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This study aims to examine the outcomes of consumer perceptions of event social responsibility (ESR) for a sponsored community event and its sponsor portfolio (i.e. group of sponsoring companies). It integrates a new antecedent and new moderators of ESR with extant findings to provide a comprehensive model that is theoretically grounded in social identity theory, congruency theory and image and affect transfer.

The authors test the theoretical framework via a field study of attendees (n = 879) at a sponsored, large-scale sporting event that provided ESR through health and wellness education and activities. A field study is especially appropriate because of the experiential nature of sponsored events and ESR.

Fan identification with the sport is an antecedent of ESR, and motivation to attend the event’s supporting activities moderates the relationship between fan identification and ESR. High event-sponsor fit strengthens the relationship between ESR and word-of-mouth and between ESR and sponsor patronage.

This study illuminates the role of ESR as a key driver of outcomes for events and for their sponsor portfolio. Future research should investigate ESR in contexts other than sport and use longitudinal data that include actual purchases. It should further examine the construct of sponsor portfolio because so many events have multiple sponsors

Event sponsorship offers an attractive platform for brands to demonstrate good corporate citizenship; therefore, marketers should consider ESR as a key criterion when selecting events to sponsor. Marketers should sponsor events with high event-sponsor portfolio fit to enhance the outcomes related to ESR for both sponsors and events. This research generally underscores the importance of creating auxiliary, interactive experiences for event attendees.

ESR entails that events should contribute or give back to the local communities and organizations in a charitable way to both help give back socially and to maximize success as measured by electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and sponsor patronage toward brands sponsoring the event.

This research identifies a new antecedent and new moderators of ESR and integrates them with extant findings to create a comprehensive, theoretically grounded model. It investigates outcomes for both the event and its sponsor portfolio, in contrast to the scholarship that tends to focus on the (title) sponsor.

This research blends perspectives of the Eastern phenomenon of guanxi with the more Western perspectives of relationship marketing and customer centricity. Extending scholarship on guanxi in marketing (e.g. Park and Luo, 2001; Sheu and Hu, 2009; Luo et al., 2008; Fowler and Reisenwitz, 2014), the objective is to highlight the indirect role of customer centricity (i.e. how visible or central it is for the business partner to communicate with/have information sharing with), for firms in regions with a prevalence of guanxi.

The empirical model is tested in context of global marketing in the business-to-business (B2B) logistics industry (n = 508). A total of 508 global logistics employees and managers with experience in global business participated in the survey in Taiwan. Structural equation modeling was used for data analysis with multi-group analyses.

Customer centricity intensifies positive outcomes of guanxi prevalence. Specifically, a high level of customer centricity strengthens established associations among guanxi prevalence, trust, relationship commitment and firm performance.

While most work on guanxi has a focus in China, this research focuses on Taiwan. While building on a wealth of literature, relatively less work has focused on customer centricity.

Marketers use e-mail in new, potentially more informative, entertaining and lucrative ways – such as embedding video. The purpose of this paper is to examine consumer responses to audiovisual (i.e. text along with a short video) versus text-only messages in brand communication. Specifically, authors seek to uncover the efficacy of marketer-embedded video (vs text-only) in e-mail on the consumer's product interest, informativeness, perceived prestige, electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) intentions and willingness to pass the electronic message along digitally or on social media. With the dual coding theory and selective visual attention as theoretical guideposts, the intended contribution is a framework that can explain and predict advantages for multi-modal e-mail marketing communications.

Five hypotheses are tested experimentally with a one-factor experiment with two conditions (text-only vs audiovisual). The sample was 240 adult participants. Real brands (Audi and Apple) were used. For both brands, participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions of the e-mail (i.e. audiovisual vs text-only). The stimuli are identical, with the exception of embedded video in the e-mail body. The videos are authentic brand videos, are approximately 50 s and use a product feature appeal. Participants’ pre-existing brand attitude was measured. Then, five dependent variables (product interest, informativeness, perceived prestige, e-WOM intentions and willingness to pass the electronic message along digitally or on social media) were considered with respect to consumer exposure to e-mail with video and text in the e-mail from the brand versus text-only e-mail from the brand.

The results supported the hypotheses that audiovisual messages (i.e. those with text and video) heighten informativeness, product interest, perceived prestige, intentions to spread e-WOM for a brand and willingness to pass along the e-mail along to friends and family when compared to text-only messages. These experimental findings from a one-factor experiment with two conditions (text-only vs audiovisual) are generally consistent for an American consumer technology brand Apple (iPhone) and a German luxury automobile brand Audi (S4). Hypotheses are supported for both brands (Apple and Audi), with the exception of product interest for Audi, which may be explained by the high price of a luxury automobile.

An implication here for the dual coding theory is that the theory may be extended to consider what happens after the consumer codes the information with both the verbal and the non-verbal subsystem. The finding of interest to information processing scholars is that a video accompanying text communication from a brand to a consumer has an advantage over text-only communication. Brands that communicate with multi-modal marketing communication have better outcomes in informativeness, brand prestige perceptions and intentions of online consumer behaviors, including positive e-WOM for the brand in general and willingness to pass the specific content along in digital and social media platforms. Consumers can become brand advocates by being more inclined to forward the e-mails with the product short video as well as the e-mail text.

Brand marketers should consider e-mail in an integrated brand promotion (IBP) campaign as a cost advantage; one of the reasons e-mail should have a solid place in the IBP toolkit is due to e-mail's relatively low cost. The main cost comes with administration and production of the video. As a managerial implication for advertisers, embedding ads of a short video format in e-mails is a way to be more effective than plain-text e-mails. Short videos in e-mails are a reasonable idea to include in an integrated marketing communications effort (plausibly due to information processing with both a verbal and a non-verbal system). Brands can use videos in e-mails to enhance informativeness regarding products to enhance product differentiation from competitors. Yet, it is important to raise caution with some concerning disadvantages potentially associated with e-mail marketing and video. The three areas of caution include potential issues of privacy, clutter and technical inhibitors.

Despite the fact that e-mail is one of the most heavily used communication tools in marketing, there is scarce literature on e-mail and branding. By brands evoking a degree of prestige with embedded videos, consumer willingness to become part of the marketing communications is enhanced, as their e-WOM and willingness to share the branded content increase.

The objective is to extend the concept of purse parties introduced by Gosline (2009) and to explore the phenomenon of counterfeit consumption through the in-home “purse parties” channel. The authors seek to reveal themes from the depth interviews and build a consumer typology reflecting attitudes toward purse parties and counterfeit luxury products.

The method is a qualitative phenomenological approach. Authors assessed attitudes toward purse party attendance and counterfeit goods – along with any subsequent behavioral intentions or behaviors. Authors addressed the objective using depth interviews among 28 women.

Findings included five emerging themes: distinctness of in-home consumption settings, obligatory attendance, social engagement, curiosity, and disregard for legalities of counterfeit consumption/disdain for purse parties.

The sample primarily consists of female colleges students and is not representative of all consumers. Due to social desirability bias and the controversial nature of counterfeit consumption, informants may have struggled to provide honest responses.

Research implications suggest potential increases in purse party events and consumption due to informant’s blatant disregard for the legalities of the practice, and interests in social engagement, intimacy (exclusivity), and curiosity.

The main contribution is a typology representing four types of purse party consumers: loyal, curious/social, skeptic, and disengaged. This proposed typology stems from the aforementioned themes uncovered. Further, authors identify the social implications of in-home purse parties and underscore the significance of an under-investigated purchase channel.