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The main purpose of this research is to investigate the influence of promotional inputs presented to salespeople, such as continuing medical education (CME) sponsorship and drug samples, on adaptive selling and sales performance.

This study used a mixed-methods approach. First, depth interviews were done and this was followed by a survey on 247 pharmaceutical executives in India. Data analysis was done using AMOS, Process Macro and floodlight analysis.

Results showed that CME sponsorship and drug samples drove adaptive selling and sales performance positively. Additionally, results reveal that CME program sponsorship negatively moderated the adaptive selling–sales performance relationship; free drug samples too negatively moderated this relationship.

Firms may hire salespersons with high customer orientation and adaptive selling and train them hone these further. The present research also crucially suggests that pharma firms may allocate CME sponsorship and drug samples to salespeople low on adaptive selling.

This could be the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, that uses promotional inputs (such as CME sponsorship and drug samples) as an antecedent to adaptive selling and sales performance. Moreover, this is the only research that has tested CME sponsorships and drug samples as moderators to customer orientation–adaptive selling and adaptive selling–sales performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the varying impact of advertising appeals on customers’ impulse buying (IB) for vice and virtue products.

This research used two experiments varying humor/scarcity (high/low) and product category (vice versus virtue).

Humor (scarcity) enhances IB of vice (virtue) products through anticipation of enjoyment (perception of uniqueness).

This research identifies a new antecedent of IB, advertising and additionally, a new moderator, product type (vice/virtue) in the ad appeal–IB relationship.

Practitioners managing vice (virtue) brands may use humor (scarcity) appeals to promote impulse buying.

This paper demonstrates that humor (scarcity) appeals enhance impulse buying of vice (virtue) products and shows the underlying mechanisms behind these effects.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the presence of nostalgic advertising in Indian television and its execution with reference to extent of information disclosure, level of involvement, type of products and stages in product life cycle (PLC).

This research uses a content analysis of 700 TV advertisements aired between January-December 2013 from top five Indian TV channels based on their rank according to Gross Viewership in Thousands.

Humour/happiness was the most commonly used emotional appeal and nostalgic ads constituted 12 per cent of the emotional ads in Indian television. “References to past family experiences” was the most commonly used nostalgic element. As hypothesised, nostalgic ads use low information disclosure strategy (vis-à-vis high/medium information disclosure strategy) and are more commonly used for low involvement products (vis-à-vis high involvement products), experience products (vis-à-vis search products), and non-durables (vis-à-vis durables). Also, nostalgic appeals are more commonly used at maturity stage of PLC (vis-à-vis introduction stage).

This is the first research to analyse the content and execution of nostalgic advertising in India. This study is also one of the first to provide a comprehensive framework on nostalgic advertising. The interrelationships among variables such as product category, process of emotional appeal, degree of information disclosure and stage in PLC has not been investigated earlier, in the context of nostalgic advertising. Moreover, this study is the first attempt to present a snapshot of TV ads in India.

This paper aims to develop a conceptual model to understand how different gamification designs (hedonic and utilitarian) evoke different emotions and impact subsequent patronage intentions for online consumers in different mindsets.

The authors first conducted a content analysis study and then tested the model with two online experiments [both 2 × 2 factorial designs – gamification (hedonic/utilitarian) and mindset (implemental/deliberative), with different utilitarian and hedonic products].

Gamification with hedonic benefits influences website patronage intentions by evoking promotion emotions, while gamification with utilitarian benefits does so by evoking prevention emotions. Gamification with hedonic benefits has a stronger impact on consumers shopping with deliberative mindsets, while gamification with utilitarian benefits works better for those with implemental mindsets.

Future research may extend the present work by considering other types of gamification.

Managerially, e-tailers may use gamification with hedonic aspects for consumers in deliberative mindsets and utilitarian aspects for those in implemental mindsets.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to draw a link between mindsets and gamification. This research is also the first to operationalize gamification as hedonic and utilitarian based on their design characteristics and to establish emotional consequences as an important link between gamification and user behaviors.

This paper aims to introduce the Schmid–Leiman solution (SLS) as a useful tool to interpret the results of higher-order factor analyses in marketing research irrespective of the type of higher-order factor structure used (formative or reflective).

Two studies, one with retail shoppers in India and another with undergraduate students in Hong Kong, are used to compare different types of higher-order factor structures to test the utility of SLS.

The authors show that whether a reflective or a formative model is used to operationalize a higher-order construct, using SLS as an additional analysis gives useful insights into the factor structure at different levels and helps isolate their unique contributions to the explained variance.

The authors test higher-order models for store environment and consumer impulsiveness with data from retail shoppers and undergraduate students in two Asian countries, which may restrict the generalizability of the study findings. Future research may try to replicate our findings with other higher-order constructs and consumers in other countries.

The authors offer a checklist that can be used by future researchers to evaluate alternate higher-order factor structures and choose the appropriate one for their research context.

The authors show that using SLS is especially useful when there is a lack of clarity on the nature of relationships between the factors at different levels or about the independent contribution of the factors at different levels, in a higher-order factor structure.

The principal purpose of this study is to examine the moderating influence of selling experience on the following two relationships – adaptive selling and job satisfaction and customer orientation and job satisfaction – using unionized salespeople as respondents. It also tests for the mediating role of adaptive selling in the customer orientation–job satisfaction relationship.

This paper uses data from a survey conducted on 208 pharmaceutical unionized salespeople from 46 pharmaceutical firms in India. The model was tested using structural equation modeling. Moderation hypotheses were estimated using process macro and the Johnson–Neyman technique.

The data fitted the model well. This research found that customer orientation drove adaptive selling behavior and job satisfaction, and that adaptive selling influenced job satisfaction (all positively); it was found that adaptive selling partially mediated the relationship between customer orientation and job satisfaction. Results revealed that job experience negatively moderated the adaptive selling behavior–job satisfaction and customer orientation–job satisfaction relationships.

The results show that pharma firms may hire young recruits and, importantly, measure their customer orientation and adaptive selling levels. For the purposes of training to enhance customer orientation and adaptive selling, pharma firms may send only their less experienced salespersons.

To the authors’ knowledge, this study could be the first to examine the interaction of job experience and customer-directed selling behaviors such as adaptive selling and customer orientation on job satisfaction. Moreover, this is possibly the only study in this domain that uses unionized salespeople in an emerging market (India).

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the interactive effects of message framing, perceived threat and efficacy appeals on attitudes/intentions toward consumer healthcare communications, particularly, cataract surgery.

This paper develops two conceptual models dealing with threat, efficacy and framing and tests them with data collected from two field experiments.

The results reveal that high efficacy messages in combination with high threat or loss-framed messages have a significant positive influence on consumer attitudes and intentions in the consumer healthcare arena.

The findings have managerial value and public policy implications for healthcare officials in developing effective communications material. Specifically, this paper recommends that high threat, high efficacy and loss-framed efficacy messages be used.

This research extends previous work by demonstrating the effectiveness of threat appeals and framing on consumer attitudes and intentions to undergo cataract surgery. It also demonstrates the use of communication models in the healthcare domain.

Extant research on comparative advertising has focused only on “market leader” comparisons (a brand targeting the market leader), whereas in the marketplace, “multi-brand” comparisons are more prevalent (Kalro et al., 2010). Moreover, most research focuses on direct comparisons only. Hence, this research aims to investigate the interplay between comparison ad strategy (“market leader”/“multi-brand” comparisons) and comparison ad format (direct/indirect comparisons) on the effectiveness of comparative advertising.

This paper uses four 2 × 2 fully crossed factorial designs (comparison ad format: direct vs indirect and comparison ad strategy: market leader vs multi brand) with established and new brands in two categories: powdered detergents and smart phones. All studies were conducted in metropolitan cities of India.

By and large, the experiments indicated that direct (indirect) comparisons lowered (heightened) perceived manipulative intent and enhanced (reduced) attitude-toward-the-ad for multi-brand (market leader) comparisons.

Findings suggest that when advertisers use comparative advertising, they may use direct ads when using multi-brand comparisons and use indirect ones when using market leader comparisons. It could also be argued that when advertisers use multi-brand comparisons because of fragmentation in the marketplace, they may directly compare against these multiple brands. When advertisers need to compare against a market leader, they may do so indirectly.

This research is among the first to investigate multi-brand comparisons that are widely used in the industry and that too in the context of both direct and indirect comparison formats.

Second-hand/used goods channels compete with existing traditional channels to satisfy consumers’ needs that are unmet by traditional retail networks. However, most studies on online shopping have largely ignored online second-hand/used good purchases. This study aims to use Thaler’s mental accounting model, principal–agent perspective and contamination theory to highlight the differences in the value sought by online new goods and second-hand shoppers.

A conceptual framework linking perceived uncertainty, perceived acquisition value and e-loyalty was developed and tested using structural equation modelling. The moderating effects of product type (new vs second-hand) and frugality were also included.

The paper found strong support for the model. Results showed that online second-hand shoppers were more uncertain and perceived lesser levels of acquisition value when compared to new goods shoppers. They were also less frugal. Online shoppers are also more likely to buy products with sensory attributes (experience goods) in new goods websites and products with non-sensory attributes (search goods) from second-hand websites. The authors recommend various ways in which managers can increase perceived value for the online shopper.

Future studies can extend this investigation by including transaction value or other hedonic values to verify their impact on acquisition value and e-loyalty. While the authors found support for the notion that consumers who buy used goods online are less frugal, there is some research that could point to the opposite. Hence, research can investigate this topic in depth in more countries to throw more light on this.

To sustain themselves in a competitive online market, retailers need to understand the value sought by consumers. This study provides empirical evidence of the importance of acquisition value for new goods and second-hand shoppers.

No recent research has compared the value sought by online second-hand and new goods shoppers. This study contributes to the understanding of the acquisition value perceived by consumers in online new goods and second-hand shopping channels.

The purpose of this paper is to study the affective outcome of ambivalent nostalgia through use of executional variables, develop a framework linking nostalgia (through affect) and consumers’ cognitive processing, and explain the relationship of nostalgia with self-brand connection (SBC) and willingness to pay a premium (WTPP) through a mediator, cognitive processing.

This research is based on two experiments. In study 1, students were shown a nostalgic ad paired with a vignette to manipulate “past–present contrast.” In study 2, positive and negative moods were induced and an informative nostalgic ad was shown to measure processing styles and SBC and WTPP; this was followed by mediation analysis.

The findings are as follows: first, “Past–present contrast” can reduce the negative affect in nostalgia, making it less ambivalent; second, positive (negative) affect leads to top-down (bottom-up) processing; third, SBC and WTPP are higher when top-down processing is used; and, fourth, processing style is a mediator between affect and SBC/WTPP.

Managers may use the “good past, good present” scenario to mitigate negative affect in nostalgia. Nostalgic ads may be used by brands that want consumers to pay a price premium, have a strong SBC and when they want consumers to use top-down processing.

This paper demonstrates how to reduce ambivalence and associate brands with positive affect in nostalgia, and gain SBC and WTPP; the mediating role of cognitive processing in the relationship of nostalgia with SBC and WTPP is delineated.