Fashion has become a major thing worldwide. In Indonesia, especially in big cities like Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya, fashion is quite evolving. Jakarta is a bustling modern city with international interaction and professional working environment. This atmosphere influences the inhabitants to dress in modern, professional look; as fashion may be seen as visible identity for a person. As a country with more than 300 tribes, Indonesia is also very rich in culture (Tamindael, 2011). Each area has its own traditional clothes, house, food, custom, art, and language. In big cities, those cultural differences have somewhat blend together or rather invisible in the capital city of Jakarta. Despite the modern environment, traditional clothing and religious clothing tried to get substantial segment as well. However, cultural or traditional costume seem to face the adversity to stand out. Traditional costume can be seen as an identity for a country or specific culture. Like Kimono in Japan or Sari in India, Indonesia actually has kebaya as national costume for women. Kebaya is actually a tight fitting blouse known as originated from Java. Nowadays, with the many modern women seems to wear kebaya only for special occasion, such as wedding reception, national day, or official ceremony. As it was meant for special moment, the kebaya these days are more elaborated, mostly adorned with embroidery and glittery embellishment. Still, whether modest or modern, kebaya is perceived as complicated, out-of-date, and inflexible. This national costume might face the threat of extinction, although the rise of patrimonial awareness made kebaya get more attention these days. Despite kebaya has been appointed as national costume for Indonesian women, many of them, especially youngsters, seem reluctant to wear it in many occasion. This phenomenon evokes the need for research, how Indonesian youngsters perceived the kebaya as national identity? This research will relate the brand identity with kebaya. Kebaya itself may be considered as a brand, attached to Indonesia as a country. Within the brand identity framework, kebaya would be seen as a brand. However, a brand should be known among its target and how the people or target consumers perceive it. As an initial research, this paper aimed to explore how youngsters in Indonesia perceived kebaya as national outfit. This research will rely on theories about branding. Kebaya is actually a product. However, the term of kebaya can be considered as a brand in the context of Indonesian national costume. This research measures the brand identity and brand imagery within the theory of brand identity from from Aaker (1996) and Keller (2013). The brand identity will be measured using the indicators of brand awareness, and the brand meaning will be measured using the brand associations. The survey has been conducted to 30 youngsters, from 17 to 25 years old. Whereas two interviews have also been conducted to a founder of Perempuan Berkebaya (Women in kebaya) community and a bussinesswoman who start to wear kebaya everyday. To raise the awareness of kebaya, this community has made some efforts. There was some news coverage on the national medias and outdoor events to show that kebaya is suitable for any occassion. As this research will explore how these young ladies perceived the kebaya, most of them can be assumed to be aware of kebaya. However, they might have different perception and comprehension about it. All of the respondents from the survey claimed they the national costume of Indonesia. However, the answer were varies when they recall the object. Batik is also mentioned alongside with kebaya. Many people are more accustomed to wear batik clothes, as it can be transformed into different kinds of outfit, such as shirt or dress. Athough all respondents agree for kebaya to be one of national identity, most of them claimed kebaya is not suitable for everyday wear. They argued that kebaya is impractical, and not convenient for day-to-day activities. Some of them believed kebaya is only for wedding or other special occasions, thus will lessen their exclusivity or prestige if they wear it everyday. The second part of the questionnaire is about the association; how kebaya as a brand would match or associate to certain group of user, usage situation, experience, and values. Many people seen women wearing kebaya in rural areas, worn by grandmothers and door-to-door jamu (herbal drink) sellers, thus have an ancient or traditional look. This is in line with result from the survey. This kind of association is actually in contrast to the image of kebaya for special occasion. Thus, to outsmart the out-of-date association, many modern women avoid humble kebaya to wear in many occasions; they rather opt for more expensive kebaya to wear at special events. How the youngsters perceive may be arguable. They see kebaya as something unique which they don’t see, let alone wear it, every day. This explain how they value kebaya as an exclusive outfit that may elevate the look of the wearer. The excuses whether to wear or not-to-wear kebaya as daily outfit seems endless. There may be a slight hesitation toward the kebaya which associated to old fashion or outdated, but some would opt for modern cut of kebaya. In the end, kebaya should build strong image as national identity; where every Indonesian women, no matter their age nor social class, will be proud to wear it.

Drawing on psychological reactance theory, this study examines consumers’ reactions to grocery categories’ variety reductions. Results show negative main effects on post-reduction satisfaction with variety and store patronage intentions, which are moderated by grocery category nature and by consumers’ intrinsic need for variety and attitude toward private label brands.

The current manuscript examines new product pricing in recessive B2B markets. Analyzing data from four industrial sectors, the study concludes that skimming pricing and penetration pricing relate to the company’s corporate and marketing strategy and the product characteristics, while market conditions influence the adoption of pricing similar to competitive prices.

This paper aims to contribute to the developing literature of brand attachment and detachment theory, in the context of harsh economic conditions. The Cognitive Appraisal Theory and the Attachment Theory are brought to bear in order to describe and explain consumer shifting patronage decisions.

The motivation behind experiential and material purchases is asymmetric: experiences are more strongly motivated by happiness-seeking and meaning-seeking than materials are. The two motivators mediate the elicited happiness from purchases. Strong happiness or meaning seeking motivation will result in similar levels of happiness for both experiences and materials.

The purpose of this study is to explore marketers’ reaction towards the recession in terms of the applied marketing strategies, tactics and activities and the examination of the marketing budget formulation and its allocation in the context of Greece, where the economic recession is lasting more than six years.

Acknowledging the developments in the constructive employee deviance stream (Leo and Russell-Bennett, 2014), which denote that although employees may depart from workgroup hypernorms, their behaviour might still have pro-customer intentions (Vadera, Pratt and Mishra, 2013), this research illuminates deviant employee–customer encounters and grows the ongoing discussion on the impact of employee customer-oriented deviance on various customer outcomes. Customer-oriented deviance (COD) is a form of pro-social behaviour which occurs when the employee deviates from organizational norms, defying organizational protocol and higher authority for the sake of the customer who is the main beneficiary of this behaviour. Indeed, scarce evidence explores how customer-oriented deviance during the service encounter affects customers’ psychological state as well as whether the psychological consequences deriving from employee deviance which actually render the customer more prone to reciprocally respond the employee or the organization with some kind of citizenship behaviour (Hochstein, Bonne and Clark, 2015), this study addresses the impact of three types of customer-oriented deviance on post-deviant customer evaluations. To address these issues, an experimental design with a 3x2 between-subjects design is adopted. The independent variables manipulated are three types of COD and also whether the customer participates (or not) to the solution of the problem that (s)he is currently facing. In particular, the impact of three types of customer-oriented deviance (i.e. deviant service adaptation, service communication and use of resources) on customer’s distributive, interactional and procedural justice (cognitive outcomes) and customer’s emotional state (affective outcome) is considered. This study advances current knowledge in three ways. First, it proposes that post-deviant customer consequences are both cognition- and emotion-driven, deepening the empirical understanding of the role of customer’s perceived justice and emotional state as a result of COD. Results also uncover the importance of customer participation during COD and its corresponding impact on customer encounter outcomes. The social exchange and the equity theory are extended and set as the theoretical link between customer-oriented deviance and customer’s response to the organization and the employee.

The market for environmentally friendly or ‘green’ products has increased substantially over the last ten years (Willer and Kilcher, 2010). Both brand manufacturers and retailers are increasingly, and successfully, incorporating environmental and social issues in their brands (Aouina Mejri and Bhatli, 2014; Chkanikova and Lehner, in press; Gleim et al., 2013). Given the increasing importance of ‘green’ branding, the current study examines the role of key drivers (i.e., brand equity, store image and product familiarity) in the consumption of green brands. Moreover, since previous studies found that positive evaluations of a specific brand led to more positive buying behavior for the green product concept in general (Bartels and Hoogendam, 2011), in the current study we also assess the impact of these key drivers on green consumption in general. Finally, by explicitly distinguishing between store brands and national brands, we try to determine whether these relationships differ between these two types of brands in a green context. To test these effects, we used a panel study among consumers in Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, and the U.S.. For each country, we used one national brand and one or two store brands. Respondents randomly received one of these brands to evaluate. This process resulted in 404 respondents for store brands and 302 respondents for national brands. Results show that store image and brand equity have a direct effect on the consumption of green store brands and green national brands. In addition, we found that for both store and national brands, the relationship between brand equity and green brand consumption is partially mediated by the perceived image of the store where that brand is sold. Furthermore, for national brands, a positive store image also leads to an increase in green consumption behavior in general, which is not the case for store brands. Finally, for national brands, there is a clear relationship between product familiarity and brand consumption, whereas this is not the case for store brands.

Brand communities have been increasingly used by marketers to build brands. A brand community can be defined as a “…group of consumers with a shared enthusiasm for the brand and a well-developed social identity, whose members engage jointly in group actions to accomplish collective goals and/or express mutual sentiments and commitments” (Bagozzi and Dholakia, 2006, p. 45). Recent research on brand communities has begun to identify the importance of consumers’ psychological processes in regard to developing successful brand communities. Based on the flow theory from positive psychology, we propose that flow could be generated by brand community characteristics and plays an important role in influencing brand community members’ attitudes toward the brand. Specifically, we propose a model that identifies brand community characteristics (i.e., community cohesiveness and information quality) that produce flow experience and how the flow experience impacts brand identification and brand loyalty. Members from 31 automobile brand communities participated in this survey study, and 580 validated questionnaires were returned. Structural Equation Model was used to test the research hypotheses. The results show that community cohesiveness and information quality positively directly influence brand identification and also indirectly influence brand identification via flow. Flow also positively influences members’ brand identification and, subsequently, impacts brand loyalty. The results from our research contribute to the branding, brand community, and flow theory literature.

This study aims to examine the impact of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, site appearance, informativeness and perceived risk on online brand equity though the brand value chain. The study grounds from two theories: TAM and Perceived value approaches. Five hundred and six sets of questionnaires were used to analyze and produce the research results. The study found that perceived ease of use and informativeness were not related to the customer’s perceived functional value and emotional value on the brand while other factors were significantly related. The results of the study were discussed as well as the research conclusion and recommendations

According to industry reports, a CEO’s strong social presence has a tremendous impact on the company’s reputation and their own image. However, despite being considered as digital influencers, most C-suite leaders fail to establish their own personal brand online. This under-development leads to the following questions: What are CEOs currently doing with their social media and why are CEOs (not) using social media? Interviewing 16 Dutch CEOs, this study explores the impact of the leadership style (transactional or transformational) and leaders' perception of narcissism in online impression management on CEOs’ social media activities. By investigating these relationships, the research further clarifies CEOs’ leadership communication strategies on social media and establishes the drivers and barriers for social media engagement to pave the ways for interested social CEOs. The results suggest that leadership styles may detect the content strategies and motivations of social media usage. The activity level, however, is determined by the perceptions of self-image and degree of a narcissistic impression on using social media. With this finding, we propose CEO social media activities can be typified into four categories: thought leader, storyteller, professional networker and selective performer. Transformational leaders tend to emphasize on being accessible and transparent to their audience. When they are positive about being narcissistic on social media, they are more likely to be a storyteller where they strive for charismatic and authentic content building. Conversely, a more reserved transformational leader would be a selective performer where they only publicize their stories in front of a selected group of audience, mostly through internal platforms. On the other hand, transactional leaders tend to focus on professionalism and efficiency in using social media. The ones who see the benefits of social media and are confident in sharing their own ideas tend to be thought leaders among their professional networks. On the contrary, the reserved transactional leaders rather using social media to connect with their professional network to obtain information than broadcasting their own voices. The study provides insights in how CEOs formulate their leadership communication online; further research should continue exploring the impact of various strategies on corporate performance and stakeholder engagement.

Trusting beliefs are playing an increasingly important role in building customer-based brand equity (CBBE) in the business arena. The present study examines the mediating effect of trusting beliefs on the interactivity-brand equity relationship. An online survey was administered to collect data from randomly selected consumers. The results show that system interactivity impact brand equity directly and indirectly through trust integrity. The present theory-driven model contributes to a better understanding of online brand equity. Therefore, allocating resources to influence the perception of system interactivity and trusting integrity beliefs is valuable to develop online brand equity. This research contributes to the interactivity theory and the relationship marketing theory and it also offers implications for practitioners.

Pay-What-You-Want (PWYW) is an innovative participative pricing strategy in which consumers determine the price they want to pay for a product or service. Past research mainly focuses on individual variables as antecedents of consumers’ willingness to pay under PWYW pricing and ignores the role of situational factors. We address this gap by investigating the effects of three situational factors, perceived crowding, involvement level and time pressure, on consumers’ PWYW pricing decisions. Pay-what-you-want (PWYW) is an innovative pricing mechanism that gives consumers maximum control over the price setting process, and thus allows buyers to entirely determine the price for their desired product or service (Schmidt, Spann & Zeithammer, 2014). The buyer has the authority to choose any price to pay for the offered product or service and there is no minimum price to protect the seller (Kahsay & Samahita, 2015). Such increased perceived control on the final price induces consumers to greater purchase intentions (Chandran & Morwitz, 2005). Hence, a growing number of firms in different industries such as music, museums, software, and charity sales are using PWYW pricing (Schmidt, Spann & Zeithammer, 2014). Internal reference price (IRP) is defined as a price in the buyers' memories that serves as a basis for judging or comparing actual prices (Monroe, 1973; Monroe, Grewal, & Compeau, 1991). In the context of PWYW involvement has a negative effect on prices paid. Involvement is the level of personal relevance consumers possess regarding a product or a purchase decision (Zaichkowsky, 1985). Involvement is conceptualized as both, an individual difference variable representing an “enduring interest” in a given product (Roy, 2015; Bloch & Richins, 1983). It is also posited that the negative effect of involvement on IRP will be further moderated by perceived crowding. Perceived crowding is often described in negative terms as a confined, constrained, and restricted physical setting; and it has two distinct dimensions, spatial crowding and human crowding (Machleit et al., 2000; Byunn & Mann, 2011). A crowded shopping environment is also incompatible with the consumers’ shopping desires and goals; hence consumers exhibit unfavorable shopping behavior such as spend less time in the store (Machleit et al., 2000; Li, Kim & Lee, 2009). Perceived crowding should therefore negatively influence consumers’ involvement and IRP, thereby affecting the money they are willing to pay in PWYW situation.

It is important to learn consumers’ motivation or goal in order to understand consumer behaviors to choose specific retail stores. Likewise, we need to consider consumers’ motivation to use shopping platform in order to understand consumer behaviors to use online or mobile shopping platforms. Research on shopping motivations has been studied based on shopping value categories- utilitarian vs. hedonic one. While utilitarian motivation is associated with planned purchase behavior for a cognitive value, Hedonic motivation is involved to in compulsive purchase behavior or impulse buying for an affective value. There are two constructs, emotion and mood, in the affection. Research on hedonic motivation has focused on the regulation of emotion which has its clear cause and continues shortly. Thus the motivation of emotion regulation has a negative influence on consumer behavior such compulsive buying or impulse buying. On the other hand, mood, which has no clear awareness of its cause and continue long-term, may have different effect on consumer behaviors. The motivation of mood management is the theory applied in media consumption such as movies, music or video or online games. In the study, we suggest mobile shopping app can be one of media stimulus which improve bad mood or maintain good mood. We explore whether mood management is one of motivations to use shopping platforms and how mobile shopping platforms affect mood management behavior using Netnography, online enthnography. We gather data from observation of shopping platform and in-depth interviews of the users. The results are the following. First of all, there are four types of mood management motivation in using mobile shopping platforms. They are hedonic information searching, information building, escaping from daily routine, and self-gifting. Next, the shopping goals affect consumer perceptions toward shopping environment and context. The contexts are initial screen page and its information, payment method, product categories and so on. Finally purchase decision depends on the fit between consumers’motivation and shopping context.

A common approach adopted in the practice of advertising photography in Hong Kong is about using celebrity, pleasant environment and astonishing visual effect but the photographs so taken may not convince audience. As such, this paper attempts to formulate a new approach to incorporating concept development, visual statement and photographic composition.

As its use widens across many different industries such as airlines, retailing, banking, and hotels, the effective management of customer loyalty programs is becoming an important issue. Previous studies have shown that loyalty programs have a positive impact on customer retention, customer share, market share, and sales (Bolton et al., 2000; Mägi, 2003; Verhoef, 2003; Lacey et al., 2007). A loyalty program is defined as any institutionalized incentive system that attempts to enhance consumers’ consumption behavior over time beyond the direct effects of changes to the price or the core offering (De Wulf et al., 2001; Palmatier et al., 2006; Henderson et al., 2011). The fundamental goal of loyalty programs of firms is to have a long-term relationship with their customers and to increase their customer lifetime value (Reichheld, 1993; Sharp and Sharp, 1997). Most earlier studies that showed positive effects of loyalty programs have been mainly concerned about the changes in customer response resulting from being inducted into the VIP program (Bolton et al., 2000; Mägi, 2003; Verhoef, 2003; Lacey et al., 2007). On the other hand, most loyalty programs are hierarchical, which sets several customer classes and provides preferential benefits to customers based on their status. And customers who are placed at higher VIP level are required to spend larger amounts to maintain that status level. Under these types of loyalty programs, many recent studies have focused on how customers perceive and respond to their status and the accompanying preferential treatments (Mathies and Gudergan, 2012; Mayser and Wangenheim, 2013; Xia and Kukar-Kinney, 2014; Pez et al., 2015). Companies adjust each customer’s VIP status level on a regular(yearly) basis based on his or her actual spending level during the previous period. A customer can be demoted to a lower level if he or she fails to spend the required amount while a customer can be elevated to a higher level if the spending exceeded the required level. Although this is a common practice in the industry, only a few studies to date have looked at customer responses to changes in their status level (Wagner et al., 2009; Berlo et al., 2014; Eggert et al., 2015; Hwang and Kwon, 2015). While most of these studies have relied on measuring attitudes under experimental conditions, the motivation of this research is to examine customers’ actual behavioral response to a status adjustment using real-life data. We particularly focus on the effects of status demotion and how the response is moderated by situational or psychological factors. Specifically, the research questions are presented as follows: 1)If customers are demoted as a result of not fulfilling the firm’s required spending level, how does their purchase behavior change? 2) How does the shortfall amount (the difference between the spending required to maintain the status and the actual spending) impact the demotion effect? 3) What moderators strengthen or weaken the relationship? Using actual VIP customer data from one of the major department stores in Korea, this paper applies the event study methodology to investigate changes in customer purchase behavior resulting from a demotion. Shortfall amount, which can be defined as the degree to which a demoted customer does not meet the firm’s required spending level, is the key variable in analyzing the different purchase response of demoted customers. Propensity for conspicuous consumption and store familiarity of the customers are also proposed as moderators that interact with the shortfall amount. People who experience status demotion in organizations have been found to respond negatively toward the organization by reducing their loyalty, trust, or commitment and increasing switching intentions to other organizations (Pfeffer, 1981; Trice and Beyer, 1984; Wagner et al., 2009; Berlo et al., 2014; Hwang and Kwon, 2015). Status demotion of VIP customers is also expected to negatively influence their purchase behavior. Equity theory (Adams, 1963) provides the conceptual foundation for hypothesizing about the role of shortfall amount in moderating the negative effect of status demotion on customers’ purchase amount. According to equity theory, people in social exchange relationships perceive the fairness of transactions by comparing their inputs (costs) into the exchange to outputs (benefits) from the exchange. People also perceive the fairness by evaluating whether their input/output ratio is consistent with that of their referent groups. Adams (1963) argues that people are motivated to restore equity when they perceive unfairness in a social exchange relationship by increasing or decreasing inputs based on their input/output ratio relative to that of their referents. In our context, the equity theory implies that demoted customers whose shortfall amount is smaller are more likely to perceive the status change to be more unfair than those whose shortfall amount is larger. These customers may feel that the decrease in preferential treatment they receive due to demotion is unfairly large given the small difference in spending between themselves and those who were able to maintain their status level. They may also feel that their spending (i.e., contribution to the company) is much greater than other customers in the lower demoted status level. To the extent that these customers are likely to feel that the exchange relationship with the firm is unjust, they will respond negatively toward the firm (Campbell, 1999; Xia and Kukar-Kinney, 2014) and it is predicted that they will show a larger decrease in their post demotion spending compared to their counterparts whose shortfall amount is larger. That is, the smaller (greater) the demoted customers’ shortfall, the stronger (weaker) the negative relationship between customer demotion and purchase amount. In this research, consumers’ propensity for conspicuous consumption and store familiarity are presented as variables that moderate the effect of shortfall amount on post demotion spending. Desire for status motivates conspicuous consumption and often leads to purchases of luxurious or altruistic goods (Han et al., 2010). Rucker and Galinsky (2008) argued that consumers are more willing to spend for status-related goods when they feel that they have low power. Based on the literature, it is anticipated that the effect of shortfall will be diluted if a demoted customer has strong propensity for conspicuous consumption as he or she may increase purchases to overcome threats caused by status reduction. In other words, when customers are demoted, the effect of shortfall on purchase amount is weakened as propensity for conspicuous consumption becomes higher. Familiarity is defined as the number of product-related experiences that have been accumulated by a consumer (Alba and Hutchinson, 1987). As the familiarity with a product increases, consumers generally reduce cognitive effort in choosing the product and are more likely to select it habitually or in inertia (Rhee, 2003). Assael (1998) proposed that a process of consumers’ product choice is similar with that of consumers’ store selection. Thus, based on previous studies, it is predicted that the effect of shortfall on post demotion purchase amount is diluted if a demoted customer’s store familiarity is higher because he or she may be less likely to decrease purchases since they face a higher cost of switching to other stores. In other words, when customers are demoted, the effect of shortfall on purchase amount is weakened as store familiarity becomes higher. This research applies the event study method to study the impact of shortfall amount on post demotion change in purchase amount. Specifically, we capture the increase or decrease in post demotion purchase through notion of cumulative abnormal purchase amount. Cumulative abnormal purchase amount is obtained for each demoted customer by calculating the difference between the actual purchase amount after the status change with the expected purchase amount (i.e., baseline) if the customer had not experienced the status demotion. If the actual purchase amount is smaller than the baseline, then the cumulative abnormal purchase amount is negative, which indicates that the customer responded negatively to the demotion. The results revealed that the average cumulative abnormal purchase amount of demoted customers was negative. Also, the shortfall amount had a positive impact on the cumulative abnormal purchase amount, supporting the hypothesis that demoted customers whose shortfall was small were more likely to show a larger decrease in post demotion purchase(i.e., larger negative cumulative abnormal purchase amount). Both of the moderating variables--propensity for conspicuous consumption and store familiarity of demoted customers--weakened the effect of shortfall on the cumulative abnormal purchase amount. This paper contributes to the literature by extending the understanding of consumer behavior in the context of hierarchical loyalty programs and status reduction in a real-world setting. Specifically, this study uses the notion of perceived fairness adopted from equity theory to hypothesize about the moderating role of shortfall amount on the effect of status demotion. This paper also provides several managerial implications to help marketing managers manage their loyalty program more effectively. First, it is important for the managers to recognize possible negative aspects of hierarchical loyalty programs where certain customers are inevitably demoted to lower status levels. Second, since demoted customers who ‘just miss’ the cutoff by only a small amount may perceive injustice, managers may need to look for a method to reduce such customers’ negative response. Third, companies could also seek for ways to weaken the negative effect of customer demotion through the development of marketing plans based on customer characteristics such as propensity for conspicuous consumption and store familiarity.

The article empirically examines the practice of internal marketing based on a case study of an advertising agency. To this end, explaining the significance of internal marketing for the success of external marketing and the concept of internal marketing, the article reports research findings which link theory and practice.