This study aims at identifying a novel framework that further explains the relationship between brands and customers in the online context at different touchpoints (e.g. social media, website) of the customer journey. In pursuing this goal, authors expect online brand experience as the main trigger in determining specific customer brand engagement (CBE) behaviours.

Introduction Consumers can easily combine the online and physical channels in their shopping process. This new reality is changing the nature of the customer-firm interactions and is challenging retailers to effectively manage their customers. In this line, two antagonistic shopping patterns can be identified: showrooming (visiting physical retailers to check out products and then buy online) and webrooming (research products online before making the purchase offline). In this way, the fashion industry has been deeply affected by these cross-channel shopping behaviour (Lee and Kim, 2008; Cho and Workman, 2010). In this way, according to the Google Consumer Barometer 2015 (www.consumerbarometer.com), webrooming represents the dominant channel combination in fashion shopping around the globe. Cross-channel shopping patterns can threaten traditional retailers though, in the form of free-riding behaviors, such that consumers use one retailer’s channel to prepare, and then switch to another retailer’s channel to purchase (Chiou et al., 2012). Both showroomers and webroomers can free ride, yet the latter is less problematic, because online retailers’ costs are largely fixed (Van Baal and Dach 2005), and consumers often use multiple online sources to search for product information. In an omnichannel era, retailers must learn to integrate channels to offer seamless and unique experiences that retain consumers throughout their entire purchase experience (Verhoef et al, 2015). However, there is a lack of studies analysing the situational characteristics that lead consumers to adopt a specific combination of channels. Specialised literature has emphasised the role convenience (e.g. Verhoef et al., 2007), overlooking the impact of other relevant factors. This research examines the differences between webrooming and showrooming in terms of the degree of the consumer’s involvement with the purchase. Specifically, we examine the differences between webrooming and showrooming in terms of involvement, and how these differences translate into different preferences for the virtual and physical channels to search for information and carry out the purchase. Hypotheses Formulation The consumer’s cross-channel behavior is defined as the use of a combination of channels at different stages of the same shopping process (Dholakia et al., 2005). As previously stated, showrooming and webrooming are two antagonistic forms of cross-channel behavior. We propose that the degree of involvement will shape the consumer’s tendency to carry out one of the two cross-channel sequences. Involvement is defined as the individual’s degree of interest or relevance with a product or purchase situation (Zaichkowsky, 1985; Mittal, 1989). The fashion industry encompasses products whose characteristics prevent consumers from evaluating their quality without physical interaction (Weathers et al., 2007). Thus, they are sensitive to be acquired by means of a cross-channel process. However, when consumers are involved with the purchase of the product, their informational needs are increased (Brunelle, 2009), which lead them to carry out an exhaustive information search. Purchase involvement entails that the consumer is motivated to choose the best option. In this way, the Internet is widely acknowledged as the best channel to satisfy consumers’ need for an extensive information search (e.g. Ratchford et al. 2003), except for the physical inspection of the product (Citrin et al., 2003). This lack of complete knowledge leads them to carry out a webrooming purchase process. On the other hand, when consumers are not involved with the purchase of the product, they seek for convenience in their experiences and paying a low price (McGoldrick and Collins, 2007), which are the main defining factors of showrooming. Showroomers go the physical store to find the product they want to acquire and then take the advantage of the convenience and low prices of the Internet to buy the product. Therefore: H1: Purchase involvement is higher in webrooming than in showrooming. For showroomers, the use of the Internet is more limited to the search for lower prices and to carry out the purchase. In webrooming, consumers use the Internet to research about products and then go to the store with a higher knowledge of the product they want, to corroborate the information they have seen online, and to gain power in the interaction with the salesman (Orús, 2015). Webroomers value the information richness that the Internet offers. Therefore, the relevance of the Internet as channel to search for product information should be higher in webrooming experiences than in showrooming experiences H2: The preference for the Internet to search for information about the product is higher in Webrooming than in Showrooming. Finally, if involvement determines the differences between webrooming and showrooming, it should also explain the preferences for the purchase channel. Specifically, highly involved consumers will be more likely to use the physical store because they can have a physical interaction with the product and the sales personal, which helps them to take the shopping decision with a high degree of confidence (Flavián et al., 2016). Low involved consumers will purchase from the channel which allows them to pay a low price and to make the purchase in a convenient way (i.e. the Internet). Thus: H3: The degree of consumer’s involvement with the purchase mediates the effects of webrooming versus showrooming experiences on the preference for the purchase channel. Methodology Three studies were developed to test the hypotheses. The Study 1 consisted of an exploratory survey to identify and characterise different cross-channel shopping behaviours. In Study 2 we directly manipulate the degree of the participants’ involvement in order to examine their preference for the Internet as a channel for searching for information and their preference of the channel to carry out the purchase. Finally, Study 3 put participants into a webrooming or a showrooming shopping scenario and examines differences in the degree of involvement and purchase intentions. All the studies are carried out with samples of millennials or Generation Y (Parment, 2013) and focus on the purchase of clothing and accessories. Study 1 Participants were 192 millennials (60.9% female; between 18 and 35 years old). They were asked to think about a recent purchase experience of clothing or accessories in which they combined different channels during the purchase process. The participants reported the product purchased and the channels employed to search for information and buy the product. Finally, they indicated, on a 7-point scale (1 = not at all, 7 = extremely), to what extent the purchase of the product was (1) important, (2) interesting, (3) relevant, (4) meant a lot, (5) significant, to measure their degree of involvement (Zaichkowsky, 1985; Mittal, 1989; α = 0.89, 70.51% of variance explained). Due to space constraints, only a summary of results is presented. Out of the 192 participants, 109 (57%) reported a webrooming experience, whereas 28 (15%) recalled a showrooming experience. This result confirms that webrooming is a more extended behavior than showrooming. Moreover, purchase involvement for participants who recalled a webrooming experience (M = 5.56, SD = 0.86) was significantly higher than for those who recalled a showrooming experience (M = 4.33, SD = 1.46; U Mann-Whitney non-parametric test: p < 0.001). Evidence in favor of H1 was found. Study 2 This study consisted of an experimental design with one between-subjects factor with two levels. Specifically, participants (n = 68; 58% female; between 18 and 35 years old) were asked to think about the purchase of a clothing and fashion product with a cost of either €20 or less (low involvement condition) or €100 or more (high involvement condition). Among other measures, participants reported the probability of using the Internet to search for product information before purchase (from 1 = very unlikely, to 7 = very likely), and the preference for the channel to carry out the purchase (from 1 = definitely the Internet, to 7 = definitely the physical store). The participants also indicated their degree of involvement in the same way as in the previous study (α = 0.91, 75.41% of variance explained). In this way, the manipulation was successful since participants’ involvement with the purchase of the expensive product (M = 5.14, SD = 1.32) was significantly higher than with the purchase of the cheap product (M = 4.31, SD = 1.19; t(66) = 2.688, p < 0.01). The results of the analyses were consistent with our expectations. The probability of using the Internet for searching for product information was significantly higher for participants in the highly-involving purchase (M = 5.55, SD = 1.92) than for those in the low-involving purchase (M = 3.07, SD = 1.84; t(66) = 5.391, p < 0.001). In addition, participants’ preference for the purchase channel was also affected by the experimental treatment. In the purchase of the expensive product, participants indicated a higher preference for the physical store (M = 5.95, SD = 1.33), whereas for the cheap garment, participants were more indifferent, slightly leaned toward the Internet though (M = 3.87, SD = 1.68; t(66) = 5.701, p < 0.001). H2 is supported. In addition, two ANCOVAs were carried out to test the mediator effect of involvement. Involvement significantly influenced the preference for the Internet to search for information (F(1, 67) = 13.589, p < 0.001) and the purchase preference (F(1, 67) = 11.364, p < 0.001). The effect of the treatment was reduced in both cases, supporting partial mediation (H3). Study 3 The last study manipulated the type of information search sequence. Participants (n = 54; 53.7% female; between 17 and 24 years old) had an initial interaction with the product (a strap bag) and then changed the channel to have a cross-channel search experience with the same product. In this way, participants in the webrooming condition first had an online experience with the product and then had the opportunity to physically interact with it. Participants in the showrooming condition had the reverse sequence. After having both experiences with the product, the participants indicated the likelihood of purchasing the product in the channel where they had had the last experience (from 1 = very unlikely, to 7 = very likely). A set of additional measures were gathered. At the end of the questionnaire, participants indicated the degree of involvement with the experience (α = 0.86, 63.70 % of variance explained). The results of the analyses further confirmed H1. Participants in the webrooming scenario indicated a higher degree of involvement (M = 5.22, SD = 0.67) than participants in the showrooming scenario (M = 4.67, SD = 0.95; t(52) = 2.505, p < 0.05). Moreover, purchase intention at the physical store was higher for webroomers (M = 5.87, SD = 1.92) than purchase intentions in the online store for showroomers (M = 4.83, SD = 1.24; F(1, 53) = 11.789, p < 0.01). When involvement was included as a covariate in the analysis, it had a positive effect on purchase intentions (F(1, 53) = 13.591, p < 0.01), whereas the effect of the type of search sequence decreased (F(1, 53) = 5.785, p < 0.05). Again, we find support for H3, given that involvement partially explained the effect of webrooming on the preference for the physical store to purchase the product. Discussion and Conclusions Consistent with previous reports (Sevitt and Samuel, 2013; Google Consumer Barometer, 2015), the results of the first study confirmed that webrooming is a more frequent cross-channel shopping than showrooming. Thus, traditional retailers may take the advantages of the Internet to offer enhanced shopping experiences to customers, instead of fearing of a possible cannibalization of the online channel. Importantly, the results of the three studies show differences between webrooming and showrooming in terms of the involvement with the purchase situation. The first study measured the degree of consumers’ involvement depending on the type of cross-channel behavior, revealing that involvement was higher for webroomers than for showroomers. The second study directly manipulated the degree of involvement and demonstrated a clear preference for a webrooming experience when the purchase of the product entailed a higher degree of involvement. The third study showed that, depending on the type of search sequence (webrooming or showrooming) the involvement with the purchase experience was different. Furthermore, the level of purchase involvement determined the preference for the online and physical channels to search for information and purchasing the product. This finding entails important implications for both theory and practice. Nevertheless, this research has several limitations which open avenues for further research. Specifically, we only focused on a specific segment of the market and on a specific product category. Future studies should replicate these findings with more representative samples and a wider set of product categories, which have been found to determine multichannel behaviour to a great extent (Kushwaha and Shankar, 2013). Further research should also include convenience- and price-related variables which can explain the differences between webrooming and showrooming.

The consumption landscape is currently moving, making it hard for marketers and managers to anticipate consumers‟ needs and behaviors. With the digitalization of their daily life, ways of selling/communicating/involving with consumers has been re-invented, shifting from a traditional brick-and-mortar environment to a click-and-mortar -if not purely digital- one. Besides, consumers themselves have evolved from postmodern values to hypermodern ones: they do not buy a product anymore for purely functional or hedonic values, but for a combination of both. The hypermodern consumer is in on ongoing quest of “meaning” (Lipovetsky, 2004): the products he buys and services he consumes need to „make sense‟ and help him give some meaning to his life. Such life meaning is then communicated to his network, via (among other media) digital tools, turning a traditionally small network (primary group) into a much larger one (take bloggers for instance (Maman Larraufie & Sommer, 2015)). Still, very few consumers switch towards a 100%-digital way of consuming. They tend to melt physical stores along with digital expectations. The store therefore needs to be a showcase of the brand values, aligned with consumers‟ values of consumption. Some studies have even showed that brand and consumer personalities needed to be aligned to create some store involvement and attachment (Wilson, Wagner, & Maman, 2015). Semiotics is a discipline that focuses on understanding how meaning is produced for consumers (analytic process) or can be produced for consumers (constructive process). Therefore, it can be used to design marketing tools to build some meaning for consumers that would be consistent with their consumption values (Harmon, 2005; Mick, 1986). This would enable turning the store/the communication/etc. into some device enabling the consumer to make sense of his life. As presented before, the store is the current point of tension, as the reconciling showcase between virtual and real brand environments. In this presentation, I will stress out how structural semiotics (Greimas, 1966) can pragmatically help brand managers or marketers reconcile the rational and emotional dimensions behind the so-called store experience, while allowing the consumer associate some inherent meaning to the product/service showcased in the store. I will present several positioning deriving from it, and based on the objective of communication associated with the store, using the Jakobson‟s functions of speech (Jakobson & Halle, 2002). I use visual examples from various sectors of activity, from fashion to hospitality including jewelry, etc.

Since 2008 to 2014 the operating margins of Chinese traditional retail industry went a sustained downward. Instead, the operating margins of online-store have been the sudden explosion. In this case which online-store sale the same products with traditional market, my research try to find out how to improve the state of traditional market since 92.5% practitioners of retail industry are doing their business in traditional market. Customer equity can estimate customer lifetime value for the company (Rust et al, 2004). The firm can make proper marketing strategy with customer equity. Customer equity can both satisfy consumers and make a profit for the company (Lemon et al., 2001).So we built a model to connect service quality and customer equity to study how to prove the competitive power of traditional market. In this paper we used customer satisfaction and brand attitude as mediating variables since Store brands have become an important contributor to retail differentiation and basis for building store loyalty (Dodd and Lindley, 2003) and in retail market customer equity varies with customer satisfaction( Pappu and Quester 2006). Considering that Chinese economic growth rate was slowing down, traditional market is being a priority for Chinese Government to relieve severe export pressure and employment pressure. In this research we would like to study the relationships among service quality, customer satisfaction and brand attitude and how they influence customer equity in traditional markets. For this purpose we built a model which composed by service quality, satisfaction brand attitude and customer equity and tested it. The survey was collected from traditional markets in China and South Korea and the data was analyzed by AMOS and SPSS.

The number of companies investing substantial marketing resources in sport sponsorship has been growing rapidly. This trend has resulted in more competition among the candidate companies to acquire official sponsorship rights. Not surprisingly, the recent increase in the popularity of sport sponsorship has been accompanied by increased attempts in ambush marketing – a marketing strategy wherein the companies associate themselves with, and therefore capitalize on, a particular sporting event without paying any sponsorship fee (Hoek & Gendall, 2002). The purpose of this study is to examine how such ambush-marketing activities can damage the evaluation of the company when they are noticed by consumers. This study further examines whether the prior reputation of the company influences the relationships between ambush marketing and company evaluations. Sponsorship and Ambush Marketing Prior research in sport marketing (Meenaghan, 1983; Sullivan & Mulphy, 1998) suggests that the sponsorship of sporting events offers sponsors opportunities to develop favorable brand images by creating goodwill perceptions (Hoek, Gendall, and West, 1990; Marshall, 1992). As noted above, companies unable to fund sponsorship rights have attempted to achieve the same benefits by engaging in promotional efforts associated with the event as if they were true sponsors (McKelvey, 1994). It is, however, only when consumers are unaware of the fact that the companies are, in fact, ambush marketers that these companies can expect positive goodwill perceptions from their ambush marketing practices. This is because ambush marketing has been perceived to be an unethical business practice. Payne (1998) indicated that ambush marketing not only harms the integrity and viability of global sport events, but also infringes on official sponsors’ rights; similarly, O’Sullivan and Murphy (1998) claim that ambush marketing is just as bad as stealing. Thus, once consumers become aware of the fact that a company is implementing an ambush marketing practice, rather than being a true sponsor, those consumers will be disappointed, and negative evaluations of the company are most likely to result. Based on the discussion above, the following hypotheses are proposed: H1: When an ambush-marketing attempt is not noticed, subjects exposed to an ambush- marketing practice will have more favorable evaluations of the company than the evaluations of the subjects not exposed to an ambush- marketing practice. H2: When an ambush-marketing attempt is noticed, subjects exposed to an ambushmarketing practice will have more unfavorable evaluations of the company than the evaluations of the subjects not exposed to an ambush- marketing attempt. Expectation and Evidences We further predict that the risks associated with ambush marketing are more profound for companies with high levels of a good reputation, rather than low. Such reasoning is based on theories of the interaction between expectations and evidences. In this study, expectation refers to the belief probabilities of attribute occurrence (Olson and Dover, 1976); prior research suggests that consumers may form expectations about a company based on the corporate reputation—the sum of the values that stakeholders attribute to a company, based on their perceptions of the company’s image and behavior over time (Dalton & Croft, 2003). Corporate reputation comprises three dimensions (Graham and Helen 2005) including public responsibility (e.g., ―Are they socially responsible?‖), consumer fairness (e.g., ―Do they treat the consumers with some respect?‖), and leadership and success (e.g., ―Are they successful at what they do?‖). Thus, having established a high degree of good reputation indicates that consumers can expect more positive perceptions on each of the three dimensions of corporate reputation described above. According to research in consumer satisfaction, it is the direction and the degree of disconfirmation resulting from the incongruity between the prior expectation and the evidences that determine the product evaluation and satisfaction (Oliver 1980). In particular, Oliver (1980), and Tse and Wilton (1988) proposed that expectations are thought to create a frame of reference about which one makes a comparative judgment, whereby evidences higher (or lower) than the expectations are thought to be a positive (or negative) disconfirmation. Mandler (1982) further suggests that increasing the degree of discrepancy between a schema-triggered expectation and new information results in heightened arousal and cognitive processing, which leads to a more polarized evaluation of products and services. Therefore, in a sponsorship context, a seemingly true sponsorship activity (i.e., an unnoticed ambush attempt) is likely to lead to a positive disconfirmation of the consumers’ expectations about a company, and the degree of disconfirmation will be greater when the company’s prior degree of good reputation is low, rather than high. On the other hand, when noticed by consumers, an ambush-marketing attempt is likely to lead to negative disconfirmation of prior expectations about a company, and the degree of disconfirmation will be greater when the company’s prior degree of good reputation is high, rather than low. Based on the discussion, the following hypotheses are posed: H3: When an ambush-marketing attempt is not noticed, subjects exposed to the ambush-marketing practice will perceive a positive disconfirmation of expectations, and the degree of disconfirmation will be greater when the company is disreputable than when it is reputable. H4: When an ambush-marketing attempt is noticed, subjects exposed to the ambush-marketing practice will perceive a negative disconfirmation of expectations, and the degree of disconfirmation will be greater when the company is reputable than when it is disreputable. Disconfirmation and Evaluation Satisfaction literature (Oliver 1980) also suggests a high degree of consistency between the degree of disconfirmation and satisfaction, as well as the traditional criteria of attitudes. Oliver (1980), for example, showed positive relationships between the degree of disconfirmation and the amount of attitude change. Also, given the earlier discussion that the degree of disconfirmation is proportional to the extremity of the attitude, the following hypotheses are posed: H5: When an ambush-marketing attempt is not noticed, subjects exposed to the ambush-marketing practice will have a more favorable attitude toward the company, and the degree of enhancement in company evaluation will be greater when the company is disreputable than when it is reputable. H6: When an ambush-marketing attempt is noticed, subjects exposed to the ambush-marketing practice will have a more negative attitude toward the company, and the degree of reduction in company evaluation will be greater when the company is reputable than when it is disreputable. Method In order to examine the proposed hypotheses, a 2-by-2 by-2 full-factorial experiment will be conducted. A convenient sample of college students will be used for theory-testing purposes. There are three independent variables. Prior reputation (high vs. low reputation), and whether the ambush-marketing attempt is noticed or not (noticed vs. unnoticed) are the between-subject factors, whereas the measurement sequence (before vs. after stimulus exposures) is the within-subject factor. Corporate reputation will be manipulated by exposing subjects to either high- or low-reputation company profiles. Subjects will then be asked to rate the dependent variables the first time. Then, subjects from each company reputation condition will be exposed to hypothetical newspaper articles describing the company as either a true sponsor or an ambush marketer. After being exposed to the stimulus newspaper articles, the subjects will be asked to rate the key dependent variables the second time. The primary dependent variables include perceived corporate reputation, and attitude toward the company. Data collected from the experiment will be analyzed by three-way ANOVA.

Sports Sponsorship is considered to provide a highly valuable communication environment for companies to leverage brand equity. However, effectiveness evaluations of sponsorship activities mainly focus on explicit self-reports or focus interviews. Such communication evaluations do not take into account research from psychology demonstrating that associations and judgments are often activated and strongly influenced by implicit (automatic) processes, with no (or only little) conscious awareness of such information processing. Against that background, the goal of the current work is to shed further light on the impact of in-game advertising as innovative sponsor-linked marketing tactic on the dual brand knowledge–incorporating both implicit and explicit information processing–as key success indicator of sport sponsorship.

Physical appearance is the most readily available visual cue in first impression situations and can thus influence the judgments and subsequent behavior of the perciever. Clothing has been singled out by many researchers as a powerful aspect of physical appearance that is highly expressive in nature. However most clothing and first impression studies either have forcefully categorized clothing choices into broad categories (e.g., casual look, sporty look, professional look, etc.) or have been manipulated to best represent the clothing category or self-identity of the wearer. Also, to this day, there has not been any research on the everyday sportswear choices of sports participants and thier communicative aspects. Along these lines, the current study is, based on person perception and social identity theory, an attempt to provide some insight as to the signaling aspects of sportswear as well as how these signals are percieved and interpreted to make first impression judgments by observers. More specifically, the study looks to compare the intentions and human brand personality of sportswear consumers with judgments made by percievers about the social identity, self-identity and personality traits of the wearer in a first impression setting. Repeated Measures of Aanlysis of Variance (ANOVA) was employed to test the differences between self and others perception. Results are discussed, among with the limitations of the study and directions for future research.

Recently, marketing researchers have started to explore the impact of Social Media Brand Communities in digital marketing strategies. However, in spite of this interest, scant attention has been paid to the micro-mechanisms stimulating electronic word of mouth (E-WOM) within social media brand community. In this sense, this exploratory research aims to explore how consumers‟ engagement is related with positive E-WOM.

The goal of this study is to get a better understanding of the relationship between online customer reviews (OCRs), product returns and sales after returns in online fashion. Furthermore, we generate deeper insights about the moderating role of mobile shopping usage, product involvement and brand equity in this context. We answer our research questions by empirically analyzing a unique data set from a European fashion e-commerce company. This study links a wide range of transaction data (2.5 billion page clicks, 46 thousand different products, 700 brands, 40 product categories, 72 million sold and 33 million returned items) with a large set of OCRs (0.9 million). Our results show that positive OCRs can lead to higher sales, lower returns, and better conversion rates. Considering higher search costs on mobile devices, we reveal a weaker impact of OCRs in the mobile than in the desktop sales channel. Furthermore, in line with involvement theory, we see a significant impact of product involvement in this context such as the influence of positive OCRs is stronger for high-involvement products than vice versa. Moreover, we find strong support for statements from brand signaling literature, that OCRs matter more for weak than for strong brands.

This contribution focuses on fitting between heuristic rules and the task environment in business to business market. The subject is about evidence-based business decision-making process in the business actors‟ perspective. The empirical setting of fashion business to business markets is considered, focusing on adaptive behavior situated in the interaction processes in customer-supplier relationships emerging from empirical researches. The paper considers two key aspects of the process: (1) the origin and diffusion of the heuristic rules adopted by the actors (adoption) and (2) the fields in which the rules can be used (scope) are discussed. The central research questions are: How heuristics are adopted and diffused in the fashion business to business environment (adoption)? How wide is the context in which the heuristic rule is applied by the actors (scope)? Fashion business to business markets is our setting of analysis. First of all we have to define what are heuristics. Studies of decision-making processes generally divide them into two, mutually exclusive types: rational decision making versus rule-based decision making (March 1994). In the case of rational decision making the approach is to evaluate the consequences of any decision in terms of either pure (maximizing) or limited rationality (satisficing). In rational decision making, consequential choices are adopted, hence an evaluation of preferences and expectations is necessary and decisive to the final outcome. Instead, in rule-based decision making, what counts most is following the rules, the aim being to satisfy and/or define an identity. In rule-based decision making, rules deemed appropriate are adopted, and what then counts are the rules and the identity, which form the basis for taking well-thought-out actions. Rationality requires less „specific‟ knowledge, since it relies on abstract rules. In this approach, following the rules may instead involve understanding them in relation to the specific context in which they are to be applied. The relations between heuristics and interaction in business networks provide a means to study other aspects of the evolution of the relationship between enterprise and business market environment (Artinger et al. 2015; Guercini et al. 2014, 2015). In fact, the network of relationships the actors adopt images of the relationships to be cultivated with the precise aim of formulating an effective representation of the market, enable other phenomena to be examined, not so much in their qualitative aspects, but rather as regards their importance as perceived by business decision-makers. In light of these relations between heuristics and setting, the essential properties of heuristics that we propose to examine herein are: (1) specificity, intended as the field of application and setting in which any heuristic rule is generated and routinely applied; (2) convergence, which concerns how widespread, at least in appearance, any given heuristic rule is amongst actors in a given market setting (Guercini 2012). In other terms, the heuristics of entrepreneurial marketing can be considered specific to this particular setting, in that they concern the degrees to which such rules are generated, are successful, and are confined to the specific setting or context. Looking more closely at the two above-mentioned properties, specificity is high when, for instance, a heuristic refers to a specific, circumscribed matter (for example assessing the opportune moment to purchase certain semi-finished goods) and finds no application in any other setting. Conversely, a rule‟s degree of specificity is low when its field of application is broad: a rule may, since its inception, be applicable to many different fields, or it may be initially applicable only to a limited range of decisions, but subsequently find fruitful application in other, broader matters (Guercini et al. 2014). The degree of convergence instead regards the frequency with which a given heuristic rule is adopted within a population, a community or, in our case, by entrepreneurs. Such adoption may only be apparent, in the sense that what seems to be a single rule may actually represent various, subtly different rules for each individual, given the supremely personal, individual nature of fine mental processes. Evaluating the degree of convergence of a given heuristic within a population obviously involves measuring its dissemination in terms that are recognized as such by the researcher. Convergence is high for rules adopted by everyone, or at least by a large segment of the population in question. Other heuristic rules are instead developed by individuals in forming their personal judgments and seem to be unique to such individuals, in that they do not arise in others. This implies that heuristic rules may be the source of a relative advantage for the entrepreneur, in so far as the heuristic in question proves itself successful, that is, an element that determines a good choice when other methods are ineffective or may even produce negative effects. Specificity and convergence are thus general properties of the heuristics adopted by entrepreneurial marketers, and are strongly tied to the interpersonal relationships and consequent interactions within business decision-makers‟ personal contact networks (Guercini et al. 2015). Heuristic procedures are easily detectable in the descriptions of enterprise top management of the processes they utilize in assessing possibilities and forming judgments. Some of these procedures are highly abstract and applicable to various different settings, for instance, regarding problems typically facing firms as well as purchase decision-makers. In the following we shall briefly present some of the heuristics encountered in our research; a more detailed description and more rigorous modeling of their characteristics will be addressed in future work. Let us consider now a fashion business to business settings, and more precisely the situation in which the decision-maker of a fashion firm is tasked with formulating a judgment regarding the best choice of colors to keep up with the fashion trends of coming seasons. From interviews with representatives of styling divisions, what repeatedly emerged was their conviction that “strong” colors periodically and forcefully come back in fashion. Some even went so far as to specify the duration of this cycle: seven years – that is, the same as the number of strong colors –, which also turns out to be coherent with long-standing observations on the limits of human cognitive function (Miller 1956). No clearly defined explanation was offered of the reasons for, or origins of, this rule, although some hypotheses were advanced: simply that a sort of “law” was first noticed and then became consolidated as its predictions were repeatedly verified over time. A second example is that of the textile firm entrepreneurial marketer called on to provide a forecast of the fabrics that will be most widely utilized in the market over the next few seasons. From the marketer‟s perspective, the price of natural fibers is one element on which to base any judgment regarding future fabric usage trends. Clearly, there are technical time constraints on the purchasing of fibers for spinning, which must naturally precede the sale of the fabric, and may even take place already in the stage of drafting the fabric sample book. Thus, a specific assessment rule is applied: those fibers whose price increases during certain periods of the year are deemed to be those that will be in most widespread use the following season. However, for some years now this rule has begun to seem less reliable than in the past. Workers in the sector speak of greater complexity in the wool market, where supply factors, such as international manufacturers‟ policy of stepping up fiber tops production, have had the effect of upsetting traditional market dynamics. The heuristic rules in these examples can be regarded in the perspective of the attributes they present, in particular, their “specificity” (or field of application) and their “convergence” (or degree of dissemination). A rule that is highly specific to a certain application setting looses much of its value when applied to judgments other than the one for which it has been developed. On the other hand, a rule that is in widespread use in many firms can hardly become a distinctive resource for entrepreneurial marketers. The widespread dissemination of a given heuristic rule amongst the rules “in stock” or the “adaptive toolbox” of firms may influence its effectiveness. Indeed, the fact that a rule is shared by many may justify its adoption in light of the validity that the decision-makers seem to attribute it, even if it is less probable that its use impart a distinctive competitive advantage. The examples of heuristic processes presented in the foregoing seem to enjoy different degrees of specificity and convergence. The association of certain heuristics to specific settings takes on the significance attributed to them by Simon (1979), as rules bound by the task environment and not clearly referable to relatively abstract mechanisms or endowed with autonomy. Mechanisms applicable to less specific settings are instead referable to the heuristics described by Tversky and Kahneman (1974), including representativeness, availability and adjustment/anchoring, identified in relation to the possible distortions and errors associated to them. The heuristics modeled by “building blocks” by Gigerenzer et al. are seemingly cannot be captured by a few categories, given the variety of formal models identified. Briefly, these include (1) recognition heuristic; (2) fluency heuristic; (3) take-the-best; (4) tallying; (5) satisficing; (6) 1/N equality heuristic; (7) default heuristic; (8) tit-for-tat; (9) imitate the majority; (10) imitate the successful; (11) hiatus heuristic; (12) fast and frugal trees; (13) mapping models; (14) averaging the judgment; (15) social circle; (16) moral behavior (Gigerenzer and Gaissmaier 2011, Gigerenzer and Brighton 2009). In the approach proposed by Gigerenzer and his “adaptive behavior and cognition program”, formal models are necessary to evaluate the real contribution of heuristics to cognition, decision-making and behavior. For details, refer to the publications of the adaptive-behavior-and-cognition program (Gigerenzer 2007; Todd and Gigerenzer 2012). Rule-based decision making implies the availability of rules to follow and consistency with an established identity as the driving factors in the decisionmaking process. If the rules satisfy an ecological rationality approach, are such rules then the result of a process of rules selection with which the decision makers are endowed innately or they are formed through a process of learning? And, if the latter is true, what are the characteristics of the decision-making process during the stage that the rules formation schemes are more open? And lastly, when the rules have already been defined, are they necessarily stable or can they be questioned and, if so, in what terms? These research questions are part of the future research stimulated by this first exploration based on case study research.

The rapid development of the Internet changed customers‟ consumption and companies marketing strategies toward online shopping. The research focuses on e-commerce influence on consumer behaviour. The aim of this research is to find the influence of consumer behaviour on purchasing intention in online shopping environment. Semistructured interviews and online questionnaire survey were used to collect data, which were analysed using content analysis and SPSS software. Results showed that personalised e-commerce, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty influence customer-purchasing intention.

One specific manifestation of CSR is the solicitation of donations in collaboration with an NGO. Especially in an online environment, companies can easily control if they present donation options to consumers either before or after the actual purchase moment of their products. The aim of this paper is to investigate how the sequence of purchase and donation requests in the customer journey influences the willingness to donate to a charitable cause and the potential revenues for the seller. As theoretical frame, we use two related concepts of moral self-regulation, namely moral licensing and moral cleansing. We assume that consumers spend a higher sum on a luxury product after donating to an NGO (moral licensing) and vice versa donate a higher sum to charity after purchasing a self-indulgent product (moral cleansing). While we do not consider luxury products as morally questionable per se, prior research has shown that consumers repeatedly feel bad after purchasing a luxury item. Our results indicate that the moral cleansing effect is present in our experiment. On average, participants who first indicate their WTP for a luxury product are subsequently more prone to donating money to an NGO. We could not observe a moral licensing effect at large. Both conditions lead to comparable mean WTP measures, hence to similar total potential revenues. In general, our results indicate that both parties profit the most, if donation options are available after purchase decisions.

With consumption increasingly shifting to online and mobile, the physical retail environment has been called into question. However, not all facets of a physical experience can be substituted virtually (Anderson & Eckstein, 2013; Johnson, Kim, Mun & Lee, 2014, Piotrowicz & Cuthbertson 2014, Verhoef, Kannan, & Inman, 2015). The enduring quest for real, tangible experiences with real people and in real environments is one reason for the acknowledgement of the importance of architectural branding 1 , enabling memorable experiences (Raffelt, 2012). Here, architectural branding plays a key role at the intersection of consumer behavior, marketing management, and design. Furthermore, one can also observe the trend of forward brand verticalization in retail: with brands increasingly strive towards direct distribution, they open and manage more retail stores themselves (Kahn, Inman & Verhoef, 2016, Nierobisch et al. 2017, Teufel & Zimmermann, 2015, Tischer, 2014). This is especially true for the luxury industry, where brands are looking for ways to attain more control over the brand in order to steer highend customer experiences (Wiedmann & Hennings, 2013, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, 2015). Therefore, demand to develop good architectural branding in retail and to improve retail design strategies for current and future challenges is crucial. During the last five years, marketing scholars, renowned management consulting firms, and the popular press have examined the role of brick and mortar as one aspect of an omnichannel strategy in a world of increasing digitalization (Anderson & Eckstein, 2013; Bauer, Beil, & Wege, 2014; Piotrowicz & Cuthbertson 2014; Worden, 2013; Verhoef, Kannan, & Inman, 2015). The importance of architecture in general and retail design as a specialization thereof in marketing strategy has been broadly acknowledged (e.g. Kotler, 1973; Kotler & Rath, 1984; Martineau, 1958; Münster & Haug, 2017). Although, there is only little research focused on architectural branding (Raffelt, Littich & Meyer, 2011; Raffelt, Schmitt & Meyer, 2013). This is likely caused by its position at the intersection of the research fields on retail stores (e.g Kent & Stone, 2007; Kirby & Kent, 2010; Borghini, Diamand, Kazinets, Mccrath, Muiz, JR., & Sherry, JR., 2009; Hiss; 1987; Kozinets, Sherry, DeBerry-Spence, Duhachek, Nuttavuthisit, & Storm, 2002), brand experience (e.g. Brakus, Schmitt & Zarantonello, 2009; Pine & Gilmore, 1998; Schmitt 1999), and atmospherics (e.g. Kotler, 1973; Donovan & Rossiter, 1982; Rayburn & Voss, 2013; Spence, Puccinelli, Grewal, & Roggeveen, 2014). Here, articles primarily focused on store design in general (e.g; Kent & Sone, 2007; Kirby & Kent, 2010; Meyers-Levy & Zhu, 2008),flagship store design (e.g. Borghini et al., 2009; Hiss; 1987; Kozinets et al., 2002), or were primarily published in retail management journals. However, in marketing and management research, there are limited journal publications about the role of physical stores in the luxury industry in times of digitalization. Dion & Borraz (2015) stated that luxury brands recently followed the strategy to build very costly and unique boutiques with star architects, which have become sacred places. The role of store design in the luxury industry is even scarcer. In two case studies, Jiang, Nagasawa, & Watada (2014) investigated the role of store design for the brands Bally and Tod's in Japan. Thus, this research project aims to fill this research gap and extend the research in the field of architectural branding in the luxury industry, investigating role of physical stores in an omnichannel construct and to gain a deeper knowledge on how to sustainably tangibilize brands in modern and future luxury retail environments, answering the following question: What is the role of store design for luxury monobrand stores in a digital economy? This research project will apply an inductive and exploratory research method, implying a qualitative research design. It will build upon existing literature in the mass market and draw from two studies using in-depth interviews with academics and practitioners from the field of marketing and retail primarily working in the luxury industry to gain more insights about the role of physical stores in this specific industry. One study will focus on ways to make brands tangible in store. The other study will lay its focus on how a omnichannel strategy supports luxury brands in offering a superior in-store experience. Furthermore, results from a workshop with executives from brands with high-end positioning will be taken into account as well as expert interviews about the role of store design in general. These four studies will be presented in an aggregated manner during the conference. The overall contribution of this project is to provide insights about the role of brick and mortar retail design in the luxury industry and thereby extend research in the field or architectural branding in retail.

It is certainly not possible to analyse the evolution of the global luxury consumers orientations for the new luxury Chinese brands without considering the essence and the impact of the “brandscape”. In the last decade, China has assisted to the surge of the “luxury lifestyle” for a multiplicity of consumer segments living in those coastal areas – and not only - filled with luxury and fashion brands, that invaded every city area from streets to airports from clinics to hotels where concept stores, luxury flagship stores, sponsorships for events and urban artefacts “add value to the symbolic production of an urban lived space” (Bellini and Pasquinelli, 2015). Luxury product brands are enriched by the synergy with the city brand and the diverse fashion and art city locations, activities and events. In the new luxury perspective that sees luxury in its experiential dimension and no longer only in desire of an exclusive object, the relation of luxury brands and city brand requires a specific focus, in particular in the new fast growing economies as China that sees the rise of the new experiential luxury lifestyle and new local luxury brands. In the fast growing luxury Chinese luxury market where new Chinese luxury brands are striving to acquire a brand identity and image first in the local market and then in the international one, city branding may be a conductive solutions for brand value and identity creation. Authentic luxury experiences in significant city contexts appear added value activities for luxury brands in particular for those with no consolidated heritage and identity as the new Chinese luxury brands. New retail formats such as pop-up stores, concept stores located in specific high value artistic or fashion related locations adds value (Bellaiche et al, 2012). For Chinese luxury brands with a very limited identity, a almost absent heritage and a ongoing value creation of the brand, in-store experience is increasingly important (Atsmon et al, 2012) and the shopping location certainly represent an important factor for the increasingly diverse and demanding luxury customers by being not only the instrument towards the desired subjects but also a value-adding experience on its own (Rintamaki et al, 2007, p. 628). The emergence of the Chinese luxury consumer did not mean the presence on a market where the consumers are gathered by the same tastes, desires and purchasing patterns. Reference to the global consumer culture and paradigm evidenced that consumers in diverse geographical contexts may have different and sometimes even conflicting opinions or shared desires and values expressed in similar behaviours or symbols towards a brand. Global brands sets the international standards and convey shared symbols (Holt, Quelch and Taylor 2004) and a myth of cosmopolitanism to which many consumers world-wide appreciate (Strizhacova, Coulter and Price 2008).Brands represent a form of culture and they relate to the way people live, think, eat and choose to wear as well, a form of seeing life and the world (Askegaard, Kjeldgaard and Arnould, 2009) . Luxury brands have become increasingly present in the Chinese consumer market and lifestyle and the role of purchasing luxury goods experiencing a luxury lifestyle has taken an unexpected importance and meaning in the Chinese social context. China has started to experience the consumer culture only after China's opening up to the market economy as a result of the economic reforms post-1979 that have given to "aspirational" consumers more freedom to develop a consumer culture partially away from political limitations but still permeated in the Chinese culture and its characteristics. Those reforms have also given rise to the private businesses and the birth of a consumer middle class, "the new rich", in China. The birth of the Chinese middle class has fuelled the emergence of a highly diversified consumer class with different purchasing attitudes (Latham, 2006) and a new way to express their taste, their motivation for purchasing (Gillette, 2000) and in particular an increasing brand awareness, mode of purchasing and conceptualisation of luxury (Rambourg, 2014; Rovai, 2016). Distinctive aspects of luxury consumer culture have started to emerge in the late years, evidencing new desires for Chinese luxury consumers with respect to luxury brands, accompanied by the entrance in the market of Chinese luxury brands aspiring the capitalise on the increasing "Chinese luxury desire" but limited by their lack of specific characteristics of authentic luxury brands - heritage, identity and prestige amongst others. As a result, this research focuses on the analysis of Chinese luxury brands presence in the local Chinese urban context; specifically, it focuses on how the Chinese urban fashion context can help to support the creation of a luxury brand value and also reinforce a luxury brand identity and image in a Chinese luxury consumer culture that does not possess a luxury heritage. An analysis of two luxury Chinese brands and a local luxury and fashion concept store has been initiated together with further evidence from the Shanghai urban context, its activities, events and cultural specifics together with the following a qualitative method and in particular Yin (1989) case study approach. A series of 15 interviews have been held in late 2016 in Shanghai with the two Chinese luxury brands creative designers, owners and staff during one month together with observation and consulting of documents. Literature review has focused on the role of individual brands that, being somehow associated with the city become a collective brand (Pasquinelli, 2014), framing "the complex network of associations, linking products, spaces, organizations and people (Bellini and Pasquinelli, 2015). Initially, an important attention has been oriented towards the geographical associations to the country-of-origin effect (Bilkey and Nes, 1982; Johansson et al, 1985) later on evidencing that a defragmentation into of smaller geographical units may be appropriate at urban level (Bellini and Pasquinelli, 2015) to highlight the relevance of the "origin" not simply in relation to a broad geographical context where the brand manufactures a product but also „the place, region or country where a brand is perceived to belong‟ (Thakor and Kohli, 1996, p. 26). The origin being not only a matter of product production but more of product conceptualisation, perception or consumption going towards the "brand product usage context" (Gerr et al, 1999). Brand product usage happen in those spatial circuits whose cities are part of and whose role may be conductive to the „local origination‟ of product brands, adding value to the birth and internationalisation of locally originated brands (Pike, 2011). Those local brands are developed from an ecosystem composed by relations and ownerships involving a multiplicity of stakeholders whose customers are an integral part (Power and Hauge, 2008). In the literature, Fashion capitals is a unique case of those ecosystems with a specific relationship between industry and spacial circuits is based on the urban context instrumental to fashion creation and also to consumption (Breward and Gilbert, 2006). The city as a part of the consumer culture and in particular as part of the brand product experience (Thrift, 2004). As a result of the literature review and the conceptualisation of fashion capitals as ecosystems conductive to the fashion creation and consumption, an exploratory study of: Which context related variables affect new Chinese luxury brands identity and value and how the China fashion capital ecosystem affects Chinese luxury consumers brand perception. The paper will show an insight of the instrumental relation of the "brandscape" Shanghai and the impact on the Chinese luxury brands value and identity acquisition with respect to Chinese consumers.

In response to growing instability and a perceived over-commercialization also of luxury brands, there is a trend among consumers to search for meaning and for experiences that feel genuine. The “humanization” of brands may feed the consumers growing desire for authenticity. This paper combines the brand personality concept and brand anthropomorphization and introduces the notion of personality-driven brand management especially for luxury brands and high-end cultural and creative businesses. After an introduction into the concept of brand personality, and with reference to identitydriven brand management, we explain what personality-driven brand management actually means. When the focal point of brand management shifts to the enlivened brand, the brand personality becomes the main source of inspiration for brand-building and influences all branding decisions. With personality-driven branding, managers may leverage the full potential of brand anthropomorphization. For instance, it can help to turn the brand into a strong character, which can spark the employee’s enthusiasm and thus also the customer’s passion for the brand. As a prerequisite of (internal) brand anthropomorphization, managers need to decide what kind of person they would like their brand to represent. For this purpose, they can consult a framework of brand personality dimensions for some guidance. A central part of this paper is a study about the major dimensions of luxury brand personality. Results suggest that there exist five distinct luxury personality dimensions including tradition, modesty, elitism, eccentricity, and sensuality. They help brand managers to develop distinct brand personalities by encouraging them to decide between contrasting traits. After presenting the major strategies to bring a luxury brand personality alive, the paper discusses the benefits of personality-based brand management and concludes with some major lessons learned.

This research investigates luxury consumption preferences for different types of luxury goods (quiet vs loud) and shopping environments (online vs offline), as a function of individual motivation (bandwagon vs snob) and self-construal (independent vs interdependent), using a quantitative approach (online survey). Bandwagon-motivated consumers, as well as those with higher levels of interdependent self-construals show significant preferences for conspicuously branded luxury goods. Conversely, snobmotivated consumers show significant preferences for inconspicuously branded luxury goods. Finally, consumers displaying preferences for conspicuously branded luxury goods engage in both webrooming and showrooming behaviours, highlighting the complementary nature of online and in-store shopping. Results are discussed in the light of luxury consumption in the 21st century.

The luxury industry worldwide, and in China in particular, has been going through some major shake-ups in the last few years, such as the impact of anti-corruption campaign in China since 2012, massive increase of Chinese out-bound tourists travelling abroad for shopping due to price advantages as compared to mainland China prices, changing customer preferences and low loyalty towards luxury brands, and heightened customer knowledge of luxury, to name a few. These changes have a direct impact on customers’ behavior and experience in luxury retail stores and ultimately the level of expectation and satisfaction they have with luxury brands. This paper aims to shed some light on this topic by focusing specially on Chinese luxury customers’ perspectives. Companies have considered customer experience as one of important ways to obtain and sustain competitive advantages. Zomerdijk and Voss (2009) maintained that customer experience is a holistic concept that encompasses every aspect of a company’s offering. However, it is unclear which service elements offered by company create the most compelling contexts. Chinese luxury customers represent one-third of the total personal luxury goods market by the end of 2016 according to Bain & Co (2016). Therefore, no luxury brand can afford to ignore Chinese customers and their level of satisfaction with their brands. Paradoxically, from 2012 to 2015, the luxury personal goods market in China has decreased by 1% or 2% each year as compared to the previous years. This was due to many factors, and one of them was “poor customer experience in retail stores” according to our study. This deceleration of the market in China has prompted many luxury brands to create new customer experiences that could increase satisfaction (such as made-to-order services) in order to retain existing customers and to gain new ones. The research questions of this paper are: what type of services do Chinese customers expect from luxury brands? What are the levels of satisfaction Chinese customers have with luxury brands abroad and in China? How can luxury bands improve their service experience offers to satisfy Chinese customers? In order to answer these questions, we carried out a longitudinal study over 4 years, from 2012 to 2015 with Chinese luxury customers. A Chinese luxury customer is defined as someone who has bought a genuine luxury product over the last 6 months, whether in China or abroad, for themselves or for someone else. Each year we interviewed 120 customers who were chosen randomly in the streets of Shanghai, nearby luxury malls. The interviews were carried out either in English (if they are comfortable of speaking in English) or in Mandarin (by a native speaker). The interviews lasted on average 30 minutes each. The questions are mostly open-ended questions such as: “Could you please tell us your best or worst experience in a luxury retail store, in China or abroad? And why is it the best or worst?”. The interviews were manually recorded by a second interviewer present at that time. The data were then compiled and analyzed for this paper. The findings of the study were somehow unexpected such as: 1- Chinese luxury customers expect very simple and basic services in luxury retail stores, such as a sincere smile and a warm welcome, or sales employees do not judge them based on their looks and appearances. 2- Retail staff should have a better and up-to-date product knowledge so they can answer simple questions about the products when asked. 3- Retail staff should be able to give good advice to customer when they are undecided, and not try push only sales. Managerial implications for luxury brands are many. However, the most important one by far is “to go back to the basics of retail customer experience” by selecting and training the right employees for the job.

This study was conducted in real art galleries in Lisbon to explore whether the experience lived at an art gallery with or without music background may positively influence behavioral intentions directly or through the positive emotions and the memory created. A total of two hundred and eighteen questionnaire were collected from the seven art gallery. Findings reveal that the intentions to recommend and encourage others to visit the art gallery is a function of pleasant arousal and memories. In this study we also show the influence of background music in helping encoding the information provided by stimuli, which induce visitors to incentive others to visit the art gallery.