The purpose of this paper is to understand the digital differentiation in social members’ information use via digital devices. Though the attention to the digital differentiation becomes far more increasing, there are only few literatures dealing with quantitative approaches about the digital differentiation. The term ‘digital differentiation’ represents the availability of the information user. It is different from ‘digital divide’ of which the main parameter is accessibility to the information. Once accessibility meets a certain level, availability is considered as a more important factor than accessibility when evaluating the progress of ICT(Information and Communication Technology). We present a model that can describe the digital differentiation phenomenon by using the methodology borrowed from the graph theory, inverse optimization and other established research theory related to digital differentiation. We provide some insights to reduce digital differentiations and therefore our analysis can be used as a guideline for policy maker who desires to mitigate digital differentiations.

The Korean energy demand-supply policy has changed from supply-concentrated management to demand-concentrated management with low consumption and high efficiency. Given these policy changes, this study focuses on investigating the marketing strategies of public policies that are necessary to execute policy effectively and to achieve the intended effect. More specifically, this study reviews details pertaining to the four elements of energy demand management policy: the development and commercialization of core technologies for energy efficiency, energy saving business growth, innovations in energy demand management, and reasonable energy price policies. We furthermore analyze the effects of introducing an energy-efficiency certification system to both companies and consumers via an energy policy implementation. We find solutions to achieve the goals of the energy demand management policy via effective marketing of the energy-efficiency certification system. This investigation contributes to developing marketing strategies to achieve certain public policy effects. We additionally focus on how the characteristics of an energy-efficiency certification system—such as public benefits, brand trust and customer value—affect customer perception and the effect of policy implementation. According to our findings, trust in the energy-efficiency certification system and the four elements of energy policy influence firms and consumers’ realization and are effective at accomplishing the goals of the energy-efficiency policy. Energyefficiency certification help firms to invest in energy-efficient facilities; such certification also motivates reasonable energy consumption levels and the option to select highly energy-efficient products. By employing a certification system actively as a means of governmental policy and providing accurate energy-efficiency information to firms and consumers, it is possible for firms to produce highly energyefficient products and for consumers to choose efficient products. In this way, governments, firms, and consumers are able to accomplish the goals of the policy.

Urban regeneration has emerged as a new paradigm of urban development today. In this situation, awareness has increased that urban regeneration should be pursued in connection with culture and art (Evans, 2009). Urban transformation has continued through internal restructuring in an expanded or reduced scale by economic and social changes (Garcia, 2004). Initially, diverse public/private parties initiated urban image improvement and strong brand creation through leading developmental strategies in order to attract floating enterprises, residents and tourists. At this time, states built culture-centered urban regeneration strategies in relation to urban development and regeneration such as large-scale culture and art facility establishment or large event hosting (Couch, 1990). However, in the modern society, with the elevated awareness on environment, the focus has shifted from development towards service industry and tourist industry in urban. In this sense, cultural policies are deemed to be responsible for the expanded idea of urban development considering diverse aspects from physical and economic aspects, to social significance, sustainability and to culture and art (Bianchini & Parkinson, 1993; Garcia, 2004).

Many studies in the marketing literature focus on investigating the effects of brand attachment and self-congruence on favorable consumer behavior, such as brand loyalty, positive Word-of-Mouth, resilience to negative information (Thomson et al., 2005, Japutra et al., 2014a). However, limited studies examine the relationship between brand attachment, self-congruence and negative consumer behavior. For instance, Johnson et al. (2011) posit that when consumers are in relationships with brands and more self-relevant, they are more likely to induce retaliatory actions when the relationship ends. Highlighting the dark side of brand attachment, Japutra et al. (2014b) show that stronger brand attachment leads to a wide range of unwanted consumer behaviors including trash-talk, Schadenfreude, and anti-brand actions. These studies show how brand attachment is capable of hurting consumers. However, only limited studies pay attention on the negative consequences of brand attachment (e.g. Johnson et al., 2011; Japutra et al., 2014b). The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of self-congruence and brand attachment on compulsive buying behavior.

The Social Network System (SNS) has possesses unique characteristic which distinguish it in important ways from traditional communications environment because the social network system allows a fundamentally different environment for communication marketing activities. The traditional marketing communications model was uni-directional, due to the fact that mass communication is a one-to-many process whereby a company transmits content through a medium to a large group of people. Today, communication paradigm has shifted online and is many to many, known as a bi-directional strategy. Bi-directional strategy mediates communications model in which 1) consumers can interact with the medium and with each other, 2) companies can provide content to the medium and interact with each other, 3) companies and consumers can interact, and in the most radical departure from traditional marketing environments to determine how brand relationship is affected. In this paper, we use the social network system as a new marketing communication medium. We use the key Mohr & Nevin’s communication strategies: frequency, direction, content, and modality to measure communication quality, and then implement communication quality by using the attitude and e-WOM intentions. Rich understanding of SNS communication quality can help focus the managerial efforts on vital communication factors, which stimulate positive assessments of communication behaviors. Furthermore, practitioners may better understand which dimensions of communication facets/aspects are more appropriate

Based on the collaborative and social characteristics, social networking services (SNSs) are growing platforms for consumer-to-consumer conversation including electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). eWOM is defined as ‘any positive or negative statement made by potential, actual, or former customers about a product or company, which is made available to a multitude of people and institutions via the Internet’ (Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh, & Gremler, 2004, p.39). Despite its academic and managerial significance, several preliminary studies have examined what determines effective eWOM in SNSs (e.g., Chu & Kim, 2011; Teng, Khong, Goh, & Chong, 2014). Extending these attempts, we empirically investigate what influences consumers’ evaluation of eWOM, especially on Facebook. We suggest a new perspective of focusing on the psychological stream of social identity (Tajel & Turner, 1986) which is a distinctive factor explicit on Facebook. Unlike conventional eWOM platforms like bulletin boards and online communities where the user information is limited due to anonymity or presented in restricted manner (e.g., reputation from ratings by other members) (Dou, Walden, Lee, & Lee, 2012), Facebook provides profile information about users including one’s social group membership (e.g., school, company). This implies that the perception of social identity on Facebook may influence how one evaluates the source and his/her eWOM message.

This paper aims to explain how storytelling becomes interlinked with social media and the conceptual consequences this development implies. In recent years the interest in storytelling has increased within the marketing discipline. Parallel to this development, the traditional media landscape has been subjected to change as a result of digitization and particularly the expansion of social media. Even though the social nature of these media and its associated electronic word of mouth seem to be well aligned with storytelling, extant literature exhibits few attempts to review the storytelling concept in relation to social media. Based on such a review, the contribution of this paper is condensed into six theoretical propositions that point out how storytelling is expected to become increasingly common and dynamic in social media. Therefore, storytelling is suggested to represent a managerial challenge with regard to professional organizations’ marketing approaches but simultaneously allow for increased customer intimacy for those actors who develop successful ways of attracting the interest and engagement of social media users.

In today’s Internet society, consumers value the opinion of other consumers, and regularly seek feedback on products and services prior to making purchase decisions. This consumer-to-consumer communication (C2C) commonly occurs online, and is referred to as electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). One popular source of eWOM is online product reviews. The current research investigates the determinants of consumers’ attitudes toward online product reviews. Results indicate that perceived value and credibility of online product reviews positively impact consumer attitudes towards online product reviews. More specifically, consumers’ attitudes toward online product reviews positively influence their reliance on said reviews prior to product purchase. Additionally consumers’ attitudes toward online product reviews are positively determined by their perceptions of the credibility of online product reviews and the value of those reviews. However, the perceived value of online product reviews have a greater impact on online review attitudes than does perceived credibility of online product reviews. Further, men and women exhibit differences in their attitudes and reliance regarding online product reviews.

Even though Memetics, the study area of meme maps, has been well-studied in the Cognitive Neuroscience and Computer Science disciplines, there has been no research attempt on Memetics in the Tourism and Hospitality field. Seminal studies in the marketing field suggest that the concepts of destination image and meme maps are highly-related. Accordingly, the purpose of the current study is twofold: (1) to identify the overall Destination Image Meme Maps of Antalya, Turkey and their favorite tourism destination, and (2) to identify and evaluate the similarities and differences in the structures of the previously generated two categories of Destination Image Meme Maps. The data was gathered from two samples consisting of 272 Russian and 262 German travelers visiting a medium-sized city (i.e. Antalya) located in the south region of Turkey. This study adopts and enhances the knowledge of Memetics into Tourism and Hospitality research. It also provides important practical and methodological contributions.

This paper examines the co-creation of human brands identities exemplified by celebrities in a stakeholder-actor approach. By bringing together the theoretical web of service-dominant logic, stakeholder theory, actor-network theory, and consumer culture theory, we argue that human brand identities are co-created by multiple stakeholder-actors that have resources and incentives in the activities that make a up an enterprise of a human brand, including the celebrities themselves, consumer-fans, and business entities. By utilizing an observational, archival netnographic data from popular social media channels, four exemplars of celebrity identities from the Philippines demonstrate the co-creation of human brands. Findings illustrate key stakeholder-actors’ participations, production and consumption, and integrations of resources and incentives in the co-creation process as articulated in social media. The co-creation process happens through sociological translations codes namely: social construction and negotiation of identities, parasocialization, influence projection, legitimization, and utilization of human brand identities. These dynamics of human brand identity advance a stakeholder-actor paradigm of service co-creation that is adaptive to the predominant consumer culture and human ideals that surround the celebrity. Implications and future research on celebrity brand marketing management are discussed.

From a marketer’s perspective, place is only a sacrosanct component of the marketing mix (McCarthy, 1960), and extends into services’ “7Ps” (Grӧnroos, 1994). The servicescape literature explores how stimuli present within commercial consumption settings or servicescapes impact consumer behaviors (Rosenbaum & Massiah, 2011). Arguably, marketers view place as exchange locales, and they do not understand the evocative role that they assume in consumers’ lives (Sherry, 2000). Within cultural geography, places represent “profound centres of human existence” (Relph, 1976, p. 43). Place is a triad comprising of a physical setting, activities, and meanings (see Relph, 1976). This paper investigates how Israeli Jews attribute meanings to places associated with their destruction during the Holocaust (1939 – 1945). Respondents were eight Jewish Israelis who recently participated in the educational Holocuast sojourn (i.e, Warsaw Ghetto, Treblinka, and Aushwitz). Using long interviews, the authors put forth a framework that shows how the participants assign place-based meanings on four dimensions. The individual dimension reflects how the tour personally impacts visitors’ lives. The communal dimension, explores the trip impact’s the individual’s view towards Israel and Israeli nationalism (Zionism). The religiosity dimension reflects tour’s impact on a participant’s self-identity as a Jew (e.g., secular, conservative, Orthodox). Lastly, the global dimension explores the trip’s impact on a participant’s identity as a human being in a global world. Did the trip alter a participant’s views towards mankind, towards genocide, and universal lessons that everyone may learn from the Holocaust? Results help to understand the evocative role that places often assume in consumers’ lives. Place no longer seem as inert; instead, spaces imbued with meanings impact lives, experiences, and even one’s overall well-being. From a broader perspective, the results suggest a different role that consumption settings may assume in consumers’ lives. Places may impact consumers on multiple levels, and the essence of understanding the profound bonds that consumers often form with places, originates not from the functions that places serve, but rather, from the meanings that consumers often assign to place.

Consumers nowadays are looking for luxury brands that are able to fulfil their values. Luxury fashion marketers have spent enormously on advertising and adopted sex appeal extensively as their major selling technique. Little empirical evidence, however, has been presented with regards to the effectiveness of using sex appeal in luxury fashion advertising. Consumer responses to sex appeal in luxury brand advertisements are also poorly understood and under-investigated. The massive use of sex appeal in luxury brand advertising suggests the strong need for empirical research to determine the relationship between sex appeal and perceived luxury values. Based on the luxury value framework and adopting a quasi-experimental design, this study examines the influence of sex appeal in advertising on the relationships between attitude towards the advertisement and luxury value perceptions. Results show that the increase of sex appeal level increases the favourability of the advertisement which results in significant changes in luxury value perceptions. The influence of gender is found to be prominent in this study, which highlights the importance of gender consideration when adopting sex appeal strategy for any luxury brand advertising. Implications for luxury brand marketers and advertisers are discussed.

Celebrity endorsement in advertising constitutes a continuing trend for brands of all value levels. Regarding products originating from the luxury cosmos, resorting to celebrities at first sight seems likewise especially convenient. After all, the glamorous lifestyle of celebrities seems to fit perfectly with luxury goods. However, an old wise saying claims that what is too beautiful to be true cannot be true. Indeed, it seems justified to scrutinize why a luxury brand that bears stardom in itself needs the light of a further star to shine down on it. This controversy forms the starting point of the study at hand. In a first instance, the attitudes of opponents and supporters of celebrity endorsement in luxury marketing are balanced and merged into a model. This contains all aspects a luxury brand should consider concerning its celebrity endorsement policy. Secondly, one-hundred and eighteen luxury brands are analyzed concerning the question whether they employ celebrity endorsement. For all brands for which this applies, the celebrity endorsement policy is assessed based on the aspects included in the model in order to carve out what already works well and where there is still potential for improvement.

Premium private label brands (PPLBs) are receiving increased attention in line with their significant growth. Private label brands (PLBs) have been evolving from offering low quality at a low price to high quality at a higher price. Among multiple tiers of PLB, PPLBs are assumed to be in an exclusive tier and compete with top-tier national brands. In consumers’ minds, PPLBs are perceived and evaluated in reference to alternatives represented by regular private label brands (RPLBs) and top-tier national brands (NBs). Thus, for PPLBs, being able to provide outstanding value that is perceived in relation with competitive alternatives is a critical issue. In addition, related marketing entities such as a store type are assumed to affect consumers’ perceptions and evaluations. Based on cue utilization theory and categorization theory, this research aims to identify key relationships influencing the perceived luxuriousness and eventual purchase intention of PPLB products. This research analyzes what strategies make consumers perceive a PPLB to be luxurious and in turn, increase purchase intention. The empirical study consists of a survey conducted among college students in their 20s in Korea. The data were analyzed to test the theoretical framework using a confirmatory factor analysis and structural equations.

We propose to extend the research in responsible luxury by identifying situations where Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) could actually promote luxury brands evaluation. By using social consensus as one of the determining factor, we argue that when CSR with higher social consensus is communicated through right channel, this information can have positive influence on brand evaluation. This research could contribute to literature on consumer responses to CSR, and to responsible luxury in particular and demonstrate how social consensus and CSR information of luxury brands affects consumers’ evaluations of luxury brands. Our research highlights that responsible luxury brands should carefully evaluate how their CSR communication strategy affects brand evaluations.

Since there are intimate relationships between customers and customer equity, this study aims to explore the effects of covert and overt narcissistic consumers on luxury brands’ customer equity. The authors confirm the significance of the previous qualitative study on the two types of narcissists in regard to luxury consumption and customer equity by using quantitative methods. Narcissism basically means a self-loving tendency in one’s mind. People with narcissism overly respect themselves and act in an egotistical way(Lasch, 1980). Some scholars state that there are distinctions in narcissists in that they can be either overt or covert. Covert narcissists are hypersensitive, feel inferiority, pursue social power and honor, crave compliments, have strong jealousy, feel dissatisfaction with work and society, have fragile egos, and a likelihood of conscience contamination. People with covert narcissism also try to avoid damage both physically and emotionally. Overt narcissists pursue social success, lack depth, ignore and devalue others, have strong aspirations, and passion for ethics, social politics, and aesthetic issues. They believe in their own grandiosity, which causes direct expression of exhibitionism, self-importance, and a preoccupation with getting the attention and admiration from others(Hendin & Cheek, 1997; Park & Kang, 2013; SALMAN AKHTAR & Thomson Jr, 1982).

This study aims to examine the impact of endorser ethnicity and portrayal on consumers’ attitude toward luxury ad and brand. In addition, the moderating role of individual’s appearance self-esteem is examined. In the ads of luxury brands in China, it is common to have two types of endorser ethnicity (i.e., international vs. local) and two types of endorser portrayal (i.e., sexy vs. smart). Endorser ethnicity in an ad may influence consumers’ self-referencing behavior which refers to an individual’s tendency to encode communication information differently depending on the level on which the self is implicated in the information (Rogers et al., 1997). Asian consumers’ self-reference level is found to be higher when they are exposed to ads featuring an Asian model than a Western model (Martin et al., 2004). In other words, if an international luxury brand adopts a localization advertising strategy in China by using a Chinese endorser, the local consumers are more likely to generate a higher level of self-reference.