior research shows that positive WOM (PWOM) motivates brand purchase, while negative WOM (NWOM) reduces purchase intention (Bansal and Voyer 2000). This article specifically focuses on how those effects fluctuate during a corporate crisis typically resulting from a company’s flawed product or an employee’s alleged unethical behavior and how the negative publicity affects existing and potential consumers differently. Based on a comprehensive literature review, this study hypothesizes and tests that companies’ potential consumers are more sensitive to negative corporate publicity than existing consumers. In addition, the moderating effect of negative corporate publicity is greater for the relationship between WOM and potential consumers than for the relationship between WOM and existing consumers.These findings give marketing managers informative cues that indicate that they should pay special attention when a company attempts to develop a new market. For example, when an MNE begins to develop new geographic international markets, the damage from negative corporate publicity may be disproportionately greater to local consumers than those of their home country, which also indicates that they need to be willing to invest more resources to recover from those crises.

The role of word-of-mouth in relationship marketing (RM) has been treated solely as an outcome of relationship activities. This author argues that contemporary research may not fully capture the essential roles of WOM in RM and that WOM is both an antecedent of RM, as well as its outcome. After a comprehensive review of extant literature, the author conducts a multigroup survey, which establishes a significant, positive relationship between WOM valence and two key mediators of RM: trust and commitment (Morgan and Hunt 1994). This study also finds that conflict control and perceived consumer benefits are partial mediators and the level of consumer loyalty is a moderator of those two relationships. As a result, the author calls on marketers to give more attention to proactive WOM campaigns, which are critical for establishing long-term reciprocal relationships with consumers and ultimately for reaching firms’ strategic goals.This study adds incremental knowledge on the role of WOM in effective relationship building, indicating that executives must recognize the importance of proactive efforts to create positive WOM for use as a direct marketing tool to minimize fallout from consumer conflict, which negatively impacts multiple antecedents of RM and undermines relational benefits (Palmatier et al. 2006; Berger and Milkman 2012). Managers also need to recognize that WOM itself can be part of consumers’ perceived benefits from a relationship and budget for WOM management in their relationship marketing investment.

Deceptive advertising has been researched in the context of marketing, business, psychology, economics, law, public policy, health, food, and communications. Many studies document a negative relationship between deceptive advertising and consumer evaluations, such as attitudes toward the brand and ad, trustworthiness, purchase intention, and likelihood to recommend. For instance, Cowley (2006) found that puffery claims are perceived as less credible by consumers than factual claims, Boyer et al. (2015) discovered that covert marketing elicits more negative attitudes toward a product than overt marketing, and Craig et al. (2012) showed that highly deceptive ads are associated with lower purchase intentions than are factual ads. However, some forms of deceptive advertising do not produce adverse effects. For example, Xu and Wyer (2010) found that puffery actually was related to higher consumer product evaluations. Further, misleading claims have been shown to relate to more positive consumer attitudes toward ads and brands (Newell et al. 1998), and greenwashing is believed to have a positive impact on brand imagery (Parguel et al. 2015).The current study seeks to summarize the deceptive advertising research by conducting a meta-analysis of this stream of literature over a 35-year period. Meta-analysis is a practical methodological approach that assesses the generalizability of relationships more objectively than narrative reviews and can identify relationships and boundary conditions that have not been—and could not be—assessed in a single empirical study (Brown et al. 1998). Specifically, we employ meta-analysis to examine the effects of deceptive advertising on consumer evaluations and identify important moderators of this relationship including the type of deception, the type of advertisement (e.g., print, TV commercial), and the focal products being evaluated, in addition to study design features. Our aim is to synthesize the existing research findings concerning deceptive advertising and consumer evaluations, especially in terms of the relevant moderators identified above (Jaramillo et al. 2005).

The purpose of this paper is to discuss and evaluate the area of IoTs in marketing and its related sectors. The IoTs have grown multifold and will have a big impact on marketing and consumers in the USA and global markets. The paper reviews the IoTs-related literature and its interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary perspectives and related investigations. We specifically used over 90 conceptual and empirical studies which were published between 2009 and 2017. For interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research, we benchmarked studies such as Cheng et al. (2009, 2014), Fulmer and Ployhart (2014), Picone et al. (2014), and Siedlok and Hibbert (2014). Our common denominator and topics regarding finding relevant studies on IoTs was based on smart devices, controllers, sensors, actuators, Web-based areas, and technological advances. In addition to EBSCO and Business Source Complete, we used Web-based searches and publishers’ indexes (see Wiley, Elsevier/Science Direct, Springer, SAGE, Taylor & Francis, Palgrave, Routledge, etc.) which complemented the literature. These criteria helped us regarding retrieving interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary studies, surveys, and related investigations.In the areas of IoTs and their connected markets and connected consumers, we continue to witness emerging business models, IT-related platforms, and digital ecosystems. As of 2018, the IoTs and their multifaceted areas and technologies stand out in the connected world of consumers and industrial sectors alike. The areas of IoTs clearly enjoy their distinct growth and wide-scale applications in domestic and global markets.In conclusion, the areas of IoTs play an important role in marketing and other sectors of the business world in domestic and global markets. In this paper, we presented a review-based discussion of the IoTs areas and their research domains and applications. Within today’s changing markets and consumer demand, Internet-related technologies are bound to increase their sales and growth. In marketing, the areas of IoTs clearly enjoy a good growth potential and wide scale of applications. The paper also provides future research directions and other avenues of this debate.

In this paper, the authors demonstrate how IBM Watson, a super computer that uses artificial intelligence (AI), can be used in academic and managerial research. A brief description of how Watson originated and operates is followed by four examples of how Watson can be used in academic marketing research. The first two examples use Watson’s personality and insight services to analyze qualitative depth interviews. The last two examples use Watson’s emotion and sentiment analysis on textual data and qualitative depth interviews. These examples emphasize the value of Watson in the age of big data and its ability to analyze issues that would otherwise be too complex. The paper concludes with limitations, managerial implications, and future research.

How should a focal firm manage or orchestrate its network partners, and how much control is needed in this process? This is an enduring question in business-to-business (B2B) research, and it is one that attains heightened relevance in an era where digital platforms in industrial networks proliferate. This research explores how servitized solution providers leverage digital platform architectures and particularly platform openness to exert effective control over complex organizational networks. A multiple case study approach studies three companies with digital platforms that orchestrate solution networks in the LED and ICT industries. The findings show that the features of product modules (core or peripheral), service modules (relationship intensity and customization), and knowledge modules (explicit, tacit, and codified) have differential influence on the levels of platform openness. By setting platform openness of different subsystems accordingly, the solution providers can have different control benefits, including ensuring module quality, increasing offering variety, and reducing dependence from module providers and adjusting supply uncertainty. We contribute to the servitization literature by reconceptualizing the platform approach from a two-level perspective. We also deepen the field’s understanding of the role of digital platforms in servitization from an architectural perspective.

Although the sharing economy has a long history, academics have shown interest in it only recently. Sharing economy investigations address issues such as participation intention (Hamari et al. 2015; Bocker and Meeleh 2016; Milanova and Mass 2017), factors of satisfaction in sharing (Tussyadiah 2016), and trust and reputation in the sharing economy (Ert et al. 2016). Despite the importance of a customer experience perspective, little is known about the service-sharing customer experience.Over the last two years, China’s sharing economy has grown tremendously. Chinese consumers are open to sharing many things. Sharing bikes is one good example. The country’s two largest bike-share companies, Ofo and Mobike, intend to expand their services to other countries, including Singapore, the USA, Japan, and the UK. Bike sharing can create a high-value biking experience. Colorful shared bikes on the streets, linking users with the public transit systems, help to solve the “last mile” problem and become a popular and healthy option for short-distance journeys. Bike sharing indeed offers hedonic and utilitarian value.The objective of the current study is to explore the structure of bike-sharing experiences. The study further aims to determine how biking experiences affect experiential values and intention to repatronize the bike-sharing service. The results suggest lifestyle component of experience shows the strongest impacts on economic value, social value, and altruistic value comparing to cognitive component and sensorial component of experience do. In addition, both economic value and altruistic value influence user’s intention to repatronize the bike-sharing service.The present study contributes to the sharing economy literature by showing the impacts of different experience components on value perception and the following intention. The results of this study may serve as guidelines for managers in the sharing economy and help these managers understand important drivers for the usage of sharing services as well as what areas are needed to be improved to enhance experience. Given that new technology constantly disrupt the sharing economy, platform managers in sharing economy should better understand the interactions among experience components, value perceptions, and usage intent. More improvements should be made in platform design by focusing on user lifestyle experience component and the impacts of perceived altruistic value on intention.

Establishing a favorable employee work environment is a critical factor in improving customer and financial performance (Brown and Leigh 1996; Schneider et al. 2002). Although it is generally agreed that store managers play an important role in enacting retail workplace environments, there is little empirical work that has examined relationships between manager characteristics, employee attitudes and behaviors, and store performance. Thus, the manner by which store managers’ individualized interpretations of organizational strategies influence frontline employees’ organizational attitudes is unclear. Addressing this gap, we examine how store managers’ psychological climate of concern for employees impacts employee affective commitment, leading to higher store performance. Drawing from social exchange and agency theories, we offer support for a theorized model that was subsequently tested using survey data obtained from store managers, employees, and customers and supplemented by longitudinal store performance data. Study findings show store managers’ idiosyncratic interpretations of workplace climate are pertinent in shaping FLE commitment. In addition, we provide evidence suggesting the positive effects of FLE commitment upon improvements in store traffic may be nonlinear. The robustness of the study findings are bolstered through the use of multisourced data and multilevel SEM analysis that takes into account the hierarchical structure of the data.

The objective of this research is to identify the kind of shelf space allocation of terroir products that could influence positively the financial performance of grocery stores. Three possibilities of allocations have been noted in the literature (Albertini et al. Décision Marketing 65:21–30, 2011): on a dedicated shelf, on the shelves of their products’ categories, and double allocation.To achieve our research objective, an experiment has been conducted in a real convenience store “Vival by Casino” in France with 282 consumers, employing a between-subject factorial design. The results obtained show that the double allocation strategy impacts most positively consumers’ perceptions in terms of accessibility and ease of purchase. This space allocation strategy impacts most favorably the financial performance of the grocery store in terms of number of terroir products sold and turnover achieved specially for non-buyers and occasional buyers. Our findings confirm the superiority of the double allocation and the simple allocation on a dedicated shelf of terroir products, in terms of accessibly and ease of purchase as well as to improve the financial performance of the store. In addition, the results indicate that the simple allocation of terroir products on the shelves of their products’ categories is the least successful alternative.

Over the past several decades, female consumer culture has changed as a result of fundamental societal shifts in American culture owing, among other factors, to the increasing focus on the self and successive waves of feminism and changing roles of women (Branchik and Chowdhury 2017). These changes result from a series of historical developments and can be reflected in age-based differences in female consumers. These significant differences impact women’s attitudes and behaviors associated with consumption and media. To date, few studies have assessed these generational differences relative to activity in the marketplace.This research uses four studies to assess the attitudes of women in two age cohorts (18–34 and 35 and older) toward different advertisement model-gender combinations and values expressed in advertisements to track the changing female market and to explain elements of those differences.The first two studies assess differences between younger and older female consumers by examining women’s responses to various iterations of advertisements for a fictitious product and featuring different combinations of male and female models and different personal value messages. The second two studies attempt to explain, at least in part, the reasons for these differences.Results of the first two studies indicate that older female consumers—those 35 years of age and older—express a preference for ads featuring (1) two women and (2) an other-focused value message. Younger women express no such preference. The second of the four studies, data collection for which is currently underway, integrate concepts such as closeness to women, motherhood, and personal value systems as explanatory independent variables.Results from these studies, which fill an existing gap in the literature, will enable academics to understand how women of different ages process messages conveyed in media via advertisements. Practitioners will have guidance in their development of advertising creative design for products and services targeting women of various ages.

Our study is dedicated to the genesis of “Pax Advertisinia.” This genesis will be augured by advertisements that balance gratification and non-demeaning representation. The primary means of the same is to ensure that consumers are not reduced to sex objects via audiovisual stereotyping. Thus, this study will discover the means of developing unstereotyping. There have been many studies that have focused on the dynamics and complexity of stereotyping in advertisements. However, there are almost no studies that have developed an effective means and format for developing unstereotyping. This format will be the launch pad of Pax Advertisinia. Therefore, our study attempts this positive intervention by subtly scrutinizing the socioeconomic contexts of the stories of the advertisements. Such a scrutiny will be focused on the depiction of women and men as based on values that appeal to target audiences. This study would also discover their incipient appeal that foster stereotype portrayals of gender. These stereotypes reduce the efficacy and meaning-making capacity of advertising. This reduction is further seen in the activities that are also stereotyped in terms of the gender associated with them. In order to achieve these objectives and study these complex phenomena, the study has used an exploratory format. This exploratory format has been set in place in this study by qualitative methods. We effected two successive studies: content and thematic analysis. In the first study, we discovered the predominant cues related to the stereotyping and unstereotyping of women and men in advertisements. This process was carried out by two coders who followed the process with utmost scientific and systematic precision. In the second study, we were able to develop an analytical overview of the back ground and approaches central to understanding the overarching narratives and explanations necessary to understand the themes related to the stereotyping and unstereotyping of women. As a result of these two studies, we were able to develop the following key themes: caretaking of family, responsibility for health maintenance, enhanced self-determination, locus of control of domestic purchases, non-intensive physical and aesthetic pursuits, and domiciliary focus. The careful study of these themes and their juxtaposition allowed us to discover the means and modes of embedded stereotypes. Through this engagement, we were also able to set in place in the means of developing a highly effective format for the development of unstereotyping of men and women in advertisements.

Luck-related concepts such as luck, belief in luck, beliefs about luck, personal luck, and luck beliefs along with their impacts have been widely researched by psychologists and personality researchers (Langer 1975; Presson and Benassi 1996; Andre 2006; Bridgstock et al. 2011; Maltby et al. 2008; Young et al. 2009; Thompson and Predergast 2013; Darke and Freedman 1997; Wohl and Enzle 2002; Wohl et al. 2011). However, individual’s luck-related beliefs and their impacts on consumer preferences and decision-making have received little attention. The lack of investigation regarding luck-related beliefs is more surprising given their significant influences in the discipline (Kramer and Block 2008). Consumers interact with thousands of products and brands in their lives and tend to associate products and brands with the outcomes of certain events on a day-to-day basis (Hamerman and Johar 2013).The authors argue that consumers may perceive certain brands luckier than the others and believe that buying/consuming the lucky brands will lead to positive outcomes; therefore, they are more likely to be loyal to and repurchase the lucky brands. Unfortunately, no study has conceptualized and empirically tested consumers’ perceived luckiness of a specific brand. Consequently, it has been difficult for both researchers and practitioners to understand whether belief in luck can be transferred to a brand and to further predict their commitment to the brand (e.g., brand loyalty) and their willingness to make financial expenses in order to obtain it (e.g., purchase intention). As a result, a clear definition and reliable measurement to access consumers’ perception of luckiness associated with a brand is needed.Therefore, the present research conceptualizes, develops, and validates a unidimensional eight-item scale for measuring perceived brand luckiness. Subsequent empirical results show belief in luck relates positively to perceived brand luckiness, which in turn relates positively to purchase intention and brand loyalty.

A brand alliance involves “two or more brand names {that} are featured simultaneously in a product context” (Rao et al. 1999, p. 259). Previous research suggests that a consumer’s evaluation of a previously unknown focal brand is more positive when that brand is partnered with a known product brand ally than with no ally (e.g., Rao et al. 1999; Washburn et al. 2004; Voss and Gammoh 2004; Gammoh et al. 2010). However, there is some reason to suggest that brand alliance cues may be a relatively weak communication device. For example, Desai and Keller (2002) found that for slot-filler extensions, brands did better over time without an ally. In this research, we examine the effect of mental distraction on consumer evaluations of the focal brand in a brand alliance.We contribute to the brand alliance literature by exploring how distraction affects customer evaluations of the focal brand in brand alliances. In study one, we replicate the brand alliance effect from previous research by finding that attitude toward the focal brand is significantly higher with the ally than without an ally. However, under both a cognitive load manipulation and a visual load manipulation, attitudes toward the brand ratings for the focal brand were significantly lower than the condition with the ally alone but no mental load. In study two, the use of a sex appeal disturbed recognition of the brand ally. Both males and females reported lower levels of recognition of the brand ally, but this difference was only significant for females viewing a bikini ad. Thus, participant’s evaluation of the focal brand was lower under distraction.The results of the current research reveal that brand alliance cues seem to be significantly less persuasive under distraction than when they are focused on the persuasive communication. When the ad contains cues that compete for attention with brand ally cue, the persuasive impact of the brand ally cue seems to decrease. It should be noted that in these two studies, we do not have process mediators to indicate why the evaluations decrease. This is a needed addition for future research.

The purpose of our research is intended to model the socialization process to socially responsible consumption in determining when, how, and by whom the values, norms, knowledge, and skills identified must be instilled to maximize the chances to see a child adopt these behaviors once grown up.To achieve this goal, it is illusory to mobilize successive studies over several years to understand this futures socialization’s process. Indeed, we are not in a process that one would have initiated and would follow the evolution (as a doctor chronologically analyzes the reactions of a patient subject to a new treatment protocol). As to follow individuals’ real life over 15 years, it would involve, additional to the problem of length, to work on a large initial sample because, over the steps, many people inevitably would lead to alternative paths. In fact, only retrospective studies—not prospective—can help to understand the articulation of a complex process stretches such a long time.We have therefore mobilized the method of life stories. From the Chicago School of sociology in the 1920s, it has proved particularly suitable for marketing research (Patriotta 2003; Boje 2001; Jameson 2000) and yet much less used than other qualitative approaches. This type of study involves the analysis and understanding of situations from the lived experience of individuals to understand the inner workings of the studying object, emphasis on “the concepts emerging from data, on ideas that sprout as material accumulates” (Yelle 1997, p.36) and, in the end, model this one. The knowledge that results does not exclude the reality but position it in the complex and dynamic relationships between the person and the environment (Pineau and Legrand 1993).Through long interviews with responsible adult consumers - one hour thirty minutes on average – and multiple – everyone is met 3 times – allowing the narrator to learn about the story of his own life, the method of life stories allows us to back to their childhood and search in depth their socialization to the CSR. Preliminary results suggest that the basis of anchored predispositions (values, norms, knowledge, skills) to adulthood comes from all those who have accompanied the child in its development, in a formalized way or by an opportunistic factors of lived situations.

Despite marketing practitioners’ increasing application of augmented reality (AR) to communication and brand-image development, research related to how AR influences consumers’ advertising perceptions has remained underdeveloped. The primary purpose of this research is to explore how and why augmented reality influences advertising effectiveness.A field experiment (Study 1) provides evidence that AR advertisements positively influence consumers’ purchase intention and that this effect is mediated by attitude toward the ad and the brand. In addition, an eye-tracking experiment (Study 2) demonstrates that AR advertisements positively affect consumers’ attitude toward the ad and that this effect is mediated by an increase in their curiosity and visual attention toward the ad. By comparing traditional advertising to AR advertising, this research has practical and important implications for advertisers. Further, the use of eye tracking provides managerial implications for advertisers in addition to providing an example of how to measure AR advertising effectiveness.

Overconsumption has been a topic of interest to scholars in various disciplines including economics (Alger and Salanie 2006; Arrow et al. 2004; DuPour and Liu 2003; Garriga 2006; Garrison 2004), nutrition (Blundell and Macdiarmid 1997; Fay et al. 2013; Kemp et al. 2013), health (Brown and Cameron 2000), sustainability, psychology (Berridge et al. 2010; Ouwehand and Papies 2010; Herlocker et al. 1997; Roch et al. 2000), sociology, and consumer behavior (Belk et al. 1991; Geyskens et al. 2008; Ordabayeva and Chandon 2011), among others. The impact of overconsumption is being felt at global, national, and societal levels in terms of depletion of natural resources resulting in scarcity and the degradation of the natural environment due to pollution and global warming. Its impact is also being felt at the individual level in terms of negative health outcomes and financial hardship. Despite the interest in overconsumption and the extensive body of research, there is no general agreement on understanding and defining overconsumption (Hakansson 2014). The objective of this research is to explicate the concept of overconsumption at the individual level and identify its antecedents and consequences. A model of its antecedents and consequences is also presented.

Many consumers suffer from obesity and other health-related issues caused by overeating and lack of exercise. These conditions trigger different emotions. Some consumers experience guilt, anger, fear, and sadness, while others experience positive emotions, such as joy, hope, and pride. Consumer researchers and marketers are, therefore, interested in examining which types of ad characteristics will encourage consumer behavioral intentions and actual behavior that lead to more healthful lifestyles. This study contributes to the literature in several ways. First, it integrates two important research areas, appraisal tendency framework and advertising rhetoric. Second, it includes both positive and negative emotional appeals (viz., pride and shame), thereby connecting existing coping models to emotional antecedents (Duhacheck and Oakley 2007). Third, by using a controlled ad exposure situation instead of hypothetical or recalled events, this study extends findings in appraisal theory.The Appraisal-Tendency Framework (ATF) links the appraisal processes related to various emotions to different judgment and choice outcomes (Lerner and Keltner 2000; Han, Lerner and Keltner 2007; Lerner et al. 2015). The framework is designed to predict a specific emotion’s influence on consumer decision-making. Han et al. (2007) claim that appraisal tendencies affect consumers’ content and depth of thought prior to judgment or decision-making. This study is particularly interested in the ATF’s stance on how emotions influence depth of processing. Advertising rhetoric research has shown that higher levels of processing positively influence processing outcomes, such as degree of processing, memory, and behavioral intentions (McQuarrie and Mick 1996, 1999, 2003; Mothersbaugh et al. 2002; Phillips and McQuarrie 2004).The experimental stimulus was a print ad featuring a mock brand running shoe. It manipulated the type of emotional appeal and verbal rhetorical work in the headline. A 2 × 3 between-subjects experimental design used six headlines containing an emotional appeal (pride vs. shame) and advertising rhetoric (no rhetoric, rhyme [scheme], or metaphor [trope]). ANOVA results show that not all types of emotions are effective in obtaining favorable consumer responses. We find that pride as an emotion outperformed shame on both ad copy readership and involvement with an advertisement. This favorable effect of pride over shame was especially evident when pride was used in combination with a trope as a rhetorical work but also when no rhetoric was present in the ad. Interestingly, when the rhetorical work was a scheme, no difference was observed between pride and shame in advertising outcomes.

This research investigates how a salesperson’s baby face affects consumer product evaluation when considering message framing and environmental crowding. Results from a series of experiments demonstrate the positive effects of babyfacedness either when a prevention-framed message is used in an uncrowded environment or when a promotion-framed message is used in a crowded environment. A baby face backfires when a promotion-framed message is used in an uncrowded environment or when a prevention-framed message is used in a crowded environment. The findings suggest that a salesperson should take advantage of his/her facial features by using the right message frame in different shopping environments.

People may regard playfulness as unproductive with related negative effects, although it is enjoyable and frequently occurs in their life. On the other side, identity is an important topic that exists in psychosocial wellbeing, consumer research and consumer marketing. Building on the notion that what people enjoy consuming may express their identity and responding to the myth over the less-attended playfulness concept, the present study explores playfulness and how it relates to identity.A review on related literature suggests that past research has studied playfulness and identity independently. Conceptually, flow theory portrays playfulness as a harmonious equilibrium experience that signifies performing one’s skills in response to challenges in an activity. Literature also indicates playfulness as cognitively favourable in terms of imaginative and creative processes in transforming corresponding stimuli into personally meaningful configuration. All the above notions suggest the theoretical links and relevance of playfulness to one’s identity.To explore whether and how playfulness is related to identity, the study used a two-step qualitative method of one-to-one in-depth interview. The findings bring back into consumer and marketing theoretical domains the genuine substance of playfulness as a deemed, frequent but overlooked behaviour. Broadly speaking, all respondents affirm that playfulness is important and influential in their life. Specifically, the themes emerged from the data analysis demonstrate the characteristics of playfulness and reveal how playfulness is relevant and related to identity. Overall the themes suggest that playfulness denotes an expression of one’s personal identity that occurs in harmony and within personal and social domains. In practice, playful approaches and stimuli can play significant role in identity marketing campaign. The essence of playfulness of expression-of-me and harmony paves practical ways for incorporating playfulness in identity marketing such as new product/innovations through playful, cognitive activities or events and identity-theme interactive advert.

While prior research has sought to define the creativity construct and has examined factors influencing creativity generation, research has not examined external factors which may influence creativity perception. Yet, creativity generation and perception are independent processes (Groborz and Necka 2003), so their drivers cannot be assumed to be the same. Further, perceptions of creativity often vary between individuals (Young 2000). Given the positive consequences of perceived creativity combined with its subjective nature, there is value in identifying factors which could enhance perceived creativity. In this research, we show that perceived creativity is indeed malleable and identify a factor, fear, which can be used to enhance creativity perceptions.Creativity incorporates two key dimensions: novelty/unexpectedness and meaningfulness (relevant to the audience/context). Thus, appreciating creativity requires the viewer to engage with the ad in order to connect its unexpected elements in a meaningful way. Because fear increases visual attention (Dunn and Hoegg 2014), supports the extra effort to decipher the environment (Smith and Ellsworth 1985), and heightens engagement with and attention to an immediate stimulus, those experiencing fear should be more likely to appreciate a creative ad’s complexities. They should be more likely to connect divergent pieces of the ad and connect them together to form an overall meaning for the ad, leading to an increased appreciation of its creativity. Thus, we expect fear, but not other negative emotions, to positively impact creativity and in turn, attitudes toward the ad and behavioral intentions.In Study 1, using IAPS images within the advertisement to integrally manipulate emotion (i.e., emotion as an appeal) and two different contexts (commercial/cookie ad, public service/alleviating hunger ad), we show a positive effect of fear on perceived creativity and that this effect is mediated by engagement. In Study 2, we replicate this result using an incidental task (watching videos) to manipulate emotions and a real (juice) advertisement. In Study 3, we extend the findings to a larger ad pool by gathering 162 real (texting and driving) advertisements. In each study, we compare fear with other main negative discrete emotions which share similar features with fear (e.g., uncertainty and situational control appraisals, sadness; appraisal of unpredictability, disgust; arousal, anger), neutral emotion, and a positive emotion, happiness (high in arousal like fear), and find that fear (vs. other emotions) enhances creativity perceptions, leading to higher attitudes toward the ad and more positive behavioral intentions.Our inquiry shifts the focus from creativity generation to creativity perception and contributes to the literatures of creativity and discrete emotions by showing that fear (vs. other negative discrete emotions) influences creativity perception positively.

Performance has been investigated according to the view of the salesperson (Sharma 2006; Sengupta et al. 2000; Boles et al. 2000), the sales manager (Tzempelikos and Gounaris 2015; Workman Jr. et al. 2003; Piercy et al. 1998), the direct supervisor (Patterson et al. 2014), the customer-seller dyad (Palmatier et al. 2008), and the sales manager-salesperson dyad (Ogilvie et al. 2017; Paparoidamis and Guenzi 2009). Notwithstanding the multiple views, the performance from the key account executive (AE from now) in industrial relationship has been receiving less attention, thus exposing problems of self-reported investigations (Sengupta et al. 2000). There is a need to better understand how the performance of AE influences the success of business relationships, as well as the role of salespersons in creating value in buyer-seller relationships (Choi et al. 2015).In this paper, we assumed that the salesperson’s knowledge, perceived commitment, trust and role in sales improve AE performance, which in turn influences a relationship between a buyer and a firm. In proposing a theoretical model of the antecedents and consequences of AE performance, we suggest that it plays a mediating role in the relation between variables linked to buyer-seller dyad and variables linked to buyer firm dyad. Specifically, this study searches for an answer to the following research questions: RQ1—How does AE performance influence firm-level/relational outcomes? RQ2—What is the mediating role of AE performance in explaining AE characteristics and firm relationship quality? Our objective is to test a framework to understand AE performance, its antecedents, and firm-level/relational outcomes (relationship quality, satisfaction, and commitment). We tested the model in the context of B2B relationship involving 192 key account buyers of a major communication firm in the USA, which evaluated their account executive.The results indicate that AE-perceived commitment and trust are the main drivers of AE performance. Second, we showed that AE performance influences satisfaction, supporting the pivotal role of an AE for improving satisfaction and building relationships. This result is congruent with the role of account executive in maintaining industrial long-term relationships. Third, we supported the mediating role of AE performance in establishing industrial relationship. The mediating effect suggests that account executive characteristics influence indirectly commitment and relationship quality.

A company’s sales force plays an integral role for its success and has a direct influence on top-line revenues. Salespeople are the external face of an organization and must communicate firm values in an innovative fashion on a customer-by-customer basis (Raymond and Tanner 1994). They work to proactively find new customers and grow existing accounts (Raymond and Tanner 1994). Additionally, salespeople face immense uncertainty and risk regarding their successes in closing business and, subsequently, their financial remuneration (Boichuk et al. 2014). These job characteristics are similar to those faced by entrepreneurs and are thus closely related to the concept of entrepreneurial orientation (EO), defined as a propensity to be innovative, proactive, and open to taking constructive risks (Avlonitis and Salavou 2007).The concept of EO has traditionally been applied at the organizational level. Research indicates that certain organizations are more entrepreneurial than others and that in general, EO positively influences firm-level performance (Lumpkin and Dess 1996). Recently, the concept of individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) has been introduced to the entrepreneurship literature (Bolton 2012; Ferreira et al. 2015). Similar to research on organizational EO, findings suggest that individual entrepreneurs who are innovative, proactive, and risk taking (i.e., high in IEO) tend to be more successful (e.g., Bolton 2012; Gupta et al. 2015). Researchers, however, have yet to investigate IEO in the sales context. The purpose of this project, then, is to study the role IEO plays in predicting salesperson success.Based on the outlined research gap, we develop and empirically test a model that examines the effect of a salesperson’s IEO on sales performance. While studies on organizational EO examined the role of companies’ handling of information and knowledge (e.g., Sciascia et al. 2014; Wales et al. 2013), we consider this aspect on the individual level by proposing that salespeople who think abstractly (vs. concretely) will be more entrepreneurial and that this IEO will positively impact sales performance.This paper contributes to the existing literature by introducing the concept of IEO to a model of salesperson performance, as little research has linked entrepreneurial orientation to salesperson performance. Additionally, our paper addresses calls to conduct research that considers construal-level theory (CLT) (Blocker et al. 2012) by introducing the level of information processing as an antecedent of IEO. The theoretically grounded model developed and empirically tested in this project provides valuable insights to the drivers of salesperson performance.

Entrepreneurial orientation helps the firms pursue entrepreneurial opportunities and create competitive advantages in changing and dynamic environments by promoting innovativeness, risk-taking, and proactiveness. However, inconsistent results were found in the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and performance. The inconclusiveness motives the researchers to investigate the potential moderating variables in order to understand the boundary effect. One important moderator—learning—is still missing in the link of entrepreneurial orientation-new product innovation performance. Learning is viewed as a valuable asset to the firm’s innovation development, especially for high-technology firms.In this study, I propose that the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and new product innovation performance may be moderated by external network learning besides the firm’s age and size. In this study, external network learning is defined as knowledge acquisition from outside external networks (such as suppliers, distributors, retailers, banks, government contacts, university contacts, technology search firms, consultants, and employment agencies, etc.). Literature suggests that external network learning may help the firm to expand its knowledge base, provide a fresh perspective, improve breakthrough thinking, and enhance the recognition of opportunities and threats and scarce resource access to new market, technological capabilities, and political legitimacy, etc. These benefits serve as complementary resource to entrepreneurial orientation and can effectively strengthen the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and new product creativity/speed to market.A large-scale survey in China was conducted to test the hypotheses. In order to reduce common method bias, two respondents were chosen from each firm to measure different constructs. A total of 300 respondents from 150 high-tech firms answered the questionnaires. A structural equation modeling and reliability tests were used for data analysis.The findings confirm the positive effect of entrepreneurial orientation on both new product creativity and new product development speed. While the firm’s age and size mostly change the strength of the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and new product innovation performance, external network learning fosters the impact of entrepreneurial orientation on new product innovation performance. This finding suggests that the entrepreneurial firm’s managers should invest time and effort on building relationship with various external networks and having active interaction with them, because the knowledge learned from external networks may improve the entrepreneurial oriented firm’s new product innovation performance.

Our specific focus in this paper is on customer participation in the NPD process (i.e., customer involvement as co-developers). Within this collaborative NPD process, customers are engaged in idea generation, selecting various attributes of a new product offering, and acting as co-developers of new products and services (Fang 2008). Our research contends that customer participation’s effectiveness in regard to new product performance and commercializing innovative new products is dependent on the level of absorptive capacity (ACAP) of the firm. ACAP is a dynamic capability that can help utilize the firm’s knowledge structure to acquire, transform, assimilate, and exploit external knowledge and apply it to commercial means (Zahra and George 2002). Substantively, we suggest that without a high level of ACAP, customer participation in NPD is rendered wholly ineffective in regard to the innovativeness and performance of new products.Our primary contribution to the literature is illuminating the positive, moderating role of absorptive capacity (ACAP) between customer participation in NPD onto innovativeness and new product performance. While it has been noted that the innovation and success of a customer co-developed product likely depends on internal capabilities (e.g., existence of a technology champion) (Chesbrough and Crowther 2006), previous research has not specifically looked at ACAP in this moderating role, instead focusing on proxies, such as R&D expenditures or firm size (West and Bogers 2014). As such, we examine ACAP outside of the R&D expenditures operationalization that has previously hindered open innovation and absorptive capacity research. We suggest that without proper levels of ACAP, customer participation in the NPD process essentially has a null effect. Thus, firms with low ACAP are not equipped to integrate customers into the NPD process and should avoid doing so as it could lead to lost time, effort, and resources.In a study of 241 firms of varying sizes across 14 different industries, we investigate the effect of customer participation on new product development performance. We confirm that overall customer participation is positively related to new product development performance and that the effect is mediated by innovativeness. We also demonstrate that these effects are contingent upon the absorptive capacity of the firm in question such that firms with high absorptive capacity stand to gain more from engaging their customers in new product development than firms with low absorptive capacity, especially at the later stages of the NPD process. As such, this study shows that firms must honestly evaluate their own levels of ACAP to maximize the innovative output from customer participation in NPD.

While literature recognizes the importance of satisfaction, trust, and commitment as key measures of relationship quality, there is a lack of consensus in the literature on how these three constructs influence each other in business relationships. The distinction between early stages of business relationships versus ongoing ones is often neglected in this context.To contribute to a sound theory development, this study aims therefore at further validating the nomological framework initially tested by Svensson et al. (2010) and that the subsequent studies have been compiled by Padin et al. (2017). Subsequently, the research objective is to validate whether satisfaction is a mediator between trust and commitment on the one side and cooperation, coordination, and continuity on the other.This study posits, therefore, satisfaction as an outcome of trust and commitment that mediates the influence of trust and commitment respectively on other relationship quality constructs specifically coordination, cooperation, and continuity. A sample of 400 SMEs in Puerto Rico was used to perform the current study that was not used and explored in previous studies.We performed confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling to test the measurement model and to assess the structural relationships of the conceptual model between the included construct in a sample based upon Puerto Rican business relationships. Our testing of the model provided support for satisfactory validation of findings. The goodness-of-fit measures were fair.Our testing of the model based upon Puerto Rican business relationships accomplishes fairly well the requirements for convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity, as well as for construct reliability. Subsequently, we conclude that the measurement and structural metrics of the research model tested provide support for satisfactory validity and reliability.The findings also indicate that the hypothesized relationships between the relationship quality constructs (i.e., trust, commitment, satisfaction, cooperation, coordination, and continuity expectance) are valid in the ongoing business relationships. Generally, the nomological framework indicates that satisfaction is a mediator between trust and commitment on the one side and cooperation, coordination, and continuity expectancy on the other.The findings reported provide managers with a foundation to deal with their companies’ supplier relationships across countries, as there appears to be a general applicability of the cause-and-effect relationships between the studied quality constructs.

Conventional wisdom posits that a long-term orientation with important partners such as key suppliers and clients is essential for superior performance. This study critically examines this business tenet by studying the relationship between the duration of partnerships with major suppliers and clients and company performance. The purpose of this study is threefold. First, based on social capital theory, the role guanxi plays in building relationships with key business partners is examined. Second, the relationship between duration of cooperation with alliances and firm performance is scrutinized. Finally, the role R&D may play in relationship management is explored, and this effort will shed light on the intricacies of interfirm partnerships.In this study, guanxi is conceptualized as reciprocal obligations, which are better captured by considering guanxi as an investment. Since time and money are part of the guanxi process, cost must be explicitly accounted for to fully understand the phenomenon. This approach not only has some unique advantages to shed light on the relationship-building process; it also has the potential to explain the heterogeneity of business relationships various companies may have with their partners. Although guanxi is common in China, the extent of its practice in terms of creation, maintenance, and utilization is a business decision for each firm. Thus, this study will emphasize the costs of guanxi and its benefits to the firm.Based on a dataset comprising over 10,000 Chinese manufacturing firms obtained through a probability sampling procedure, results show that relationship duration with major suppliers influences (relationship duration with major clients does not) annual entertainment costs, a proxy for firms’ investment in guanxi, a unique phenomenon in China. Furthermore, the findings from the main quadratic effects model show relationship duration with suppliers has a positive convex association with performance, whereas relationship duration with clients has a negative concave correlation with performance. These two nonlinear relationships are moderated by research and development (R&D). Specifically, relationship age with both suppliers and clients has a positive convex association with performance for manufacturers with a low R&D budget; cooperation duration with both suppliers and clients has a negative concave correlation with performance for firms with a high R&D budget. This is one of the first studies that challenges the doctrine of long-term orientation in relationship management with suppliers and clients. Indeed, a long-term orientation has its dark side.

Objective: To develop a model in understanding consumers’ high-risk consumption behavior of over-the-counter drugs and dietary supplements and to identify major beliefs and attitudes relevant to the consumption of pharmaceuticals.Method: Eight focus groups (N = 37 participants) were conducted in a local university from January to April 2017 with consumers who had online-shopping experience. Verbatim transcripts of the group discussions were analyzed with the grounded theory approach.Results: The authors have identified six important factors that assist understanding of the high-risk pharmaceutical consumption behavior. While high (vs. low) perceived threats in pharmaceuticals consumption increase consumer willingness to pay higher prices and wait longer for genuine pharmaceuticals, high (vs. low) self-efficacy lowers consumer willingness to pay and increases their willingness to wait; the two factors, thereby, significantly impact consumer’s likelihood of engaging in risky consumption behaviors. Two moderators (product type and temporal distance) also influence consumer’s willingness to pay and willingness to wait for authentic pharmaceuticals.Conclusion: A framework for understanding consumers’ high-risk consumption behavior of over-the-counter drugs and dietary supplements is proposed as a model, grounded in empirical data, which can be further explored in future research.

This study focuses on Internet addiction and its impact on the consumer’s buying patterns. Here, Internet addiction is a serious negative manifestation of Internet usage. There are extensive studies on Internet addiction. However, the means by which Internet addiction affects shopping patterns has not been sufficiently covered. Thus, this study’s focus is conceptual framework engaging the main reverses of Internet addiction in the context of online shopping. Through a thorough examination of related dimensions, we were able to conceptualise that the limits of sensation seeking, extensive presence of digital devices and almost unlimited access to the Internet could worsen the problems of Internet addiction in light of online shopping patterns. Further, we projected that Internet addiction and self-control had a bidirectional relation. To investigate further, we will use the requisite blend of qualitative and quantitative studies. The prospective use of these methods will serve two purposes. Qualitative studies will develop exploratory dimensions of the study. The quantitative studies will consolidate the themes developed conceptually by our investigation. As a foundation for future studies, we were able to develop five key dimensions. The dimensions were self-control, access to shopping, impulsive buying, compulsive buying and purchase of vice products. The first dimension dealt with the propensity of individuals with lower self-control to have lesser control on negative behaviour and consequences. This was contextualised in the case of the negative consequences of Internet addiction. The second theme was involved with the propensity of consumers to have increased frequency in shopping with greater access to shopping. Going on, increased frequency of shopping can lead to impulsive and compulsive buying. The next theme we finalised was with regard to impulsive buying and Internet addiction. Here, people who have shown patterns of Internet addiction would be more prone to buy products online based on stimuli provided. The subsequent theme was compulsive buying. In line with Internet addiction, we were able to conceptualise that compulsive purchases often happen due to internal factors such as loneliness and depression. These internal factors in conjunction with the stimuli would lead to people prone to Internet addiction to indulge in compulsive purchases online. Finally, the purchase of vice products was related to both impulsivity and compulsiveness. Thus, both external and internal factors influenced the purchase of vice products. These dimensions will be integral to developments in the field of Internet addiction and purchase patterns of users.

Consumers are increasingly demanding that organizations operate more responsively and offer more ethical products. Building on congruity theory, three experiments use real brands and an experimental framework to investigate the interactive effect of brand concept (i.e., symbolic vs. utilitarian) and ethical attribute type (i.e., symbolic vs. utilitarian) on brand evaluations. Experiment 1 demonstrates that congruity between a brand concept and an ethical attribute (e.g., a symbolic brand offering a symbolic ethical attribute) leads to enhanced consumer brand evaluations. However, incongruity between a brand concept and an ethical attribute (e.g., a symbolic brand providing a utilitarian ethical attribute) results in more negative brand evaluations compared to a congruent brand concept-ethical attribute pairing. Experiment 2 replicated these findings and supported the prediction that the positive effect of the congruity between brand concept and ethical attributes is mediated by perceived congruity. Experiment 3 shows that the positive effect of a symbolic ethical attribute paired with a symbolic brand emerges only when the brand consumption is perceived to be conspicuous. Evaluations of utilitarian brand concept-ethical attribute pairings were unaffected by the level of conspicuousness of brand consumption.This research provides insights into consumer responses to brand concepts paired with ethical attributes. Specifically, this research contributes to the more recent research demonstrating that ethical attributes may elicit negative consumer responses (Griskevicius et al. 2007; Luchs and Kumar 2015; Luchs et al. 2010; White et al. 2012). The findings suggest that this is more likely when ethical attributes and brand concept do not match or when the consumption of a symbolic brand offering a symbolic attribute is inconspicuous. In-line with prior studies (Torelli et al. 2012), this research shows that brand concept has an important influence on ethical attributes effectiveness. Distinctively, our research looks at brand concept from a different perspective (i.e., utilitarian/symbolic rather than self-enhancement/self-transcendence) and show that certain types of ethical attributes may be roadblocks for certain brand concepts. Moreover, this research is the first to empirically document that the mediating role of perceived congruity and the moderating role of conspicuousness of consumption in the evaluation of symbolic brands provide symbolic ethical attributes. In terms of managerial implications, this research supports the notion that managers should consider the type of ethical attributes in conjunction with brand concepts to enhance brand evaluations. It is noteworthy that an ethical attribute/brand concept matching strategy is more effective for products and brands that are highly associated with conspicuous consumption, such as automobiles, apparel, or luxury brands.

As visual social media marketing (VSMM) (i.e., photos and videos that are informal in appearance and are used by companies for promotional purposes) continues to increase in popularity, it is imperative for marketers to understand the elements of such marketing efforts that catch consumers’ attention. As such, the present research (1) studies the effect of time pressure on consumers’ attention in real time as they consume VSMM content and (2) delves into finer nuances of the effectiveness of VSMM content by examining the use of linguistic (i.e., figurative language) and pictorial (i.e., drawings) elements in VSMM content on consumers’ attention. Results across three studies using eye-tracking technology and scenario-based experiments indicate that time pressure elicits greater attention to the VSMM caption than no time pressure. Furthermore, the use of figurative language (i.e., antithesis) positively influences consumers’ attention to the caption in company-generated VSMM. Finally, the presence of pictorial information in VSMM positively moderates the relationship between the use of figurative language (i.e., alliteration) and consumers’ attention to the caption in user-generated VSMM.

In the current social media marketing milieu, organizations are continuing to recognize the importance of concurrently managing brands, brand-consumer relationships, and brand communications while accounting for the transparency and openness incumbent of modern communication platforms (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, Google +, etc.). Organizations are not the only entities cognizant of the benefits and challenges of interacting with consumers in digital environments. At the heart of relationships are the interactions or communications between individual parties; this holds for brand relationships (Berne 1964; Fournier 1998). Research on branding has illustrated the importance of brand relationships on organizational success and longevity (Aaker 1991) and brand equity (Aaker 1997; Fournier 1998; Hollebeek 2011; Keller 2001). Fournier (1998) suggests that brand-consumer relationships are formed similarly to those formed with people, and social media is facilitating brand-consumer contact and making it easier for brands and consumers to interact.Facebook, a social media platform where brands can engage with consumers, saw its revenue grow 51% in 2016 and with its acquisition of Instagram, another social media platform, is expected to continue to grow as brands continue to utilize its services to expand their reach, engage consumers, and perform relationship maintenance activities such as generating branded content (Rath 2017). Given the broad reach of social media and its ever-important role as a brand management tool, brand communications are critical. Social media provides marketers an opportunity to communicate specific brand and product attributes, affect, as well as communicate aspects of their personality to their consumers and make instantaneous adjustments in their language and communication habits to ensure consistency. In spite of the growing research and attention on social media within consumer research, few studies have sought to investigate the linguistic composition of social media content to better understand how brands are communicating critical components of their brand personality and dispositional characteristics such as emotions and sentiment. This exploratory research conducts a textual analysis of brand communications on Facebook to determine the linguistic features of brand personality, sentiment, and emotionality of brand posts and how these features differ across FCB Grid quadrants. Methodological approaches for linguistic analysis are also discussed.

In the era of digitalization, each consumer often has a virtual identity and tends to be embedded in a particular online community. However, the types and effects of a consumer’s embeddedness in an online community have not been fully examined. Following Zukin and DiMaggio (1990), this study attempts to investigate how four types of consumer embeddedness (i.e., cognitive, cultural, structural, and political embeddedness) affect consumer loyalty in online communities of a famous massive multiplayer online game. The mediating role of consumer-community identification is also examined in the proposed model. The results show that these types of online community embeddedness are positively related to consumer-community identification, which in turn affects consumer loyalty positively. Finally, this study concludes with several theoretical and practical implications for digital marketing.

The wine business is a dynamic international market where marketing variables are crucial. They serve the brand to differentiate its products from those of competitors and consequently lead to a better performance. The evaluation of the product is often justified with organoleptic properties even if other marketing variables such as the brand or a label can have a strong explicit or implicit influence.The present study is the first part of a research program. In-depth personal interviews have been used as the method to gather and explore information and its relevance for the wine business. Two different kinds of wine professional have been recruited. First, we identify winegrowers from various protected designations of origin (PDO) with different characteristics (size of the growing, type of culture, age, etc.). These professionals are “makers” and, therefore, develop a deep knowledge about what “is” or what “makes” a good wine and what drivers can lead to high customer satisfaction. Second, we have recruited enologists, cellarmen, and sommeliers. Their activities are different from those of the previous group insofar as they are involved in a direct relationship with wine consumers. Consequently, these interviews should bring a different perspective and complementary information.The results of this study highlight different key aspects that will be discussed at the conference. Among these, a particular one is interesting: Should wine be considered as an experience or a credence product regarding its qualities (Darby and Karni 1973; Emons 1997)? Wine is the juice of a fruit that is fermented and elaborated to be drunk. It can be categorized as a beverage, therefore as an experience product. However, wine professionals underline the amateurism of wine consumers and the importance of extrinsic cues in the buying process as well as regarding the level of satisfaction. Winegrower interviews confirm that these marketing signals are deliberately used to promote their products. More generally, the wine activity also lies in the exploration of the wine emotion aspect with an increasing focus on the storytelling and the authenticity (Beverland 2005). In the specific context of wine, natural attributes, grape variety, and the terroir are often commercial arguments justifying the level of quality and the price. Several results taken together outline that the quality may be difficult and even impossible to assess for consumers. This assessment raises questions about the nature of this specific good in economics and marketing and suggests further research to better understand what really drives satisfaction of wine consumers. In the case of a credence product, marketing strategies may therefore be revised and adapted to promote wine efficiently.

With the rapid growth of Internet retailing and the widespread availability of Internet-connected devices in almost every pocket, brick-and-mortar retailers have begun to observe some dramatic changes in consumer shopping behavior. Increasingly, consumers are engaging in showrooming—visiting a physical store to search for information and completing the purchase with a competing retailer online, which sells at a lower price. According to the GfK Future Buy study (2014), 28% of the consumers in the United States adopt showrooming behavior. Showrooming behavior eats away the motivation of any retailer to invest in its facilities, product promotion, and salesforce development (Singley and William 1995), lowers sales force morale, and leads to reduced selling effectiveness and customer service (Tang and Xing 2001; Rapp et al. 2015). The purpose of this research is to explore ways in which brick-and-mortar retailers can add value for consumers by focusing on the consumer relationship with the store and shift consumers away from making a purely price-based decision. The idea is to compete against online stores by building on social bonds that retailers can create with their customers. While a vast amount of the literature has focused on product anthropomorphization, this research project plans to explore the role of store anthropomorphization in affecting the relationship between consumers and their willingness to use brick-and-mortar retailers as showrooms before making a purchase with a competing online retailer.Anthropomorphizing an object has been shown to lead consumers to perceive the object as having humanlike characteristics, including mindfulness, effortful thinking, and the capacity to evaluate others (e.g., Epley and Waytz 2009). Once an object is anthropomorphized, it becomes possible for consumers to enter into a quasi-social relationship with it (Wang et al. 2007). The literature has shown that brand anthropomorphization affects consumer reactions to the product (Kwak 2015). However, there is very limited research on store-brand anthropomorphization. In the context of showrooming behavior, the social agency relationship the consumers are violating by showrooming is with the store and not the product. Product anthropomorphization may still serve as a reminder to consumers of the social influence of their actions. With this research project, we hope to achieve four goals: (1) confirm the finding of Chiou et al. (2012) that consumers actually recognize the negative impact to the store of their showrooming behavior, (2) examine the effect of both product and store-brand anthropomorphization on consumer reactions, (3) study the differential effect of anthropomorphization on men and women, and (4) show that store-brand anthropomorphization (compared to product anthropomorphization) is more likely to mitigate showrooming behavior, mediated by the perception that the brand can make moral judgments (Macinnis and Folkes 2017).

Imagine a common retail situation: An employee is meeting with a customer and the phone rings. The employee answers it. Does the customer consider this minor interruption to be a service failure? If so, how should the employee address the issue? Drawing from the literature on retail atmosphere and service failures, this research investigates how (1) service interruptions impact customer perceptions of service and (2) employees can mitigate the negative impact of service interruptions through verbal justifications.The model developed in this research proposes that a cold call service interruption negatively impacts customer outcomes by reducing interactional justice and by causing negative emotions. First, if a retail employee answers a phone call during a customer interaction, the customer is likely to feel it is unfair that the call has taken priority over providing service to the instore customer. Hence, customers may feel that the caller has been allowed to “cut in line.” Second, wait times can induce negative customer emotions, particularly when the wait is unexpected. Retail employees can verbally address failures using four styles: apologizing to the customer, deflecting the employee’s responsibility in the failure, justifying the legitimacy of the service failure, and comparing the failure with the experience of other people. Previous literature has shown that the apology is the most effective.This research uses three experiments. In the first experiment, the impact of service interruption and wait time on customer outcomes is evaluated using 100 MBA students from France. The findings show that even short wait times (e.g., “please hold”) increase perceived interactional injustice and reduce affect emotions. In the second experiment, six methods of addressing an interruption are tested using 141 French consumers. Consistent with previous literature, the apology reduced interactional injustice more than other justifications. However, it did not mitigate customer negative emotions. The third experiment investigates how employee emotional response to the caller on the phone impacts customer emotion. Based on the concept of emotional contagion, if the employee is pleasant and helpful to the caller, the customer should feel less negative emotion from the interruption than if the employee appears annoyed at the interruption. Using a sample of 57 US students, the findings show that employee emotional state on the phone does impact customer emotion. Combined, the results indicate that employees should try to act pleasantly toward callers, even when they interrupt service interactions, and then employees should apologize to the customer when the call has ended.

Negative information has been considered more diagnostic and informative than positive ones for product decision making purposes. Although researchers have studied the effect of negative online reviews, there exist unexplored gaps in the literature. One aspect relates to the role of online consumer reviews that provide product information and recommendations (Lee et al. 2007). Informant reviews provide information from the customer’s point of view as opposed to the available product information provided by vendors. In contrast, recommender online reviews make approvals or criticisms by providing a positive or a negative signal of product popularity.This research contributes by understanding the role of informant and recommender reviews on source credibility: First, source credibility is higher for recommender rather than informative reviews. A review that provides a recommendation demonstrates the reviewer’s expertise and therefore, credible. Second, website type moderates the effect of informative vs. recommender negative online reviews. Specifically, the effect of informant reviews on source credibility will be higher for a knowledge-centric website than for a social media-centric website. In social media-centric websites, consumers tend to be among known friends or acquaintances, and therefore, the information provided may not be viewed with seriousness and credibility. However, in a knowledge-centric website, consumers providing information may be regarded as a peer and an expert. Besides, the discussions are considered to be serious in nature and therefore, more heeded. Thus, it is believed that the effect of informant reviews on source credibility will be higher for a knowledge-centric website than for a social media-centric websites.Two experiments were undertaken. Study 1 consisted of three different types of negative online reviews—informative, recommendation only with no reasons and recommendations with reasons (diagnostic recommendation). Participants were shown an image of a smartphone with its features and were told to read the online reviews for the smartphone. The results showed that diagnostic recommender reviews had a greater impact on source credibility than information based reviews only.In the second study, 2 (informant vs. recommender reviews) × 2 (social media centric vs. knowledge centric) between-subjects experiment was undertaken. The results demonstrated that informant reviews were regarded as having greater credibility when the context changed from a social media-centric website to a knowledge-centric website.

Consumers today shop online. They rely greatly on public opinion in the form of online reviews when making decisions. These online reviews contain both crucial and useful information (e.g., users’ experience, ratings, etc.), and they are presented in a variety of formats (pictures, videos, and/or text) with different degrees of valence. Consumers may be overwhelming by them and not sure which one they should believe between ones that they watch/hear “live” on videos or ones written by unidentified individuals. The presentation of reviews could also increase or decrease source credibility. This research examines the effects of online reviews in different formats and valence.According to a negativity bias theory, negative information is more likely to win over positive one (Feldman and Lynch 1988; Lee et al. 2009). Thus, regardless of the reviews formats, negative reviews should affect consumers greater than positive reviews. However, it might not be that simple. Since reviews are presented in different forms called review modality (Chau et al. 2000), these presentations could possibly enhance or hinder the effect of review valence. Past research finds that text-only information is not as effective as visual information for message recall (Liu and Stout 1987). Additionally, the perceived risk could be reduced by visual information (Park et al. 2005). However, past research also finds that visual information can be overwhelming since it requires greater attention according to dual-coding theory (Paivio 1986). Borup et al. (2015) finds that text-only feedback is superior because it is more concise and easier to access. The results from an experiment show that video reviews are more impactful than text reviews on consumer attitude and purchase intent, specifically when reviews are positive. When online reviews are negative, review modality does not make a difference, which in line with negativity bias theory.The results suggest that review modality is accounted when consumers read online reviews. This research provides a support evidence that video reviews are more influential than text reviews, in the case of utilitarian products. The results also offer useful insight into online review management. Product managers should pay close attention to video reviews and try to increase the number of them since they are more effective in changing attitude and purchase intent.

Cause-related marketing (CRM) is a popular business strategy to improve brand image and increase profitability while raising funds and awareness for charitable causes. This practice involves a company and charity partnering on a market-oriented endeavor to benefit both parties. Increasingly, businesses are conducting a form of CRM at the cash register by requesting point-of-sale donations (POSD) for a cause or nonprofit, as customers pay for their purchases. This research examines frontline perception of this practice. Specifically, we examine how both customers and cashiers view POSD requests. Very little academic research to date has examined this topic. Extant POSD research primarily involves surveys from the practitioner realm. These offer valuable insights but remain at a somewhat general level. To gain a deeper understanding of how those most intimately impacted by the solicitation process view it, we adopt a qualitative research approach. Two customer focus groups and three cashier focus groups were conducted to explore this issue. Results suggest that both customers and cashiers find the practice to be somewhat uncomfortable. Participants on both sides of the cash register want more information on how the money is used and if the efforts genuinely benefit the targeted cause. Additionally, to some extent both customers and cashiers feel that the cashiers do not have sufficient information about these efforts to share with customers. Finally, both customers and cashiers are generally supportive of POSD efforts, despite their apprehensions. Thus, the ends (helping a worthy cause) appear to justify the means (POSD). This may explain the apparent discrepancy between our somewhat negative findings and the relatively positive findings of extant surveys. By adopting a qualitative approach, we have exposed certain negative process components that rarely surface through other means.

During the last decades, consumers have become increasingly concerned about social and environmental issues and want the brands they use to reflect their concerns and aspirations for a better world. Ethical and environmental consumerism has become a mainstream phenomenon in contemporary consumer culture and consumers either reward or punish companies that stress or ignore the importance of social and environmental excellence. To meet consumer expectations and address their environmental concerns, but also to gain competitive advantage, companies strengthen their focus on incorporating sustainability in their branding strategy. Accordingly, examining consumers’ perceived sustainability of brands and the consequences on brand-related outcomes is of special importance for marketing research and practice. The majority of studies set their focus on environmental and social issues when investigating brand sustainability. The present paper focuses on a reliable assessment of a brand’s ecological, social, and economic sustainability as perceived by consumers. Thus, a measurement instrument was developed that considers and combines implicit and explicit evaluations of brand sustainability. Moreover, the effects of implicit and explicit sustainability perception on customer perceived value of brands are studied. Finally, the transfer from a positive customer evaluation to brand performance in terms of brand-related perception and brand-related behavior is examined.

Due to their ongoing global increase in market share (Nielsen 2011), private label brands (PLBs) attracted attention in recent years. Retailers create multi-tiered PLBs with different levels of price and quality to address customer needs (Kumar and Steenkamp 2007). Nevertheless, further differentiation is necessary to deal with the issue of customers being loyal to private labels (PLs) in general, but not to those of a particular retailer (Richardson 1997). First studies address the idea of using ethical labels to overcome this challenge (e.g., Bodur et al. 2016).PLBs are only available at one retailer and often associated with the brand itself (Richardson et al. 1994). Using ethical labels on PL products might be a possibility to tap a new customer group which did not buy PLBs or at the retailer before (Corstjens and Lal 2000) due to missing trust in the products (Nies and Natter 2012). Ethical labels have an influence on sensory acceptance of products (de Andrade Silva et al. 2017) and signal good quality as they follow objective standards. This can reduce the feeling of uncertainty and bring national brand and PL products closer together (Richardson et al. 1996).There are just very few studies dealing with the impact of ethical labels on positive PLB evaluations (e.g., Bodur et al. 2016). None of these investigates the psychological processes underlying the consumers’ purchase decision-making of ethical labeled PL products. This study closes this research gap and contributes to scientific research by deriving product benefits and examining whether those affect customers’ self-perception. Moreover, it tests whether this enhancement of self-perception, which is highly linked to the PLB in consumers’ mind, has an impact on brand and store perception.Fictitious brand labels were created and checked for the presence of associations with other brand labels. Two online experiments were designed, using different types of ethical labeled products (i.e. fair-trade labeled, organic labeled, and fair-trade and organic labeled). Study 1 concentrates on the effect of ethical labeled national brands on brand and store image, considering the psychological aspects of the model. Study 2 examines the effect of ethical labeled PL products and customers’ self-perception on brand and store perception.Results show that perceived product benefits have no significant effect on customers’ self-perception. Nevertheless, there is a direct effect of ethical labeled PL products on customers’ self-perception, which has a positive effect on brand and store perception.

As educators, we are charged with ensuring the best possible classroom experience for our students. However, all educators have their own biases, prejudices, and misperceptions that they bring into the classroom with them. Stereotypes are defined as group generalizations that link group members to typical attributes or behaviors (Correll et al. 2010). Stereotypes are a way that we simplify the world around us and reduce the amount of time we have to spend processing new environmental cues. Group-based stereotypes are often negative, but can also be positive or mixed, and generally form an expectation about how a member of that group should behave. The purpose of this research is twofold. First, we attempt to identify the most common stereotypes that professors engage in the classroom setting. The most common stereotypes include age, gender, race, and sexual orientation. Interestingly, mental health, weight, and whether a student is a student athlete or not also generate stereotypes in the classroom. Second, and more importantly, we attempt to examine the activation response that occurs for professors when faced with a stereotype. Stereotype activation can be defined as “the increased accessibility of the constellation of attributes that are believed to characterize members of a given social category” (Wheeler and Petty 2001, p. 797). Stereotypes are typically activated by a variety of external environmental stimuli that can range from subtle to blatant and differ by individual. When a stereotype is activated, people generally engage in a response behavior. Typical classroom stereotype responses involve lowering or raising expectations and standards. Professors might also ignore particular students or indicate that they are “blind” to differences among students. Other responses might involve engaging in overcompensation behaviors to avoid the appearance of discrimination in any way. For purposes of this research, we suggest that overcompensation behaviors in the classroom, based on stereotype activation, involve giving stigmatized students more attention and more resources in order to avoid the perception of discrimination. It is our responsibility to provide a safe environment for all of them to thrive. As such, our classrooms should foster fairness, justice, and equal opportunities for success. In order for educators to do that, we must begin by acknowledging our own biases and develop strategies for minimizing these biases.

Marketing history is often underrepresented in modern marketing curricula, where case studies and textbooks typically focus on modern examples and developments. Thus, the authors treat this deficiency in marketing education as an opportunity in which an instructor may enhance student education by relating marketing history to current ideas. The included classroom activity integrates a well-known projective research experiment from marketing history into the classroom using modern pedagogical methods.In regard to pedagogical theory, research has demonstrated that active learning techniques, which encourage student engagement through experiential exercises, are an effective method of instruction (Drea et al. 2005; Vander Schee 2007; Mazon 2017). Such exercises are capable of helping students reach the highest level, the “creation” phase, of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Education Objectives (revised) (Anderson and Krathwohl 2001; Bloom et al. 1956).Thus, the authors integrate an active learning exercise based on psychologist Mason Haire’s (1950) “Projective Techniques in Marketing Research” into the classroom. Students are asked to participate in a similar experiment, discuss the results, and prepare their own projective research experiment. During the course of classroom discussion, Haire’s experiment is fully explained and discussed. The exercise can be adapted for individual or group work and can be adapted for several marketing or management courses.The added benefit of this exercise is that while students are learning about marketing research—specifically projective research—they are also learning about a well-known application of marketing research from the history of marketing. The exercise and discussion can help students more fully understand the relationship between theory, research, and how the results of research have practical applications for businesses. The exercise also demonstrates that research techniques from 70 years ago can still be relevant and useful methods in modern times.

Research asserted the interaction between learning orientation and market orientation to gain competitive advantage but overlooked the mediating role of learning capabilities. This study theoretically asserts an argument about the mediating role of higher-order learning-based absorptive capability between learning orientation and market orientation for future research. Based on micro foundation of strategy and organizational learning theory, this study outlines a framework to conceptualize the emergence of generative learning-based market orientation from learning orientation through the higher-order learning-based absorptive capability to gain competitive advantage.

Abnormal returns are assumed to reflect the stock market’s reaction to the arrival of new value-relevant information about the firm (McWilliams and Siegel 1997). Prior research suggests significant heterogeneity in stock market reactions to firms’ new product introductions. The ability of the firm to effectively manage an event (in this case, new product introductions) is a key element that shareholders look for in assessing the value of the event. A critical determinant of the ability of a firm to successfully deal with changes in strategies and new strategic decisions is its governance (Sander and Carpenter 1998). Internal corporate governance mainly consists of the top management team (TMT) rewards, i.e., the compensation provided to the TMT (Gomez-Mejia 1992; Rajagopalan and Finkelstein 1992), and the functionality of members present in the team, i.e., composition of the TMT (Michel and Hambrick 1992; Wiersema and Bantel 1992). This article explores the role of two firm-specific factors in the stock market reaction to new product introductions: (a) the compensation of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) compared to the compensation of other TMT members (i.e., the ratio of total compensation of the CEO to the total compensation of average of other TMT members) and (b) the composition of the TMT, particularly, whether the TMT includes a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) or not.To develop the sample for this study, the authors identified all announcements related to new product introductions made in 2012 by S&P 1000 firms listed on the NYSE, AMEX, or NASDAQ stock exchanges. This resulted in 193 firms who had made a product-related announcement at least once in the year 2012, with a total of 940 new product introductions having no confounding events. The date of each announcement was collected for further investigation using an event study. Eventus was used to estimate the abnormal returns experienced by these firms on the days of their new product announcements. Using an OLS regression, the relationship between CEO pay gap and abnormal returns was found to be negative and significant. The authors also found a significant positive relationship between marketing influence (i.e., presence of a CMO in the TMT) and abnormal returns.These results highlight that firms can use executive compensation and TMT composition factors as effective signals to decrease investors’ uncertainty about the market performance of firms’ innovations. By highlighting a unique, frequently occurring context under which CEO pay and marketing executives influence firm value, this research also adds to the limited research on the relationship between executive compensation, TMT composition, and firm performance.

The use of embedded marketing, the practice of seamlessly inserting advertising messages into entertainment media, continues to grow as media consumption shifts to on-demand forms and marketers find it increasingly more challenging to reach audiences. Cause placement is the proposed term for the form of embedded marketing used in social and nonprofit marketing; it involves inserting messages about pro-social causes into entertainment programming. Two studies investigated the effects of various message factors on three measures of the effectiveness of cause placement: recall of the cause, attitude toward the cause, and intention to support the cause. The first study examined the effects of brandedness of the cause and placement modality on the measures of cause placement effectiveness, using a 2 (branded/unbranded) by 3 (verbal/visual/both) between-subjects design. A branded cause yielded better recall of the cause and better attitude toward the cause than an unbranded one regardless of placement modality. There were no significant differences among the groups for intention to support the cause, likely due to a ceiling effect. In the second study, recall of the cause was higher when the main character’s behavior was inconsistent with his personality, regardless of the image of the character. The second study investigated the effect of image of the character and consistency of the behavior being promoted with the character’s personality on the three measures of cause placement effectiveness, using a 2 (“good guy”/“bad guy”) by 2 (consistent/inconsistent) between-subjects design. There was an interaction effect between consistency of the behavior and image of the character, such that attitude toward the cause was higher for consistent than inconsistent behavior when the image of the character was “bad guy,” but there was no significant difference when the image of the character was “good guy.” An analogous pattern for intention to support the cause did not hold, perhaps due to the participants’ sense of moral obligation.

Many populations currently deal with adverse effects of a wide array of cheap, pre-prepared, readily available, nutrient-deficient food products (many containing too much salt and sugar) that are widely promoted to consumers. Food provisioning generates additional areas for societal concern as wastes can be observed all along the food chain. Related to these concerns, marketing practices have been denounced as deceptive. A broad array of practices, including creating and promoting attractive unhealthy food, fostering waste through improper packaging, and/or the promotion of multi-buy packaging are linked to obesity and food waste.This special session is an important reminder that marketing can be used to deliver societal good. Social marketers seek to create, communicate, and deliver innovative solutions to improve the well-being of target audiences (Andreasen 2014). The specific objective of this special session is to outline how marketing theoretical and methodological advancements can be made while achieving social change focusing on food. The first two presentations are focused on the evaluation of program outcomes. Our first presentation directs attention toward expanding understanding of the methods that are used to evaluate campaign success. Sharyn Rundle-Thiele, Jason Pallant, and Patricia David apply the hidden Markov model (HMM) delivering dynamic results to understand behavior states and the underlying factors delivering behavioral change. Next, Ville Lahtinen, Sharyn Rundle-Thiele, and Timo Dietrich employ an experimental design in ten Finnish schools to understand whether a 4P intervention or a 1P intervention delivers more behavior change (increased fruit and vegetable consumption).Our next presentation focuses attention on the target audience taking a transformative consumer perspective. Patricia Gurviez, Madeleine Besson, and David Blumenthal examine whether connected devices can be effective in the promotion of healthy foods for people who have tried to lose weight in the last 5 years. A co-creation, qualitative approach is used to identify the most appealing connected device. In our final presentation, Lucie Sirieix and Margot Dyen question the potential synergies or contradictions between healthy food and food waste in a daily routine. Their qualitative research focuses on food practices and experiences.Marketing science can deliver change for the better benefitting not only the individuals targeted for change but also the wider society through cost savings and improved environmental and health outcomes. By delivering a series of social marketing studies, this special session aims to challenge more members of the academy to direct research attention to help some of society’s most complex problems.

Connected devices can be used in a social marketing perspective to mix virtual entertainment and real commitment to a behavioral change, such as a healthier diet for a better life.Whereas the literature on healthy diet programs based on the use of connected device(s) include numerous surveys, our review showed a low use of theoretical frameworks in previous studies. Furthermore nearly all studies reported a decrease in program usage throughout the intervention period. As a conclusion, behavioral changes have been observed in a certain amount of studies but small and on short periods, conclusions remaining rather unclear. Moreover most studies concentrated on extrinsic factors and hardly took into account intrinsic factors such as participants’ motivations and barriers to engaging themselves in a long-term healthy diet program. Following a transformative agenda (Mick et al. 2012), we intend to consider our target as experts on their needs and wants toward a healthier diet and the potential help of connected devices.We conducted a qualitative research in Parisian region (France) with four focus groups (27 participants). We targeted both men and women having tried to lose weight in the last 5 years; the sample diversity ensures the representation of other important criteria, such as educational level and the familiarity with connected devices.During the focus groups, we used a probing approach (Mattelmäki 2008) for co-exploring which device and which design could better help the participants to lose weight in a long term, considering them as collaborative stakeholders.Data analysis used softwares (NVivo 11 and Alceste) for a text analysis and a content analysis. Results highlight motivation as the major factor compared to the type of devices used (website, app, or connected devices such as Fitbit or HAPIfork) and the type of messages. They suggest that self-determination (Ryan and Deci 2000) is a major factor to participants’ motivations and compliance to digital tailored prompt messages. Clearly, a friendly app is their favorite tool. They consider it as their best ally to follow a diet program.Our results indicate this importance of maintaining motivation in a long term by satisfying the needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. All the participants point out the need for being nudged, not judged. Nevertheless, less educated and less familiar to IT participants are the most reluctant to digital devices.

We question how the recommended practices to promote healthy eating (HE) and the recommended practices to fight food waste (FW) integrate into daily routines and how they interact. The objective is then to observe how these recommendations are articulated on a daily constrained basis. This study identifies either synergies or contradictions between two campaigns developed independently in France and aims at contributing to behavior-change initiatives.We adopt a practice-based approach with a holistic view of daily consumption, paying attention to the materiality and to the social aspects of bodily incorporated actions (Reckwitz 2002; Shove et al. 2012). FW and HE do not result from a single act but rather from a set of performances (Yates and Southerton 2014), so actions contributing to FW and those conditioning HE are potentially interconnected, and practice theories can help to understand these relationships.Our qualitative methodology is based on (a) semi-directive interviews with 23 participants (method of collage aiming at describing food practices from shopping to storage) and (b) observation of shopping, cooking, eating, and storage practices with 10 of the 23 participants. We describe food practices with the following categories: supply, cooking, eating, storing/stocking, eating out, exercising, and with a set of criteria for each category. The study uses a five-element classification to characterize the constitutive “elements” of practices: materials, physical capacities, knowledge, social environment, and teleoaffective structure.The results highlight two types of coordination needed to implement recommendations to fight against FW and to promote HE: (1) peer coordination to take into account the preferences and tastes of the individuals in their households, which contributes to the cohesion between members of a household around food, and (2) coordination between different activities depending on organizational arrangements which are often necessary for the realization of all practices.In conclusion, coordination and organization are central to implementing the recommended practices. In response, our study leads to the proposal of two devices to aid coordination: (1) a “special leftovers” floor of removable size in the refrigerator and (2) a decision tree to propose formats and shopping list holders according to a segmentation of food supply and meal preparation practices.These results give cues for a new approach for public policies aiming at modifying consumer behavior from a practice-based, holistic, and contextualized perspective. This work also contributes to the theoretical reflections on practice theories application in the field of consumer research.

The Hevilapset program: Viisi Per Päivä (Five a day) was conducted in ten Finnish schools throughout 2016/2017 and aimed to understand whether a 4P intervention delivered more behavior change (increased fruit and vegetable consumption) than a 1P intervention.The commercial marketing mix (4Ps) has received a large range of criticism from social marketers (see Gordon 2012; Peattie and Peattie 2003) even though the effectiveness of the marketing mix application in social marketing has yet to be assessed empirically. Specifically, there are no studies that have empirically examined whether a full application of the 4Ps is more or less effective in delivering behavior change than 1P, e.g., promotion campaigns. Contemporary social marketing practice remains dominated by a 1P or communications focus (Carins and Rundle-Thiele 2014) which has been confirmed across multiple systematic reviews (e.g., Kubacki et al. 2015a, b). Therefore, an empirical investigation into the effectiveness of the marketing mix in social marketing is warranted.Employing an experimental design, the Viisi Per Päivä study was conducted in Finland in ten schools throughout 2016/2017 and aimed to understand whether a 4P intervention delivered more behavior change (increased fruit and vegetable consumption) than a 1P intervention. The 4P intervention reached 1,021 students and their caregivers, and the 1P intervention reached 898 students and their parents. The study deployed a repeated self-report measure design surveying both children and their parents to understand food intake, liking, attitudes, and behavioral intentions. Fruit and vegetable sales data was supplied by the cooperating food stores.The 4P schools (n = 372) showed a significant increase in fruit and vegetable (FV) consumption (p < 0.05) with FV intake at breakfast and dinner growing by 29%. While girls had a significant increase in FV intake, the boys FV increase was not significant. The 1P school group (n = 491) as well as the control group (n = 213) showed no significant difference (p > 0.05) in FV intake across both meals.These results suggest that utilization of a full marketing mix enhances behavior change effects and delivers more evidence that application of more of the social marketing benchmarks is likely to lead to more behavior change.

This paper questions current social marketing theoretical focus (for a summary of theories used in social marketing, see Truong 2017; Russell-Bennett and Manikam 2016) where dominant focus is on behavior, rather than behavioral change. How can researchers understand behavior change? Drawing on data from a food waste social marketing intervention, this paper showcases application of a dynamic modeling approach, namely, the Hidden Markov Model (HMM).The Hidden Markov Model (HMM) permits change to be examined empirically. Social marketing outcome evaluations are dominated by research methods that assess the behavior of different groups at different time points (cross sectional series design) or track individual behavior over time points using repeated measures focusing understanding on the behavior at each time point for the individuals participating in the evaluation (e.g., Rundle-Thiele et al. 2015 ; Schuster et al. 2015). These approaches limit understanding to group comparisons of behavior at different time points and a focus on explanation and/or prediction of behavior, which is surprising given social marketing’s core aim is behavioral change.Repeated measure data (pre- and post-intervention) is used to identify different states of behavior and determinants of change from one state to another. The HMM tracked the food waste behavior of 244 Australian consumers, 110 of whom were exposed to the intervention. The Hidden Markov Model was applied to examine behavior states, and then using longitudinal data transition between identified behavioral states was examined (desired change, no change, and undesired change). Finally, HMM identifies factors associated with the changes.We find there are two dynamic states of behavior: non-wasters (less than 10% of fruit and veg wasted) and wasters (more than 10% of fruit and veg wasted). One third of wasters became non-wasters after the campaign, a change that is positively associated with an increase in self-efficacy. Results indicate behavioral change is higher among females and those with no private garden.These results suggest that Hidden Markov Modelling (HMM) can be used to identify behavioral states and determinants of behavioral change. Application of HMM extends social marketing understanding beyond behavior to behavior change. This work also contributes to social marketing understanding challenging the social marketing research community to focus attention on behavioral change.

Big data analytics is an emerging topic that has the potential to significantly improve customer acquisition for inside salespeople, the fastest growing role in the sales industry. However, there has been limited application of Big data analytics in inside sales, especially in regard to the best strategies to engage customers through sales lead optimization. This paper intends to close this gap by providing a comprehensive and longitudinal study of the value of Big data analytics for both B2B and B2C inside sales. Data collected from 43 companies representing several industries through a leading provider of sales by phone software and containing about 47 million call history logs made to over 13 million leads from 2005 to 2016 reveal the best time and best way to optimize lead management practices. Theoretical and managerial contributions are highlighted.

Technology has been serving as a catalyst to support company growth and performance over the last 20 years. Through the increasing acceptance of digital platforms, society has witnessed the transformation of how people interact and companies conduct business. Beyond traditional business models, direct selling companies are expanding beyond face-to-face interaction, employing and promoting the use of technology (e.g., social media sites, mobile messaging, and company-sponsored websites) to reach consumers.People are seeking opportunities within this alternative marketing channel at an increasing pace. According to the Direct Selling Association, 20.5 million people within the United States are now involved in the direct selling channel. Technology is beginning to play a critical role in the direct selling marketplace, driving and impacting the relationships among the direct selling firm, its sales force, and its customers. In the context of direct selling, technology can serve as a vehicle to promote and enable CRM capabilities such as identifying new customers, creating customer loyalty, and establishing long-term customer relationships. Due to the increasing economic impact of the direct selling channel, it is critical to explore the relationship of technology and performance of direct selling consultants. Using a sample of 195 direct selling consultants, we examine the impact of various technologies on customer relationships and salesperson performance.

As shopping and transactions shifted from brick-and-mortar stores to online, it offers challenges as well as opportunities for businesses. One of such opportunities is the adoption of dynamic pricing—offering different prices on the same/similar products to different consumers. Dynamic pricing is typically automated. With price automation, mistakes occur, either due to technical glitches or human errors. As consumers become more powerful supported by various social media and access to greater amount of information (Cattaneo and Chapman 2010; Labrecque et al. 2013), these mistakes can be quickly caught by consumers. Such price mistakes offer an interesting scenario to examine whether and how consumers would act fairly or unfairly toward retailers. Using a set of studies, we examine whether consumers take advantage of these price mistakes and whether the seller should grant the mistaken price. We also investigate whether canceling the orders leads to negative word of mouth and damaged future sales.We propose that the attractiveness of the low mistake price, coupled with consumers’ opportunistic characteristic, leads consumers’ intention to take advantage of these price mistakes. However, not all consumers will take advantage of them given their individual differences, moral beliefs, their perceptions of the seller, and relationships with the seller. In addition, consumers may not treat all businesses in the same way given the well-documented role of company reputation.In three studies, we show that various factors influence the likelihood of consumers taking advantage of them including the magnitude of the mistake, company characteristics (size), consumer characteristics (individual power), and company reputation (perceived service fairness). More importantly, we conceptually develop the different impacts of company customer service fairness and empirically demonstrate how higher perception of service fairness both positively and negatively influence consumers’ intention of taking advantage of the price mistakes. Finally, how companies handle the price mistakes influences consumer behavior intentions. We hypothesize that granting the mistake price will have a positive effect while denying it will have a negative effect on purchase intention and positive WOM.Overall, our research is the first one to examine consumers and sellers’ reactions to price mistakes, providing both theoretical and empirical implications.

The proliferation of social media has made it easier than ever for customers to compare the prices they have paid for products and services, in addition to how they come across “deals.” Price fairness judgments have been shown to be influenced by consumers’ comparisons to other consumers, or referents, regarding the prices paid by each for the same or similar products, with the prevailing sentiment being that it is unfair for one customer to receive a better price than another customer for the same product purchased from the same retailer. The current work examines how referent effort and referent loyalty influence referent deservingness perceptions and serve to justify price inequality in such a scenario. In three experiments, we demonstrate a consistent process through which customer purchase efforts serve to influence evaluations of a customer’s deservingness to receive a lower price, ultimately explaining evaluations of price fairness in consumption scenarios where one customer pays a lower price than another customer for the same product. The theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are discussed.

Placebo effects, generally known from medicines, became more and more important in the field of marketing (Shiv et al. 2005), although it is still underexplored. A placebo effect can briefly be described as an effect of a substance or treatment, which is actually not due to the inherent power of the substance or treatment (Stewart-Williams and Podd 2004). Transferring this phenomenon into the marketing context, research of placebo marketing focusses on behavioral effects of consumers due to product attributes, which actually do not elicit those certain effects (Shiv et al. 2005). Those product attributes are actually not related to the effect or even values of the product, because they cannot directly be referred to its ingredients or functions. Nevertheless, they do influence the product value, whereas this effect is not necessarily positive. Thus, for example, price discounts can lead to undesirable placebo effects (Shiv et al. 2005). This study addresses the influence of a price placebo effect on physical performance, analyzing the impact of a price discount in terms of a placebo effect on consumers’ expectations (psychological effects) and actual physical performance. One hundred one undergraduate students took part in a between-subjects field experiment, where they consumed dextrose (regular price vs. discounted price), evaluated their expectation of physical performance, and participated in a physical performance task. First the experimenter and the assistants were handing out water bottles, the questionnaires, and writing utensils. Afterward, the participants had to perform the following task: while standing up, they were holding a 1.5 L bottle of water straight with their “weak” arm as long as they could (right-handers were holding it with their left arm and vice versa). The time was stopped by five supervisors for every person. After the first run, participants were told that this experiment is a product test, testing a new recipe of dextrose of the brand Dextro Energy. Therefore, they have to consume the dextrose and then perform the task again. The discounted price of the dextrose led to lower participants’ expectations of their physical performance, which in turn reduced the actual physical performance compared to the regular price condition. Thereby these research findings offer important theoretical and practical implications.

Numerous studies have demonstrated correlation between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty where the latter ultimately results in both revenue growth and profitability for the (service provider) firm (Zeithaml et al. 2013) (Heskett et al 1997). Fewer, but several, studies have examined the relationship between customer participation and customer satisfaction of service delivery and provider (Lovelock and Young 1979; Zeithaml 1981; Mills and Morris 1986; Benapudi and Leone 2003; Chan et al. 2010; and Wu 2011). Earlier research defined service customer engagement (CE) and service customer participation (CP), where the former was more psychological, where customers think, feel, and trust, and the latter was more behavioral, where customers act and do. This research works to better differentiate these two constructs where Customer Participation has been studied prior and more extensively than Customer Engagement. Being Customer Engagement a behavioral construct, it is easier to measure that Customer Participation, a psychological construct. The premise of this research is to establish a relationship between customer engagement (CE), customer participation (CP), and customer satisfaction (CS) where antecedent CE is necessary for mediator CP which is necessary for outcome CS. Research indicates that customers who perceive more value from their service encounters tend to be more satisfied (Ouschan et al. 2006; Patterson and Smith 2001; Sharma and Patterson 1999) (Chan et al. 2010) and that greater (customer) engagement will be associated with perceptions of greater value received (Vivek et al. 2012). This paper concludes that customers perceive more value when they are engaged; thus, service providers can maximize customer participation effectiveness with engagement. In other words, customers can engage without participating but not (effectively) participate without engaging. Two propositions are posited. Limitations and future research are also discussed such as considering outcomes beyond customer satisfaction such as service quality (SQ), a construct studied heavily by Parasuraman et al. (1985).

This study applies the attitudinal dimension of the theory of reasoned action to the decision-making process undertaken by parents when they remove children from school for vacation travel. A qualitative thematic analysis of online discussion posted to two blogs hosted by The Wall Street Journal and one blog hosted by Gawker reveals salient attitudes regarding the value of education as it relates to travel. Attitudes toward removing children from school for family travel were strongly linked to parental attitude toward the education system and toward the value of travel. Responses were categorized as supportive, ambivalent, or opposed. Those who strongly support the education system were more likely to view traditional schooling as an important component for socialization. This group felt that family vacation was not a justifiable reason for school absence. Those who view life experience as educational tended to feel that school absence was acceptable if the travel had an educational component. Finally, about 20% of respondents clearly supported prioritizing family vacation over formal education. This group tended to be highly critical of the formal education system and saw such vacations as a form of “anti-schooling.” These results suggest that targeted efforts may appeal to families considering travel during school periods.

With the growing size and purchasing power of minority consumers, the need to address ethnic diversity through accommodating marketing efforts has received continued attention (Huang et al. 2013; Grinstein and Nisan 2009; Laroche et al. 2007 etc.). Notwithstanding this growth in minority ethnic consumption behavior research, our knowledge of the accommodation effectiveness of service providers when pursuing these segments remains limited with the assumption of general homogeneity of minority consumers.As the USA becomes a more multicultural market, perhaps the most significant trend to marketers is the growth of the Hispanic-American market (Perry 2008; Callow and McDonald 2005). Fifty percent of US population growth from 2010 to 2015 has come from Hispanics, with a purchasing power increasing commensurately to $13.9 trillion. Moreover, it is projected to increase from 55 million in 2014 to 119 million in 2060, an increase of 115% (US Census Bureau 2015). Additionally, as the USA continues to be sensitive to ethnic diversity and discrimination (Wilson 2007), and with growing awareness of the varying levels of consumer acculturation, or the process of acquiring customs and norms of the mainstream culture (Cleveland and Laroche 2007), it is crucial to further investigate whether accommodation efforts are received positively. This study represents an attempt to understand the effects of intercultural accommodation efforts on service quality perceptions of Hispanic consumers by examining the interacting effects of involvement level, consumer acculturation, and perceived discrimination.The data was collected through a nationwide online survey among 377 Hispanic consumers in the USA. The research hypotheses were tested using role-playing experiments (scenarios), wherein participants read scenarios that hypothetically took place during a visit to a bank and responded accordingly. The remaining variables were measured: consumer acculturation, perceived discrimination, and service quality. Relationships were assessed via analysis of covariance ANCOVA. Preliminary findings suggest that Hispanic consumers have higher perceptions of service quality when the service is delivered in Spanish and by an ethnically similar Hispanic service provider. However, there are significant variations depending on the level of service involvement and perceived discrimination. For example, respondents were found to evaluate a service encounter more favorably when the accommodation effort was associated with a low-involvement service than for a high-involvement service. Moreover, Hispanic respondents who reported encountering discrimination incidents evaluated a service delivered via accommodation efforts less favorably than those who did not. Interestingly, acculturation was only partially supported.

Public companies are mandated to release certain financial information periodically following the requirements of the Securities and Exchange Commission 1934 Act. Mandatory disclosure of financial information helps alleviate the problem of information asymmetry between companies and the public. However, financial information alone is not sufficient to reflect a firm’s value. For example, R&D projects, such as new product developments or process innovations, are not fully captured by financial metrics. Moreover, such activities are expected to signal long-term competitive edge, which in turn influences the current valuation of a firm.This study examines the relationship between narrative R&D information release and firm value. On the one hand, narrative information release provides firms an opportunity to signal their less observable values; on the other hand, it allows competitors to observe management practices or strategic directions more easily. The current study explores whether the disclosure of R&D information would benefit the releasing firms across different industry sectors. In addition, we attempt to identify the boundary conditions of this interesting phenomenon. More specifically, we investigate the moderating roles played by firms’ strategic emphasis, availability of resources, and external environments. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Crowdsourcing is often recommended as an effective tool for product development and marketing research (Whitla 2009). This research examines the feasibility of using external user communities and crowdsourcing for early-stage idea generation in new product development (NPD) through an experimental design. The objective is to determine whether the quality and quantity of new product ideas from crowdsourcing through social media are superior to more traditional methods of market research such as one-on-one interviews and focus groups in the fuzzy front end (FFE).The benefits of using a crowd to tackle a problem with superior results have been tested empirically in a number of situations and reported by Scott E. Page (2007). However, managers, at least in a B2B context, tend not to trust ideas sourced in a collective manner. This research seeks to compare the outcomes in terms of quality and quantity of ideas in the FFE by comparing methods of collecting data. Specifically, methods where participants cannot interact with each other (one-on-one interviews) will be compared with two methods where they can, one online (social media platform) and one offline (in-person focus group). Research participants will be asked to provide new ideas for a food transportation system similar to the approach in Griffin and Hauser (1993) in the three different contexts. To simulate “expert users” in each context, the study will compare a group of self-described “foodies” to “non-foodies.” Independent coders with training in the offerings in the food industry and the feasibility of production will first count the number of new product ideas and then classify them as new-to-the-world or product line extensions. Then the coders will rate the quality and quantity of ideas across research contexts.Prior work has highlighted crowdsourced ideas as novel and creative (e.g., Füller et al. 2004). This project adds another dimension by exploring whether the products developed from these ideas are of high enough quality and quantity to lead to new-to-the-world innovations. If the crowd-based solution via social media provides as much or more valuable information as other methods, managers should consider relying more on external feedback from crowdsourcing in the early stages of NPD.

In order to combat rising rates of obesity, researchers from a variety of disciplines seek to understand its underlying causes. This research suggests that an interaction—between a cognitive style, context dependence, and the eating environment—may be a powerful influence on eating behaviors. Context dependence is the capacity of an individual to overcome embedding contexts in perception (Witkin et al. 1954) which may make some consumers more susceptible to environmental cues and therefore less able to capitalize on their dietary restraint motivation. This may lead to discouraging outcomes, increased self-blame, and ultimately diet dropout.The study consists of a 2 × 2 ANOVA between-subjects design conducted on Amazon mTurk where both context dependence (context dependent vs. context independent) and exemplar plate (present vs. absent) were manipulated. Because participants were responding online, serving intentions were used as the dependent variable in lieu of actual serving behavior. Participants were asked how many pretzels they would take in their given scenario on a sliding scale (1–100). A manipulation check was done to ensure the social nature of the exemplar cue. Analysis of variance revealed a significant interaction between context dependence and exemplar (F(1,110) = 4.15, p < .05). People in the context-dependent condition served themselves almost double when the exemplar plate was present versus absent (M = 16.67 vs. M = 9.07; t(53) = −2.16, p < .05). In the context-independent condition, these differences were negligible for the present versus absent conditions (M = 8.17 vs. M = 8.46, t(54) = .001, p = .999) which provide support for hypothesis 1. For a summary of results. The manipulation check confirmed the social nature of the cue (t(109) = 1.59, p < .05). This research demonstrates the viability of exploringthe context dependence in consumer behavior contexts. Results show that context-dependent people, especially in countries such as America with high-consumption environmental cues, may be more susceptible to overeating and obesity. This reaffirms the need for alterations to the eating environments and choice structures through means such as nudging to improve the ability of context-dependent consumers to make healthy decisions.

This project explores how consumers make meanings of the objects they interact with when engaging in a particularly sensorial servicescape, the CrossFit (hereafter, CF) box. Our research question is: do the objects used specifically in CF help consumers to create meaning around their own experiences and contribute to CF’s fanatical brand following?Boundary objects are defined as objects that take on different meanings in different social worlds simultaneously (Griesemer and Star 1989). Boundary objects live within multiple, overlapping social worlds. In order for an object to be a boundary object, it must simultaneously fulfill its required role in each of these social worlds and have three aspects: an interpretive flexibility, a material or organizational structure, and the ability to have ill- and well-structured uses (Star 2010). Four types of boundary objects are discussed: repositories, ideal types, coincident boundaries, and standardized forms.The author team conducted an ethnography of CF boxes in which they are members. These boxes are located across the continental United States. In addition to an exploration of their home boxes, the authors have “dropped in” with other boxes while traveling. This was foregrounded with researcher introspection.The first theme lies in the relationship between the participants and the blank canvas of the space and spatial object array therein. Without mirrors in which to focus on one’s vanity and without a clear guide to using the space on one’s own, the space forces participants into a social context with invisible structure. Similarly, the objects in the space exhibit agency in a key way. These objects act on the participant, molding them. This focus on active transformation allows the objects to work. Moreover, consistent with an object-oriented ontology (OOO), the capacity of these objects to act on the body is not fully realized by the participant. Beyond the lack of instructions and diagrams on how they might transform one’s body, the objects hold an invisible, oblique side (Harman 2011). One works with them and allows them to work on one as instructed and demonstrated by others, not in a formulaic “leg day” or “arm day” or “endurance day” sense as in many other exercise forms. Thus, the objects take on the role of participants, in some sense. Just as one cannot know the potential of a human relation, one cannot fully know the potential of a barbell in the box.Data collection and analysis is ongoing.

It is widely known that people want to be happy and marketers are increasingly trying to appeal to consumers’ pursuit of happiness. In consumer behavior research, an interesting question is if and how consumption contributes to overall happiness. Research on the topic has focused on how peoples’ choice contributes to happiness (Schwartz et al. 2002) and whether material or experiential purchase brings happiness (Nicolao et al. 2009). Extending research on happiness, the current paper investigates if consumption of the same item can make people happier depending on its container. Specifically, this research examines whether consuming or imagining consuming a drink may make people more or less happy depending on the shape of the glass it comes in.When drinking a beverage, the shape of the vessel’s rim can slope outward (e.g., a martini glass) or can slope inward (e.g., balloon wine glass). The outward slope of a vessel rim is defined as when the upper part of the vessel is wider than the bottom, and the lines of the object give an impression that it is opening itself to the environment. On the contrary, an inward sloping vessel rim is when the shape of the vessel gives the impression that it is closing itself to the environment.Grounded cognition proposes that learning takes place via multiple channels, including modal simulations, bodily states, and situated actions that underlie cognition (Barsalou 2008). Building on grounded cognition, metaphoric transfer strategy suggests that consumers make sense of the world through the use of metaphors. The metaphoric transfer strategy further suggests that psychological states (e.g., perceptions) related to one concept (e.g., shape of a glass) change how people process information related to a dissimilar concept (e.g., extraversion and happiness) in a consistent manner with their metaphoric relation (Landau et al. 2010). Based on this theory, we suggest that the shape of a beverage vessel that is outwardly sloped influences extraversion and subsequent happiness. Specifically, we propose that the more open a beverage vessel, the more extraverted (i.e., socially open) and thus happy consumers are likely to be.Two studies show that when people drink or contemplate drinks from a glass that has an outward-sloped rim, they feel more extraverted than when they drink from a glass that has an inward-sloped rim. In addition, the slope of the glass rim increases perceived happiness through extraversion. These findings are aligned with previous research that shows that extraversion is a strong predictor of happiness and subjective well-being.

Many individuals are increasingly concerned with personal data privacy and security partly due to the decreasing costs and increasing covert nature of surveillance technology (John et al. 2010). Customer surveillance activities involve a brand’s acquisition, usage, or storage of customers’ personal data (Plangger and Watson 2015). Brands need and perform customer surveillance to remain competitive and gain market intelligence, which includes data on the needs, preferences, characteristics, behavior, attitudes, and other customer attributes (Kohli and Jaworski 1990). Building on the consumer privacy and value concern literatures, this research investigates how consumers experience customer surveillance.Customers face trade-offs between protecting their personal data and enjoying the benefits afforded by brands having access to their personal data (e.g., improved products, discounts, status rewards). Culnan and Armstrong’s (1999) privacy calculus concept describes how consumers cognitively balance the benefits and costs of disclosing personal data. However, recent theoretical developments and empirical evidence find that consumers rarely make calculated decisions and often rely on automatic decisions based on heuristics. This research proposes attitudes toward customer surveillance, which are based on personal concerns for consumer privacy and consumer value. From this, four archetypes are formed: protectionist (high privacy/low value), capitalist (low privacy/high value), pragmatist (high privacy/high value), and apathist (low privacy/low value). These attitudes influence consumers’ reactions to customer surveillance activities. These attitudes are examined in 26 interviews to develop items; then a scale is constructed to measure them.The final scale contained three items assessing consumer privacy concern (α = .78) and three items measuring consumer value concern (α = .74). The scale performed as expected as the correlation tests were significant in the expected direction, yet there were not high associations with these related constructs, thus showing evidence for the scale’s convergent and discriminant validities. This scale can be used to classify a consumer in one of the four archetypes.This research makes several contributions: (1) we theoretically and empirically refine the definition of customer surveillance in terms of an attitude that can account for both the cognitive and automatic responses of consumers, (2) we construct a scale that measures the attitude archetypes, (3) researchers investigating consumer privacy and customer surveillance can now assess how individuals are likely to respond to disclosure requests, and (4) practitioners can now develop marketing strategies to serve and be sensitive to specific archetypes. Future research can explore these attitudes in various consumption, cultural, and demographic contexts.

Immersive virtual environments can and should be used as a methodological tool for experimental research. Virtual reality (VR) is often referred to by scientists as virtual environments (VEs) and is defined as “synthetic sensory information that leads to perceptions of environments and their contents as if they were not synthetic” (Blascovich et al. 2002, p. 105). Scientists extend the concept of VEs into a more specific immersive virtual environment (IVE) which is a psychological state characterized by being enveloped in, and interacting with, an environment (Witmer and Singer 1998).Through the construct of presence (Wiederhold and Wiederhold 2000), marketing academics can use IVEs as a tool to improve the current understanding of consumer behavior. Increased external validity while maintaining internal validity (Blaschovich et al. 2002; Loomis et al. 1999) and experimental controls will afford marketing academics the ability to investigate new and old concepts to an even deeper level. Persky and McBride (2009) claim that IVE technology gives researchers the ability to maintain high experimental control and implement implicit behavioral measurements. Despite the clear calls to action from Blaschovich et al. (2002), Loomis et al. (1999), and Persky and McBride (2009), IVEs are not investigated, nor used, as a major tool in top marketing journals.The use of IVEs affords researchers the ability to reduce hypothesis guessing in two ways. Researchers can create more complex environments that disguise the ability of the subject to effectively guess the hypothesis, and/or the researcher can eliminate the need to use attitudinal questionnaires to measure constructs by using behavioral cues instead of attitude-based constructs. These behavioral cues can be measured both qualitatively (viewed by the researcher) and quantitatively (coded into the experience). Hence, the use of IVEs will afford the researcher the ability to choose among more ways to investigate marketing phenomena.As with any methodological tool, IVEs have many issues to consider. Currently, VR is still a novel tool, despite being around since the 1990s. This novelty may discourage researchers who do not fully understand the experimental benefits of using IVEs. Despite leaps in technology, there is still a gap to be closed to eliminate the technical issues of VR, the most prominent being simulator sickness. Finally, as with any technological experiment, there are both a significant cost of time and resources required to develop and test IVEs.

Social media has become an important communication platform for both marketers and consumers. As a result, large amounts of potentially useful UGC data are generated by these consumers on a daily basis. However, although many articles have studied brands on social media, there is a dearth of published works examining luxury brands in this context. Accordingly, this study investigates the following research questions. What are consumers’ perceptions of and attitudes toward luxury brands on social media? What luxury brand content and topics are consumers interested in? What are consumers’ sentiments toward luxury brands?Twitter, a popular social media platform, is considered a useful communication channel for luxury brands. Hence, this study collected over two million user-generated tweets on Twitter. Thirteen top luxury brands were chosen, including Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Burberry, Prada, and Versace. It was found that consumers are interested in the following luxury brand-related topics: product, fashion show, brand love, celebrity campaign, customer service, brand events, and promotion. The top three luxury brand topics observed are product, brand love, and fashion show. In the case of non-luxury brands, the LDA topic analysis found that consumers are generating UGC for the topics of product, promotion, customer service, shows and games, current news, store location, and brand love. Product information, promotions, and customer service are the top three topics.Furthermore, according to the sentiment analysis results, we found that with luxury brands, consumers’ positive sentiments are approximately 10% higher and negative sentiments are 10% lower than with non-luxury brands. Overall, the negative sentiment for luxury brands is less than 8%, while negative sentiment for non-luxury brands is approximately 20%. Based on the findings, valuable brand insights are extracted from mining the large amount of brand tweets. Similarities and differences of the topics and sentiments between luxury and non-luxury brand tweets are found. This study is one of the first to investigate luxury brand tweets by using both LDA topic modeling and sentiment analysis to analyze big data. The findings make contributions not only to the current luxury brand literature but also to big data and social media marketing literature.

The relentless progress in research and the resulting new food technologies enable a variety of innovations in the food sector. However, in general, consumers are often highly skeptical about new products and perceive great (consumption) risks when that innovative product has been produced and created by a more or less unfamiliar technology. An increasing mistrust of consumers toward the food chain led to a decreasing acceptance of regular and newly developed products. However, consumer acceptance is crucial to the development of successful food products. Adding the increased consumer interest in food production technology, consumers’ overall attitudes toward new food technologies should be taken into account in order to be successful in the market. Against that background, the present study aims to analyze in detail the factors that affect consumers’ acceptance of innovative food products. Specifically, a new multifaceted model of consumers’ acceptance of innovative food products is developed and empirically tested considering the influence on product image and buying intention as selected product performance outcomes. As investigation object, an innovative flavor enhancer was used, which improves consumers’ health by strengthening the flavor of salt and thus helping to reduce salt levels in food.

Indigenous populations in advanced economies such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA are severely disadvantaged in comparison to the members of the wider society in terms of most socioeconomic, health and well-being indicators (e.g. Closing the Gap Report by the Commonwealth Government of Australia, 2017). We address this important sociological challenge facing Australian people, businesses and policy-makers by exploring three specific research questions: (1) does racism directed towards indigenous people still exist within the Australian workplace settings; (2) are some employment types more susceptible to such activity than others, such as front-line service roles; and (3) does employment in specific work settings make indigenous people more resilient to racism than others? Answers to these questions could provide the clue to policy and industry actions designed to improve indigenous well-being and overall life satisfaction and in turn help to remedy injustices of the past that are still omnipresent today (Mellor 2004). In this paper, we begin by briefly reviewing the relevant literature on indigenous employment issues and well-established service management concepts, to develop our conceptual framework with testable propositions and also propose a methodology to test these. We also discuss the conceptual contribution and managerial implications of this research.

“Humor has always been one of the most popular tools of creative advertising” (Eisend 2017; Lynch and Hartman 1968). Numerous studies and significant findings over the past 60 years characterize this “universal phenomenon” (Warren and McGraw, 2016, Lecourt 2001). However, the concept of humor in ads remains difficult to define and analyze (Gulas and Weinberger 2006). Humor is an important communication component of advertising in numerous countries (Eisend 2009; Weinberger and Gulas 2017) and of interest in recent 10 years in various fields of research. Given “the state of the art of humor in ads worldwide,” complementary research questions emerge in terms of the impact of positive emotions on the efficiency of international ads using humorous messages on the one hand and the role of culture in the process of persuasive communication on the other hand. This statement is at the origin of the proposition of a new global model on the efficiency of humor in ads through a cross-cultural analysis on the possibility of a standardized video ad in France, the USA, and China.

Increasingly, firms are adopting what is known as a stakeholder perspective in how they conduct business. In the business community, it was previously common for managers to believe that the primary stakeholder of the firm is the owner (shareholder) and therefore serving the customer in the most profitable way possible was best. However, in our rapidly changing marketplace, managers are finding that addressing multiple stakeholder groups is essential to being successful. Take, for example, consumers’ growing interest in issues related to sustainability. To remain competitive, firms have therefore adopted a stakeholder interest that encompasses not only the financial objectives of the business but also the social interests of various stakeholder groups and the environmental interests of the community in which it operates.This paper examines how a nonprofit organization can have trade-offs between multiple stakeholder groups that have varying interests, some of which are in direct conflict with one another.

This research focuses on the alignment between the values of small farmers cultivating heirloom products and green consumer expectations with regard to the tangible and intangible attributes of the vegetables which they purchase. Adopting a twofold approach (interviews with farmers and an online questionnaire for consumers), we try to identify the common ground which farmers can rely on to promote heirloom products. Our results reveal that heirloom fruit and vegetable purchases can be explained in most cases by the shared convictions of the farmers and consumers. The willingness to purchase such products seems more linked to the ethical and social dimensions of perceived values than to the intrinsic qualities of the products, such as taste or nutritional aspects. We then recommend ways for farmers to better meet their target customers.

Sustainability refers to the ability to maintain something at a certain level. As such, the Brundtland report defined sustainable development as that: “… which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs…” (WCED 1987, p. 3). Sustainability is commonly considered in relation to three aspects, namely, economic, environmental, and social (Carter and Rogers 2008).The research objective is to examine the logic and differentiators of organizational positioning and sustainability planning initiatives between private and public organizations in the healthcare industry.In highlighting the lack of sustainability initiatives that encompass all three aspects (social, economic, environmental), the aspects themselves are intertwined (Eriksson 2014). Sustainability is an issue for the entire network of organizations (Wolf 2011). Attempts have been made to adapt such an approach (Wagner and Svensson 2014), but considering all aspects of sustainability across networks of organizations is rare (Holton et al. 2010).It is important to consider that being sustainable is partly a sliding scale and partly a binary state. An organization can be more sustainable, without actually being sustainable and without starting from an unsustainable state (Eriksson and Svensson 2016).This study applies an inductive approach based on in-depth interviews with executives from a selection of private hospitals across Spain. The selection of hospitals for study was evaluated by means of judgmental sampling (Fischhoff and Bar-Hillel 1982). A non-probabilistic technique was used, because sustainability initiatives are not widespread in Spanish hospitals.This study contributes to determining the logic of organizational positioning and planning of sustainability initiatives in private and public organizations in the healthcare industry. It also describes and explains the organizational reasoning that determines the differences between public and private hospitals, with respect to the performance initiatives and actions of sustainability, an aspect that has not been addressed in existing theory and previous studies.Public hospitals apply a top-down logic to position and plan sustainability initiatives, while private ones apply a bottom-up logic. The positioning of sustainability initiatives in public hospitals is mandatory, based on a long-term vision and being integrated into the public healthcare system. Those of private hospitals are optional, based on a short-term vision, isolated, and not integrated with others in the healthcare system. Furthermore, the planning of sustainability initiatives in public hospitals is structured and continuous, while they are improvised and aleatory in private hospitals.

Sensorial experiences play a crucial role in our everyday perception of the world (Crisinel and Spence 2010b; Krishna and Schwarz 2014; Spence et al. 2014). A major, multifaceted, and ubiquitous variable affecting humans’ lives is color (Eliott and Maier 2014; for a review see Elliot 2015). A growing body of evidence has been suggesting that colors play a primary role in the food consumption domain due to its role as an indicator of edibility (e.g., Clydesdale 1993), flavor identity, and intensity (see Lavin and Lawless 1998; Maga 1974; Zampini et al. 2007), contradicting the ISO (1992, 2008) proposition stating that visual cues do not constitute a core attribute of flavor perception.In fact, early studies suggest that people might rely primarily on visual stimuli (compared to taste) when asked to identify flavors of food-related stimuli (Dubose et al. 1980; Hall 1958; Philipsen et al. 1995). Taken as a whole, those studies show that participants tend to misidentify a great number of the flavors when the color-flavor pairing is incongruent. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that color congruence matters in the food consumption context and that its influence may stem from our early-learned color associations.Our paper investigates the role of label color congruence on consumers’ preference and perceptions of color appropriateness and visual appeal. More specifically, we artificially altered the color of beer labels in order to match (vs. mismatch) the color of the main raw material of an unknown fruity-flavored beer, and across two studies, we show that color congruence matters when the goal is to enhance consumers’ preference and perceptions.More specifically, study 1 provides initial evidence that color congruence is an important attribute for consumers, by suggesting that consumers prefer (in a choice task) labels with colors that match the product’s dominant flavor. In addition, in study 2, participants judged a label as more appropriate and more visually appealing when it was congruent with the dominant flavor of the beverage.Therefore, across two studies, we show that the disclosure of a product’s dominant flavor modulates people’s color choices and perceptions of color appropriateness. Specifically, when consumers are aware of the dominant flavor of a product, they expect the color of the label to be congruent to the color of the raw material.

Though the labels are rich in information, studies suggest that these are not made in favor of the consumer. This can make them vulnerable to advertising on food. One of the causes of this is the lack of the ability to find and process information efficiently—literacy. Therefore, this study aims at understanding how do the labels influence the consumer’s perception and decision-making. In addition, two categories of products have been analyzed, so it can be verified if different product types are differently affected by the messages: a healthier product (cereal bar) and a less healthy one (chocolate cookies). Also, positive messages (advertisements) as well as negative messages (warnings) have been used. An online experiment with six different treatments was performed. Data from each group were compared with the nonparametric tests Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis, with the Dunn’s technique for paired comparisons. The t-test (parametric) was also used for the analysis. With more than 300 respondents, it can be inferred that advertisements have a positive effect on any product, but the warning had no effect on the cookies. Cereal bars can benefit from advertisements, but not as much as the cookies. As for price, only the cookie with the advertisement achieved a significantly higher result, indicating that people are more attracted, and could pay more, for these kinds of products when they come with positive messages. To test this assumption in an environment closer to reality, cookies were sold to university students. Almost half of the sample of 38 students preferred the more expensive cookies (carrying advertisement), even though both products (with/without propaganda) had identical back-of-package information and design. Only few individuals were able to find and interpret the back-of-package information. Those who bought the most expensive product justified themselves saying that the product was nutritionally better. It is suggested that further studies on labeling seek to be more realistic and that industries and governments should be more concerned on how the consumer understands the labels. Especially for the companies, it should not be the goal of its investigations solely which formats sell more, but which label formats are more efficient to inform the consumer.

Over the last decades, there has been a significant change in packaging design from mainly informative elements toward sensorial engaging products. Consumers fundamentally experience their world through their five senses, which shape their consumption experience and affect product and brand perception and behavior. Past research has shown that packaging has an enormous influence on consumer perceptions, purchase decisions, and product acceptance. Additionally, a large amount of studies revealed valuable insights regarding how to reach consumers through the five senses. However, literature still lacks an advanced measurement approach that evaluates the impact of sensory packaging on explicit and implicit information processing in consumer’s mind. The current research aims to contribute to the literature by analyzing the effect of sensory packaging on explicit and implicit product brand associations. Specifically, a PoS contact with the packaging of a premium-priced bicycle tire was simulated in a lab study to test the effectiveness of sensory packaging on consumer’s brand-related association formation. Our results show that there are not only major differences between explicit and implicit sensory perception but also that it needs the right interplay of sense stimulation (here: “direct tire touch and forest scent”), in order to trigger the best brand-related association change.

A group of social media users commonly referenced in the Internet usage literature is made up of passive users. Their activity is generally defined by their following the activities of others. In addition, many users of social media platforms, such as Facebook, interact with brands by making some type of public commentary on their own or the brand’s social media page, without offering creative content. This declarative behavior may include offering feedback, suggestions, and opinions or even complaining about specific aspects of the brand. While this group also arguably makes up a considerable number of social media users, little research exists regarding how its behavior might be measured and how it might affect behaviors toward the brands with which this group interacts. This research explores these two specific user-to-brand (u2b) social media behaviors and how they impact user electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and purchase intentions (PI). Two constructs are developed, u2b content consumption intentions (CConI) and u2b content commentary intentions (CComI). Empirical results using structural equation modeling (SEM) provide evidence that CConI impacts CComI and both have a direct and positive impact on eWOM but not on PI, while eWOM has a direct and positive impact on PI. These results suggest that brands can benefit from both the passive behavior of social media users who consistently consume content on brand pages and from more active behavior involving feedback and suggestions directed at brands. A main benefit of these behaviors is increased positive eWOM, which subsequently impacts purchase intentions.

Extant literature indicates that accessing online word of mouth (eWOM) impacts subsequent purchasing and other consumer behaviors (Chatterjee 2001; Chen et al. 2011; Teng et al. 2017). Specifically, in the context of the sharing economy, which is still relatively new to some consumers, the reviews are of increasing importance as there are few traditional indicators of service quality (Ert et al. 2016). Gretzel and Yoo (2008) observe that online reviews may contain information pertaining to the quality of a service or product, which could assist in reducing risk when purchasing experience goods. However, in the case of the travel industry, it has been observed that on average satisfaction ratings for Airbnb listings are higher than satisfaction ratings of hotel listings on TripAdvisor (Zervas et al. 2015). In this paper, we review and reason on a set of key factors which may drive this gap in rating averages. In particular six propositions are developed from the relevant literature and are organized into three groupings: expectations, experiences, and evaluation.With regard to expectations, two propositions are developed relating to price anchoring (Kahneman et al. 1982) from hotel rates during the search phase and the uncertainty surrounding the anticipation of staying in the home of a stranger. This first set of propositions suggests travelers reduce their expectations of an upcoming Airbnb stay due to the comparatively low price. The second set of propositions concern the experience specific to Airbnb that would lead to surprisingly positive experiences of an Airbnb stay itself, such as accessing local wisdom from and socially interacting with Airbnb hosts (Week 2012). The last set of two propositions relate to evaluating the experience of an Airbnb stay. The first proposition is specific to an Airbnb stay in that the previous reviews may increase the chance of the anchoring bias taking effect in the review and rating process. Whereas, the second proposition suggests the lack of anonymity (Lapidot-Lefler and Barak, 2012) as a reviewer influences guests to rate an Airbnb accommodation more positively. These six propositions are presented collectively in the form of a reported satisfaction advantage conceptual model for reference by academics and practitioners.

The authors identify how customer-to-customer online incivility may negatively impact service recovery initiatives that take place via social media. In particular, the authors posit that such behavior necessitates the need to recognize and measure a new form of perceived justice: customer-to-customer interactional justice. Study 1 uses a content analysis to first examine the frequency of online incivility across multiple firms’ social media pages. Study 2 develops a new measure for the customer-to-customer interactional justice construct, which assesses the degree of fair treatment between customers when uncivil communications occur. Study 3 then models the new construct to evaluate its impact on other forms of organizational justice perceptions during a service recovery via social media. Theoretical implications include extending the perceived justice framework to include a customer-to-customer component. Managerial implications include the need for firms to manage customer-to-customer interactions when uncivil behavior occurs on corporate social media channels. Failure to do so may harm how customers perceive a company’s service recovery efforts.

Negative perceptions of United Airlines’ corporate reputation increased 500% after the event regarding the forcible removal of a ticketed passenger on April 9, 2017, a video that became viral and traveled the world first-class through social media. Under these circumstances, the objectives of this study are threefold. We first want to explore the way consumers behave and interact online in the case of what they perceive as a significant negative event for a brand. Second, we want to assess how different brand events, from the same organization or other companies, interact and affect each other regarding social media and the public’s attention on NWOM. Third, we focus on the relationship between negative word-of-mouth and fluctuations in the stock market price of the targeted brand.In marketing research, negative word-of-mouth (NWOM), as one of the forms of customer complaining behavior, has been found to negatively affect the probability of purchase (Arndt 1967; Perkins 2009; Richins 1983; Romaniuk 2007). More consumers share stories about bad customer service (95%) than about good experiences (87%) while using social media (45% for bad and 30% for good) and online review sites (35% for bad and 23% for good) to spread the word (Zendesk 2014).The analysis underlined the fact that consumers are aware of different major negative word-of-mouth discussions in the online environment present concomitantly and they even compare the level of gravity among them. We also found that both the interaction with another campaign and the start of a negative WOM campaign in the online environment determine changes in the stock price.This study can contribute to the word-of-mouth literature by providing a clearer picture regarding consumers’ reaction to negative brand events and their reactions in social media. The article also provides more details regarding the relationship between concurrent and consecutive negative word-of-mouth events and underlines the effect of NWOM on the stock market. Practitioners can also draw conclusions on how to better react to NWOM campaigns and manage their communication strategies, including through a better focus on marketing analytics, a better monitoring of the online environment, as well as interest in customer lifetime value and retention. Nevertheless, as previous literature showed, even though a negative WOM event happens, it is the brand reaction that also significantly counts, so this is a topic that needs to be considered both my marketing managers and by future research.

One highly regarded platform of social media is a video blog or a vlog. A vlog uses video as its communication medium. The content of such vlogs may range from product or service reviews, trending news, entertaining celebrity gossips, travel, unboxing, gaming, how to videos and much more. The paper specifically focusses upon YouTube as a vlogging platform, which is a popular video-sharing website that enables its users to create and upload videos.Companies wishing to get their brand or product brought up in vlogs most commonly offer vloggers products or services for free, gift cards or money (Liljander et al. 2015). In exchange, the vloggers provide positive and interesting content about the products or services on their vlogs (Liljander et al. 2015). However, the effectiveness of such vlogs and the reputation of the vlogger may be seriously undermined or strengthened by viewers who leave a trail of negative or positive comments, respectively, in relation to the posted content. Despite its relevance and importance, scholarship that focusses upon the impact of comments on the effectiveness of endorsements in the context of YouTube vlogs is understudied. The present study investigates the interactive effect of the valence of audience comments and perceived credibility of the vlogger (PCV) on the attitude of the viewer towards the endorsed brand (BA). The study further explores if such comments are by one vs. multiple viewers and if there exists a dyadic interaction between the commentator(s) and the viewer and its role in moderating the PCV–BA relationship. Several propositions are presented along with a proposed methodology.

Companies are increasingly using social media strategies to build relationships and engage their customers. Social media is cost-effective and can disseminate information quickly to a large audience. As wineries are facing an increasingly competitive marketplace with new wineries constantly coming to market, we investigate wineries’ entrepreneurial marketing practices and their social media strategies.While the role of entrepreneurial networks in the US wine industry was studied over 20 years ago (Brown and Butler 2005) and various entrepreneurial models applied by wineries in Tuscany over a decade ago (Mattiacci et al. 2006), little is known about entrepreneurial marketing practices in wineries. Chaudhury et al. (2014) found preliminary support for New Mexican winemakers pursuing opportunities, engaging in proactiveness and innovation, creating value through customer participation, and collaborating with other wineries in resource sharing. Shows et al. (2016) recently examined the entrepreneurial marketing characteristics of North Carolina wineries and found smaller wineries rated high on innovativeness and value co-creation have higher percentage year-to-year sales increases. In the early 2000s, 90–100% of US wineries had an online presence in the form of having a website (Stricker et al. 2003). However, as few wineries utilized Web 2.0 components during this decade, wine business researchers such as Thach (2009) encouraged wineries to adopt these practices (including social media) as “it is already an active relationship marketing tool generated by the consumer” (Thach 2009, p. 149). Today, however, social media is just as influential as traditional media sources (Bruwer and Thach 2013; Reyneke et al. 2011), and wineries use social media in various ways to connect with their customers. The current study surveyed 53 North Carolina wineries to examine their entrepreneurial marketing practices and their social media usage. The proposition was that there would be a positive relationship between increased use of entrepreneurial marketing by wineries and their use of social media.Results show that wineries that engaged in increased use of entrepreneurial marketing practices also used social media more to develop long-term customer relationships. Facebook and Twitter were used the most, followed by Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

The credibility of a sales manager in the eyes of the salesperson is a key component of leadership effectiveness (Bass and Bass 2009; Bettinghaus and Baseheart 1969; Malshe 2010). The authors describe how salespeople form judgements about their managers’ credibility based on an emotional connection driven by their managers’ physical features (Busenitz e al. 2005; Lord et al. 1984). A salesperson will have a higher level of affective commitment to a more attractive manager, resulting in a perception that the manager is more credible. Consistent with signaling theory and implicit leadership theories, attractiveness signals a halo effect that the manager is able, up-to-date, and competent. The halo affect manifests itself as affective commitment. The ability to process these signals and use them to make assessments increases with experience. Therefore, manager attractiveness will have a greater effect on perceived manager credibility for experienced salespeople than for inexperienced salespeople.

Ethical leadership, a leadership style that embodies the utilization of certain elements of both transformational and transactional approaches albeit with a moral dimension, has been proposed by leadership theorists to influence positive behavioral and performance outcomes among followers (e.g., Brown et al. 2005; Mayer et al. 2012). Within the sales literature, other than studies on the effect of sales managers’ ethical leadership on ethical context and work-related outcomes (e.g., DeConinck 2015; Schwepker 2015; Wu 2017), there has been little attention on the influence of sales managers’ ethical leadership on salespersons’ evaluations of sales managers, subsequent role-modeling behaviors, and resultant performance.Addressing this gap and responding to calls for investigating underlying processes responsible for the effects of ethical leadership (Mayer et al. 2012), this study proposes that sales managers’ ethical leadership influences salespersons’ emulation intentions—i.e., their intentions to model or imitate the manager’s ethical behavior—which, in turn, influences both behavior and outcome performance. In addition, this study introduces salespersons’ perceptions of the manager’s competence and performance attribution to the manager as moderating mechanisms on the relationship between ethical leadership and salespersons’ emulation. Finally, three aspects of the ethical climate prevailing in the organization—ethical responsibility, peers’ unethical behavior, and unethical sales practices—are included as control variables.Results, based on analysis of data gathered from 290 business-to-business sales professionals, support the linkages between (a) ethical leadership and emulation, (b) emulation and outcome as well as behavioral performance, and (c) performance attribution and the ethical leadership-emulation relationship. However, the expected effect of managerial competence was not supported. Adding to research on effective leadership, this study shows that the demonstration and promotion of normatively appropriate behaviors by managers cultivate emulation intentions among subordinates, which in turn lead to positive performance outcomes. Although gratitude toward managers plays an important role, emulation appears to develop irrespective of the prevailing ethical climate in the organization. In future research, it would be illuminating to investigate topics such as the timeline for the development of emulation intentions and differences in the formation of emulation intentions across salespersons with different personalities, expertise, tenure, and demographic characteristics.

As social beings, we strive to fit into our environment (Kaplan 1983), and this phenomenon extends into organizational environments. In the context of sales, person-supervisor (P-S) fit is critical as salespeople’s livelihood depends substantially on sales managers (Strutton et al. 1993). Linking the decisive factors that align salespeople with their managers and organizations relies on understanding the basic motivations of the individuals. Accordingly, in this research, utilizing self-determination theory (SDT), we present antecedents for P-S fit and show how in turn P-S fit decreases turnover intention.SDT supports the importance of social contextual conditions (relatedness, competence, and autonomy) that foster the intrinsic motivation to internalize and integrate values and behavioral regulation of the environment (Deci and Ryan 1985). It emphasizes that these conditions can develop healthy engagement with the individual’s environment (Ryan and Deci 2000). Accordingly, we propose that in sales management context, trust (H1a) and opportunism (H1b), positive feedback (H2), and decentralization (H3) correspond to the SDT conditions of relatedness, competence, and autonomy, respectively, and hence influence P-S fit. In addition, employees were found to be more satisfied and committed and have less turnover intention when they have congruent values with their managers and organizations (Meglino et al. 1989; Verquer et al. 2003), thus P-S fit expected to be negatively related to turnover intention (H4).We conducted a survey with 398 salespeople (μ age=37; μ tenure=7.3; 21% female). All measures were adapted from the extant literature. Using SEM, the overall model showed an acceptable fit (CFI > .90, TLI > .90, RMSEA < .07, SRMR < .06) (Hu and Bentler 1999; McDonald and Ho 2002). Results showed that trust, decentralization, and positive feedback are positively related while opportunism is negatively related to P-S fit perception of salespeople. P-S fit decreased turnover intention and mediated the relationship between SDT variables and turnover intention.SDT has had applications in many domains: education, organizations, sport and physical activity, religion, health and medicine, parenting, virtual environments and media, close relationships, and psychotherapy (Ryan and Deci 2000). With this research, we extend this theory to understand and explain salespeople’s perception of fit with the managers and present antecedents for the person-supervisor (P-S) fit perception. We also present theoretical and managerial contributions to the domain of turnover intention. This research shows that focusing on building trust, mitigating opportunism, and providing and strengthening positive feedback and decentralization enhance P-S fit and thus decrease turnover intention.

Given an increasing role of sharing and social networks in shaping retail behavior, firms have introduced an innovative promotional strategy based on social sharing. Social coupons, also referred to as referral coupons, involve a coupon set in which one coupon is meant for the primary recipient (e.g., an existing customer), while the second coupon is meant to be shared with the recipient’s social network (secondary recipient). Little is known about consumer motivations to share a social coupon or the barriers to sharing. Existing research suggests that consumers who share social coupons exhibit greater purchase intentions and higher purchase amounts (Hanson and Yuan 2017), but research is needed to understand what motivates the sharing act itself.Four studies were conducted in a variety of contexts (i.e., pet products, personal care products, electronics) to examine the impact of identifying the intended recipient of the referral coupon on the primary recipients’ sharing intentions. Study 1 measures the sharing likelihood of coupons that identify the recipient as a friend to coupons that identify the recipient as a co-worker. We find that social distance impacts sharing intentions such that higher social distance from the intended recipient (i.e., co-worker) minimizes sharing. Study 2 tests the proposed theory underlying the effect, showing that social distance perceptions and altruistic motives underlie the effect of recipient identification on sharing likelihood (i.e., serial mediation). We also demonstrate that participants are just as likely to share a coupon in which there is no recipient identified as when a socially close individual is identified. Study 3 tests market mavenism as an individual difference moderator. We show that consumers high in market mavenism are less sensitive to identification of the referral coupon recipient (i.e., sharing likelihood is high regardless of who is identified), but consumers low in market mavenism are less likely to share when social distance is high. We also rule out alternative psychological explanations for the results, including reciprocity and impression management. Finally, Study 4 examines discount size discrepancy as a managerial moderator and shows a boundary condition under which consumers are more likely to share with a high social distance recipient. This study finds that when the comparative discount benefits the intended coupon recipient (i.e., 30% for me, 45% for another), consumers are more likely to share when social distance is high (e.g., co-worker) versus when it is low, due to higher feelings of altruism.

Retailers spend more and more on sales promotions to increase sales volumes. In the meantime, food waste is now becoming a major issue. However, no research has yet studied the potential effects of perceived probability of wasting and consumers’ concern for food waste, on consumers’ attitude towards promotions and consumers’ intention to choose perishable food products.This paper provides a conceptual framework regarding (1) consumers and sales promotions and (2) the link between food waste concern and attitudes towards promotions. This leads to a general model including hypotheses regarding deal proneness, perceived food waste probability, attitudes towards promotions and purchase intentions. Consumer involvement and subjective expertise are also included in the model.Two scenarios were developed. They focused on selection of a single product (grated cheese/bread baguette, no logo nor brand) from a set of four propositions: P1, buy one at regular price; P2, buy one, get a second for 50% off (BOGO50); P3, buy two, get a third one free (BTGOF); and P3L, buy two, get a third one free later (BTGOFL). Two online surveys were built, with the same structure (416 /401 responses). After questions on involvement with the product and subjective expertise, the second part puts the respondent in situations of purchase. First, his/her attitude towards the different offers was assessed; then, the four offers were presented simultaneously, and participants were asked to indicate their selection and give the reasons for their choice.This study (1) reports that more than 75% of the respondents choose products with promotional offers, (2) establishes that consumers’ perceived probability of waste has a significant negative effect on consumers’ attitude towards promotions and consumers’ intention to choose perishable food products on sale and (3) highlights scepticism towards the BTGOF offer. Indeed, attitude towards this offer is less positive than the attitude towards P2 and P3. This scepticism might come from a lack of confidence about this promotion or from a lack of understanding of how this promotion works and/or a mechanism perceived as too complicated.Retailers must then better explain the benefits offered by this promotional offer and take into account the perceived barriers. In order to be accepted, it should be considered as the best alternative for consumers; this can be achieved by convincing consumers that it is the smartest choice, the financial benefit being the same, the probability of waste being lower and the mechanism being simple and without risk.

Effective ways to leverage sales in stores using location-based advertising is of increasing interest to both academics and practitioners. Sensors embedded in current mobile phones allow using contextual factors, such as consumers’ current outdoor location, for advertising delivery, which was shown to improve customer responses to mobile promotions (Fang et al. 2015; Luo et al. 2014). However, many customers also use their phones inside of stores to gather external information, which influences their purchase decision. Despite a number of studies on mobile advertising, previous literature has not analyzed the effects of in-store push targeting via smartphones on actual shopping behavior. Additionally, only hypothetical evidence exists on how mobile in-store advertising campaigns should be designed to increase effectiveness (e.g., Bues et al. 2017). Therefore, a robust understanding of how mobile advertising influences consumers’ shopping behavior inside of a retail location is missing. What is still underexplored is the effectiveness of location-based mobile promotions during the shopping process. We address this research gap with a unique data set from a 7-month large-scale field experiment, which we conducted in cooperation with a fashion retailer. Specifically, we developed and employed a mobile application that is capable of tracking customers in the store and delivering individualized promotion messages. In a between-subjects experiment, we explore the effects of different promotion types for planned and unplanned shopping categories on 2503 customers’ movements and purchasing behavior. The results show that sending mobile promotions during the shopping process increases the average amount of spending and the amount of items per purchase. More importantly, location-based mobile promotions appear to be especially suitable for increasing unplanned purchases and thus creating additional revenue for retailers.

Before purchasing new products, customers often have the desire to access or consult a variety of information sources (e.g., product tests, online reviews, salespersons advice) to make better purchase decisions (Broilo et al. 2016). However, the process of information search has changed tremendously over the past decades due to digitalization and an increasing number of online content (Jerath et al. 2014).The purpose of this research is to examine how mobile information search—in contrast to a frontline employee interaction and no external source of information—affects consumers’ choice effort in a physical store. Therefore, a two-factor between-subjects field experiment with more than 500 participants was conducted. A qualitative data analysis of 350 text units from open-ended questions revealed several drivers for product evaluation costs at the point of sale that differ between used information sources. In addition, a quantitative exploration demonstrates that mobile internet search as well as customer service can be helpful for customers in case of simplifying a decision for a low-price product. Nevertheless, to simplify a purchase decision for a high-price product, salespersons advice might be the only simplifying source of information at the point of sale.

This study investigated the main effects of video ad type and media platform type as well as a two-way interaction effect between ad type and media platform type on consumer responses to online video ads. Several research objectives are developed. First, it examines whether 360° video provides more immersive environment (i.e., perceived autonomy, telepresence, and satisfaction) to consumers than 2D video. Second, it also examines whether desktop screens generate greater immersive environment of the contents than mobile screen. Lastly, this study identifies the differences between video types (360° vs. 2D video) within different media screen size (desktop (large) vs. mobile (small)) on consumer engagements.Some findings confirmed our expectations, while other findings did not. Regarding the main effect of video ad type, perceived autonomy, satisfaction, telepresence, and ad attitude were significantly higher in 360° video ad than in 2D video ad condition except for brand attitude and purchase intention. However, regarding the main effect of media platform type, there was no difference between computer and mobile screen platforms on dependent measures except for perceived autonomy. Unexpectedly, participants perceived higher autonomy in mobile screen condition than desktop screen condition. Across all dependent variables, this study found that 360° video advertising is more effective than 2D advertising only within the desktop screen condition, whereas, within the mobile ad condition, no differences were found. Implications were discussed.

The Pew Research Center (2017) states that digital advertising operations continue to grow as legacy print news organizations expand their digital presence online. A development that has allowed legacy news organizations to diversify their revenue stream is native advertising. Native advertising is the practice of developing advertisements that appear similar to editorial content (Howe and Teufel 2014; American Press Institute 2013). The development of native advertising is interesting since the common practice in print news outlets has traditionally been to separate editorial content from advertising (Soley and Craig 1992). However, advertisers believe that this new approach to sponsored media content boosts ad revenue and builds consumer loyalty—without compromising the editorial quality and integrity of a publication (Pew 2017). In fact, it is suggested that native digital ad spending in the USA will increase significantly in the next few years (Fast Company 2017; eMarketer 2017). Therefore, the adoption among various news outlets has been strong in recent years, and the researchers expect to find a plethora of native ads in news outlets. Yet our understanding of the production characteristics of these advertisements is limited. Therefore, it is argued that a typology of native advertisements is necessary to understand the impact native advertisements have on consumers. To gain an understanding, this study will adopt a framework utilized by Hernandez and Rue (2016) that has been used to classify digital news packages. The framework is shaped as a triangle, at the top corner is the continuous category, the left corner is comprehensive category, and finally at the right corner is the immersive category. Continuous refers to use of traditional narrative format that is linear in format, comprehensive refers to a layout that contains multiple elements besides pure narrative to tell the story, and the immersive category is defined as an engaging environment where the reader is encouraged to explore by use of several tools. It is the hope that developing a typology that explores the distinguishing characteristics among various examples of native advertisements will offer a fresh perspective that researchers can use to reinvestigate questions of relevancy, quality, and transparency among native ads. Overall, practitioners would be better prepared to understand this new revenue model and able to participate in the development and the evaluation of newly created native advertisements.

This study is dedicated to the understanding of digital disengagement. This phenomenon is seen in the context of digital advertising. Digital advertisements feature varied content related to products and services. This content is supposed to be in line with the requirements and life worlds of the individuals consuming the content of digital advertisements. If the content and presentation are in sync with the former, such digital advertisements are favoured with the preference of the individuals consuming them. Thus, digital advertisements face two specific outcomes in terms of the individuals consuming them: approach and avoidance. The basis of digital disengagement is the interaction with the digital advertisements based on the enhancement of the individual’s well-being. Hence, engagement and disengagement vary depending on the context of the consumers and their engagement. However, there are no studies that have attempted to discover disengagement, especially in the context of digital advertising. Therefore, this study has extensively studied the literature pertaining to consumer engagement. This was supplemented by an equally exhaustive review and study of fields related to disengagement. It was imperative to study these fields to effect vertical transfer. Vertical transfer is necessary when the area of study does not have literature that has investigated it. Based on this exhaustive review, we were able to discover the key dimensions necessary to understand digital disengagement; personal values, functionality, connectedness with daily activities and relations with the brands and products. In order to develop these dimensions into the integral parts of the framework to understand the nature of digital disengagement, we used the exploratory approach. We performed two studies, text mining and expert interviews. The first study involved the analysis of consumer Facebook comments based on 170 advertisements. This analysis extracted the relevant written information of the consumers with regard to digital advertisements. The second study involved eliciting specific information with regard to an unexplored area. In line with the same, we interviewed 15 experts. As a result of this in depth study, we were able to develop our framework at three levels. The first level consisted of the dimensions of functionality and well-being of consumers. The second level consisted of the dimensions of comprehension of the consumers’ desired end state. The final level had the dimensions of procedural flow, integrative capacity and praxeological extension. This framework can be used by academicians and practitioners to minimise the digital disengagement of the consumers.

Category description (packed vs. unpacked) can influence a variety of judgments, such as subjective assessments of probability. Judgments can also depend on the number of unpacked elements, how good or bad examples these elements are of the target category, and how they score on the attribute in question (Hadjichristidis et al. 2001). We compared unpacked descriptions whose elements were matched in all these respects and tested the novel hypothesis that the dissimilarity/similarity between the unpacked elements also matters in consumer judgment. We predicted that unpacking dissimilar elements would increase judgments by facilitating access to more subcategories. We examined two types of consumer judgments: spending predictions on groceries (Study 1) and willingness to pay for an insurance policy (Study 2). In Study 1, as predicted, spending predictions were higher when dissimilar elements were unpacked. We attribute this finding to memory retrieval. When the unpacked elements belong to the same subcategory (e.g., meat), they are likely to aid retrieval mostly from that subcategory. When they belong to different subcategories (e.g., meat, vegetables, household products), they are likely to cue more subcategories.Study 2 extended this diversity effect to willingness-to-pay judgments. In Study 2 we also addressed the possibility that the diversity effect is driven by the subjective ease of recall of other elements (Biswas et al., 2012). The results extended the diversity effect to willingness-to-pay judgments for an insurance policy. Moreover, it showed that this effect is not associated with ease of retrieval. The studies provide strong evidence that consumer judgments depend on the extent to which a description’s elements cover the target category. The present findings carry implications for public policy and marketing strategies. To promote desirable behaviors, such as a healthy lifestyle, messages should highlight diverse benefits (health, social, psychological), whereas to dissuade citizens from damaging behaviors, such as smoking, messages should emphasize diverse drawbacks (physical, psychological, financial).

An experience of surprise is often an outcome of disconfirmation of expectations and can be associated with positive or negative affect depending on the valence of disconfirmation. In case of a positive surprise, the unexpectedness quality of the surprise may get associated with the positive affect and in turn may induce an affinity toward unexpectedness for future events. In contrast, after experiencing a negative surprise, people may dislike the quality of unexpectedness and may look to avoid that quality for future events. According to the construal-level theory, high (low) unexpectedness of an event has a reciprocal relationship with a high-level, abstract (low-level, concrete) construal of the event. Therefore, we theorize that an experience of surprise may induce a construal-level mindset such that a positive surprise may lead to an abstract mindset, whereas a negative surprise may lead to a concrete mindset. Consequently, the induced mindset may influence evaluations and judgments of subsequently presented stimuli in the same fashion as abstract/concrete processing of the stimuli would do.In Studies 1 and 2, participants were asked to evaluate promotionally or preventionally framed ad messages following manipulation of surprise. In Study 1, participants in the positive (negative) surprise condition evaluated promotionally (preventionally) framed message more favorably than preventionally (promotionally) framed message for a personal care product. In Study 2, the same pattern of results was observed for a health product. In Study 3, following manipulation of surprise, participants were asked to make a series of trade-offs between factors that alluded to either feasibility or desirability considerations. Participants in the positive surprise condition leaned toward desirability-related factors, whereas those in the negative surprise condition leaned toward feasibility-related factors.The three studies together support the idea that an experience of surprise may induce a construal-level mindset and in turn influence consumer evaluations and judgments of subsequently presented stimuli even when the stimuli are not related to the factors that caused the experience of surprise. Future studies should examine the theorized effects on other relevant dependent variables and also strive for more direct evidence of the induction of construal-level mindset following an experience of surprise.

Ambivalence reflects the coexistence of positive and negative evaluations of an attitude object, and there is mixed evidence about its impact on consumer decision-making and behavior, with some studies showing ambivalent attitudes as weak and less predictive of behavior, whereas others find them to be more predictive of behavioral intentions. Prior research also does not empirically examine the relationships among ambivalence, indifference, and dissonance despite their similarities and differences with each other. We address these gaps with a conceptual framework based on an extensive review of consumer ambivalence literature and two experimental studies that explore the role of consumer ambivalence in consumer choice. Overall, our findings show that attitudinal and situational ambivalence do vary in their effects on consumer choice between hedonic and utilitarian options. We also show that consumer dissonance and indifference play important roles in this process. These findings extend current research on consumer ambivalence as well as on consumer choice by distinguishing between the roles of the two types of ambivalence and the roles of consumer dissonance and indifference on the choice between hedonic and utilitarian options. Besides these conceptual contributions, our findings also have important managerial implications for marketers of hedonic versus utilitarian products and services.

Organisations have attempted to transfer the image of their home countries to their product or services for decades (Arpan and Sun 2006). Recent research in international marketing has confirmed that brand’s country of origin (COO) can transmit various things to potential consumers, such as reliability, quality, prestige value and innovativeness. Such studies (referred to COO effects) highlight that, with the passage of time, consumers tend to form some impressions of countries and their products or services. These impressions become overall evaluations of country quality or image as they link to the key outputs of a given country. These overall evaluations can act as stereotypes or judgement invoked by consumers when intended to purchase a given product or services, primarily when consumers have a least knowledge about a given product or services (Maheswaran 1994). On the other hand, international brand-related crises (Volkswagen emission scandal, Malaysian airline crisis, United Airline crisis, Facebook data scandal, Samsung battery explosion crisis) have become more common, often threatening the image of the organisations behind them. The impact of COO effect in relation to crisis management context also remained significantly misinterpreted. In the past, researchers primarily focused on cognitive aspects of COO effects, while an affective aspect of COO has been largely ignored. Therefore, the present research provides an extensive review of the literature by highlighting the influence of both cognitive and affective COO effects on organisational trust, distrust, attribution of blame and consumer future purchase intention postcrisis event. A review of the literature confirms that trust and distrust in the organisations are not merely based on the cognitive aspects attached to their home country and its people but also based on the affective or emotional aspects. Moreover, in the past, distrust has been considered as an opposite end of a trust. Nevertheless, this research provides clear guidelines that these two are the separate and distinct constructs. The present study also seeks to advance our theoretical understanding of COO effects (both cognitive and affective) in a crisis management context, via decomposition of the COO construct into a country image (CI) and country people image (CPI) at both the cognitive and affective levels. Specifically, the research highlights the capacity of these four dimensions of COO to shape brand trust/distrust, attribution of blame and consumer purchase behaviour post a crisis event.

Socialization processes advocate that we all should seek the “best.” Businesses seek the best customers, employees, and suppliers, and customers seek the best products. For example, students strive to find the best university, major, professor, and academic grade record. A reality check shows that some individuals settle for a “good enough” option.Psychological distance is defined as “a subjective experience that something is close or far away from the self, here, and now” (Trope and Liberman 2010, p. 440). Time, space, social distance, and hypotheticality are the different distance dimensions in which an object might be removed from the self, here, and now (Trope and Liberman 2010). Of particular importance for this study is the social distance dimension defined as the subjective perception or experience of distance between the self and another person or other persons (Stephan et al. 2010). Different forms of social distance exist (e.g., similarity and power).In construal level theory (CLT), social power may cause a sense of distance from others (Trope and Liberman 2010). Previous research has found that individuals in high power positions perceive themselves as more distant from others than those individuals with low power (Hogg 2001). As a result of individuals with social power feeling distant from others, they are influenced to construe information abstractly, establish clear priorities, focus on the central aspects of situations, and disregard secondary aspects (Trope and Liberman 2010).In summary, this research proposes that the level of PDB will influence individuals’ decision-making, that is, whether individuals will maximize or satisfice. In the business world, some consumers make satisficing vs. maximizing decisions. Understanding the process which influences consumers to pursue satisficing vs. maximizing behavior is critical for the effectiveness of marketing messages, success of businesses, and welfare of consumers. Preliminary findings suggest that consumers with high power distance belief are more likely to engage in satisficing behavior and also exhibit higher levels of psychological distance versus consumers with low power distance belief.

The cosmetic industry has been growing rapidly in the last few decades. Currently, the industry itself generates about $230 billion each year (Forbes 2006). Multinational market leaders in cosmetics such as L’Oreal and Estee Lauder own practically most of the cosmetic brands. Recent studies have shown that 90% of female consumers use cosmetic products daily (Guthrie and Kim 2009).With L’Oreal’s recent business plan to expand the distribution of cosmetic products in emerging markets (Forbes 2014), research on consumer trends in cosmetic products and, in general, on beauty is ever so salient. Yet consumer research has neglected to look at beauty product consumption more closely. Researchers have not been able to explain the underlining mechanisms of motivation as to why consumers use beauty products on an everyday basis.This paper will review beauty in terms of evolutionary, cognitive and cultural influences, as well as the importance of beauty packaging to better understand the concept of beauty and to pinpoint possible gaps existing in the literature. The aim of this paper is to understand beauty consumption as a whole by merging evolution, cognition and culture in a framework so as to encourage marketing research to take into consideration all three levels of beauty perception in future studies.

A growing number of shoppers use and combine different channels during their shopping cycles (Weinberg et al. 2007). Furthermore, they commonly research a product online and then purchase it in a—or another—retailer’s brick-and-mortar store (“webrooming behavior”).This is a particular threat for pure online retailers, since they lose sales to their competitors with offline presence. In order to retain shoppers and strengthen their competitiveness in markets that are becoming increasingly digitized and saturated, pure online retailers, such as Amazon, Warby Parker, Zalando, or MyMuesli, have therefore begun to operate physical stores (i.e., pursuing the “Adding Bricks to Clicks” (ABtC) approach).Past research focused on the development of sales in the online, as well as the offline, channel separately from a firm-centric perspective (see Avery et al. 2012, Pauwels and Neslin 2015, or Fornari et al. 2016). Although the offline channel addition is acknowledged as a promising strategy for pure online retailers, the effect of offline channel integration on shoppers’ reactions toward the retailer remains unclear. Current literature offers little insight about the impact of the “ABtC” approach on shoppers’ behavior (see Herhausen et al. 2015); even less is known about how the integration of the offline store influences shopper retention. Yet, since shoppers choose at which retailer and via which channel type to make a purchase, in particular pure online retailers must reach a better understanding of shoppers’ reaction to the “ABtC” business model. This research examines how the integration of an offline store influences shopper retention, which is defined here as shoppers’ purchase intention at, as well as their recommendation intention of, the focal retailer.The experimental setting involved the simulation of an online clothing shop. Participants were equally and randomly assigned to either the “ABtC” or the control condition (pure online retailer), and then they browsed an online shop for clothing. Subsequently, participants responded to a survey regarding their search process satisfaction, purchase intention, recommendation intention, as well as further demographic and control variables. After data cleaning, the final number of participants is 196. Participants are mainly female (64.80%), between 18 and 25 years old (56.10%), and students (49.50%).The preliminary results indicate that the integration of an offline channel leads to higher purchase intention at (p < .01) and recommendation intention (p < .01) of the focal retailer. This relationship is mediated by enhanced search-process satisfaction (p < .01). In conclusion, the study, thus, suggests that the “ABtC” approach has the potential to retain shoppers.

In a quest to stand out, have some companies been hurting their own sales? In particular, when considering the packaging or placement of embarrassing products, a highly noticeable or visible product may be a deterrent. This research examines product packaging of embarrassing products and the impact on anonymity, anxiety, and abandonment.A scenario-based experiment was used to examine the effects of product packaging anonymity onto abandonment intentions. Product anonymity is the degree to which a person feels a product is indistinguishable from other products (Pfitzmann and Kohntopp 2009). This study finds that product color and product form have an impact on perceived anonymity. Cool colored packaging is perceived as more anonymous than warm colored packaging, and boxed products are perceived as more anonymous than unboxed products (Esmark Jones et al. 2018). This study finds that anonymity has a negative relationship with anxiety when purchasing embarrassing product and anxiety has a positive effect on abandonment such that anxiety mediates the relationship between anonymity and abandonment.The placement of a product also impacts anonymity. A second scenario-based experiment was used to examine the effects of location anonymity onto abandonment intentions. While a popular in-store promotional tactic is to place an item on an endcap, such a showcase makes products highly visible (Suher and Sorenson 2010) and less anonymous and contributing to the relationship between anonymity, anxiety, and abandonment intentions. Products at an endcap location heightened the felt anxiety in comparison to products in aisle.The results show that one way to decrease abandonment for certain products is to package them in a cool-colored box. Any packing element that is deemed to be low in anonymity should decrease the product’s overall anonymity. Companies should take this into consideration when determining how best to differentiate through product packaging for embarrassing products. Specifically, for embarrassing products firms should not brand their products with overt, flashy packaging but should instead opt for subtle product packaging cues. The anonymity experienced when purchasing an embarrassing product can be enhanced by placing the product in a more anonymous location, such as in an aisle versus an endcap. These findings suggest embarrassing products should be given careful consideration of not only how they are packaged but also where they are placed and how they are promoted.

In the current research, we strive to explore the boundary conditions to this long-standing claim that radio airtime leads to better album sales. To this end, we draw from recent literature on celebrity brand management, consumer satiation, and brand identification in order to explicate the interrelationship between musician star power and radio airtime. We build and test a moderated mediation model using a large, proprietary sample of cross-sectional time-series data. We reveal a set of competing effects of how radio airtime may influence music album sales depending on a musician’s star power. On the one hand, lesser known musicians are not as susceptible to the satiation effect caused by radio airtime as famous musicians, and therefore their albums are more likely to take advantage of the direct exposure from radio airtime. On the other hand, radio airtime may also serve as a reminder of past consumption experience which inspires consumers’ social identification with famous musicians, a correlation not as pronounced in the case of lesser known musicians. Online brand identification is in turn associated with increased album sales. These findings provide implications on how label companies may take different approaches when managing the radio promotion campaigns for famous and lesser-known musicians.For more famous artists, it can be a good way to reinvigorate their fan base. However, using radio airtime as the exclusive product promotional tool should be a higher priority for newer artists, due to the potential satiation and dilution effects of repeated music consumption for more famous artists. As famous musicians and their labels are more likely to have the resources to engage in the pay-to-play market than their lesser counterparts, we hope this new finding would invite the industry to reexamine the validity and side effects of this quasi-legal practice.

Sports sponsorship is a core element of brand communication and one of the most effective and demanded tools in marketing. In the context of soccer, sponsorship agreements dramatically increased over the last decade in terms of deal volume. At the same time, more and more brand companies place their brand into video games, so-called in-game advertising (IGA), due to an altered media consumption pattern of especially the group of young consumers. Against that background, the current study addresses the short-term effects of IGA on consumer’s implicit and explicit brand knowledge after the sponsor brand (here jersey sponsor of a soccer team) has been exposed in a video game. In order to cope with a more comprehensive brand knowledge evaluation, a wider association assessment is conducted incorporating the attitudinal and motivational value of a brand, both evaluated with regard to the processing of implicit and explicit brand associations. The presented study suggest that sponsorship communication applying IGA has a positive effect on the information processing of implicit brand associations when the video game experience was rated as positive, but not when negative. In contrast, no impact at all of IGA on an explicit level was found.

Agricultural business in emerging countries has enhanced its export competitiveness with their economy development and the shift of production in the product life cycle of international business. A further understanding is developed to the relationship between export competitiveness of agricultural business and the country-level factors that influence it, by analyzing a spatial connections of emerging markets based on the revealed comparative advantage of agricultural business from emerging markets and the country-level factors.Mahalanobis distances of countries in emerging market are further measured to structure spatial connections of emerging markets, and the spatial connections of countries in emerging market are visualized. The factors that effect on export competitiveness of agriculture business in emerging market are transformed to interconnections of emerging markets by genetic algorithm, and the effect of the factors on export competitiveness is further analyzed by concerning the spatial interconnections across emerging markets.The findings of this research can offer support to global managers in their future decisions based on market segmentation of cross-border agriculture business and also help global managers to further understand the spatial effect of country-level factors on export competitiveness from emerging market.This research finds that there is a spatial autocorrelation in effect of country-level factors on export competitiveness of agriculture business from emerging markets. This research also finds that emerging markets with a higher level of agricultural export, a lower level of domestic consumption, a lower level of domestic consumption, a lower level of wage, a higher level of irrigated land area, and a higher level of foreign direct investment have a higher level of export competitiveness in agriculture business.

The growth of global e-commerce present significant opportunities for global expansion. Yet, it has not leveled the playing field between emerging markets e-commerce corporations (EM-ECCs) and advanced markets ECCs (AM-ECCs). While AM-ECCs have been expanding overseas with considerable success, EM-ECCs have been less disposed to internationalize and content to serve and defend their home turfs against foreign rivals wielding monopolistic advantages. Leveraging the Network, Ownership, Location and Internalization (N-OLI) framework, this paper examines the variables affecting the internationalization of AM-ECCs and EM-ECCs. We use an exploratory multiple case study approach to gain new insight into the internationalization of EM-ECCs while comparing it with the internationalization of AM-ECCs. This includes detailed analysis of two ECCs representing emerging markets and advanced markets. The findings suggest that AM ECCs, in comparison to EM ECCs, are endowed with favorable network-based advantages, firm-specific advantages, and institutional ownership advantages that make them more capable of pursuing internationalization aggressively. However, EM ECCs are induced to pursue regionally focused internationalization due, in large extent, to capital scarcity and ownership advantages emanating from knowledge of the home region.

We propose a research investigation on migrant-own businesses that undertake international marketing ventures. Migrant-owned firms contribute substantially to their adopted countries, and many launch international ventures, targeting their home countries and other international markets (Kerr and Kerr 2016; Light 2010; Saxenian 2002; OECD 2011; United Nations 2016; USAID 2009).We analyzed extant literature on the nature and success characteristics of migrant-firm international ventures and on the phenomenon of internationalizing start-up firms, to develop propositions on the international marketing efforts of the subject firms. Based on our research, we highlight the critical roles of company orientations and marketing strategies as important antecedents to superior international performance (Czinkota 2017; Oviatt and McDougall, 1994; Zaheer 1995; Autio et al. 2000; Zahra and Garvis 2000).Specifically, our findings reveal an important antecedent role for each of internationalization, experience, market knowledge, international business skills, entrepreneurial orientation, growth orientation, learning orientation, networks and social capital, technological competence, marketing capability, and product/service matching (e.g., Chrysostome 2010; Liesch and Knight 1999; Karra et al. 2008; Mort and Weerawardena 2006; Czinkota and Ronkainen 2012; Weerawardena et al. 2007).We propose a collection of propositions and then explain how they will be assessed in survey-based research. Our findings suggest that migrant entrepreneurs leverage a distinctive mix of orientations and marketing strategies that allow them to succeed in diverse international markets. Our findings provide valuable knowledge that can enhance the sustainability and business performance of an important category of firms.

Developing successful relationships with channel partners has become increasingly important in recent years as channel systems rather than individual firms compete for advantage. Yet as many firms have discovered, managing a channel, especially channels with international partners, can be difficult. Aside from the inherent financial conflict between channel members, international channel partners often have different goals, different management styles, and cultural differences. In such situations, channel management is a function of relationship dependence. The more dependent the channel partner is on the relationship, the more likely the partner is to cooperate (e.g., Razzaque and Boob 2003). Dependence influences satisfaction with the relationship (e.g., Johnson 1999) as well as performance (e.g., Hernandez-Espallardo and Arcas-Lario 2008, Osmonbekov and Gruen 2013).While the consequences of dependence have been widely examined, considerably less attention has been paid to the antecedents of dependence, though researchers have indeed called for more research in this area (e.g., Scheer et al. 2015). In this research we investigate a combination of potential antecedents to dependence, including partner product and service perceptions, commitment, and trust. As a context for our investigation, we study 80 international dealers from the same channel network within the automotive industry. All dealers have the same manufacturer as the primary supplier.A theoretically derived conceptual model is forwarded as a framework for understanding what role such key antecedents as commitment, product perceptions, and trust play in strengthening the level of dependence between the supplier and their customer within the channel.Findings indicate that in order to stimulate commitment within the relationship, perceptions of product quality and accommodating behaviors are salient. It was further noted that, regardless of the quality of the manufacturer’s product offering, commitment to and dependence on the relationship are dependent on the inherent level of trust that exists. The role of trust was also demonstrated to have a moderating effect on accommodation and dependence. The implication for manufacturers herein is apparent, in order to facilitate a strong relationship with their resellers; trust in said relationship on the part of the reseller is tantamount.

Past academic research addressing storytelling has mainly been approached from the business-to-consumer (B2C) context. These studies have credited stories as a fundamental source for emotional buying behavior in consumers. Although storytelling has the ability to evoke greater emotions in consumers, marketing research has not examined its application in the business-to-business (B2B) context, particularly within the advertising realm. Drawing on the B2C literature, this study offers an exploratory examination of the benefits of storytelling in B2B advertising. The authors reveal that stories told to organizational buyers foster a deeper, emotional connection to the selling firm. Results directly indicate that there is indeed power in telling stories to members of the buying center because it influences their purchase behavior and decision-making process. We also demonstrate that there is significance in telling stories to organizational buyers who have been historically thought of as purely rational beings. In fact, our findings debunk the notion that organizational buyers respond to marketing communications on the basis of economic value alone. At the heart of this research, we establish that storytelling can be fruitful in B2B advertising.

The active role played by B2B customers in searching for and consuming online information has forced firms to embrace pull strategies, such as inbound marketing (Bleoju et al. 2016) and content marketing (Järvinen et al. 2012). The goal of those strategies is to create firm-generated content (Kumar et al. 2016) that attracts the attention of B2B customers who are already looking for information in online environments (Chaffey and Smith 2012). Once they show interest in the content, the firm proposes an exchange for information about the customer. Through this exchange, the firm can develop a perceived expertise or authority within an industry or topic (Rieh 2002), which increases customer’s willingness to disclose information (WTDI) (Järvinen and Taiminen 2016). Hence, the firm uses this data for the leads qualification process (D’Haen et al. 2013).Previous research has analyzed content marketing from the B2B customer behavior through the eyes of B2B marketers (Holliman and Rowley 2014). However, those studies have not been validated with B2B customers. Unlike the B2C sector, there is a lack of research about the underlying mechanisms functioning in the relationship between content marketing and B2B customer online behavior.Based on this context, the current research seeks to explain what factors B2B customers take into account when making an assessment of online firm-generated content when they are required to provide information in return for the firm content. Also, this study explores the effects of those evaluations on B2B customers’ perceived authority and WTDI in an online setting. To achieve this goal, three studies are conducted to reach the goals proposed. The first study tests drivers (information quality) and inhibitors (privacy risks) that simultaneously impact the customer’s perception of cognitive authority and influence customer’s WTDI. The second and third studies analyze three different boundary conditions, such as perception of content authenticity, perceived relevance of information exchange, and privacy assurance.The novelty of this study lies in the use of judgment of information (Rieh 2002) and information privacy (Li et al. 2010) as antecedents of B2B customer perceptions and WTDI. Although the notion of exchange information and privacy calculus is common in the digital marketing and e-commerce contexts (Kim and Srivastava 2007), those have not been applied to a B2B context. From the managerial perspective, this study could provide support for B2B marketing decision-makers on how to present firm-generated content in order to obtain a better assessment by B2B customers.

The present study is based on a teleological framework adapted from complexity sciences (Stacey et al. 2000). The framework has not been applied in a business-to-business (B2B) service setting. The relevance in this context lies in that it considers the dimension of time involved between a service provider and its customers in complex business relationships.The purpose of this study is to examine customers’ expectations of the service provider’s service offer before purchase and the same customers’ perceptions of the service solution offered after purchase in a business-to-business context.Based on prior research (Padin et al. 2015), this study focuses on three categories of teleological actions in complex business relationships, namely, transformative, formative, and rationalist. Prior research has found significant differences between customers’ and salespeople’s viewpoints (Tuli et al. 2007) and their unique perspective on relational interactions (Tähtinen and Halinen 2002). Only recently, scholars have started to empirically apply the teleological actions in marketing contexts (Svensson and Padin 2016).The mixed methods approach has been successfully used to study buyer-seller relationships in the software industry (Parry et al. 2012). We report the findings based on 57 customers of a service provider of a complex software solution.In short, service offer complexity along with a dynamic and constantly evolving processes which involve many people from both companies seem to be relevant variables affecting the formation of customers’ service expectations and performance in the case under study. The length of the relationship and the importance of the service provider to the customer do not seem to play a major role in affecting customers’ service expectations and perceptions.This study contributes to the literature in several ways. First, this is the first study to apply the teleological framework in a B2B service context. It provides a different time-oriented understanding of how customer expectations before purchase, and their perceptions after purchasing a complex service solution in the B2B context, are developed. This finding is particularly relevant for the service literature because “very few research papers explicitly consider business customer experiences,” as recently argued by Zolkiewski et al. (2017).This study makes a theoretical contribution by stressing the importance of the human element in providing the service offer. Furthermore, it provides additional qualitative evidence of the relevance of the adaptive behavior of salespeople while interacting with customers (Svensson and Padin 2016).

In an increasingly competitive environment, it becomes more and more difficult to earn money with digital content. Nevertheless, companies have to think about fee-based business models online to deal with changing environmental conditions (e.g., online newspaper providers). One way to earn money in a digital environment is a price introduction for content that was previously provided free of charge. When companies change their business model from free to paid content—also known as “free-to-fee switch”—it is generally an unexpected transition for customers; consequently, their willingness to pay is often low due to consumers’ “for free” mentality regarding content on the Internet (Sjøvaag 2015). In this regard, the manner of free-to-fee switches as well as the characteristics of the business model after the price is introduced (e.g., design of a preview version) are essential for companies’ success.Thus, the purpose of this dissertation is to fill the gap in the scholarly literature about price introductions by providing a better understanding of customers’ reactions and ways of minimizing their negative consequences and by showing how to use different preview characteristics after a free-to-fee switch. Moreover, this dissertation gains important insights for companies planning a free-to-fee switch or having experienced a switch in the past.In order to attain this purpose, this dissertation covers (1) the fundamental mechanisms of unexpected free-to-fee switches, (2) different forms of free-to-fee switches, and (3) previews for online newspaper providers that were affected by free-to-fee switches. This dissertation thus consists of three individual papers. To summarize, the first paper provides evidence for the negative effects of free-to-fee switches, which can be minimized by justifying the switch. Paper 2 extends this knowledge by considering the possibility of a freemium switch. However, the improvement in attitudes caused by providing an additional free version is accompanied by a decrease in purchase intents. Paper 3 focuses on preview characteristics in freemium business models and illustrates that an interrupted preview ending (vs. a concluded one) is inferior for commercial text-based content.

Advertising surrounds us whether we are at work, engaging in social activities, or in our homes (Pollay 1986). The number of advertisements that a typical consumer is exposed to has increased from about 500 advertisements to as many as 5000 a day (Walker-Smith 2014). With an average of $120 billion spent on advertising each year in the USA, it is critical that an advertisement be able to cut through the clutter and capture consumers’ processing attention (Campbell 1995). In the face of this challenge, marketers have become more resourceful at enhancing the attractiveness of their marketplace offerings (Romani 2006) and arousing interest and building trust so consumers buy their products (Zhou 2012). While advertising is intended to inform, persuade, or remind consumers about a beneficial product, there is the potential for consumers to fall prey to the unethical manipulation (i.e., deception) of some advertising executions (Amyx and Amyx 2011). Deception in advertising occurs when a marketer creates communication that depicts an incorrect expectation for the attributes of the promoted products and services (Held and Germelmann 2014).Given the abundance of advertising messages, my dissertation examines the phenomenon of deceptive advertising from varying research approaches in three essays. For my dissertation, I will use a methodological triangulation approach, which involves using multiple methods to study a phenomenon (Bekhet et al. 2012). The multiple methods utilized will be: (1) a qualitative study, (2) a meta-analysis, and (3) an experimental investigation of deceptive advertising. In my first essay, a qualitative method was employed to investigate the domain of deceptive advertising. A series of in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with advertising practitioners, who are involved and/or have experience with the creation and/or execution of advertising communication, to obtain their perspectives on issues concerning deceptive advertising. In my second essay, I undertake a meta-analysis to better understand the academic research that contributes to this literature base, examining 183 effect sizes of deceptive advertising from 34 studies published over the past 40 years. The third essay builds on the first two by empirically testing a conceptual model of the impact of deceptive advertising. Specifically, I intend to examine the role of skepticism and the type of company response, following accusations of deceptive advertising, and its impact on the relationship between deceptive advertising and purchase intentions.