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Although there is a growing body of literature on how celebrity involvement impacts the effectiveness of destination marketing, the underlying mechanisms of that relationship are still underexplored. Based on the affect transfer and meaning transfer theories, this study aims to examine the impact of celebrity attachment on customer delight toward K-culture and K-culture attachment, affective and cognitive images of Korea, and the intention to visit Korea.

Online survey data were collected from 2,614 US residents, representing various demographic characteristics. For the data analysis, the partial least squares-structural equation modeling was conducted to evaluate the structural model and test the hypotheses.

The results showed that celebrity attachment is positively related to customer delight toward K-culture and K-culture attachment, which, in turn, positively influences affective and cognitive images of Korea. Additionally, K-culture attachment positively influences cognitive and affective images of Korea, which are positively related to the intention to visit Korea.

By using the affect transfer theory and meaning transfer theory, this study provides valuable insights into how consumer’s attachment to celebrities has spillover effects on the decision-making process. This study also adds a new concept, customer delight connected to cultural experience, in the context of destination marketing.

By understanding the importance and influence of people’s intimacy with media characters, practitioners can apply parasocial relationship theory, affect transfer theory and meaning transfer theory to their marketing strategies.

As one of the few empirical studies that examines the impact of celebrity attachment on consumers’ perceptions and behaviors, this study can make significant contributions to the destination marketing literature.

The purpose of this investigation is to scrutinize the unexplored realm concerning the interplay of hospital brand gestalt on patient satisfaction and revisit intentions.

A self-administered online survey was conducted with 227 patients who had stayed at and received health-care services from a private hospital in the city of Manado, Indonesia, within the past 12 months. The quantitative data were subsequently analyzed using a structural equation model with the assistance of Smart PLS statistical software.

The results suggest that the hospital brand gestalt significantly and positively influences patient satisfaction, which, in turn, leads to patients’ intentions to revisit. Furthermore, patient satisfaction serves as a significant mediator in the relationship between brand gestalt and revisit intentions.

This study enhances the comprehension of brand gestalt’s influence on customer attitudes and behaviors within the health-care context, contributing to the expanding body of literature concerning holistic brand perception. For health-care providers, the study underscores the significance of creating a uniform and distinctive brand experience to boost patient satisfaction and cultivate loyalty. In summary, this study paves the way for strategic branding initiatives in health care, ultimately enhancing patient experiences and organizational outcomes.

For health-care providers, this study emphasizes the importance of crafting a consistent and differentiated brand experience to enhance patient satisfaction and foster loyalty. Overall, this study opens avenues for strategic branding efforts in health care, ultimately improving patient experiences and organizational outcomes.

While there is a growing interest in the role of brand gestalt in marketing research, there is still a need for more empirical research to explore the link between brand gestalt, customer satisfaction and revisit intention. Surprisingly, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous studies have investigated the role of brand gestalt in the context of health care.

This study aims to understand the learner behaviour of millennials for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in the post-adoption stage by extending the theory of Unified Theory of Acceptance and User Technology 2 (UTAUT2) with expectancy confirmation model (ECM) along with personal innovativeness as the exogenous, satisfaction as a mediating and continued intention as an endogenous construct.

This study applied a cross-sectional research design by using a survey method to collect primary data with a structured questionnaire. Convenience sampling was used to collect data from millennial MOOC users, and partial least square structural equation modelling method was applied for data analysis.

The results indicate that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation influence satisfaction. Similarly, performance expectancy, hedonic motivation, personal innovativeness and satisfaction influence the continued intention for MOOCs.

In terms of limitations, the study applied a cross-sectional research design that could lead to data collection bias. Similarly, the study used convenience sampling as the authors did not have access to the participant list of users from MOOC platforms.

The research highlights various insights to all the stakeholders on improving MOOC satisfaction and enhance the continued intention for millennial learners.

The findings of this research bridge this gap by examining the post-adoption usage behaviour of MOOCs by extending the baseline model of UTAUT2 with personal innovativeness and integrating it with ECM.

The purpose of this exploratory study is to identify the antecedents of brand hate in respect to luxury brand gamification marketing activities.

Five gamified product placements characterized by the ad hoc design of luxury co-branded virtual and/or physical products were selected for the research study. Content analysis was used to identify patterns and classify negative comments shared online into categories.

A content analysis of the negative comments (n. 2,321) related to the perception toward gamification of luxury fashion in videogames revealed the following seven domains: monetization of the game; promotion of inappropriate behavior; unethical placement; games commodified by brands; predatory monetization; perceived incongruence; poor product performance.

The exploratory research study revealed how the perception of gamification activities trigger negative emotions toward luxury fashion brands. It was significant that many of these emotions fall within the antecedents of brand hate.

Luxury companies and game developers need to be aware and manage the antecedents of brand hate in respect to luxury brand gamification activities in videogames. Moreover, luxury brands need to consider customers’ influencing behavior via online word-of-mouth and the potential to impact attitudes and behaviors of other consumers toward brands.

The ethics of gamification within a marketing context have largely escaped inquiry. The study provides evidence that luxury brands need to align the fundamentals of luxury brand management in the digital world of gaming.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the consumer response to brands offering gendered product differentiation (i.e. products “for her” or “for him”).

Across three experiments, the effect of gendered (vs gender-unrelated) product differentiation on perceived brand sexism and word-of-mouth intention was tested. The moderating effects of feminist identity (Studies 1 and 2), endorsement of sexist beliefs (Study 2) and basis (stereotypical vs biological) for product differentiation (Study 3) were also tested.

Consumers perceive brands that offer gendered product differentiation as sexist, which in turn leads to negative word-of-mouth intention. Moreover, consumers with a strong feminist identity are more likely to perceive brands that offer gendered product differentiation as sexist, whereas consumers who endorse sexist beliefs are less likely to do so. Finally, consumers respond negatively when the gendered product differentiation is based on a gender stereotype, but much less so when it seems based on a biological difference between sexes.

Although multiple brands offering gendered products have been denounced by consumers as sexist, no research has examined this phenomenon. This paper pioneers in examining the consumer response to brands offering gendered product differentiation and in demonstrating that consumers perceive such brands as sexist.

Effective customer journey design (ECJD) is considered a key variable in customer experience management and an essential source of brand meaning and pro-brand behavior. Although previous research has confirmed its importance for driving brand attitudes and loyalty, the role of consumer-brand identification as a social identity-based influence in this relationship has not yet been discussed. Drawing on construal level and social identity theories, this paper aims to investigate whether effective journeys and the resulting overall journey experience are equally powerful in driving brand loyalty among customers with different levels of consumer-brand identification.

The present article develops and tests a research model using data from the European and US service sectors (N = 1,454) to investigate how and when ECJD affects service brand loyalty.

Across two cultural contexts, four service industries and 33 service brands, the results reveal that ECJD is a crucial driver of service brand loyalty for customers with low consumer-brand identification. Moreover, the findings show that different aspects of journey effectiveness positively impact the valence of customers’ experience related to those journeys – a process that is ultimately decisive for their brand loyalty.

This study is unique because it generates theoretical and practical knowledge by combining the literature streams of customer journey design, customer experience and branding. Furthermore, this work demonstrates that consumer-brand identification is a critical boundary condition to be considered in the relationship between ECJD and brand loyalty in services.

This secondary source case is based mainly on legislative documents (that tracked the initiation and progress of the Parental Rights in Education bill that later became an Act), corporate documents (published by The Walt Disney Company) and news articles from publications such as The New York Times and Bloomberg. All sources are cited in the case narrative and as end notes.

In April 2022, The Walt Disney Company and its CEO, Robert Chapek, were at the center of a controversy over the company’s opposition to the State of Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill. The bill, dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by its critics, prohibited instruction on sexual identity and gender orientation in the state’s elementary schools. The controversy stemmed from Disney’s initial non-reaction to the bill and its later strident opposition and call for its repeal. Chapek was pressured by negative media publicity and employee disgruntlement on the one hand and adverse economic consequences for opposing the bill by the state’s Governor, Ron DeSantis. Chapek and the Board had to respond to the political threats to Disney’s economic well-being while appeasing its employees and other stakeholders who wanted the company to be a corporate champion in diversity, equity and inclusion.

The case is best suited for advanced undergraduate or graduate leadership, strategic management and marketing courses. From a leadership and strategic management perspective, the case is well-suited for demonstrating the evolving expectations of leaders and corporate social responsibility, as well as the concepts of issue framing and nonmarket management. Instructors may also leverage the case in marketing courses (e.g. brand management), as CEO activism (i.e. messaging and practice) is one characteristic of brand activism (Animation Guild, 2022).

Global brands have become increasingly vulnerable to external disruptions that have negative spillover effects on consumers, business and brands. This research area has recently garnered interest post-pandemic yet remains fragmented. The purpose of this paper is to recognize the most impactful exogenous brand crisis (EBC) and its affective and behavioural impact on consumers.

In Study 1, we applied repertory grid technique (RGT), photo elicitation method and ANOVA comparisons, to identify the most significant EBC, in terms of repercussions on consumer purchases. In Study 2, we performed collage construction and content analysis to ascertain the impact of the identified significant crisis (from Study 1) on consumer behaviour in terms of affective and behavioural changes.

Study 1 results reveal Spread-of-diseases and Natural disaster to be the most impactful EBC based on consumer’s purchase decisions. Study 2 findings uncover three distinct themes, namely, deviant demand, emotional upheaval and community bonding that throws light on the affective and behavioural changes in consumer behaviour during the two significant EBC events.

The collated results of the two studies draw insights towards understanding the largely unexplored conceptualisation of EBC from a multi-level (micro-meso-macro) perspective. The integrated framework drawn, highlight the roles and influences of different players in exogenous brand crisis management and suggests future research agendas based on theoretical underpinnings.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study which identifies the most important EBC and explicates its profound impact on consumer purchase behaviour, providing critical insights to brand managers and practitioners to take an inclusive approach towards exogenous crises.

The study aims to determine the role of online retail website experience on brand happiness and willingness to share personal information using the theoretical lens of the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) framework. Further, it explores the role of brand intimacy and brand partner quality in mediating the path between brand happiness and willingness to share personal information.

This study used a cross-sectional survey design to collect data from 439 online retail consumers in India, using an online questionnaire. The data were analysed using Structural Equation Modelling in IBM Amos.

The present study found that online retail website experience is significantly related to brand happiness. The finding also supports that brand happiness was positively and significantly related to ‘consumers' willingness to share personal information. This relationship was fully mediated by brand intimacy. Brand happiness also mediated the relationship between website experience and the willingness to share personal information.

This study contributes to the emerging literature on brand happiness and willingness to share personal information. It establishes a central role of brand happiness as a driver and a mediator of consumers' willingness to share personal information with e-commerce retailers, extending the stimulus-organism-response framework in the context of brand happiness and willingness to share personal information. Further, the study establishes the role of website experience as a marketer (and brand) led driver of brand happiness.

The results have implications for the role of the website in enhancing the consumer experience, which in turn is a driver of brand happiness. Further, managers need to promote brand happiness with the help of website experience to enable consumers’ willingness to share personal information and help organizations customize their marketing campaigns.

This is among the first studies to evaluate brand happiness from the perspective of an online retail website experience and consider consumers’ willingness to share personal information from a branding rather than a technological perspective. Additionally, the study introduces the SOR framework in the context of brand happiness, with website experience acting as a stimulus for consumers, resulting in brand happiness, which is mediated by brand partner quality and brand intimacy (organism), leads to consumers' willingness to share personal information with online retail brands (response).

Drawing upon social exchange theory, this research investigates the interplay of corporate philanthropy, environmental marketing strategy, relationship quality, greenwashing, and customer citizenship behavior in the family-owned hotels of an emerging market.

A field survey questionnaire was used to gather the data from 394 hotel customers by randomly selecting three premium family-owned hotels in Lahore: Faletti’s, Avari, and Holiday Inn. The data was analyzed using the structural regression modeling (SRM) technique with the assistance of AMOS version 24.

The results show that corporate philanthropy and environmental marketing strategy positively influence relationship quality, and relationship quality positively influences customer citizenship behavior. Relationship quality partially mediates the association between corporate philanthropy and customer citizenship behavior, but we found that greenwashing does not have a moderating role.

This research has theoretical implications for marketing scholars and practical implications of family-owned hotels in emerging markets.

The study has contributed contextually by collecting a unique dataset from family-owned hotels in an emerging market. Theoretically, we have conceptualized a model through the Social Exchange Theory by recommending relationship quality as a mediator and greenwashing as a moderator.