What kind of reasons or bases could lead to strong and positive brand attitudes? This study aims to identify the factors that have strong relationships with positive brand attitudes and to test whether the findings can be generalized and applied across cultural contexts. Historically, attitude research has assumed that attitudes are based on cognition (i.e. beliefs) and affect (Bodur, Brinberg, & Coupey, 2000; Crano & Prislin, 2006). This study suggests a new schema comprised of ‘self-based’ and ‘public-based’ evaluations as the foundation of brand attitudes. ‘Self-based’ evaluations refer to brand evaluations based on consumers’ personal judgments and feelings. These evaluations mainly derive from consumers’ experiences with products. In contrast, ‘public-based’ evaluations are influenced by others’ opinions and brands’ public reputations. Consumers are frequently exposed to word-of-mouth messages about brands and related products, and they can assess them even when they have not personally used the product. Based on previous brand management literature, two hypotheses below were developed. Hypothesis 1: Self-based evaluations predict positive brand attitudes, but public-based evaluations do not predict positive brand attitudes. Hypothesis 2: Self-based evaluations predict the purchase intentions of consumers with independent self-construal, but public-based evaluations predict the purchase intentions of consumers with interdependent self-construal. The data were collected in a Western and an East Asian country and analysed for authenticity as well as by country, which should be important to global brand building. The results supported the hypotheses and this study made three important discoveries. First, it demonstrated that self-based evaluation was a broadly important factor to building positive brand attitudes. Second, public-based evaluation was marginally effective for branding and is important only in the East Asian context. Third, it was found that authenticity had ‘double-edged’ effects on branding. Finally, the contributions and implications of this study were discussed.

Drawing on data collected through archival research, semi-structured interviews, and site observation, this study examines the conditions underlying the emergence of craft beer culture in Finland. In doing so, the study seeks to shed light on phenomena underpinning the emergence of global consumer culture in unfavorable environments. A hermeneutic analysis reveals three themes that contribute to the emergence of craft beer culture in Finland: craft brewers as Davids vs. Goliath, craft beer consumption as consumers’ identity work, and bartenders and brewers as cultural intermediaries. On a broad level, the study contributes to literature examining the impact of globalization on consumer behavior by illustrating how global consumer culture presents local consumers a means to resist dominant local cultural and market structures. The study also extends research on consumer acculturation to global consumer culture by highlighting the importance of cultural intermediaries in the acculturation process. Implications of the study include the finding that consumer resistance towards local hegemonic consumptionscapes presents an entry point for global consumer culture, allowing international marketers to tap into local consumers’ desire to defy and resist local cultural and market structures deemed as restrictive or oppressive. The study also argues that international marketers are wise to consider the influence of cultural intermediaries in introducing and disseminating new consumption practices, especially in the case of products at the forefront of new global consumption trends.

This study aims to gain insights into consumers’ motivations when purchasing imitation of luxury cosmetics goods by applying the functional theory of attitude. Consumers’ desire for imitation luxury cosmetics hinges on their motivations underlying their consumption of luxury cosmetics. In addition, consumers’ perceived risk of purchasing imitation cosmetics and their brand loyalty towards the original luxury products will restrain their purchase intention of imitation cosmetics. Finally, the study examines the effect of products conspicuousness (private/public visible goods) and the effect of imitation types (feature/theme) on consumers’ preferences on concerning imitation consumption. The findings will provide insights for policy makers, brand managers and academics, and better understand imitation in the luxury cosmetics industry.

This research aims to provide a conceptual framework to explore how consumers respond to genuinuity claims made by organisations and how it affects perceptions towards the brand. Further, this proposal explores the influence of brand familiarity and inferences of manipulative intent on consumer’s cognition of the genuine claim. The Affect Transfer Hypothesis, Dual Mediation Hypothesis, Independent Influence Hypothesis and Reciprocal Mediation Hypothesis Models are tested parallel to determine the most effective model in line with previous studies. A total of 12 studies have been designed, comparing across 4 different levels of genuinuity, and 3 different product categories (luxury car brands, luxury hotels & spa resorts). A self-administered survey will be used while collecting data using panel data and mall intercept to ensure the ecological validity of the study. The study contributes conceptually by proposing a conceptual definition for genuinuity appeals. It contributes methodologically in its development of a brand genuinuity scale. Finally, the study will contribute managerially by providing practitioners, policy makers and firms with new ways to distinguish themselves as genuine amongst the clutter of unsubstantiated claims and to change consumer’s perceptions of industries such as banks which are renowned for unsubstantiated claims.

This research investigates the power use in self and collective interests of retailers and small apparel suppliers’ relationships. Our findings highlighted that power use of fast fashion retailers in self-interest and collective interest related goals are evident mainly in the areas of capability development, production processes and innovation in asymmetric relationships with Turkish apparel suppliers.

This paper aims to expand our understanding on the success factors of small businesses, which comprise of more than 90 percent of all businesses in U.S. in 2016. One of the most critical issues behind small business success is the competition, which becomes increasingly intense. Not only small businesses fiercely compete with larger competitors (e.g. Emergence of mega-retailers such as Wal-Mart has intensified the competition in the grocery industry, and, as a result, many mom and pop stores have gone out of business.), but also the competition against each other (i.e. competition between small businesses) becomes increasingly aggressive. Yet, the current literature in marketing have less investigated the issue of competition between small businesses, while issues on competition between small and large businesses have been somewhat explored. Another phenomenon in small business that has not received much attention is the competition between generalist and specialist firms. This phenomenon of specialist versus generalist competition is in fact frequently observed in many industries. Therefore, we study competition between small businesses, focusing on the competition between generalist and specialist small businesses. We examine how competitive intensity, as well as market environmental factors, affect the performance of small businesses. Specifically, we decompose the competitive intensity into two types, one between generalists and the other between specialists, in order to identify the differential effects of competition between generalist and specialist, and examine their impacts on the generalist and specialist performance. Given the research questions above, we develop the following hypotheses based on the past research in marketing. First, we expect competition has a positive effect on generalist performance, while we expect the opposite effect on specialist performance. We also expect that the effect of competition becomes weaker, as the competition becomes more intense. That is, the positive (negative) impact of competition on generalist (specialist) performance becomes less significant as there are more competitors in the market. We further expect that competition between the same type of businesses (e.g. between generalists) has a positive effect on their performance, while competition between the difference types (e.g. between generalist and specialist) has a negative effect on their performance. Moreover, we expect that market environmental factors have differential effects on the performance of generalist and specialist. To test the aforementioned hypotheses on the small business competition between generalist and specialist, we collected data from the health care industry on private physician practices (offices) in Korea. Out data contain, for each practice, monthly sales, number of doctors, number of nurses, type of practice, number of beds and zip code it is located in. We also have data on average consumer spending, average medical spending, percentage of patients over sixty years old for each zip code. Moreover, we have data on competition between the same type of offices (e.g. between generalists and between specialists) and competition between different types (e.g. between generalist and specialist). Note that our data collected from the Korean health care industry fit our research questions well. First, the majority of medical service providers in Korea are small private practices with an average number of two doctors, and the share of generalist and specialist practices are about half-and-half. Second, unlike the U.S. health care industry, generalist physicians in Korea usually practice a number of different fields, while specialist physicians focus on their own specialties. Third, patients in Korea do not usually distinguish between generalist and specialist offices, and they do not usually have a primary care physician. As a result, patients can easily switch between physicians, and in fact the switching is highly likely, as all medical information is centralized by government. Our main findings are as follows. First, we find that competition has a positive effect on generalist performance, while it has a negative effect on specialist performance. Specifically, we find that generalist benefits from competition with both generalist and specialist, while specialist suffers from the competition with both specialist and generalist. As competition becomes intense, meaning the number of physician offices increases, it would attract more patients to visit the area where physician offices are clustered (clustering effect), while it becomes easier for patients to switch from one to the other nearby offices. In particular, as generalist usually treats multiple fields (specialties), generalist tends to benefit from the patients who switch from specialist. In other words, generalists benefit from competition, as they free ride on clustering of physicians including specialists, while specialists would suffer from competition. Second, our findings show that as the competition becomes more intense, its effect on business performance becomes weaker. That is, a high level of competition weakens the benefits and damages imposed on the performance of generalist and specialist, respectively. When there are more physician offices to switch, the effect of free riding becomes weaker, as patients have more options to choose from. Thus, the benefit of generalist from free riding becomes weaker, as well as the negative effect on specialist performance. Moreover, our findings suggest that market environmental factors do influence the business performance. Specifically, the performance of both generalist and specialist improves as the number of doctors increases. However, an increase in the number of nurses has a different effect on generalist and specialist. Employing a larger group of nurses has a negative effect on generalist because it might cause the operation of the office to be less efficient. However, since specialist’s practice usually involves a more technical and sophisticated processes, a larger group of nurses could make the office more efficient having a positive impact on the sales performance. Similarly, we find the effects of other environmental factors have differential impacts on the performance of specialist versus generalist.

Individual safety is a fundamental concern. People generally try to avoid danger or mishaps in the workplace, and to consider safety as a primary condition for satisfactory employment and agreeable shopping experiences. Organizations can assure that workers, clients, the public, and the environment perceive that they are in safe environments by providing highly secure services. Secure working environments and safety-focused human resource environments are essential antecedents to safe performance and outcomes. Dangerous workplace environments cause employees to feel stress and anxiety. Thus their performance decreases and accidents and injuries increase. Workplace safety is the most important factor influencing service and performance, especially for allowing frontline salespersons to focus on providing customer satisfaction. In this study of workplace safety, we apply the service quality dimension to examine its relationship with employee perceptions of job satisfaction and their related job performance. We discuss theoretical and practical implications based on the results.

In the context of the consumption of luxury goods, WOM generation seems to be an important way for individuals to express their identity. It has long been implied that luxury goods should be “conspicuous” because, generally, individuals are motivated to consume particular goods to communicate their social identity (cf. Belk, 1988; Berger & Health 2007). However, once individuals send positive messages about a luxury good, that item may be adopted by others whom they dislike. Thus, individuals may use moderation in generating positive WOM and prevent use of their favorite luxury brands from trickling down (Berger & Ward, 2010). In this regard, recent research has examined the effects of need-for-uniqueness (NFU) on consumers’ intention to generate word-of-mouth (WOM) and suggested that high-NFU consumers are unwilling to generate (positive) WOM because WOM results in the adoption of the product and would harm the consumers’ unique image (Cheema & Kaikati, 2010). However, they have focused on only one (avoidance-of-similarity) of the three types of NFU: avoidance of similarity (AS), unpopular choice counter-conformity (UCC), and creative choice counter-conformity (CCC) (Tian, Bearden, & Hunter, 2001). The purpose of this study is to examine how different types of NFU affect consumers’ willingness to generate WOM, considering the moderating role of product domain in the relationship between NFU and WOM. We examined the effects of types of NFU and product domain on positive WOM generation using a 3 (WOM sender type: high-AS/high-UCC/high-CCC consumers) × 2 (product domain: more identity-relevant, luxury vs. less identity-relevant, ordinary goods) between-subjects experimental design. The participants were 80 university students. We selected a high-quality coat as a luxury item and a high-end flash drive as an ordinary product. The former was represented as more identity-related than the latter. The results of ANOVA showed that three types of NFU have different effects on consumer’ willingness to generate positive WOM. High-AS consumers, as well as high-UCC consumers, are more unwilling to generate positive WOM, whereas high-CCC consumers are more willing to generate WOM; moreover, these effects are more pronounced when the consumers were referencing a more identity-relevant, luxury good. The implications of this study may help firms understand the factors that elicit or prevent WOM generation.

Given the recent modest growth of the personal luxury good market and the urge to face difficulties through innovative brands’ marketing communication strategies, this paper examines the potentialities of tactical associations between luxury fashion brands and furniture design. Results indicate that there can be positive repercussions deriving from luxury fashion brands and furniture design interconnections. In particular, associations with collectable furniture design may help to define and enhance brands’ luxury values whilst providing consumers with innovative and creative luxury brand experiences. Future expectations in this market show a compound annual rate (CAGR) of 3% to 4% through 2020, to just about €280 billion. This is dramatically slower than the past fast growth experienced from the mid-1990s to the late 2000s. In this scenario, luxury fashion managers and marketers must envision new strategies to succeed and surpass competition. In order to be competitive and successful, luxury brand managers must take into account current market dynamics and find pertinent and substantial solutions. This paper shifts its attention to the identification of how in such a difficult scenario different cultural industries can meet in order to mutually enhance their circuits of value. Some studies have demonstrated that in order to meet such new global challenges, luxury fashion firms may discover strategic opportunities in art (Codignola, 2016). Given their symbolic connotation and aesthetic value, high-end furniture design items are more and more perceived as art works exchanged in art auctions or fairs, collected and purchased by collectors, exhibited in galleries or museums. At the same time, furniture design goods show some divergences from conventional art works (i.e. functionality, reproducibility, etc.) and some correspondences with fashion goods. By observing the luxury fashion sector, one may then find--for different sets of reasons--more than one interesting intersection with the furniture design sector. By taking into account the furniture design sector within its specific market features and goods, this paper argues that through furniture design LFBs can develop engaging creative and innovative brands’ marketing communication strategies. Compared to art, such strategies would be able to add value and strengthen LFBs’ luxury features even in a more effective way.

This research was conducted in order to examine whether the type of credit card (premier vs. standard card) influences consumer purchase decisions regarding luxury consumption. The present research reports three experiments with online panels of non-student adults, which find that (1) the use of a premier card (vs. a standard card) leads to a more goal-congruent choices, (2) the effect is mediated by a temporary increase in the perception of pride, and (3) the effect is pronounced for people with a low level of chronic pride. The effect of payment methods on consumer spending has been a concern of theory and research in consumer behavior (Bernthal, Crockett, & Rose, 2005; Feinberg, 1986; Prelec & Lowenstein, 1998; Soman, 2001). This research stream has shown that consumers tend to spend more when they use a credit card than when they pay cash and has proposed various theoretical mechanisms to account for the phenomenon (Chatterjee & Rose, 2012; Prelec & Simester, 2001; Soman, 2001; Thomas, et al., 2011). However, researchers have paid little attention to the effect of different types of credit cards (i.e., premier vs. standard card) on consumer decisions. We contend that the use of a premier card (vs. a standard card) can increase the feeling of pride momentarily and in turn increase consumers’ motivation to pursue a long-term goal that they value. As a result, they prefer a choice alternative that is more congruent with the goal. To be specific, the use of a premier card would increase the choice of luxury alternative, and that this effect would be pronounced for those who value material possessions (i.e., high materialism). This expectation was confirmed in the studies that we have performed. In three experiments, participants were shown a credit card(either premier or standard) and were asked to assume that they were going to use it for their purchase. Then, they were asked to make choices in shopping contexts. Participants with premier credit card, compared to those with standard card, showed more goal-consistent choices. They were more likely to choose luxury alternatives, and this effect was apparent only for those who have a high materialistic value. When the choice set includes both a low-calorie food and a high-calorie food, the use of a premier card increased the choice of low-calorie food, and this effect was apparent only for those with diet goal. These effects were mediated by the feeling of pride. Three studies in combination provide insights into the effect of types of credit cards on consumer spending regarding luxury consumption and the processes underlying the effect, which have not been reported elsewhere. The use of a premier credit card (vs. a standard credit card) led to a greater choice of luxury alternatives over standard alternatives and a greater choice of low-calorie foods over high-calorie foods. However, these effects were apparent only when people highly valued the goal under consideration (i.e., high materialism or strong diet goal). Finally, these effects were attributable to a momentary increase in the perception of pride by virtue of the use of a premier card, and consequently, the effects were observable only for people who have a relatively low chronic pride. The effects we observed in this research generalized over different product categories and different long-term goals. Nevertheless, it is desirable to extend findings in more diverse consumption categories (e.g., services) as well as to identify additional variables that moderate the magnitude of the effect. In addition, it is worth considering alternative underlying mechanisms than the one we considered (i.e., the feeling of pride) in future research. For example, a premier card may increase individuals’ construal level, thereby affecting consumer purchase decisions.

Food has become a significant lifestyle and life quality generator, and consumers are increasingly developing food regimes with expectations of healthier, happier selves. The global food industry has turned to delivering towards these expectations, and functional foods form a significant multimillion dollar growth category. Fortified with added health-giving compounds, these foods are promoted as the modern, convenient way of obtaining health benefits from food intake itself, rather than from the use of vitamin supplements (Grunert, 2013). However, there are indications that their appeal and usage varies considerably across nations. Somewhat surprisingly, few studies have considered functional food consumption through a culturally mediated lens, as consumption entities used to convey and transfer meaning. This research explores personal meaning making for one such proposed functional food concept. Foods which are fortified to enable greater control over hunger control are currently under development as potentially assisting those seeking weight loss. The data consisted of 14 in-depth phenomenological interviews with New Zealand women who were attempting weight loss. Participants discussed their lived food and weight loss experiences and then freely responded to the weight loss foods concept. The findings reveal the omnipresent nature of weight loss practices in daily lives, with the perception of success, or failure, sometimes underpinning one’s sense of self. As found by Willis & Knobloch-Westerwick (2014), motivations for weight loss were dominated by appearance and body image concerns, driven by the continuation of persistent societal expectations privileging thinness. Extending this, the present research found a conflation of motivations where slimness was seen to equate to healthiness. A line of progression in the types of practices was revealed where many ‘fad diets’ were attempted with typically unsuccessful long term results. Although, healthism was internalised as an overriding way of thinking about food and weight loss practices, paradoxically, this often co-existed with the desire for foods of indulgence, especially for those identifying as emotional eaters. Vastly different dispositions were revealed towards the proposed innovation of the fortified weight loss foods. These were interpreted as being aligned with perceptions of identity (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). Whilst the overall fortification of foods was viewed negatively, risks and doubts were mitigated in some cases in the interest of trying the proposed foods. The research findings resonated with societal contradictions observed for food consumption (Warde 1997), and paradoxes specifically theorised for technology (Mick & Fournier, 1998). Although, technology has been theorised to be a positive enabler in consumers’ lives, offering feelings of freedom, competence, and control, it can also be regarded as an intrusion, leading to feelings of enslavement and incompetence (Mick & Fournier, 1998). Whilst there was the promise of enhanced health and wellness from a bio-technological innovation, this contradicted central beliefs about what it means to be healthy, where food for many consumers represents values of naturalness, purity, nostalgia, and simplicity (Barsky, 1988; Biltekoff, 2010). Implications of the research for functional foods marketers are outlined, advocating the need for continuing understanding of the paradoxical aspects of consumption in contemporary health contexts.

Starting from the analysis of possible antecedents, the study aims at investigating the luxury fashion vintage purchasing drivers. Luxury fashion vintage market is a specific sub-segment of the vintage sector which is currently the protagonist of an overwhelming trend which is still unexplored and neglected by recent academic research.

Study on Hallyu contents consumption habits according to religion was not covered as a research topic in a variety of Hallyu studies, but the acceptance of Hallyu content, of course, is a very important variable affecting the overall distribution and consumption. Therefore this study focused on literature and expert FGI in relation with the three major religions Buddhism, Islam, Catholicism and an survey research was held with Buddhism, Islam, Catholic countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, Costa Rica, Peru, Chile. Based on this analysis, the results are discussed. As a result of analyzing the answers of the experts participated in the FGI, 3 emerging issues and 18 sub-issues were identified. 3 main issues are the diffusion state of Hayllu content, the problems in the diffusion process of Hallyu content, and the diffusion method of Hallyu content. Expert reported Buddhist countries in and around Southeast Asia is on a maturity phase and Muslim regions focused on Turkey and the Middle East is on a growth phase. In addition, Catholic region with a focus on Latin America had been understood that the introductory period has passed but somehow entered the lower level of growth than the Islamic sphere. Specially, it was confirmed by the expert interviews that our Hallyu content was mainly spread in the Buddhist countries in and around Southeast Asian region. The summary of the main results of the survey in Buddhist and Islamic countries people who experienced Hallyu content, ‘drama’ had the highest response and in Catholic countries, ‘K-Pop’ had the highest response. Secondly, the experience regarding Korean culture has shown to be ‘Korea food’ regardless of the religious sphere. The contacting channels of Hallyu content were through the free internet services such as youtube, P2P and etc. regardless of the religious sphere. Genre preference in Buddhist countries chose ‘Entertainment’, Islamic countries ‘drama’, Catholic countries ‘K-Pop’ as their favorites. The most preferred Korean drama genre showed to be ‘melodrama’ regardless of the religious sphere and ‘limited amount of contents’, ‘inconvenient content transfer process’ showed to be the highest response to the inconvenience using the contents. Results of examining the impact of the contents on religious image of Korea, it is recognized as a positive impact regardless of the religious sphere. Results of examining the impact of Hallyu content on religious life, neutral response such as "it has nothing to do with religion" was the highest. This shows the Korean Culture & Content does not help, nor disturb the religious life. Interest in the Korea Culture and the craze in the popular culture throughout China, Japan, South East Asia, and the spread of Korean drama, movies, and K-Pop through Europe and South America is cultural phenomenon that is increasing. Based on this, by covering areas such as fine arts, celebrity, tourism and etc. it is expanding gradually from culture Hallyu to economy Hallyu. However, focusing on the short term economic performance on the traditional Hallyu can’t avoid the criticism. It will be able to provide new country image and brand management focusing also on social, cultural and religious values besides the economic benefits. In particular, by analyzing the consumption based on the religion it is possible to derive sustainable growth and development of Hallyu as a cultural content, and in terms of culture communication Hallyu consumer analysis and response as strategic, politic planning. Through this study, if an in-depth study of strategic subject and action plans research is followed, policy utilization value can be even greater.

The purpose of this study is to find out how effective native content can be and how much 1) the web site type (news vs. entertainment vs. social networking site) and 2) the native content appeal (emotional vs. informational) will influence reader’s evaluations about a) the ad/website where the ad is placed and b) reader’s persuasion knowledge. The study also included an individual’s ad skepticism as one of the independent variables, arguing that the level of ad skepticism will influence the evaluations about the ad/website and individual’s persuasion knowledge. The result of the study can be helpful for advertisers to decide where and how to present native content. An online experiment, 3 (website type: news site/entertainment site/Facebook) X 2 (native content appeal: emotional/informational) X 2 (individual’s ad skepticism: high/low) was conducted to estimate the effects of independent variables on dependent variables, such as attitude towards the ad, website’s evaluation and individual’s persuasion knowledge. Introduction One of the newest ways of online advertising is ‘native ad’ or ‘native content.’ This new form of advertising provides companies the opportunity to introduce their products or services in a more natural way via online. Native ads normally match the design of other contents presented in the website and it should be perceived naturally as the rest of the content there (for example, in an online news site, the ad should be presented as news). Since native ads fit into the design of the site and people are there looking for stories to read, they provide higher rates of engagement as well as brand perception. However, there is a possibility of people feeling ‘deceived’ after realizing the story they click to read is no other but advertising. Furthermore, in the case of news websites, there have been instances of disapproval regarding native content. One of the arguments against native content presented in news sites points out that it is not ethical to present ads in the format of news. On the other hand, paid content can be seen as a useful alternative for non-intrusive online advertising which can generate more views among the users. Despite the increase of native content as a new form of advertising, academic study about native content (ads) is still difficult to find. The purpose of this study is to find out how effective native content can be and how much 1) the web site type (news vs. entertainment vs. social networking site) and 2) the native content appeal (emotional vs. informational) will influence reader’s evaluations about a) the ad/website where the ad is placed and b) reader’s persuasion knowledge. The study also included an individual’s ad skepticism as one of the independent variables, arguing that the level of ad skepticism will influence the evaluations about the ad/website and individual’s persuasion knowledge. Native content appears naturally, functioning like the rest of the content in the website. This characteristic makes it difficult for some people to tell the difference between the editorial content and paid content. By including ad skepticism as an independent variable, this study will show how people with high/low levels of ad skepticism will deal with this type of advertising. The result of the study can be helpful for advertisers to decide where and how to present native content. An online experiment, 3 (website type: news site/entertainment site/Facebook) X 2 (native content appeal: emotional/informational) X 2 (individual’s ad skepticism: high/low), was conducted to estimate the effects of independent variables on dependent variables, such as attitude towards the ad, website’s evaluation and individual’s persuasion knowledge. Literature Review Native Advertising and Evolution of Advertorials Native advertising is a method marketers use to present content in an interesting and subtle way on different websites or social media in a way that is almost camouflaging with the other content presented there. According to a IPG Media Lab survey, native advertising presented 53% more exposure than banners and it showed better performance regarding purchase intention, brand closeness and share intention. Native advertising’s origins can be found in what is defined as ‘advertorial’ (a combination of the words advertising and editorial). As we can find different arguments in native ads, we may also find discussions regarding similar topics related to advertorials. Cameron and Ju-Pak (2000)’s research supported that when stories are presented as editorial copy, they showed better credibility than those with a label of advertising. The ideas and main characteristics of advertorials appear today in native advertisements, bringing the advantages of advertorials to native ads. Marketers keep trying to make online advertising reliable and create effective sponsored content. However, as it was discussed with advertorials, when it appears difficult to tell the difference between news content and sponsored content, there is a possibility that the advertising is seen as deceptive (Pike, 2014). Since native content has become a popular online advertising format in reality, it is necessary to study it and the responses generated among the audience members of online news and different websites. Persuasion Knowledge Model & Ad Skepticism An individual’s ability to recognize and evaluate marketers’ persuasion goals and tactics is known as persuasion knowledge. Ad skepticism refers to a critical approach for consumers to evaluate and cope with advertising. Relating to the persuasion knowledge model and native content, one of the most important aspects for marketers is to determine the degree of persuasion knowledge that the target has in the different types of native content or the different website types where it is presented. This study will evaluate how an individual’s persuasion knowledge is affected after being exposed to native content. According to the persuasion knowledge model, we can assume that the more consumers know about the persuasion attempt of an agent, the lesser they are being persuaded. This study examined how the exposure to a new way of online advertising (native content) affects users’ persuasion knowledge. In the meantime, consumers with a higher level of skepticism make it harder for advertisers to find the effective format of online advertising. Consumers with a high level of skepticism may also be more aware of advertising strategies which leads to less positive responses to ads that use subtle persuasive techniques (Obermiller & Spangenberg, 1998, 2000). Previous research has shown that ad skepticism varies depending on advertising formats: banner advertisements present higher levels of skepticism than sponsored content. The present study differentiated persuasion knowledge from ad skepticism. Ad skepticism is regarded as a personal attribute. It is measured in order to find out how participants' level of ad skepticism (high/low) will influence the effects of native content. On the other hand, persuasion knowledge is seen as a way users will cope with advertising strategies. This research examined the effects different native advertising have on a reader’s persuasion knowledge. Research Questions & Hypotheses [RQ1]: Will the effect of native content on site evaluation be different depending on the website type, native content appeal and individual’s ad skepticism? [RQ2]: Will content appeal and website type influence the effects of native content on site evaluation (before/after)? [RQ3]: Will the effect of native content on persuasion knowledge be different depending on the website type, native content appeal and individual’s ad skepticism? [RQ4]: Will the effect of native content on attitude towards the ad (affective/cognitive/behavioral attitude and advertising credibility) differ depending on website type, native content appeal and individual’s ad skepticism? [H1]: Informational native content will show more positive cognitive attitude towards the ad than emotional content. [H2]: Emotional native content will show more positive affective attitude towards the ad than informational content. Research Method An online experiment was conducted in May 2016 in Seoul, Korea. Using a convenient and snowball sample, a total of 359 adult participants aged 18 or older took part in the online experiment. Experiment stimuli were created based on existing brands with high-involvement products (LG G5 mobile phone and CITI credit card). Experimental stimuli were created by the researchers to resemble native content and native ads in news sites, entertainment sites, and Facebook. The format of the contents was adapted from native content published in different sites (news site: /entertainment site: Huffington Post Korea, ). Participants were randomly assigned to one of the 6 cells (3 website types X 2 appeals). First, ad skepticism was measured followed by website evaluation. After each stimulus was shown, attitude towards the native ad, site evaluation and persuasion knowledge were measured. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Despite the growing popularity of native advertising in various online sites, little research has been performed regarding its effects and possible variables influencing the effects of native advertising. This study intended to contribute to find an effective way to create native content and a suitable place to place the native content. The study found significant interaction effects between content appeal and site evaluation (before/after). Also, significant interaction effects on persuasion knowledge were found between website type and content appeal. On the other hand, main effects of independent variables (native content appeal and ad skepticism) showed interesting results. Results of RQ1 showed that a lower ad skepticism and informational content appeal presented more significant effects on site evaluation. In other words, participants with lower levels of ad skepticism were more likely to positively evaluate the site. Also, when comparing the types of appeal, informational native content turned out to be more effective on site evaluation than emotional appeal. However, the online experiment failed to detect a meaningful connection between website type and site evaluation. Significant differences were found in terms of participants’ website evaluation before and after presenting experimental stimuli, native content (RQ2). Contrary to what was expected, emotional appeal presented a bigger mean difference between site evaluation before and site evaluation after. This may be due to participants’ feeling of deception from native content with emotional appeal that leads a lower website evaluation among research participants (Howe & Teufel, 2014). According to Moore and Rodgers (2005), due to high levels of skepticism, online ads are perceived as the least reliable source of credibility. This can explain why content with informational appeal showed more favorable website evaluation over content with emotional appeal. The interaction effect between content appeal and website type on persuasion knowledge was significant. That is, informational appeal showed higher persuasion knowledge for both Facebook and news sites, whereas emotional appeal showed higher persuasion knowledge for entertainment sites. This result is consistent with the literature review presented above regarding website context and online advertising. Meanwhile, the fact that informational appeal increases persuasion knowledge on Facebook can be a subject for further research. Main effects of content appeal and ad skepticism were also found in increasing persuasion knowledge (RQ3). Ad skepticism showed significant main effects on attitude towards the ad over all four categories (affective, cognitive, behavioral attitudes and ad credibility). In other words, participants with lower ad skepticism showed more positive affective/cognitive/behavioral attitudes towards the native content and believed the ad was better. This finding supported previous research on ad skepticism where consumers with low levels of skepticism had more positive responses to advertising (Obermiller & Spangenberg; 1998, 2000). In conclusion, this study showed that participants with a lower level of ad skepticism show more positive reactions to native content than those who tend to be more skeptical about advertising in general. Also, informational appeal appeared to be more effective when compared to emotional content: informational appeal native ads resulted in more positive cognitive/behavioral attitudes towards the native ad and more ad credibility (RQ4).

Introduction Literally explosive is the growth of social media. The estimated number of monthly active Facebook users by the fourth quarter of 2016 is around 1.86 billion, almost a quarter of the world population, meaning that one in four people on the globe uses Facebook to read news, share gossips, communicate ideas, and build relationships with others. In the United States alone, 72% of all Internet users are reported to use Facebook (Pew Research, 2015), and to many, Facebook is no longer a small part of the Internet, but rapidly becoming the Internet itself. As peer-to-peer information sharing becomes a global mainstream, concerns about the credibility of information shared online is growing fast as well. With no gatekeeper in a traditional sense, rumors and fabricated information lacking reliable evidences (e.g., fake news) may spread wide and fast, and individuals are left alone to assess and judge which among them is likely to be true (Metzger, Flanagin, & Medders, 2010). Unfortunately, we know very little about how individuals assess information fed through online social networks, and how such processing of information in the social media environment differs from those in traditional media environment. In social media like Facebook where individuals and organizations interact through direct or indirect social relationships, what people can give and take is partly determined by with whom they have relationships and their locations in the entire network (Brands, 2014). For example, if one’s network consists mostly of college students, the network may be flooded with gossips, news, and information particularly appealing to them (e.g., how to pull an A from the hideous professor). If the network is made up of people from diverse backgrounds, meanwhile, the information shared therein will be as diverse as heterogeneous are the members’ characteristics and preferences. Network topology may, therefore, be a crucial factor that shapes not only what you encounter in your own network, but also the way you assess the information found therein (Sohn, 2014). An identical message may be construed differently depending on how it has been encountered (e.g., who liked/shared in Facebook) as well as where it originates (e.g., who are the original source of the message). For instance, the news regarding the effectiveness of alternative medicine on curing cancer may be assessed differently depending on whether it is shared by lay people with similar interest or medical experts, which subsequently affects one’s decision to share it. Whereas it is already well-founded that the original source quality plays an important role in communication (Visser & Cooper, 2007), relatively little attention has been devoted to unveiling the role of intermediate social environment lying between the original source and the final recipients. This study is aimed at examining systematically the role of social relations in individuals’ assessment of and decision to share information encountered in social media. More specifically, the focus will be on testing in an experimental setting how social relationship properties, reflecting psychological distance, shape individuals’ assessment of risk/benefit associated with the information received. Psychological Distance and Decision under Risk We are routinely exposed to a myriad of information from our immediate social circles including close friends and acquaintances as well as mass media. Some of them could be about the opportunities for earning extra profits (e.g., stock or real estate investment opportunities), while others about how to maintain better health (e.g., avoiding harmful chemical-intake). Whether it is about money, health or others, the decision to take an action on the information is a function of how to assess the risks involved. According to the prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979), people have an inherent tendency of being more sensitive to the loss than benefit of anything, making them prefer avoiding loss to having an equivalent amount of gain. This loss-aversive tendency also implies that people prefer the possible to sure loss, even if the former is greater than the latter. In other words, people become risk-seeking to avoid any loss with certainty. Suppose, for example, you are given a choice between losing $750 for sure and doing a gamble such that you lose $1000 with 75% chance or lose nothing with 25% chance. Despite the identical expected value ($1000 x .75 + $1000 x 0 = $750), people tend to lean over to the gamble rather than the sure loss. This may work in the opposite way for benefit – you may prefer the sure to possible gain, meaning that you become risk-aversive when benefit is at stake. An interesting question is whether such a risk-seeking or aversion tendency is malleable (Tversky & Simonson, 1993). It is widely known that a message with identical contents can be construed differently depending on whether it is stated or framed in terms of benefit or loss (Slovic, 1995). Then, we might ask whether people construe messages differently depending on where they are from – whether they are from close-knit groups, distant acquaintances or some anonymous others. Prior studies have seldom considered such social contextual influence, which is essential to understanding communication in social media (Sohn, 2014). Suppose you are considering taking an alternative medicine for treating a chronic illness of yours, which will surely get worse with no treatment (i.e., loss with certainty). The alternative medicine’s effectiveness is largely unknown and has never been under rigorous scientific tests. You post your thought about adopting it and have just got replies from two different sources in your Facebook network – a close friend and a mere acquaintance. Your friend says that using the alternative approach can be detrimental to your health (i.e., loss frame), while the acquaintance mentions that s/he trusts the medicine’s benefits (i.e., benefit frame). What would be your choice given the comments? Would your choice be reversed if your friend says its benefit, while the acquaintance warns its side effects? It is posited in construal-level theory that “people use increasingly higher levels of construal to represent an object as the psychological distance from the object increases” (Trope & Liberman, 2010, p. 441). When there are pros and cons with respect to a course of action, people perceive cons (i.e., losses) psychologically closer than pros (i.e., benefits), which provides an explanation of why loss aversion occurs. In addition, it has been found that pros become more salient than cons as temporal distance to the action increases (e.g., buying a computer a year later; Eyal, Liberman, Trope, & Walther, 2004). Taken together, it may be inferred that the cons are salient when the action of interest is thought psychologically proximal, but the pros become more salient as it gets more psychologically distant. This inference can be applied to other distance dimensions including social distance as well. Combining benefit-loss frames and social distance perceptions, we can come up with the following four different conditions as summarized in Table 1. With all other things held equal, people tend to feel loss psychologically closer than benefit. However, the salience of either benefit or loss in a person’s mind may also depend on how the information is presented -- whether a message with the information comes from a proximal or distant source. For example, if a message with emphases on an alternative medicine’s benefit came from a proximal source (BP), further decrease in psychological distance might make salient its potential side effects, and thus lessen the benefit’s influence on decision. Similar inferences can be made to the case when a message with emphases on loss came from a distant source (LD). Due to the increase in psychological distance, it might become difficult to think of the negative aspects of the target (Herzog, Hansen & Wanke, 2007). If the message emphasizing either benefit or loss is aligned respectively with a distal (BD) or proximal source (LP), in contrast, they will become more salient in the person’s mind, which would exert a disproportionate influence on decision. Given the discussion, the following hypotheses can be proposed: H1a. People perceive the benefit more salient, and thus are more likely to make a risky choice when it is supported by socially distant others than when no information of the social distance to the source is given (i.e., control condition). H1b. People perceive the benefit less salient, and thus are less likely to make a risky choice when the benefit is supported by socially close others than when no information of the social distance to the source is given (i.e., control condition). H2a. People perceive the loss more salient, and thus make a risky choice less when the loss is warned by socially close others than when when no information of the social distance to the source is given. H2b. People perceive the loss less salient when the loss is warned by socially distant others than when no information of the social distance to the source is given. Experimental Design A 2 (message frames) x 3 (social distance) between-subjects online experiment will be conducted as follows. Subjects will be given multiple hypothetical risky choice situations with respect to such issues as making an investment, adopting a new medical treatment, purchasing a product. After being exposed to the choice scenarios, they will be asked a series of questions for measuring their issue-involvement levels, attitudes to the issue presented, thoughts related to benefits and losses, and final choices, along with relevant psychological and demographic characteristics. Implications No communication ever occurs in a social vacuum. Just as our everyday behaviors are shaped and often constrained by the physical places in which they are performed (e.g., rooms, streets, buildings), we communicate in a social setting consisting of direct and/or indirect relationships among people (Gifford, 2013). The knowledge of one’s social surroundings becomes more important in social media due to the manifest location dependency—meaning one’s position in a relationship network basically defines what can be seen and done. No matter whether information originally came from a newspaper, television program, or blog, the information is eventually transmitted via one of the network members, highlighting the importance of relationship patterns and qualities in communication processes. That is, in any socially-networked environment, people rely not only on inferences about the original source quality (e.g., authority, expertise), but also on the social contexts through which the information is received and shared. Most previous research has focused mainly on the former (i.e., source quality) while overlooking both the latter (i.e., social contexts) and any possible interactions between the two (Metzger, Flanagin, & Medders, 2010). The current study is believed to bridge the gap so that communication processes in the social media environment could be understood in a more systematic fashion.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the interrelationships among customer perceived value, customer satisfaction, and switching costs as antecedents of customer loyalty in business-to-business (B2B) contexts. Customer loyalty influences firms’ performance as a key source of competitive advantage. Customer loyalty is essential in B2B contexts, although many studies of customer loyalty have focused on the business-to-consumer (B2C) context. Recently, the use of robotics in the industrial marketing environment has become increasingly prevalent. Given the prevalence of robotics in B2B contexts and the importance of customer loyalty, this study investigates the impacts of robotics in industrial marketing relationships, customer perceived value, customer satisfaction, and switching costs on enhancing customer loyalty.

This study aims to investigate the role of luxury brand attachment on consumer brand relationship by examining the relationship with trust, commitment, satisfaction and loyalty. This also examines the interrelationships among trust, commitment, satisfaction and loyalty from luxury branding context which provides a good number of theoretical and practical implications. Introduction The global luxury market exceeded $1 trillion in the year 2015 with a 5% annual growth (Bain & Co., 2015). However, industry experts predict that the luxury industry will face challenges in upcoming year primarily due to the economic instability and turmoil in the global foreign exchange market (Robert, 2015). Therefore, the luxury brand executives should carefully target their future consumer segment to sustain the current growth (Luxury Society, 2015). Earlier studies demonstrate that consumers seek various types of emotional benefits from luxury brands such as status seeking (Nelissen & Meijers, 2011), hedonic pleasure (Tsai, 2005), feeling good (Aaker, 1999), pleasurable experience (Atwal & Williams, 2009), mental peace (Silverstein & Fiske, 2003), and impressing others (Wiedmann, Hennigs, & Siebels, 2009). Moreover, these emotional benefits create a comprehensive and memorable experience in terms of ownership and consumption of luxury brands (Choo et al., 2012). Therefore, luxury brand marketers should emphasize more on emotional attachment for building a long term and sustainable customer relationship (Orth et al., 2010). Research Gap Existing literature on consumer-brand relationship mostly considers cross-cultural issues (Chang & Chieng, 2006), reviving brand loyalty (Fournier, 1997), consumer attitude (Aggarwal, 2004), satisfaction (Sung & Choi, 2006), self-brand connection (Cheng et al., 2012), trust-based commitment (Hess & Story, 1995) and such other dimensions on brand evaluation (e.g. Swaminathan et al., 2007). Few studies have considered luxury products (Hodge et al., 2015) and the role of emotional aspects (Hwang & Kandampully, 2012) in the consumer-brand relationship. Still, there is a lack of empirical support for understanding the role of luxury brand attachment into the construct. This research will attempt to fulfil these research gaps. Conceptual Model and Hypotheses Psychological theories explain attachment as the tie between a person and an object or any other components (Bowlby, 1979; Hazan & Shaver, 1994). Brand attachment is defined as a long-term and commitment oriented tie between the consumer and the brand (Esch et al., 2006). The conceptualization of luxury brand demonstrates that the inherent traits of luxury brands are distinctiveness, high transaction value, superior quality, inimitability, and craftsmanship; and luxury brand consumption is mostly emotion laden (Nueno & Quelch, 1998). Based on the existing attachment concepts and theories, we define luxury brand attachment as the emotional bond that connects a consumer with a specific brand and develops deep feelings toward the brand. Several past studies have found that brand attachment reinforces brand trust and there is a positive relationship between brand attachment and trust (e.g. Belaid & Behi, 2011). In addition, Esch et al. (2006) argue that brand satisfaction and brand attachment are interrelated and satisfaction results long-term consumer-brand relationships (Gladstein, 1984). Moreover, strong commitment from the consumers has been identified as a critical factor of long lasting brand relationship (Li et al., 2014; Sung and Choi, 2010). Further, Thomson et al. (2005) find that brand attachment creates behavioural loyalty for which consumers are also willing to pay higher prices. Expecting similar relationship from luxury branding context, we propose that H1: The higher the luxury brand attachment, the greater the consumers trust in that brand. H2: The higher the luxury brand attachment, the greater the consumer satisfaction for that brand. H3: The higher the luxury brand attachment, the greater the consumer commitment to that brand. H4: Higher luxury brand attachment leads to higher behavioural loyalty to that brand. Scholars explain that satisfaction is an essential element of brand loyalty and both the constructs are positively related (e.g. Agustin and Singh, 2005). Past researches find that highly satisfied consumers demonstrate repeat purchases (e.g. Bennett et al, 2005). Past studies also show that trust toward the brand results brand loyalty and strengthen the relationship (Bansal et al., 2014; Belaid & Behi, 2011). Fournier (1997) identify brand trust as the key determinant of brand loyalty. Thus, we propose that H5: Higher satisfaction to the luxury brand leads to higher behavioural loyalty to that brand. H6: Higher trust to the luxury brand leads to higher behavioural loyalty to that brand. Ganesan (1994) argue that a satisfied customer develop trust toward a specific brand. In support of this, Belaid & Behi (2011) state that if a brand becomes successful in fulfilling the promise with consistence performance, the consumer will have satisfaction and positive feeling about the brand. In addition, the authors find a positive relationship between brand commitment and behavioural loyalty. Expecting similar relationship from luxury branding context, we propose that H7: The higher the trust in luxury brand, the more customer satisfaction in that brand. H8: Higher commitment to the luxury brand leads to higher behavioural loyalty to that brand. Summary of the hypothesised relationships are illustrated in Figure 1. Methodology The simple random sampling will ensure proper representation of the target population and eliminate the sampling bias (Cook & Campbell, 1979; Zikmund, 2002). The sample population will be 300 young Australian consumers aged between 20-30 years. Previous studies have found that there is a growth in luxury brand purchase by individuals in younger age groups e.g. 20 – 30 (Hung et al., 2011). Therefore, this is representative of the possible drift in the ages of consumers in the market for luxury brand purchase (Han et al., 2010). A consumer panel from Qualtrics database will be used and the sample frame consists of consumers who have higher brand likeability (Martin & Stewart, 2001). Established scales will be used to measure the constructs. All items will be measured on a seven-point Likert scale with 1 representing “strongly disagree” and 7 representing “strongly agree”. Research Significance This would be the very first study to investigate the role of luxury brand attachment in consumer brand relationship. This research will provide meaningful insights for the brand managers, brand strategists and advertising managers. This research will assist luxury brand managers in allocation of resources for the action plans that will ensure a stronger tie with the consumers in a cost efficient way. For brand managers luxury brand attachment may help them with segmentation process and well as providing direction on improving attachment to the consumers to influence trust, commitment, satisfaction, and loyalty.

Along with the growth of disposable income and the improvement of consumers’ living condition, consumers are no longer satisfied only with the fulfillment of functional needs of products. Instead, they seek to meet higher level of demand such as emotional and symbolic needs when consuming products. One reflection of this kind of pursuit in consumer behavior is “conspicuous consumption”, which is the tendency for individuals to enhance their image and communicate status to others through overt consumption of possessions (O’Cass & McEwen, 2004). Moreover, the emergence of social networking service (SNS) has boosted the phenomenon of such overt consumption. For example, a consumer who bought a new luxury sports car uploads a photo of his/her car on Facebook to show off his/her wealth, status, uniqueness, taste, etc. In this context, if a product is scarce due to a limited supply, then consumers might use the product for conspicuous consumption (Gierl & Huettl, 2010). Thus, it can be inferred that consumers who have conspicuous consumption tendency will be attracted by new product which is scarce in its early diffusion process. Moreover, the literature has added new content to conspicuous consumption with the development of social economy and value. Consumption value goes far beyond satisfying functional needs, and consumption and possessions are regarded as the extension of the self (Belk, 1988). Hence, consumers would be eager to present and show off their “extended self” on SNS using new products. As a consequence, this research aims at exploring the relationship and internal mechanism between the new paradigm of conspicuous consumption and consumers’ new product adoption intention, mediated through perceived consumption value. Different traits of consumers and resulting value perceptions are influential on consumer adoption behavioral intention and outcomes (e.g., Kastanakis & Balabanis, 2014). Despite the fact that identifying and adequately meet the needs of target consumers is essential in new product success, current literature still lacks understanding on how consumers perceive value of new products based on their needs for conspicuous consumption in adopting new products. Moreover, even though there are some evidence in the literature showing that consumers with high needs for conspicuous consumption accept new products more quickly, there is limited guideline for managers for how and why different perspectives of conspicuous consumption tendency affect new product adoption intention through perceived value of the product. In addition, consumer behavior literature of conspicuous consumption has overemphasized the role of status seeking without fully understanding other motives and needs for it. Accordingly, we will start by examining different types of conspicuous consumption tendencies and studying how they affect different value perceptions, which lead to new product adoption intention. A large number of studies from various disciplines have defined “conspicuous consumption” differently. Earlier, Veblen (1899) proposed the term “conspicuous consumption” to describe the behavior of rich American people who spent a significant portion of their time and money on unnecessary and unproductive leisure expenditures. As indicated, in early days, “conspicuous consumption” was thought to be only occurred to the upper class of the society that wishes to display wealth or status through luxury consumption. However, Mason (1988) pointed out that conspicuous consumption is not only associated with the rich and privileged, but is a worldwide phenomenon that is easily observed at all social and economic levels. Moreover, recent research advocates that conspicuous consumption is not only about displaying wealth, but also about delivering self-images and enhancing social standing through consumption. The symbolic meaning of products is commonly used as an outward expression of consumer self-concept and connection to the society (Chaudhuri & Majumdar, 2006). The motives to show their social status, unique taste or conformity trigger overt consumption of different kinds of goods to satisfy the need of belonging, increase their popularity, as well as be highly respected, admired, or envied (Gierl & Huettle, 2010). Drawing from current literature (e.g., Chaudhuri & Majumdar, 2006; Chen, Yeh, & Wang, 2008; Gierl & Huettl, 2010; O’Cass & McEwen, 2004; Shukla, 2008), this research defines conspicuous consumption as the tendency for individuals to enhance their image and communicate status to others through overt consumption, and proposes it to be a multidimensional concept consists of three dimensions namely ostentation of a high social status (a superior position within a social hierarchy), demonstration of uniqueness (differences from people belonging to the same social group), and demonstration of conformity (similarity to people belonging to a certain social group). We aim at examining the individual differences in three different conspicuous consumption tendencies and how they are related to new product adoption intention. It is important to study new product success from the consumer’s perspective because the success of new product eventually depends on the decisions of consumers to adopt or reject the new product (Im, Bhat, & Lee, 2015). According to Hirschman (1980), innate personality of the consumer has an important influence on whether to adopt new product or not. Moreover, Venkatesh and Brown (2001) found that relevant others such as friends, family, and other important connections can influence the adoption decision. As such, those who are influenced by the people around them will choose products that can convey an image congruent with the social image they wish to project. (Sheth, Newman, & Gross, 1991). New products, depending on their characteristics and types, can be used to show social status, uniqueness, or conformity. When the new product is first launched in the market, it is often released at a high price, though it is not a necessity to most consumers. Thus, adopting the high priced but unnecessary new products or frequently upgraded products in a certain category can signal economically rich status. In addition, consumers adopt new products to demonstrate their needs for uniqueness due to the scarcity in early diffusion process. Finally, new product can also help consumers conform to a certain group they wish to belong. For example, when most of a consumer’s friends or colleagues have adopted iPhone, he/she also is willing to adopt iPhone in order to assimilate with the group member and achieve a sense of belonging. In conclusion, there might be positive relationships between consumers’ tendency to demonstrate high social status, uniqueness and conformity and new product adoption. Im et al. (2015) argued that consumers’ evaluation of or attitude toward a product and ultimate decision to adopt depends on their perceptions of the product’s value. Thus, perceived value may act as an important determinant in new product adoption. Besides, now that perceived value is derived from subjective evaluation and judgement of consumers, different consumers involved in the purchasing process can vary on the perceptions of new products (Perkins, 1993). Moreover, individuals tend to perceive what they need and want while ignoring other irrelevant stimuli around (Schiffman & Wisenblit, 2016). Since consumers with three different types of conspicuous consumption tendency have different needs and wants, they will respond differently to the value offered by products. Thus, we propose the mediating role of perceived value between conspicuous consumption and consumers’ intention of new product adoption. Another important individual level variable that impacts perception of new product is creativity-seeking personality, which refers to the tendency to seek information that is novel and meaningful (Im et al., 2015). Since novelty and meaningfulness are important features of innovation that are embedded in new products, consumers who seek for them are more likely to appreciate the new products more. Thus, we assert that creativity-seeking personality is also important in forming new product adoption behavior. Moreover, according to Im et al. (2015), novelty affects perceived hedonic value while meaningfulness influences perceived utilitarian value. This research attempts to explore the moderating role of creativity-seeking personality on the relationship between conspicuous consumption and perceived value to reveal the synergy effect of conspicuous consumption and creativity-seeking personality. Creativity-seeking personality consists of a novelty-seeking personality (a personal tendency related to the willingness to seek information that is new and different), and a meaningfulness-seeking personality (a personal tendency related to the willingness to seek information that is useful and relevant) (Hirshman, 1980; Im et al., 2015). Specifically, we propose that demonstration of uniqueness has a stronger impact on hedonic value among consumers with high level of novelty-seeking personality and demonstration of conformity has a stronger impact on utilitarian value among consumers with high level of meaningfulness-seeking personality. As such, drawing on the existing literature about conspicuous consumption, creativity-seeking personality, perceived value and purchase intention, this research proposes the mediating role of perceived value through which conspicuous consumption impact consumers’ new product adoption intention. In the meantime, this research explores the moderating role of creativity-seeking personality on the effect of conspicuous consumption on perceived value of new products. Accordingly, our research model is given as demonstrated in Figure 1. We expect the positive relationship between conspicuous consumption and new product adoption intention. Moreover, we predict perceived value mediates the impact of conspicuous consumption on new product adoption intention whereas creativity-seeking personality plays a moderating role. This research has several academic contributions and managerial implications. First, this research distinguished three types of conspicuous consumption from modern perspective including ostentation of a high social status, demonstration of uniqueness, and demonstration of conformity. By testing the impact of three types of conspicuous consumption on new product adoption intention, this study extends existing literature by identifying drivers of new product adoption. Second, it shed light on a mediating mechanism of perceived value through which conspicuous consumption conveys its effect on new product adoption. Third, it identified the moderating role of novelty-seeking personality and meaningfulness-seeking personality on the effect of conspicuous consumption on perceived value. Though we are proposing the theoretical model in Figure 1 based on prior literature in this paper, we expect to empirically validate the relationships in the model by collecting data through multiple experiments using Mechanical Turk. Before the data collection, we will go through the IRB approval for the subject pool and research design. As for managers, they can flexibly apply the consumers’ tendency of conspicuous consumption and creativity-seeking personality as market segmentation tool and implement the appropriate marketing strategy to improve new product adoption behavior for better new product performance. First, managers should be aware that conspicuous consumers are not a homogeneous group. They need to understand the heterogeneous drivers of consumers’ motives regarding conspicuous consumption and formulate appropriate marketing strategy to segment them. Second, this research provides some guidelines in new product promotion. For example, advertisement of the new products can highlight the different kinds of value when targeting consumers with different types of conspicuous consumption tendency. Third, as for sales people, they can provide novel product information to consumers who have tendency to demonstrate uniqueness and provide meaningful product information to consumers who have tendency to demonstrate conformity to increase purchase intention of consumers.

Known originally for climbing gear and outdoor clothing, Patagonia is now a leader in the area of sustainability practices. In this qualitative study, we examined the content of Patagonia’s blog “Stories We Wear” (SWW) that features customers’ stories about Patagonia apparel items worn and repaired to extend the product lifecycle. Patagonia encourages its customers to take part in a dialog of anti-consumption via the blog in which readers and authors of the posts can both engage with the brand and create their own sustainable identity. The overarching research question for the study was to determine the major reoccurring themes of the SWW blog posts. Five key themes identified in the blog posts were: (1) the emotional attachment to the apparel item; (2) outdoor adventure travel connecting to escapism; (3) the imagined future of the item; (4) valuing the item as an investment or the mark of a turning point in one’s life and identity; and (5) the act of repairing the item. The reasons SWW writers keep their Patagonia apparel items include quality and comfort, as well as the emotional attachment to both the apparel item and the brand. Carroll and Ahuvia’s (2006) concept of brand love is embedded in SWW stories. The repairs promote sustainability, a brand, and societal value. Customers did not discontinue purchase of new items; instead, they viewed purchases of Patagonia apparel as an investment. Through SWW, Patagonia encourages emotional attachment to its brand and promotes sustainability, while offering customers an opportunity to embrace a shared identity with the brand. The findings demonstrate that the SWW blog is a positive marketing strategy (Gopaldas, 2015) that promotes company, customer, and societal values of sustainability. The themes found in Patagonia’s SWW concept can be utilized by other companies seeking to enhance their sustainability practices and customer engagement with their products.

With the increasing popularity of social media, opinion leaders who have lots of followers have recently created strong advertising effects and generated greater sales. The emergence of online stars, Wang Hong in China, comes at a time when self-media gains popularity and e-commerce requires innovative ways to endorse brands in fashion industry. This study examines how these influencers impact consumers’ attitude toward the products they use and recommend. Specifically, this study investigates whether and how source attributes, social media content characteristics and judgment of product fit affect attitude of Chinese fashion consumers. As the perceived fit between the endorser and the product positively affect source credibility (Kamins, 1990) as well as consumer attitude toward the advertised product (Till & Busler, 2000), the present study hypothesized that the fit between the online star and the product will increase the perceived endorser credibility and product attitude of consumers. The effect of the fit between the product and the self-media content on the attitude toward the content or the product was also examined. Implications for managing marketing strategies as well as future research directions are subsequently discussed.