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While the fashion industry is beginning to comprehend the commercial imperative for sustainability, it is struggling to address the issues of overconsumption and accompanying packaging. Research indicates that framing of marketing messages makes an impact on consumers’ choices, particularly when it comes to supporting sustainable initiatives from brands. This study aims to investigate the impact of message framing, reference to perceived benefits and green consumer values on their choice of packaging reduction initiatives in the context of online retailing and the subsequent impact on brand attitude.

A 2 (frame: gain/loss) × 2 (reference to perceived benefits: personal/societal) × 2 (green consumer value: high/low) mixed method online experiment was conducted.

Results indicated that how the message is referenced in terms of benefits (personal gain/loss or societal gain/loss) and green consumer values act as moderators between message frame and attitude toward the packaging initiatives, which in turn impact brand attitude.

Overall, the findings contribute to message architecture, insight on consumer behavior, and add to the business case for sustainable packaging for fashion/apparel companies.

Brand gestalt has emerged as a crucial concept in marketing and branding, denoting the holistic perception and overall impression that consumers develop about a brand. This concept gains significance as it serves to measure the overall identity of a brand. Despite its importance, both empirical and theoretical exploration of this concept remains limited, particularly in the context of place branding. The present study aims to bridge the theoretical gap surrounding the interplay between brand gestalt, tourist attitude and loyalty within the city branding domain. In particular, it aims to comprehensively explore the dimensional impact of city brand gestalt (CBG) on tourist attitude, satisfaction and loyalty.

The primary data were collected through a self-administered online questionnaire containing 35 items, developed and adapted from the literature review. A total of 314 samples of Bitung City visitors were recruited, resulting in a 79% response rate. Structural equation modeling was performed using SmartPLS 3 to validate the research hypotheses.

The findings of the study indicate that CBG has a substantial and positive influence on tourist attitudes, satisfaction and loyalty. Furthermore, it was discovered that tourist attitude and satisfaction play a partial mediating role in the relationship between CBG and tourist loyalty.

This study is a seminal contribution to understanding the link between CBG, tourist attitude, satisfaction and loyalty. It offers valuable insights for city destination management in designing strategies and interventions to foster positive tourist attitudes, increase satisfaction and sustain loyalty. In particular, it emphasizes the necessity of ongoing investments in maintaining a positive holistic brand experience (i.e., brand gestalt) that aligns with evolving expectations. The study highlights the need to develop a compelling narrative and consistent messaging tailored to the target audience's values and aspirations. Additionally, it underscores the importance of providing exceptional sensory experiences that appeal to the target audience.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is among the first to examine the role of brand gestalt in the context of city branding. Understanding the holistic interaction of the four brand gestalt elements – story, sensescape, servicescape and stakeholders – is crucial for fostering tourists' positive attitudes, satisfaction and loyalty toward urban destinations. The proposed CBG model offers a conceptual framework to guide future research in city branding.

Inspired by the concept of the moment of truth, this study aims to examine how service interactions between hotel front-desk staff and a first-time check-in guest affect the guest’s brand satisfaction and brand attitudes, considering the moderating effect of welcome hospitality.

This study employs a between-subjects 2 (check-in service with high-service interaction vs low-service interaction) × 2 (with welcome hospitality vs without welcome hospitality) experimental method to investigate the mechanism of building brand attitudes towards a hotel during the check-in process.

The results of Study 1 showed that participants in the high-service interaction group reported higher brand satisfaction and brand attitudes than the low-service interaction group. It also confirmed that brand satisfaction fully mediates the relationship between service interactions and brand attributes. The results of Study 2 demonstrated the moderating effect of welcome hospitality. When service interaction is low, welcome hospitality can effectively improve brand satisfaction, but when service interaction is high, the improvement in brand satisfaction is smaller.

This research contributes to the literature on service interactions by potentially first experimentally examining the impact of first-time employee-customer interactions within a hotel setting. Recommendations were provided to hotel operators on how hotel staff can improve their service interactions.

This study analyzes the indirect (i.e. through brand content engagement-BCE) and direct effects of informative, credible, novel, and aesthetically pleasing attributes of influencer-generated branded content on endorsed brand-related attitude and a subsequent attitudinal spillover effect on the followers' firm-generated endorsed brand-related ad click behavior.

Data for this study were collected from 300 users who follow the top 40 Pakistani social media macro-influencers using an online survey. The conceptual model and hypotheses were tested through process macro and structural equation modeling.

This study finds informative, credible, novel, and aesthetically pleasing factors vital attributes of influencer-generated branded content, which indirectly (i.e. via BCE) and directly affects followers’ endorsed brand-related attitude. This study also finds that these factors have a positive attitudinal spillover effect on followers’ firm-generated endorsed brand-related ad-click behavior on social media.

This study presents guidelines to firms and their partner influencers about designing and implementing follower-valued content-driven influencer marketing campaigns.

This study contributes to extant influencer marketing literature by integrating multiple attributes of influencer-generated branded content, which carry different values for followers, and using the Self-perception theory, the Multi-attribute attitude model, and the Spillover theory to explain their indirect and direct effects on endorsed brand-related attitude and a subsequent attitudinal spillover effect on firm-generated endorsed brand-related ads.

This study aims to examine the effect of Muslim consumers’ religiosity on their brand verdict regarding clothing brands, through the mediating role of decision-making style, brand status and brand attitude.

Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data collected from 200 clothing buyers in Mashhad, one of Iran’s religious cities.

The results indicate that intrapersonal religiosity, compared to interpersonal religiosity, has a more significant effect on Muslim consumers’ decision-making styles, and different decision-making styles of Muslim consumers affect their brand verdict through brand status and brand attitude.

The research sample consists solely of respondents from the Islamic religion. Therefore, the impact of religiosity might differ among individuals from other religions, such as Christianity and Judaism.

This study’s findings are crucial for clothing brands, both national and international, that cater to the Muslim customers’ market. They need to consider the degree of religiosity when segmenting and targeting their market. This study shows that clothing brand marketers can best influence the brand verdict of Muslim consumers by targeting those with a brand-loyal decision-making style, focusing on their religious beliefs.

To achieve success in Iran’s Muslim market, marketers must consider their consumers’ religious beliefs and tailor their marketing plans accordingly. This study aims to investigate the impact of religiosity on consumer behavior toward brands in Iran’s Muslim market.

The ever-evolving landscape of financial technology (Fintech) has revolutionised payment methods and raised questions about what drives user behaviour in adopting these innovative solutions. This study, using narrative transportation theory as an underpinning theory, aims to investigate into the dynamics of green user behaviour in adopting Fintech payments.

This study used a deductive approach, and with data obtained from 635 respondents through the purposive sampling technique, partial least squares structural equation modelling was employed to yield significant insights.

The study found a positive association between green brand positioning and product differentiation. However, it unexpectedly didn't impact user attitudes towards Fintech payments. Green brand image and perceived performance positively influenced product differentiation. Perceived product differentiation fully mediated the association between green brand positioning and user attitudes. The study introduced fear of missing out's (FOMO) moderating role, enriching eco-conscious marketing insights and user behaviour understanding.

This study reveals crucial implications for marketers, policymakers and user experience (UX) designers operating within the Fintech industry. It emphasises green brand positioning's impact on product differentiation, user attitudes and its mediating role. It advocates for sustainability integration, innovation, strategic messaging and user-centric improvements to optimise user perceptions and competitiveness in the evolving Fintech landscape. The study's cross-sectional design may limit the ability to establish causal relationships over time and overlook temporal changes in green Fintech adoption dynamics; thus, longitudinal studies are warranted to better understand the evolving nature of user attitudes and behaviours towards green Fintech payments.

This study adds novelty to the existing body of literature by introducing the dimension of innovation appeal to green brand positioning and employing narrative transportation theory in the Fintech realm. The findings also add novelty by highlighting the moderating impact of fear of missing out in predicting the association between green brand positioning and product differentiation in the realm of green Fintech and green use behaviour.

This study examines the impact of consumer-perceived value (CPV) dimensions such as product quality, price fairness, brand prestige and brand positioning on brand attitude and loyalty for electronic home appliance brands in an emerging market. It also explores the moderating effect of perceived store image on the relationship between brand attitude and loyalty.

This study proposes an integrated model based on consumption values and the value-attitude-behavior (V-A-B) framework. Survey data from 209 Bangladeshi consumers of electronic home appliances were used to test the model. Covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) and PROCESS macro were employed to test the hypotheses.

This research underscores the importance of CPV dimensions, such as product quality, price fairness, brand prestige and positioning, in predicting brand loyalty through brand attitude. Store image moderates the link between brand attitude and loyalty, with a stronger relationship when store image is high and a weaker relationship when it is low.

This study broadens marketing and consumption value theory by investigating brand prestige and positioning in the V-A-B framework in the emerging market. This is the first study to use perceived store image to moderate the relationship between brand attitude and loyalty.

Current research addresses the issue of brand loyalty while identifying its potential predictors. The research also examines the direct impact of brand credibility on brand loyalty and attitude toward brand and the direct impact of attitude toward brand and on brand loyalty respectively. Moreover, this research examines the mediating effect of attitude toward brand for the relationship of brand credibility and brand loyalty.

This is a cross-sectional research. Data is collected with the help of structured questionnaire. Simple random sampling technique is used for gathering the data from 220 Samsung users from Lahore, Pakistan.

Results indicate that brand credibility has a positive influence on attitude toward brand and brand loyalty respectively. Attitude toward brand partially intervenes the relation of brand credibility and brand loyalty.

There are some limitations of the current research. It includes only the customers of Samsung mobile. Data is collected from the customers of Lahore, Pakistan, only. This research can also be conducted among the customers of OPPO, Vivo and Apple and compare the results of current research with the results of OPPO, Vivo and Apple, which will provide the useful insights. This kind of research will also be conducted among the customers of other kinds of products like FMCGs, luxury items and even on the organizations of industrial products for generalizability. In future, customers of other cities of Pakistan like Karachi, Multan and Faisalabad may also be included for generalization.

This research provides a practical framework for the marketing department of Samsung mobiles and explains how brand credibility shape the brand loyalty through the path of attitude toward Samsung mobiles. So, Samsung mobiles can maintain current policies regarding brand credibility and attitude toward brand for attaining the better level of brand loyalty. Longitudinal research studies on these variables will also be helpful for the marketing department of Samsung for checking the level of propose relationships periodically and comparing it with previous results which will provide the true picture about propose relationships. If the value of propose relationships increases or remains at same level, then Samsung can maintain the current policies about these variables and if the value of these variables decreases, the Samsung will improve the current policies about these variables.

This research contributed in theory of reasoned action by proposing the brand credibility, attitude toward brand and brand loyalty in single model. Before this, these relations were explained separately. This research adds to the body of literature by checking the mediating effect of attitude toward brand for the relationship of brand credibility and brand loyalty.

The phenomenon of global brands taking a stance on crucial, yet polarizing, socio-political issues, namely global brand activism, is rising. However, how consumer views on this practice are shaped when global branding elements are factored in remains unclear. Drawing from the functional theory of attitude formation, this study investigates the relationships of consumer characteristics (political ideology, consumer ethnocentrism) and brand factors (global brand attitudes and perceived motivation of global brand activists) with attitudes toward global brand activists.

Using a survey of a UK nationally representative sample (n = 439), we test our hypothesized model via structural equation modeling and mediation analysis.

Our findings reveal direct and indirect effects of political ideology on attitudes toward global brand activists (AttGBACTIVs). While consumer ethnocentrism and global brand attitudes do not directly drive AttGBACTIVs, they do influence them indirectly. Perceived motivation of global brand activists emerges as a key mechanism activating these effects and affecting AttGBACTIVs.

First, this study constitutes a novel examination of consumer views of brand activism through a global branding lens. Second, our investigation uniquely combines important determinants of brand activism outcomes with key international marketing factors (namely consumer ethnocentrism and global brand attitudes). Third, the concurrent exploration of individual and brand factors in our mediated model reveals the complex mechanisms through which attitudes toward global brand activists are formed.

This study investigates the impact of open branding on consumer brand attitudes, as mediated by brand warmth and brand competence, and moderated by power distance belief.

This study employs two one-factor (brand strategy: open branding vs closed branding) between-subject experimental designs and a 2 × 2, namely (open branding vs closed branding) × (power distance belief: high vs low) between-subject experimental design to test the hypotheses.

The study indicates that open branding can enhance consumer brand attitudes, and that brand warmth and brand competence mediate the impact of open branding on consumer brand attitudes. Furthermore, power distance beliefs (PDB) moderated these relationships. Specifically, the impact of open branding on consumers brand attitudes is stronger for consumers with low PDB than for those with high PDB.

Brand managers should consider adopting an open branding strategy to enhance consumers brand attitudes when encountering consumers’ unauthorized use of brand-related intellectual property. Additionally, when implementing an open-branding strategy, brand managers should use appropriate language to enhance consumers’ perceptions of brand warmth and brand competence.

This study contributes to the interactive marketing literature by empirically examining the impact of open branding on consumer brand attitudes. Furthermore, it investigates the underlying mechanism of how and the boundary conditions when open branding increases consumer brand attitudes, enriching the current knowledge.