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The paper aims to clarify the influence of different picture contents on consumer's willingness to click pictures when shopping for agricultural products online and examine the intermediary mechanism and boundary conditions of the impact.

The paper opted for an empirical study based on the cue utilization theory and information processing theory, including three experiments to test the existence, intermediary mechanism and boundary conditions of the impact of online picture contents of agricultural products on consumers' clicking intention.

The paper provides empirical insights about the influence of picture contents on consumer's willingness to click when shopping for agricultural products online. The picture of product's production environment or grower on the search result page can effectively improve consumer's willingness to click the product under dual systemic information processing modes. Compared with product pictures, pictures displaying products and production environment can stimulate more cognitive system processing, and pictures displaying products and its growers can stimulate more emotional system processing, both resulting in higher click intention. However, the above effects only exist in the context of non-branded agricultural products.

The research results not only provide practical guidance for merchants, but also fill the gap in the research on the impact of picture contents on consumers in the field of agricultural products in online marketing.

The purpose of this research is to examine the influence of direct comparative advertising on brand information processing and purchase intentions compared with that of indirect comparative advertising in non‐forced exposure conditions.

The overall sample of 240 female consumers (aged between 25 and 51 years, and representative of French women in terms of region and profession) was divided into two equal groups. These two groups viewed a televised montage that followed GfK's pretest methodology for TV advertising (a 20‐minute television show, an advertising break with seven commercials, a short questionnaire, a 20‐minute television show, an advertising break with four commercials, and a longer questionnaire), which favors a low involvement context in laboratory conditions. These two groups were respectively exposed to two 20‐second ads for a well‐known challenger brand (identical except for whether they name the leading brand and its price or “brand X” without price information).

This research provides original evidence that the comparative ad that cites the name and price of the leading brand increases purchase intentions for the sponsored brand, more than an equivalent that uses brand X. This effect operates through an increased probability of message processing, which in turn enhances the perceived compelling character of ad content.

Despite the many studies of comparative advertising in existing literature, little research has been devoted to the potential alternative of replacing a “brand X” designation with the name of a competing brand. Moreover, previous research often includes participants (e.g. students) engaged in deliberate processing of a single advertisement in conditions of artificial exposure.

The paper aims to clarify the influence of different picture contents on consumer's willingness to click pictures when shopping for agricultural products online and examine the intermediary mechanism and boundary conditions of the impact.

The paper opted for an empirical study based on the cue utilization theory and information processing theory, including 3 experiments to test the existence, intermediary mechanism and boundary conditions of the impact of online picture contents of agricultural products on consumers' clicking intention.

The paper provides empirical insights about the influence of picture contents on consumer's willingness to click when shopping for agricultural products online. The picture of product's production environment or grower on the search result page can effectively improve consumer's willingness to click the product under dual-systemic information processing modes. Compared with product pictures, pictures displaying products and production environment can stimulate more cognitive system processing, and pictures displaying products and its growers can stimulate more emotional system processing, both resulting in higher click intention. However, the above effects only exist in the context of non-branded agricultural products.

The research results can not only provide practical guidance for merchants, but also fill the gap in the research on the impact of picture contents on consumers in the field of agricultural products in online marketing.

There are substantive disagreements about whether encouraging deliberative thinking increases consumer preference in low-involvement product categories. The authors draw on dual-process theory to add rare experimental evidence to this debate. They also investigate whether the effect of deliberative thinking increases with familiarity of the stimuli, as different theories of memory yield different predictions on this point. Finally, they provide evidence on whether the effectiveness of the Fairtrade logo arises more from mere exposure or attention to the ethical claim.

The context for the research is the use of ethical logos in packaged coffee, as this provides a realistic setting for the desired experimental manipulations. The fieldwork consists of two sets of trade-off experiments – rankings based conjoint analysis (n = 360) and best-worst scaling with a balanced incomplete block design (n = 1,628). Deliberative thinking is manipulated in three ways: by varying logos between visual (Type 1 processing) and lexical (Type 2 processing) treatments, by post hoc classification of time taken, and by imposing either time constraints (Type 1) or cognitive load (Type 2) on the completion of the task. Familiarity is manipulated by varying logos between the Fairtrade and a fictional Exchange Ethics logo.

Consumers do have higher preferences in the deliberative treatment conditions; thinking more results in an 18 per cent increase (Cohen’s d = 0.25) in the preference for choices that display an ethical cobranded logo. Surprisingly, the impact of deliberation is not greater for the more familiar Fairtrade logo than the fictional Exchange Ethics logo. This result is inconsistent with strength-based theories of memory, as these predict that deliberation will have a greater effect for more familiar stimuli. However, it is consistent with newer theories of memory that acknowledge familiarity can lead to activation confusion, reducing retrieval of pre-existing knowledge into working memory. The research also shows that the Fairtrade logo has substantial utility to consumers, and that this is approximately 59 per cent due to the ethical claim and 41 per cent due to the familiarity of the logo.

In field conditions, attempts to manipulate deliberation may not be effective or may simply result in reduced attention. Also, the costs of increasing deliberation may outweigh the benefits obtained.

The research confirms the heuristic value of the Fairtrade logo and shows that the effectiveness of ethical logos may increase with additional deliberation by shoppers.

There is relatively little work in marketing that applies dual-process theories to investigate consumer behaviour. The present study extends the use of dual-process theories in marketing, demonstrates a new method to investigate the effect of deliberation on brand choice and shows how deliberation magnifies the effect of endorsing logos, including unfamiliar logos.

By integrating the evidence of various audience theories, a comparison is made of viewers’ information processing of new interactive video advertising formats (skippable video ads) with traditional, non-skippable formats. The purpose of this paper is to focus on how exposure to a brand name at different moments during online video advertisements influences viewers’ recall.

A neuroscientific pre-test supported the selection of an arousing video, and a subsequent pre-test confirmed the scenario validity. Using a broader sample, the main study applied a 3×2 experimental design of different ad designs and formats.

Distinctions should be made between formats and audiences that lead to different information processing methods. Users exposed to skippable ads (active audiences) exert a higher control over advertising and tend to process the information presented in the initial part of an ad. In turn, users viewing non-skippable ads (passive audiences) should be exposed to the high arousal stimulus before presentation of the key information that the advertiser wants them to remember.

Advertising managers and content creators can use these results to improve the design of their online videos, and to achieve greater effectiveness in terms of information recall.

Skippable online videos have become a commonly used advertising format, but research into their effects is scarce. This study offers the first comparison of viewers’ reactions towards skippable vs non-skippable formats, in terms of brand recall and economic performance. Further research might extend this underdeveloped field of study and enhance the knowledge of video format processing in social media.

The purpose of this study was to understand how male and female consumers differently evaluate sustainability claims from brands and how brands’ sustainability efforts and the presence/absence of information transparency in the claims affect their brand schemas differently.

Five hundred participants were recruited for an online experiment implementing both treatment and message variance. PROCESS, a recently developed regression-based bootstrapping technique was used to test the hypotheses.

Males were more likely than females to rely on their existing schemas for judgment in case of Made in USA but not Fair Labor claims. The presence of information transparency in claims reduced participants’ reliance on their schemas.

The findings might be helpful for brands to design marketing claims with specific customer segments to stand out amidst advertisement clutter. Especially, brands targeting male consumers might try to build strong brand schemas starting the early stages of brand image building as males tend to consistently rely on their schemas for judgment. On the other hand, brands might benefit from providing transparent information about their sustainability efforts in their claims (especially those related to Made in USA) while targeting female consumers. However, irrespective of gender, brands might benefit from making claims with information transparency.

This study investigated the influence of gender in evaluation of brands’ sustainability claims and the role of information transparency in the process, thereby filling a gap in literature. It is one of the very few studies to empirically investigate not only whether males and females are different in their information processing styles but also how such differences arise.

This paper examines in detail how the use of storytelling with parallax technology can influence the user experience (UX) in online shops as well as brand- and behavior-relevant variables. Furthermore, this study analyzes the causal relationships between UX, brand attitudes and brand-related behavioral intentions in terms of purchase intention and price premiums. Explicit and implicit paths of human information processing are considered.

A sample of 266 respondents completed a web-based experiment under two conditions (text-based vs parallax storytelling online shop). An existing and operational online shop was used. The causal relationships were assessed by using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). To measure implicit information processing, a single category implicit association test was applied.

By applying the storytelling technique with parallax scrolling, the online shop increased visitors' UX on explicit and implicit information processing levels and increased the online shop's overall perceived attractiveness. Storytelling with parallax motion enables an efficient transmission of brand-related associations to consumers' minds, enhances their explicit and implicit brand attitudes and increases their willingness to pay a higher price. Moreover, this study provides empirical evidence on the effects of UX on brand-related measures by applying PLS-SEM and thus reveals a causal chain of effects from UX on online shop attractiveness, brand attitude and behavioral intentions. Again, explicit and implicit perceptions were considered.

Science and practice are increasingly emphasizing that storytelling emotionalizes content, which facilitates effective communication and builds strong relationships with customers. Little evidence exists about its efficient implementation in an online shopping context and in fulfilling hedonic and pragmatic needs throughout the online journey. This study provides novel insights into managing online shoppers' UX, brand-related perceptions and behavioral intentions with the optimal use of techniques to implement storytelling. Furthermore, this is one of the first studies to holistically consider the human perception of online shops by drawing on theories and methods of psychology, marketing, consumer behavior, brand research and consumer neuroscience and considering explicit and implicit information processing in terms of hedonic and pragmatic UX and brand-related measures.

In this article, brand evaluations based on mere exposure to a brand name are compared to evaluations built on varying levels of cognitively processed brand information in a setting where all subjects have low involvement. Results indicate that a small but meaningfully sized group of subjects fully processed the information on brands they were exposed to, and rated those brands significantly higher than other brands where they had only seen the brand name alone. This finding was strongest for a fictional new brand, but also present for a well‐established brand. By contrast, the larger portion of low involvement subjects who did not fully process brand information, also did not rate brands significantly higher than their ratings for brands in which they saw no accompanying information. Implications for sponsors and advertisers are discussed.

Rhetorical works (schemes and tropes) can increase advertisement liking. Because liking impacts advertising effectiveness, this study aims to investigate if positive processing, brand awareness, and persuasion outcomes previously associated with rhetoric are spurious and chiefly attributable to liking.

An experiment (n=448) employed natural advertising exposure conditions and a 3 (headline: nonfigurative, scheme, trope)×2 (copy length: long, moderate)×2 (involvement: high, low) between‐subjects factorial design.

Absent of liking differences, schemes and tropes are robust motivators of available resources devoted to processing (elaboration and readership). Favourable arguments only influence brand awareness and persuasion if processed. Consumers negatively view longer copy. Nonfigurative headlines encourage insufficient processing as copy lengthens. Insufficient processing decreases brand awareness and persuasion. However, schemes and tropes overcome negative copy length effects on brand awareness and persuasion regardless of involvement.

Without the benefit of increased liking, schemes interfere with copy point and brand memory similar to other creative attention‐getters – humour and sex appeals. Instead, schemes focus consumers on advertising style. The results are based on consumer responses; thus, error may make differences harder to detect. Another limitation is the focus on a single low‐risk, informational product, i.e. pens. Future research should investigate effects of rhetorical works with high‐risk and transformative products.

Advertisers should use rhetorical works to motivate processing, especially with longer copy explaining advantages of new, technical, or complex products. Also, effective rhetorical works need not create positive affect.

Isolating advertising rhetoric effects from liking differences explains anomalies in the literature (e.g. scheme versus trope superiority).