Promotion of brand-related sustainability initiatives (BSI) is a modern managerial issue, as BSI seems to impact not only sustainability but also consumer psychology toward a brand. In this regard, the author has extended self-congruity theory and suggested the concept of brand-sustainability-self-congruence (BSSC) as the image congruence of the triad comprising brand, BSI, and self-concept. Former surveys report predictive effects of BSSC on consumers’ brand evaluation, leading to increased brand equity (Kumagai, 2022, 2023).

This study examines how service innovation influences consumers’ perceived service luxuriousness and willingness to pay more. Service innovation influences willingness to pay more when service luxuriousness mediates. Type of service (functional vs. emotional) and level of brand equity (high vs. low) moderate the relationship between service innovation and service luxuriousness.

Recently, attention has increasingly been paid to the heterogeneity of firm performance. Some firms seem to extensively outperform their rivals not only in terms of productivity but also regarding sales, returns on investment, etc. Importantly, the chasm between the superstar firms, most successful group of firms in an industry, and their peers has been widening especially in the 21st century (Van Reenen, 2018).Superstar firms’ impacts on economies have gained a great deal of attention in the economics and policy literature. Understanding what helps firms become superstars can guide policy and management but requires further research and input from the management literature. This paper brings the topic of superstar firms to the management literature, develops a theory, and offers an empirical view of the drivers of superstar firms.

Consumer studies mainly take a cross-sectional approach to understand leisure and home consumption. This paper takes the mundane workplace as a unit of consumption and adopts a processual view to understand what and how cultural capital for impression management is acquired and changes over career trajectories. Integrating the theories of Goffman (1959) and Bourdieu (1977; 1984; 1990), the study explores how embodied habitual practices (habitus) enables and shapes impression management to build desirable work identity (Hallett, 2003). The walking-with interviews are used to seek conversations with senior executives in Hong Kong along their work routes. It proves to be a proficient approach and data collection technique to explore mundane consumption practices where knowledge is incorporated with people’s competence and artefacts (Mak, Lai, Tsaousi, & Davies, 2022). Among different resources for impression management, dining knowledge emerged as a significant cultural practices for performative self and building up of social capital.

With the pandemic of the early 2020s coming to a close, city politicians and planners around the world seek to bring in more tourists and entrepreneurs to assist their local businesses and domestic economies in the return to pre-pandemic levels. There exists a myriad of ways city officials attempt to attract visitors from festivals and fireworks displays to citywide initiatives and awareness programs. This study takes a look at a destination’s perceived coolness, how it is manifested through destination service quality and tourist app use, and how it affects an individual’s revisit intention based on structural and interpersonal constraints.

Product’s warranty is used strategically by firms to create differentiation and attract consumers. Hence, the effect of warranties on consumer decision making is of interest to both marketers and consumer researchers and his research has received much attention in the consumer behavior literature. Studies have shown that product warranty plays an important role for consumers. It influences the expectations and subjective assessments of product's efficacy and thus can signal quality, reduce risks and encourages purchases, based on the belief that offering a warranty for a product that has a high failure rate is not profitable for companies. However, this article documents a new phenomenon, extending the known capabilities of product warranty. Labeling products with a Long-term product warranty, versus products without warranty, improved consumers' objective performance, even when motivation to perform better was unlikely to explain the improvement. Results from three experiments indicate that the efficacy of products carrying “3 YEARS WARRANTY” labels were better than the efficacy of the same products without these labels. Specifically, we compared performance of participants utilizing a product (sunglasses, earmuffs, or chamomile tea) said to assist task performance (visual, auditory, or concentration, respectively) when it carried “3 YEARS WARRANTY” label versus no label. Participants facing a glaring light were asked to read printed words as accurately and as quickly as they could, receiving compensation proportional to their performance. Those wearing sunglasses carried “3 YEARS WARRANTY” label were able to read more quickly yet with fewer errors than those wearing sunglasses without label that were otherwise identical. Similarly, ear-muffs blocked noise more effectively, and chamomile tea improved mental focus more, when otherwise identical target products carried long-term product warranty.

The original third places concept conveyed the offering of much-needed settings for social comfort, thereby complementing the absence of equal opportunities at home (1st place) or in the workplace (2nd place). 3rd place is a crucial term to connect customers’ social needs, perception of service encounters, and the service provider’s managerial operation. Following the Covid-19 outbreak, various distancing forces have impeded previously intense social interactions featuring human-human contact. The increased use of contactless services and social distancing measures has impacted these. Such measurements refer to mandatory actions to maintain a fixed physical distance from others (i.e., two meters or six feet) via seating arrangements or suggested signage. While such compliance practices successfully limited the spread of Covid-19, they were also a signal of regulated behaviors and acceptable personal boundaries. The current study addressed this question by conducting experiments in three scenarios: a café, restaurant, and sports stadium. Following Pine and Gilmore’s experience typology, the three represent a passive absorptive experience, an active absorptive experience, and an immersive experience.

With the raise of artificial intelligence (AI), a new form of influencers has entered the proposition of marketing strategies for brands. Virtual influencers (VI’s) have shown their potential for brands in general, fashion lifestyle, or fashion luxury, even being more impactful in specific aspects than traditional influencers. Zooming in on sports, the VI space has been discovered by some brands already, yet for lifestyle sports products only. The performance sports products environment is still untouched. This study aims to identify the potential goals to be achieved for sports brands creating human-like virtual influencers to implement in their performance range of products strategy.

As in its early development, metaverse has become a popular marketing topic with broad participation among marketers and consumers. Due to the global pandemic and lockdowns that hit offline marketing channels, people seek online and virtual interactions (Taherdoost, 2022). It accelerated the changes in consumers’ habits and participation in digital media. The term metaverse was first introduced in 1992 in a Sci-Fi Snow Crash (Stephenson, 1992), describing a space where users can join as avatars through terminals with virtual reality features (The Economist, 2020). And with the development of web3, metaverse has evolved into a hyper-connected online universe. Kim (2021) defines the metaverse as the network of virtual environments where individuals can communicate and interact with one another and objects in real-time using their digital representation or avatars. Brands lead and help consumers to find ways to enter the metaverse space, accelerating mainstream adoption. Philipp Plein, a Swiss fashion brand, purchased 65 parcels of land with 1.4 million dollars in the metaverse platform Decentraland with about 800,000 registered users (Hiken, 2022).

Firms are increasingly using social media influencers to promote their products. We develop a two-period model to investigate a firm’s strategy for introducing a product via an influencer, where there is uncertainty in the influencer-product match. In the second period, the influencer exerts an effort to promote the product to her followers, who can spread the product information to non-followers via word-of-mouth (WOM). In the second period, the firm sells to the non-followers. We show that the firm’s pricing, production, and commission contract decisions depend on the influencer’s incentive-independent excess payoff from the promotion and on the difference between the WOM effect of followers who do or do not make a purchase rather than the WOM effect of each group. As the influencer’s incentive-independent payoff increase, the firm will increase (decrease) commissison rate and commission rate when the followers’ sensitivity to product price is relatively low (high) compared with that to the influencer’s effort. As the marginal WOM benefit of the first-period sales increases, the firm tends to reduce his unit net profit from sales. The influencer with a medium-sized follower base receives the highest commission rate and exerts the largest promotion effort. While the followers of influencers with a medium-sized follower base may pay the highest price. We also show that (i) there exists a threshold for the probability of match, above which the firm faces zero demand in the first period if an influencer-product mismatch occurs; and (ii) the firm may charge followers a lower price than non-followers, even though followers are less sensitive to price than non-followers. Finally, regarding influencer selection, we find that the firm may not be better off employing an influencer with a larger follower base.

With the evolution of Artificial intelligence (AI), emotional artificial intelligence service agents (AISA) have become common in service industry. However, how artificial empathy of AISA contributes to customer acceptance remains an open question. This study draws on Anthropomorphism Theory and Customer AI Experience Theory to examine whether and how artificial empathy has influence on customer acceptance of AISA. Evidence from three experiments (N=1057) designed by the Experimental vignette method (EVM) shows that: (1) artificial empathy including perspective-taking, empathic concern and emotional contagion has a positive impact on customer acceptance of AISA (study 1); (2) customer AI experience (emotional experience quality, social experience activation and social experience quality) mediates the relationship between artificial empathy and customer acceptance of AISA (study 2); (3) artificial empathy for hedonic (vs. utilitarian) services leads to a stronger effect on customer acceptance of AISA (study 3). This paper enriches our understanding of artificial empathy and provides practical guidance for practitioners strategically managing AISA services in AI-enabled marketing interactions.

This study proposes a new collaborative filtering model that integrates Restricted Boltzmann Machines. The proposed two-stage model is applied to household-level supermarket purchase data. Results show that our model fits the data better and outperforms existing collaborative filtering methods in predicting shopping patterns. The proposed model also improves interpretations of market complexity and common causes of coincidence associated with customers’ multi-category purchases.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT, Dall-E, and Steve AI can facilitate instant content creation. As an illustration, a fashion brand can simply command ChatGPT to: “Write an Instagram caption about the importance of good clothes during winter in two hundred words”. In seconds, ChatGPT generates the output. This minimum effort and short production time in the usage of generative AI may enhance content marketing outcomes. However—as warned by scholars (Bruyn et al., 2020)—not only is it advantageous for businesses, AI can also be disastrous. Underpinned by this, and the fact that generative AI and content marketing are nonexistent in the pertinent literature (see streams of research on AI in marketing e.g., Eriksson et al., 2020; Huang & Rust, 2021, 2022; Vlačić et al., 2022), this research aims to explore the potential benefits and drawbacks of generative AI for content marketing.

Although the phenomenon of lead categories is well-documented in the marketing literature, our understanding of this important store choice factor remains limited. Lead categories are defined as those product categories that are so important for the shopping trip that they influence the consumer’s store choice decision. The purposes of this paper are to offer theoretical bases that explain why lead categories form and to understand how overall images of product quality, selection, and price affect lead category formation. The authors use theories of anchoring effects and automatic cognitive processing to offer theoretical explanations regarding why consumers form lead categories and how overall images of product quality, selection, and price affect lead category formation. Using survey data collected from consumers at two grocery stores, the authors find that positive overall product quality and selection images facilitate lead category formation and that an overall low-price image hinders it.

With the development of internet and communication technologies, diversification of consumer needs, and intensifying competition, omnichannel is spotlighted among retailers as one of the breakthroughs to survive. Particularly, among scholars and practitioners, cross channel integration (CCI) has been pointed out as a key concept to achieve success in omnichannel, and several successful cases of retailers and strategies implemented under CCI are reported. Nevertheless, due to the wide scope and complexity of CCI, as well as the substantial cost and long-term perspective required for its investment, CCI involves a high level of uncertainty and complicated decision-making. Thus, most retailers are still struggling in achieving the level of CCI that their consumers desire.

Several earlier studies have investigated the attitudes and intentions of consumers towards sustainability within both a general (Kim et al., 1998; Nicholls, 2002; Berry & McEachern, 2005) and fashion context (Bray et al., 2011; Henninger et al., 2016; Hosseiunpour et al., 2016; Joergens 2006; Joy et al., 2012; McNeill and Moore, 2015; Reimers et al., 2016; Ritch, 2020; Tey et al., 2018; Bianchi and Gonzalez, 2021). However, there is a paucity of research from the perspective of children (Heo and Muralidharan, 2019; Ritch, 2019; Su et al., 2019; Watkins et al., 2019; Blazquez et. al., 2020; Niinimaki et al., 2020; Riesgo S. B., et al., 2022). There were predictions in 2020 that the global childrenswear market would be worth US$252.2 billion, and was proven to be more resilient than the general fashion sector during the COVID-19 pandemic (Mintel, 2021). Furthermore, the pandemic has seen prominence given to sustainability issues, with consumers increasingly prioritising brands with sustainable credentials (Euromonitor, 2022), yet little is known about children’s attitude towards sustainability. This paper aims to address this shortcoming, by assessing children’s awareness of sustainability. A Theoretical Model is proposed: Children’s sustainability awareness stages infused by educational third places.

Consumer studies on millennials have focused on shopper behavioural differences with their old baby boomer generation. A significant distinction between these two groups have been their relationship and interaction with technology across all facets of life, including shopping. Millennials are generally regarded as early adopters of digital technology and its use in daily activities, hence their reference to digital natives. Compared to the baby boomers, who are late adopters and are called digital immigrants. Africa's millennials constitute at least 30% of Africa's population, making them a key attraction for marketers, yet their interests are often treated as a homogenous segment similar to global millennials from advanced economies.

Numerous studies suggested that Generation Z (Gen Z) is an age group that seeks individuality more than other generations. Their aesthetics, identity, and belief must represent their self-value. The consumption of fashion was selected as a focus of this study. Our consumption of fashion represents our value, and we construct and present our identity with physically what we wear when we face society daily. Looking at the fashion styles of Generation Z, this study aims to examine whether Generation Z in Hong Kong practice individuality or conformity in the course of their fashion consumption behaviour by a preliminary study. Generation Z perceives their fashion consumption behaviour to reflect their individualism and values. However, the findings suggest that there is a high degree of conformity among Generation Z's fashion consumption behaviour. This conformity is observed in the creation of a distinctive fashion style, which is influenced by the cultural aesthetics, values, and preferences of Generation Z, resulting in a unifying effect that goes unnoticed by the individuals. This complex formation of Generation Z fashion consumption behaviour has a complex implication to fashion marketing, where both the sense of exclusivity and conformity must both be exhibited to satisfy the consumption needs of Generation Z.

Over the past decade, the global apparel industry has witnessed an exponential growth of rental business. As consumers are increasingly aware of the environmental impact of over-consumption and garment waste, there is a new demand for apparel rental service as it helps reduce discarded garments to the landfill while satisfy consumers’ fashion needs This study examines the motivational factors that influence Generation Z consumers' attitudes and purchase intentions towards fashion rentals in China. Based on the theory of reasoned action, a survey was conducted with Generation Z consumers in mainland China. The findings suggested that economic benefits, ego defence, fashion orientation, experience value and sustainable value affect Chinese youngsters’ purchase intention to rent fashion-clothing. This empirical study contributes to a better understanding of the changing consumption attitudes and patterns of Generation Z consumers in China.

For the many companies that operate internationally, the challenge of translating brand typography into different writing systems is a crucial and complex one. To address this issue, specialized type designers developed "bilingual typography": localized brand typography meant to preserve the original visual identity. They assume that by mimicking the appearance of the original typography, the newly created non-Latin typography will maintain brand consistency. However, no research investigated whether such approach is efficient.