Entomophagy (or insects eating) is seen as a new, sustainable, and promising protein alternative for consumers in Western countries. Although eating insects is not new for many cultures (e.g., Asian culture), it represents a novel and unconventional eating practice in the Western world (e.g., United States and Europe), often characterized by food taboos and by a negative advertising in the media.

New-born “masstige collaborations” are the temporary partnerships between luxury brands and mass-market retailers (e.g. H&M-Balmain, Missoni-Target, Luck et al., 2014), characterized by limited duration and supply. Borrowing Silverstein and Fiske’s definition of masstige (2003), in the case of masstige collaborations one luxury brand (“prestige”) and one mass-market retailer (“mass”) collaborate for creating a limited amount of items (e.g. a capsule collection) to be sold via the mass retailer, at a premium price, and for a limited period of time. Interestingly, no study so far has empirically proved consumers’ reactions towards this marketing practice, especially from the perspective of consumers of the mass-market retailer not able to purchase anything. Given the nature of masstige collaborations (limited supply and short availability), not all consumers can manage to buy products during these sales. The missed purchase can lead to two different cognitive states, broadly categorized into regret (e.g. Simonson 1992) and frustration (e.g. Strebel et al., 2004). On one side, consumers experiencing a non-purchase may regret that, feeling self-blame and engaging in ameliorative behaviors (second chance) for achieving the desired outcome (Zeelenberg et al. 2001). On the other side, non-purchase can also be translated into frustration, caused by external circumstances not under a person’s control (e.g. caused by a company), where people rely on blame attribution (e.g. Roseman, 1991) abandoning the outcome they wanted to achieve. We therefore ask ourselves what happens when consumers do not manage to purchase products of the masstige collaboration collection and how they react to such feeling, especially when they attribute the missed purchase to causes not attributable to themselves and experience frustration. What drives consumers in experiencing frustration vs. regret? Which are the antecedents of frustration and the coping strategies consumers employ? To answer these questions, we analyzed 780 posts written on Twitter during a masstige collaboration carried out in the fashion sector (H&M-Balmain). The qualitative analysis especially shows the negative feelings emerged during the partnership toward the mass-market brand (i.e. frustration and its antecedents). Further, we propose a new theoretical model, i.e. the “regret-frustration model”, emphasizing which are the causes that let consumers experience frustration (vs. regret) and which the coping strategies might be.

What is the connection between aesthetics or classroom design and engagement towards courses, teachers and groups? Students spend at least one quarter of their waking hours in schools, most of it in classrooms, which have become a potentially powerful setting for influencing them. Especially in recent years, where marketing classes are often projectbased and students are required to regularly interact in class and participate in group assignments, the role of classrooms and their design is crucial for improving learning and engagement (e.g. Abernethy and Lett III, 2005; Razzouk, Seitz and Rizkallah, 2003). Education research over the past decade has demonstrated that classroom designs have an effect on learning behaviors. Ample evidence suggested that classroom layout, technology and overall design can have a profound effect on student learning (e.g. Cheryan, Ziegler, Plaut and Meltzoff, 2014; Neill and Etheridge, 2008). So far, literature on classroom design and teaching has mainly focused on the relationship between quality of physical infrastructure and student achievement (Cheryan et al., 2014), on flexible learning spaces (Neill and Etheridge, 2008) and on the use of interactive technology (i.e. student response systems or clickers) for improving satisfaction, creative interaction, and achievement (e.g. Eastman, Iyer and Eastman, 2011). Little research has examined the role of classroom design on engagement (Kuh, 2001; Marks, 2000), investigating it primarily in the online or distance learning contexts (Chen, Lambert and Guidry, 2009). Unexplored in previous research is the role that a high vs. low technological classroom design may play in students’ engagement, and more specifically, in the general engagement level experienced by students towards a course, a teacher and a group. This work includes a comparison of two courses taught by the same instructor in a lowtechnology space (traditional class) versus a high-technology space, demonstrating counterintuitively that students perceive a higher engagement in a traditional classroom setting, evaluate the teacher more positively, and like to work in groups more.

“Cobranded endorsement”, i.e. the interactive partnership between a brand and a celebrity, seems to be the last frontier for endorsing a brand and increasing brand popularity. Indeed, the collaborations between a celebrity and a brand are increasing in number and growing in importance. Many new products or capsule collections are created and launched after these partnerships. The paper wants to investigate whether this cobranded endorsement has positive effects on brand equity. Findings from an experimental study carried out in the fashion segment reveal that cobranded endorsements foster a better attitude towards the brand and a higher purchase intention.