This study examines the impact of price transparency—specifically the disclosure of cost breakdown—on brand attitudes and purchase intentions. The findings suggest that pricing transparency generally has a positive effect on attitudes and purchase intentions. However, pricing transparency might backfire, and thus reverse the effect, for luxury products originating from a high equity country (e.g., a fashion brand from Italy), but not for luxury and non-luxury products originating from a low equity country (e.g., a fashion brand from China). Luxury retailers in a high equity country should take extra caution before adopting price transparency

Understanding consumers’ prioritization of corporate social responsibility initiatives within the global marketplace is a crucial concern for marketers. Focusing on the ethical fashion industry, which supports artisans and utilizes environmentally sustainable resources within its supply chain, the study uncovers that consumers possessing a global (local) identity exhibit more favorable responses to global (local) CSR initiatives, and the matching effect is amplified when presented with high (low) construal level messages.

When considering donation, donors may evaluate causes of need and deservedness of recipients (Bekers & Wiepking, 2011). The plight of recipients may be attributed to their misbehaviors (e.g., laziness) or social problems (e.g., poor welfare), which in turn influences donation decisions. To maximize persuasiveness of donation appeals, therefore, marketers of charity events should decide how to describe donation recipients. How potential donors perceive recipient responsibility also interacts with donor characteristics (Lee, Winterich, & Ross, 2014). We investigate how causes of need interact with donors’ cultural background to determine reactions to donation appeals. Drawing upon research on the cultural differences in thinking styles and causal attributions (Fiske, Kitayama, Markus, & Nisbett, 1998), we propose that donation appeals are better accepted when there is a correspondence between donors’ cultural background and causes of need than when such correspondence lacks. We find that Westerners and Easterners show distinctive reactions to charity appeals that present different causes of need. Specifically, we demonstrate that Westerners are more attracted to appeals with external causes, whereas Easterners are relatively unconcerned about causes of need. We also offer insight into the process via empathy and outcome efficacy through which cause of need and culture collaboratively affect persuasiveness of charity appeals. Empathy drives the effect for both Westerners and Easters; outcome efficacy drives the effect for Westerners only.

The humor appeal is extensively used in advertising, but its impact is not clearly understood in the context of luxury brand advertising. This research therefore examines the role humor appeal in luxury advertising plays in customers’ evaluation of the brand, advertisement, and purchase behaviors toward the firm. Specifically, this study proposes that the use of a humor appeal in luxury advertising has a favorable influence on perceived luxuriousness of the brand, attitude toward the advertisement, and purchase intention through coolness perception of the luxury brand. Furthermore, this study explores the moderating roles of brand positioning appeal (top-dog vs. underdog) and desire for distinction. This study is one of the few to examine the influence of humor appeal in luxury brand advertising, providing evidence for the applicability of humor appeal in luxury advertising. The study findings will help luxury brand managers make informed decisions about when and how to use humor in advertising to achieve desirable advertising outcomes.

When consumers are faced with various discounts, they are likely to find some easier to comprehend than others and this degree of difficulty will impact purchase decisions. This study explains complexity as a dimension of psychological distance using different types of discounts. Current research examines that easy-to-process discounts appear near and difficult-to-process discounts appear far. Applying construal level theory, this research investigates that the dollar discount leads to higher likeability of the attribute-appeal message and the percent discount lead to higher likeability of the benefit-appeal message. The dollar discount is low-level construal, as is an attribute message (i.e., how approach) whereas the percentage discount is high-level construal like a benefit message (i.e., why approach).

When consumers are faced with various discounts, they are likely to find some easier to comprehend than others and this degree of difficulty will impact purchase decisions. This study explains complexity as a dimension of psychological distance using different types of discounts. Current research examines that easy-to-process discounts appear near and difficult-to-process discounts appear far. Applying construal level theory, this research investigates that the dollar discount leads to higher likeability of the attribute-appeal message and the percent discount lead to higher likeability of the benefit-appeal message. The dollar discount is low-level construal, as is an attribute message (i.e., how approach) whereas the percentage discount is high-level construal like a benefit message (i.e., why approach).

This research examined whether the (in)congruence between the geographical distance between the viewer and the destination, and the dynamic distance experienced via zoomin and zoom-out affects the recommendation likelihood of the travel destination. Specifically, when the viewer’s motivation is utilitarian (e.g., travelling for work), we expect the congruence effect (H1): a higher recommendation likelihood when the geographic distance is congruent with the dynamic distance; that is, the viewer is more likely to recommend the travel destination when the destination is geographically far away from (close to) with a zoom-out (zoom-in) view. By contrast, when the viewer’s motivation is hedonic (e.g., travelling for fun), we expect the incongruence effect (H2): a higher recommendation likelihood when the geographic distance is incongruent with the dynamic distance; that is, the viewer is more likely to recommend the travel destination when the destination is geographically far away from (close to) with a zoom-in (zoomout) view. We test these ideas in an experimental study.

This research examines the impact of closing versus opening eyes on consumers’ decision making as to whether the decision context is driven by utilitarian versus hedonic motivation. The findings from three studies show that consumers processing advertising messages with their eyes closed are likely to use high-level, abstract processing, and thus more positively evaluate the utilitarian products (vs. the hedonic products). On the contrary, consumers with their eyes open are likely to use low-level, concrete processing, and thus more positively evaluate the hedonic products (vs. the utilitarian products). Implications for consumers and marketers are discussed.

This research examines how price discount, message assertiveness, and national culture interact to influence consumers’ response to the recycling messages on product packages. Results showed that American consumers respond more negatively to assertive (vs. nonassertive) recycling messages when paying a full price for the product, but they respond more positively to assertive (vs. nonassertive) messages when paying a discounted price for the product. For South Korean consumers, price discount and message assertiveness do not influence their responses to recycling advertising.

In an increasingly digital and interactive global marketing landscape, social media marketing is emerging as one of the most important strategic tools for brand communication. This is especially true in the luxury fashion context, which traditionally exploited virtual environments as an effective communicational tool of brand-related content and product usage information all over the world. A contemporary consumer cohort that exhibits digital- and virtual-oriented behaviors are Millennials, which represent the digital native generation highly inclined to Internet interaction and, thus, a relevant strategic opportunity for social media marketers in the luxury industry. While the literature reports a positive relationship between Millennials’ social media usage and purchase intention towards luxury brand, scant attention has been paid to the underlying mechanisms explaining such a relationship. To fill this gap, the current research proposes and tests a conceptual model to provide three main contributions to the social media and brand communication literature: first, consumers’ perceptions of interactivity – a multidimensional construct comprised of real-time conversation, no delay/timing, and engaging/navigation – is hypothesized as an antecedent of social media usage. In this way, relevant theoretical and practical implications are provided to online luxury marketers interested in embracing virtual environments for brand communication. Next, two significant constructs of consumer behavior such as materialism – comprised of success, hedonism, and happiness – and morality – comprised of moral judgment and moral intensity – are hypothesized as mediating variables of the relationship between social media usage and purchase intention towards luxury brands. Particularly, these materialistic and ethical decision making processes emerge as relevant for Millennials’ online purchasing activities, with the expectation of transparent and effective brand-related information through social media. Finally, these mediating influences are hypothesized to be moderated by two other relevant constructs in the brand communication process—consumers’ motivation to use social media and advertising skepticism. In fact, a better assessment of Millennials’ motivation and skepticism toward social media marketing communication result as crucial for modern strategic marketers. Such hypotheses are tested using bootstrapped moderated mediation analysis on a sample of 297 Millennials actively following luxury brand social media activities. Our results confirm the proposed hypotheses, particularly both materialism and idealism partially mediate the relationship between social media usage and purchase intention. Moreover, motivation to use social media improves the effect of social media usage on materialism, whereas advertising skepticism reduces the effect of idealism on purchase intention. These findings contribute to the social media and brand communication literature, providing interesting avenues for future research.

Corporations, governments, and non-profits across the world have implemented proenvironmental campaigns to promote sustainable practices. To better understand crosscultural differences in environmental persuasion, we draw on research on self-conscious emotion (Tangney & Dearing, 2002), construal level theory (Trope & Liberman, 2010), and cultural psychology (Ratner, 2000). The current research examines how the emotions of guilt and shame cause people from Eastern and Western cultures to differently perceive green advertising messages that are framed concretely or abstractly. Two hundred fifty-five undergraduate students were randomly assigned to a 2 (emotion priming: guilt vs. shame) x 2 (construal message frame: abstract vs. concrete message) x 2 (nationality: Americans vs. Koreans) between-subjects design. The results indicate that message concreteness effect is present among guilt-primed Americans and shame-primed Koreans (culturally relevant), but absent among shame-primed Americans and guilt-primed Koreans (culturally irrelevant). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed for developing global green advertising message strategies.

Social media are increasingly becoming a strategic vehicle of modern companies’ way of communicating and interacting with consumers. Actually, social media marketing (SMM) has recently emerged as an effective two-way communication channel able to provide the sharing and exchange of information, ideas, and user-generated content in virtual environments. This is especially true for fashion brands, which are progressively creating interactive platforms such as online brand communities in order to enhance their consumer-based brand equity (CBE), interpreted as the consumers’ assessment of a company brand image, identity, and value. Scholars have widely analyzed the relationship between a company’s SMM and brand equity, thus finding a direct positive impact of the five main constructs depicting perceived SMM activities, namely entertainment, interaction, trendiness, customization, and word of mouth, on CBE. Despite this relevant scholarly interest, the consumer behavioral responses linking a company perceived SMM activities and CBE have been largely neglected. Actually, consumers’ benefits from virtual environments and online brand experience may represent significant elements marketing strategists should focus on in order to enhance a company’s brand equity. Building on the uses and gratifications theory and experiential marketing, we develop a conceptual model that unpacks such linkages, by relating SMM activities, perceived benefits of using social media, online brand experience, and CBE. Specifically, we interpret SMM activities as significant brand-related stimuli able to influence consumers’ cognitive, social interactive, personal interactive, and hedonic benefits, which in turn influence consumers’ sensory, affective, behavioral, and intellectual online experience. Moreover, we investigate the experiential responses of consumers that mostly affect a company’s brand equity, which finally impacts on consumers’ purchase intention of the fashion brand. The model is validated using structural equation modeling (SEM) on a sample of real users of online brand communities operating in the fashion industry. Our sample is composed of Millennials, which currently represent the most influential grown-digital generation of consumers. Overall, our findings shed light on consumers’ online behavioral and experiential responses to a company’s perceived SMM activities, thus proposing strategic implications for the management of brand online communities and suggesting interesting possibilities of future research on social media and fashion consumers.

Social media as an online channel for sharing and participating can play an important role for many marketing activities. Social media can be especially influential in word of mouth (WOM) communication as the focus of it is the sharing of information regarding consumers’ product experiences. To use social media as a marketing tool, identifying the relationship between message sender and receiver (the strength of social tie) is important in the viral marketing campaign context. Also, the effects can be influenced by message type, and consumers’ situational context. Therefore, the study examines the consumers’ intention to share advertising message with others in social media focusing on the strength of social ties (strong vs. weak tie) between message receivers and senders. The authors hypothesize that participants’ intention for sharing will be higher for the message recipients of strong tie than of weak tie. Especially, the sharing intention, for strong tie than for weak tie, will be higher when there is a match between message type (visual vs. text) and consumers’ purchasing context (close vs. far distance). The study used 2(temporal distance: close vs. distant) x 2(message type: text vs. picture) x 2 (close friends, vs. general public) design with the first two factors as between –subject factors and the last factor as a within-subject factor. A total of 107 student subjects participated in an experiment. They were recruited from a private university, in Seoul, in exchange for extra credit. The participants’ average age was 22 (SD=2.72) and 58 percent of them were males.

This study is intended to provide marketing practitioners with an overview of web analytics to explore the issue of how to define and measure the effectiveness of social media through analyzing the various activities of current/potential consumers as well as provide a comprehensive analysis of the effectiveness of digital content marketing using social media. These analytics answer broad questions about which types of social media metrics are best at referring traffic, about conversations at the organization’s website, and about comparing different social media channels, such as Facebook and Twitter in this study. The major goal of this study is to demonstrate the value of businesses’ efforts and to optimize their digital/social marketing strategy using web analytics. Based on this goal three research questions were identified: (1) can the model identify social media performance variables that are related to audience response which can be represented by website traffic?; (2) which social media sties are driving traffic to a firm’s website, specifically in B2B environment?; and (3) can the model provide insight into the importance of those variables? These analytics employ time series analysis to specifically address activities in SNSs that effectively drive traffic to a website and accomplish business goals. This study is one of the first empirical investigations in the marketing communication field related to measuring social media’s effectiveness.

Construal Level Theory (CLT) has been explored and researched in many different contexts. In an academic setting, the areas of CLT in time (temporal distance), physical space (spatial distance), and interpersonal/social distance are frequently revisited for the implications they may and often do have. High-level construals are associated with abstract thinking, while low-level construals are associated with more concrete thinking (Trope & Liberman, 2010). In today’s media-saturated world, it is important to understand how the branded messages the world receives affect the cognition of society as a whole. This project aims to explore what role, if any, branding and/or product placement has in the cognitive and performance abilities for various tasks. This will be tested by utilizing branded products in a task-completion challenge and measuring through both task performance and collected survey data from participants. This project will focus on the construal levels of individuals and how the use of and/or the engagement with a socially proximal branded item will affect perceived spatial distance. A study from Van Kerckhove, Geuend, & Vermeir (2014) found that construal levels impact behaviors. The results of their 2014 published study showed that individuals with a high construal (i.e. they thought more abstractly) were linked to a strong inclination to look up, whereas when individuals had lower-level construals (i.e. thinking more concretely) they were more likely to have a behavior of looking down. This ties into their paper’s title quite nicely – “the floor is nearer than the sky” – in that looking down at what is perceivable and spatially proximal is less likely to be viewed as ambiguous or abstract.

We study liberals and conservatives in the United States and Korea to see how they respond to charity advertising that appeals to either equality or proportionality. The findings robustly demonstrate that in both countries, liberals respond more favorably to equality appeals, but conservatives respond more favorably to proportionality appeals. Study 1, conducted in the United States, finds that liberals find equality appeals more effective, but conservatives find proportionality appeals more effective. Study 2, conducted in Korea, shows that liberals (conservatives) estimate that they are more (less) likely to receive rewards for donating when charity advertising uses equality rather than proportionality appeals.