As consumers take greater control over products and brands they consume, electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and user-generated content (UGC) are now being considered as one of the most critical product sources for consumers. Most notable in recent years has been the widespread emergence of eWOM in social media. The proliferation of a variety of social networking sites (SNSs), propelled by the development of mobile technologies (e.g., smartphones), has allowed consumers to share, more quickly and easily than ever before, product information, reviews, and consumption experiences. Perhaps one of the newest and most effective ways to communicate brand information and experiences in digital environments is the ‘brand-selfie.’ Every day, millions of selfies (i.e., a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media) are taken and then posted on a variety of SNSs all over the world, providing people the opportunity to show multiple facets of the self (Bazarova et al., 2013). Further, there are consumers who voluntarily post selfies with brands/products they possess (so called brand-selfies) and brand-related hashtags (e.g., your #brand). Through brand-selfies, consumers not only express themselves by connecting with and extending through brands, but also influence peer consumers’ brand attitudes and purchase decisions by sharing brand information. In order to better understand how the selfie can succeed on SNSs as a new form of eWOM, in the present study, we attempt to identify key predictive variables that may lead consumers to post brand-selfies and engage eWOM in social media. We do so by comparing how such variables differ between those who post brand-selfies and those who do not. Specifically, this study examines whether brand-selfie-posting behavior is influenced by two individual difference factors (i.e., narcissism and materialism), and whether it is associated with consumers’ beliefs that SNSs are brand/product information sources. Using a survey administered by an online panel, a total of 305 participants who had had the experience of taking and posting selfies on SNSs participated. Discriminant analysis identified the characteristics of consumers who post brand-selfies, and those who do not. Findings suggest that narcissism, materialism, and belief that SNSs are a brand/productinformation source are significant factors in stimulating SNS users’ brand-selfie posting behaviors, and that they could be used to differentiate between brand-selfie posters and no-brand-selfie posters. Of these factors, consumers’ perceptions of SNSs as a source of brand/product information best predicted brand-selfie posting behaviors, followed by materialism and narcissism. Areas for future research are discussed.

Social media has quickly becoming tools of choice for communicating between brand and their customers. Among all social medias, instagram is seen as the most effective one, especially for fashion brands. Instagram’s main function to share videos and pictures is suitable with visual communication methods that is often being used by fashion brands. Posts with high amount of likes and positive comments may increase brand awareness and can trigger positive e-WOM (Electronic Word of Mouth) among customers and potential customers. Why is communicating with consumers very important? Because in this era consumers are brands’ most trustworthy and loyal marketers for company’s products (Çukul, 2015). Customers are likely to believe review from their families and friends rather than reviews that is being written by the company itself (Chang, 2014). Realizing the importance of nurturing positive word of mouths among customers, this paper is going to use qualitative analysis to analyze Instagram posts of well-known local fashion brands to find out what kind of post that will generate the highest positive e-WOM feedback from the audience. Content of Instagram account of researched brands are being examined according to post type (photo / video), content type (9 elements), number of likes and reviews, photo type (amateur / professional), and shooting place (studio / outdoor / shops). Analysis is conducted to understand what kind of Instagram post that will give positive feedback from their customers. The result of this paper will serve as guidance for company to tailor interesting and engaging post hence increasing the probability of creating positive e-WOM that will increase brand image that ultimately will increase sales.

This study attempts to investigate the impact of entrepreneurial orientation on positive psychological and behavior intention such as psychological ownership, work engagement, organizational citizenship behavior, sales efforts, adaptive selling behavior, performance for internal marketing based on job demands and resources model (JD-R model). The purpose of this study is to examine how the five-dimensional entrepreneurial orientation (innovativeness, proactiveness, risk taking, autonomy, aggressiveness) can affect salespeople’s positive motivation and to suggest how to manage and train salespeople effectively as internal customers. For this study, data were gathered from the respondents who are salespeople and analyzed by using structural equation model (SEM). According to the results of the study, entrepreneurial orientation affected salespeople’s positive psychological ownership and work engagement. In addition, we confirmed that psychological ownership affected to increase work engagement and organizational citizenship behavior, and work engagement was a positive precedence factor increasing organizational citizenship behavior, sales efforts and adaptive selling behavior. Lastly, we found that organizational citizenship behavior, sales efforts and adaptive selling behavior showed a positive impact on performance. Based on the study results, this research suggested academic and managerial implications to manage and train salespeople effectively in the business-to-business markets.

Charismatic public figures are often associated with personal magnetism, a captivating aura, and an ability to influence their counterparts. Over the last 25 years, the concept of charisma has gained considerable interest among social scientists, and its positive effects on performance have been reported in multiple research areas (Vercic & Vercic, 2011). Nevertheless, there exists scarce research on charisma in marketing and little is known about specific nonverbal behaviors that predict charisma (Heide, 2013). Additionally, for decades a substantial body of sales research has been focusing on identifying characteristics of sales personnel that predict performance (Bauer & Martin, 2009). Therefore, the aim of this paper is to identify nonverbal behaviors that lead to a salesperson’s charisma in a personal selling context by posing the following research question: Which aspects of body language differentiate salespersons from each other and are such differences antecedents for perceived charisma?Charismatic public figures are often associated with personal magnetism, a captivating aura, and an ability to influence their counterparts. Over the last 25 years, the concept of charisma has gained considerable interest among social scientists, and its positive effects on performance have been reported in multiple research areas (Vercic & Vercic, 2011). Nevertheless, there exists scarce research on charisma in marketing and little is known about specific nonverbal behaviors that predict charisma (Heide, 2013). Additionally, for decades a substantial body of sales research has been focusing on identifying characteristics of sales personnel that predict performance (Bauer & Martin, 2009). Therefore, the aim of this paper is to identify nonverbal behaviors that lead to a salesperson’s charisma in a personal selling context by posing the following research question: Which aspects of body language differentiate salespersons from each other and are such differences antecedents for perceived charisma?in front) should be used more frequently in a personal selling situation to increase a salesperson’s charisma. These studies represent an important first step in conceptualizing charismatic sales behaviors and provide valuable insights for further research.

Interaction Orientation (IO), a firm-level strategic orientation developed by Ramani and Kumar (2008), consists of four dimensions: (1) Customer concept - a firm-wide belief that sees the individual customer level as the examination unit and starting point of all company’s activities; (2) Interaction response capacity - the firm’s competency to respond to different customers using multiple means in a timely manner; (3) Customer empowerment - the extent to which a firm encourages customers to share information with the firm or with other customers; and (4) Customer value management - the capacity to keep an overview of how much revenue each customer generates, facilitating an efficient resource allocation. Current research states that IO represents a source of competitive advantage and leads to higher financial and non-financial performance. Past studies have only focused on cross-sectional data. However, a strategic orientation is a deeply embedded and gradually progressing organizational characteristic and, in order to establish a cause-effect relationship with performance, a longitudinal design is needed (Noble, Sinha, & Kumar, 2002). This study is the first to analyze the effects of IO longitudinally, including 247 S&P 500 firms from a variety of industries over a period of three years. To establish the firm's level of IO, we analyze the content of Letters to Shareholders (LtS). LtS are widely used to assess different strategic orientations, such as Entrepreneurial Orientation, Market Orientation or Learning Orientation (Noble et al., 2002; Short, Broberg, Cogliser, & Brigham, 2010; Zachary, McKenny, Short, & Payne, 2011). A sentence-by-sentence coding procedure was implemented (Keusch, Bollen, & Hassink, 2012;), where each sentence was examined for evidence of the four IO dimensions. We relied on multisource secondary data for performance indicators and on the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ASCI) for measuring customer satisfaction. We included the effects of competitive intensity and market turbulence, as well as several control variables: past performance of the firm, firm age, firm size, as well as industry specific effects. The results confirm the short and long term benefits of implementing IO, including higher financial performance and increased customer satisfaction, especially in a turbulent market. This study lays the foundation of a new approach for measuring IO in a longitudinal setting and using objective financial performance indicators.

Even in the business-to-business markets, service quality is becoming very important factor which determines success or failure of the long-term business relationship. Our study aims to reveal how such recognized B-to-B service quality influences on realizing the relationship between the customer and the supplier. We began this research with two main objectives: (1) develop the service quality scale to facilitate assessments of B-to-B service quality and (2) investigate the structural model which deals with the relation between the service quality and business relationship performance. Considering that most previous researches about service quality were conducted in the business-to-consumer(B-to-C) area, this study conceptualizes the various quality aspects of service that are considered in B-to-B market and proposes B-SERVQUAL model which is the detailed quality measurement scale of B-to-B service. We developed a measurement scale called B-SERVQUAL for B-to-B service quality and tested research hypotheses and structural model. We found that service quality has a positive effect on relationship bonding, indicating that the superior service quality of service providers leads relationship bonding with buyers. Five dimensions considered in this study bring not only structural bond but also the social bond that refers to the emotional bonding. Relationship bonding has a positive effect on commitment. Relationship commitment appeared to be an important factor that has a positive effect on relationship performance, which demonstrates the reduction of management cost through commitment. This study reflected the economic and convenience aspects of services that haven’t been highlighted in the previous studies in the business marketing area. This study has academic implications in that it reflected the economic aspects of services, which have been dealt with conceptually by some scholars such as profitability, productivity, and cost. From the viewpoint of B2B service providers, the B-SERVQUAL proposed in this study will be helpful guide for service providers to specifically identify the customers’ needs and manage their service quality in the business market.

Marketers often attribute the premium charged on a luxury brand over a value brand to innovation in product form (Von Hippel 1986). One way of conveying this innovation is through the use of perceptual cues which use visual depiction of a product (Gregan-Paxton, Hoeffler, and Zhao 2005). Consequently, what we think of as high fashion or innovation in product form is essentially novelty in the perceptual cues of a product (Cox and Cox 2002) and it is known that moderate levels of novelty can increase complexity (or incongruity) of product design and is in general, favored by consumers (Cox and Cox 2002). However, despite the fact that novelty in form offered in high fashion or complex products is expected to bring value, we predict that novel designs are perceived as more favorable depending on their positioning as luxury (value) brands. In detail, we expect that value brands more than luxury brands benefit from novelty of form and that peripheral cues in product design informs a sense of brand authenticity which drives preferences. Past research showed that a product’s positioning in advertising moderates the effect of schema incongruence on product evaluation (Noseworthy and Trudel 2011). When products with a moderately incongruent design are positioned based on their functionality, they are evaluated more favorably. Conversely, when products are positioned based on experiential dimensions, this effect is reversed, and moderately incongruent designs are evaluated less favorably. We believe that these relationships can be explained using the perception of hedonic or utilitarian benefits offered by the product. In general, consumers are motivated by utilitarian concerns until they think that they have earned the right to indulge in hedonistic consumption (Kivetz and Simonson 2002). With congruent products, consumers may infer functionality from memory, and they are therefore liberated to indulge in hedonic pleasure. With incongruent products, however, consumers must work out the functionality of the product for themselves. Thus, we expect that brand positioning will influence the way novel designs are evaluated on functionality, such that novel designs are perceived as more functional in the value (vs. luxury) brand positioning (H1). Also, we predict that consumers of luxury brands will prefer prototypical designs to novel ones (H2). Recently, Stanton, Townsend, and Kang (2015) analyzed automobile market and showed that consumers prefer novel designs if their consideration set includes allpossible automobiles, but changed to prototypical designs, when the consideration set was entry-level automobiles. In addition, Hagtvedt and Patrick (2014) revealed that altering the form of a product has a more positive impact on product evolutions in a utilitarian context rather than a hedonic one. This is because luxury brands have a greater capacity to be extended into other product categories due to their hedonic potential, namely their ability to provide emotional benefits (Hagtvedt and Patrick 2009). Based on these findings, we postulate that brand positioning will moderate the influence of product design on functional evaluations and perceived comfort, such that only under the value (vs. luxury) brand positioning, individuals will prefer novelty over typicality. Lastly, given the consumers’ motivation of luxury brands for conspicuous consumption and desire for authenticity (Beverland and Farrelly 2010), we predict that consumers will avoid novel designs in a luxury brand. We believe this to be true because in order to convey the status which such consumers seek, the brand must be instantly and easily recognizable to others. In this case, a novel design can be a threat to this transmission of status, and may bring about less favorable evaluations of the brand. As a result, a novel design, even a moderately incongruent one, will be seen as a violation of the brand’s authenticity and the diminished authenticity will therefore explain the less favorable evaluations. Thus, we expect that for value (vs. luxury) brand positioning, brand authenticity will mediate the effect of product design on evaluations (H3). To test our hypotheses, a pilot study was conducted in advance to identify whether luxury positioning would influence the perceptions of functionality when evaluating the same novel design. Participants (N = 102; 63.7% female; Mage = 35.78) were recruited in an online panel and were randomly assigned to one of two conditions of brand positioning: a value brand positioning or a luxury brand positioning. The experiment was a between-subjects factorial design and from the pretest, Serafini brand was chosen as a luxury brand and New Balance brand was chosen as a value brand. Then, Participant saw an advertisement that featured the novel shoe design and indicated their perceived functional efficacy, the concept (value-luxury) of a presented product, and perceived status conferred by purchasing the product. As expected, participants saw Serafini as more of a luxury brand (M = 4.76) than New Balance (M = 3.92) and indicated that purchasing the same product by Serafini conferred more status to someone (M = 4.83) in comparison to purchasing the same product by New Balance (M = 4.22; t(100) = 2.18, p < .05). Importantly, participants viewed the novel design featured in the luxury brand advertisement of (Serafini) as less functional (M = 4.95) in comparison to the novel design featured in the value brand advertisement (New Balance; M = 5.50; t(100) = 2.19, p < .05) although the design of the two products were the same (H1 supported). Next, in Study 1, we intended to identify whether brand positioning would influence typical designs of a product in the same way that it would novel designs. Participants (N = 263; 59.7% female; Mage = 38.03) were recruited in an online panel and were randomly assigned to one of four conditions in a 2 (brand positioning: value vs. luxury) × 2 (product design: typical vs. novel) between-subjects factorial design. In this study, however, we used a fictitious watch brand (Dali) to manipulate the brand positioning. Manipulations were adopted from Hagtvedt and Patrick (2009). Like pilot test, pretestconfirmed that the manipulations worked as intended (Mvalue = 4.85; Mluxury = 5.67; t(39) = 2.19, p < .05) and participants rated Dali as having different abilities to confer status (α = .81; Mvalue = 4.43; Mluxury = 5.26; t(39) = 2.68, p < .05). After, each participant saw an advertisement that featured the new product and that corresponded to the randomized condition that they were assigned and responded to the questionnaires asking their perceived functional efficacy, overall attitudes toward the product, perceived comfort as well as the measures for the manipulation checks. As expected, result showed that in the absence of luxury brand positioning, the novel design was evaluated more favorably (M = 5.00) than the typical product design (M = 3.90; F(1, 259) = 18.74, p < .001). This effect was consistent with past studies that demonstrate the moderate incongruity effect (Noseworthy and Trudel 2011; Meyers-Levy and Tybout 1989; Mandler 1982). However, in the presence of the luxury brand positioning, this difference was not significant (Mnovel = 4.46 vs. Mtypical= 4.25; p = .41). Also, an analysis of functionality indicated that in the value brand condition, the novel design was perceived to be higher in functionality (M = 4.88) than the typical product design (M = 4.39; F(1, 259) = 4.25, p < .05). However, in the presence of the luxury brand positioning, this difference was not significant (Mnovel = 4.57 vs. Mtypical= 4.79; p = .35). Finally, analysis of comfort indicated that in the value brand condition, the novel design was perceived to have more comfort (M = 4.45) than the typical product design (M = 3.82; F(1, 259) = 6.97, p < .01). However, in the presence of the luxury brand positioning, this difference was not significant (Mnovel = 4.14 vs. Mtypical= 4.33; p = .44). Thus, the results supported H1 and H2. To replicate the observed effects and to identify the underlying mechanism, Study 2 was followed. Same recruitment method and experimental design in Study 1 was used with a fictitious camera brand OLEG. Pretest confirmed that the manipulations worked as intended. Experimental procedures were similar to Study 1. However, this time, brand authenticity was measured (Morhart et al. 2015) in addition to the measures used in Study 1. Again, result indicated that in the absence of luxury brand positioning, the novel design was evaluated more favorably (M = 4.85) than the typical product design (M = 3.92; F(1, 209) = 10.30, p < .005) and in the presence of luxury branding, this difference was not significant (Mnovel = 4.50 vs. Mtypical= 4.57; p = .80). Also, result showed that in the value brand condition, the novel design was perceived to be higher in functionality (M = 4.79) than the typical product design (M= 3.89; F (1, 209) = 11.75, p < .001) and in the presence of the luxury brand positioning, this difference was not significant (Mnovel = 4.44 vs. Mtypical= 4.51; p = .79). Regarding comfort, in the value brand condition, using the camera with the novel design was perceived to be more comfortable (M = 4.49) than the typical product design (M= 3.82; F(1, 209) = 6.34, p < .01). However, in the presence of the luxury brand positioning, this difference was not significant (Mnovel = 4.06 vs. Mtypical= 4.25; p = .46). Lastly, mediated moderation analysis (Hayes 2012; Model 8; bootstrapped with 10,000 draws) found that only when design presented was typical, was there mediation through authenticity (95% confidence interval [CI]: .07, .86), but not when presented with the novel design (95% CI: -.60, .24) and thus, provided support to H3.Overall, three studies showed that while product evaluations and functional inferences with novel designs are higher for value brands, they are not for luxury brands. Also, we provided perceived authenticity as an underlying mechanism. From our findings, we provide four theoretical contributions. First, by showing that only value, not luxury brands benefit from novel product design, we demonstrated that brand positioning is another moderator to the effect of schema incongruity that consumers prefer a moderately incongruent product design over a congruent design or an extremely incongruent design (Noseworthy and Trudel 2011; Meyers-Levy and Tybout 1989; Mandler 1982). Second, although the research in product design and innovation has shown that the novelty in perceptual cues may signal innovativeness to consumers and thus engender favorable product evaluations (Gregan-Paxton, Hoeffler, and Zhao 2005; Cox and Cox 2002), we found that such novelty in perceptual cues in product design may not work in certain circumstances – when the product is positioned as luxury. Third, this research contributes to the understanding of luxury branding by offering evidence that prototypical designs benefit luxury brands because they increase perceived authenticity. Fourth, we broaden the research on authenticity in the aspect that merely having a novel or fashion forward design may impair authenticity and cause unexpected results. Managerially, we provide guidelines in that although brands benefit from novel designs in general, the manager of a luxury brand should be cautious when changing the design of a luxury good, especially ones in which functionality and comfort are important attributes. In other words, a luxury brand manager should adopt fashion and design in a way that is beneficial to the consumer. Some luxury brands, such as Porsche, are well-respected for their innovation, while other luxury brands, such as Louis Vuitton create value through promotion of a particular lifestyle (Reddy and Terblanche 2005). For brands that are particularly sought for their functional benefits, like Porsche, the importance of the impact of novel designs on perceptions of authenticity is particularly important. In addition, managers must be aware that novelty is not always perceived the same way. Consumer inferences on functionality and comfort can be elicited for fashion forward designs for value brands, where the novelty of design is used as a strategic tool. Nevertheless, when it comes to the luxury products, this effect might not appear and impairs brand authenticity. To extend our research, potential future research may examine the effect of novel designs on inconspicuous luxury goods. When conspicuous consumption is decoupled from the luxury brand, it is doubtful that prototypical designs would still be favored among consumers of luxury brands. Also, future research could examine the effect of other kinds of innovation. In our research, we mainly examined the product form and design as a method of innovation. However, it is possible that other kinds of innovation method can be used (i.e., change in product concept) and thus, can be potential future research topics. Finally, we believe that how other kinds of positioning might influence the relationship that we revealed could be studied further. For example, there are instances where value brands try to create a luxury line. In such instances, the effect of authenticity may differ from what we observed.

Luxury brands embed meanings in advertising and encourage brand/category ritualistic behavior (Johar, Holbrook, & Stern, 2001; Otnes & Scott 1996). The ritualization of a luxury brands, such as champagne, is important because rituals encourage transformation and status attainment (Driver, 1991; Otnes & Scott, 1996). Yet, do all luxury consumers interpret the rituals communicated in advertising similarly? We consider Collins (2004) Interaction Ritual Theory (IRT) to examine how advertised rituals transform consumption practices of luxury products. We used a hermeneutic phenomenological research method (Langdridge, 2007), collecting data (interviews and photos) from 18 informants (Atkinson & Flint, 2001) using a two-tier collection strategy (see Ziller, 1990). After informants provided images of champagne (see Collier & Collier, 1986; Heisley & Levy, 1991), semi-structure interviews were conducted. The questions related to topics such as champagne sharing, ritual influence, image descriptions, and personal consumption. The data were analyzed using a grounded theory approach (Glaser, 1978), inductively coded based on IRT’s conditions. A thematic analysis of the images was also conducted (Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2006) as was an iterative analysis of the transcripts. The researchers separately and then together analyzed the images and transcripts to determine similarities, understandings, and interpretations of emergent themes. Consistent with taste regimes literature (Arsel & Bean, 2013), we find champagne consumption is also practiced and ritualized according to two types of regimes. Within an open regime, informants experience champagne as a medium for engaging with limited individuals, with the product as the kernel of the experience. The open regime is a negotiated (beyond what is advertised) ritual that can be explored and extended. Alternatively, a closed regime represents a more stagnant system of social interaction, emerging as a product of the situation, often a celebration (as typically advertised). Those practicing a closed regime banalize the ritual, have hegemonic discourses related to product, and have more difficulty naming brands. Consumer’s luxury brand expectations, including rituals, are often interpreted through advertising and brand-created communications. Understanding how consumers integrate brand messages into rituals with the products and brands as well as the brand role in rituals is important. While it can be hard for brands to know their target customers’ ritual regime, brands may choose varied communications approaches to reach both consumer types. Either way, consumer expectations of open regimes are likely built through advertising, while closed regimes are built through special events and intensive distribution strategies.

Research Purpose This study is to clarify the image of luxury brand advertising is not equal to brand image completely, and the main purpose is to understand whether self-image congruence with luxury brand advertisement can affect the consumers’ brand loyalty. Research Background In earlier days, luxury brands were the preserve of the privileged few. But now they have become more affordable to consumers who are belong to middle-market with the problem of mass production largely solved. Now days, luxury brands play an increasingly important role in profit generation for global corporations. Atwal and Williams (2009) indicated that experiences are the central of luxury brand consumption activity, and the emotional, cognitive, and relational factors are important for luxury brand marketing. Thus, brand image is one of the most important factors for luxury brand. And, lots of scholars have proved that luxury brand has a significant positive effect on consumer purchase intention. Meenaghan (1995) identified that imagery advertising is one of the principle components of image creation. However, whether the image of the advertising is completely equal to the brand image? Most of the prior studies are only focusing on the brand image but neglect the image of the luxury brand advertising. Thus, this study is trying to emphasize the role of the image of luxury brand advertising and fill the prior research gaps. Hypotheses Theredistinguish the brand image and the advertisement image. Second is to compare the self-image with both brand image and advertisement image to understand the self-image congruence comprehensively. For the sample, we chose convenience sampling method and handed out 300 questionnaires. The totals of 248 questionnaires were used for analysis except for responses that said they had no experience of luxury brand consumption and have response error. Sample of respondents are consisting of 75% of females and 25% of males. The average of respondent's age was from 20 years old to 30 years old. The structural equation modeling (SEM) approach was used to validate the research model. Research Results As assumed in hypotheses, self-image congruence with luxury brand advertisement will increase consumers’ empathy to the advertisement and luxury brand esteem. Empathy to the advertisement and brand esteem will increase the luxury brand loyalty. Implications This study focus on the image of luxury brand advertisement and proved importance of congruence between self-image and the image of luxury brand advertisement. It is important for marketers not only just use advertisement to form the brand image but also should use the advertisement to match the target consumers’ self-image.

With its fast growing economy and huge population, China has become one of the most lucrative markets for luxury brands (Zhan and He 2012). In fact, China has surpassed Japan and become the No.1 luxury products spender in the world, accounting more than one-quarter of the global luxury brand expenditure (Artsmon et al. 2012). Chinese middle-class consumers thus have become important targets of luxury brands (Zhan and He 2012). However, China’s culture is different from Western cultures (Li, Li and Kambelle 2012), and Chinese luxury consumers have their distinctive characteristics (Buchwald, 2015). Therefore, Chinese luxury consumption may not follow the trends of Western world (Li, Li and Kambelle 2012). Previous studies have explored Chinese luxury consumers’ perceptions and receptivity of luxury brands in different cultural contexts (Bian and Forsythe 2012; Wang, Sun and Song 2011; Zhan and He 2012; Wang, Sun and Song 2011; Li, Li and Kanbelle 2012; Oswald 2010, Li and Su 2007; Wang and Ahuvia 1998). However, all those studies have only investigated luxury brands’ marketing strategies in traditional offline worlds. With the emergence of digital technology, luxury brands have started building presence in online world through different digital marketing strategies (Okonkwo 2009). Among all the digital marketing tools, social media marketing has become an increasingly important marketing communication weapon (Kim and Ko, 2012). While the luxury brands have widely accepted social media marketing, the academic research largely lags behind, Only limited number of studies have examined luxury brands’ social media marketing strategies (Tynan, McKechnie, and Chhoun, 2010; Kim and Ko, 2012). No study, to the authors’ knowledge, has been conducted to investigate luxury brands’ social media marketing strategies in connecting with Chinese consumers. In addition, previous studies on luxury brands marketing have conducted either quantitatively (Bian and Forsythe 2012; Wang, Sun and Song 2011; Zhan and He 2012; Wang, Sun and Song 2011; Li, Li and Kanbelle 2012) or qualitatively (Oswald 2010, Li and Su 2007; Wang and Ahuvia 1998) from either consumers’ or marketer’s perspective. In order to fill the research gaps, the current study is designed to explore the phenomenon with a mixed method by integrating both marketers’ social media marketing strategies and consumers’ interpretation of those marketers’ social media marketing in the contextof China. Specifically, a quantitative content analysis was conducted to examine marketers’ social media marketing strategies on a Chinese social media platform: WeChat; in the meanwhile, a qualitative study was conducted to explore Chinese female affluent consumers’ interpretations of those social media strategies transmitted via WeChat. Based on the research purpose, two overarching research questions were proposed: R1: Do Western luxury brand use social media platform of WeChat to build social presence, create self-presentation or interact with consumers? R2: What are Chinese female affluent consumers’ perceptions and interpretations of luxury brands’ social media marketing communication strategies via WeChat? Methodology The current study used a mixed methodological approach (Creswell 2014). Specifically, a quantitative content analysis (Krippendorff 2012) and a phenomenological study (Creswell 2012) were conducted to investigate luxury brands’ social media marketing communication strategies via WeChat and Chinese female affluent consumers’ perception toward those marketing communication strategies. Initial Findings Study 1 So far, 50% (N = 60) of the sample was analyzed. RQ1 asked about the luxury brands’ marketing communication strategies. The initial frequencies of each coded variable are reported in Table 1. Table 1. Frequencies of Coded Variables The results showed that more than half of the coded messages had images, showed products/brands in images or videos, provided event, discount and other promotional information, described products’ physical features and attributes, contained celebrities, sought action-based participation, and applied hyperlinks. The initial data suggest that a major use of social media in luxury brand advertising is to build the brand’s social presence by extensively using visuals. Images were found in 44 messages, and 25 of them used 6 or more images. Most of these images showed products or brands. Video also appeared in 14 messages. The initial results also suggest consumer interaction and engagement is restricted to the lowest level. The two major ways of interaction were hyperlinks and action-based participation. A close examination showed that these two were often used together. A hyperlink used anchor text that contained a call for action-based participation, like “read more,” “get the coupon,” etc. A lot of these actions related to consuming content, like reading, downloading or sharing, which is the lowest level of brand related-activeness on branded social media sites (Muntinga, Moorman, and Smit 2011).Additionally, product/brand information and physical features and attributes were frequently mentioned, suggesting that luxury brands use social media for information dissemination. WeChat has a large size of active users, and self-disclosure of information on social media can create a sense of close relationship (Kaplan and Haelein, 2010). High product quality, especially in terms of design and craftsmanship were frequently addressed, suggesting that that social media are used to communicate the nuances of brand’s social meanings. For example, some messages described the conceptualization of the design, the processing of handcrafting, and the meaning of the design, etc. These deeper meaning of a brand is often left out of traditional methods of advertising because of limited space or time. Celebrity was one of the major methods to create social meaning, suggesting that luxury brands use social media to leverage parasocial interaction between celebrities and consumers. Parasocial interaction refers to consumers’ perception of personal relationship with media personalities (Men and Tsai 2013). Among the sample messages, there were interviews with famous designers, advices and recommendations from celebrities about luxury brand and fashion, etc. These messages offer an opportunity for consumers to connect with celebrities, and subsequently, associate luxury brands with these iconic figures (McCraken, 1989). All in all, Western luxury brands largely use social media to build social presence, disseminate information, and communicate brand’s social meanings. Luxury brands frequently interact with audiences on social media but the level of consumer engagement is restricted. Study 2 The participants’ interpretations of WeChat provide a unique context and form a crucial referential framework for them to interpret luxury brands’ marketing communications on this particular social media platform. Specifically, the themes that emerged regarding those Chinese female affluent consumers’ perceptions of the social medium are an intimate friend vs. an everyday assistant, simple vs. complicated, and stickiness vs. interactivity; and, the themes regarding the participants’ interpretation of luxury brands’ marketing communications include inactive, conservative, and distance. Based on their own experiences of social media marketing and from consumers’ perspectives, the participants also provided insightful suggestions for luxury brands to improve their social media marketing to better connect with their consumers. Interpretation of WeChat An Intimate Friend vs. An Everyday Assistant According to the participants, their usage and composition of friends on WeChat has kept changing and evolving. At the initial stage of their usage, all the friends on WeChat were family members and close friends. At that time, WeChat constructed a small, closed, and intimate social circle for them to communicate, socialize, and entertain themselves and their WeChat friends in a carefree and relaxing way. In this sense, WeChat is like a good friend, who can accompany them and chat with them whenever they need him/her. Later, with the number of WeChat friends increasing and expanding, the composition of theirWeChat friends has also become complicated: different social relationships have been added to their WeChat friend list. Accordingly, based on the closeness and remoteness, they categorize their WeChat friends and communicate and socialize with them in a more cautious and delicate way. In this sense, WeChat has also changed to an office assistant who helps them to manage and maintain their social relationships. Simple vs. Complicated With the change of WeChat and the revolution of participants’ usage and experiences, in the life-worlds of the participants, WeChat has transformed from a simple chatting app to a multi-functional personal service hub. At the initial usage of stage, according to the participants, the major function of WeChat is a chatting app to communicate with their friends conveniently. Later, with more functions to be added to WeChat, WeChat has evolved to a complicated personal service hub to serve various personal and commercial purposes for the participants. Stickiness vs. Interactivity According to the participants, WeChat is a unique social media platform with high stickiness but low interactivity. The participants indicated that they use WeChat all the time, and they have to check their WeChat numerous times during a day. In other words, WeChat is considered as a high frequency social media app. In the meantime, the participants felt that WeChat is lacking interactivity when comparing to other social media platforms such as microblogging. They stated that the possible interactive activities on WeChat are very limited. In other words, in the life-world of the participants, WeChat is perceived as a less reciprocative social media platform. Interpretation of Luxury Brands’ Marketing Communication on WeChat Inactive According to the participants, the luxury brands’ WeChat public accounts are less active than other brands’ public accounts. Those luxury brands’ WeChat public accounts post information less frequently and seldom interact with followers. This is actually put those luxury brands in a relatively negative marketing position on WeChat. The participants indicated that they follow many public accounts. Because the luxury brands’ public accounts are not very active, without constant reminder, the followers may gradually forget about those luxury brands’ public accounts and stop checking their accounts’ updates. Conservative In addition to be seen as inactive, the luxury brands’ WeChat public accounts are also perceived to be conservative. According to the participants, compared to other brands, luxury brands’ WeChat public accounts are too serious, less interesting, and lacking entertainment. The participants felt that the luxury brands are very cautious and careful regarding their WeChat presence. Therefore, their WeChat posts are generally too conservative and formal, lacking creativity and uniqueness. As a result, the participants couldn’t remember any impressive and unforgettable post from those luxury brands’ WeChat public accounts.Distance In the participants’ eyes, the luxury brands are perceived to intentionally keep a certain distance from WeChat users. The participants felt that on the one hand the luxury brands are trying hard to connect with their consumers on social media, on the other hand, they are also trying to preserve their luxury brand image on this media platform by alienating general WeChat users. However, the participants felt it is not easy for luxury brands to achieve those two purposes successfully on WeChat. Suggestion of Luxury Brands’ Marketing Communication on WeChat Based on their perceptions and experiences of luxury brands’ social media marketing, the participants offered several insightful suggestions for luxury brands to improve their social marketing endeavors to better connect with their consumers. According to the participants, the most important marketing communication strategy via social media that luxury brands could adopt is to collaborate with opinion leaders (Katz and Lazarsfeld 1957) on social media to humanize, personalize, and entertainize their marketing communications. As the participants indicated, there are many successful and popular personal fashion public accounts on WeChat which have millions of loyal followers. Those personal fashion public accounts usually have unique styles and characteristics that are attractive to and well-liked by their followers. Compared to luxury brands’ official public accounts, those personal public accounts are perceived more humanized, personal, and closer to consumers. In addition, those accounts also have more flexibility to be creative and entertaining thus providing a better social media experience for luxury brands’ consumers. For luxury brands’ own public accounts on social media, the participants suggested that those luxury brands should become more active on social media by posting messages more frequently and constantly reminding consumers of their social presence. In addition, the participants think those luxury brands should be more adventurous on social media by being more creative and expressing more entertaining spirit.

The Internet is providing companies with an opportunity to market their goods more widely than has been the case in the past. This is having implications for senior managers as it means that some luxury goods are being made available to a wider market segment than previously and also, there are issues as regards authenticity and counterfeiting for example. Cultural value systems underpin psychological needs which are taken into account when advertising a brand and in addition, marketers are keen to build a relationship with customers, which takes into account the customers’ psychological aspirations. Meeting consumer expectations is crucial in the luxury sector because of the value placed on uniqueness and the price-quality dynamic. Bearing these points in mind, the research question to be addressed in this paper is: How can marketers utilize the Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty & Cacioppo 1984 & 1986) in order to maintain the quality of the luxury brand and develop a relationship with high net worth individuals while marketing the product online? The aim of the paper is to explain how marketers can develop a better understanding of how the Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty & Cacioppo 1984 & 1986) can be utilized to develop theoretical insights into promoting luxury goods online. Bearing this in mind, two research objectives were formed: (i) to explain how the Elaboration Likelihood Model can be used to formulate international luxury brand strategies; and (ii) to provide guidance as to how marketers can develop a better understanding of marketing luxury products online. The study will build on the work of Hennessey and Anderson (1990), as it will explain how involvement affects motivation vis-à-vis luxury brands. By studying luxury brands, the Internet, and social psychology, it should be possible for marketers to provide marketing practitioners with relevant theoretical insights into how marketing theory is evolving and is applied in practice. The Elaboration Likelihood Model represents “a fairly general framework for organizing, categorizing, and understanding the basis processes underlying the effectiveness of persuasive communications” (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986, p.125) and proves ideal with respect to researching cultural value systems. The Elaboration Likelihood Model allows academic researchers to look into and comprehend cognitive processing (Cacipppo, Harkins, & Petty, 1981, p.37). The main strength of the Elaboration Likelihood Model is that the variables that can impact certain judgements are made clear and in addition, the processes underlyingchanges in attitude are made known and so too are the resulting judgements (Petty, Rucker, Bizer, & Cacioppo, 2004, pp.66-67). The Elaboration Likelihood Model has been extensively used by marketing academics and has relevance in terms of how people formulate a systematic information processing strategy (De Meulenaer, Dens, & De Pelsmacker, 2015, p.610). Marketers are concerned about the price-quality dynamic and also the trust construct (Shu-Chen, Wanchiao, Sung, & Cheng-Kiang, 2006) and risk (Park, Lennon, & Stoel, 2005) vis-à-vis buying online. Furthermore, how online consumers interpret signals has been given attention (San Martin, Camarero & San Jose, 2011) and according to Areni (2003), argument-driven persuasion is important and will be given attention in the study. Attention will be given to luxury branding, the development of an international brand strategy and how marketers can protect a luxury brand through a marketing intelligence strategy that counteracts counterfeiting. As well as utilizing data collected via a group interview, reference will be made to data collected over a three year period using a survey instrument. The Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty & Cacioppo 1984 & 1986) will be used as a basis for providing a framework for understanding how a luxury brand can be perceived and protected, and the research outcome will be used by marketers to advise senior management about the need for implementing an integrated international luxury brand strategy. For example, research has been undertaken into the relevance of the construct trustworthiness and it is important to note that “trustworthiness is an attribute of individual exchange partners” (Barney and Hansen, 1994, p.176). This is an important observation because the producers of luxury goods depend on a number of external specialists (eg., designers, communication and public relations advisors, and manufacturers of specialist components) in order to help the company to add value to the product/service and make sure that it is viewed as unique. Marketers employed by a luxury goods producer need to ensure that data and information relating to the product offering is well guarded because they need to have confidence in the fact that there are no vulnerabilities in existence. A vulnerability could result in leakage of sensitive data and information (e.g., a new design) and result in a loss in intellectual property and ultimately brand piracy and reputational damage. By failing to identify potential vulnerabilities and deal with them through adequate counter threat measures, it is likely that it will take several years and require a repositioning and a rebranding strategy to recover the brand in the market. What we are advocating is a marketing counterintelligence strategy that is aimed at reinforcing the need and usefulness of security to protect the brand and ensure that the brand is not diluted in any way. Another reason as to why marketers need to engage in risk management is because there are a number of country-of-origin issues that arise and need to be addressed. Balabanis and Diamantopoulos (2011) have indicated that consumers are not always able to link a brand correctly with its country-of-origin and this may prove problematic. This is linked with brand image perceptions and again the Elaboration Likelihood Model can help to provide evidence that is used by marketers to overcome consumer misperceptions. Reflecting on the fact that marketers are confronted with legitimate competition (products and services compete in adherence with regulatory processes) as well asillegal forms of competition, it can also be argued that marketers need to be aware of and embrace the standards that govern the production of the product/service to the quality specified. Thus, senior management need to ensure that employees lower down the organizational hierarchy are committed to maintaining the standards that are in being (Ghoshal and Bartlett, 1994, p.96). Ghoshal and Bartlett (1994, p.98 and pp.106-107) add to our understanding by suggesting that marketers need also to have a shared ambition and participate in a collective decision-making, which relies upon collective learning. The logic of this view manifests in the fact that the Elaboration Likelihood Model is used to reinforce and condition the views of the employees as well as the organization’s customers and because it has both an internal and an external dimension. Because marketers work closely with organizational strategists that are outward looking and intelligence driven, and liaise with R&D, technology and production staff that are inward looking and security driven, they are well able to contribute to the risk management process and advise on all the aspects of marketing strategy. The research undertaken will be placed within a strategic marketing context and the learning aspect will be drawn upon to show how marketers can link social psychology theory with marketing theory, and how risk communication can be used to reinforce the advertising message. The paper will explore the advertising-consumer perception dynamic and will examine how the Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty & Cacioppo 1984 & 1986) can be used to promote the uniqueness of a luxury good to individual consumers who share and exchange information using social networks. The influence of social networks is growing and marketers need to be aware of how and why consumers share and exchange information as they do across geographical boundaries. In particular, it will build on the work of Michaelidou and Christodoulides (2011) by establishing how certain psychological factors influence attitudes towards counterfeited products and what marketers can do to counteract these attitudes. This will contribute to the literature because it will highlight both price related and ethical related issues associated with the purchasing of counterfeited goods. In addition, it will allow marketers to identify trends in customer buying behavior and build on the work of Jack and Powers (2013) relating to shopping behavior and consumer satisfaction. By understanding better the motivations of those that purchase luxury products, marketers will be better able to plan product offerings and formulate and implement promotional strategies.

Brand equity, “the marketing effects uniquely attributable to the brand” (Keller, 1993, p. 1), is at the heart of competition in the luxury goods market (Keller, 2009). While firms competing in this segment have come up with sophisticated ways to build brand equity, they are currently challenged by the increasing importance of the internet in consumers’ journeys (Kapferer & Bastien, 2012; Okonkwo, 2009). With online sales of luxury goods showing a twelvefold increase over the past 11 years (D’Arpizio et al., 2014), it is evident that luxury brands have to be present somehow in the digital environment today (Heine & Berghaus, 2014). The strategic purposes, business potentials, and consequences for brand equity of this presence, however, are still largely unexplored and remain a paradoxical topic. As a luxury brand’s website is the brand’s most valuable digital asset (Heine & Berghaus, 2014) and as there appears to be a consensus that luxury brands can use their websites to present their products in the digital environment, at least for purposes of communication, the question arises which products are most suitable for reinforcing the brand’s image. The roles a luxury brand’s products can play in relation to brand management can be classified between four poles spanning two dimensions, which this research terms ‘accessibility’ and ‘contemporariness’, in relation to Kapferer and Bastien’s (2012) luxury brand architecture map. Empirical evidence of these dimensions is, nevertheless, scarce, and yet no prior research has investigated these product roles in an e-commerce setting. The current study develops a model to test how an online purchase option and the contemporariness as well as the accessibility of the product assortment offered on the websites of luxury brands affect specific brand equity dimensions of luxury brands. Data of a 2x2x2-online scenario experiment were analyzed, showing that prestige and uniqueness value are non-significantly affected by offering an online purchase option, while functional value increases significantly. Regarding the displayed product assortment, the brand equity dimensions of functionality, prestige, and uniqueness are found to be significantly affected by the inaccessibility of the products, while their contemporariness elicits significant changes in uniqueness value. The study also assesses the mediating role of the brand attributes of availability, price premium, aesthetics, and innovativeness, as well as the moderating role of consumers’ prior brand ownership, for these effects.

This study investigates whether goods and service brands have different social media strategy to develop relationships with consumers. A content analysis of 10,752 brand posts on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts of 10 Indonesian leading brands finds that goods and service brands have different strategies in utilizing their social media.

This paper aims to illuminate the relationship between economic recessions and advertising messages. A content analysis of 1720 television commercials indicated that during the severe economic recession in Greece, advertisers communicated more rational appeals and placed emphasis on creative devices that enhance understanding, learning and recall of message content.

This paper offers a discursive perspective to studying corporate identity and brand. It extends existing scholarship that adopts alternative approaches to understanding corporate identity, seeing it as polysemic, rather than unitary; and constructed, rather than pre-existing. Using a case study of a contemporary global church that combines religion, marketing and popular culture, it shows how disparate and potentially contradictory cultural resources are combined in corporate branding. Church text and corporate communication materials were collected and analysed to identify the presence and combination of different discourses. Our analysis shows how Christian, market, popular and contemporary spirituality discourses were combined using three discursive strategies which we call: differentiation, spectacularizing and personalizing. The research demonstrates the process of how a corporate brand identity is ‘made’ as well as how disparate and contradictory discourses can be successfully combined. This approach can be practically extended to studying other types of organizations, corporate and non-corporate.

In both marketing research and business practice, the study of corporate brand heritage has gained growing interest. Although, the field of heritage is rather widely analysed, a closer investigation reveals that there is a lack of research that covers the deeply embedded associations toward a company or brand with a heritage, and their effects on the overall brand performance from a customer’s perspective. That said, previous quantitative studies regarding corporate brand heritage fall back on traditional and basic explicit self-reporting scales. However, an increasing number of neuroeconomic studies indicate that customers are not fully aware of their thoughts and opinions. In fact, most mental processes are of so-called implicit nature, taking place hidden in the unconscious and automatic mind. Yet, established models of corporate brand heritage are missing implicit processes completely. Against this backdrop, the aim of the current paper is to fill this research gap. For that reason, a holistic framework of dual information processing is derived with reference to corporate brand heritage. Furthermore, related explicit and implicit measures are developed and applied to capture the dual facets of corporate brand heritage. The empirical results provide evidence that both heritage facets, explicit corporate brand heritage, but in particular implicit corporate brand heritage have a crucial impact on the degree of attachment toward the corporate brand.

The concept of retail therapy which refers to “the phenomenon in which consumers buy things to make themselves feel better” (Kacen, 1998) has been used by the U.S. retail firms in marketing (Kang & Johnson, 2010). Previous studies found that retail therapy concept was associated to consumption behaviors including compulsive buying (Faber & O’Guinn, 1992; O’Guinn & Faber, 1989). Frost et al. (1998) found that compulsive hoarders show compulsive buying tendencies. O’Guinn and Faber (1989) found that compulsive buyers are more likely to confirm compulsivity as a personality trait with a low self-esteem. Lack of research into association of retail therapy to compulsive consumer behaviors motivated us to pursue this study which investigate relationships among retail therapy, compulsive buying and compulsive hoarding, and to examine the moderating effect of consumers’ personality traits on the relationship between retail therapy and compulsive hoarding. Our research questions are: (1) How retail therapy is related to compulsive buying and compulsive hoarding? and (2) Which personality traits moderate the relationship between retail therapy and compulsive hoarding? Based on the literature review, the following hypotheses were proposed. H1: Retail therapy is positively related to compulsive buying; H2: Compulsive buying is positively related to compulsive hoarding; H3: Retail therapy is positively related to compulsive hoarding & H4: Personality trait moderates the relationship between retail therapy and compulsive hoarding. The researchers used 12 items to measure retail therapy (Kang, 2009), 6 items to measure compulsive buying (Faber & O’Guinn, 1992), 9 items to measure compulsive hoarding (Frost, Sketekee, & Grisham, 2004) 8 items of Big Five Inventory (Rammstedt & John, 2007) and 15 item Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) (Ames, Rose & Anderson, 2006) to measure personality trait based on 7‑point Likert scales (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree). The online survey was conducted with college students enrolled at a major Midwestern University. A total of 354 undergraduate and graduate students’ responses were used to analyze data. A principal component factor analysis with varimax rotation was conducted to evaluate the measurement of each construct. The factor loadings were above of 0.60, indicating acceptable convergent validity. Reliabilities with Cronbach’s alphas for retail therapy,compulsive buying, compulsive hoarding and personality trait construct were 0.96, 0.81, 0.90 and 0.81 respectively, exceeding the suggested level of 0.70. Simple linear regression was performed to test hypotheses. The results revealed that F statistic (F(1, 352)=126.53, p =.000) was significant and regression coefficient was statistically significant. Therefore, H1 was supported and consistent with previous findings (Faber & O’Guinn, 1992). The regression coefficient for the path from compulsive buying to compulsive hoarding was statistically significant (F(1, 352)=77.15, p=.000). Therefore, H2 was supported and consistent with Frost et al. (1998)’s study. The retail therapy contributed significantly to the prediction of compulsive hoarding with the statistically significant regression results (F(1, 352)=20.28, p=.000), supporting H3. From the principle component analysis with varimax rotation, four factors were extracted from 23 personality trait measurement items which are labeled as “authority-leadership narcissism”, “self-esteem narcissism”, “positive disposition”, and “negative disposition”. All factor loadings were above 0.60 for their respective factors. Then, the researchers divided one single group into four personality trait groups, using these four factors. 4%, 27.1%, 53.7% & 15.3% participants represented “authority-leadership narcissism”, “self-esteem narcissism”, “positive disposition” & “negative disposition” group respectively. Simple regression analysis was performed to test H4. The regression coefficients for positive disposition group (F(1, 188)=13.19, p=.000) and negative disposition group (F(1, 52)=5.01, p≤.05) were statistically significant. H4 was partially supported. The results indicated that people from two groups characterized by positive/negative personality tend to engage in compulsive hoarding to alleviate their negative feelings or mood. Anyone with narcissistic personality with a high self-efficacy may not be engaged in compulsive hoarding even when a therapeutic treatment is made through shopping. They tend to purchase products for changing their moods, but their therapeutic behavior doesn’t lead to compulsive hoarding, which causes sufferings in the end. The low self-esteem has been presented with people being engaged in compulsive behaviors (Marlatt et al., 1988). These findings can help apparel marketers develop the strategies to upgrade their sellingenvironment entertaining so that their customers’ moods are repaired and customers feel satisfied through therapeutic shopping behavior. This study has a limitation that prevents us from generalizing the results to the young consumer population due to sample size to college students.

Retail therapy occurs when consumers shop to improve negative feelings rather than merely acquire a needed product (Kang & Johnson, 2011). Retailers in all channels enable consumers to have positive emotional responses by providing them with positive experiences. Pine and Gilmore (1999) identified four types of experiences sought by consumers: entertainment, education, escapism, and esthetics (i.e., 4Es). It is not known which, if any, of the 4Es motivate offline and online retail therapy shopping trips. Retail therapy shoppers may seek different benefits in open, online stores (where they have a great deal of freedom) versus closed, brick-and-mortar stores (where they are limited by time and space) (Bhate & Hannam, 2014). When retail therapy shoppers have experiences they desire, they should experience positive emotional reactions (i.e., pleasure, arousal) (Donovan & Rossiter, 1982). Furthermore, consumers who experience positive emotional reactions tend to display impulse buying behavior (Chang, Eckman, & Yan, 2011). Engaging in impulse buying while retail therapy shopping may encourage compulsive buying behavior (Kang & Johnson, 2011), the most severe form of which is shopping addiction (Edwards, 1993). Based on this collection of previous research, the following hypotheses were developed: H1: Among retail therapy shoppers, the amount of a) entertainment b) education, c) escapism, and d) esthetics sought will be significantly different between 1) offline stores and 2) online stores. H2: Retail therapy behavior will be positively related to level of a) pleasure and b) arousal experienced while shopping. H3a: Level of pleasure experienced while shopping will be positively related to impulse buying behavior. H3b. Level of arousal experienced while shopping will be positively related to impulse buying behavior. H4: Among retail therapy shoppers, impulse buying behavior will be positively related to shopping addiction behavior.Method Using Amazon’s MTurk, 409 consumers (62.6% female; 72.0% Caucasian; 36.5% 30-39 years old) were recruited for an online survey. Participants were first asked to indicate if they had experience shopping for clothing to improve their mood. Clothing was selected as the focus of the study because it is a gender-neutral product frequently purchased during retail therapy (Atalay & Meloy, 2011). Only participants who had engaged in retail therapy behavior were asked to complete the rest of the questionnaire. The next five sections of the questionnaire contained multi-item, 7-point, Likert-type scales previously used to assess the variables in the study. Demographic information was also collected. Results To test H1, a series of t-tests was conducted to compare the benefits sought by retail therapy shoppers in open and closed settings. The means for each of the 4 Es were significantly greater for the closed setting of the store than the open setting of the website. Therefore, H1 was supported. Two regression models were created to test H2a and b. The coefficients for retail therapy were positively and significantly related to pleasure (β = .87; t = 35.70; p < 0.000) and arousal (β = .85; t = 32.52; p < 0.00). Thus, H2a and b were both supported. To examine H3a and b, another regression model was created. The coefficients for pleasure (β = .25; t = 4.51; p < 0.00) and arousal (β = .64; t = 11.69; p < 0.00) were positive and significant. Thus, H3a and H3b were both supported. Lastly, to test H4, a final regression model was created. The coefficient for impulse buying behavior (β = .93; t = 51.49; p < 0.00) was positive and significant, supporting H4. Discussion The results of the present study shed light on retail therapy shopping behavior. Consumers do seek the 4Es when therapeutically shopping for clothing, and they seek the 4Es to a greater degree in closed, offline environments. Perhaps the need to delay gratification in offline stores raises expectations of experiences that can be received immediately in online stores. Participants experienced pleasure and arousal when engaging in retail therapy behavior, thereby supporting researchers (Kang & Johnson, 2011) who conceptualized retail therapy behavior as mood-alleviative consumption behavior. The positive emotions experienced while clothing shopping were related to retail therapy shoppers’ impulse buying behavior, which was positively related to shopping addiction. The success experienced by individuals who engage in shopping behavior to improve their mood seems to encourage future shopping trips to enhance positive emotions. Thus, a troubling pattern of overconsumption may develop if retail therapy shoppers do not find additional methods for mood-alleviation.

The fashion industry is one of the most labor intensive industries, and employs over 25 million workers in over 100 countries (Reinhard, Schmidt, Rützel, & Zentgraf, 2013). There have been many concerns regarding the poor working conditions of garment workers, including their long working hours, forced overtime, and hazardous working environments, especially in developing countries. In Korea, competition has intensified within the industry with the emergence of global fashion companies, which has caused many fashion companies to move their production bases overseas in search of cheaper labor (Son, 2007). Thus, the labor problems that have arisen in the fashion industry are mostly about low wages and the poor working conditions of production workers. However, what about the labor problems of fashion industry workers other than those in production factories? Lee, Kim, Shin, Yoon, Lee, Chang, Chung, and Choi (2009) noted in their study that white-collar workers in fashion companies in Korea work longer hours, receive fewer benefits, and have a higher turnover rate than workers in other industries. In 2015, the poor working environment and low or absent wages of fashion industry interns came under public scrutiny (Kim, 2015; Kwon, 2016). In addition, there were cases in which body size was specified when hiring fashion designers, which raised the question of discrimination based on physical appearance (Kim, 2015). These employment conditions are important factors that influence fashion design majors entering the job market. Hence, regarding this and the physical body size discrimination of fashion designers in the Korean fashion industry, the aims of this paper are twofold: 1) to examine the present situation of physical discrimination by analyzing fashion companies’ job advertisements and 2) to explore fashion major undergraduates’ opinions about job criteria that indicate potential physical discrimination. Two approaches were used in this exploratory study to examine potential hiring discrimination tied to job applicants’ body size; 1) investigation of job advertisements by fashion companies and 2) focus group interviews with fashion majors seniors or graduates looking for a work as fashion designers. First, job advertisements for fashion designers placed on major fashion recruiting sites (e.g., www.saramin.co.kr, www.fashionscout.co.kr, and http://cafe.naver.com/fashionworking) in 2015 were reviewed to determine the current situation of which physical conditions or specific body measurements are set as job requirements or preferred qualifications when hiring fashion designers (n=201). Next, five focus group interviews with seven university seniors each(n=35) were conducted. No fashion companies that were looking for experienced fashion designers only (n=65) included a physical body-size requirement in the job advertisement. Thus 136 fashion designer interns or entry-level fashion designer advertisements were used in further analysis. According to the analysis of the “job requirements”, among those 136 advertisements, 51.5% required education and only 16.2% required a related major along with education, 10.3% required fitting capable size (e.g. female fitting size 55) and 13.2% even presented detailed body measurements (e.g. height 175–178 cm). Among the “preferred” qualifications mentioned in the advertisements, fitting capable size accounted for 6.6%, detailed body measurements accounted for 2%. Analysis results showed that physical conditions capable of fitting were presented more frequently than major as requirements or preferred qualifications, indicating that physical conditions capable of fitting was one of the most important factors for hiring fashion designers. Based on the five focus group interviews, participants’ opinion toward body size requirements in job advertisements were summarized into five themes: 1) Discontent over the unreasonable standard— “Why do I have to have a model figure to become a fashion designer?”; 2) Adapting to given circumstances— “I will lose weight to become a fashion designer”; 3) Frustration over reality that can’t be changed with effort— “I can lose weight, but I can’t get any taller”; and 4) Setting practical alternatives—“I can be a children’s clothing designer instead of women’s”. Most respondents shared a sense of discontent over such hiring requirements and unreasonable discrimination on the grounds of appearance, but they also showed reluctant acceptance of the unreasonable discrimination practiced by employers in the fierce job market. The physical restrictions set as requirements by fashion companies fundamentally deny opportunities to some applicants. Importantly, the outright specification of a physical condition that cannot be overcome through personal effort or improved by the cultivation of skills as a hiring requirement is an infringement upon personal rights. The fashion industry should make efforts to improve its awareness of fashion designers as specialists equipped with design competencies instead of treating them as fitting models simply to save costs.

Social media was originally based on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and is described as “user-generated content” (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Although initially used for communication among internet users for privacy, it has become one of the most powerful online networking tools, and in the last few years has been widely practiced in the real world to enhance relationships between businesses and customers. Virtual tourist communities are not a new concept; they have been used for more than 10 years by tourists to exchange opinions and experiences of certain travel destinations. In tourism, internet based social communities have greatly expanded recently as a result of Web 2.0 technologies’ development. Tourists use the Internet to obtain information on trips, and share experiences related to their trip before, during and after their vacation (Parra-Lopez et al., 2011). Therefore, behaviors such as sharing photos and videos, writing travel experiences in blogs and microblogs, ranking travel destinations and posting opinions on social forums (for example, TripAdvisor) are becoming generalized (Chung & Buhalis, 2008) into what has been called Travel 2.0 (Adam, et al., 2007). The purpose and importance of this study is to explore how tourists perceive the value of social media as practiced in the tourism industry. We also investigate travel agencies’ social media marketing activities, and how tourists’ perceived value of social media affects their intention to use social media for organizing their vacation. Conceptual foundations Perceived value of using social media in tourism Perceived value is treated as a major element in a number of tourism research papers (for example, Parasuraman & Grewal, 2000; Sweeny & Soutar, 2001; Jin et al. 2015). As Parra-Lopez et al. (2011, pp.641) said, “the identification of the types of customer value perceived by travelers using social media for trip planning purposes is very essential, because it can provide significant guidelines on how to design the information sources, the structure and the functionality of social media in order to enhance their web traffic, usage and competiveness”. Realizing the essential role of social media in the tourist industry, and clarifying how to measure the perceived value of using social media is required. Because perceived value is defined as ‘cognitive-affective evaluation’ in this study, we employ both cognitive and affective variables to measure the perceived value of using social mediato organize vacations. This study applies four dimensions – ‘functional’, ‘social’, ‘altruism’ and ‘trust’ from Parra-Lopez et al.’s (2011) study - to measure the value that travelers perceive from using social media to organize their vacations. Because both cognitive and affective value are used to evaluate a product or service during the purchasing process (Bajs, 2015), it seems reasonable to assume that ‘function’, ‘social’, ‘altruism’, and ‘trust’ are regarded as essential when measuring the perceived value of using social media to organize vacations. Such propositions and findings provide valuable insights that enable us to introduce our Hypothesis 1. H1: ‘Functional’, ‘Social’, ‘Altruism’ and ‘Trust’ are the dominant dimensions in the perceived value of using social media in organizing vacations. The inter-relationship of attitudes towards social media marketing activities and the perceived value and intention of using social media to organize vacations Social media is seen as one of the most powerful communication tools, and social media marketing (referred to henceforth as ‘SMM’) is used by business companies to build and maintain relationships with their customers in various fields (Kim & Ko, 2012). In previous studies, such as Kim and Ko (2012) as well as Teo and Tan (2002), it has been claimed that customers’ attitudes towards SMM activities affect brand equity. This conclusion is also supported by Chan and Guillet’s (2011) study, which shows the important role of SMM in the hospitality industry. Nowadays, most travel agencies in Japan have created their social communities aiming to enhance their relationship with customers and promote their travel products. Aker and Topcu (2011) suggest that attitude greatly affects people’s purchase intention and behavior. Moreover, the wide acceptance of SMM also means that a positive attitude towards SMM affects the perceived value of social media. It has been clarified that perceived value is positive when the benefits are greater than the sacrifices (Zeithaml, 1988). As more and more tourists rely on social media to enhance their vacations, this suggests that the perceived benefit of social media is greater than the sacrifice, and therefore its perceived value positively affects the behavior intention of tourists who use social media to organize vacations. This academic background leads us to Hypothesis 2. H2: Both direct effect (i.e. attitude towards SMM activities→Intention) and indirect effect (i.e. attitude towards SMM activities→ Perceived value→Intention) will provide a good explanation of tourists’ intention of using social media to organize vacations. Methodology Proposed conceptual model Based on the theoretical background, this study proposes a conceptual model (see Figure 1) to show the inter-relationship of ‘attitudes towards SMM activities’, ‘perceived value’ and ‘behavior intention’. Figure 1: Conceptual Model Measurement This study involves items which have been used in past research. All items were developed based on the 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’ (see Table 1).Data collection The empirical data for this study was collected by an online survey conducted by one of the biggest research companies in Japan from March 13th to March 16th, 2015. A screening test was conducted to select suitable respondents with experience of using social media to organize their vacation and had accessed or used travel agencies’ social media, such as Facebook, Blog, and Twitter. Finally, due to the limited research budget, 622 valid samples were collected to be used in analysing the conceptual model. Data analysis results As all items presented in this study are cited from past research, we employed second-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) directly to explore the dominant dimensions of the perceived value of using social media to organize vacations (H1), and covariance structure analysis to investigate the inter-relationship among attitudes towards SMM activities, perceived value and behavior intention (H2). The results of data analysis are shown below (see Figure 2&3). Conclusions and managerial implications Based on the results reported in the present study, ‘functional’, ‘social’, ‘altruism’ and ‘trust’ are shown as dominant dimensions of perceived value in social media literature, thus supporting hypothesis 1. However, these four dimensions play different roles in perceived value. Compared with other dimensions, ‘altruism’ appears to be more essential. This result can be explained by the usage of social media. Tourists tend to share their experiences, opinions, photos and videos about certain travel destinations in what is called ‘altruism dimensions’. These tourists’ behavior is not for the benefit of others but for self-satisfaction (Baym, 2010) and is believed to be the most important incentive for using social media. Concerning the inter-relationship of attitudes towards SMM, perceived value and the intention of using social media to organize a vacation, contrary to our hypothesis, tourists’ attitudes towards SMM activities conducted by travel agencies do not seem to affect their behavior intention of using social media to organize their vacation (.05). The perceived value of social media seems to play a significant mediating role between attitudes towards SMM and behavior intention. In other words, the indirect influence (.585) through perceived value is greater than the direct influence (.05) of attitudes toward SMM on behavior intention. This result implies that travel agency managers should know how to increase the perceived value of social media, instead of only attempting to enhance SMM activities. Limitations Social media’s commodification in Japan is still a new concept, and for Japanese tourists, the practice of social media in the tourist industry is relatively novel. In other words, social media’s commodification has not been developed enough in Japan. Thus, the results gained from the empirical study should be compared in the countries where social media is more developed.