This study aims to investigate how attitudes towards femvertising affects brand credibility, brand authenticity, and purchase intention. Further, the mediation of femwashing on these relationships was investigated. And lastly, the impact of brand credibility and authenticity on purchase intention was examined. The results show that a favourable attitude towards femvertising positively affects brand credibility and authenticity but is not significant for purchase intention. Likewise, the mediation of femwashing on these relationships was not significant. In addition, brand credibility and brand authenticity had a positive impact on purchase intention.

This study quantifies drivers and consequences of positive and negative electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) engagement on social networking sites building upon social identity theory. Fitting a structural model using software smartPLS 4.0, the analysis compares two distinct groups of respondents. Though these groups seem to belong to the same in-group. Nevertheless, group members differ with respect to the drivers and consequences of their positive and negative eWOM engagement. As engagement is often used in the context of service-dominant logic, we reveal which non-monetary value co-creating and value-reducing consequences result from positive and negative eWOM engagement. This study highlights the impact of eWOM engagement on self-brand connection and self-brand incongruity and identifies commitment as a major driver. For international respondents negative eWOM does not automatically increase self-brand incongruity but low negative eWOM has a positive effect on the self-brand connection.

We are living in a world that is increasingly digital and undergoing dramatic changes as a result. In particular for luxury fashion, growing numbers of online customers as well as fast changing business environment, luxury retailers face the challenge of differentiating themselves by offering a better online customer experience (Chen et al. 2021). By doing so, luxury fashion retailers are increasingly deploying chatbots in their service encounters to enhance customer experience (Roy & Naidoo, 2021). Chatbots are powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) (Hoyer et al. 2020) and are an example of AI robot that can provide human-computer interactions on a retail website (Lee et al. 2017). Intended to enhance the online customer experience, chatbots have the potential to provide a better understanding of the product performance, enable efficient use of customer time, and help build crucial customer relationships (Rese et al. 2020; Wilson-Nash et al. 2020; Xu et al. 2022). Therefore, chatbots’ potential has been highly valued by fashion retail industry and academia (Jiang et al. 2022).

Previous studies offered inconsistent empirical results for the influence of customer participation on service satisfaction. One possible explanation for this inconsistency is that existing conceptualizations of customer participation do not clearly differentiate the distinct roles of customer participation in service. To address this gap, Dong and Sivakumar (2015) have proposed an updated classification for customer participation based on “output specificity,” which refers to the degree to that the nature of the output is influenced by the person who provides the resource. The output of the customer participation can either be “specific” or “generic”. The “specific output” is defined as the expected service outcome can be idiosyncratic depending on whether the service is provided by the customer or the employee. In contrast, “generic output” refers to expected service outcome is well defined regardless of whether it is delivered by the service provider or the customer. How output specificity of customer participation influences service satisfaction still lacks of empirical examination.

This research proposes the application of new technologies in tourism advertising to resonate with and respond to unconscious desires that are embodied within consumers. The ethnographic research first questions how consumers form their desires regarding tourism and illustrates that advertising does not create desire; consumer desires for travel, often embodied, exist before consumers are exposed to advertising messages. Such desires derive from past experiences, imagination and sensorial imageries learned from stimuli. Consumers react positively to multi-sensorial, empathetic messages. AI technologies, such as the convolutional neural network algorithm, can be used to apply traditional cultural symbols in art design (Lin 2021). Virtual mirror-based learning technology mirrors back to individuals their social network, identifying their most important contacts, influencers, and communication bottlenecks. The research aims to connect existing and future new technologies that provide the “posthuman mystic,” to offer consumers to experience a new level of their own being, giving room for different kinds of human relations--friendship, connection, and novelty --through one’s avatars (Bolger 2021) and to construct a “decentered, highly relational mode of reality giving agency to everyone, not only to all other humans, but to natural and technological subjects as well” (Delio 2020, p. 115). Such virtual world, with an example like the Metaverse, is “a combination of contextualization and wholemaking from the standpoint of posthumanism and mysticism” (Bolger 2021, p.768). The research then deciphers consumers’ positive reactions to websites that resonate with imagination sensorial desires, past experiences, desired activities and “LIVE” desires. Based on the findings, the research summarizes cross-disciplinary research of tourism advertising and new technologies 4.0 and conceptually illustrates how the applications of new technologies 4.0 may assist with the understanding of consumers’ multi-sensorial desires, imagination, and memories to design empathetic advertising messages. As such, advertisers may be in systematic dialogues with consumers and create multi-sensorial messages that resonate consumer desires.

The popularity of the Korean entertainment industry has been growing worldwide. Various forms of media, such as movies, TV series, music, radio and many more, have been used as a platform to launch and promote new products of many brands. For instance, Laneige – a Korean cosmetic company was successfully placed in the Korean drama – Descendants of the Sun. Previous studies have accounted for various factors in analysing product placement in movies, such as brand familiarity, brand fit, and movie genre. However, the effect of the emotional context of where the product is placed remains unclear. The purpose of the present research is to investigate whether the effectiveness of product placement is influenced by the emotions depicted in the scene, and whether the ethicality of the product matters.

Sinnlfuencers are a new popular type of endorsers who focus on societal relevant issues. Against this backdrop, the question arises whether their success factors are the same as for traditional influencers or whether new success factors become relevant. In this work, we build up a case of Sinnfluencers for healthy nutrition and examine the five characteristics attractiveness, fitness, expertise, benevolence and obesity. Based on an online experiment involving 1332 data sets analyzed in SmartPLS we find that the traditional criteria fitness and attractiveness are most important. Based on these surprising results we propose implications for research and management.

This abstract summarizes an early-stage research proposal examining the benefits of storytelling in marketing green brands. Many research studies have been published in the last decade observing the growth and popularity of sustainable products (e.g., Bhardwaj et al., 2020; de Souza Correa et al., 2022; Haider, Shannon, & Poschis, 2022; Lunde, 2018; Rajogopal, Mahajan, & Priya, 2021; Skackuskiene & Vilkaite-Vaitone, 2022; among many others). Only some of these products offered immediate economic benefits to consumers when introduced. Consumers were skeptical of the sustainability of the products (e.g., Matthes & Wonneberger, 2014), consumers felt the prices were higher than unsustainable products (e.g., Juan, Hsu, & Xie, 2017), and consumers felt that the company was greenwashing (e.g., Cho & Taylor, 2020). However, the story of these businesses imagining a green future was the main driving force in attracting and convincing consumers to switch regardless of the cost and risk involved in the decision (e.g., Moshood et al., 2022). Getting exposed to these exciting stories, consumers want to join and be part of them by purchasing green products. For example, when sustainable Toyota Prius and Tesla cars were first introduced, there were more economical and best-performing cars in the crowded US market (i.e., Toyota.com, 2023; Tesla.com, 2023). However, unlike conventional combustion engine cars, they had a story to tell. Then, and today, the companies sell the imaginary of a green and sustainable future for humankind. It is the same with the sustainable apparel brand, Patagonia, which has gained popularity throughout the years (Patagonia.com, 2023). Their products are expensive compared to their unsustainable competitors. However, consumers are willing to pay the price to be a part of the story that the brand narrates, promising a more sustainable future.

We can be expected that the experience of damage caused by COVID-19 has had a negative impact on consumers' perceived quality of life. This study identifies factors that governments can positively impact the lives of consumers facing financial difficulties. We consider policy proposals to improve the quality of life of consumers at financial risk when situations like COVID-19 reoccur in the future

Customer loyalty is tested every day in the retail sector and the past years have been challenging for retailers to keep their existing, loyal customers. Covid-19 outbreak caused significant changes in consumers’ purchasing behavior because during the pandemic, consumers were forced to adapt new patterns of shopping which is likely to reflect also in customer loyalty. To better understand the temporal development of customer loyalty, we investigate how cognitive, affective, and social drivers of loyalty differ between 10,044 Trustpilot reviews before, during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. We investigate customer loyalty in the retail sector using an objective and a novel approach; thus we based this study on user-generated content in the form of online reviews in contrast to the traditional survey-based measures of customer loyalty.

This study aims to integrate the protection motivation theory (PMT) model and attitude to explore the factors influencing consumers’ usage behavior toward online food delivery platform services (OFDPSs) during the COVID-19 pandemic. The utilitarian value and hedonic value of OFDPSs, which may influence consumers’ attitude, were also included in the integrated research model. This study collected a total of 384 participants who are with experience in using OFDPSs during the COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan for analysis

This research examines how voluntary simplicity lifestyle can mediate the tourists’ COVID-19 anxiety and the tourism motivation during the COVID-19 pandemic and demonstrates how resilience can moderate the effect of the anxiety and pull motivations. The results show the effects of mediation and moderation on the relationship between anxiety and tourism motivations.

In this research, given the recent spurt of luxury brands featuring their products in the metaverse, we examine if the use of luxury brand items to enhance one’s virtual avatar augments the gamer’s sense of confidence, empowerment, and actual performance. We conduct two studies to test the same. In our first study, we simulated a gaming environment on an online survey portal and asked participants to choose their avatar features. We provided them with a branded item (luxury/regular). Consequently, we asked them to indicate their level of confidence, and empowerment. They were asked to play a game to record their actual performance. In our second study, we asked participants to choose their avatar on an online game on their mobiles and similarly provided them with a branded item (luxury/regular). We then measured their confidence, and empowerment and observed their actual performance.

This paper investigates how the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in services may potentially have a negative impact on consumer wellbeing due to the fear of being replaced by AI. Drawing on temporal self-appraisal theory, the study proposes that the fear of being replaced by an AI agent (as opposed to a human) has a negative effect on consumers' psychological wellbeing. The research suggests that this fear negatively affects consumers' perceptions of self-continuity, and that self-continuity perceptions mediate the relationship between fear of AI replacement and psychological wellbeing. Furthermore, the study explores how the type of task intelligence replaced by AI, whether thinking or feeling tasks, moderates the effects of AI on self-continuity and wellbeing.

Many companies seek to position their brands as global players to benefit from favorable quality and prestige inferences. Yet, recent research calls into question whether global brand positioning strategies are invariably beneficial. In many Western markets, the political environment becomes increasingly tense, with nationalism and ethnocentrism on the rise. Against this background, we seek to answer the question: How does political ideology influence the effectiveness of global brand positioning strategies? Do global brand positioning strategies create more value in liberal or conservative environments?

This study empirically verified the endorsement effect of a restaurant platform as a reliable third-party organization on changes in customers’ attitudes toward restaurants by measuring big data-based consumption values using customers’ reviews and applying difference-in-differences. The results indicated that endorsement effects are effective when specific cues are provided and under unusual circumstances such as the pandemic.

With the increasing popularity and attention towards virtual stores, the present study examines how consumers' perception of spatial and human crowdedness affects consumers' behavioral and attitudinal intention to shop at the virtual store through positive emotional arousals. Using two between-subject experiments (crowdedness: low spatial x high; low human x high), 171 participants were randomly assigned to each condition. The results demonstrated highly crowded virtual space with more merchandise creates a consumer’s positive emotional arousal, which leads to a positive attitude and satisfaction. Further, consumers perceive positive social crowdedness (i.e., when other shoppers are present) develops excitement among consumers who may entice positive attitude and satisfaction. Findings suggest that retailers should develop stimulating virtual stores.

We investigate the incremental predictive power of three consumer dispositions – xenocentrism, cosmopolitanism and ethnocentrism – on domestic and foreign product purchase intentions, after taking the impact of consumer demographics and product category-specific variables into account. Using data from an online survey of 201 Turkish consumers, hierarchical regression analysis reveals that widely used demographic variables (namely, age, gender and education) do not significantly influence consumer intentions to buy either domestic or foreign clothing products. Of the consumer dispositions, xenocentrism exerts a significant negative effect on domestic product purchase intentions, cosmopolitanism has a positive effect on foreign product purchase intentions, while ethnocentrism shows no effect on either domestic or foreign product purchase intentions. Implications of the findings are considered and future research directions identified.

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

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