Over the past decade, the advances in the Internet of Things has allowed WiFi infrastructure to track the movement and location of smart devices. This innovative technology is sometimes referred to as wireless analytics or offline / in-store visitor analytics. Similar to an offline or instore version of website analytics, wireless analytics can infer instore shopping behavior from analyzing the dwell time, movement, and behavior of a smart device within a designated vicinity. The study was carried out at an activation area of food trucks at an Australian metropolitan university. Visitor analytics were gathered by using a wireless analytic modem that was configured to ping and pick up wireless signal emitted by smart devices within the radius of the food truck area. Challenging past research on pop-stores, our findings show that novelty of pop-up food trucks may not necessarily predict their success and consumers tend to prefer familiar food trucks at the Australian metropolitan university. In fact, the presence of novel food trucks may encourage consumers to walk-by without any interaction with the food trucks.

Organizational agility is a firm-wide dynamic capability to cope with rapid, relentless, and uncertain changes and thrive in a competitive environment of continually and unpredictable changing opportunities. A conceptual model is drawn up, based on the literature and a previous qualitative inquiry, to identify agility enablers that help organizations to sustain in dynamic environments. Further, the model explores the relationship between organizational agility and firm performance as well as the moderating effect of environmental dynamism on this relationship. The validity of the construct is assessed by means of a quantitative study using a survey methodology. A data set consisting of 348 German-based companies is analysed on a business unit level as well as for the organization as a whole. Partial least squares path modeling (PLS-SEM) results reveal that four dimensions (organization, innovation, people and knowledge management), comprising various agility enablers, positively influence organizational agility. Moreover, results indicate that organizational agility has a significant effect on firm performance and that this relationship is modearted by environmental dynamism. Therefore, this study contributes to a better understanding of the complex nature of the agility construct and provides guidelines how organizations can achieve an agile alignment. It further emphasizes the need for managers to integrate agile practices in order to outperform competitors in hypercompetitive and turbulent business environments.

Responsible customers are becoming increasingly important and the influence of online user-generated content on consumer behavior has been extensively recognized. As a result of these two trends, social media sites are adopting new initiatives on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). In the context of tourism destinations, this paper analyses the effects of online comments made by visitors to two mountain resorts about three CSR dimensions: environmental (ENV), sociocultural (SOC) and economic (ECO). Our aim is to analyze the consistency of the effects of eWOM about a single CSR dimension (ENV, SOC, ECO), two CSR dimensions (ENV+ECO, ENV+SOC, ECO+SOC) or three CSR dimensions (ENV+ECO+SOC), in the impact of CSR dimensions on information adoption. Information adoption refers to eWOM perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived influence (PI). PU refers to what extent the information in the eWOM is useful and, in turn, tourists are more likely to adopt it. PI means to what extent consumers’ perceptions of eWOM affects decision-making processes. From an information processing point of view, it is important to analyze whether individuals maintain consistency in their preference for CSR dimensions. Transitivity has been used to measure consistency in product, so it could be applied to measure the consistency of the preference for CSR dimensions, presented singly or combined, on social media sites. Transitivity implies that consumers have a welldefined hierarchy of influence. If there is transitivity, it is expected that, given a set of CSR stimuli, its influence on PU and PI will be consistent. Thus, if the influence of dimension D1 is greater than that of dimension D2 and this, in turn, has greater influence than dimension D3, then D1 must have greater influence than D3. Consequently, we propose the following hypotheses: H1: The hierarchy of influence of online comments on (a) PU and on (b) PI is the same if the comment is about a single CSR dimension or two CSR dimensions. H2: The hierarchy of influence of online comments on (a) PU and on (b) PI is the same if the comment is about a single CSR dimension or three CSR dimensions. H3: The hierarchy of influence of online comments on (a) PU and on (b) PI is the same if the comments are about two CSR dimensions or three CSR dimensions. A within-subjects and between-subjects experiment was carried out to a sample of 612 tourists from Argentina and Spain. Participants were exposed to one of seven scenarios linked to a mountain tourism destination. Each scenario contained one, two or three online reviews related to CSR dimensions. The online comments resembled a typical TripAdvisor layout and were embedded in an online survey, which also contained measures of PU and PI. Our findings suggest that, of the reviews, environmental are the most useful and influential, followed by sociocultural. This hierarchical pattern is consistent when tourists are exposed to online comments about two or more dimensions, but not when comparisons are done between individual dimensions. Our findings suggest that consistency of the consumer's preference for CSR dimensions should be managed in analyzing multiple stimuli on social media sites.

Digital advertising is one of the most crucial medium of communication and marketing (Berner and Kiley, 2005). Digital advertising brings with itself several benefits such as increase in reach, low advertising cost, and high degree of customer engagement. However, along with benefits it also brings several challenges for the marketers such as comprehending consumer attitude, consumption and behaviour towards digital advertisements. According to prior literature attitude towards internet consists of factors such as information, entertainment, irritation, and trustworthiness (Aaker & Bruzzone, 1985). Ad blocking has become one of the most important concerns for advertising industry globally. This paper has attempted to understand the series of actions that leads to ad blocking. This series consists of consumer response and consumer attitude towards digital advertising where the constant ad delivery creates ad intrusiveness which leads to ad irritation which in turn leads to ad avoidance and ultimately results in ad blocking. Ad blocking further has serious consequences in brand image and brand valuation, because as more number of users opt to download and use ad blockers, advertisement instead of increasing brand valuation results in brand devaluation, not to mention wastage of ad spend. Through literature review it was found that reports discuss ad blockers and its operations but there is little understanding on the process that leads a consumer to install ad blocking software on his digital device. The research objective of the study is therefore, to understand cognitive process of consumers that leads them to take a decision of installing an ad blocking software on their digital device. The study therefore proposes four research questions, 1. What aspects of online advertising irritate users? 2. How do consumers avoid advertisements? 3. What causes a consumer to use ad blocker? 4. What cognitive process lead a consumer to install ad blocking software? A mixed method research is adopted for the purpose of this paper. In the first stage a qualitative research was conducted through semi-structured interviews in order to understand consumer opinion on what leads them to install an ad blocking (Jagani and Panda 2016). Thematic analysis of transcripts was conducted from which 81 items on ad irritation, ad avoidance and ad blocking were identified for second stage of the study which consists of online survey using quantitative research methods. The items for the quantitative survey are \categorised in three main categories viz. Irritation, Avoidance and Action. The sample consists of 18 to 35 year olds who are active users of internet and have been exposed to digital advertisement, spends more than two hours per day on internet through various digital device and are aware of ad blockers or have used them in the past. Non-probabilistic sampling method was selected for the study and quota sampling was implemented. The study aims to comprehend the process that leads a consumer to install an ad blocking software on his or her digital device.

The evolution of the internet led to a shift in the business operations environment, giving rise to a plethora of challenges and opportunities for companies. Social networks have become attractive to companies due to their interactive nature, not only facilitating conversations with consumers, but also increasing the possibility of enhancing the online consumer brand engagement. Additionally, social networks and online brand communities increased consumers’ possibility of developing an active role in companies’ decision-making process, through the creation of user generated content, together with the opinion sharing and directly information exchange with brands and other internet users. The main objective of this research is to ascertain whether the active listening practice can contribute, in some way, to the improvement of the relationship maintained between consumers and brands. The current study suggests the adaptation of the active listening practice on the online field, as an attempt to enhance the communication strategies held by brands. Hence, this research seeks to demonstrate that this practice can improve the consumer-brand relationship through the development of two qualitative studies, as main approach, where the findings extracted in the first study will be used as inputs to the second one.

The concept of performance-based contracting (PBC) has received an increasing attention in both academic research and business practice over the last decade. Typically, in a PBC an industrial supplier is paid based on the outcome created with an investment good. This payment covers the actual usage as well as all related maintenance and repair efforts for the resource (Böhm, Backhaus, Eggert, & Cummins, 2016). Although the concept of PBC is not new, research on this topic is still on a preliminary level (Essig, Glas, Selviaridis & Roehrich 2016). As the customer orientation in service-oriented sales processes is crucial (Haas, Snehota, & Corsaro 2012; Terho, Haas, Eggert, & Ulaga 2012), our study explores customers’ requirements and motivational patterns within a PBC sales process. We report on data obtained in laddering interviews with 31 PBC-experienced customers in Europe from three industries (industrial air supply industry, gas supply industry, filling and packaging industry). Results from a means-end-chain analysis indicate that PBC customers have a higher sense of duty (e.g., by analyzing suppliers’ competence for operating a PBC), a distinct need for security (e.g., by requiring positive emotions for purchase decision), a comprehensive sense of responsibility (e.g., in terms of the long-term contractual obligation) and perfectionist values for purchase decisions (e.g., by striving for an optimal technical and contractual PBC design). Since these aspects address the PBC sales process, our study contributes by generating empirical evidences for value-based selling techniques and by generating management implications for a customer-oriented selling of PBC.

With the booming popularity of social media such as facebook and Wechat, more and more people and firms commence to utilize it to promote products and services. The convenience of sharing personal experience online, however, also leads to increasing number of consumer to complain through online reiews. For example, negative online review has increased 800% over the years between 2014 and 2015 (Causon 2015) and has negative impact on many viewers’ buying decisions (Chevalier, & Mayzlin, 2006). Therefore, it is important to investigate what factors would reduce the negative impact of other customers’ online complaints on consumer purchase intention. Developing friendships with customers through social media is a common strategy for service provider to retain customers. Prior literature suggests that consumers in general are more tolerant of a service failure when the service provider is having a friendship with the customer than when the provider is having a business relationship (Wan, Hui, and Wyer 2011). Therefore, we suggest that friendship could also attenuate the negative impact of an online complaint from other customer on consumer purchase intention. Furthermore, we predict that this could happen only in the self-consumption situation. In the consumption situation of buying gifts for others, friendship would no longer attenuate the impact of a negative online review on consumer purchase intention. It is because gift giving involves sybolic value of face enhancement in developing social relationships with the gift giving target. Consumers would be less likely to take risks of buying substandard products as gifts. Implications and future research directions will be discussed.

In recent times of global turbulence, democracies in many countries have been tested for their resilience and there is a need to focus on determinants of political brand preference. For political parties, from political marketing strategy point of view, analyzing factors impacting voters’ party preference is becoming important for better understanding of voters to influence and predict voting behavior. Research studies propagate that consumers can experience a feeling of love for their brand (Albert et al., 2008; Batra et al., 2012). Carroll and Ahuvia, (2006) view that consumer feels love for the brand when a brand reaches both high real and desired level of integration with the consumer’s sense of self. Brand love is the degree of strong emotional attachment a satisfied consumer has for a particular brand. Brand love includes passion and declarations of love for the brand. Though brand love has been studied in the context of consumer market, we still know little about whether voters feeling of brand love for the political party they prefer. In this backdrop, in this study, we have examined impact of political brand love on voters’ preference of the political party. As brand love is a relational construct, objective is to investigate the type of causal relationship exists among brand love and the related constructs. In this study, we have taken India, largest democracy of the world, as our focal point of study. In this paper we propose to study the mediation effects of inner self (IS) and social self (SS) while estimating the relationship between brand love (BL) and brand preference (BP) and brand trust (BT) and BP. Additionally we also look at the relationship between BL and BT. The results as a whole shows that both brand trust and brand love have significant positive impact on brand preference. Higher brand trust leads to higher brand preference both directly and when both direct and indirect effects are considered as a whole. On the other hand there is no statistically significant indirect effect of brand trust on brand preference through inner self or social self. In case of brand love on the other hand all the effects are statistically significant. Higher brand love increases brand preference directly and also indirectly through inner self and social self. This implies that higher brand inner self and social self enhances the impact of brand love on brand preference.

Specifics of emerging markets raise some questions on the applicability of wellestablished marketing concepts and scales, widely used in the developed markets, in the context of emerging markets. Over the past twenty years emerging markets have remained one of the main focus of marketing research. The interest of the researchers to the emerging markets is not accidental, it is caused by the peculiarities of the developing markets. Specific features of the emerging markets challenge the use of approaches designed for developed markets in emerging markets. Existing research describes peculiarities of emerging markets and shows the evidence of inability to use the theories designed in the developed markets in emerging markets (Burgess, Steenkamp, 2006; Sheth, 2011). The external environment and the increasing competition force companies to rethink their marketing activities and seek new sources of competitive advantages, and one of the primary tasks for the company is the development of customer orientation (Jacob, 2006; Ellis, 2006; Frambach, Fiss, Ingenbleek, 2016). Customer orientation (CO), as one of the key concepts of contemporary marketing, requires rethinking in the context of emerging markets (Sheth, 2011; Roersen, Kraaijenbrink, Groen, 2013; Smirnova, Rebiazina, Frosen, 2018). The purpose of this paper is to develop a tool for a complex evaluation of the company’s CO adapted to the specifics of the Russian emerging market. The empirical study includes mixed qualitative-quantitative design: at the first stage a quantitative survey with representatives of 239 companies operating in the Russian market, and at the second - 62 in-depth interviews were conducted to test the CO scale’s applicability to the Russian market.

The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between perceived value, ethnic identity and purchase intention of ethnic apparel. This study examines how Hanfu (traditional costume of the Han Ethnic Group of China) customers perceive certain types of values (emotional value, social value, uniqueness value, conditional value and perceived value). Then this study determined how customers’ perceptions of these values and ethnic identity were correlated with perceived value, and intention to buy Hanfu. Findings from this study indicated that perceived value and ethnic identity were generally associated with purchase intention of ethnic apparel. Hence, ethnic identity moderated the relationship between perceived value and purchase intention. Finally, compared to emotional value, social value, and uniqueness value, conditional value showed the most influential impact on the perceived value. The findings provide an insight in recognizing factors which play an important role in wearing ethnic apparel. More specifically this research provides insight for traditional apparel marketers to design apparel products and reposition the existing products.

New product crowdfunding has become an emerging method for start-ups to finance their innovative ideas. Since driving participants’ engagement is crucial to successful fundraising, it is important to study the factors that affect participants’ motivation to back the crowdfunding projects. In this paper, we first examine the impact of goal proximity on backing motivation and then we focus on investigating how group size affects perceived personal impact and resulting motivation to back a project. To test our hypotheses, we collected backing records and creativity ratings of smart wearables projects from a crowdfunding platform in China−Demohour.com. We used daily backers added as our dependent variable to capture potential backers’ motivation to back a project and modeled it using a negative binomial model with project and time fixed effects. Our empirical analyses suggest the following. First, consistent with existing research on the goal gradient effect, the funding ratio of a project is positively related to daily backers added while the positive effect becomes insignificant after reaching 100% funding ratio. Second, group size of backers has a negative effect on potential backers’ motivation. We explain that this is because individuals exert less effort due to decreased perceived personal impact when group size grows (social loafing effect) (Karau & Williams, 1993). Finally, creativity negatively moderates the effect of group size on backing motivation that the negative effect of group size especially calls for attention when the creativity level of the project is high.

A predominantly positive view is shown in engagement literature in terms of positive actor engagement (PNE) expressions and outcomes. However, business practices indicate that the understanding of actors being negatively engaged is important. Yet a few studies in marketing, which attempt to conceptualise negative actor engagement (NAE), do not have a consensus as for whether NE and PE are reciprocal or NE is a distinct construct with a different nomological network and process. The purpose of this study is to conceptualise and operationalise NAE. Built on Li et al.’s (2018) conceptualisation of actor engagement valence, this paper follows Churchill’s (1979) methods of scale development and operationalises the construct of NAE. By developing and validating a NAE scale in specific online learning servcie platforms, we address this identified literature gap. Specifically, this study derives four NAE dimensions, including annoyance, anxiety, futitlity and failed expectation, which we proceed to validate within a nomological net of conceptual relationships in relation to the engagement behaviours (learning, sharing and endorsing). We conclude with an overview of key managerial and scholarly implications arising from this research. This marks the first study in the marketing discipline to operationalise NAE.

Measuring consumers’ emotion with self-report methods has remained a challenge in luxury marketing. In comparison to self-report measure, psychophysiological methods promise to provide a scientific, objective and sensitive measure of the neurophysiological basis of emotional processes. The objective of this paper is to: (1) examine the feasibility of using psychophysiological methods in luxury marketing; (2) compare the capability of psychophysiological methods to capture emotion beyond those measured by self-report methods; and (3) better under luxury consumers’ emotion processes. In this study, brain wave analysis, heart rate, skin conductance, and facial expression were used to investigate consumers’ emotional response toward luxury marketing stimuli. The psychophysiological findings identified anger, interest and arousal as key emotional processes that affect consumers’ reaction to luxury branding. These findings show that psychophysiological methods are not only feasible in informing luxury branding practices but also provide insights into luxury consumers’ emotional experience beyond those captured by self-report methods.

This study assesses the interactive effect of shelf-based scarcity and shelf organisation on luxury purchases. Previous studies have addressed multiple factors surrounding shelf based scarcity (e.g. Parker and Lehmann 2011; Van Herpen et al 2014) however none has considered perceived luxuriousness as a potential explanation for the effects of shelf-based scarcity; nor have many studies used a luxury context. This study therefore examined whether product luxuriousness, product popularity, product supply and/or product quality serve as underlying mechanism of shelf-based sacristy effects. The study recruited 125 consumers and the experiment followed a mixed factorial design. The luxuriousness of the brand and the organisation of the shelf display were manipulated between subjects, whereas stock level was manipulated within subjects. Data collated consisted of both self-report and psycho-physiological methods (brainwave and facial expression) Low stock level was perceived to more tidy than medium and high stock level when the shelf display was disorganised; a significant interactive effect (Mlow = 4.06, Mmedium = 3.71 4.77, Mhigh = 2.86, ps = .025, p < .001). Significantly higher perceived product quality was reported for low stock product than high stock product (Mlow = 5.34, Mhigh = 4.79, p < .001), as participants’ perceived high stock to be restocked more frequently. Results of bootstrapping indicated that perceived luxuriousness was found to be the only significant partial mediator for the effect of stock level on approach motivation, further supported by brainwave and facial expression analysis (Indirect = .066, 95%CI = [.0043, .1362], p < .001).The direct effect of stock level remained significant after accounting for the indirect effect (Direct = .11, 95%CI = [.0117, .2091], p < .001). This study is the first to use psychophysiological methods to validate self-report findings and to examine perceived luxuriousness as a plausible explanation of the shelf-based sacristy effect.

The main purpose of this research is to explore the effects of usage frequency on the intention to reuse membership service while having perceived value play a role as a mediator. Usage frequency of membership services can affect consumers' fairness judgment. The more opportunities consumers have to perceive the fairness of a service, the more likely it is that they will choose to receive the identical service from the same provider in the future, since they form a positive attitude toward the service. In addition, the perceived value of the consumer can lead to the reuse of the service because it gives satisfaction to the consumer. Another objective of this research is to examine the moderating effect of regret and guilt on the relationship between perceived value and the intention to reuse membership service. Consistent with regret literature, if consumers perceive a consumption value that is smaller than the initially expected consumption value when using a membership service, they will regret the use of the service. Further, negative emotion such as regret often lead to negative attitudes and behaviors of consumers. Thus, as consumers feel regret, their willingness to use the membership service will continue to decrease. On the other hand, consumers experience guilt when they benefit from an unfair process (Krehbiel and Cropanzano, 2000). Similarly, when consumers judge that they have exceeded the usage frequency of membership service based on social norms or ethical principles of individuals, they will perceive unfairness. Consumers may try to offset their negative emotion by continuing to use identical membership services even after the end of the contract period as compensation for their guilty feelings. Thus, as consumers feel guilt, their willingness to use the membership service will continue to increase. This study proposes practical implications that a firm operating a membership service program can encourage a positive response of consumers in their service process by theoretically identifying the intrinsic process related to consumers' intention to reuse the service.

Similar to traditional advertising, product placement plays important roles in consumer purchasing behaviors through the AIDA model (e.g., Ghirvu，2013) of which attention is the very first stage. While there is an established literature on brand recall and recognition as methods of product placement evaluation, the role of attention, which is an important topic in traditional advertising research, has been sparsely studied in the context of product placement. This paper proposes that attention is a psychological state which affects information selection and processing. Captured attention reflects audience’s selective attention to editorial content including placements, while sustained attention (or processing) requires allocated attentional capacity to process information captured from the placement. When available attentional capacity is insufficient, product placements cannot be adequately processed to form accurate memory (Lee & Faber, 2007). Accordingly, this paper aims to investigate the pathway of ‘placement characteristics –audience attention – audience memory’ in order to reinterpret the relationship between placement characteristics and audience memory through the lens of attention. We do this by answering two pertinent questions: 1) how placement characteristics (e.g., exposure duration, frequency, location and size) influence captured attention; and, 2) how captured attention and sustained attention affect audience memory. To do so, we draw on psychology literature, especially the feature integration theory (Treisman & Gelade, 1980), in establishing the theoretical connections between placement features, captured attention, sustained attention and memory. By a theatre methodology, we found sustained attention mediated between captured attention and audience memory, while more prominent placement characteristics had stronger relationships with captured attention. Furthermore, audience’s levels of involvement in the media content and familiarity with the placed brand moderated the relationship between sustained attention and audience memory.

The demand for cosmetic products is generally declining globally, but growing among female Generation Y (Gen Y). Gen Y (18-34 years) are large in size and disposable income and are high users of various social media platforms. Thus, cosmetic companies are competing to capture this market segment. However, the type of social media platforms, which can best attract and induce cosmetic products interest among this fickle and notoriously disloyal market segment is unknown. This study therefore employed the AIDA model to examine the effectiveness of YouTube, Instagram and Facebook in igniting female Gen Y South Africans‟ interest in cosmetic products. Data was collected from 220 respondents. Structural equation modeling results revealed that the cosmetic products interest is ignited by YouTube and Instagram ads and not Facebook ads. Implications are provided.

In the past, scholars and policy makers have tried to educate as well as incentivize practices like recycling to avoid reduce landfill stocks and create new objects from past used materials. Such products have been commercialized more and more by big brands (i.e. Adidas and Levi’s) and by famous fashion designers (i.e. Stella McCartney). While more academic literature has focused on drivers for consumers’ motivations to engage in recycling activities, there has been little research investigating consumers’ underlying psychological factors to favour recycled products over standard ones. In this study we address this issue by experimentally testing consumer evaluation and intention to adopt recycled products through an implicit theory – or mind-sets-framework on. In a set of three studies we demonstrate how consumers holding and incremental mind-set – who believe that trait like intelligence, morality or personality are malleable and transformable over time – are more keen top adopt products made of recycled materials. In contrasts, individuals with an entity mind-set – who instead believe human traits are fixed and non-mutable- are more sceptical to embrace such products. In Experiment 1 we demonstrated that the chronic incremental mind set of individuals influences their intention to acquire a recycled – over a non-recycled – coffee mug. In Experiment 2, we demonstrate through a laboratory experiment that this preference for products made out of recycled materials is stable in individual with an incremental min-set – over their entity min-set counterpart – even below the liminal attention threshold. Finally, in Experiment 3 we demonstrate that by attributing the merit of the transformation in a different object to qualities that are embedded in the materials used (rather than to the process to transform them) can make recycled products more appealing also to individuals with an entity mind-set. The results of these studies contribute to the literature on implicit theory by investigating another area in consumer psychology (intention to adopt recycled products) so far unexplored. On a managerial point of view, this study suggests how highlighting the effort spent by a company in creating the product can attract consumer (especially incremental theorists) to intend to buy the product, while highlighting the qualities of the material used can attract more entity theorists.

Despite its undoubted academic relevance, country-of-origin (COO) research continuous to be criticized for its lack of practical relevance (Usunier 2006). However, extant research has mainly focused on consumers as potential users of COO information, whereas relatively little is known with respect to whether and when companies actively use COO as part of their marketing mix. This study looks at the usage of COO information in advertising by conducting a content analysis of all print ads published in three major magazines in France over the period of one year. A set of hypotheses is subsequently developed and tested that looks at differences with respect to a) COO usage versus non-usage, b) frequency of COO cues used, and c) product- or brand type differences in the usage of COO information. Results shows that roughly one third of all ads analyzed feature COO information in it. In contrast to some scholars (e.g., Samiee 2010; Usunier 2006), our results provide further evidence on the relevance of COO cues from a supply side perspective. An in-depth analysis of the frequency and usage of COO information in advertising largely confirms extant literature with respect to the importance of the construct for domestic brands, and products with a high ethnicity (Usunier and Cestre 2007), low involvement (Bloemer, Brijs, and Kasper 2009), and hedonic nature. At the same time, we do not find evidence that COO only matters in these situations, as was highlighted by some scholars in the field. Finally, with respect to the debate on which type of country is actually associated with COO, we confirm extant propositions that the majority of products on the market associate themselves with the country-of-brand (Magnusson, Westjohn, and Zdravkovic 2011). Overall, more than 80% of all brands emphasized the country of brand, sometimes in combination with a different country-ofmanufacture.

Effect of product message type (novelty and meaningfulness) on new product evaluation with spendthrift and tightwad consumers New product development is one of key strategies that firms can use for survival and growth alike. Well-developed new products can generally provide much needed values for consumers, which in turn provide reasons and bases for firm’s growth and sustainable competitive advantages. Given this importance of new product development and launch, the understanding of what factors influence consumer’s new product purchase behavior is extremely critical for firms' success and just as important as the new product development itself. Previous research shows that many factors - such as perceived risk of new products (Ross 1975; Stone and Gronhaug 1993), consumer innovativeness as a personality (Midgley and Dowling, 1978; Steenkamp et al., 1999), and type of new products, e.g., discontinuous new product (Veryzer 1998) - influence the evaluation of new products. The current study contends that firm’s communication efforts for new products, in particular, the contents and types of message for new products, are as important as any other factors (often, even more critical than others). A consumer’s awareness of new product in the form of actual product launch or preannouncement of new product (Eliashberg and Robertson 1988) is important. Then, a naturally rising questions will be: (1) how should firm develop the contents of messages to consumers to spread the words? (2) who should be the target audience? In other words, depending on consumers and their individual differences, the message development for new product should be accordingly changed or modified to maximally generate consumer’s purchase behaviors. The goal of the message content is how to frame new products so that consumers seek to purchase the products. Two main approaches to frame advantages, strengths, or unique selling propositions of a new product would be (1) novelty and (2) meaningfulness (Im and Workman 2004). However, the framing message should be different depending on consumer’s individual differences. Given the complexity of modern consumers, firms need to understand not only the effect of situational factors such as product involvement (De Wulf, Odekerken-Schröder and Iacobucci, 2001), but also the influence of consumer’s different orientations in personality such as need of cognition (Cacioppo and Petty 1982) and need for uniqueness (Tian, Bearden, and Hunter 2001). Formally, in this study, not only message type, but also spending orientation of individual consumers will be explicitly examined to identify possible interactions effects on the new product purchase. In sum, the purpose of the current study is to examine the effect of message types and consumer’s spending orientation on the new product purchase decision. Specifically, the current study aims to suggest a significant interaction effect of message types of new product introduction (novelty or meaningfulness) as well as the format in which information is provided and individual consumers with opposite spending orientations. Theoretical background The development of the spendthrift-tightwad scale was created by Rick, Cryder, and Loewenstein (2008). In their scale, the authors define tightwads as individuals that have difficulty spending money whereas spendthrifts are individuals who have difficulty controlling their spending. Tightwads and spendthrifts do differ in levels of self-regulation (Tangney et al 2004). Tightwads are unable to free themselves from self-control even though their situation would become more favorable by spending money and spendthrifts have issues with exerting self-control even though it is in their best interest to limit their spending. Based on Rick et al (2008), spendthrifts are three times more likely than tightwads to carry debt as well as more amount of debt. Spendthrifts carry more debt and save less than tightwads. Spendthrifts are significantly more likely than tightwads to carry credit card debt at each income level. With respect to consumption purchase, spendthrifts are nine percent more likely than tightwads to buy a utilitarian massage and 26 percent more likely to buy the hedonic massage Rick et al (2008). Tightwads are significantly less likely to buy a massage in general. In sum, there will be a clear distinction between spendthrifts and tightwads in terms of utilitarian and hedonic purpose of consumptions. Thus we predict that, H1: Spendthrifts are more likely to have a higher purchase intention score than tightwads Meaningfulness and novelty are the two dimensions of new product creativity(Amabile 1983). Novelty is defined as the degree to which a new product is perceived as new and uniquely different to competitors, while meaningfulness is defined as the extent to which a new product is perceived as appropriate and useful. Consumers value novelty or meaningfulness depending on their level of product involvement and knowledge Rubera, Ordanini, and Mazursky (2010). However, products must have a wow or coolness factor to be accepted. Consumers do not appreciate a new product's creativity for its own sake but try to relate a product's meaningfulness and novelty to its utilitarian and hedonic value respectively(Im, Bhat, and Lee 2015). Therefore, we expect that H2 (a): Spendthrifts have higher intentions to purchase a product if presented as a message with a novelty message than meaningful message. H2 (b): Tightwads have higher intentions to purchase a product if presented as a message with meaningfulness than novelty. Study design The purpose of study is to see whether or not the manipulation of the message type describing a new product will lead to a higher purchasing intention. Framing the message with novelty shows that the product is new and unique, while framing the message with meaningfulness emphasizes a product's usefulness and ability to fulfill needs. We predict that the message type significantly influences the intentions a new product changes based on their tendencies of money use. The pretest is designed to check to see if the perceived value from both meaningfulness and novelty framing are be similar as well as the strength of attributes. Participants had been randomly assigned to one of two groups: a flyer with a meaningful message, a flyer with a novelty message. Participants were asked on a single item (7-point scale) of how much value the new product provides them. A second question asked the participants to rate on a 7 point scale asking how strong or convincing the message was given the provided attributes. A total 158 undergraduate students from a Midwestern land-grant university participated in this experiment, all provided with extra credits for class. Participants were randomly assigned to a group based on a 2 (Message type: Meaningfulness vs. Novelty) x 2 (individual difference: tightwad vs. spendthrift) x 2 (advertisement only vs. advertisement + customer review) between-subjects experiment. The dependent variables are attitude toward new product and purchase intentions. Participants were classified either as spendthrifts or tightwads. The spendthrift-tightwad scale provided by Rick, Cryder, and Loewenstein in (2008) came out to be reliable with a Cronbach alpha of .75 as stated in their development and validation section. With this reliability check, it will be safe to use their scale to differentiate participants as either spendthrifts or tightwads. This scale is used to measure an important individual trait of spending behavior which we believe is to interact with the message type. We also tested the effect of message vehicle (either advertisement or customer’s review), given the importance of source credibility. In the meaningfulness message type, participants are provided an advertisement flyer about a new product. There are six attributes about a new product (3 meaningful attributes and 3 novel attributes) and a message in the bottom half of the flyer describing the how this product will satisfy the customer's needs, useful, and or life changing. In the novelty message type, participants receive a similar flyer with the same product attributes as in the meaningfulness condition. The difference is in the message provided in the bottom half of the flyer. The message for novelty include phrases that indicate how new, unique, or revolutionary the product is. After the participants look over the flyer, they were asked if they would buy this new product. Then participants answered a follow-up question for the manipulation check. Participants in their respective message types were asked if how meaningful they think the product is they if they are in the meaningful condition and how novel they think they product is if they are within the novelty condition. For the customer review condition, a similar manipulation was used and the difference is that participants read customer reviews (emphasizing either meaningfulness or novelty of new product) Measures Advertisement novelty and meaningfulness are composite scales from six items respectively, with Cronbach alpha of 0.874 and 0.923. Product attitude are measured using four items (outstanding quality, reliable, consistent, and dependable) (Cronbach alpha = 0.919). Purchase intention measure is based on two items (how likely, how probable to purchase this product) using 7-point scales (Cronbach alpha = 0.827).Individual difference of spendthrift and tightwad measure is adopted from Rick, Cryder, and Loewenstein (2007). They used four items and simply summed scale responses (range from 4 to 26), and then divide respondents into three equally sized groups of sums (tightwad, unconflicted, and spendthrift). In our analysis, we followed the same approach, and used two groups (tightwad and spendthrift). The reliability (Cronbach alpha) was 0.756. However, for the manipulation check neither the novelty nor meaningfulness variable was significant. In the novelty condition, the participants did not experience a higher level of novelty in the message (t=.46, p=.65) while in the meaningfulness condition, participants did not experience a more meaningful focused message (t=-.485, p=.63). We must redesign the stimuli so that survey participants are properly manipulated to their allotted conditions. Initial results Attitude and purchase intention were higher for the advertisement plus customer review condition, compared to only advertisement groups. Also, there is a significant interaction effect among the message type and spending orientations influencing purchase intention. The spendthrifts to have higher intentions to purchase the product than tightwads similar to Rick, Cryder, and Loewenstein (2008) study with utilitarian and hedonic variables. There should be a significant effect of message type. The ANOVA results showed that overall model was significant (F =2.23, p=.048). ST-TW trait showed a significant effect on purchase decision (F= 7.454, p=.009). Thus, spendthrift respondents are more likely to purchase new products than tightwad ones, which is a consistent result to the existing literature. Implications and conclusions Message strategy for new product will be of critical criterion, because a convincing and creative advertising campaign will capture the attention of consumers. It will be important for firms to incorporate customer reviews in juxtaposition with the advertisement message, as it is much more likely for a consumer to purchase a product when a review is present based on the results above. Essentially, providing customer information becomes important, when you develop a message in advertisement that also provides a complimentary consumer review. However, depending on consumer’s characteristics regarding spendthrift-tightwad orientation, the choice of either advertising or specific promotion, encouraging encourage consumer to purchase. In sum, the results strongly suggest that using both advertisement and customer review information provision would increase purchase decision, but complementary focus of information provision will be the most effective way to deliver message to audience. In addition, individual different in spending orientation can be an important moderator, which suggest a series of further research.