The implications of brand hypocrisy for corporate social responsibility (CSR) at the brand level of analysis remain largely unexplored. Drawing on attribution theory and the sense making perspective of CSR, this paper aims to develop a conceptual framework that highlights the negative effects of advertising skepticism on brand distance, as mediated by perceptions of brand hypocrisy. Furthermore, the study seeks to examine whether a brand’s commitment toward sustainability, consumers’ desire for exclusivity and brand trust have any impact on perceived brand hypocrisy and distance. As the effect of CSR skepticism and brand hypocrisy bears heavily on consumers’ attitudes and behaviour, this paper draws from several socio-psychological theories to identify how it can be pre-emptively abated. Findings will enrich the understanding of negative consumer inferences related to brands and provide a conceptualization of an understudied but increasingly relevant form of brand judgment.

There are two purposes of this paper. One is to present a brief introduction to item response theory in conjunction with marketing research. The other is to present a review of current use of item response theory in representative marketing research journals. Several item response theory relevant papers were recently published in various marketing research journals. Because models under item response theory from simple to complex were used without any systematic introduction in marketing research, this paper briefly presents main concepts in item response theory. An encyclopaedia entry (Kim, 2015) and two graduate-level textbooks (Baker & Kim, 2004, 2017) are mainly referred and used for the first purpose. A content analysis was done for the second purpose with 28 item response theory relevant articles on marketing research journals. Articles are sorted based on the classification framework by Thissen and Steinberg (1986). Many articles reviewed relied on some type of unidimensional dichotomous item response theory models. Articles published recently within 10 years that used item response theory models were more complicated both mathematically and statistically than other previously published articles in marketing research journals. The taxonomic tabulations in this study should aid marketing researchers who are planning their continuous training in item response theory, and faculty who design or teach courses on marketing research methods for advanced undergraduate and graduate students.

Newly extended brands may use the retailers as a channel for new products in order that consumers can become familiar with them, since retailers as an initial contact point of transactions have become empowered to supply products to consumers. Related research has suggested that horizontal or vertical extensions enable brand companies to introduce new products by collaborating with retailers to offer a one-of-a- kind product line to differentiate their products and to gain the attention of consumers. Even though brand companies often produce different products through more than one extension, the effects of multiple extensions in a brand are not clearly investigated. In this regard, the current study aims to focus on how consumers evaluate extended brand products depending on the brand extension types (vertical and horizontal) when a brand collaborates with a retailer. Drawn from the attitude accessibility theory (Fazio, 1986), the conceptual framework was developed. The hypothesized relationships were examined using structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques with survey data of 218 responses for the vertical extension and 226 responses for the horizontal extension. The results show that the image fit between a brand and retailer has a significant relationship with attitude toward brand and consumers’ evaluations of brand extensions. However, the results highlight that the quality fit is only directly related to retailer attitude in the case of horizontal extension. Overall, the findings provide empirical evidence on how perceived fit between brand and retailer influences consumers’ attitude and brand extension evaluations. The current study makes several key contributions to both academia and industry practitioners by explaining how new products from extended brands may have different evaluative processes depending on the types of brand extensions when collaborating with a retailer.

To date, in various methodological and theoretical domains, consumer value has been investigated to provide a comprehensive analytical framework that encompasses the full range of consumption-related phenomena. Consumer value is regarded as an important marketing concept since it deals with an issue closely related to the product positioning and competitive advantages (Woodruff, 1997). In the current marketplace, brands have often collaborated with retailers to extend their products and gain a competitive advantage in positioning the products effectively in the targeted market. Therefore, it is important for brands to understand how consumers perceive extended products when they are sold in retail stores so that they can locate the perceived position closer to the ideal point of a target segment. Thus, this study aims to examine measurement invariance in measures of consumers’ perceived value and its effect on prediction to allow researchers to compare predictions across groups. Drawn from a theory of consumption values (Sheth, Newman, & Gross, 1991) and related literatures, this study considered perceived value as a multidimensional construct as well as the expected outcome of an evaluative judgment. Likert-type items with seven-points were used for measuring four latent factors including social value, monetary value, convenience value, and epistemic value. Using a total of 869 data from participants in the U.S., multigroup confirmatory factor analysis was performed to examine measurement invariance of consumers’ perceived value for two groups using different types of brand and retailer collaborations. The high-end brand and low-end retailer group had 444 participants, and the low-end brand and high-end retailer group had 425 participants. Based on the sequential testing procedure, the current study confirmed the consistent structure of the measurement instrument of consumers’ perceived value across groups. However, the factorial invariance of monetary value could not be established. The findings of this study contribute to providing insights on the methodological perspective by investigating whether or not the measurements of consumers’ perceived value yield measures of the same qualities in different shopping contexts.