The use of brand communities have been hailed as an effective tool for marketers to develop relationships between their brands and consumers, with the ultimate goal to create and sustain brand loyalty. The majority of theoretical assertions regarding brand communities are underpinned by the use of social identity theory (Tajfel, 1982). Social identity theory posits that individuals have a need to construct and display a ‘self-concept’ and a strategy to communicate this is the process of identification with groups. As the focus of a brand community is the brand itself it is clear that brand community identification and brand identification must be correlated, but little research has explored this relationship or its effects. This study aimed to fill a gap within the knowledge by further exploring the relationship between brand identification and brand community identification by providing more insight into the role which an individuals’ identification with a brand community (Muniz and O’Guinn, 2001) has within their relationship with the focal brand and their loyalty to that brand. Specifically, this research aimed to gain a greater understanding of the different effect brand community identification had upon the relationship between brand identification and both public and private brand loyalty. This was explored through the utilisation of a survey of fans of a professional basketball team within the UK (n=298). The data and subsequent analysis supported the hypotheses that individuals’ brand community identification has a positive relationship with both public and private forms of brand loyalty. More importantly it also presented brand community identification as a mediator in the relationship between brand identification and public brand loyalty. Therefore, this study is the first to present brand community identification as critical within consumers’ development of publicly displayed brand loyalty. Managerially this understanding provides support for the proactive utilisation of brand communities by marketers. It also provides guidance for the context in which brand communities are critical for the success of the brand. This research delivers support for marketers, to utilise brand communities proactively when trying to motivate consumers to participate in publicly displayed pro-brand behaviour. This guides the re-allocation of budget away from pure brand identification activities to brand community engagement strategies.

Introduction Advertorials promote products by appealing-to and entertaining audiences. These ads increasingly target children aged 5 and younger, a segment of growing importance due to their influence on family buying decisions (McNeal, 1999). A new type of advertorial can be described as video advertisements (videotisements) and currently appear in online channels like YouTube that receive little regulation. They feature products like the Minecraft game or Barbie doll as the main story-line element, with many being viewed tens of millions of times. Videotisement hosts may produce thousands of episodes that feature the same game/doll, forming miniseries encouraging children to return and watch. Videotisements differ from “online influencers”, they exclusively promote one product over a long period (years) and use storylines to demonstrate product use. Advertisers have long promoted products through entertainment shows. This format has been stable for a long time, only recently morphing into videotisements. In the 1950s, TV shows like The Mickey Mouse Club carried embedded persuasive messages (Palmer & Carpenter, 2006). In the 60s, children’s TV featured products like toys. By the 70s, companies were conducting research into ways to attract children, trying to convert their interest into sales. This led the FTC to suggest, in 1978, banning children’s advertising. This proposal accelerated academic research into how children processed TV programs and ads (Ward, Wackman, & Wartella, 1977). These studies investigated covert product placements in shows or movies, lyrics, books (Gupta & Gould, 1997) and online media (Balasubramanian, Karrh & Patwardhan, 2006). Product placements could increase sales, overcome consumer ad resistance and media-fragmentation (Palmer & Carpenter, 2006). This prompted studies of attitudesto (Gupta & Gould, 1997) and effectiveness-of placements (Russell, 2002). There were also unsuccessful calls to ban or disclose placements. The early 2000s saw child-targeted ads flowing to the internet; young children were consuming more web-entertainment and less TV, 80% of children below age 5 used the internet at least once a week (Gutnick, Robb, Takeuchi, & Kotler, 2011) to play games online (Marsh, 2010). The web enabled advertisers to interact directly with children by providing ads that masqueraded as games (advergames), containing commercial logos, mascots and trade characters (Mallinckrodt & Mizerski, 2007). Advergames quickly became among the top five ways to reach children (Vanwesenbeeck, Walrave, & Ponnet, 2017). Some advertisers also started “online communities where children can meet and interact with new and existing friends and play games” (Rozendaal, Slot, van Reijmersdal, & Buijzen, 2013, p.142). Some advergames are distributed through social media like Facebook (Terlutter & Capella, 2013) and its “stealthy nature” (Hudders, Cauberghe, & Panic, 2016) has attracted ethical and regulatory attention (Swanepoel, Lye, & Rugimbana, 2009). The advergame market is now cluttered and advertisers have moved to videotisements. We know very little about this format, this is the impetus for our preliminary study about how children use videotisements. These findings will lead to a more comprehensive study. A videotisement is typically posted on YouTube, Youku and Tudou. The entire video is a covert ad. A host narrates entertaining product information, as the product is used/played with. This is attractive to young children because the videotisement mimics watching other children play – just like watching their friends play games. The clips look professionally produced, suggesting some are linked to product manufacturers (see www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7FX_EnrW1k). A comparative format is the TV infomercial. However, infomercials declare as advertising that sells products – you can order by calling the advertised phone number – videotisements do not do this. Videotisements are produced as video-series. The episodes explore different areas or versions of a game/toy and build on earlier episodes, encouraging children to revisit to follow the story. In some cases, the host becomes a celebrity. For example, Grace Mulgrew who hosts the Grace’s World YouTube channel has over 1 billion views from more than a million subscribers (Stewart, 2018). The episodes show Grace (an “ordinary” 12-year-old) playing with her Barbie dolls. As the storylines develop, Grace displays the latest Barbie characters and accessories. Barbie provides Grace with free dolls and YouTube works with Grace to produce kid-friendly content and educational clips (House, 2015). However, Grace’s World hides these ties. She continues to create, post and promote Barbie videos. Stealthy videotisements are now common; YouTube hosts 56 million videotisements for the Minecraft game. Most of these ads are watched hundreds of thousands of times within the first week, and millions of times by the second week after release. Videotisements also contain commercials and web advertising and children are encouraged to provide personal contact information for membership, competitions or free gifts. So far, this format has not received any attention from researchers. We seem to be the first to study this media and explore children’s exposure-to and preference-for videotisements. Observation of the authors’ children suggest that there is brand preference, the children only watch videos featuring certain games with certain hosts. Socialisation to Videotisements Video sharing sites like YouTube are among the first that children below age nine visit (Holloway, Green, & Livingstone, 2013); two thirds of children watch videos on these sites (Hoh, 2017). On average, children up to age two watch games and videos online for two hours daily (Brown, 2011) and five to fifteen year olds are online for 15 hours each week (Ofcom, 2016). Typically, parents enable young children’s access to the web through their phones and tablets, socialising (Sonck, Nikken, & de Haan, 2013) and guiding (Shin & Li, 2017) them to certain content. The frequency of parental and child internet use is positively correlated (Holloway et al., 2013). Older siblings also socialise younger siblings to media and influence what the younger ones do online (Wartella, O’Keefe & Scantlin, 2000); unsurprisingly children with older siblings start using the internet at a younger age (Teuwen, De Groff, & Zaman, 2012). Consequently, three year olds are knowledgeable about multiplayer networked games like Plants vs. Zombies, Minecraft and Mario long before they attain the dexterity to play the games (Dickey, 2007). One way socialisation occurs is when siblings watch videotisements together, these videos are attractive to younger children who cannot yet play the game – they can participate by watching. This raises our research question: What is the level of young children’s exposure to videotisements? Methodology As two to five year olds cannot respond adequately about their videotisement use, we surveyed their parents/carers. Respondents were informed of the study’s purpose, providing written consent in the way approved by the University Research Ethics Team. [Insert Table 1 about here] Parents were recruited from early childhood learning centres in Singapore (n = 31), a childcare centre and a convenience sample in Australia (n = 17). They were asked about the number of media devices they had at home (access), the amount of time spent using these devices (use), whether the child observes or plays with other children when using these devices (socialisation). We also asked whether parents and siblings watched videotisements with the child (socialisation). Parents answered only about their youngest child. The children’s mean age was 3.12 (SD = 1.07), there were 19 girls (40%) and 29 boys (60%). Most parents were in full time work (Singapore 90%, Australia 88%) and university qualified (Singapore 66%, Australia 82%). All respondents possessed internet enabled devices in their homes that the child could access (Table 1). Results A chi-square analysis showed no significant differences between the Singapore and Australia children’s use of media during weekdays (X2 = 1.357, p>.5) or weekends (X2 = 2.212, p>.5), thus we combined the responses for analysis (n = 48). TV was the most popular media, 88% watched on weekdays and 94% on weekends. Videos and videotisements was ranked second and third, followed by playing video/digital games and playing online (Table 2). [Insert Table 2 about here] In our sample, 38% have watched videotisements with others, with 56% of this group watching with parents and 22% with siblings (Table 3), 66% of our sample’s parents watched videotisements with their child. Thirty three percent of the children had older siblings, 21% (n=7) of this group watched videotisements together. [Insert Table 3 about here] Conclusion This article provides one of the first looks at children younger than age five’s use of videotisements. While the sample size was small (n = 48), 100% of the parents surveyed in Singapore and Australia responded that their youngest child watched YouTube or videotisements. This gives a strong indication about the level of videotisement use by young children. Parents and siblings help socialise younger children to these ads. The unregulated and stealthy nature of this ad format calls for more investigation of the format, especially by more vulnerable young child audiences. This paper provides a starting point for research into this emerging ad format. Future research may investigate how videotisements influence children’s buying behaviour and family buying decisions; children’s susceptibility to videotisements; and international patterns of videotisement consumption.

Introduction Showing friendly, kind, and warm endorsers in advertisement is a common strategy for companies attempting to appeal to their customers on an emotional level. However, these companies may have systematically overlooked one important factor, the perceptual fluency of celebrity recognition. According to the perceptual fluency literature (Lee & Labroo 2004; Winkielman et al. 2012), information that is consistent with one’s existing knowledge is more easily to be processed. Unlike previous endorsement research, this study explored novel pathways of celebrity recognition and examined how the perceptual fluency of the celebrity will impact celebrity endorsement. This study aimed to answer two questions: ⦁ Does perceptual fluency of the celebrity affect how a viewer reacts to an advertisement on the metrics that advertisers care about? ⦁ If perceptual fluency of the celebrity does have an effect, how can advertisers enhance the fluency when creating print advertisements? The current study undertook two studies that provided evidence for the perceptual fluency effect of a celebrity’s physical image on consumers’ recall and attitude towards the endorsement. Study 1 Study 1 aimed to test the effect of perceptual fluency in the context of banner ads on website. A pre-test is used to examine the perceptual fluency of various outlines from different celebrities under coarse visual condition, and choose the celebrity’s image with the highest deviation regarding perceptual fluency. The pre-test employed 46 grayscale pictures of 18 Chinese celebrities, with two to four images per celebrity. 29 undergraduate students (16 males) took the pre-test. The task was a forced choice two-alternative identification (celebrity: yes or no). Subjects were instructed to identify whether it is a celebrity or not, by pressing the keys “Y” or “N,” respectively. Jet Lee’s (a famous Chinese material artist in Hollywood) images were selected for the main study based on the pre-test results. Evidences (correct rate: 62.1% vs. 20.7%; response time: 0.96 seconds vs. 1.46 seconds) reveal that the respondents experienced higher perceptual fluency in the famous pose condition than in the casual pose condition. The main study used a professionally designed beer advertisement showing Jet Lee as the celebrity endorser. To enhance the external validity of this study, the stimulus advertisement was placed at the lower-left corner, with other advertisements. To ensure the validity of the target group, a representative online sample of male participants was solicited through a professional online panel provider (Erfgen, Zenker & Sattler, 2015). In total, 168 male Chinese participants completed the online survey. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two experimental conditions (low vs. high perceptual fluency). Erfgen, Zenker and Sattler (2015)’s approach was employed to study advertisement recall. The experimenter informed participants that their mathematical mentality was being tested. They were instructed to read an article about how to teach mathematical mentality to children. However, respondents were not explicitly asked to look at the advertisement. A filtering question was asked about the content of the article, and those who could not answer correctly were excluded from further analyses. Participants then solved four mental math exercises involving basic arithmetic operations, to distract them from the advertisement, before responding to our dependent recall items: unaided recall of the brand, the endorser, and then aided recall of the brand, and endorser (i.e., participants could choose among 10 answer options). Finally, questions about endorser familiarity and some general demographic items were asked. In total, 106 participants answered the filtering question correctly (Mage = 27.9 years, 74.4% with a bachelor’s degree or higher). The endorser familiarity is not significantly different among the two conditions (Mhigh = 5.62 vs. Mlow = 5.78, n.s.). The recall rates confirmed that the use of images with low perceptual fluency impaired endorser recall as compared to the use of images with high perceptual fluency. Unaided endorser name recall was not significantly higher for the high perceptual fluency condition (21.6% correct) as compared to the low perceptual fluency condition (10.9% correct; χ2(1, 106) = 2.23, p = .10, φ = .15). However, for the aided endorser name recall, it was significantly higher in high perceptual fluency condition (29.4% correct) than in low perceptual fluency condition (9.1% correct; χ2(1, 106) = 7.14, p < .01, φ = .26). Brand name recall was not significantly different among the two conditions, both for unaided recall (11.8% vs. 7.3%; n.s.) and aided recall (15.7% vs. 12.7%; n.s.). The results of Study 1 offer evidence for the existence of the perceptual fluency effect by using a realistic advertisement context. Participants exhibited higher recall rates of the endorser’s name for images with high rather than low perceptual fluency, which indicates that even when audiences focus on other tasks, they are more likely to process the advertisement with a high perceptual fluence celebrity image than that with a low perceptual fluence one. Study 2 Study 2 aimed to test the relationship between perceptual fluency of endorser and consumers’ attitude towards the endorsement. Donnie Yen is considered to be one of Hong Kong’s top action stars. His images were also shown as stimuli in pretest in Study 1. The result revealed that the perceptual fluency of Donnie Yen with a friendly gesture (smiling with an inviting gesture; accurate rate =24%, mean response time = 1.46 seconds) was significantly lower than it was for his image with a provoking gesture (showing a fist with cool expression; accurate rate = 40%, mean response time = 1.03 seconds, p’s < .01). The experiment used a professionally designed advertisement of a virtual “LIMA” brand electric bike showing Donnie Yen as the celebrity endorser. Similar to the method used in study 1, high and low perceptual fluency images of Donnie Yen were used. It is well known that the endorsers’ facial expressions and features have significant impact on advertisement outcomes (e.g. Kulczynski, Ilicic & Baxter 2016; Xiao & Ding 2014). Thus, to rule out the alternative explanation of facial expressions and features, the experiment used a 2 (perceptual fluency: low vs. high) * 2 (celebrity face: face only vs. face and body) between group design. This online study included 108 male Chinese consumers from Sojump (a China-based online panel site). Participants were randomly assigned to one of the four experimental conditions. They were shown a constructed print advertisement pairing Donnie Yen with an electric bike. Participants were instructed to rate the endorser on trustworthiness, likeness, competence, and attractiveness (Tanner & Maeng 2012), following which they were asked to rate their attitude towards the advertisement (Aab), brand (Ab), and purchase intention (PI). Measurement of Aab was based on Mitchell and Olson’s (1981) 5-point semantic differential scale, which includes “this advertisement is: bad/good, dislike/like, and uninteresting/ interesting” (Cronbach’s α = 0.92). Measurement of Ab was based on Carrillat, d’Astous and Christianis’ (2014) model, which includes “For the brand LIMA: I have a negative opinion about/I have a positive opinion about, I do not like/I like, it is untrustworthy/is trustworthy, and it is inferior to other brands/is superior to other brands” (Cronbach’s α = 0.88). Measurement of PI was drawn from Choi and Rifon (2012) by asking “How likely is it that you would consider the advertised brand next time you purchase an electric bike?”. In addition, they were asked to rate the matchiness of the celebrity image shown in the stimuli: “To which degree is the image in the advertisement consistent with the celebrity’s image in your mind?”. Finally, questions about gender, age, and education were asked. Trustworthiness, likeness, competence, and attractiveness were analyzed by using a one-way ANOVA. Results showed no significant differences among the conditions. Attitude towards the advertisement and brand, and purchase intention were analyzed in a 2 * 2 ANOVA with the perceptual fluency and face conditions as independent variables. Results showed main effects of perceptual fluency for attitude towards the advertisement (F(1,107) = 3.47, p = 0.06), attitude towards the brand (F(1,107) = 3.93, p = 0.05), and purchase intention (F(1,107) = 7.35, p < 0.01), but no significant interaction (F’s < 1). A follow-up analysis revealed that, when the celebrity’s face and gesture was presented, high perceptual fluency lead to a higher endorsement effect (MAad = 5.72, MAb = 5.66, MPI = 5.83) than when there was low perceptual fluency (MAad = 5.18, MAb = 5.08, MPI = 5.06; p’s < .05). However, no significant difference was found if only the celebrity’s face was shown (high perceptual fluency: MAad = 5.29, MAb = 5.37, MPI = 5.52; low perceptual fluency face: MAad = 4.94, MAb = 5.18, MPI = 4.96; p’s > 0.05). To investigate whether feelings of image matching mediated the relationship between the perceptual fluency and positive attitude related to the advertisement, the PROCESS macro bootstrapping procedure (n = 10,000, model 4) was performed (Preacher, Rucker & Hayes 2007). Trustworthiness, likeness, familiarity, and attractiveness were included as covariates. The results indicated that the high perceptual fluency produced significant feelings of image matching (β = 0.32, p=0.055), and image matching was a significant predictor of Aad (β = 0.42, p<0.001), Ab (β = 0.27, p<0.001), and PI (β = 0.42, p<0.001). Further, the 95% bootstrapped confidence interval for the indirect effect of perceptual fluency on the dependent variables through the mediator, image matching, did not include zero (Aad: β= 0.13, 95% CI = 0.02–0.30; Ab: β = 0.09, 95% CI = 0.02–0.19; and PI: β = 0.13, 95% CI = 0.02–0.30). These results support the notion that the perceptual fluency of a celebrity stimulus can affect the endorsement positively. Although the traditional influence factors of endorsement (i.e., trustworthiness, likeness, familiarity, and attractiveness) did not differ among the experimental conditions, participants showed significantly different attitudes towards the endorsement. Specifically, when the stimulus contained a celebrity image with high perceptual fluency, participants had significantly positive attitudes towards the advertisement and brand, and a higher purchase intention, as compared to those when a low perceptual fluency image was presented. In addition, the alternative explanation of facial expressions and features was ruled out in this study. Theoretical contribution This study contributes to the literature concerning how celebrities on printed advertisements are processed. (1) The current study revealed that the high rather than low perceptual fluency of celebrities’ physical image had higher benefits (e.g., martial art actor showing friendly gesture). The study defined this effect as perceptual fluency of celebrity recognition, which advances the stereotypic filtering mechanism (Sherman et al. 1998) and the fluency-as-good effect (e.g., Reber, Winkielman & Schwarz 1998). (2) This study also contributes to psychology through the assertion that our perception of famous faces can be influenced by the accompanied contextual information. Study 1 demonstrated that, other than the faces, the contextual information (e.g., hairstyle, gesture, and etc.) with high perceptual fluency can facilitate the recognition of celebrities. Study 2 revealed that the effect of perceptual fluency is more salient when the celebrity’s image includes the face and gesture. This result echoes findings from Aviezer et al. (2012), who argued that people tend to combine the face and body together, to create a synergistic effect. (3) Humans have evolved with significant mental capabilities to facilitate the rapid processing of information (Downing et al. 2001). However, the possible influence of such automatic evaluations in marketing contexts has not received sufficient attention. While marketers narrowly focus on manipulating attractiveness, agreeableness, or friendliness of celebrity endorsers, this study suggests that manipulating the perceptual fluency of the endorser may have a higher influence on consumers. These initial findings may help facilitate further marketing research using neuro and visual science methods to examine the perceptual processing of celebrities’ imagery. Implications for practice This study highlights the need for marketers to pay more attention to using the perceptual fluency of celebrity endorsers to enhance the endorsement effect. With increasing competition in marketing communications, automatic and holistic processing of the celebrity’s image may influence consumer behaviors in different contexts. Enhancing the perceptual fluency of celebrity images seems to have multiple benefits, including improved recognition, recall, and consumer attitude towards the endorsement. This study also proposes practical methods for the careful selection of celebrity images when constructing print advertisements. Marketers can evaluate the congruence of celebrities’ physical image with coarse visual images of celebrities and conduct pretests to determine the image that suits their printed advertisements. Limitations and Directions for Future Research One major limitation of this study is that only action movie stars were studied in the recall (Study 1) and consumer attitude experiments (Study 2). This is because it is a common practice that endorsers are asked to convey friendly signals in the advertisement, such as smiling, friendly body gesture, etc. Such friendly gestures are more likely to lead to low perceptual fluency for action movie stars than for other celebrities. Further evidence may be required for the perceptual fluency of celebrity recognition. Future studies can examine the perceptual fluency effect for other categories of celebrities, such as athletic stars, fashion stars, etc. Second, the current study focused only on male celebrities and male consumers. However, female celebrities are very popular in printed advertisements, especially for cosmetics, personal care, fashion, etc. (Belch & Belch, 2013). Influence of the perceptual fluency of female celebrities and the possible differences in the impact of each gender’s perceptual fluency requires further research. Third, in conducting Study1, the distraction task of mental math exercises only represented a simplification of reality. Future research can use more realistic tasks to enhance the external validity of the findings.

We investigate the effect of individuals’ thinking style on their evaluation of a company that engages in a corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative with varying degrees of a company-cause fit. A substantial body of research suggests that consumers’ evaluation of CSR depend on the degree of a fit between a company and a social cause that the company aims to support. Although a high fit CSR initiative has been associated with more favorable consumer evaluation than a low fit CSR initiative, we suggest that this is true only for analytic thinkers. In two experimental studies, we show that analytic thinkers tend to react more sensitively to the degree of CSR fit than do holistic thinkers. Specifically, analytic thinkers perceive a high fit CSR to be more public serving than a low fit CSR, leading to more favorable reactions to it. Holistic thinkers tend to believe both high and low fit CSR initiatives to be equally public serving, leading to favorable reactions to both. In addition, compared to analytic thinkers, holistic thinkers tend to perceive a low fit CSR initiative to be more public serving and subsequently exhibit more positive reactions to it. Our work contributes to the CSR literature by adding individuals’ thinking styles as a determinant of their sensitivity to the degree of a company-cause fit. We also demonstrate the perception of public serving CSR motive is the underlying process of the hypothesized effect. Thus, our findings shed new light on the role of fit, showing that depending on thinking style, having a high fit initiative may not be as critical as previously thought. Instead, a low fit CSR initiative can generate consumers’ positive reactions.

Introduction Social media continues to grow and presents in our everyday lives. Consumers can even know about celebrities’ personal lives and hear directly from celebrities through social media, such as Facebook and Instagram. Chung and Cho (2017) point out that social media provides a platform for a more open, close and frequent interaction between consumers and celebrities. According to Lee and Watkins (2016), by using social media, consumers can easily and quickly access user generated content which includes product information and reviews. People create video blog (vlog) and some have attracted a large number of followers, video bloggers (vloggers) upload videos about their personal life or reviews of product they use, therefore increasing browsing traffic from followers and other viewers. As a result, vloggers become vlog celebrities or key opinion leaders on social media nowadays. According to Horton and Wohl (1956), parasocial interaction (PSI) explains the relationship between media persona and media user, and it is referred to a media user’s reaction to a media persona, in a way that the media persona is perceived as an intimate conversational partner by the media user. The media persona may be considered by his/her audience as a friend, counselor, comforter and model, and PSI is considered as a “friendship” with a media persona (Perse & Rubin, 1989). As this “friendship” continues to grow, the media user will gradually treat the media persona as a trustworthy friend and rely on their suggestions as a trusted source of information (Rubin et al., 1985). According to Stever and Lawson (2013), PSI is an appropriate theoretical framework for studying the one-sided relationship between celebrities and fans; so the same argument can be extended to vlogger as suggested by Lee and Watkins (2016). As there is limited studies investigating the link between vlogger and marketing results in the literature, and researches examining the relationships between PSI and perceived brand quality, brand affect as well as brand preference are rare and lack empirical support, therefore, some research gaps need to be bridged. This study develops an integrated model according to the literature review. It is expected to help marketers to understand the influence of vlogger, and to develop efficient social media marketing tactics and branding strategies by using PSI as a brand management tool. Literature review and hypothesis development Parasocial interaction (PSI) explains the relationship between media persona and media user, and it is referred to a media user’s reaction to a media persona, in a way that the media persona is perceived as an intimate conversational partner by the media user. Previous studies indicate that PSI develops in ways similar to interpersonal relationships with friends (Horton & Wohl, 1956; Rubin & McHugh, 1987; Perse & Rubin, 1989), so the media persona may be considered by his/her audience as a friend, counselor, comforter and model, and PSI is considered as a “friendship” with a media persona (Perse & Rubin, 1989). Labrecque (2014) suggests that the development of PSI is not restricted to traditional media but also in an online environment. Labrecque (2014) points out that the higher the perceived level of openness and interaction in communication between consumers and brands on social media, the stronger their PSI with the brands. A direct relationship is also found to exist between social media interaction and parasocial behavior (Chung & Cho, 2017). Vloggers emerge as vlog celebrities or key opinion leaders who are active on social media, nowadays the media users can share their own thoughts with the celebrities and even comment the celebrities’ lives on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram freely, as if they have established a “friendship” with the celebrities (Chung & Cho, 2017), PSI is found to exist between vloggers and media users and is therefore fostered (Lee & Watkins, 2016). Attraction to a media persona results in enhancement of interaction or repeat viewing (Rubin & McHugh, 1987). If a person's physical appearance is considered to be aesthetically beautiful or pleasing, the degree of physical attractiveness is thus higher. Till and Busler (2000) suggest that physically attractive people are considered to possess more favorable personality traits such as intellectual competence, social competence and integrity. Both social and physical attractiveness to a media persona have been found to be predictors of PSI (Lee & Watkins, 2016; Perse & Rubin, 1989). This study thus postulates that: H1: The physical attractiveness of vlogger has a positive effect on PSI. Social attractiveness is referred to a media persona’s likability (McCroskey & McCain, 1974) and considering the media persona as a viable friend (Frederick et al., 2012). Media persona who is socially attractive leads to a stronger PSI, in both social and work context (Rubin & McHugh, 1987). Social attractiveness has been found to be a predictor of PSI (Lee & Watkins, 2016; Perse & Rubin, 1989). This study thus postulates that: H2: The social attractiveness of vlogger has a positive effect on PSI. According to Rubin and Step (2000), motivation is central to communication processes, and different motivations would lead to different behavior and communication choices. In the video sharing platform such as YouTube, YouTube users engage with YouTube for entertainment purposes (Haridakis & Hanson, 2009). Entertainment refers to any activities that provide diversions and amusements to fill time, gain pleasure, relax and have fun (Yuan et al., 2016). People not only watch vlogs for entertainment but are also widely influenced by the content of vlogs (Chung & Cho, 2017), as vloggers are viewed as more authentic and true-to-life (Lee & Watkins, 2016). This study postulates that: H3: Viewing motive with vlogger for entertainment has a positive effect on PSI. People use media not only for entertainment, but also for satisfying interpersonal needs (Armstrong & Rubin, 1989; Madianou & Miller, 2013; Rubin et al., 1985). As media user’s motivations for using media correlate with the development of PSI positively (Rubin et al., 1985) and the motivation of individuals to undertake relationship building by using social network service is found to be positivly correlated with parasocial behavior (Yuan et al., 2016), it is proposed that the more the media user’s motive to use social media involving vlog for relationship building, the stronger their PSI with vlogger. This study thus postulates that: H4: Viewing motive with vlogger for building relationship has a positive effect on PSI. More time spent with the medium encourages a participative and active culture, and higher online traffic implies more opportunities for online advertising and promotions (Hung et al., 2011). When media user is exposed with frequent messages enriched with personal information from a media persona, psychological familiarity and intimacy are enhanced, resulting in further development of friendship over time (Chung & Cho, 2017). This study thus postulates that: H5: The time spent with the medium has a positive effect on PSI. Mediating effect of PSI PSI explains the relationship between media user and media persona (Horton & Wohl, 1956) and is considered as a “friendship” with a media persona (Perse & Rubin, 1989). Previous study implicitly addresses the mediating role of PSI between the antecedents of PSI and brand perception (Lee & Watkins, 2016), however, the mediating role of PSI between the relationship of the antecedents of PSI and perceived brand quality, brand affect as well as brand preference has not been investigated. Specifically, PSI decreases uncertainty (Perse & Rubin, 1989) and consumer’s confidence has been shown to be a key component of forming positive perceived brand quality (Kayaman & Arasli, 2007). Moreover, social media strategies are often used to build positive brand attitude through enhanced consumer engagement and consumer likeability towards a brand, making brand affect metric relevant to social media marketers. Finally, Grimm (2005) suggests that attitude can predict preference and preference is influenced by emotional and personality responses to the brand. Feelings of bonding with brands are fostered by PSI, as a result positive brand attitude is enhanced (Knoll et al., 2015). Moreover, evidences show that celebrity endorsement can help to positively influence consumer’s brand preference (e.g. Kamins et al., 1989). Thus, it is predicted that PSI mediates the effects of the antecedents of PSI: physical attractiveness, social attractiveness, viewing motive for entertainment, view motive for building relationship and time spent with the medium on perceived brand quality, brand affect and brand preference, and has the following direct effects on perceived brand quality brand affect, and brand preference. H6: PSI has a positive effect on perceived brand quality H7: PSI has a positive effect on brand affect. H8: PSI has a positive effect on brand preference. H9: PSI mediates the relationship between antecedents of PSI and a) perceived brand quality; b) brand affect; and c) brand preference Methodology In this study, the measurements are adopted from well-established scales of previous literatures. Physical attractiveness was measured using a three-item scale based on McCroskey and McCain (1974), which has been applied by Lee and Watkins (2016). As homophily, or the belief that two parties share similar beliefs, is grounded in social attractiveness between the parties (Turner, 1993), attitude homophily, and social attractiveness are similar constructs. Based on the measurement scale from Lee and Watkins (2016), attitude homophily and social attractiveness were merged into one factor and was measured using a ten-item scale in this study. Viewing motive for entertainment and viewing motive for building relationships were measured using the motivation scale proposed by Yuan et al. (2016). Viewing motive for entertainment was measured using a seven-item scale while viewing motive for building relationships was measured using a six-item scale. Time spent with the medium was measured using a two-item scale from Hung et al. (2011), which assesses the average weekly frequency and the average weekly duration of browsing vlogs. Parasocial interaction was measured using an eight-item scale relating to vloggers from Lee and Watkins (2016). Perceived brand quality was measured using a six-item scale from Yoo et al. (2000). Brand affect was measured using a three-item scale from Chaudhuri and Holbrook (2001). Brand preference was defined as the relative preference for selecting and using a particular brand (Yoo et al., 2000), brand preference was measured using a four-item scale based on Yoo et al.’s (2000) overall brand equity scale which was adopted by Liu et al. (2014). Besides time spent with the medium, each item was assessed on a five-point Likert-type scale. The wording of each item was altered to better suit the context of using vloggers for social media marketing. Only female and those who have watched beauty vlog previously were qualified to participate in the survey. Respondents were shown a beauty product review video by the selected vlogger from YouTube, the brand name of the beauty product in the video was eliminated so as to prevent brand bias. In the online questionnaire, the qualified respondents were only allowed to start filling in the next part of the questionnaire after watching the whole video. Data for this study were collected via online survey to simulate the environment of vlogs and social media. Convenience sampling method was utilized in this study due to its non-probability sampling technique and convenience accessibility. The online questionnaires were distributed through social media platforms, including Facebook and WeChat etc. The data collection process was conducted from August to September of 2017 in Macau, a total of 756 samples were collected. After removing the incomplete and disqualified questionnaires, 401 questionnaires were identified as eligible for formal analysis. Pearson’s correlation test was employed to test the relationships between all variables. Multiple regressions with the ordinary-least-squares (OSL) estimation was used to test the relationship between antecedents of PSI and PSI (i.e. H1, H2, H3, H4, and H5), and the relationship between PSI and brand evaluations (i.e. H6, H7, H8). To investigate the mediating effect of PSI between each antecedent of PSI and perceived brand quality, brand affect, and brand preference (i.e. H9a, H9b, H9c), the PROCESS macro bootstrapping procedure (n = 5000, model 4; Preacher et al., 2007) was performed for each variable. Bootstrapping is a nonparametric resampling procedure for testing mediation that does not impose the assumption of normality of the sampling distribution (Preacher & Hayes, 2008). Moreover, a Sobel test was used to further demonstrate the significance of the mediation effect of PSI. Results Multiple regression analysis is performed to tests relationships between PSI and the antecedents of PSI. PSI as a dependent variable, the main effects of the antecedents of PSI on PSI are all significant (F (5, 395) = 87.25, p < 0.001). Specifically, physical attractiveness (β = 0.271, p < 0.001), attitude homophily/social attractiveness (β= 0.335, p < 0.001), viewing motive for entertainment (β = 0.194, p < 0.001), viewing motive for building relationship (β = 0.163, p < 0.001) and time spent with the medium (β = 0.062, p < 0.001) are positively related to PSI. Results support H1, H2, H3, H4, and H5. Moreover, results found (1) PSI fully mediates the effect of physical attractiveness (β = 0.052, p < 0.001) on perceived brand quality; PSI partially mediates the effects of attitude homophily/social attractiveness (β = 0.064, p < 0.001), viewing motive for entertainment (β = 0.037, p < 0.01), viewing motive for building relationship (β = 0.031, p < 0.01) as well as time spent with the medium (β = 0.012, p < 0.05) on perceived brand quality. (2) PSI mediates the effect of physical attractiveness (β = 0.079, p < 0.001), attitude homophily/social attractiveness (β = 0.098, p < 0.001) and time spent with the medium (β = 0.018, p < 0.05) on brand affect, while partially mediates the effects of viewing motive for entertainment (β = 0.057, p < 0.01), viewing motive for building relationship (β = 0.047, p < 0.01) on brand affect. (3) PSI mediates the effect of physical attractiveness (β = 0.110, p < 0.001), attitude homophily/social attractiveness (β = 0.136, p < 0.001), viewing motive for building relationship (β = 0.066, p < 0.001) and time spent with the medium (β = 0.025, p < 0.01) on brand preference. And PSI partially mediates the effects of viewing motive for entertainment (β = 0.079, p < 0.001) on brand preference. In this sense, H6, H7, and H8 are supported. Discussion The results of this study provide recommendations that customers’ perceived brand quality, brand affect and brand preference could be enhanced by social media marketing practices by using vlogger. Various antecedents of PSI have been proven effectively influencing PSI and the findings of this study consistently demonstrate that physical attractiveness, attitude homophily, social attractiveness, viewing motive for entertainment, viewing motive for building relationship as well as time spent with the medium are influential elements to build a stronger PSI, which are essential to foster the “friendship” between media user and vlogger. This study confirms the mediating role of PSI between the antecedents of PSI and the brand variables. Long-term relationships with consumers is a viable marketing strategy (Berry, 1995), and the overall result supports that PSI can be used as a brand management tool to establish connections with consumers. Establishing a relationship with consumers via online brand ambassadors could eventually enhance perceived brand quality, brand affect and brand preference, and may lead to increase of the likelihood of future purchases.

Introduction Recently global luxury brands have put their effort into strengthening their businesses online. This can be seen as an effort to overcome their stagnant growth by focusing on steeply increasing online markets as their target. In the midst of global recession, online luxury brands have continued to show rapid growth each year. Bain & Company (2017) has forecasted offline growth of global luxury brands at the annual average growth of 2~3% by 2020 while the online markets would show the average growth of 15% annually by 2020. Moreover, due to the expansion of importers with official copyright to the online sales and stabilization of e-payment system, online markets have gained consumer trust leading to the increased rate of consumers purchasing luxury brand online more. McKinsey Consulting (2017) has forecasted online sales of luxury brand would reach up to 28% of the total sales by 2025. Reflecting such expectations, luxury brands are in the process of proposing multiple channels of online sales and communicating through Social Network Service (SNS) marketing as their core strategies. As consumer usage of SNS, such as Facebook, tweeter, or Instagram, have increased, so the value of consumer toward luxury brands has changed. Since the introduction of the standing characteristic of social media-communication to the luxury brand market, the luxury brands not only became a privilege of the high minority group but also became available for anyone to easily purchase with absolute information availability of price, quality, location, etc. Theoretical Development Consumers are using social media sites to search for information and deviating from traditional media (e.g., television, radio, and magazines) (Mangold and Faulds 2009). The emergence of social media has changed communication method from one-way communication to multi-dimensional, two-way, peer-to-peer communication (Berthon, Pitt, and Campbell 2008). Social media platforms offer a chance for brand to familiarized interact with consumers. Also, consumer can be interacted with another consumer through social media. The most important factor for luxury brands to establish an online business strategy is communication with their consumers. Luxury brands that are most accustomed to communicating with their limited consumers in their offline stores providing high quality services, it is inevitable for them to fear the lack of face-to-face interaction with their consumers in online markets. Social media began to serve the luxury brands as the alternative communication channel within the online markets. Moreover, social media has proven effective in drawing consumer’s voluntary Word of Mouth(WOM) since social media interaction is important motivation for consumer to creating user-generated contents (Daugherty al., 2008). The social media provides the consumers with a platform to meet and communicate with others with similar interests in specific brand goods and services that makes target marketing easier than before (Muntinga et al., 2011). Furthermore, the social media platforms provide the consumers with restriction-free comments on a certain brand to other interested parties, the users voluntarily taking the role of eWOM (Kim & Ko, 2012; Vollmer & Precourt, 2008). Luxury brands also seek to take this advantage of social media. The extent of spreading word of mouth is at the most viral through social media platforms, influencing the consumer’s purchasing behaviors to a great extent as proven in many previous researches (Lau and Ng 2001; Nabi and Hendriks 2003). Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine the impact of the consumer’s multidimensional value towards luxury brands on social media WOM intention and purchase intentions at the same time. Moreover, through extensive literature review with qualitative interview on consumers’ perceived value on luxury brand/product, consumer value dimensions on the luxury brands are categorized into six value factors (e.g. conspicuous value, status value, materialistic value, hedonic value, uniqueness seeking value, price-quality perceptions). Research Design The study conducted a thorough literature review and focus group interview to develop a comprehensive model of understanding the importance and dimensionality of customer value on luxury brand. After analyzing qualitative data on consumer value perception on luxury brands/product, online survey was performed using a customer sample in the United States. A web-based online survey was conducted using an online research panel service. After filtering and cleaning data collected, a final usable sample of 287 were analyzed to test hypothesized model. Measures for luxury brand on perceived values (including conspicuous value, status value, hedonic value, materialistic value, uniqueness seeking value, price-quality perceptions), social media word-of-mouth intention, and purchase intentions for luxury products were rated on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Result and Conclusion The result show that the relationship between conspicuous value, hedonic value, uniqueness and price-quality perceptions with social media WOM were found to be significant impact. However, social media WOM were not affected by status value and materialistic value of luxury brand. Conversely, status value and materialistic value had a considerable influence on purchase intention for luxury brand online. And social media word-of-mouth had a significant positive effect on consumer purchase intentions for luxury brand. In the era where digital importance is at its peak, the expansion of the luxury brands to online business has become requirements and not optional consequences. It is not easy for luxury brands with their unique styles and identity, as well as high brand awareness to settle in an online market where variety of lifestyles and cultures coexist. For this reason, the study on the multidimensional consumer value on luxury brands holds its contribution to the academia and industry practitioners. This study empirically examines the influence of consumers’ perceived multidimensional value on the luxury brands to WOM and purchase intentions through social media. This paper has revealed that the consumer’s WOM intention on luxury goods does not necessarily correlate with the purchase intention. However, the consumer who has developed WOM intention through social media has shown to possess positive influence on the purchase intention. This results also indicated the importance of the exposure of the unique luxury brand image by the luxury brand managers to the social media in order to generate voluntary consumer WOM. Furthermore, in order to increase their social status, the necessity of online consumer community for sharing their special experiences is ever more present. Such online consumer community would serve to expand the communication channel between the brand and the consumers, thus leading to increase intimacy between two parties. The study was carried out to the American consumers; following study should be carried out to Chinese consumers or developing countries where luxury brands are exposed to the rapidly growing luxury brand markets. Moreover, an in-depth study on strengthening effective marketing strategy by segmenting consumer value on luxury brands should be conducted consequently.

In an increasingly digital and interactive global marketing landscape, social media marketing is emerging as one of the most important strategic tools for brand communication. This is especially true in the luxury fashion context, which traditionally exploited virtual environments as an effective communicational tool of brand-related content and product usage information all over the world. A contemporary consumer cohort that exhibits digital- and virtual-oriented behaviors are Millennials, which represent the digital native generation highly inclined to Internet interaction and, thus, a relevant strategic opportunity for social media marketers in the luxury industry. While the literature reports a positive relationship between Millennials’ social media usage and purchase intention towards luxury brand, scant attention has been paid to the underlying mechanisms explaining such a relationship. To fill this gap, the current research proposes and tests a conceptual model to provide three main contributions to the social media and brand communication literature: first, consumers’ perceptions of interactivity – a multidimensional construct comprised of real-time conversation, no delay/timing, and engaging/navigation – is hypothesized as an antecedent of social media usage. In this way, relevant theoretical and practical implications are provided to online luxury marketers interested in embracing virtual environments for brand communication. Next, two significant constructs of consumer behavior such as materialism – comprised of success, hedonism, and happiness – and morality – comprised of moral judgment and moral intensity – are hypothesized as mediating variables of the relationship between social media usage and purchase intention towards luxury brands. Particularly, these materialistic and ethical decision making processes emerge as relevant for Millennials’ online purchasing activities, with the expectation of transparent and effective brand-related information through social media. Finally, these mediating influences are hypothesized to be moderated by two other relevant constructs in the brand communication process—consumers’ motivation to use social media and advertising skepticism. In fact, a better assessment of Millennials’ motivation and skepticism toward social media marketing communication result as crucial for modern strategic marketers. Such hypotheses are tested using bootstrapped moderated mediation analysis on a sample of 297 Millennials actively following luxury brand social media activities. Our results confirm the proposed hypotheses, particularly both materialism and idealism partially mediate the relationship between social media usage and purchase intention. Moreover, motivation to use social media improves the effect of social media usage on materialism, whereas advertising skepticism reduces the effect of idealism on purchase intention. These findings contribute to the social media and brand communication literature, providing interesting avenues for future research.

In the current digital word, social media represent a relevant tool for marketing and communications strategies, which create new opportunities for firms to engage with their customers (Leeflang, Verhoef, Dahlström, & Freundt, 2013; Lemon & Verhoef, 2016; Libai et al., 2010). Among the sectors that leverage on social media in their communications, the luxury industry represents a main one. As previous research has mainly analyzed the consumer-side (Godey et al., 2016; Jin, 2012; Kim & Ko, 2012) overlooking the firm-side, the aim of this study is to investigate the cross-cultural issues faced by foreign luxury brands in implementing their social media strategies in China by carrying out a qualitative inquiry. China is the setting of analysis as it represents an increasingly relevant luxury market, characterized by the role of digital media as main communications and sales channel. Data collected consist of semistructured interviews with managers from foreign luxury brands operating in China in order to understand the issues faced and the strategies implemented. Moreover, an analysis of their social media presence on Chinese platforms such as WeChat and Weibo is conducted by considering the type of response activated among users. As pointed out by Belk (2017), qualitative advertising research can provide a better understanding of consumer response to advertising also in the rapidly growing field of social media, which have been mainly unexplored by qualitative approaches (Hadija, Barnes, & Hair, 2012). Moreover, an analysis on the firm-side will fill a gap in the existing literature and provide relevant managerial implications for international firms that operate in China.

In fashion marketing, celebrity endorsement is a widely-used strategy to gain attention and produce positive brand knowledge (Carroll, 2009). Luxury brands use their social media accounts to post pictures of celebrity endorsers using their products. This is an effective strategy because celebrity endorsement posts could encourage fans of the celebrity to repost, like or comment on this post. This is beneficial for the brand because this results in more brand exposures. The question is how luxury brands can use celebrity endorsements successfully in the digital age. For example, should luxury brands localize the celebrity endorsement in social media? The dilemma of standardization and localization becomes very significant when luxury brands are facing a culturally different market (Liu et al., 2016). This paper examines the effectiveness of localized celebrity endorsements for luxury brands in Chinese social media based on an analysis of online big data and two experiments. First, a multi-level analysis of the posts of 33 luxury brands suggests that localized (Chinese) celebrity endorsers trigger more social media interactions than standardized (Western) celebrity endorsers. Next, the following experimental studies reveal that local endorsers do not enhance perceived brand luxury and individuals’ level of patriotism moderates the effect of localized (vs. standardized) celebrity endorsements on perceived brand luxury. For people with lower level of patriotism, localized celebrity endorsements reduce the perceived brand luxury. In contrast, for people with higher level of patriotism, localized celebrity endorsements lead to higher perceived brand luxury.

The present research is seeking to enhance their customers’ brand attitudes, especially in terms of which type of products should be their focus for customers with varying storytelling elements. Storytelling in marketing is critical for business, because it is a cornerstone for building strong relationship in the modern world. Storytelling elements also influence consumers’ emotional responses to brand. Besides, organization of information in an advertising narrative might influence the consumer's choice of an appropriate information-processing strategy (Mattila 2000), the narrative message of a story will affect consumer’s preference for a brand, thereby affects consumer’s purchase intention. However, despite some elements have been discussed in previous studies related to narratives (Chatman 1978; Papadatos 2006), we do not understand exactly why or when customers respond to stories. Therefore, to examine the storytelling effectives of different types of reversal factors, this research investigates the influence of different types of stories on brand attitudes in marketing. In sum, by studying the elements of reversal stories, this expected outcomes of this research intends to provide researchers and practitioners implications: 1. design a successful brand story can enhance corporate image and attract more consumers. 2. In practice, marketers need to combine storytelling factors with different products, and manipulate them with different weights to design the optimal advertisements or marketing campaign. 3. This study would be aroused the interesting to investigate other story elements and how these elements to affect brand attitudes.

Introduction Today, many luxury brands use social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube to communicate with their target consumers worldwide. Previous research has shown that engaging consumers in social media can lead to increase commitment and loyalty (e.g., Hudson, Huang, Roth, & Madden, 2016; Wirtz et al., 2013), purchase intentions (e.g., Beukeboom, Kerkhof, & de Vries, 2015; Kim & Ko, 2010) and sales (e.g., Kumar et al., 2016). Although researchers have investigated the role of social media marketing for luxury brands at an aggregate level (e.g., Godey et al., 2016; Kim & Ko, 2012), little is known about the success drivers of luxury brand communication at a more granular level. Therefore, our study aims to identify the characteristics of luxury brand posts that elicit positive consumer affect. Specifically, we examine the effect of different luxury appeals (e.g., conspiciousness, uniqueness, quality), alongside other brand post characteristics (e.g., vividness, call-to-action, informative/entertaining content) on consumers‟ affective reactions (“Love”) towards a luxury brand post. For this purpose, we draw on field data from Facebook that comprises 2,343 individidual brand posts published by 18 leading luxury brands between 1st January 2017 and 30th June 2017. Our study contributes to literature on luxury brand communication in at least three ways: First, from a theoretical perspective, we are shedding the first light on the relevance of different luxury appeals for generating consumer engagement in social media. Methodologically, we further introduce a novel measure of consumer engagement termed Love-Ratio (short, LoveR), which is based on Facebook‟s new “reactions”-feature that was introduced in 2016. Finally, from a managerial point of view, our insights that help managers of luxury brands to „engineer“ emotionally engaging social media content that contributes to strong consumer-brand relationships. Literature Review Conceptual BackgroundLiterature provides initial empirical evidence for the general advantageousness of social media activities for luxury brands (Godey et al., 2016; Kim & Ko 2010, 2012). Importantly, these studies commonly examine consumers‟ overall assessment of a brand‟s social media activities, i.e. whether a brand‟s (entire) social media presence “enables information sharing with others” (interaction) or “offers customized information search” (customization; Kim & Ko, 2012, p. 1483). Therefore, it constitutes an aggregate measure of a brand‟s social media presence as a whole, and is not concerned with the specifics of the individual interactions between a brand and consumers (post as the unit of analysis). Recent research, however, clearly indicates that the extent to which consumers interact with a brand in social media (e.g., liking, sharing, or commenting) depends on the characteristics of a given brand post (e.g., De Vries, Gensler, & Leeflang, 2012; Sabate, Berbegal-Mirabent, Canabate, & Lebherz, 2014; Schultz, 2017). Most studies in this regard examined correlations between certain characteristics (e.g., use of photos, videos, and/or links, post length and timing) and different measures of consumer engagement or post popularity (i.e., number of likes, comments, or shares).5) These studies provide useful insights into several “hard” criteria that determine consumer interactions with brand posts. However, due to the tremendous coding efforts required, only few studies have also considered “soft” criteria, such as the appeal – i.e., “the overall theme of a post” (Wagner, Baccarella, & Voigt, 2017, p. 2) – that is communicated within a post. To extend knowledge in the field of luxury brand communication in social media, we are adopting a similar approach by (1) proposing a comprehensive set of luxury-specific appeals that may be communicated within brand posts and (2) empirically investigating their effectiveness in evoking positive consumer affect. Conceptual Background Based on a synthesis of prior work (e.g., Vigneron & Johnson, 2004) we propose a set of six distinct luxury appeals that can be communicated via social media posts: 1. Conspicuousness: Conspicuous consumption refers to the consumption of goods or services with the intention of social status improvement and communication to others (Eastman, Goldsmith, & Flynn, 1999). It involves high levels of self-monitoring and a status-signaling mentality (Wilcox, Kim, & Sen, 2009), aimed at presenting oneself by means of a product that is recognized and highly regarded by others. The general aim is to express a brand„s capability to enable a person to become the center of attention and stand out of the crowd by conveying a high social status (Phau & Prendergast, 2000). 2. Uniqueness: Uniqueness refers to the quality of being particularly special due to sheer rarity or remarkable characteristics. Brands express their uniqueness by highlighting their products‟ (a) excellent craftmanship, (b) innovativeness, or (c) their exclusiveness in terms of consumption. Examples for uniqueness through craftmanship include creative product designs, the use of rare materials or ingredients (e.g., diamonds in the context of jewelry), or even tailor-made/personalized products (e.g., configuration of a car; inscription of personal initials onto fashion items). The general aim is to distinguish a product from others, rendering it extraordinary and remarkable. The same can be accomplished through innovation, since a pioneering product is by definition unique in that it has certain features that distinguish it from any other existing competing product. Furthermore, uniqueness can be achieved through exclusiveness of consumption. One method to create contrived rarity is a limitation of the quantity of products manufactured (e.g., limited editions; Vigneron & Johnson, 2004). 3. Quality: Luxury brands are generally expected to deliver high quality products and services (Vigneron & Johnson, 2004). Indicators that can be used in the communication of quality include specific materials (e.g., cashmere, gemstones) or performance data (e.g., power, top speed) that convey a high standard of (instrinsic) quality. 4. Hedonism: In general, the term hedonism refers to the pursuit of pleasure in the sense of sensual self-indulgence. Luxury brands commonly offer emotional and sensual benefits that can be experienced by and transferred to consumers in a consumption situation (Moore & Lee, 2012). Communication aimed at conveying hedonism commonly neglects utilitarian (i.e., functional) aspects of the product of interest and, instead, emphasizes the emotional experience associated with the consumption of that product or service (Vigneron & Johnson, 2004), e.g., pleasure, joy, self-reward, love, passion, or excitement (Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982). 5. Extended Self: The term extended self describes the definition of a person‟s selfconcept by his/her personal possessions. In other words, consumers use products (or services) to define who they are. For example, wearing luxury fashion items enables a person to associate himself/herself with characteristics of the brand, and vice versa (Vigneron & Johnson, 2004). Brand communication reflecting this appeal attempts to suggest that the consumption of a product or service helps them to establish, reinforce, and express an aspired personality trait, such as elegance, confidence, success, or power. 6. Heritage: Many luxury brands have a long history and rich tradition. Communication efforts that intend to convey a brand‟s rich heritage either showcase a brand‟s founder as a person, elaborate on the founder‟s or company‟s history, or highlight a traditional, iconic product which has made the brand what it is today. Data and Method To investigate the effectiveness of these luxury appeals in evoking positive consumer affect, we conducted an empirical analysis using field data from Facebook. We compiled a set of 18 luxury brands from different categories, including fashion, cars, cosmetics, and champagne. For this set of brands, we extracted all brand posts (mostly photos and videos) that were published between 1st January and 30th June 2017, yielding 2,343 individual posts that constitute our unit of analysis. We enriched the raw data by manually coding all brand posts in terms of the luxury appeals of interest, following a two step-procedure. First, we developed a detailed codebook that defines each luxury appeal, provides a list of relevant indicators, and further illustrates each luxury appeal with the help of exemplary brand posts. Using the codebook we instructed two independent coders to code the absence (0) or presence (1) of each luxury appeal within a given post. The inter-rater reliabilities were satisfactory for all luxury appeals, ranging from .79 to .91. We further requested the coders to capture other content characteristics and controls that potentially affect consumer interactions with brand posts, e.g., Vividness, Calls-to-Action, Entertaining vs. Informative Content, Visibility of the Brand, and Type of Endorser. Instead of examining conventional measures of consumer engagement, such as likes, comments, or shares, we introduce a new measure of consumer affect that we label “Love-Ratio” or, short, LoveR. This measure is based on Facebook‟s new class of user reactions that enable users to indicate their feelings about certain posts, such as “Love” or “Anger”. LoveR represents the amount of “Love”-reactions relative to all reactions toward a given brand post. Thus, it reflects an aggregate measure of users‟ positive affect towards a brand post. We consider LoveR an important extension of commonly investigated outcomes such as Likes or Shares, which are considered “fairly low-level form[s] of engagement” (Stephen, Sciandra, & Inman, 2015, p. 20). Consumer affect, by contrast, is generally considered a “chief motivator of behavior” (O‟Cass & Frost, 2002, p. 73) and a “mediating factor in the purchase process” (Schiffman, Bendall, Watson, & Kanuk, 1997, p. 361), therefore representing a useful proxy of consumer attitudes. Model estimation Given the nested structure of the data (i.e., posts are nested within brand pages), we use hierarchical linear modeling (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002) with random intercepts to analyze the data. We specify the proposed luxury appeals (Conspiciousness, Uniqueness, Quality, Hedonism, Extended Self, and Heritage) alongside additional content characteristics, and brand dummies as predictors of LoveR. After estimating the direct effects, we stepwise include interaction terms to test potential moderating effects of Vividness and Entertainment. The results suggest that three of the six luxury appeals evoke positive consumer affect. The strongest driver of LoveR is Quality (β = .978, p < .001), followed by Hedonism (β = .479, p < .05) and Heritage (β = .451, p < .01). Conspiciousness and Uniqueness, by contrast, are not significantly related to consumers‟ affective reactions towards brand posts. Furthermore, the use of an appeal that communicates Extended Self even decreases LoveR (β = -.530, p < .10), although the effect is only marginally significant. To further contextualize these main effects, we included additional interaction terms involving Vividness and Entertainment. We find (a) that the effect of Hedonism on LoveR is further enhanced by the use of videos (relative to photos and other less vivid types of media; interaction effect: β = 1.023, p < .05, conditional effect of Hedonism for vivid content β = .934, p < .01,) and (b) that the effect of Heritage on LoveR tends to be larger when it is communicated in an entertaining rather than informative style (interaction effect: β = .753, p = .001; conditional effect of Heritage for entertaining style: β = .660, p < .001). Conclusions Our study sheds light onto the effectiveness of luxury brands‟ communication in social media in terms of generating positive consumer affect. Our results based on an analysis of 2,343 individual luxury brand posts in Facebook show that only certain luxury appeals can trigger consumers‟ “Love”-reactions towards a brand post. Specifically, we find that brand posts that convey Quality, Hedonism, and Heritage appeals increase the likelihood of a brand post being “loved“, whereas Conspiciousness and Uniqueness exert no influence at all. Posts which communicate an Extended Self may even decrease favorable affective reactions by users. The effects of Hedonism and Heritage are further enhanced by the use of videos or entertaining content, respectively. These findings have direct implications for the marketing communications of luxury brands. From a content perspective, marketers should develop and run media content that (a) emphasizes hedonic consumption motives (as reflected by Hedonism) rather than status-signaling motives (as reflected by Conspiciousness), preferably using rich media such as videos; (b) educates consumers about the history and values of a brand, preferably in an informative rather than entertaining way; and (c) reinforces a brand‟s quality claim.

As a result of the growing abandon of traditional advertising approaches, luxury brands are strategically focusing on social media marketing influencers for product and services’ endorsement through daily narratives (Abidin, 2016; De Veirman et al, 2017). Nowadays, social media are an integral part of marketing and advertising. The use of social media sites as twitter, facebook, instagram etc has started to be a part of the luxury fashion brands « advertising » campaign and has shown a valuable opportunity for luxury fashion brands to position themselves in new markets. Social media, in their being a two-way platforms for communication by allowing users to interact with each other (Kim and Ko, 2010) and share information but also with influencers, may represent a fundamental tool to increase customer awareness and improve customer relationship in particular in China. This study aims at exploring and analysing how a Chinese social media became the main trend setter for luxury fashion brands in China and how its influencers played a key role in reinforcing customer relationship for the luxury fashion market in China. The study focus will be on the main Chinese social media platform for luxury fashion, Wechat, and the role of influencers in increasing Chinese luxury customers’ brand awareness and relationship. Through the study of the social platform and its SMM – social media marketing – influencers’ and advertising followers, the article will analyse and provide the success factors for Wechat social media platform in positioning itself as the most influential SMM platform for luxury fashion brands in China.

This study aims to show that cultural differences in self-concepts define the effect of brand evaluations on purchase intention. Self-brand connection (SBC), which refers to “the extent to which individuals have incorporated brands into their self-concepts (Escalas & Bettman, 2003)”, has been identified as an important factor that leads brand loyalty and repurchase (Batra et al., 2012; Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006; Loureiro et al., 2012; Park et al., 2010; Zarantonello et al., 2016). However, Sugitani (2018) demonstrated that SBC was a significant predictor of repurchase intention only among people with independent self-construal (Westerners), while brand evaluations based on public reputation (i.e. public-based evaluation; PBE) significantly predicted repurchase intention among people with interdependent self-construal (East Asians). This study raises questions about other factors relevant to the self that might moderate the effect of brand evaluations. Therefore, in addition to self-construal, this study focused on individual selfesteem as another moderating factor, and investigated its effects on the relations between brand evaluations and purchase intentions. Cross-national online surveys were conducted in the U.S., Italy (independent selfconstrual culture) and Japan (interdependent self-construal culture). The results of data analyses using multi-group structural equation modelling and ANOVAs provided the important discoveries. First, the finding of previous literature was reproduced that SBC was a significant predictor of repurchase intentions among people with independent selfconstrual. However, self-esteem significantly moderated the result. Specifically, SBC was a significant antecedent of repurchase intention when consumers with interdependent self-construal possess high self-esteem. Second, self-esteem also moderated the effect of PBE on repurchase intention among Italian consumers. Italians with low self-esteem were averse to choosing high PBE brands, while those with high self-esteem were not. The U.S. and Japanese consumers consistently avoided and preferred high PBE brands respectively; self-esteem did not affect the result. This study contributes to global brand management by showing that cultural differences in two important self-concepts, self-construal and self-esteem, have an interactive moderating effect on brand evaluations and purchases.

This research was conducted to develop a brand personality model that could be used to measure and compare the brand personality of a same brand across cultures. The results suggest that for West (the U.S.) and East (Japan), the bicultural BPD have five distinct dimensions of Sincerity, Sophistication, Ruggedness, Excitement, and Peacefulness, represented by the 15 attributes (wholesome, warm, kind, upper-class, elegant, romantic, masculine, tough, rugged, trendy, exciting, imaginative, shy, naïve, and childlike). The results show that many global brands have different brand personality perceptions across cultures. Only four (Levi’s, Nintendo DS, Shell, and Visa) out of 21 global brands had the same brand personality perceptions in two cultures. These results may be inconsistent with the definition of global brands—brands whose positioning, advertising strategy, personality, look, and feel are same or at least similar from one country to another. However, the results confirm the findings of Aaker et al. (2001) that brands have culturally specific meaning. The results also confirm the “the lure of global branding”—the goal of developing one strong global brand is often unrealistic (Aaker & Joachimsthaler, 1999). Still, in the business world, many companies are trying to globalize their own brands in order to enjoy the high economies of scale. Hence, it is important for the business managers to be able to measure the results of their global branding efforts. This research provides a tool, the bicultural brand personality model, the managers could use to measure their global brands in Western and Eastern cultures, and understand the similarity and differences across two cultures.

The research on country of origin effect (COO) has been oriented lately towards the characteristics of the consumer. As a result, in recent years there has been a growing number of publications dealing with consumer dispositions in the consumption of local or global brands (ethnocentrism, nationalism, patriotism, cosmopolitanism, xenocentrism). To contribute to the research, we conceptualize the Self-Country Connection (SCC) construct, based on the extended self theory, considering the country as one more possession that can be added to the individual’s self. We developed the scale generating items based on literature review and qualitative research. Specialists in marketing and international consumer behavior refined the items. Followed the exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, analysis of discriminant, nomological and predictive validities, which obtained satisfactory results, in addition to the two-month interval testretest. The scale has two versions and can be used both to access the consumer's selfconnection with the home country and with foreign countries. The SCC scale can be used with other established scales, such as CETSCALE, COS, among others, to understand better the consumer behavior and improving market segmentation.

This study explores the effect of ad variation effectiveness as a function of cultural differences, drawing from visual attention and encoding variability theory. Findings on HK and UK participants suggest that varying ad features may be most effective by changing those features that correspond to the intended consumer’s cognitive styles. Introduction Previous research suggests that showing varied ads can enhance brand recall, and result in more positive attitudes towards the brand (Unnava & Burnkrant, 1991). Following the encoding variability theory (Lee & Lee, 2016; Yaveroglu & Donthu, 2008), variations in encoded information improve recall because these variations provide additional memory representations for the target information, hence leading to more retrieval cues for the information to be recalled (Anderson & Bower, 1973). Transposed to an advertising context, each element of an ad (e.g., graphics, layout, backgrounds, products, brand logo, etc.) can serve as a retrieval cue for information recall. For instance, if a target product is embedded in two different backgrounds (e.g., a beer in a social event vs beach background), these two different contexts can serve as two different retrieval cues for the target product, compared to only one possible retrieval cue provided in same ad repetition. Since encoding variability theory relies on contextual changes and multiple memory paths to explain the ad variation effect, it may be affected by cultural difference (specifically, selective attention), which can act as a moderator of ad variation effectiveness. Western and East-Asian people have been found to have different visual attentional biases (e.g., Nisbett & Masuda, 2003), with Westerners being more attentive on focal objects (analytic perception) and Easterners focusing more on the whole picture (holistic perception). As such, the selective attention they paid towards the ad may enable them more susceptible to specific changes of an ad, thus increasing the available memory pathway towards brand information, i.e., brand recall. Brand attitudes are suggested to be formed through learning (e.g., Van Osselaer & Alba, 2000), i.e., consumers learn and process the information conveyed in an ad, which eventually affects their attitude towards a brand. This study therefore also tested the role of visual attention in moderating the effect of ad variation on brand attitude, since Eastern and Western customers learn differently due to their visual attentional styles. To examine the possible moderation of ad-variation effectiveness by visual attention in a cross-cultural context, this study exposed HK (Eastern) and UK (Western) participants with two different varied-ad executions, foreground-varied ads (ads that vary in focal object) and background-varied ads (ads that change in background features). Identical-ad execution was also included as a baseline. We hypothesized that, due to the difference in attentional bias in Eastern participants (holistic) and Western participants (analytic), different types of ad variations might results in different extents of effectiveness of the ad variation. Method A 2 (Culture: UK vs. HK) x3 (Ad type: identical vs. background-varied vs. foregroundvaried) between-subject factorial design experiment was used in this study. We used a fictitious Beer brand - Helga Brugge - for this study. In the identical-ad condition, the same target ad was repeated three times. We designed a target beer and two beer pints as foreground features and background features included a camping scene (in identical-ad condition), and a football stadium, camping scene and a social event scene (in background-varied condition). In foreground-varied condition, while keeping the background image constant (camping background), the foreground features differed, i.e., a bottle beer, a canned beer, and a bottle beer with two beer pins. See Figure 1 for the target ad stimuli. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the three ad type conditions and watched the 20 advertisement slides (3 target ads with 17 filler ads), each of which was presented singularly for 3 seconds. Filler ads were chosen from real ads that were not used anymore at the time of the study. They included various product categories other than beer such as toy, beverage, and cosmetics. After being exposed to the advertisement, participants were asked to answer a series of questions measuring a number of variables in the following order: ad recall and brand recall (Lee & Lee, 2016), brand attitude (MacKenzie, Lutz & Belch, 1986) and demographic information. Data was collecting online using Qualtrics. Both Chinese and English versions of instructions were back translated (Miracle and Bang, 2002). Results After excluding incomplete datasets and participants whose nationality was not British or Hong Kong, the final sample comprised 117 UK (78 female) and 108 HK (63 female) participants. Cross-cultural Cognitive Differences in Perception To confirm the underlying assumption that HK participants tend to have holistic visual perception and UK participants tend to have analytical visual perception, participants’ responses were coded to identify the type of foreground information (e.g., beers, pints, foams) and background information (e.g., sunset, camping). The coding processes were independently performed by two coders; Cohen’s κ analyses showed a moderate agreement (Sim & Wright, 2005) between the two coders' judgments on both foreground information (κ = .781, p < .001, 95% CI, .716 to .846) and background information (κ = .775, p < .001, 95% CI, .706 to .843). Two 2(Culture: UK vs. HK) x 3(Ad type: identical, background-varied and foregroundvaried) analysis of variance (ANOVA) were conducted. Results support our assumption: UK participants elicited more comments on foreground information (M= 1.56, SD= 1.20) than HK participants did (M= 1.05, SD= 1.03; F(1, 219)= 11.80, p= .001, =.051), and HK participants elicited more comments on background information (M= 1.69, SD= 1.19) than UK participants did (M= 1.09, SD= 1.03; F(1, 219)=16.22, p<.001, =.069). There was no statistically significant main effect on ad type or any statistically significant interaction effect. Brand Recall For UK participants, we hypothesized that their selective attention towards focal objects would enable them more susceptible to changes in the foreground-varied ad conditions, but not in the background-varied ad conditions. Chi-squared analyses revealed that UK participants’ brand recall scores in foreground-varied condition (M=89.2%) was significantly higher than those in both background-varied (M=53.7%): X^2 (1, N=78) = 11.80, p<.001, ϕ =.39, and identical conditions (M=43.6%): X^2 (1, N=76) = 17.5, p<.001, ϕ =.48. There was no difference in brand recall between identical and background-varied conditions. Conversely, we hypothesized that both background- and foreground-varied ads would be equally effective for HK participants due to their holistic attention towards both foreground and background objects. Multiple chi-squared tests revealed that, HK participants’ brand recall scores in both foreground-varied condition (M=59.5.%) and background-varied condition (M=58.3%) were significantly higher than that in the identical condition (M=34.3.%; foreground-varied vs. identical,X^2 (1, N=72) = 4.57, p=.032, ϕ =.25; background-varied vs. identical, X^2 (1, N=71) = 4.13, p= .042, ϕ =.24). The difference between the two varied ad conditions was not significant. Brand Attitudes We hypothesized that HK and UK participants’ brand attitudes also differ to different extents in the three conditions, following a similar pattern found in measuring brand recall. Consistent with this, independent-sample t-tests on UK participants revealed that the mean scores for brand attitude in both foreground-varied ads condition (M= 4.64) was higher than that in both identical ads condition (M= 3.71; t=-4.09, p<.001, d=0.94) and background-varied ads condition (M=3.98; t=3.49, p=.001, d=0.80). No significant difference was found between the identical-ad condition and background-varied condition. For HK participants, results of t-tests revealed that the mean scores for brand attitude in both foreground-varied condition (M= 4.18) and background-varied condition (M=4.33) were both significantly higher than that in identical ads condition (M= 3.53; foreground vs identical: t=-3.19, p=.002, d=0.51; background vs identical: t=4.87, p<.001, d=0.80). No significant difference was found between the two varied ads conditions. Discussion This research provides supporting evidence that visual attentional biases initiated by cultural differences can moderate the effectiveness of ad variation. Specifically, for UK participants, ad variation appeared to be effective only in foreground-varied ads. Conversely, both foreground-varied and background-varied ads were effective for HK participants. These findings have both theoretical and managerial implications. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first cross-cultural research in the domain of ad variation. It addresses a gap in the ad variation literature, by identifying the moderating effect that cultural differences can have on the ad variation effect. This opens up new research directions including considering other forms of cultural variations (e.g., language) and cognitive differences (e.g., reasoning styles) to better understand individual differences in the domain of ad-variation. This study also offers insights for international marketers looking at tailoring their advertising strategies for different target audiences to maximize ad- and cost-effectiveness. Besides varying features that correspond to the intended consumer’s cognitive styles, marketers could also consider priming consumers’ cognitive styles when determining advertising strategies, as previous research has shown that consumers’ cognitive styles are relatively malleabile (Lin & Han, 2009). For example, when executing foreground-varied ads, inserting them into an article that could induce an analytic cognition (e.g., bibliography programs about a successful life story of a person) would be an effective strategy. This study has two main limitations. First, it only included data from nationals of the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. Non-cognitive cultural differences such as language and geographical mobility can affect cognitive styles (e.g., Rhode & Voyer, 2015). Future research should replicate and expand findings by looking at more countries (e.g., US, South Korea), with increased level of control on relevant non-cognitive crosscultural factors. Second, this study only looked at one hedonic product category: beer. Future research can replicate and expand findings, by looking at different product categories (e.g., utilitarian products, such as toothbrushes).

Export Market Orientation (EMO)- one of the most important strategic orientations of exporting firms- has received much attention in the last two decades within organization and academia alike. EMO has become an emerging issue that benefits the integration of market orientation, internationalization, and export performance literature into coherence. After the introduction of this concept in international business (IB) literature, we observed a surge of research focusing on EMO incorporating scale development for measurement as well as empirical studies that investigate the antecedents to and consequences of EMO along with moderation and mediation. This review systematically examines EMO research, analyzing 31 articles published in 19 leading journals available between 1999 and 2017. What we can conclude from the review is that EMO research is still in its infancy. We attempted to identify some research gaps and suggest some future avenues of research.

Consumers actively seek out authentic cultural experiences both in everyday consumption and when they travel. In this study, I investigate the processes through which personal homes are shared cross-culturally. I incorporate insights from the home and sharing literature to explore how consumers negotiate cultural distinctiveness and in-group boundaries when sharing their most valuable possessions. Using in-depth interviews, online archival data, and home photos, I find a swapping community where swappers share an in-group identity and enact loosely-defined conventions. Using these loosely-defined conventions, swappers negotiate a good working order that transcends cultural distinctiveness (Torelli, Ahluwalia, Cheng, Olson, & Stoner, 2017). As swappers localize these conventions in individual swap trades, they justify and temporarily tolerate the cultural distinctiveness. Or more experienced swappers normalize them as authentic experience. This research contributes to understanding how consumers actively negotiate cultural differences and authentic experiences in the sharing economy.

Firms, especially retailers try to attract consumers by convincing them that its price is lower than the competitors’ by offering price-matching guarantees (henceforth PMGs). Walmart has offered a price-matching guarantee for years, and Target and Best Buy have also introduced their own policies. Not only brick and mortar retailers but also online retailers such as e-Bay, Amazon use this policy. Recently, offline retailers decided to match prices against online retailers as well. Many studies have analyzed the effect of PMGs in the areas of economics and marketing. These studies focus on four effects: price collusion, price war, price discrimination and signaling. First, it has been claimed that guarantees facilitate price collusion by reducing the incentive to cut prices (Salop 1986; Hviid and Shaffer 1999). Meanwhile some authors argue that PMGs has not only anti-competitive but also pro-competitive effects (Cort 1996; Chen, Narasimhan and Zhang 2001). PMGs may be useful for a low-cost firm to signal low prices to uninformed consumers (Moorthy and Winter 2006; Moorthy and Zhang 2006). Finally, PMGs can be used as a means of price discrimination in the sense that firms charge different prices to each segment of consumers differentiated by their information about rivals’ prices (Png and Hirshleifer 1987). Usually firms pay just as much as the price difference, which is called 100% PMGs. However, there are several types of PMGs depending on the refund amount. For example, in case of 200% PMGs, a firm pays twice the price difference when the rival’s price is lower. I compare the effects of 100% vs. 200% PMGs using a two-stage game model where two identical firms decide whether to offer a PMGs in the first stage and prices in the second stage. First, whether or not to offer a PMGs depends on the number of loyal consumers relative to price-sensitive consumers. Both firms offer a 100% PMGs and charge a high price when the number is moderate. When it is large, neither firm offers a PMGs and when it is small, there are two asymmetric equilibria where one firm offers a PMGs. Firms enjoy the same or a higher profit by PMGs. Second, the difference between 100% and 200% PMGs occurs when the number of loyal consumers is small. When it is very small, neither firm offers a 200% PMGs, when it is moderately small, both firms offer a PMGs. Further, when the demand of price-sensitive consumers is price elastic, profits decrease by PMGs. Finally, when firms can choose between 100% and 200% PMGs, it is more likely that 100% PMGs will be chosen.

Introduction The study chooses smartphone applications which have update experience as the study case to analysis if it will cause customer attrition. Application updates aims to make up the bugs which may cause bad effects on using, while in fact, most changes will be resisted by customers. We adapt three elements to collect data about the attitude of customers toward applications update, the conclusion illustrates, customers will resist changes in some conditions and cause customers attrition. Therefore, application developers should focus on the personal emotional reaction and cognitive evolution as well as predict what may influence the customers normal use after the applications update to make correct update decisions. In order to define the relationship between variable and result., we take smartphone application which had experienced update as examples and choose fsQCA as the methodology to analysis. Literature Review Resistance to change is a psychological process, Brehm（1966）claims customers resist to change origins from their believe that they have rights to control free, when this rights be challenged, this resistance behavior will happen due to they want to protect their own rights. Some scholars distinguished the concept of resistance to change: when receptors in the low involvement or limited cognize, their resistance behaviors is likely to be considered as the passive resistance; otherwise, the behaviors would be recognized as active resistance (Nabih,1997). Bagozz and Lee（1999) think that functional barrier is an important factors which influence the degree of innovation receptance, when customers think products after update cannot meet their function needs will cause resistance to change. Resistance always occur passively, bemuse of the disturb of the former habits of using (Ram &Sheth 1989), and former studies also indicate that prejudice towards changes is one of significant factors. Because changes are uncertainty, Fiske and Taylor（1991）claims that uncertainty can make people hate changes and Whitson and Galinsky（2008）consider aversion will be the strong driver of resistance to change to reduce uncertainty and risk. In terms of a company, the cost of maintaining a old customer is much lower than these of develop a new user, Actually, customer attrition is response of entrepreneur revenue and the vital section in development of companies. The famous american honesty management scholar Frederic Reichheld’s research indicates that when the extension of the commercial relationship of entrepreneur and customers, companies can acquire fatter profit through the relationship. Conclusions This study chooses fsQCA as methodology to define the relationship between resistance to change and customer attrition instead of using structural equation modeling. Sometimes, even customers have right cognitive evolution towards changes, when they find their efficiency be influenced by it, they also resist to change; while adverse emotional reaction also has an adverse effect on customer retention though they build positive cognitive evolution about changes. there is a remain circumstance of lossing of customers that when customers hate changes and they find their efficiency be influenced by update, the honesty of this product will also decrease. This three condition all contribute to customers attrition which should be paid more attention by companies.