ABSTRACT. Brand management literature has predominantly focussed on the crisis implications from an internal or intrafirm perspective (Grewal et al. 2007). Research studies investigating external crisis threats that are not self-inflicted by brand actions, are found to be sparse with little progress (Whitler et al. 2021). Besides, the global brands have become increasingly vulnerable to external disruptions in recent times, highlighting the need to investigate and comprehend the exogenous brand crisis. This study aims to explore the impact of exogenous crises, specifically, to examine a wide range of feelings, emotions and factors that influence consumers’ purchase behavior. This study conducts interviews using the collage construction technique that allows participants to provide an image-based representation to their thoughts and emotions (Belk et al. 1997). The information from the interviews and collages are analyzed using content analysis and key themes are identified by following an inductive approach (Elo and Kyngäs 2008). The study results establish the decline in consumer consumption and the subsequent challenges faced by brands. The study further ascertains the importance for brands to be cognizance of customer concerns and changing demands, collaborate with communities and contribute positively towards crisis recovery.

ABSTRACT. The project suggests that brand affective and material experiences enhance customers’ happiness which in turn can influence willingness to spread positive word-of-mouth. The study employed an online survey with cellphone users in the USA. The results suggest that customer pleasure and meaning are the main outcomes of brand customer experience which in turn can enhance the relationship between the brand and its customers in the form of word-of-mouth promotions. The study also suggests that the relationships are moderated by key decisions that customers take during the purchasing process. To our knowledge, this is the first empirical study linking the managerial research stream concerning marketing elements that are under the firm’s control with the consumer-orientated one regarding the sources and nature of experience. Our model introduces a key link between brand experience and customer relationship outcomes such as word of mouth promotions that are a consequence of evoked, positive experience and predictive of managerially desirable outcomes; that key link is customer happiness in the form of pleasure.

ABSTRACT. Human brands can be interpreted as one of several operationalisations of the general brand concept and incorporate celebrities, politicians, athletes, academics, social media influencers, and entrepreneurs (Thomson, 2006). According to the literature review of Osorio, Centeno, and Cambra-Fierro (2020) on the theme of human brands, several research gaps appears. Other brand attributes and benefits than brand authenticity remain partially unexplored and studies considering brand associations and how they are formed and developed were not found. In this vein, it is well known that brands help to define individuals’ identities and connect them with others. In this way, self-esteem, self-congruence, and self-brand identification have something to say about consumers’ identities and consumer-brand relationships. This study examines the effects of the various selfies in building a strong emotional consumer relationship - brand love - which develops into more extreme relationships - brand addiction. Additionally, brand addiction and brand loyalty become compulsive buying.

ABSTRACT. It has been suggested that consumers are skeptical about the authenticity of the brand stories told in brand museums, and that relics and artifacts are used by some consumers as evidence of the longevity claims. But relics take a significant levy on resources to acquire them, let alone to stock and maintain them. And scholars argue that living and interactive museums are also seen as authentic. Hence our research question: do relics really make a difference in the experience of the brand museum visitors? To answer this question, we have designed a three-fold research. The first study looks at the relation between the relative importance of relics in corporate museums and the visitors’ satisfaction. The second and third studies experimentally test the effect of priming the presence of relics on skepticism towards the content of the museum and authenticity of the brand story. Although the research is still work in progress, the results so far are contrasted. Relics seem to reduce skepticism and to increase authenticity, but this effect does not transform into more intention to visit or satisfaction.

ABSTRACT. This presentation will allow for a guided discussion of issues of interest in comparative advertising research. Comparative advertising has a long history of research, yet, there are many conceptual voids and questions to address, especially given the changing nature of the world and the many new advertising mediums. This part of the session is designed to stimulate discussion as to future research opportunities in comparative advertising relative to the advancement of academic and practitioner knowledge. Topics of interest might include but are not limited to: the relative effectiveness of comparative advertising vs. non-comparative advertising in triggering emotional responses or in enhancing recall, the effectiveness in comparative advertising in social media persuasion and in other more recently evolving forms of advertising, and the changing nature of comparative advertising in the current environments.

ABSTRACT. This research focuses on relative effect of Direct Comparative Advertising (DCA) and Non-Comparative Advertising (NCA). The research found that DCA is more effective than NCA. The study was conducted UK and France and the responses to CA were very similar. DCA was not more effective than NCA for Abr, Aad, Purchase Intentions. Faith in intuition enhanced claim believability of both DCA and NCA ads. Given that the ad contained detailed nutritional fact comparisons between sponsored brand and comparison, this finding suggests that consumers rely on heuristics and gut feelings to form judgements and perhaps make quicker decisions. Imagery processing orientation has a positive impact on all variables concerned with consumer persuasion. Namely it enhanced Believability, Abr, Aad, Purchase intentions and reduced Perceived Manipulative Intent. Given the reduced length of ad exposure in social media advertising (e.g. shorter overlay ads, skippable ads in YouTube, short exposure to ads when scrolling in Facebook, fragmented attention and multi-screening among digital natives) and the positive impact of imagery, this research has future implications for future research directions. Such directions may include avenues for content creation to stimulate imagery processing, understanding the mechanics of imagery impact in comparative advertising.

ABSTRACT. Comparative ads often state product performance (e.g. direct attacks of Apple iPhone versus Samsung Galaxy, indirect attacks of Google pixel against the entire product category claims on enhanced battery life). Studies on Comparative Advertising (CA) were predominantly carried out in USA (Barone and Jewel 2007; 2014) or Asia (Jeon and Beatty 2002). This is understandable given that CA in USA has a long legacy (Tannenbaum 1974) compared to countries in Europe for example where it was legalized in late 1990s. We found evidence of vividness effects in CA in US. An overall positive evaluation of CA was found in our study. Given that USA is associated with stronger scores on cultural dimensions of performance orientation or assertiveness, this finding was to be expected. There were numerous calls for more (CA) research across nations (Nye et al. 2008; del Barrio-Garcia et al. 2020), as very few studies compared the response to CA across nations (e.g., Jeon and Beatty 2002, Kim et al. 2018). Only one study compared the effectiveness of CA across 3 nations (Nye et al. 2008). Therefore there is a need for further research in geographical areas unexplored such as Central and Eastern Europe, Australia or South America.

ABSTRACT. The advancements of social media have revolutionised advertising and enabled the connectivity of different groups of societies via online platforms. Calls have been made for more diversity in CA research and the exploration of how different segments respond to CA (Beard, 2016; Beard, 2018). Comparative advertising was overlooked in respect of age, ethnicity and gender. Gender is a central part of one’s identity, it influences how we perceive messages, process them and how we act (i.e., buyer behaviour) (Belk, 1988). With new gender identities increasingly being embraced on social media platforms and communities being built, there is an opportunity to investigate how CA messages are perceived by all identities (Petrovici et al., 2019) and how different message influence different genders. Chang (2007) examined the role of gender in CA and PMI but we know little about the role of gender in CA. The investigation of social media is highly beneficial as it shapes consumption habits and allows reach and access to a vast number of communities. del Barrio-García et al.(2020)’s bibliometric analysis identified a gap in CA using new media. Hence, exploring the role of gender in comparative advertising, particularly in social media can make important contributions to this field.

ABSTRACT. In order to understand online shopping for fashion goods in Asian emerging markets, this study attempts to examine how consumers’ fashion sensitivity and fashion innovativeness influence their online shopping behavior in fashion. After collecting data from 283 millennial consumers in an Asian emerging market, the results show that fashion anxiety and fashion innovativeness are related to online shopping for fashion goods positively, however, fashion self-efficacy has no significant effect on online fashion shopping. Fashion innovativeness is also found to moderate (1) the relationship between fashion self-efficacy and online fashion shopping negatively and (2) the relationship between fashion anxiety and online fashion shopping positively. Finally, research implications and limitations are discussed.

ABSTRACT. This research study looks to explore how and why marketing ties and exchange services emerge, persist, and fail in embedded relationships between prime producers and marketing institutions within the agricultural market systems in the African regions. The study is motivated by the ongoing movement of marketing scholarship towards a system thinking of the market which allows researchers to look beyond the restrictive view of dyadic exchange. Despite the progress made in conceptual development towards the recognition of network constellations and institutional context where markets develop, the extant research agenda has been too abstract. Using illustrative cases of Agri-marketing initiatives in Africa, the study argues that a contextually elaborated channel-transvection framework that integrates perspectives from internal network theoretical mechanisms is relevant to explain how well a marketing system operates to create efficiencies for actors involved. We contribute to the scholarly conversation of bringing the soul back to marketing, by reiterating the position of marketing theoreticians and highlighting how exchange is at the heart of marketing. Conceptually, the study demonstrates the relevance of exchange at the core of the Agri-marketing process, by mapping exchange as a pivotal micro mechanism that connects linkage activities within a macro channel-transvection activity.

ABSTRACT. Previous studies have found conflicting results regarding reference group influence on sustainable consumption choices. This study analyses the relationship between social influence and sustainable consumption considering health and environmental concerns as mediators. A survey was carried out with 581 organic food consumers in southern Brazil. The results showed a significant indirect effect, considering the two mediators in the model. More specifically, the indirect effect via environmental concern was stronger when compared to the indirect effect via health concern. Therefore, our findings support the proposed conceptual model, according to which the opinion of friends and family influences health concerns, which affects environmental concerns and, finally, organic food consumption. These results contribute to the current literature on the effects of social influence on more sustainable consumption forms by empirically demonstrating a serial mediation process of health concern and environmental concern on the relationship between social influence and organic food consumption.

ABSTRACT. A new trend of negative ad appeals is identified in Asian markets which uses negative messages to degrade the ad audience. This research systematically examines the underlying process that how the negative appeals are converted into positive consumer responses. Results from depth interviews show that the negative appeal is the expressive format, yet it creates positive consumer perceptions including humor, realness, and uniqueness. It further affects consumer behavior through perceptual and emotional effects. The unique format of “negativity” draws their perceptual attention spontaneously. The positive effects of ATNAs include emotional venting, emotional resonance, psychological comfort, and self-expression. Improper or excessive use of negative wording may trigger negative audience emotions.

ABSTRACT. Firms struggle to reach potential customers via email marketing as declining click-through rates decrease email marketing effectiveness. To counteract this, marketers resort to personalization, but research shows that overemphasizing it can increase consumers' privacy concerns. Therefore, in this paper, we propose using customization. Customization empowers consumers to decide about characteristics of the advertising email they get. It will mitigate negative effects (of personalization) and boost the effectiveness of email marketing through the feeling of control/empowerment. The conceptual part defines what customization means in the email marketing context and the underlying psychological processes it fosters. Finally, we present the results of three focus groups, supporting using customization in email marketing. Since this research is a work in progress, both parts can be understood as a preparation for a field experiment that will be conducted in cooperation with a medium-sized firm. We will present partial results of the experiment in June 2022.

ABSTRACT. To create the solutions that can tackle such problems as climate change, biodiversity loss and inequality, firms need to care. A commitment to caring helps managers to listen to others and to have the courage to act in line with corporate or brand purpose. The idea of brand purpose has become widely discussed as a way of enhancing the value of brands and their relevance to consumers and other stakeholders. Furthermore, research to date has not yet determined the role of authenticity in brand purpose. When brands integrate brand purpose in their business strategies, they appear authentic, which can confer advantages such as trust and differentiation. As a result, our objectives with this research study are to use insight from an under researched and expert stakeholder group, which is actively involved in translating brand purpose, namely senior managers in marketing agencies, to a) better understand the construct of brand purpose; and b) investigate the factors influencing its perceived authenticity.

Due to a lack of substantive theory around brand purpose, a qualitative methodology was considered to be appropriate for this study. To generate data, semi-structured interviews were conducted with an expert audience of 35 senior managers in UK-based marketing agencies. Agency managers were purposively selected for the study because of their expertise, knowledge and familiarity in branding and extensive experience of working with various brands and managers. The thematic basis for developing interview questions stemmed from an assessment of current literature on brand purpose. To ensure accuracy, the interviews were recorded, transcribed and coded inductively using NVivo. Our findings show that having a true purpose enables brands to care and gives them a reason to exist other than financial motivations. Marketing agencies suggest that brand purpose addresses the ‘why’ question and provides brand meaning and clarity to stakeholders. Marketing agencies support brands in delineating and communicating brand purpose in order to affect stakeholders’ perceived authenticity of brand purpose.

ABSTRACT. Metaverse is changing business operations as brands are exploring the consumers' seamless interaction within real and simulated environments, which has enormous implications on how and where consumers see the bands' advertisements. With the growing quest for theoretical knowledge on how advertisers can benefit from the huge prospects of the Metaverse, this study adopts an integrative literature review approach to critically review and synthesise the literature on advertising, media planning and buying and Metaverse, which enables the development of a conceptual framework and a theoretical primer for advertising research and practise. This study explores the various stakeholders that can influence media planning and buying in the Metaverse, identify significant opportunities and challenges in managing media spaces in the metaverse and presents practical recommendations for these stakeholders on how to advertise and media planning strategies in the Metaverse. The study makes a significant contribution to theories on the interaction between the message, multiple users, and media on the Metaverse, highlights the implications of evaluating advertisements on the metaverse advertising and the interoperability within the Metaverse, with implications for media planners, metaverse marketing agencies and the brands.

ABSTRACT. Using informant-generated visuals, research was conducted into the lived experience of payday borrowers. Based on phenomenological interviews, this study extends research methods by demonstrating a novel approach of face-to-face qualitative enquiry through the use of post-it notes. In particular, this method enables informant and researcher together to construct a map of debt and borrowing.

ABSTRACT. Maximum difference scaling (MaxDiff) is gaining importance as a preference measurement technique in practice, however, has been rather under-researched in marketing research so far. There are two threats to the predictive validity of MaxDiff studies: first, they often measure only relative instead of absolute preferences. Second, they are conducted in a hypothetical setting that does not necessarily reveal true product preferences. The present research is the first that addresses both threats by combining anchored MaxDiff (i.e., direct vs. indirect anchoring approach) with incentive alignment (present vs. absent) in a 2x2 between-subjects design. Anchored MaxDiff adds a "no-buy" threshold, whereas incentive alignment introduces consequential choices. In a preregistered online experiment on PlayStation 5 games, participants choose the best and worst video game in the four MaxDiff versions described above. The obtained utilities from Hierarchical Bayes estimation are employed to predict a series of validation tasks, including consequential product choices. The present research uses the hit rate, mean hit probability, median absolute error, as well as Cohen's kappa to evaluate the four variants’ predictive validity. In addition, four-fold cross validation enables an evaluation of out-of-sample predictions.

ABSTRACT. Using a pedagogy of play, this research sought to explore the use of LEGO® Serious Play (LSP) in the graduate-level business classroom as a means through which to enhance creativity, student engagement, and teamwork. The LSP activity was originally created to be used as a facilitation strategy for business executives seeking to enhance innovation and business performance. As such, the research sought to develop a protocol to adapt the activity for Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) students in a marketing class. The primary aim of the research considered whether LSP would provide a valuable learning activity for future MBA marketing classes. As such, feedback was collected on the activity from students following engagement with LSP. The results of the study provide insights into ways to adapt the LSP protocol that was developed to aid other marketing educators who wish to use the activity in the future.

ABSTRACT. Prior marketing course was conducted using lecture learning focusing on knowledge construction. This study uses two teaching strategies (i.e., lecture vs. experiential), to explore their effects on students' learning effectiveness. Objectives: 1). To explore how and what these two teaching strategies influence students' learning effectiveness? 2). To explore the effects of student USR involvement in community on their social concerns. I use action research as method, i.e., a use of marketing course, 9-weeks strategies (i.e., lecture, experiential), and five communities near a university as research context. Evaluation tools: midterm exam (paper-pen), final open exhibition (video-making), questionnaire, together with students’ ‘learning process’ interviews as teaching reflection and re-action. Findings: 1). While lecture-based teaching enhances students’ marketing knowledge, students are more interested in experiential learning because it effectively enhances their practical ability, marketing literacy, and collaboration; 2). Students can enhance concerns on neighborhood community via. experiential learning. Teacher’s reflections: 1). Lecture-based teaching can additionally use case study to effectively construct marketing knowledge; 2). Students shown different interests in video-making. Hence, it can use an alternative practice; 3). While students can know the community quickly, it takes more time to know its complexities. Hence, this course might extend its length in the future.

ABSTRACT. Customers increasingly interact with organizations through various touchpoints powered by AI interfaces. This shift from human-to-human to human-to-technology interactions is likely to dramatically influence the customer experience. Previous studies examining customer experience with AI-based interfaces mainly use a rational-cognitive perspective. While the latter provide useful and relevant insights, we argue that they do not fully capture the inherent complexities of customer experiences with AI interfaces. Therefore, this research project aims to better understand the customer experience with AI interfaces from a more fine-grained experiential perspective and considers the multiple underlying experiential dimensions (e.g., affective, social) as well as contextual factors in which experience is embedded. This research project is divided into three chapters. Chapter one focuses on AI characteristics and examines artificial empathy. Chapter two takes a customer journey perspective and examines how switching from one type of touchpoint (AI-based) to another (human-based) affects customer experience. Chapter three investigates how AI interfaces and interactions can be designed to be more inclusive. This research uses mix-methods. We aim to make theoretical contributions to the fields of marketing, service, and human-AI interactions, and also to provide insights to organizations regarding the implementation of AI interfaces into their service activities.

ABSTRACT. Self-Service Technologies (SSTs) used in stores reduce customers' interactions with frontline employees. However, the impact of in-store SSTs on customer-to-customer interactions (CCI) remains understudied. Because using SSTs can generate frustration, we suggest SSTs increase CCI as customers seek assistance among other customers. More specifically, we propose that SSTs trigger the adoption of co-client roles mirroring themselves, namely, the help seeker and the proactive or reactive helper.

ABSTRACT. With online retailers’ large offering and ease of use, customers now expect a certain level of entertainment from shopping (Foster and McLelland, 2015). Physical retailers need to offer a rich experience to their customers to keep them engaged (Pansari and Kumar, 2017). Many brick and mortar retailers have turned towards smart technologies in order to do so (Les Echos, 2022). New technologies have the capacity to impact customer experience positively (Grewal and Roggeveen, 2020). Incorporating smart technologies in the retail environment is referred to as the practice of Smart Retailing (Pantano and Timmermans, 2014, Pantano, Priporas et al., 2018). Most of the work related to this domain mainly studied adoption factors or barriers as well as attitudes towards them (Roy, Balaji et al., 2018, Kasilingam, 2020, Roy, Balaji et al., 2020). There is a lack of understanding of the process that links the interaction with these technologies, customer experience and engagement. This research aims at tackling these issues by using mixed methods, including experiments in a controlled lab environment. This research aims at bringing insights to management by studying unexplored mechanisms in customer-technology interaction. Furthermore, it will contribute to the literature about smart retail technologies, customer experience and customer engagement.

ABSTRACT. This research explores the perception of materialism by young adults and its manifestation in their consumption practices, in 

unfolds today in immaterial consumption, both in experiences and in the digital. Through a mix of qualitative methods, we plan to explore the manifestations of materialism in young adults and determine the objects, both material and immaterial, and the practices used to attain materialist goals. This explanatory research will help build an experiential materialism scale and will contribute to materialism theories by better knowing its expressions. On the societal level, it should help better measure and limit materialism, in order to attain sustainable consumption levels. It should also help professionals and institutions get insights about young adults consumption practices and means of social distinction to better engage them in sustainable practices.

ABSTRACT. Livestream sales events hosted by social media influencers and conducted via major social media/e-commerce sites to introduce, recommend a variety of product/service offerings have become a predominant digital promotion paradigm (e.g., TikTok). The integration of social media interactivity and online sales events has turned out to be a successful business model, particularly for companies selling experience-driven offerings.

Extant research developed in this area mainly focus on the examination of social media influencer’s credibility and trustworthiness. Little attention is given to understanding how the social context, particularly the crowd or herd behaviors, impacts event performance. Drawing from social media influencer and assortment literature, we hypothesize that the social impact exemplified by crowd/herd behaviors in livestream events (e.g., customer’s likes, comments) plays an important role in influencing a consumer’s purchase decision and subsequently, affecting brand’s sales performance and the fanbase growth of influencers. We also hypothesize that the herd impact could play a stronger impact on consumer purchase decision, when decisions are difficult to justify (e.g., service offerings). We empirically test our conceptual framework, using a unique secondary dataset from a leading livestream host platform based in China. And the empirical findings provide important implications to brand managers and social media influencers.

ABSTRACT. This article investigates customer retention strategies (CRS) using offensive and defensive marketing in the service sector. A scale that captures the dimensionality of retention strategies considered by service organizations for retaining their customers is developed from a managerial perspective specific to the Indian service industry. A scale development paradigm advocated by Churchill (1979) and other prominent studies was followed that consists of three sequential phases: qualitative inquiry, scale refinement, and validation. A 68-item scale was developed that helps to measure customer retention strategies in the service industry. It was concluded that the CRS scale surpassed all the reliability and validity measures and remains stable across independent samples and sectors. This research paper is one of the leading studies for advancing a validated tool to measure organisations' customer retention management practices.

ABSTRACT. Although the sharing economy is believed to have provided people with greater comfort and convenience, it is unclear if it positively impacts consumers’ well-being. We offer a conceptual model for understanding the linkages between the antecedents and consequences of subjective well-being in the context of ridesharing platforms. We applied a structural equation model to a survey sample of 450 individuals to analyze the data. Our findings suggest that the quality of experience, perceived value, and perceived convenience are correlated with subjective well-being. Personal innovativeness was not found to be correlated with subjective well-being, as the former does not contribute to the development of the latter. Among the outcome variables, customer relationship proneness was found to be significantly correlated with subjective well-being, followed by customer usage intention and consumer advocacy. Concerning gender and age differences, men placed a higher value on customer relationship proneness than women do, while women placed a higher value on subjective well-being than men do. Older users were found to value perceived convenience and customer relationship proneness in ridesharing platforms more than younger users do. The theoretical and managerial implications and ideas for future research are presented herein.

ABSTRACT. The outcome of this systematic literature review hopes to provide a map of the extant literature of empirical findings on businesses’ applications of marketing theories to influence consumers’ behaviors to be pro-environmental. Following the PRISMA protocol, the SLR is conducted in 8 academic databases, whence 13 articles are retrieved and included for analysis. All in all, firms should appeal to consumers’ perceived values (economic, emotional, functional, and social) and use financial incentives for optimal behavioral changes interventions, regardless of consumers’ environmental awareness nor price consciousness, common moderating factors in PEBs adoption. PEBs promotion should not be inconvenient to consumers nor generate additional “green” costs. Results from the SLR highlight a budding body of research that empirically assesses firms’ activities in influencing and sustaining pro environmental behaviors among their consumers. Accordingly, businesses could use this paper to select the most suitable PEBs promotion strategies for their businesses; academics could use the findings from this paper as a starting point for further investigations into the emerging theme of pro-environmental behavior-changing and sustainability marketing. The SLR confirms the potential of businesses in changing their consumers’ behaviors and opens exciting new research opportunities in the burgeoning niche of empirical research on businesses’ pro-environmental interventions.

ABSTRACT. The goal of this paper is twofold: first, to investigate how relatedness-supportive CSR initiatives influence brand happiness among retail bank customers through a mediating mechanism of customer participation in brand CSR movements; and second, to analyze how relatedness-supportive CSR initiatives' effect may be moderated by cause choice and customer-brand goal congruence. Data were collected from 379 retail bank customers via a paper-and-pencil survey. The hypothesized moderated moderated-mediation effects were tested using Hayes' (2013) PROCESS Macros (template Model#4, Model#7, and Model#3) in SPSS 24.0. Results show that relatedness-supportive CSR initiatives increase brand happiness among retail bank customers through increasing their participation in brand CSR movements. Furthermore, the use of customer determination in the choice of cause strengthened the positive effect of relatedness-supportive CSR initiatives on customer participation in brand CSR movements. Similarly, when customers choose the cause and the customer-brand goal is congruent, the effect of relatedness-supportive CSR initiatives on brand happiness is most positive and significantly stronger than when the customer-brand goal and cause choice are not aligned.

ABSTRACT. Sharing economy is a part of sustainable consumption, which encourages the use of under-utilised resources — renting the extra bicycle you have for a fee. Studies in the realm of sharing economy have recently started to explore the nature of consumers’ complex motivations to participate in sharing economy programs.This study contributes to the lack of research on the role of values in promoting the participation in sharing economy programs. It also sheds light on consumers’ different motivations to participate as a peer provider and as as peer consumer. We developed a unique model to unmask few of the complex motivations of consumers towards peer to peer exchanges by combining the interrelated values — religiosity, spirituality, materialism and minimalism — and tested the model based on structural equation modelling technique. Data was gathered using a self-administered online survey, resulting in a convenience sample of 333 consumers. The study concludes that religiosity and spirituality have differential effects on materialism and minimalism and therefore impact peer provider and peer consumer propensities differently. The study provides valuable insights for academicians and marketing practitioners by exploring the influence of interplay among different values related to sharing on peer provider and peer consumer propensities.

ABSTRACT. Cycling is a mode of transportation credited with environmental, economic and health benefits (Jaszczak et al., 2020). It is a sustainable, environmentally friendly non-motorised transportation that does not pollute the environment and requires less land use than other motorised transportation (Balkmar, 2020). Cycling is considered a cheap entry-level mode of transportation as it is affordable and easily assessable with little training to control it (Acheampong & Siiba, 2018). Despite these benefits, Cycling remains a marginalised mode of transportation, as the focus is often on motorised transportation modes. This research aims to understand consumers' behaviour and attitude towards Cycling and particular cycling clubs in an attempt for people to adopt a more sustainable mode of transportation.

ABSTRACT. This research examines how luxury brands are addressing environmental and social sustainability in their social media posts on Instagram. It investigates luxury brands’ posts focusing on two sustainability event dates (Earth Day for environmental and “Black Out Tuesday” for social sustainability) to determine what aspects of the social media posts result in positive consumer affect (i.e., red heart in the comments) toward the posts. Regarding environmental sustainability, we find five paths leading to positive consumer affect. Two of these follow what would be considered the central route per the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), primarily discussing the brand’s sustainability efforts by delivering factual information. Three paths follow the peripheral route, such as having multiple message elements, the use of influencers and hashtags, but not the quality of argument. For social sustainability, there were six paths leading to positive consumer affect. Only one would be considered the central route in influencing consumer affect. The other five paths followed a more peripheral route. This study contributes to understanding luxury brands use of social media by examining various paths through which luxury brands can achieve positive consumer affective reactions to their social media posts that highlight the luxury brand’s strategic orientation toward sustainability.

ABSTRACT. To provide continuous and seamless customer care at all phases of the customer journey, most firms have included chatbots and virtual assistance technologies into their (e-commerce) websites and social media platforms as part of their digital and social media marketing strategy (i.e., pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase stages).Face-to-face engagement between clients and front-line staff is critical in the service sector, but it can be challenging to accomplish. This study aims to fill a research gap by investigating visitors' intent to use chatbots prior to, during, and after their journey. Finally, our analysis contributes to current theories on technology acceptability by incorporating additional factors such as the intention to reduce mitigation efforts. Chatbots, for example, may appeal to health-conscious tourists in particular. Tourists prefer chatbots only during the pre-trip and post-trip periods, according to our results, and travel and tourism organizations should alter their digital and social media marketing tactics appropriately. When building chatbots, travel and tourist organizations should consider productivity (quick, easy-to-use, and convenient) and communication competency. Managers in the travel and hospitality sectors should incorporate social presence into their chatbots since it is vital both before and after the trip.

ABSTRACT. Modern advertising often relies on customers' data to develop a personalized customer-oriented marketing strategy to deliver the right content to the right person at the right time. 'Deepfakes' involve digitally manipulating and altering and creating synthetic media ads that boost the potential to create interactive, immersive and engaging hyper-personalized shopping experiences. Greater personalization typically increases service relevance and the perceived appeal of an ad. However, paradoxically, there are indications that it can increase the customers’ sense of vulnerability and lower adoption rates. Where existing research typically focuses on the negativity surrounding deepfakes, the calls for corporate digital responsibility grow stronger. However, since research about implementing deepfakes into business practices, and specifically the use in marketing, is nascent, currently firms, brands and consumers remain relatively uninformed. This study therefore draws on cultivation theory to investigate the commercial use of deepfake hyper-personalization adverts (DHAs) on consumer attitudes (pre-test) and how it impacts emotion and purchase intention (Study 1) in the advertising of sustainable goods.

ABSTRACT. Augmented Reality (AR) combines best of real and virtual worlds by letting customers access the brand experience without having to come to a physical store. Our purpose was to measure the impact of Augmented reality on consumer perception of Website Quality and Brand Recall. We conducted two studies sequentially. The first study helped us to choose an AR-enabled website for conducting final study. The final study included comparing responses of consumers after visiting AR-enabled website (lenskart.com) and without AR website (coolwinks.com). Out of 469 responses collected, 420 were useful. This study confirmed that the AR-try-on feature significantly increases the chances of customers to recall the brand as compared to the website without AR. Also, the AR significantly improves the consumer perception of website quality. Earlier literature lacked focus on the value of brand recall in the context of AR. This study implies that AR could increase customer engagement.

ABSTRACT. This paper aims to answer Bagozzi's (2006) call for more research on the role of emotion in B2B marketing. B2B selling is an excellent example of studying emotions due to its emotionally demanding job nature. Salesperson turnover is a significant concern among sales organizations (Mulki & Jaramillo, 2011). Concerning turnover, retaining salespeople is another persistent problem (Boles et al., 2012). Understanding the emotions of B2B salespeople who left their job may provide insights into salespeople retention. To do so, we adopted Ekman's (1992) six basic emotions: Anger, Fear, Surprise, Disgust, Joy, and Sadness. We used the NRC emotion lexicon (Mohammad & Turney, 2013) to measure the emotions in more than 22,000 job reviews fB2B salespeople wrote on Glassdoor.com. We found several intriguing patterns. First, as the company rating rises from one to five stars, Anger, Fear, Disgust, and Sadness monotonically decrease. Joy monotonically increases. Surprise increases until its peak at four stars, then declines. Second, all emotions except Surprise are indicative of company rating. Third, Joy and Sadness rise as the company rating increases. Then we offer possible explanations for these results. We conclude this paper by discussing the study's managerial implications, limitations, and avenues for future research.

ABSTRACT. Please see the attached. Thank you.

ABSTRACT. Loyalty programs are companies’ marketing investment aimed at rewarding customers to cultivate customers relationship and promote customer loyalty (Chaudhuri, Voorhees, and Beck 2019; Liu 2007). Although loyalty programs exhibit strong influences on brand choices, implementing these programs does not guarantee desirable outcomes. In this study, we focus on loyalty program’s ability to unlock potentials of network, the attribute unexamined by previous studies. Specifically, we propose that loyalty programs can help stabilize sponsor firms’ future cash flow (and thereby, lower idiosyncratic risk) when (1) the sponsor firms’ network-related quality increase, (2) the potential of sponsor firms’ customer network is unlocked, and (3) the programs’ delivery network is expanded.

ABSTRACT. Plant based meat substitutes (PBMS) are food products that aim to approximate meat in terms of appearance, eating sensation and nutritional value. As faux meat these products may act as a gateway for people to attain more sustainable diets. The study utilises Best–Worst Scaling and Latent Profile Analysis to assess the importance attributed by consumers to information about the health, ecological and sensory attributes of PBMS. The findings show that the primary target market for plant-based meat substitutes place high importance on product information about fortification and saturated fat. In line with previous research, these consumers are more likely to be female and follow a flexitarian diet. Consumers who place high importance on clean labelling (no artificial colours or flavours and made with organic ingredients) are not an attractive market for PBMS. Consumers who value products with high protein and high fibre are a potential target market, but the issue of perceived affordability will need to be addressed. The research builds on previous attitudinal studies into PBMS by using best-worst scaling to examine trade-offs between attribute information. An understanding of the most important informational attributes perceived by different consumer cohorts will enable more effective marketing on product packaging.

ABSTRACT. To solve the problem of human food consumption and achieve global sustainable prosperity and development, people must change their nutrient intake from animal-based to plant-based sources. Based on preliminary qualitative in-depth focus group interviews on the aspects of the environment, human health and animal welfare by this author, this study aims to investigate which social representations of plant-based meat (PBM) as a meat substitute affect Taiwanese consumers’ willingness to try such sustainable food. The moderating effect of food neophobia was also incorporated into consideration in this research. A total of 490 respondents participated and completed the online questionnaire. Hierarchical moderated regression analysis revealed that three social representations of PBM positively contribute to Taiwanese consumers’ willingness to try PBM: perceived benefits of eating PBM, perceived trust in the PBM supply chain, and perceived social norms regarding plant-based dietary trends. Food neophobia could inhibit consumers’ willingness to try PBM. However, if the perceived benefits of eating PBM outweigh consumers’ degrees of food neophobia, consumers are more likely to be willing to try PBM. In addition, consumers’ food neophobia may inhibit their willingness to try PBM despite they have perceived social norms regarding plant-based dietary trends.

ABSTRACT. Digital technologies allow the reorganisation of processes, the elaboration of novel business models, and a more effective interaction with consumers. In sectors such as agri-food, given the increasing focus on healthiness, and given its emotional implications and symbolic value for consumers, digital tools enable novel marketing strategies that might increase consumers’ loyalty and a variety of differentiation strategies. Despite early enthusiasms, the adoption of digital tools in marketing strategies by food SMEs remains weak. The delay might depend on the fact that firms pursue different approaches to online presence. The paper moves from this assumption to discuss the construct of online presence and presents a cluster analysis defining different configurations. Based on these findings and on the results of interviews to managers, the paper formulates propositions for further research on the motivations behind the choices related to online presence.

ABSTRACT. In a context of mass information, an individual is exposed to up to 2200 ads per day. In contrast, the consumers' attention and ability to focus on advertisments has decreased in the past decades.Today, the exposure to an advertisement become a decisive moment for the brands, that have to attract attention and reach their persuasion goal in a very few seconds. It is then possible to consider the use of rhetorical figures, discoursal elements that are assumed to provide salience and enhance the persuasiveness of the message. A thesis will be dedicated to the identification and measure of the effects of rhetorical figures in advertising, on perceived humour, persuasion and brand image. The following paper will provide an overview of the potential inputs of the rhetorical figures in advertising and introduce the considered methodology for this current research project.

ABSTRACT. While the marketing literature has so far paid little attention to the product end-of-life, current environmental considerations encourage us to study the solutions offered to individuals when they no longer use a product. The first aim of this research is to check if the theoretical framework of perceived residual value can be used to study clothing post-use behaviours. The second goal is to identify the value sources when clothing is donated or resold using the theoretical frameworks of consumer value and perceived value of a consumption practice. To this end, 21 phenomenological interviews were conducted and processed by manual analysis. This exploratory research highlights the relevance of enriching the framework of perceived residual value centred on the product with the perceived value of a practice centred on an individual's mode of consumption in order to better appreciate the choice of an item's recirculation channel.

ABSTRACT. The current production and consumption practices are reinforcing the trajectory towards a problematic future. There are therefore increasingly urgent calls to rethink current approaches (e.g. Spotswood et al. 2017; Lefebvre 2012; Brennan and Parker2014). The driving force of the global economy worldwide is consumption and production. Most agree that climate change is a serious threat. It has increasingly been recognized by scientists and policymakers as a consumer behaviour issue: What, how, and how much people consume directly impacts the environment. In a resource-constrained world, growth needs to be both economically sustainable, and environmentally and socially sustainable as well. Marketers have a key role here. The morality and feelings of consumers have a significant impact on how they behave in ecological terms. However, merely caring about the environment does not translate into practicing good ecological behaviour, and customers are skeptical of claims made about green products as a result of which they have a negative opinion of the green features of the allegedly green items. Using structural equation modelling and an empirical study with 800 purposively selected respondents in an emerging economy, this study paper will analyse the role value orientation and altruism play in driving sustainable consumer behaviour.

ABSTRACT. The servicescape is the physical surrounding in which a service is delivered. Although air quality features prominently in Bitner’s (1992) original servicescape model and despite evidence that suggests that ambient conditions in the servicescape affect customer- and employee-related outcomes, air quality remains underresearched compared to other ambient factors. Drawing on servicescape and customer experience literature and using a sequential, mixed method design comprising qualitative interviews and an experimental study, we present findings about the effect of objective servicescape air quality on key customer outcomes. This research has theoretical and practical implications.

ABSTRACT. Prior research in service failure and recovery has focused on how consumers respond to the service failures and tangible recovery attempts of firms. There is comparatively less research addressing situations of double deviations, wherein both the service and the recovery fail. In such circumstances, the intentions of the company are more likely to be questioned. Evidence in the domain relatively recently acknowledged the importance of inferred negative intentions in consumers’ responses to service failure and recovery. Thus far, there is however little understanding of how inferences of negative intentions are formed. The paper aims to elucidate the psychological mechanism enacting inferences of intent, and the conditions under which such inferences are prominent.

ABSTRACT. Social media has become pervasive as a marketing tool, yet we know relatively little about how engagement with social media concurrently with consumption of a service experience influences satisfaction with that experience. Furthermore, we have only limited understanding of whether the recording of an experience facilitates long-term memory recall of the experience, or undermines it by distracting attention during the service encounter. We review literature on memory processes to test hypotheses relating to the effects of social media on satisfaction and subsequent recall. We test our hypotheses in a three-stage, time lagged study of visitors to three museums and art galleries.

We find that social media engagement during an event has a positive effect on memorability of that event, but only in the short-term memory, as our analysis showed us in the long-term memory there is no significant effect. We also found that although memorability of an event has a positive effect on short-term future behaviour intention, in the longer run, it has no effect.

ABSTRACT. Applications pertaining to blockchains and their impact on supply chains have been widely discussed in the literature and media. However, widescale blockchain adoption remains an ongoing challenge for many supply chains, as a blockchain application or its use case hasn’t witnessed large-scale implementation. This paper examines the conditions that influence blockchain adoption. We integrate the effects of consumer choices, circularity, traceability effort, and technology costs and examine firms’ and supply chain players’ blockchain adoption decisions using analytical models. Our results indicate the existence of a substitution effect between the traceability effect and consumer market characteristics that can drive blockchain adoption. Interestingly, even under conditions when consumers do not value traceability efforts by the firms, we find that the benefits realized from circular supply chains may influence firms to adopt blockchain.

ABSTRACT. Despite the numerous technological and managerial improvements in business logistics, out of stock (OOS) situations remain a major problem for the entire supply chain. As the avoidance or recovery from OOSs faces limited resources at store levels (e.g. staff, money), this paper deals with effective recovery management by highlighting on shelf availability (OSA).Therefore, a scenario-based experiment within 3,353 German consumers was conducted. The findings suggest that the occurrence of OOSs influences consumers behavior negatively. This negative effect does not differ between hedonic and utilitarian products, but it differs between the level of product importance. Thus, OOSs of high importance products are perceived as more severe than OOSs of low importance ones. We additionally found that the effect of OOSs is fueled by previous expectations towards OSA. Finally, we assess that the provision of recovery measures decreases the effect of OOSs and that there is a difference between the provision of basic and plus recovery measures in the case of hedonic products. This research contributes to the literature by adding further insights to retail OOSs and their recovery management. The results provide recommendations for instore operations how to allocate their limited resources towards an effective service failure recovery management on OSA.

ABSTRACT. Using incentive premiums to stimulate channel members is one of the principal strategies of marketing channel governance. However, conflicting evidence exists regarding their role and effectiveness in motivating channel members' cooperation. Drawing on the motivation crowding theory and integrating it with the channel governance literature, the study proposes that incentive premium has a nonlinear effect on channel members' cooperative performance. Using an experiment and a field study, the authors find strong empirical support for the inverted U-shaped effect. These findings highlight the performance trade-offs associated with incentive premiums and have important implications in managing marketing channels.

ABSTRACT. Is winning a national football match in prominent tournaments important for the national economy? In this research, we study how important football match outcomes affect 10-year government bond yields. To answer this question, we evaluate the causal impact of national football match (World Cup and European Championship) outcomes (win, loss and tie) on 10-year government bond yields in event study setting for 475 World Cup and 337 European Championship matches from 1990 to 2021. We find that, despite the immediate negative reaction following a loss, the effect flips from the first trading day to the second trading day after the match. This suggests a preliminary negative reaction to the national loss on the first trading day after the match and a quick rebound on the second trading day after the match. We show that this surprising flip from day 1 to day 2 following the lost matches can be partially explained by the positive manipulation of the sentiment of the economic news released by the governments. Together these results show the significance of football matches for the economy and the subsequent strategic intervention of governments to alleviate the financial aftermath of a national loss.

ABSTRACT. Scholars have contributed to the domain of craft production, focusing mainly on the characteristics of craft companies, the rise of markets and categories driven by craft production, and the way in which industrial companies employ “craft” to dignify their products and brands. Scholars looking at craft from the consumers’ perspective focus on one or a few attributes of craft products to measure if and how consumers prefer craft versions of products instead of industrial ones. We develop a comprehensive framework of the meanings that consumers use to describe what they mean for craft. Our purpose is to introduce a general understanding of the concept of craft from a consumer perspective and provide a first empirical measure to be further extended and validated at a more general level. Through a qualitative analysis, we provide an overall conceptualization of craft products which is grounded on four dimensions: product (how consumers recognize a craft product), consumer (how individual characteristics, such as habits, individual traits, social relationships attract consumers towards craft products), production process (manufacturing characteristics that distinguish craft products), and producer (how the identity and the characteristics of the producer help the consumer to distinguish craft products).

ABSTRACT. Although Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) garnered tremendous attention and growing research interest, existing studies on the phenomenon are largely skewed toward the investigation of the financial mechanisms underpinning its trading, or of forerunning use cases in various industries. Still, very little is known about how consumers perceive this emerging technology, and the way they frame it in their online conversations. Given the increasingly influential role of social media users in the legitimation of emerging product categories, this research investigates the main discursive strategies through which different social media users contribute to the technological sense-making of the novel NFT category. To do so, we perform a cross-platform analysis on about five million user-generated interactions posted on leading NFT-related online communities across six social media platforms. Bridging computational, i.e., structural topic modeling, and qualitative analyses, we identify the main discourses (i.e., promotional, communitarian, educational, spam, and deceptive) and multiple discursive strategies put forth by various SM users about NFTs. Our findings contribute to innovation and diffusion research and offer several implications to brands approaching this new technology.

ABSTRACT. The effect of workforce diversity on customers is an important and understudied topic in marketing. The following article reviews the published studies investigating how customers perceive and are influenced by employees with disabilities. Studies included for review examined how customers respond when served by an employee with a disability. Scopus was used as the primary database in the search for articles. A total of eight studies have been reviewed. Nearly all the studies are published recently, indicating the growing academic interest in the topic. Findings are discussed as there is no consensus on whether disability can positively or negatively affect the customer’s perception of the employee and the company. Research gaps, methodologies and limitations are addressed, and future research directions are suggested and discussed. This review indicates that there is still room for research on the topic with important gaps that could be the reason for inconsistent findings.

ABSTRACT. Internet of Things, Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality, Virtual Assistants (VAs) and robots, and other Artificial Intelligence (AI) -based technologies are radically transforming the customer experience (CX) throughout the entire purchase process. Particularly, voice-activated speakers have become very popular in the last decade, influencing the way people access and consume content, perform tasks, search for information, and, more recently, how they purchase and interact with companies. VAs offer a new way to create value in the process of exchange between a client and a provider, by means of verbal interaction, making the shopping experience frictionless. Therefore, technology has become a new actor that can co-create value on its own. In this paper, we study the impact of the expected benefits of interacting with VAs over the intention to use them for shopping.

ABSTRACT. This qualitative study explores the factors influencing retired consumers in technology socialisation, drawing on a life-course framework. A retrospective interview approach was adopted to capture the voices of retired Chinese consumers and their families regarding their life stories in technology consumption and perceptions about retired consumers' consumer identity change. The findings reveal three factors influencing retired consumers' adaption to change in technology consumption, including the role model of the senior generation, the comfort zone in social life, and the "age card" plays for distancing uncertain risks in consumption. In addition, these findings provide an understanding of how retired consumers juggle with or adapt to the change through managing the relationships between self, others, and consumer resources in the past and present life experiences. As a result, marketers and policymakers could understand the barriers of retired consumers, therefore implementing strategies and policies to improve their well-being in technology consumption.

ABSTRACT. This study responds to recent calls for a research agenda into subjective financial well-being (SFW). We provide initial indications of the unique nuances and dynamics of SFW that exist in retirement. As a major life stage that has significant effects on an increasing portion of the global population, it is important to understand the issues retirees face. Eighteen focus groups with 168 retirees and 69 interviews with members of the retirement ecosystem were conducted across Australia. The findings reveal that SFW in retirement has strong mental, emotional and behavioural associations, potentially more than in other phases of an individual’s life. While recognizing that current and anticipated financial states may not necessarily be aligned in earlier stages of life, there is greater alignment between current and anticipated financial states during retirement. Due to uncertainty and inability to recover depleted financial resources, retirees may forego immediate spending to prolong their savings. In doing so, they experience avoidably lower SFW. Government and industry are urged to look beyond objective measures and focus on the subjective perspective of financial well-being, and to consider intervention strategies that ease the emotional, mental, and financial stresses of retirement.

ABSTRACT. Recently, applications of new technologies in mobile have accelerated the growth of Fintech services. In particular, “WealthTech” refers to a Fintech at the intersection between emerging technologies (e.g., blockchain, artificial intelligence, and robot advisory) and wealth management. A growing customer segment in WealthTech is millennials, backed up by their rising purchasing power and social status. Yet, our understanding of millennials is limited as they are still an emerging customer segment, especially in wealth management. This paper argues that subjective knowledge influences millennials' perceived belief in competence, or self-efficacy, in making financial decisions using the wealth management app. The results obtained from 194 millennials support our theorizing. Our findings offer both theoretical and managerial implications to marketers at the intersection between new technologies and financial services.

ABSTRACT. The purpose of this study was to understand how an assessment-based certificate created by a faculty member and industry partner aids in the skill development of undergrad Business and Marketing students. The main research questions include: ● To what extent can a faculty-partnered industry certificate help Marketing students gain digital marketing skills? ● To what extent is faculty presence helpful in a certificate-based training module? ● To what extent does the certificate work to enhance skill-building exercises and associated exams in conjunction with the other teaching approaches in the class? The participants in the study were students from MKT 3320 Marketing on the Internet course in the fall of 2020. The participants were introduced to key topic areas and concepts related to an assessment-based certificate program each week in the classroom. The implementation of the assessment-based certificate in the classroom was driven by the theoretical underpinnings of skills-based learning models and faculty presence (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2001). Upon completion of the assessment-based certificate, students were asked to complete a survey that asked questions related to the theories and their perception of the learning process.

ABSTRACT. As future marketing professionals, marketing students need awareness of the growing diversity and inequities in the marketplace and the skills to respond to them effectively through inclusive marketing. While past work has offered suggestions for addressing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in marketing through experiential activities and courses, the integration of DEI topics into the marketing curriculum is still limited and siloed from primary marketing education. Our work offers a more integrative approach that weaves critical topics and issues into a traditional introductory marketing course. Based on interviews with ten marketing professionals, all of whom have DEI-related roles in their current firms, and our review of marketing and pedagogical research, we offer a DEI-integrated introductory marketing course outline for marketing professors. Our outline presents key DEI topics to present in each of the standard introductory marketing chapters, along with learning activities that can be utilized to enhance student understanding and application of various DEI topics. Recognizing the challenges that discussing some of these topics in a classroom may create for professors, we offer recommendations for handling uncomfortable conversations in the classroom.

ABSTRACT. Higher education has undeniably become a globalized and competitive marketplace, in which universities have to compete with each other to attract both domestic and international students. But it is important to note that each individual student also brings their own personal story and experiences that carry different cultural meanings in how and why they purse higher education. In fact, for many it is more than simply pursuing a qualification. This paper seeks to gain a better understanding of how Thai students negotiate their own personal interests for academic and non-academic experiences against family and social expectations regarding their pursuit of higher education. How do they negotiate their interests in subject areas and choice in particular (types of) university with the expectations and pressures from their family and social environment? We found that, young Thai consumers who are pursing higher education, including when choosing their area of subject interests and university choices, are seeking much more beyond obtaining a qualification and enabling career opportunities. But it seems that students are often obligated to negotiate their desire for self-identity development, personal growth, and university choice that very much relied on the expectations of their family honour, social status, and cultural expectations.

ABSTRACT. MOOCs are today recognized as relevant educational services to widely disseminate academic knowledge in Marketing. In order to succeed in these programs, user participation (UP), and its dimension user effort (UE), are critical. Against this background, we explore different motivational forces that impact users' willingness to invest effort (WIE) in a MOOC. In order to do so, we extract motivational data of N=108 users (who successfully completed the MOOC with a certificate) that were collected during the registration process (ex-ante) of a Marketing MOOC on New Product Development. A content analysis reveals that principally two intrinsic (excitement of novelty and longing for autonomy) and two extrinsic motivations (leverage and network) can be observed in participants who successfully completed the program. We propose a model linking these motivational antecedents to WIE, actual UE and successful performance.

ABSTRACT. Crunchy moms cultivate a ‘natural’ lifestyle within the family in opposition to experts and institutions (Dejmanee and Rhode 2021). From a consumption ideology perspective, crunchy moms represent themselves as alienated from hegemonic motherhood and the conformity of market affirmation (Schmitt et al. 2021) that entails. In fact, the co-optation of more extreme crunchy ideals by moms on TikTok may create new markets, promote crunchy principles, and recruit consumers to identify with the crunchy community (Thompson and Coskuner-Balli 2007).

Using digital ethnography, we explored the lived experiences of crunchy moms expressing their identities and performing their lifestyles on TikTok as they negotiate the conflict between natural motherhood desires and consumerist ideology and build natural motherhood community microcultures. We found crunchy mom creators position themselves as rebels against institutions, seeking the freedom to follow their own intuitions when making consumption choices for their families. While conforming to traditional gender norms, crunchy moms reject mainstream mothering advice and seek kindred communities. To sustain both their extreme consumption while living out their crunchy mom ideology, they perform domestic labor and, often hidden, content creation, affiliate marketing, and handicraft labor. These preliminary observations show their activist consumption reinforces the dominant ideology of the mainstream market.

ABSTRACT. Politicians, parties, organizations, and governments are increasingly using branding theory to help develop and manage their political goods. While there has been significant progress in this area of research, there are certain aspects of political branding where research is needed. Co-branding is one such area. The notion of co-branding supports the idea of using the brands of political parties and candidates together as political co-brands. The political co-brand at the constituency/local level combines the candidate brand and the party brand. The application of co-branding to politics is one of the under-research areas which have garnered little attention. The scarcity of studies on co-brands has been prominent in the literature, particularly in diverse situations, contexts, and situations. Therefore, this study has tried to analyze process of a political co-brand’s image and t positioning in a post-election context, in Pakistan.

ABSTRACT. Abstract

ABSTRACT. Despite the popularity of medical devices, marketing researchers rarely observe and research this industry. Yet, its importance is tremendously growing as more patients see improvements in quality of life through orthopedic medical devices. Like other industries, technological advancements have resulted in a competitive market for medical devices. In order to adapt to the changing future, the medical device industry needs to reinvent their traditional business practices or else succumb to “marketing myopia” (Levitt, 1960). Traditionally, the medical device industry has been targeting hospitals or practitioners to sell their products. However, shifting market dynamics may require the industry to include patients as their target customers. Van Der Heuvel, Kapadia, Stirling and Zhou (2018) have shown that many purchasing decisions regarding medical devices have already moved from clinical to economic buyers. As this move intensifies, managers of such companies would need to change their branding approaches to target patients along with practitioners. Therefore, in this paper, we aim to develop an indigenous marketing theory explaining branding of medical devices for patients.

ABSTRACT. A life event is a distinctive occurrence that exerts a major influence on an individual. In this study, we first conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) to bring together the disparate streams of literature and highlight the gaps that currently exist. Among other things, the SLR (Study 1) revealed that life events differ in a number of ways, yet researchers seem to pick life events to study without much explanation about the choice. This PhD updates the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) and another commonly used list of life events. Later, it uses Life Course Model (Moschis, 2007) and identifies ad hoc characteristics from the literature to classify life events. A questionnaire is created to collect data from a national panel of consumers who will rate experienced life events according to this conceptual model (Study 2). Data will be analysed with cluster analysis. A third study is proposed where we test the impact of economically difficult life events on the financial satisfaction of consumers, where stress and coping mechanisms acted as mediating variables. This will also be done through a survey and data will be analysed using structural equation modelling.

ABSTRACT. Traditional media (e.g. Radio, TV, Cinema, ...) have been playing an important part in the development of the glamorization of Alcohol and Tobacco products (A&T), impacting young people as adolescents, more at risk of being influenced by the values surrounding the use of these product. This influence is now transposed on the new media, knowingly, the Social Networking Sites (SNS). In order to minimize the influence of A&T products presented/placed on media popular with adolescents; it is important to develop the skills of these adolescents to resist this type of influence by developing their competences in SNS literacy. Different programmes could be created to develop the competences of adolescents to face the influential strategies integrated within the media posted online, however, the relevance of such programmes could be questioned. This research programme intends to develop and validate a scale that could be used to assess the SNS literacy competencies of French adolescents. Furthermore, the scale is expected to evaluate the extent of which the level of SNS literacy competences associated to A&T could impact the substances expectancies. Data are being processed at the moment of submission and will be ready to be presented and discussed in time for the conference.

ABSTRACT. Submitting Structured Abstract below.

ABSTRACT. When consumers share their negative experiences through an online negative word-of-mouth (NWOM), the repercussions can be devastating for the companies involved. Academics and managers generally consider that the management of such an expression of discontent ends as soon as the author's satisfaction is restored. On the contrary, this management could go further to offer a solution to the negative publicity constituted by the NWOM. By studying the effect of webcare responses incorporating implicit or explicit requests for review, the present research describes the process leading complainants to publicly revise their comment and to move from detractor to promoter. Three experiments highlight the direct and indirect effect of the explicitness of a revision request on the complainant's behavioural intentions.

ABSTRACT. This study employs thematic content analysis to explore how the content source (brand versus brands in collaboration with celebrities), content type (informative, social, and entertaining), and content format (videos, links, photos, and text) shape customer engagement on Twitter. It also aims to unpack the user-generated content (UGC) patterns in response to brand-generated content (BGC). Using 5086 tweets generated by a brand and 4676 brand-related tweets generated by users, the findings demonstrate a significant increase in user engagement with the content generated by brands in collaboration with a celebrity compared to the content generated solely by the brand regardless of the content type. The findings also reveal that social and entertaining content attracts more user engagement than informative content. Users tend to engage more with tweets containing images than tweets containing videos or links. The findings further illustrate that most users' brand-related content is in the 'mention' style, and most users' comments include negative behavior-related content. Our findings provide marketing managers with actionable insights into managing and monitoring brand-related social media content.

ABSTRACT. There has been a call in the services marketing literature to examine socially unacceptable services, whose consumption is considered inappropriate or immoral (Rosenbaum and Russell-Bennett 2020). Pornography is one of these services. Pornography ’is defined as “professionally produced or consumer-generated pictures or videos intended to sexually arouse the viewer” (Sniewsk, Farvida, and Carter, 2018, P.218). Studying it is of utmost importance because of the widespread consumption of pornography and the potential negative effects that its consumption can cause. A recent survey of adults in the United States reveals that the consumption of pornography is prevalent among men (91.5%) and women 60.2% (Solano et al. 2018). A recent survey in the U.K. also showed that 60% of those surveyed watch porn at work. It is also estimated that between 2% and 17% of porn users will meet the threshold for compulsive or problematic consumption. We build on research examining human well-being to propose a conceptual model that explains how consumers' orientation to well-being (i.e. happiness) influences porn consumption. More specifically we distinguish between hedonic and eudaimonic orientations to well-being.

ABSTRACT. This paper discusses the attributes of brand visualization and its impact on the retrieval of brand among consumers. The paper presents a brief review and discussion on various brands attributes to map the consumer behavior on various visualizations of the brand in reference to color, calligraphy, brand name, logo, punch line, and anchor of the brand, studied in contemporary marketing literature. Repeated interactions constitute brand retrieval effects by featuring new experiences, insights, and perspectives, not unlike a developing romantic relationship where partners progressively discover each other and long to be together. The brand visualization develops emotional attachment with the brand and stimulate purchase intentions among consumers include personalization of brands, visual, and experiential determinants. The study reveals that positive brand visualizations develop emotional attachment to a brand among consumers and consumers may be committed to a brand for various economic, cognitive, and relational reasons.

ABSTRACT. The paper investigates the effect of two PL branding strategy options (linked or stand-alone) on PL brand attitude considering PL tiers and degree of specialization of the online retailer as moderators. An online experiment with a 2 (PL branding strategies) x 2 (PL tier) x 2 (degree of specialization) between-subjects design with 358 participants was conducted. To test the hypotheses, an ANCOVA was performed. The study reveals a significant 3-way interaction which illustrates that the effect of the two PL branding strategies differs for online retailers with low vs. high degree of specialization. In the case of high degree of specialization for premium PLs a linked strategy is more favourable while for economy PLs a stand-alone strategy should be preferred. In the case of low degree of specialization, the stand-alone PL branding strategy is generally more favorable.

ABSTRACT. This research offers a novel potential donors’ classification for charities that are co-branding with celebrities as human brands. This work identifies segments in terms of their perceived donation attitude and desire, as well as celebrity attractiveness, trustworthiness and expertise. Using cluster analysis, and drawing upon a non-probability sample of 860 respondents, this exploratory study proposes the first typology of potential donors, and, thus offers mechanisms that can be applied to classify these segments and, thus, assist charities in tailoring the most appropriate messages to them upon potential collaboration with celebrities as human brands. This research evidences that potential donors are significantly heterogeneous. “Moderate supporters”, “parsimonious altruists”, and “parsimonious sceptics” appreciate the collaboration between celebrities and charities, whereas “authentic altruists” oppose the collaboration between charities and celebrities.

ABSTRACT. A culture of celebrity is a phenomenon that began in the late twentieth century, deeply influencing the social world. According to the literature several aspects contribute to celebrity worship namely demographic factors, personality, religiosity, behavioural and cognitive factors, relationship with others, and psychological wellbeing. It is also recognised that celebrity endorsement can affect consumers’ purchasing behaviours, being one of the relevant strategies used by many brands to increase the acceptance and profitability of the products, brand trust, brand equity, and happiness. This study aims to analyse how celebrity worship and closeness can influence consumers’ attitudes towards the endorsed brands and generate feelings of happiness. The findings of our study reveal that celebrity worship and closeness to the person exercises direct and positive significant effect on consumers’ attitude toward the endorsed brands, thereby enabling the application of celebrity worship measure for building a strong brand and extension exercises.

ABSTRACT. In the marketplace, consumers are exposed to a prevalent number of different types of advertisements utilizing emojis. Therefore, this research study examines how individuals evaluate emotional vs. functional advertisements that include emojis and the impact on processing fluency, claim believability of the advertisements, attitude toward the ad, and purchase of intention. This research study employed a 2 (absence/presence emojis) × 2 (functional/emotional ads) incomplete factorial design with four experimental conditions (i.e., emotional ad without emojis, functional ad without emojis, emotional ad with emojis, and functional ad with emojis). The results, in line with Emotion as social information (EASI) theory, suggest that in the sport drink advertising context, emotional advertising without emojis led to a higher attitude toward the advertisement, brand attitude, purchase intention, claim believability and processing information compared to the other experimental conditions that included emojis.

ABSTRACT. In a context of generalized consumer mistrust, a growing number of producer and distributor brands are adding the image of their suppliers to their product packaging in order to reassure consumers. The aim was to create a close relationship with consumers, thus promoting trust in the brand. However, to date, no study has confirmed that consumers actually feel closer to producers thanks to these photographs. An experimental study conducted on a sample of 1081 individuals shows that the presence of the producer's photograph on food packaging increases the perceived proximity to the brand, generating positive impacts on brand trust. This research enriches the literature on iconic characters by identifying their impact on key consumer behavior variables.

ABSTRACT. Communicating the olfactory attributes of a product is challenging, especially in the digital age when consumers often have no access to the physical product. To this end, primarily drawing on conceptual metaphor theory and heuristics-related literature, the present research introduces visually implied explosion (i.e., the perception of explosion induced by a static image) as a promising tool to influence consumers’ olfactory perception. Two experiments were conducted in a perfume marketing context. Experiment 1 used simple print advertisement stimuli created for a fictitious brand and recruited a UK online panel sample, showing that visually implied explosion can increase perceived scent intensity and consequently enhance perceived scent persistence. Experiment 2 conceptually replicated these findings, using highly realistic print advertisement stimuli created for a well-known brand and French participants. Therefore, the present research suggests that visually implied explosion can effectively influence consumers’ olfactory perception without the presence of a physical product, providing a promising sensory-enabling technique for online sensory marketing practices.

ABSTRACT. Food ordering apps (FDAs) have gained popularity in recent years due to the changing lifestyle and mobile technology transformation. Particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, more consumers have used FDAs to order their food. This research examines how visual information, such as the food pictures featured on the menu of an ethnic restaurant on FDAs, affects restaurant patronage. The findings show that visual information leads to higher patronage through online trust and consumer attitudes towards the restaurant. Further, the cosmopolitanism and long-term orientation moderate the effect of visual information on restaurant patronage. The current research contributes to the extant literature on visual information, cosmopolitanism, and cultural values. Managerial implications are also provided.

ABSTRACT. This research focuses on food acculturation process of highly qualified professional expatriates and their families. Considering the multiple cultural influences that come into play in the process of food acculturation, it develops a typology of consumers. Our research highlights four expatriate profiles: (1) the Conservatives”, (2) the “Expats in their bubble”, (3) the “Integrated-Explorers” and (4) the “Integrated-Nostalgics”. The profiles identified in our study provide for marketers a tool for segmentation of expatriates on acculturation criteria applied to the field of food purchases and consumption.

ABSTRACT. Healthcare professionals (HCPs) are turning to social media to perform hit dances to trendy music in the name of healthcare education. TikTok, a short-form video platform that allows users to create entertaining, informative content, is making healthcare information more accessible by providing opportunities for HCPs to connect with consumers online. This research aims to identify how HCPs utilize TikTok to share health-related information by classifying their short-form video design, the primary content of their message, and how these factors impact consumer engagement. A content analysis of 330 TikTok videos posted by eleven physicians, identified as top/most followed on TikTok, showed that HCPs on TikTok present themselves with medical credentials and other cues that reflect their professionalism. Their content on TikTok focuses on healthcare information and advice as well as life as a healthcare professional. HCPs seemingly understand the importance of increasing visibility by using TikTok music/sound trends, but might not be using all of the technical capabilities offered by the platform which can result in higher consumer engagement. This study contributes to literature on healthcare marketing by providing insight into how HCPs utilize a popular social media platform to spread healthcare-related information.

ABSTRACT. Public health research has continually shown that minority women often lack healthcare equity due to both historical exclusion and the inability to recruit diverse participant pools, making them often underrepresented in health research studies. Numerous calls have been made for research investigating how health organizations can recruit more minority women to partake in studies? This research takes an interdisciplinary approach pulling from the foundations of both marketing and public health to show how social media influencers can employ various marketing communications strategies to reach underrepresented populations and enroll diverse groups of participants in health research studies. Results from an initial qualitative study are presented to show the motivators and barriers of research participation from minority women, along with a discussion of how influencers they follow might help encourage more enrollments. Research implications along with an outline of subsequent ongoing quantitative studies are provided in the discussion.

ABSTRACT. Covid-19 has been not only a pandemic, but an ‘infodemic’ of complex and dynamic information, which travels wide and fast. Several factors should be considered in relation to vaccine uptake, not only to reduce vaccine hesitancy, but also to provide insight for the acceptance of other future vaccines. This paper considers some of the key constructs, such as social influence, perceived behavioral control, perceived risk, conspiracy beliefs and vaccine mandates tolerance, and focuses particularly on attitudes towards traditional media advertising, as no studies have been published to date that use causal models to explain the central role of this variable. A new structural model is developed and tested in Greece by means of a questionnaire distributed to 939 individuals, providing statistical evidence regarding the impact of positive attitudes towards advertising on vaccination and the interrelationships between the model variables.

ABSTRACT. While mass vaccinations against the COVID-19 virus are widely considered the fastest way out of the pandemic, considerable vaccination hesitancy in the U.S., Canada, and Europe has fueled societal controversy between the vaccinated majority and unvaccinated minority. We use the Health-Belief-Model (HBM) to explore differences between these two uneven groups comparatively in Germany and Poland. Multigroup structural equation modeling based on a dataset of around 1,800 online survey participants identifies concerns about long-term side effects as the strongest barrier against vaccination or booster intention in Germany (Study 1) whereas it is the concern about insufficient protection despite being fully vaccinated in Poland (Study 2). Benefits mediate the relation between severity and booster (vaccinated sample) and vaccination intention (unvaccinated sample). Neither self-efficacy nor cues-to-action promote vaccination or booster intention in both countries. Increasing age reduces and knowledge increases the negative effect of barriers on booster intention among the vaccinated Germans, an effect not identified in Poland. Over time vaccination benefits decrease and worries about vaccination side-effects increase in Germany (Study 3, N=1,054). Implications suggest increasing transparency to enable knowledge-based consumer health decisions, to regain trust in official reporting, and to appease the societal controversy, therewith contributing to consumer well-being.

ABSTRACT. Despite Artificial Intelligence (AI)'s emerging trend in luxury services, recent research shows mixed findings regarding its impact. This paper builds upon the optimum distinctiveness theory and the need for uniqueness to examine AI's effects on consumers' willingness to accept luxury suggestions. Four studies reveal that using AI recommendations in the luxury sector reduces consumers' differentiation, which has downstream effects on luxury services and causes brand dilution. Findings further indicate that when specific characteristics of luxury, such as uniqueness, are enhanced, it damages consumers' willingness to accept luxury recommendations, and thus, AI backfires. The study findings have important theoretical and managerial implications, suggesting when AI should be used to provide recommendations for luxury experiences.

ABSTRACT. The research objective of this study is to test the validity and reliability of areas and dimensions revealed in previous meta-analyses of salesforce performance indicators in the context of service firms.We base the findings reported in this study on the meta-analyses of salesforce performance indicators by Verbeke, Dietz and Verwaal (2011) and Chawla et al. (2020). The methodology is based on a questionnaire survey based on a deductive approach. A total of 732 companies were ultimately selected to take part in the study to represent a range of companies from different industries and corporate sizes.A total of 389 questionnaires out of 732 were returned generating a response rate of 53.1%. We use univariate and multivariate statistical techniques to analyze the data collected during the empirical phase of the study. We contend that this study makes a two-fold contribution to existing theory and previous studies of salesforce performance indicators based on the meta-analyses by Verbeke, Dietz and Verwaal (2011) and Chawla et al. (2020): (i) confirms the main areas of salesforce performance indicators, such as: skill, motivation, role perception, aptitude, organizational/ environmental and technology; and (ii) confirms thirteen dimensions

ABSTRACT. Technology has had an effect on business models across many industries. One innovation in the service sector has been the use of virtual service agents to interact with customers. Although recent studies have been conducted about virtual agents, more study is needed to better understand consumers’ intention to use virtual agents and their willingness to co-create value. A conceptual model was developed addressing (i) the perceived usefulness and ease of use of an agent in a virtual environment as its antecedents, (ii) attitude as a mediator, and (iii) the intention to use and willingness to co-create as consequences. The model was tested on a survey of 691 service customers. The results showed that perceived usefulness is a stronger antecedent of attitude. In addition, attitude does not directly affect the customer’s willingness to engage in co-creation, but it does influence the intention to use and this has a significant impact on the willingness to co-create. In summary, our findings suggested the path perceived usefulness → attitude → intention to use → willingness to co-create as the most relevant in the model.

ABSTRACT. The development of mobile applications by retailers underlines the interest of consumers to use mobile in-store. Most research has focused on the impact of these kind of mobile applications on retail’s performance (Grewal & al., 2018), by considering specifically customer's extrinsic motivations thanks to persuasive communication strategies through the use of coupons or promotions (Kowatsch & Maass, 2010). However, the understanding of customer’s intrinsic motivations in-store deserves to be better understood (Grewal & al., 2018; Shankar & al., 2016). To this end, this study aims to understand, by focusing on the Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000), how customers use mobile in-store and what are their intrinsic motivations? For retailers, this better understanding of mobile use can allow them to better adapt their mobile services, enhance customer experience and therefore translate into better performance.

ABSTRACT. Retailing in the US has gone through considerable changes. Perhaps one of the most compelling change has been the rise of store-in-store agreements between retailers. These agreements arise when one retailer (the housing retailer) leases a part of its retail space to another independent retailer (housed retailer) such that it may sell products under its own name (Netemeyer, Heilman, and Maxham 2012). In this study we investigate the impact of this strategy on the housing retailers’ category and total sales. We find that these agreements increase not only foot traffic but also total sales.

ABSTRACT. Many online sellers use live streaming as a tool to display products and interact with customers. From the point of mental imagery, this study first examines whether the adoption of live streaming in an online retail context can help customers increase mental imagery on products, which, in turn, would impact customers’ behavioral intentions through decision comfort. In addition, we discussed product and cultural factors in this study. We investigate the influence of product recommendation contents (complement-based or substitute-based recommendations) and consumers' cultural orientations (collectivism or individualism) on mental imagery. This study contributes to live-streaming shopping by exploring how live streaming influences consumers' behavioral intentions through mental imagery, and the effect is mediated by decision comfort. In addition, we extend research by testing product presentations and cultural factors. Compared to substitute product recommendations, complementary product recommendations arouse more consumers' mental imagery. Furthermore, cultural background also affects their ability to imagine the experience of using the product. Consumers with high collectivism can better associate the product and the context of use. The findings may help online sellers to design product recommendation content in live-streaming and consider the cultural differences between consumers.

ABSTRACT. Due to the rising competition nowadays, companies strive for the attention and ‘love’ of their customers. Establishing and maintaining a close relationship with customers to convert them into ‘patrons’ still represents a key strategic aim of many firms, as doing so leads to sustainable sales and profits and thereby, return on investments, higher revenues and more durable customer relationships. In the literature there are different definitions of brand loyalty or brand love, but sometimes these constructs are not enough to describe the relationship between a retailer and their customers. In order to describe this and develop a measurement, the authors first conducted a systematic literature review to conceptualize the construct. Second, the authors carried out a bibliometric co-citation analysis. Third, in order to operationalise the construct of retail patronage, the authors provide an exploratory research design with semi-structured interviews (n=110). First, the author could identify the positive meaning of the construct by using multiple dimensions (relationship, emotional bond, loyalty, excellent service and offering, experience). Second, we can distinguish the construct retail patronage from similar constructs, like love and loyalty. Finally, we can suppose that the construct retail patronage has a positive influence on consumers' shopping behaviour.

ABSTRACT. Practitioners and academics have long discussed strategies for brand sales growth. A recent example is an industry debate in which different brand growth strategies were argued: https://www.mmaglobal.com/thegreatdebate (MMA Global & Neustarr, 2021). A central question in this arena is whether a brand should focus on its heavy, light, or non-buyers in its efforts to grow its sales. This study contributes to our knowledge about how sales growth can occur by investigating the potential contribution these three buyer groups can make to any sales gain. Using both a simulation study and an empirical study of purchases of approximately 12,400 households in the UK, across different brands, categories and time periods, we show that almost any brand’s headroom growth potential lies mostly in light or non-buyers of that brand. Even for large brands with high penetration the growth potential of light brand buyers eclipses heavy brand buyers.

ABSTRACT. The purpose of this study is to examine what factors affect long term brand growth in consumer-packaged goods categories. We use actual brand purchasing data from a sample of approximately 12400 households in the UK over a five-year period from 2010 to 2014, with a total of 188 brands in 10 product categories. We model the effects of change in penetration and loyalty on change in market share in the five-year period. We find that both change in penetration and loyalty have significant effects on long term brand growth. However, the effect of change in penetration is twice the effect of change in loyalty. We also model the effects of marketing variables, including new products, brand promotion intensity, and brand price on changes in market share. We find that new products have a positive effect on long term brand growth, while brand promotion intensity has a negative effect and brand price has no effect on long term brand growth. Finally, we find that the results are similar across national brands and private labels.

ABSTRACT. Non-traditional casting is a method of choosing actors for roles without consideration to a person’s race, skin color, ethnicity, body type or gender. Non-traditional casting has grown in popularity in recent years on the stage, in television, in film and in advertisements and other marketing materials. In this conceptual article we consider the impact of non-traditional casting on audience response and viewership in specific situations. We examine the history and movement of non-traditional casting first and then propose a typography to look at different types of non-traditional casting.

ABSTRACT. Those involved in academics often participate in conferences as a means of staying active with the latest research and developments in the field and increase collaborative authorship opportunities (Smaglik, 2018); however, with the increasing number of conferences to choose from, organizers must stay abreast of the value being sought and post-conference satisfaction to remain in business (Leach, Liu & Winsor 2008; Winter, 1994). In the planning process, value starts at the call for papers and the submission process. Next, the quality of research and presentations must add value to the participants. Beyond these conference essentials, planners need to consider the fringe benefits that are also part of the conference selection process. Further, since limited school funding and increase in travel cost (Josephs, 2022) prevents academics from attending multiple conferences, these fringe benefits may play a major role in where conference attendees place their limited funds.

ABSTRACT. The fashion industry has seen an insane growth to reach an estimated 3 trillion dollars in value. This growth is largely thanks to the globalization level we have reached as fashion now reaches everyone around the world and of all ages, which forces it to also connect to everyone and to allow them to express themselves through their clothing. This paper focuses on the perception of Gen Z's push for gender fluidity in fashion, a topic about which so little research has been conducted. This research addresses different variables such as the notion of masculinity, the treatment of men and women in society and brands’ interpretation of the movement to help explain how this push for gender fluidity in fashion is perceived and how it may succeed in getting more normalized in the industry.

ABSTRACT. This study seeks to understand, how interracial couples in China make consumption choices, and how these choices facilitate their ongoing identity projects (Sheriff and Chin, 2020), during the liminal transitional stage of interracial marriage (Van Gennep, 1960; Tonner, 2016; Cody, 2012; Turner, 1969). By recognising that identity is in a constant dynamic negotiation according to the context, our findings show that interracial weddings, abundantly rich with traditional cultural, symbolic, and ritualistic practices, create a liminal environment and period, whereby individuals rethink and reflect on who they are, their ethnic selves and express this through their consumption practices. This process is enriched by the conflicting context that interraciality brings about and the interactions that unfold in the online world.