The ever-evolving fashion industry has brought forth direct and indirect effects on the environmentto the extent that environmental contamination, labor exploitation, and pirated or counterfeit products have emerged as serious social issues. The sustainability-related issues are associated with all stages of the product lifecycle, ranging from the extraction of raw materials to product disposal (Berkhout & Smith, 1999).In lifecycle management (LCM), the triple bottom line (TBL) of sustainability is seen from the perspective of the product lifecycle (Kocmanova & Nemecek, 2009). TBL refers to corporate efforts to keep a balance among financial viability, environmental soundness and social accountability (Elkington, 1997). As sustainable products are defined in the light of lifecycles, research on product lifecycle management (PLM) has drawn much attention (Gmelin & Seuring, 2014).In addition, PLM is known to exert substantial effects on new product development, which warrants the need to view new sustainable products from the perspective of PLM (Cantamessa, Montagna, & Neirotti, 2012). Therefore, the present study intends to apply a conceptual model of PLM-based new sustainable product development to the fashion industry and to take multifaceted approaches to sustainable fashion product development. To that end, case studies of 21 local and global sustainable fashion brands, 1:1 in-depth interviews with 24 experts from sustainable and non-sustainable fashion brands, and participant observation of 5 sustainable fashion brands were conducted as part of this study. The findings illuminate the management issues attributable to the lack of technology and expertise, as well as the quantification issues involving monitoring or normalized data collection, despite the presence of some process-specific sustainable items in sustainable products developed by the fashion brands. Also, the findings will serve as reference data for further discussions and provide some implications for the sustainable fashion product development of fashion brands.

In recent years, ethical consumption has been attracting attention in Japan. Ethical products cover various issues, such as protection of the global environment, sustainability of resources, and protection of producers. Because the specification of such issues is difficult, previous studies often analyzed only one phenomenon. Several studies have attempted to examine the buying behavior of consumers of organic food products, based on Ajzen’s (1991) theory of planned behavior (TPB) (Sparks and Shepherd, 1992; Arvola et al., 2007; Chen, 2007, Lodorfos and Dennis, 2008). The TPB considers intention as a function of three principle determinants: attitude toward behavior, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control. Regarding ethical food consumption, moral norms are individual value judgments connected to a specific behavior and its outcome (Manstead, 1999). A comprehensive model based on ethical issues for various products is required. Prior research highlights the consensus that targeting females in ethical consumption will have a greater chance of success (Roberts, 1996; Mainieri et al., 1997; De Pelsmacker et al., 2005). We propose three hypotheses to explain gender difference in consuming ethical food products. The aim of this study is to analyze the purchase behavior of consumers of ethical food products and to examine how consumers differ by gender in terms of the ethical issues. This study adopted organic vegetables, fair trade products, products certified by the Rainforest Alliance, free-range eggs, and fish certified by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council as ethical food products. These food products are associated with different ethical issues, and thus, we define ethical issues as “ethical attitude” for each product. For example, the ethical attitude of free-range eggs is included in the following categories (Table 1): environment, which means the protection of the global environment; health, which refers to the health of consumers; animal, which means the welfare of animals and the sustainability of resources; and farmer/aquaculturist, which means protecting farmers or aquaculturists

The purpose of this research is to examine the factors that contribute to tourists’ intention to staying in green hotels when traveling. After examining 208 Taiwanese tourists’ responses, the results show that green label credibility and environmental concern can both affect tourists’ green hotel staying intentions.

Green products are often afflicted with a perceived performance liability, presenting marketing managers with a dilemma of how to motivate consumers to alter their consumption behavior, while acknowledging their negative inferences about green product performance. To address this problem, we develop green emphasis, defined as the prominence given to a firms’ environmental initiative in a green product communication appeal. By employing a green emphasis strategy, a firm makes prominent in a communication message either environmental attributes (Study 1 and 3), or uses assertive terminology (Study 2) to heighten issue importance. When a green emphasis strategy is used, the lack of performance-related extrinsic cues may reduce an individuals’ evaluation of a product’s performance ability. This relationship is mediated by autonomous motivation, which may be enhanced through the provision of information that is of interest and value to an individual (Deci & Ryan, 2000). Next, the moderating variable of performance criticality is examined, whereby the importance of the products’ performance ability is based on its associated category (Study 1) or purchase situation (Study 2). When a product belongs to a performance-critical category, or if situational involvement is heightened, the incongruent product information may heighten the negative impact of green emphasis. Finally, environmental attribute optionality (Study 3) is examined. When optional, the attribute is non-fundamental to the functioning of the base product (Ma, Gill, & Jiang, 2015). By making the environmental attribute an option, it is supposed that the incongruity between the attribute and perceived product performance is mitigated and localized, overcoming the negative effect of green emphasis.

economic growth and revenue / profit expansion, we will end up with overconsumption and wastes, bringing serious damage to our planet (Kotler, 2015). He advocated the transition from the growth-oriented economy to the steady-state economy. This research explores marketing in such steady-state economy. Researchers have put efforts in developing theories in related concepts such as social marketing (e.g., Kotler & Zaltman, 1971) and corporate social responsibility (CSR; see Peloza & Shang, 2011 for a review). Inoue and Kent (2014) developed a conceptual framework that explains antecedents and consequences of corporate social marketing. However, their research, as well as those on CSR, has not addressed marketing in steady-state economy. Thus, we attempt to fill this research gap by developing propositions. We conducted multiple case studies (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin 2014). Based on theoretical sampling, three firms were selected from different industries (food, alcohol, and furniture) with different technologies, located in different areas in Japan (Tokyo, Nagano, and Kagoshima). We collected primary and secondary data, and conducted interviews. In spite of the differences, the three firms run business similarly. First, they pursue a sustainable growth and not a rapid growth. Second, doing what is good for society is a part of their business goal and not CSR. Finally, they choose inefficiency than lowering the product quality.economy are developed: P1. Selling high quality products at profitable but reasonable price enhances firm’s credibility, which in turn improves the probability of firm’s long-term survival. P2. Limiting distribution channel allows firm to avoid price competition and set reasonable pricing, which in turn improves the probability of firm’s long-term survival. P3. Marketing mix of high quality product, reasonable pricing, and limited distribution channel generates positive word-of-mouth, allowing firm to save promotion costs. P4. Prosocial behavior in procurement increases the brand loyalty, which in turn improves the probability of firm’s long-term survival. P5. Portfolio of business-to-business and business-to-consumers businesses allows stable management and building strong brand. Further research is needed to develop these propositions into hypotheses and empirically test them with large samples. The authors hope that this research will be the first step for “steadiness-oriented marketing.”

This paper investigates how pricing actions of base and multiple add-on products sequentially offered in the marketplace affect their sales with a consideration of the interactive price relationships between base and add-on products and among multiple add-on products, as well as a moderating role of product characteristics.

A product’s competitive position (CP) identifies the segment the product is targeting and the value proposition it offers that differentiates it from its competitors (Hooley & Greenley, 2005). Having a clear, strong competitive position for products in the mind of the consumer, known as the perceived position, is considered to be absolutely imperative for products to compete in today’s market. In order to get to this evaluation or judgment on the product’s position, consumers need to sift through the ever-growing availability of organization and market-derived information. Consumer behavior literature dictates that such a judgment would have a level of confidence attached to it, specifically known as belief-confidence. Extensive literature has empirically linked belief-confidence to purchase intention (Bennell & Harrell, 1975; Howard & Steth, 1969; Laroche, Kim, & Zhou, 1995; Russo, Medvec, & Melov, 1996), however the construct has not been examined relative to the strategic concept of competitive product positioning. This research proposes a framework that suggests when the consumer’s perceived position for a product matches their purchase goal, [for example a consumer is seeking a ‘top of the range’ personal laptop and after evaluating laptop alternatives in the market judges product X as the ‘top of the range’ offering] the consumer’s confidence in their positioning judgment acts as a moderator, magnifying its ultimate effect on purchase intention. Given that judgment confidence is context specific (Chandrashekaran, Rotte & Grewal, 2005), this research suggests three antecedents to consumers’ confidence in competitive positions of products (1) position clarity (2) position consistency (3) alignment between the initial and post (information search) perceived positions. Support for these antecedents stems from various fields of literature including positioning implementation; consumer perception; judgment revision; information distortion and brand equity signaling (Erdem & Swait, 1998; Muthukrishnam, 2002; Russo, Medvec, & Melov, 1996; Crawford, 1985). Two between-subjects factorial experiments entailing a mock information search designed to manipulate (1) and (2) of the proposed antecedents will be administered online, whereby total n=540. Measures taken pre and post the experiment will enable validation of the remaining variables in the conceptual model. This research aims to show that adding a confidence measure to positioning measurement such as perceptual mapping, is a better predictor of purchase intention (when coupled with purchase goal), than positioning measurement alone. It ultimately gives managers an insight into what drives consumers’ confidence in deciphering what a product stands for amongst its competitors.

With the fast pace of technological change, the role of innovation on a firm’s survival has received increased scholarly attention. This study investigates the relationship between a firm’s strategic orientations, exploration and exploitation, on innovation activity. Also, the synergy effects of four types of innovation: product, process, marketing, and organizational innovation are examined with the consideration of the level of innovativeness and the firm’s industrial category. The OECD Oslo Manual (2005) and the standard of OECD (2011) classification are used as a main source to define four different types of innovation and the industry category into high-tech and low-tech. This study uses data from 856 firms taken from the Korea Innovation Survey (KIS) 2014 which is the Korean version of the Community Innovation Survey (CIS). Since most of the measures are composed of multiple items, their reliability and the underlying dimensions of each measure are tested by principal component analysis (PCA). Structural equation modeling (SEM) is then used to carry out a simultaneous test the relationships among the constructs. The moderating effects of marketing and organizational innovation are examined through multi group analysis. Results indicate that exploration and exploitation have positive impacts on the product innovation and process innovation respectively. Also, a new process encourages firms to develop radical product innovation. In case of the moderating effect of marketing and organizatioanl innovation, there are some differences between high-tech and low-tech industry. For high-tech firms, the positive relationship between a new product and firm performance is increased with the introduction of marketing innovation. In case of low-tech firms, process innovation has direct and positive impacts on a firm’s performance with organizational innovation. The findings show that the synergy effect of innovation exists and its significance could be changed depending on an industrial category.

This study contributes to the limited literature on the innovative pricing method of Pay-What-You-Want (PWYW) in the context of a high-value service. PWYW is a participative pricing approach that takes away all the power from the seller allowing customers to decide what price they want to pay. As such, the customer is free to set any price (even zero) and the seller has to accept it (Kim et al., 2009). Existing research on PWYW examines the impact on customers fairness perception (Haws et al., 2006), willingness to pay (Spann et al., 2004), and purchase intentions (Chandran et al., 2005). Studies also provide insights into which factors (e.g., price or value consciousness) impact on the PWYW price people pay, and on its profitability (Kim et al., 2009). PWYW is more effective than traditional pricing approaches for services that follow an economy pricing strategy (Schons et al., 2014) but not for luxury goods (Balan, 2014). A notable omission in the literature is the lack of studies that directly compare the profitability of PWYW for potential, new, and repeat customers in a high-value priced service setting. The high-value strategy is defined as positioning a high quality service sold at a medium price (Kotler et al., 2001). Another lack in literature is the use of natural experiments to examine whether groups of customers will pay different prices in comparison to traditional price setting methods. In marketing research, natural experiments have been used to examine price-quality trade-offs with the conclusion that consumers pay more for better quality (Bertini et al., 2012). Using the natural experiment of the biggest dance festival in Europe (ImPlusTanz) where different customer groups pay different prices, the study compares the applicability and profitability of the PWYW pricing method. Specifically, the minimum, maximum, and PWYW prices are compared to traditionally set prices. Results from the secondary data analysis reveal that ImPulsTanz uses a pricing structure based on demographics mainly. Survey results show that the PWYW prices differ between three natural customer groups. Repeat customers are prepared to pay the highest prices compared to new and potential customers. Despite all customers indicating they will pay for the service generally, PWYW prices paid are lower than traditional list prices from the secondary data analysis. Findings also confirm differences between customers with diverse price perception/consciousness, perceived quality and value of the services offered.

Level of urbanization in China has reached 53.73% in 2013, indicating a tremendous progress on the urbanization of China. On the other hand, the number of villages in China reduces by around one million from 3.6 million in 2000 to 2.7 million in 2010 (Zhang, 2014). Issues in both urban and rural areas of China appear, including the imbalance between increased population and limited resources in urban region, and more significantly, the increasing disparity between rural and urban areas. Chinese researchers interpret and analyse these matters from different perspectives. For instance, Zheng (2006) and Ma (2006) suggest the importance of the infrastructure construction and public service. Wu (2006) advises that the government should pay attention to the development of the secondary and tertiary industry. Wen (2005) proposes that the improvement of social institution and the recovery of social cultural environment are required to achieve sustainability in the urbanization process in China. Previous studies in environmental psychology put quality of life, attachment to place, and residence satisfaction at the center to understand the relationship between inhabitants and their neighborhood of residence. However, there are gaps in this research realm in both practice and theories. Firstly, very limited research studies this environmental psychology issue in China (e.g. Mao, Fornara, Manca, Bonnes, & Bonaiuto, 2015). Secondly, there are different opinions on the causal order between quality, attachment, and satisfaction. Research on the relationship between perceived residential environment quality (PREQ), place attachment, and environmental satisfaction has not reached a consensus. The debate on the direction of the causal relationship between perceived quality and satisfaction has been summarized by Bradya and Robertson (2001). They conclude that the quality to satisfaction causal order holds up well across diverse cultures. However, relevant debate is still ongoing. A number of research articles place satisfaction as an antecedent to attachment, e.g. Chen, Dwyer, and Firth (2014); Lee, Kyle, and Scott (2012); Ramkissoon and Mavondo (2015); etc. Some argue that place attachment is an indicator of satisfaction. Kyle et al. (2004) investigate the effect of place attachment on the perceived values of tourists and find that place attachment is an important factor explaining the variance of perceived values. This is supported by research e.g. Hwang, Lee, and Chen (2005); Prayag and Ryan (2012); Yuksel, Yuksel, Biljm (2010); etc. As to the relationship between perceived quality and attachment, the debate has not stopped. Through comparisons, Mesch and Manor (1996) conclude that the residents who give a higher evaluation of the social and natural environment may have greater place attachment. Brown, Perkins, and Brown (2003) also suggest that the residents who agree that the street environment is better would attach to this place. Sam, Bayram, and Bilgel (2012) have certified the relationship between residential environment quality and place attachment. Furthermore, Borrie and Roggenbuck (2001) and Walker and Ryan (2008) find that the connection between human beings and the nature environment would affect their affection toward the environment. It means that the closer the relationship with the nature environment is, the stronger the attachment would be, which in turn, enhances the intentions to protect the environment. This quality to satisfaction relationship is supported by other research such as Bonaiuto, Aiello, Perugini, Bonnes, and Ercolani (1999); Grisaffe and Nguyen (2011); Yu, Chen, and Chen (2015); etc. Nevertheless, a different opinion arguing that attachment to a place may affect one’s perception on the quality related to a place is emerging in tourism research (e.g. Neuvonen, Pouta, & Sievänen, 2010). This paper takes the credit of quality → attachment → satisfaction causal order as the initial model and proposes three hypotheses as follows. H1a: One’s PREQ has a positive impact on his/her attachment to this place; H2a: One’s attachment to a place has a positive impact on his/her satisfaction to the environmental settings in this place; H3a: Place attachment in addition performs as a mediating role between PREQ and environment satisfaction.To be noted, the initial model has its theoretical basis as discussed above but is not necessarily the absolute optimal model. Relatively, this model provides more theoretical interpretation and practical implications in the specific research context: residential psychology in urban and rural areas of China. On this basis, this article further examines a competing model illustrating an alternative theoretical framework on the relationships between these three constructs (satisfaction → attachment → quality). Relatively, another group of hypotheses in this competing model is listed as follows. H1b: One’s attachment to a place has a positive impact on his/her PREQ; H2b: One’s satisfaction to the environmental settings in this place has a positive impact on his/her attachment to this place; H3b: Place attachment in addition performs as a mediating role between environment satisfaction and PREQ. A survey approach is employed and data are collected from several backgrounds. Dataset A (rural) is collected from three villages from Heilongjiang Province and two villages from Shandong Province in China from July to August 2014. The choices of the provinces, rural areas, and the sampling process are random. 490 valid questionnaires are included in the data analysis. Dataset B (urban) is collected via an online survey portal, which allows a nationwide sampling reach. In total 1368 online survey entries are recorded and 420 valid questionnaires are included, resulting in a valid rate of 30.7%. The measures for each construct are based on an extensive literature review. The measurement of perceived residential environment quality is from Sam, Bayram, & Bilgel’s (2012) development on the perception of residential environment. The measurement of place attachment in this study is adopted from Kyle, Graefe, and Manning’s (2005) and Chen, Dwyer, and Firth’s (2014) evaluation based place attachment dimensionality and scales. As for the scale of environmental satisfaction, Pelletier, Legault, and Tuson’s (1996) measure was applied. All the entire variables adopted multiple-item, 5-point Likert scales were adopted, where “1” indicated “strongly disagree” and “5” indicated “strongly agree”. After pre-testing the preliminary version of the survey instrument, a revised version was developed. This study adopts structural equation modeling (SEM) based on partial least squares (PLS) modeling given the small sample size and the explorative purpose of this study (Dijkstra & Henseler, 2015a). The software used was Smart PLS 3.0. The reliability and validity of the constructs were assessed. Cronbach’s alpha and the value of CR of each construct were found to exceed the cut-off value of 0.70 (Fornell & Larcker, 1981), except for adequacy of education which is close to 0.70 (only for Cronbach’s alpha but not for CR). Furthermore, the AVE of each construct exceeded the variance attributable to its measurement error cut-off value of 0.50 (Chin, 1998; Fornell & Larcker, 1981). In addition, heterotrait-monotrait ratio (HTMT) is recommended as a better method to test discriminant validity (Henseler, Dijkstra, Sarstedt, Ringle, Diamantopoulos, Straub, Ketchen, Hair, Hult, & Calantone, 2014). The result shows that there is neither value of the HTMT higher than the threshold of 0.85 nor confidence interval containing the value one, indicating that all the constructs exhibit satisfactory discriminant validity. The hypothesized effects in the theoretical model were tested by structural equation modeling (SEM). The first group of models tested the effect of perceived environmental quality on environmental satisfaction through place attachment i.e. initial model (Model A, Model B, Model C), while the second group of models tested the reverse effect of environmental satisfaction on perceived environmental quality through place attachment (Model D, Model E, Model F). Both the full model and the multi-group model were tested. The value of SRMR of the full model that tests either the effect of perceived environmental quality on environmental satisfaction (SRMR = 0.104, t = 41.826, p < 0.001) or the reversed effect (SRMR = 0.106, t = 37.736, p < 0.001) shows that the models fit the data quite well (Dijkstra & Henseler, 2015b). However, the former is little bit more significant. In this study, PREQI is found different impacts on place attachment and environmental satisfaction. This provides evidence to support a similar mechanism of studying residents’ psychology with SERVEQUAL model. However, the model testing is found significantly different between rural and urban samples, indicating a systematic difference in the psychology of rural and urban populations. Quality  attachment  satisfaction causal order is found significant and supported by both samples in this study. However, a reversed causal order model (satisfaction  attachment  quality) is also supported by the samples. Although the results may not be able to end the debate on alternative models between PREQ, place attachment, and environmental satisfaction, this paper provides empirical evidence from a specific context (urban and rural China) for further research. Specifically, PREQ has a significant impact on place attachment in both urban and rural areas in China. As for the impact of place attachment on environmental satisfaction as well as the indirect impact of PREQ on environmental satisfaction, the influence is more significant in cities of China compared to rural areas. This suggests in the urban areas in China, affective and emotional responses to their lives play an important role to residents. Local government in cities should balance between improving and maintaining quality of the environment and strengthening local residents’ psychological attachment to the place. Governments in rural areas, on the other hand, should lay great focus on the physical aspects of the environment including nature, health, education, commerce, and venture of the rural areas, to enhance residents’ living experience and satisfaction. Further, there are some limitations. Although this study attempts to clarify the framework of “perception-affection-attitude” in the field of environment management, considering the practical implications, the future study could bring the individuals’ behaviors or intentions into this model such as willingness-to-pay for environment-friendly products. It will also benefit from reviewing more literature on community-based social marketing.

Search query information has been neglected in the evaluation and management of search engine advertising. Based on a search engine advertising campaign for a 4 year period, this study explores if search advertising metrics vary for informational, transactional, and navigational search intentions. Differences across these intentions were found for the advertising rank, click-through rate, cost per click, offline signing rate, and cost per contract. As a result, the study proposes the integration of search intention in search engine advertising management by incorporating the available search query information. This notion of keywords as a composition of different search intentions challenges the current practice of evaluating search engine advertising on a one-dimensional keyword basis.

Customer experience has become an important concept in explaining consumer behaviour with hedonic products in the online game industry. However, few studies have examined the differences in game experience internationally between players from different nationalities. Game producers who market their wares to a global audience need to take into account that individuals from different national backgrounds have different experiences according to nationally specific cultural and societal norms and restrictions. These experiences determine how players perceive, interact and enjoy products. The current study attempts to examine differences in game experiences between India and the US. Around 600 respondents were collected from Amazon Mechanical Turk (Mturk), an online data panel. Analysis of results using a series of multivariate analysis of covariate, showed that players from India and the US are different in most aspects of game experience except for their analytical experience. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed and recommendations are made with consideration to the ramifications of the investigation.

British heritage brand Yardley was bought by Indian multinational Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting Group in the year 2009 from UK based Lornamead group for USD 45.5million. The task of reinventing the magic of the British heritage brand in contemporary India was not easy. Brand Yardley was perceived as a “grandmother’s brand” given the history and memory of its existence since centuries. In order to connect with young Indians, the company hired Bollywood actor Katrina Kaif (with British lineage) as their brand ambassador to evoke nostalgia of British era in India and promote heritageness of brand Yardley. However, this communication strategy failed to connect with the consumers. This research paper attempts to understand the significance of heritageness, nostalgia, unique positioning and functional benefits as influencers in creating consumer-brand relationship leading to buying intention by the consumer in the personal care category, using heritage brand Yardley as the pivotal point. This research was conducted in three phases. In phase one, qualitative research approach was used with in-depth interviews and focus group discussions after which variables for the study were generated. In phase two, an elaborated questionnaire was developed. The first part of the questionnaire included demographics like gender, age, occupation and income. The second part of the questionnaire related to recognizing brand Yardley among five print advertisements featuring Katrina Kaif as a model but not revealing the brand for which Katrina Kaif had modeled for. The final survey was conducted with 16 assessing questions for four factors namely, heritage, unique positioning, functional benefits, nostalgia and buying intention. The study was pilot tested once (n=89) and revised once (n=235) for clarity and accuracy. Three questions were revised and reduced. The scale used was Likert type (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). The sample unit was within a university campus in Mumbai as the young residents were the target audience for the brand. The outcome of the survey resulted in high Cronbach alpha of .87 and clear rotated factor structures. In phase three of the research, a set of competing brands of soaps with respect to Brand Yardley was generated from the focus group discussions and multidimensional scaling by direct method was carried out using two attributes (functional benefits and unique positioning). The research approach employed was both symmetric and asymmetric analysis to provide analytical outcome using multiple regression analysis, structural equation modeling and application of complexity theory for contrarian cases and could be the first to formally examine tenets of complexity theory in personal care category research contexts. The research outcome revealed that functional benefits and unique positioning of brand Yardley should be crystallized using sensory branding and storytelling format that weaves around the evolution of its heritageness to evoke nostalgia resulting in buying intention.

Substantial knowledge about how electronic word of mouth (eWOM) relates to influentials, or, individuals who either intentionally or unintentionally have a great impact on the network, is lacking because influence patterns are hardly quantifiable when human and societal components are not deeply understood. The eWOM networks in social media platforms drive the theoretical and practical progress of the social structure of eWOM and the social role of influentials. The purpose of this study is to explore the diffusion of eWOM in a Twitter network by drawing from the Diffusion of Innovation theory in conjunction with Social Network Analysis (SNA) approach. Through a large amount of data collected from Twitter regarding the terrorist attack in Paris on November 13, 2015, this study examined the social structure of eWOM network groups and identifies the social role of influential users in the network of #prayforparis. To identify influentials of eWOM in Twitter networks, SNA was conducted with NodeXL, which is an Excel add-in network analysis software. The Twitter data set was uploaded at 11 am, on November 17, 2015 by applying hashtag prayforparis through Twitter Search Network feature of NodeXL. A total of 19,592 tweets (vertices) were downloaded with a total of 20,297 edges (relations between vertices). “Justin Bieber” was identified as the most influential and dominant user in the network of #prayforparis because he has the highest in-degree (4,196) and highest betweenness centrality (51,772,745.861). Justin Bieber lost one of his friends in the terrorist attack, and his tweet about the sadness from the loss was retweeted more than 50,000 times and received 77,000 likes. Throughout the network, top word pairs respectively repeated more than 4,000 times were “thomas, prayforparis,” “rt, justinebieber,” “rip, thomas,” and “justinbiber, rip.” “Ally Brook” and “Louis Tomlin” ranked 3rd and 5th respectively with the highest betweenness centrality also demonstrated the celebrity power in the eWOM network of #prayforparis. While the three celebrities as dominant influentials were prominent in the Twitter network of #prayforparis, the social roles of fans were also acknowledged. The celebrities’ fans and fan sites have constantly diffused the celebrities’ posts by retweeting and by mentioning every tweet posted by the celebrities that they support. Without the celebrities and their fans, the #prayforparis network would have depicted a completely different style of diffusion of eWOM. The study confirmed social role of fans that constantly presented idiosyncratic manners by identifying and by linking to the public figure. The distinctive characteristics of the fans also enabled identifying the social role of the celebrity while spreading the new ideas with hashtag. The celebrity played a key role as an information hub even in a network of socio-political events such as the #prayforparis Twitter network. Thus, identified overwhelming influence of the celebrities in the eWOM network extends the areas of marketing choices and applicable strategies with celebrities.

Firms acquire customers using myriad forms of marketing media (Neslin & Shankar 2009), and different media strategies yield different results to the firms. Therefore, allocating media strategy given a firm’s spending raises important questions for managers. This is especially the case since the media landscape has changed dramatically, with new media channels incorporating online, mobile, and social media now being considered the mainstream. It is crucial to understand how each form of media influences consumers and how it operates alongside traditional media. Based on Stephen and Galak (2012), marketers distinguish earned media from paid media. Earned media is defined as media activity that a company does not directly generate, such as press mentions on the internet and online community posts in consumer-generated social media. On the other hand, paid media refers to the media activity which a company generates (for example, television, radio, print, and direct mail). It is common for firms to consider using earned media and paid media at the same time when developing marketing communication strategies. Despite the coexistence of paid and earned media channels, previous empirical findings focus either on paid media or earned media and suggest that these individually will increase a firm’s marketing outcomes. However, there is a lack of research that examines the question of whether the use of paid media and earned media at the same time is synergistic. The effects of a cross media synergy only focuses on the resource allocation within paid media (for example, TV–Radio (Edell & Keller 1989), TV–Magazine (Confer & McGlathery 1991), TV–Print (Dijkstra, Buijtels, & Van Raaij 2005), and TV, Radio, Print and Outdoor (Briggs, Krishnan, & Sheeran 2003)). Thus, by considering paid media and earned media concurrently, this study investigates whether the synergies between paid and earned media have a stronger effect on a firm’s long term profitability than the isolated effects of TV or word of mouth (WOM) alone. In addition, the research on earned media has focused on short-term outcomes such as customer actions (for example, website sign-ups) and sales growth, sales rank, cross-product sales, and ratings (Trusov, Bucklin, & Pauwels 2009; Li & Hitt 2008; Moe & Trusov 2011). Moreover, in the limited research on the relationship between earned media and long-term outcomes, the outcomes are restricted to those related to soft metrics of communication effectiveness (for example, attitude and brand awareness). Therefore, we use customer equity, which is regarded as a forward looking firm outcome variable, thereby enabling marketers to monitor and measure the long-term financial impact of marketing spending (Kumar & Shah 2015). Moreover, cross-media synergy can be accurately measured by customer equity, which incorporates both customer acquisition and retention. Based on Villanueva, Yoo, and Hassens (2008), customers acquired through paid media focus more on trials, whereas customers acquired through earned media provide the firm with more repeats. In other words, paid media plays a key role in the acquisition of customers, while, on the other hand, earned media increase the retention of customers. Thus, it is appropriate to measure the cross-media synergy with the customer equity (long term profitability) that can capture the customer acquisition and retention simultaneously. Regarding the long term impact of the firm’s media strategy, previous research has used the economic impact of traditional marketing channel (for example, television, radio, magazine or newspaper, advertisement, e-mail links, and direct mail) versus that of WOM (for example, links from Web sites, magazine, or newspaper articles, referrals from friends or colleagues, referrals from professional organizations or associations, and referrals from search engines) on customer equity. Traditional marketing had a stronger effect than WOM in the short term, while WOM is a quiet, gradual-impact, long lasting driver (Villanueva, Yoo, & Hassens 2008). This result can be attributed to the different characteristics of each media channel. Although earned media, including WOM, is not entirely controlled by the firm, earned media may be more likely to last longer for various reasons. One of the reasons for this phenomenon is that earned media has greater credibility than conventional marketing activities that are implemented by the firms, and is therefore more persuasive than conventional advertising (Brown & Reingen 1987, Villanueva, Yoo, & Hassens 2008). In other words, considering the impact of each type of media in itself, earned media is more effective in increasing long-term profitability. However, the interaction effect of earned and paid media has not been empirically tested yet. Thus, it is conceivable that a cross-media synergy (incorporating the implementation of earned media and paid media at the same time) will last longer than the implementation of each isolated media. As Armelini and Villanueva (2010) pointed out, earned media and paid media have complementary effects. For example, offline advertising increases website visitation by influencing consumer awareness, while online advertising directly leads to website traffic (Ilfeld & Winer 2002). The consumer buying process involves distinct stages such as awareness, consideration, and purchase (Lavidge & Stener 2000) and each media influences customer buying behavior in a different way. Hence, it enhances the effectiveness in terms of long-term profitability to utilize the cross-media effect properly. For example, in the car industry, 64 % new car buyers become aware of the features and benefits of a car by obtaining information online, even though they purchase their cars from an offline dealership (J.D. Power and Associates 2004). This finding implies that a firm’s implementation of both paid and earned media properly will maximize the customers’ arousal of the target brands. Furthermore, converging paid media and earned media is expected to proliferate the growth of a firm’s profitability, such as sales, revenue, and customer’s equity, at an exponential rate. For example, the effects of TV advertising execution can be enhanced by press mentions that a company does not directly generate; this is because press mentions support the credence of TV advertising. Inversely, since paid media activities reach the audience relatively more than WOM (due to the high audience penetration share), the online share of press mention can proliferate rapidly with the execution of paid media activities. Therefore, the interaction between earned media and paid media has a greater effect on customer equity than isolated media implementation. The impact of a media synergy has more positive effect and last longer than isolated media implementation (and our model is displayed in Fig. 1). We collect data on marketing efforts, word-of-mouth circumstance, and performance of a telecommunication company. Based on customer equity models and quarterly marketing and performance data, we first estimate the lifetime value of the newly acquired and existing customers. Thereafter, we determine the customer equity of the company over each period. We develop and employ a time-series model for examining the relationship between cross media efforts (paid media vs. earned media) and the estimated firm’s customer equity. Finally, we examine the synergistic effect of cross media on the firm’s long-term profitability.

With advances in digital technology, retailers are utilizing digital signage which would be a visual factor of atmospherics in a retail environment. Based on stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model, this study was to examine a moderating effect of digital signage in relationship between atmospherics and store patronage. To collect data, a self-administered questionnaire was developed based on literatures, and mainly contained usage experience of digital signage, atmospherics (20 items), and store patronage (6 items). All items were measured on 7 point rating scale. Two sampling frames for this study were involved: experienced sample from retail stores with digital signage vs. unexperienced sample from retail stores without digital signage. Each sample was separately asked to complete the same questions regarding experience with digital signage, store atmospherics and store patronage. A total 497 usable responses (n=278 for experienced digital signage; n=219 for unexperienced digital signage) were obtained from consumers who were aged from 20 to 49 years old. For experienced sample, digital signage has been used various types: for example, location-based digital screen for store and shopping information (52.5%) was the most experienced, and followed by LED screen (28.8%) and others (e.g., Digital Look-Book, Virtual-Try-on, Interactive Screen, and Self-checking kiosk) in the fashion retail environments. Of total respondents, females (50.7%) were slightly more than were males (49.3%). For data analysis, descriptive statistics, factor analysis, t-test, hierarchy regression analysis were used by using PASW18. Preliminarily, factor analysis revealed that atmospherics consisted of three elements, such as store layout, visual aesthetics and interior display. The factor loadings were ranged from .60 to .80 and three factors were accounted for 70.42% of total variance. Compared with store without digital signage, the mean score of atmospherics (e.g., store layout, visual aesthetics, and interior display) was more highly rated in the retail stores with digital signage. In a hierarchical multiple regression model, two factors of store layout and interior display had a significant effect on store patronage in the first step (F=69.23, p<.001, Adjusted R2=.29). The store layout (β=.33, p<.001) and interior display (β=.17, p<.01) were likely to increase consumers’ store patronage. Also, interaction effect of digital signage and atmospherics was significant in the second step (R2 Change=.014, F Change=3.386, df1=3, df2=487, p<.05). Digital signage had moderating effect only in the relationship between interior display and store patronage (β=.65, p<.05). The findings suggest that digital signage plays an important role as a stimulus in improving atmospherics at the retail environments. Particularly, the digital signage would be effective in a good interior display including POP signs, product display, racks and cases, furniture, which can lead to store patronage. This study provides a managerial implication into retailers for improving atmospherics by utilizing retail technology inside a store. Especially for fashion retailers, it is required to combine digital technology service with in-store visual merchandising for a retail environment.

There is a general consensus in the literature that impulse buying is normatively wrong, but accounts for a substantial volume of the goods sold every year across the broad range of product categories, including fashion products. Research revealed that young consumers particularly contributed greatly to the increase of impulse buying. While lack of self-control has been found strongly associated with the unplanned nature of impulse buying, with an environment of abundance and consumerism, self-indulgence, rather than lack of self-control, may become a more important driver for impulse buying for modern consumers (Sharma, Sivakumaran, & Marshall, 2011). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate how self-indulgence influences young consumers’ impulse buying and the post purchase consumer regret. This study also aims to test the role of fashion consciousness in the relationship between young consumers’ self-indulgence and impulse buying for fashion products. Self-indulgence is considered a hedonistic tendency, which includes enjoying spending money on oneself, buying things for one’s own pleasure, and trying to enjoy life (Sharma, Sivakumaran, & Marshall, 2011). It was recognized as one of the two opposing cognitive forces leading to impulse behavior (Miao, 2011). While the impulse to purchase is comprised of anticipated pleasures and immediate gratification (Rook, 1987), ironically, consumer regret is one of the major emotional consequences associated with impulse buying. There are two types of consumer regret: cognitive dissonance, resulted from an immediate post-purchase comparison of what was purchased versus the other available alternatives, and consumer guilt, related specifically to the consumption decision situations. Literature suggested that individuals show interest in fashion products with the belief that fashion products will contribute to their appearance, image, and/or bring enjoyment to their life (Workman & Kidd, 2000). In that same token, an individual with high self-indulgence tendency is more likely to show interest in fashion in hopes of identifying fashion items for indulgence purpose. Moreover, this indulgence motivated fashion consciousness will more likely lead to high impulse buying for fashion products. Based on the literature, hypotheses were developed for this study as represented in the following figure. Data was collected using a survey of college students majored in textile/fashion management at a large southeast university in the USA. A total of 190 surveys were distributed and returned. The majority of the subjects were females (73.7%), white (74.7%), and held part-time work (56.7%). Existing scales were adopted to measure self-indulgence (Sharma, Sivakumaran, & Marshall, 2011) and fashion consciousness (Bruner & Hensel, 1998). Impulse buying behavior and post-purchase regret were measured by asking subjects to retroactively recall their shopping trips for fashion products during the past three months. A group of items developed by the researchers were used to measure both the impulse buying behavior and consumer regret. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was first employed to assess the psychometric properties of the constructs. Overall, the fit indices of the measurement model were acceptable (NFI=0.86, IFI=0.935, RMSEA=0.066, CMIN/DF=1.7). A Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was conducted to test the relationship proposed in the hypotheses. To test the mediating effect of fashion consciousness on the relationship between self-indulgence and impulse buying behaviors, a bootstrapping bias-corrected confidence interval procedure was conducted. Overall, the fit indices of the SEM model were acceptable (CMN/df=1.338, NFI=0.90, IFI=0.97, RMSEA=0.044). The SEM results suggested that self-indulgence had a significant influence on impulse buying for fashion products directly and indirectly via fashion consciousness. The impulse purchase behavior had a positive influence on the consumers’ feeling of guilt for the impulse purchase behavior, while no significant influence was found on cognitive dissonance. This research makes several contributions to the literature of impulse buying. First, the study suggests that consumers’ self-indulgence exerts significant direct and indirect influences on consumers’ impulse buying for fashion products. This result may provide an explanation to the phenomenon of increasing impulse buying behavior in the marketplace, even though it is widely considered as a “misbehavior”. Secondly, this study suggests a significant mediating role of fashion consciousness in the relationship between self-indulgence on consumers’ impulse buying for fashion products. The abundance of fashion products in the market and the appreciation of the social and affective function of fashion products contribute to the chain effect from self-indulgence to fashion consciousness and finally to impulse purchase for fashion products. Third, this study confirms the negative guilt feeling resulted from the impulse buying behavior.

Understanding how consumer learning is used to cope with stressful consumption experience is important in today’s competitive marketplace. According to the Customer Dissatisfaction Study (2006), only 6 percent of consumers who experience a problem try to learn about solutions with some help from firms. By understanding how consumers and learn cope and handle service failure, firms can enhance their service recovery process to effectively deal with consumers’ frustration. This knowledge can positively impact corporate image, consumer repurchase intentions, satisfaction, and loyalty (e.g., Mittal and Kamakura 2001). As such, the current research aims at providing insight on the importance of situated learning in coping with stressful consumption experiences. Situated learning takes into consideration the context as well as existing consumer knowledge in shaping an individual’s ability to cope with stressful service experiences. The interaction with the environment and other individuals, the context of these interactions, and the role of individual cognition through mental models play an important role in situated learning. Such interplay is pivotal in mediating the ability of individuals to cope with unfavorable service episodes. Past research has alluded to learning process in the context of coping (Duhachek 2005; Endler and Parker 1990; Pavia and Mason 2004). Extant research has highlighted the importance of in situ learning as an essential mechanism to coping with anxiety and stress. However, previous research has considered learning as a component of coping. We believe that situated learning is a construct separate from coping that requires further exploration. Therefore, in this research we aim to establish the link between situated learning and coping. We also identify key antecedents of situated learning and relate such antecedents of need for control, need for closure and trust to the central concept of psychological closeness to the consumption problem at hand, which has a positive influence on situated learning and coping. We study the model in context of eastern (China) and western (USA) cultures. Data was collected using online surveys in USA and China. Individuals who have encountered stressful service situations were requested to undertake the survey. The items used to represent various latent variables were pretested in both the cultures to ensure face and content validity. The sample comprised of a total of 318 (186 U.S. and 132 Chinese) participants. Structural equations modeling was used to analyze the data. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted, the latter resulted in good fit for the model. Next, using Steenkamp and Baumgartner’s (1998) guidelines for cross-cultural studies, the measurement equivalence of the measurement variables was tested. Finally, the structural model was tested. For U.S. consumers, need for control, need for closure and trust positively influenced psychological closeness to the consumption problem, which positively affected situated learning and coping. For Chinese consumers, need for closure and trust had a direct influence on psychological closeness. However, there was no relationship between psychological closeness and situated learning, suggesting that the antecedents of need for control and need for closure had a direct effect on situated learning, which positively affected coping. This means that unlike U.S. consumers, Chinese consumers did not necessarily aligned themselves closely to the problem to learn about them. Their need for control and need for closure directly affected their situated learning, which in turn, had a positive influence on coping. Interestingly, unlike U.S. consumers, Chinese consumers did not trust their service providers enough to help them learn and cope.

As the branding process is intertwined with already existing culturally conditioned conceptions, fundamental cultural processes in a society might affect the attraction of a specific brand. This means that trends of ethical or political fashions influence the popularity of brands and how they are recognized. In his seminal book Brand Society, Martin Kornberger argues that “brands have brought about a new way of living a life: the ubiquitous, pervasive yet little analyzed notion of lifestyle encapsulates brands’ power to quite literally stylize life”. He points to three influential elements—he calls them a troika—provides a basis for this analysis. These are Politics, Ethics and Aesthetics. (Kornberger, 2010) I will here propose a fourth, namely stories, tales, and that which lies behind these, modes of understanding, you might even want to call it a sentiment. I hope to show that such stories (sentiments) take on the form of ideas and thus can have profound political implications, if not to say that they have ideological origins and in this way far-reaching consequences, the effects on brands and the use of attire coupled to them just being one. This fourth element I prefer to call simply Sentiment, even though feeling would probably be just as appropriate or even Thought-trends. Ideology could be another possible term, but this is really an outcome rather than a good term in and of itself for what I intend to show. Yet another possibility would be to use the term Myth, then of course with reference to Barthes myth-concept. (Barthes, 1997) His concept has to do with self-descriptions, mainly focusing on national sentiments and self-understandings of what it might mean to be for instance French or British, Barthes exemplifies by referring to concrete manifestations such as the Eiffel Tower or Five o’clock tea, answers to questions like ’Who are we?’ or ‘How do people like us live?’. These are national myths based on some sort of ethnical factor, living-space if you will. This is however not what I’m focusing on, rather under-currents to thinking of another sort. So I’ll just stick with Sentiments for the time being To show this, I will take help of a specific case and in so doing focus on its position in the late 60-ties and early 70-ties. The case accordingly focuses on how the brand Fjällräven has been acknowledged as having varying political, ethical and fashionable positioning over decades. The case is compared to another related brand within the outdoor equipment-slash-fashion industry, Haglöfs. Possibly a lesser known brand and this have its explanations as will be seen. One aspect of this sentiment is stories; if the sentiment manifests itself as a kind of self-understanding in terms of self-stories, tales of oneself and of one’s history, then stories is a facet of the sentiment. The term stories might imply storytelling, a term lately frequently used to denote a marketing tool within something in practical marketing coined content marketing. By this one might mean marketing that is not primarily targeted at conveying a simple message pertaining to a customer need or want, rather at building trustworthiness in an attempt to relate to customers sense of belonging or search for ideas and suggestions—the helpful company with a legitimate history and position in society. Storytelling has been the subject of many books, both textbooks and consultancy literature, Brown, (2004), Mossberg & Nissen Johansen (2006), Thier (2006), to name but a few. Content marketing is not that novel an idea as Pulizzi (2012) contends, it has been around for for hundreds of years. His exampel is John Deere and the compay’s strive to educate its customers in how to use equipment. Another example would be Jell-O and their recipies in the early 20th century. Another aspect of storytelling might be the so called corporate narrative, this phenomenon has been analyzed by many, Barbara Czarniawska (1997, 2005, 2009) to name but one. She even makes an interesting connection between corporate storytelling and novels, as well as referring storytelling to leadership. In this sence stories and storytelling is not just marketing, it is also part of an organizations inner workings, as leadership and the (possibly co-) creation of a shared identity; it is stories of the self and stories that would contextualize and explain the position of the self, thus pertaining to sentimets, also of course to explain and rationalize the actions taken within the actual context that is described by these stories, hence they are can be seen as manifestations of a mental selfportrait. The idea of realization of actions motivated by and pertaining to stories and storytelling in organization and marketing has also been analyzed by Rehnberg (2014) from a linguistic viewpoint, using Fjällräven as an exampel for the analysis. She of course has a much greater scope for her analysis than just actions, but it is one of her vital points. Stories in her sense can be of two kinds, Strategic stories and Common stories, the difference being that Strategic stories are stories that are created by a commercial actor. She talks of stories as chains of text, texts that are stories can be consecutively constructed, an obvious example being blogg texts. These texts develop a story, further Rehnberg points out that they in themselves are inscribed in stories: stories contextualize stories so to speak. These contextualizing stories she calls meta-stories, stories that remain weak in their explicitness, yet strong in their impact. Invisible in details yet most visible in society, both as self-understanding of what’s importante and as self-descriptions of the social, even models for explanations. One might come to think about Lyotard and his pivotal work La Condition Postmodern. Lyotards critizises the idea of mega-stories and talks about small, maybe even local, stories. (Lyotard, 1984) A Lyotardian mega-story is one that pertains to the whole society, in a sense claims to explain everything in society, a story that tells a bout developlemnt and societal focus and strive; it explains our moment in history and what we are as a society. Lyotard maintains that these stories more or less has outlived themselves. This is what he calls the postmodern condition. Knowledge then has to be construed in other terms than in something under the umbrellla of such a mega-story, somewhat holistic, i.e. understod in terms of a whole system rather than as disconected units or propositions. His critique can be said to be directed towards ideas that has come to be expressed by people such as the 19th century philosophers and pedagogue Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) and, the better known, John Dewey (1859-1952), and possibly also, at least in an idirect way, the italian philosopher Gianbatista Vico (1668-1744). But in the course of progression of this text, I hope it will be clear that the ideas of these three very influencial, or semi-influencial, philosophers, are not totally consistant with each other even though they share some similarities on some level. And of course, that at the point where they share simlarities, they also help to explain the case of Fjällräven. The American pragmatist John Dewey is one of the heavily influential philosophers during the 19th and 20th centuries. He can be said to represent a very dominant strain of thought that has its roots in 18th century enlightenment. One early forerunner within the field of pedagogy is the now since long forgotten Herbert Spencer. The strain of thought these philosophers represent can be coined progressivist. The idea within this thought model is that improvement is possible through knowledge, a kind of optimism when it comes to society and human effort to improve its living conditions, and being in the world. But knowledge should and must be rooted in empirical observations. In this way, the study of scripture would not lead to knowledge, at least not of the world in which we live. A boy or a girl (depending if you follow Dewey or Spencer) reaches knowledge of the empirical world when confronted with it. The world poses the problems, and the boy or girl looks for solutions to these problems. The problems occur when ambitions to do things are limited in some way, the problem is to overcome these limitations, in this way the solutions have a two-pronged grounding: in part in the empirical, in part in the personal. It is driven by personally experienced limitations, and by empirical observations. The same is true of science, Dewey maintains, and in this way all knowledge-seeking activities. The ideal is the tailor, the cabinetmaker and the shoemaker: the craftsman, in short. Knowledge is within the world and about the world. The outcome of knowledge is better a living-in-the-world and a better life for the living people, thus knowledge is part of the improvement of life for human beings, for society as a whole, if you will. This progressivist mentality is linked to society and everything in it and thus to brands that accordingly resonates the progressivist sentiments and hopes so that the brand of Fjällräven can be said to be an example of progression in this progressivist tradition. I’ll come back to this later, and show how this is possible. I have earlier mentioned Giambattista Vico (1664-1744), an Italian philosopher and educator. Contrary to Dewey and Spencer, he describes the development of society in terms of stories resonating in society. Now, one might say that this is just what the progressivist sentiment is, a story, a tale if you will, of progression and improvement. This sentiment has very much been the guide of political judgement (an apparent example is Swedish Government Official Reports, this manner of preparing decisions is not uncommon elsewhere either, as far as I know) and pedagogy, where students are urged to find out for themselves, ideas of individualized learning, problem based learning (PBL) and more. The idea at the core of these methodologies are in all cases that student’s lust for learning and problem solving is vital for learning. Problem solving and invention is hailed, whilst repetitious repeating of authoritative commandments is unsolicited; progression is also a questioning of authorities, sometimes anyway. So if the progressivist sentiment is a story told, or rather untold but communicated throughout society, it still drives action and strategic choices, and it still is what it is not supposed to be. It is in effect a Lyotardian mega-story, and also a Rehnbergian. Gianbatista Vico argues that a society develops its understanding of itself and its mentality in terms of story about itself in three phases, the divine, the heroic and the human. The three phases are characterized by three different approaches to knowledge and truth. The first rather primitive phase, Divine, is characterized by an equation of empirical phenomenon with divine phenomenon. Comprehension is driven by Poetry, Phantasy and Metaphysics, and so builds the basis for construing the world. The metaphor is characterizing this stage, in that the world is described in divine terms that they themselves represent rather than present, it is what it is not. The second phase according to Vico is the Heroic. It is described as idealization, institutions are feudal, the central figure of speech is the metonym that one stands for all, the king for the county. Society will be embodied by class difference. The third stage Vico calls the Human phase. Irony and rationalism are characterizing factors, democracy and general laws, too. The phases can appear a trifle optimistic if they are seen as consecutive, which is what I think Vico suggests. The important idea that I want to hold on to here is not the phases progressiveness taken as a whole, rather what they contain by themselves. Vico's thesis is that truth exists as a consequence of forms of understanding, in the text, in the sentiments condensed into stories and understandings resonating within society. This idea I want to use to explain why the progressivist sentiments can be said to resonate by and with a brand as a token re-presentative re-verbarating, i.e. re-stating, the story resonating in a society: a story or rational knowledge-seeking in order to enhance welfare and ease endeavors, solve problems we encounter and make life a smoother and more efficient ride. With reference to Umberto Eco, Martin Kornberger points out that an author seldom, if ever, has any control over the interpretations of their work. This idea has also been put forward by Paul Ricoeur. This means that the talk, the communicated ideas, the re-verberation if you will, has a greater impact on the meaning of a work than the work itself, the work itself being one of the factors influencing the meaning creating process but not the only. The meaning creating process thus becomes an ever ongoing socially contingent process rather than a stable, once and for all, established fact. Transferred to the field of brands, as Kornberger does, the idea is that brands resonate in society, and they resonate ideas that people have, individuals and collectives. Marcel Danesi voices a similar idea when he affirms that advertising that is in some sense or another successful always resonates with something outside of the brand meaning itself. (Danesi, 2008) An intertextual connection to societal factors. If this is true, then brands resonate not just in an individual sense with individual co-creators, but also in a collective sense with ideas rather than individuals, individuals being the carriers, vehicles if you will, of meaning that co-create meaning but the long term intertextual factors needs to be taken into account. If this is so, then Fjällräven would be a case in point and, further, intertextuality does not need to be communicated explicitly, it is still present, like progressivism is present and thus would influence the meaning construct of a brand, and consequently its sense of significance, value, for want of a better word. The progressivist sentiment becomes an actor in itself that is involved in the co-authoring of brand meaning. Let me now turn to Fjällräven. Fjällräven first saw daylight in 1960. It was commenced by Åke Nordin as a cellar company sewing outdoor equipment of his own design, selling it locally. In less than ten years he had built a company that produced all sorts of equipment, although his original product were rucksacks. These rucksacks had for the time a novel design in the sense that this design was first offered in a commercial situation by Fjällräven. Åke Nordin had built his own carrying-frames and sewn his own sacks to go with the frame himself. The design with frames that one can lash one’s carrying-load onto was of course not new, what was new was Fjällräven’s applications and commercialization of the concept. At the time another outdoor-equipment supplier was very well established on the Swedish market, Haglöfs. In 1914 the entrepreneur Wiktor Haglöf started the self-named business. He began his business in a very similar way to Åke Nordin, by selling rucksack of his own make, primarily to local farmers and loggers. The Haglöf business grew as his rucksacks were perceived as modern and would meet high demands on quality in the wear and tear of the logger’s and farmer’s hard work. The rucksacks of the Haglöf make were even chosen by the Swedish army and used well into the 70-ties. The Haglöf rucksacks were robust and heavy. One voiced from the time—early 70-ties—stated that if you wanted a rucksack to last forever, then you should choose a Haglöfs. But if you wanted something sleek, slender and light-weight, then Fjällräven would be the preferred the choice. The thing that is voiced here is significant in more than one way, I think. First, a quality argument is not always sustainable. Second, what is perceived as ‘the best’ is not always obvious. Third, success breeds success in a very specific fashion. What is put forward is the choice between a quality condition and something else, what this something else is, is not exactly clear, more of a feeling than something apparent and markedly substantial in a tangible respect. Except maybe for the weight-factor, which can be interpreted in quite another direction, light-weight meaning fragile, even delicate. In fact, the voice hinted in that direction by supplementing the assessment by saying that if one would venture to drop the Haglöfs rucksack from way up high onto a hard surface it would sustain the fall and still be in a usable state. It was thus maintained that that would not be the case with a rucksack of a Fjällräven make. So one might think that any rational ourdoorer (hiker or backpacker) would pick the rucksack with the most likelihood to sustain harsh conditions as the Swedish army in those days did, but that is not so, not in all cases anyway, since the Fjällräven rucksack with its concept of a frame onto which the actual sacks were fastened. The concept was, at least for some, obviously more important than durability. But another explanation is possible to, as I see it, and that explanation has to do with fashion: it was more fashionable for some people to carry your things in a Fjällräven rucksack than in a Haglöfs. If this is true then this fashionablity needs explaining, and it is precisely here that the tell-tale stories plays vital role. During the 19th and 20th centuries a strong undercurrent was the progressivist sentiment: progress, strive for discoveries, inventions, the future is the important age—past is bygones—political inventions to better society, social inventions to better life, inventions in the field of technology, interventions to improve individuals as well as collectives (“A future to believe in”, a phrase presently used by one of the contenders to the presidency of the United States of America, the leftist candidate). Fjällräven presented such an invention that intervened in the life of backpackers as well as outdoorers, the hikers of the time. The invention was the fashionable, the progressive—the political if you will—that bettered life. This progressiveness was the social wave that Fjällräven could surf on and it became the wave of success for Fjällräven that the firm still seems to surf on. Haglöfs was left behand, and possibly still is. The invention was not first and foremost a technological invention as an instance in the tale of progress; a social re-verberation to allude to the Danesian concept of synergy. Following Danesi, a valid story is a story that has the ability to attract sentiment, a story that will inscribe and make sense in terms of a synergetic effect. If the undercurrent is progressivism and that sentiment rationalizes Fjällräven and their offering to users of rucksacks in terms of a story of progression, then that would account for the position Fjällräven got, and, at least to a degree, still retain.

The counterfeit market makes up as much as seven percent of worldwide trade and is estimated as a $650 billion industry. Due to consumer demand, this phenomenon has grown over 10,000% in the past two decades and presents a serious threat to the global economy. Many luxury brand managers assume that counterfeiting damages brand image, however some experts have indicated that luxury houses use counterfeit sales to predict demand for their own brand. In this sense, brands are reacting to the effects of counterfeit purchase and need to develop a proactive strategy for preventing it. By understanding consumers’ perception of brands and how it relates to their counterfeit consumption, brand managers can better plan their marketing strategies to build relationships with consumers for increasing loyalty and preventing possible loss in sales. The purpose of this study is to understand the effect of branding on non-deceptive counterfeit consumption of luxury brands by proposing that brand equity plays a moderating role in the relationship between attitudes toward counterfeits and purchase intentions and in the relationship between social factors and purchase intentions. Specifically, this study conceptualizes the customer-based brand equity model with the Theory of Reasoned Action to develop strategic marketing implications for luxury brands. Previous research has resulted in managerial implications for combatting the counterfeit phenomenon, but it is more effective to prevent the increase in demand for counterfeits than to react to that demand. This study examines the role of brand equity to help brand managers focus their marketing strategies on specific levels of customer-based brand equity to build stronger relationships with consumers and reduce the demand for counterfeit products. Previous studies have examined the effects of counterfeits on brands, but research on the effects of brands on counterfeit consumption is very limited. This study adds to literature on counterfeits by understanding how branding can affect counterfeit purchase. Studies have used the Theory of Reasoned Action for understanding consumers’ intention to purchase counterfeit products. Drawing on the customer-based brand equity model, this research proposes brand identity, brand response, brand meaning, and brand relations as moderating variables in addition to the basic constructs of the model to extend previous literature, as no previous research has used customer-based brand equity for understanding counterfeit consumption. Previous studies have conceptualized customer-based brand equity for building relationships with customers, but this concept has never been used in the counterfeit context. This study is the first to use brand equity for understanding consumers’ counterfeit purchase intentions. This study suggests important implications for luxury brand marketers. By understanding how consumers associate with a brand, marketers can target specific levels of brand equity as part of their marketing strategies to deter counterfeit purchase. The proposed model serves as an initial step for understanding how brand equity affects non-deceptive consumption of counterfeit luxury goods. Future studies include empirically testing this proposed model and quantifying how much each level of customer-based brand equity contributes to consumer’ perception of brands. Future studies could also test the impact of branding on specific product types to analyze differences in consumers’ brand associations based on product category, as some product categories are more favorable to counterfeit consumers than others.