Trust is well recognized as a critical component of effective health system processes, as patient trust is known to influence satisfaction and other health-related behaviors. The COVID-19 pandemic has strongly affected healthcare organizations, leading to the need for reorganizing services, practices, interactions. Particularly, because of COVID-19 pandemic, patient/doctor exchanges have increasingly been mediated by digital technologies, thus leading to potential devaluation of patients trust toward the healthcare system.

Some well-known luxury fashion brands log off social media or deliberately keep their accounts empty. The article investigates how consumers of high-end fashion brands react to this social media strategy through a series of experiments. This study provides managerial implications for social media strategy of luxury fashion brands.

Consumers become increasingly concerned about the impact of business on the society and social media platforms facilitate the spread of their concern worldwide. This research investigates how consumers react (i.e. Electronic Word-of-Mouth) when brands initiate good or bad practices in the context of social and environmental corporate responsibility. Three experiments provide a multifaceted representation of the phenomenon. We examine the role of consumers’ self-conscious moral emotions (i.e. guilt and pride), in combination with brand engagement in self-concept (BESC) and brand loyalty, in explaining consumers’ reaction. The results will help scholars and managers to better understand and address the spread of consumers’ e-WOM relating to what they perceive as responsible or irresponsible brand behaviors.

This research investigates the effect of digital advertising on the customer-brand relationship, looking at the mediating role of privacy risk perceptions on consumers’ purchase intentions. Through an online experiment, authors show how the source of the customized promotion via e-mail (known source vs. unknown source) has implications on privacy risk perceptions which in turn influence purchase intentions. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Given the relevance of social media platforms into everyday life, User-Generated- Contents (UGC) have come to represent one of the richest and used source of online information (Koltringer and Dickinger, 2015). UGC include online information sources that are developed, and used by consumers who intend to communicate each other and share information about products, brands and services (Culotta and Cutler, 2016) influencing other customers’ perception and decision-making process. In this perspective, for marketers who need to manage their brands, UGC on social media provide new opportunities and new dangers. One particular kind of contents created by consumers are parodies of advertisement (parodic ads), humorous messages that parody extant advertising (Roehm and Roehm, 2014). This kind of UGC can damage or be beneficial for brands image and reputation. After the development of an overview about parody literature in management discipline, this research aims at investigating the effect of parodic ads video - created and shared by users on social media - on the image and the reputation of the parodied advertising's brand. With this aim, authors will developed a content analysis on ads videos and parodic ads videos and related comments on You Tube.

The present study contributes to the international literature on brand personality and congruence. There is still a general lack of clarity regarding the measurement of the self-brand congruity construct. Moreover, in the light of international branding research cross-national validation of this measurement is needed. Previous empirical evidence also suggests a positive relationship between brand-self congruity and consumer-brand relationships (i.e. brand attachment) across nations and cultures, but the strength of these relationships requires deeper investigation. The present study therefore aims to test and validate a personality congruence scale at an international level and to measure the effect of congruence on brand attachment with specific reference to the luxury sector. A survey of nearly 1,500 international luxury customers has been conducted. Results confirm that personality congruence is based upon five dimensions (Prestige/Emotion/Trust/Anxiety/Order). In addition, the results highlight the existence and relative importance of the link between “personality congruence” and “brand attachment”. Finally, findings suggest similarities and differences across countries regarding specific dimensions of congruence scale and the personality congruence and attachment relationship. Both theoretical and managerial implications are provided.

The present study contributes to the recent debate on luxury brands and sustainability practices. By combining Implicit Association Test (IAT) with two online experiments, the research aims at reconciling previous results on this topic. Particularly, in the first study, millennials’ unconscious associations to sustainable luxury are investigated. In the second study, the effect of sustainability on millennials intentions to buy toward luxury and fast-fashion products are assessed. Finally, the third study considers the role of different product appeals involved in the sustainability practices in determining consumers’ responses. Expected results of study 1 and 2 confirm the idea supported by a part of previous studies that sustainability is not automatically and positively associated to luxury brands. Study 3 provides with an explanation of discording results, by focusing on sustainability appeals and their centrality on the evaluation of luxury products. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

This study aims at identifying a novel framework that further explains the relationship between brands and customers in the online context at different touchpoints (e.g. social media, website) of the customer journey. In pursuing this goal, authors expect online brand experience as the main trigger in determining specific customer brand engagement (CBE) behaviours.

Price has always had a key role in the luxury fashion market, because high prices are linked to the prestige of luxury products. Because of this, scholars have neglected the possible existence of unintuitive and controversial pricing strategies followed by luxury firms. This article deals with this literature gap, analysing the odd even price strategy. With the direct observation of physical and digital store windows of 20 luxury brands, this research examines the relationship between odd even price strategy and the luxury level of fashion brands considering both offline and online channels

This paper aims to monitor brand image of two important fashion cities on social media (Instagram). Through a content analysis of pictures and texts authors attempt to identify the main associations that various actors have of London and Florence, both traditionally strictly related to the fashion system. As recent literature has argued for brands or products, even for places and cities (Gilboa et al. 2015), it is important to monitor the perceived city brand image resulting from the overall online experience (Choi et al. 2007), especially on social media. Indeed, it is demonstrated that word of mouth on social media is able to strongly affect users’ perceptions (Gretzel, Yuan, and Fosenmaier, 2000), thus contributing at the construction of the city brand image. This paper is one of the first one that applies content analysis on Instagram in city/place branding, where the core of communication is based on images. Therefore, differently from previous studies (Andéhn et al. 2014; De Moya and Jain, 2013), this work principally focuses on visual communication, as form of textual paralanguage communication (Luangrath, Peck, and Barger, 2016), for the construction of city image of London and Florence.

The current research aims to shed light on consumer-brand relationship, adopting the self-determination theory as theoretical lens for defining the antecedents and the consequences of the Brand Engagement in Self Concept (Sprott, Czellar, & Spangenberg, 2009). The originality of the study stems in the contest of analysis, that is the international cosplayer community, given the extreme engagement manifestation of the actors of the community in comics characters. Thus, the goal of this study is to test a model previously proposed by Razmus, Jaroszyńska, & Palęga (2017) in a community of high engagement manifestations, that is the cosplayer community (e.g. dress-up as their own favourite character). Moreover, authors would like to introduce a novel variable that is the brand-self congruity (Aaker, 1997; Sirgy, 1982), able to influence the relationship between personal aspirations (Kasser and Ryan, 1993; 1996), brand engagement in self-concept, brand advocacy (Kim et al. 2001) and brand loyalty (Oliver, 1999).

The aim of this paper is to investigate, through a content analysis, the communication strategies used by luxury fashion brands on Twitter and the related Twitter eWOM, with the purpose to identify brand associations compared to luxury dimensions considered in literature (De Barnier et al. 2012; Godey et al. 2014). Within the luxury fashion environment, where every detail is meaningful and, consequently, every single word matters, this study attempts to provide a contribution into the field of luxury advertising, by comparing semantic fields of words chosen by digital fashion marketers and by popular fashion bloggers to the dimensions that define the luxury construct in luxury literature.

In recent years, the spread of social media and other digital tools and its massive acceptance have revolutionized marketing practices such as advertising and promotion (Hanna, Rohn and Crittenden, 2011) by changing the approach of communication between consumers and brands (Henkkig-Thurau et al. 2004) and the sources of information about products, services or brands for consumers (Kozinets, 1999). On the one hand, these changes have provided consumers of the additional power to influence other buyers by sharing ideas and experiences about products, services or brands (Ioanăs & Stoica 2014). On the other hand social media websites allow business to engage and interact with users by increasing sense of intimacy with consumers and building strong relationships with potential customers (Mersey et al. 2010). Therefore, the incomparable efficiency of social media has induced industry leaders to participate in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others, with the aim to succeed in online environments (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010). Furthermore, brands are motivated to develop social network campaigns for gathering consumers’ personal information useful to targeting or personalising future marketing strategies (Noort, Anthenius and Verlegh, 2014). This situation have brought many authors, especially interested in luxury industry, to investigate on social media as a new way for luxury firms to communicate with consumers and influence their purchases. One of the main objectives for literature was to understand if luxury products, related to prestige, uniqueness and exclusivity values, could be express using channels accessible to everyone, such as social media. Indeed, in this era of the “democratization of luxury” (Atwal and Williams 2009), luxury brands are dealing with the challenge of using mass marketing tools and at the same time emphasizing the exclusivity dimension of their products (Okonkwo 2010). So as Hennigs states: “As the virtual environment is a place where images, videos and opinions circulate regardless of brand ownership, is it possible to keep a sense of exclusivity around a luxury brand?” (Hennigs, Wiedmann and Klarmann 2012 p. 30). In Italy, the digital population keep growing and the time spent in front of digital devices is increasing; people is becoming more familiar with e-commerce and as a consequence the communication of firms is more transparent (The Boston Consulting Group 2011). In this perspective, this paper aims to analyse the impact of social media marketing on brand equity and consumer behaviour within the Italian luxury economy. Our research has tried to understand this phenomenon from two perspectives; on the one hand, authors have observed digital marketing strategies of some luxury firms, emphasizing the way these brands use social network to promote their products, their special events or their stories. On the other hand, researchers have studied consumers’ approaches to social networks through a survey (Chisnall 1993) delivered to a sample of Italian respondents. The goal of the research is to show how social media have been used by five luxury brands and how they can influence luxury brand equity, by affecting Italian consumer behaviour. With this objective, the authors have analysed the composition of the sample that is active on social networks in order to gather useful demographic information about users. Moreover, this research has been important to discover the most popular platforms for Italian users and the response of some of the major international luxury brands in terms of contents shared on specific social networks. In addition, the survey has represented a great opportunity to understand the influence of social network on consumer behaviour, seeking to measure cognitive, affective and conative responses (Laroche and Mourali 005).

Fashion brands are influenced by multiple identities. Even though, for example, the brand name might still be associated with one or more creative founders (Gucci, Prada, Chanel, Hermès, Adidas, Joop) the brand image, and moreover the overall brand reputation are influenced by many different identities. For instance, a specific product identity (e.g., Gucci’s Bamboo Bag), the identity of the city or country of origin (Florence, Italy), the identities of well-known key customers as brand ambassadors (Sophia Loren, Vanessa Redgrave, Lady Diana, Naomi Watts etc.). Of course, also fashion brands who are not directly associated with the name of creative founders are composed of the effects of several identities. In the case of e.g. Nike especially successful athletes (Steve Prefontaine, Michael Jordan etc.), specific sports and sport events, and product lines tailor-made for them did help to build a strong brand reputation. All in all, it seems to be expedient to understand fashion brands as more of less complex systems composed of several identities. To deal in more detail with such “brand systems” is becoming particularly important against the background of several strategic challenges – e.g., when fashion brands are growing older and the creative founders lose their specific gravitational power, when in the process of internationalization new countries gain more and more importance who’s citizens might not have a strong access to the existing brand reputation drivers, or simply when in the context of the growing global competition the fashion brand needs to be “refreshed”. Against the background of cultural differences, or even - as within countries - lifestyle differences between different groups of customers, it can also be quite possibly that very different reputation drivers account for the success of a brand. Thus, it is necessary to identify, in different contexts, the relevant reputation drivers, and to analyze which interplay of those drivers might be particularly promising. Is it the creative founder, the corporate heritage, the country and/or city of origin, a special designer, a specific corporate culture, an outstanding product design, attractive key customers etc.? Which combination of such identity factors leads to what kind of success (e.g., brand loyalty, brand trust, price premium)? Will, for instance, heritage especially lead to brand trust, whereas an outstanding product design and specifically attractive key customers create the readiness for a higher price premium? And, is it necessary to create sub-brands to especially highlight specific identities in the process of building a brand system (e.g., the sub-branding of a Michael Jordan product line in the case of Nike)? Or is sufficient to only communicate an alignment with the brand (e.g., ads showing Naomi Watts wearing a Gucci Bamboo Handbag)? In other words, which kind of brand system, and which kind of brand communications has to be designed to attract specific target groups and to sustain competitive advantages? The present contribution aims to present a conceptual framework for analyzing “brand systems” in the fashion industry. Concomitantly, an approach of measuring such brand systems will be presented. Furthermore, a concept for analyzing the impact of several sub-identities on the development of the overall brand reputation and brand success against the background of existing contingencies will be outlined. With the introduction and discussion of such a conceptual framework it especially is intended to initiate the launching of an international research project which attempts to find an answer basically to the following question: Which via an integrated branding and brand systems communication carefully crafted composition of sub-identities might be how successful under what kind of situational conditions?

There is relatively little evidence on how social media marketing activities influence brand equity creation and consumers’ behavior towards the brand. We explore these relationships by analyzing pioneering brands in the luxury sector (Burberry, Dior, Gucci, Hermès, and Louis Vuitton). Based on a survey of 845 luxury brand consumers (Chinese, French, Indian and Italian) who follow the five brands studied on social media, we developed a structural equation model that helps to address gaps in prior social media branding literature. Specifically, our study demonstrates the links between social media marketing efforts – measured as a holistic concept incorporating five aspects (entertainment, interaction, trendiness, customization and word of mouth) and their consequences (brand preference, price premium and loyalty).

The purpose of this study is to identify operational definition and measurements of sustainability for eco-design. The measures of perceived sustainability items enable for eco-design researchers and practitioners to clarify relationships among perceptions of sustainability and other key customer equity variables, such as value equity, brand equity, and relationship equity. The multiple methods for generating scale items and the multiple stages in the scale development process results in a scale that should be useful to both eco-design researchers and practitioners. This study offers a valuable tool for measuring perceived sustainability for eco-design researchers and practitioners from the sustainable marketing perspectives.