{"title":"Does cuteness enhance luxury brand equity? Exploring the effect of perceived uniqueness","authors":"Yuan Li, Jacqueline Eastman","doi":"10.1002/mar.22053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.22053","url":null,"abstract":"Cuteness is a feature of a variety of products and is common in marketing communications. Despite its popularity among mainstream brands, there is limited academic attention to cuteness in the context of luxury brands. While cuteness and luxury may appeal to different customers, luxury brands sometimes incorporate cuteness in their product design or brand communication. The potential impact of cuteness on luxury brand equity warrants investigation. Across four experiments with 662 participants, this research examines the effect of cuteness on luxury brand equity. Results show that cuteness enhances luxury brand equity through perceived uniqueness, as cuteness is less commonly associated with luxury brands. However, this positive effect only exists for traditional luxury brands, not for masstige or mass consumer brands. This research advances the literature on cuteness, particularly regarding its implications for luxury brands, and offers insights for luxury brand managers.","PeriodicalId":188459,"journal":{"name":"Psychology & Marketing","volume":"15 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141355186","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
M. Montecchi, Kirk Plangger, Douglas West, Ko de Ruyter
{"title":"Perceived brand transparency: A conceptualization and measurement scale","authors":"M. Montecchi, Kirk Plangger, Douglas West, Ko de Ruyter","doi":"10.1002/mar.22048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.22048","url":null,"abstract":"Amid product scandals, corporate malpractices, and the proliferation of misinformation, consumers are becoming increasingly more skeptical about the brands they purchase. Transparency is often hailed as a strategic imperative to reassure consumers and increase brand trust; however, its deployment can be complex. With additional transparency, consumers may become overloaded with information, and the brand may be exposed to unwanted external scrutiny. Consequently, before disclosing strategically sensitive information, brands need more insight into how increasing transparency might translate into strategically desirable consumers' brand evaluations. Addressing this need, we examine how transparency initiatives translate into consumers' evaluation of brands by delineating the dimensions of the perceived brand transparency construct, namely, observability, comprehensibility, and intentionality. Next, we use this conceptualization to develop and validate a scale to measure perceived brand transparency. We close with a brand transparency research agenda, as well as practical guidance for managers considering investing in strategic transparency initiatives.","PeriodicalId":188459,"journal":{"name":"Psychology & Marketing","volume":"113 45","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141360944","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Wilson Ozuem, S. Ranfagni, Michelle Willis, Giada Salvietti, Kerry Howell
{"title":"Exploring the relationship between chatbots, service failure recovery and customer loyalty: A frustration–aggression perspective","authors":"Wilson Ozuem, S. Ranfagni, Michelle Willis, Giada Salvietti, Kerry Howell","doi":"10.1002/mar.22051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.22051","url":null,"abstract":"An increasing number of companies are introducing chatbot‐led contexts in service failure recovery. Existing studies are inconclusive on whether humanlike chatbot‐driven service failure recovery enhances customer loyalty. Grounding our work in phenomenological hermeneutics and utilizing frustration–aggression theory, we concentrate on the historical circumstance and the participatory nature of understanding customers' chatbot‐driven interactions and loyalty. We conducted 47 in‐depth interviews with millennials from four countries (United States, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom). By analyzing interview data through thematic analysis, our study offers two significant contributions. First, through thematic analysis, we define the dynamics occurring between customers and chatbots in a service recovery journey, such as customers' priorities and expectations. Second, we present a chatbot‐led service failure recovery typology framework that identifies four types of customers based on their interactions with a chatbot and their emotions, specifically frustration and aggression, and the effects of the interactions on their brand loyalty and intention to use chatbots. The identification of four customer types can help managers shape strategies to effectively turn negative customer experiences into opportunities to strengthen their loyalty, such as making more than one touchpoint available (human and chatbot). Our study shows that customers' emotions, specifically frustration and aggression, affect not only customer loyalty but also technology adoption. The concluding section suggests future avenues for research in the service recovery literature.","PeriodicalId":188459,"journal":{"name":"Psychology & Marketing","volume":"27 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141378340","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What is to be expected? Optimizing the operationalization of consumer–brand relational norms","authors":"Katerina Makri, D. Bourdin, Marc Herz","doi":"10.1002/mar.22049","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.22049","url":null,"abstract":"Consumers relate to brands in ways analogous to how they relate with people. And, just as consumers have norms that guide their interpersonal relationships, they also have norms that guide their relationships with brands. While such relational norms are essential in determining brand value, extant literature offers no measure to effectively operationalize the framework that governs consumer–brand relationships. Preliminary work offers important insight but suffers from several methodological shortcomings, rendering subsequent empirical applications problematic and hindering theoretical and practical advancements. In seven studies (ntotal = 3121), we revisit seminal work on the consumer–brand relational norms construct to refine and validate its measurement. Our findings reveal a unidimensional set of items that display strong psychometric properties, offering a parsimonious measure that promotes consistent operationalizations of the construct across studies and enables comparison and integration of empirical results.","PeriodicalId":188459,"journal":{"name":"Psychology & Marketing","volume":"14 12","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141384913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Optionally green: The effect of hybrid product default policy on consumer response to hybrid products","authors":"Bryan Usrey, Charalampos Saridakis, A. Theotokis","doi":"10.1002/mar.22052","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.22052","url":null,"abstract":"In today's marketplace, products can feature both “green” and “non‐green” attributes and consumers, with the press of a button, can select their preferred operating mode (green vs. nongreen). In this research, we define such products as hybrid, arguing that their choice architecture design—specifically, the default operational mode—plays a pivotal role in influencing consumer evaluation and purchase behavior. In four experiments, we found that consumers view a hybrid product as more environmentally friendly when the green mode is the default setting and can be turned off (opt‐out), rather than when the green mode must be activated (opt‐in). Specifically, we show that, when efficiency (vs. effectiveness)—related attributes are valued, the opt‐out (vs. opt‐in) default policy enhances purchase behavior. Moreover, we find that this effect is mediated by green attribute centrality, in that consumers perceive the opt‐out (vs. opt‐in) default policy as more central. Finally, we find that the effect of default policy is stronger for consumers with an analytical, as opposed to a holistic, thinking style. This article contributes to both default policy and hybrid product literature and provides managerial implications for the design and promotion of hybrid products.","PeriodicalId":188459,"journal":{"name":"Psychology & Marketing","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141382353","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Gift giving in the age of AI: The role of social closeness in using AI gift recommendation tools","authors":"Yuxin Fu, David B. Dose, Radu Dimitriu","doi":"10.1002/mar.22050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.22050","url":null,"abstract":"Firms increasingly employ artificial intelligence (AI) gift recommendation tools to assist consumers with their gift choices. Yet, a notable gap exists in understanding consumers’ responses to AI recommendations in a gift giving context. Through five studies, we found that social closeness between the giver and recipient significantly affects the use of AI gift recommendation tools, driven by two underlying mechanisms: expected relational signaling and preference matching. In addition to establishing these effects, this research identifies relevant boundary conditions. Our findings reveal that self‐oriented perfectionism increases preference matching for gifts to distant friends, while revealing the giver's identity boosts AI tool use for close friends by reducing relational signaling expectations. Additionally, AI tools capable of turn‐taking enhance preference matching and AI tool use, especially for gifts to close friends. Our findings advance the understanding of how and why social closeness influences givers’ utilization of AI gift recommendation tools and offer valuable insights for practitioners on designing these tools more effectively, considering the nuances of social relationships.","PeriodicalId":188459,"journal":{"name":"Psychology & Marketing","volume":"83 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141385624","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Charan K. Bagga, Alina Nastasoiu, Neil T. Bendle, Mark B. Vandenbosch
{"title":"A construal level account of when consumers prefer to spend loyalty points over money","authors":"Charan K. Bagga, Alina Nastasoiu, Neil T. Bendle, Mark B. Vandenbosch","doi":"10.1002/mar.22028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.22028","url":null,"abstract":"The central questions answered in this research are, “For what, and when, do consumers prefer to spend loyalty points over money?” We use construal level theory (CLT) to theorize that loyalty (or reward) points are perceived abstractly while money is perceived concretely, and this impacts spending preferences. We find that consumers prefer to spend loyalty points (vs. money) on high desirability‐low feasibility (vs. low desirability‐high feasibility) consumption items. The same pattern also persists when the items that vary on desirability and feasibility are equivalently priced. Second, we show that the construal‐level matching phenomenon influences temporal decisions such that consumers prefer to spend points (vs. money) for items that are available later (vs. now). Third, the moderating effect of category type (experiential vs. material) is reported. Finally, we demonstrate two managerial applications that are reported in the Web Appendix. We show that managers may influence how consumers spend loyalty points (a) by altering the concreteness of the decision context, and (b) by manipulating the nature of loyalty points.","PeriodicalId":188459,"journal":{"name":"Psychology & Marketing","volume":"54 11","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141102911","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The effects of types of touch and haptic cues on choice overload","authors":"Nguyen T. Thai, Ülkü Yüksel, Joann Peck","doi":"10.1002/mar.22024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.22024","url":null,"abstract":"Although consumers are commonly exposed to numerous choices and the opportunity to touch products when they shop, the literature remains unclear on how both factors simultaneously affect choice. With the growth of online shopping, touch literature has studied the effects of mere touch (i.e., nondiagnostic tactile contact) or vicarious touch (e.g., observing a hand in physical contact with a product or imagining touching a product) to demonstrate that these nondiagnostic haptic inputs can comparably influence consumer attitude, just like diagnostic touch. By investigating the moderating effects of different haptic inputs on choice overload, this research reveals certain conditions in which nondiagnostic haptic inputs operate differently than those of diagnostic touch. We find that both mere touch (Study 1) and vicarious touch (Study 2) help reduce choice overload effects by eliminating the effect of choice set size on choice uncertainty, which is typically observed in the no touch (i.e., control) condition. As haptic cues have been increasingly employed to aid the online shopping experience for consumers, we also find that the choice overload effect is eliminated when an autotelic haptic cue is presented but amplified when an instrumental haptic cue is provided (Study 3). Besides, this research demonstrates that, while the moderating effects of the nondiagnostic haptic inputs are driven by increased personal control, instrumental touch can amplify choice overload effects due to the increased choice difficulty when choosing from large (vs. small) choice sets. These findings help retailers know what type of haptic cues to apply or avoid, as consumers have already been overloaded with abundant choices when they shop online.","PeriodicalId":188459,"journal":{"name":"Psychology & Marketing","volume":"12 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141105610","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hearing what you pay improves transaction satisfaction? Unveiling the dual process influence of auditory feedback","authors":"Aoqi Li, Minxue Huang, Mengmeng Zhan","doi":"10.1002/mar.22033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.22033","url":null,"abstract":"Retailers in certain regions, such as China, have recently implemented auditory feedback in cash registers to promptly announce consumer mobile payment status, but it presents a dual effect on consumers' transaction experiences. On one hand, auditory feedback enhances consumers' sense of control over the payment, leading to increased transaction satisfaction. On the other hand, it also intensifies consumers' pain of payment, resulting in decreased transaction satisfaction. Nevertheless, our study reveals an overall positive effect of auditory feedback on transaction satisfaction. We examined the moderating role of shopping motivation (functional vs. hedonic) and found that auditory feedback can enhance transaction satisfaction for consumers with functional shopping motivation and decrease it for consumers with hedonic shopping motivation. We also explored the moderating role of quick response (QR) code payments (dependent payment vs. autonomous payment) and observed a positive effect of auditory feedback on transaction satisfaction for dependent payment but not for autonomous payment. These findings contribute to the broader research on mobile payments and retailers aiming to enhance consumers' transaction experience.","PeriodicalId":188459,"journal":{"name":"Psychology & Marketing","volume":"54 21","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141102902","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Investigating the effectiveness of virtual influencers in prosocial marketing","authors":"Reika Igarashi, Kshitij Bhoumik, Jamie Thompson","doi":"10.1002/mar.22031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.22031","url":null,"abstract":"Heeding the rising popularity of virtual influencers on social media, many established brands are beginning to collaborate with them. Although virtual influencers are perceived as novel and exciting, their effectiveness in different areas of consumer behavior has not been examined. While previous research has compared several attributes of virtual and human influencers, our research is specifically motivated to answer: how can marketers increase the effectiveness of virtual influencers in promoting prosocial causes? Across four experiments employing different prosocial contexts, we compared the effectiveness of virtual and human influencers in increasing consumers' prosocial intentions and behaviors. Findings suggest that although human influencers are more persuasive in promoting prosocial behaviors, this effect only occurs when a virtual influencer is perceived as a standalone influencer (i.e., not affiliated with a brand). Overall, our results imply that marketers can substantially increase the effectiveness of virtual influencers by making the cues of brand affiliation salient in influencers' posts.","PeriodicalId":188459,"journal":{"name":"Psychology & Marketing","volume":"33 29","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141104245","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}