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The purpose of this paper is to explore the main effect of brand perception (brand warmth vs brand competence) on purchase intention, the mediating effect of brand love and the moderating effects of the emotional polarity of online reviews.

This paper utilizes experimental design and machine learning to collect and clean data. The ANOVA, t-test and bootstrap analysis methods are used to verify the assumed hypotheses.

Findings demonstrate that brand perception influences purchase intention with the mediating effect of brand love and the moderating effect of the emotional polarity of online reviews. In particular, brand perception can promote brand love and further enhance purchase intention. When consumers browse positive online reviews, brand warmth (vs brand competence) will lead to higher purchase intention. However, when consumers browse negative online reviews, brand competence (vs brand warmth) will weaken purchase intention more.

The findings of the current research contribute to purchase intention in the context of online reviews by highlighting the importance of brand love and the key role of brand perception, to which prior studies have paid little attention. The authors' research also provides some suggestions for enterprises about how to strengthen brand love by investigating consumers' perceptions of brand warmth and brand competence and further increasing purchase intention while consumers face positive or negative online reviews.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of a Disney collaboration and Disney product line extension type on the perceptions of masstige brands and purchase intentions. By identifying masstige brands as two types (i.e. born-masstige versus luxury-masstige brands), this study investigates how consumers respond to a Disney collection across different types of masstige brands.

The authors conducted three studies using an experimental approach.

Study 1 shows that compared to a traditional collection, a Disney collection lowered perceptions of brand luxury, but the negative effect is stronger for born-masstige brands than luxury-masstige brands. Studies 2 and 3 revealed that an upward extension enhanced perceptions of luxury for the born-masstige brand more than it did with a horizontal extension, whereas there was no difference between upward and horizontal extensions for the luxury-masstige brand.

This study contributes to understanding how Disney collaborations influence consumers’ perceptions of masstige brands. It has implications for brand positioning and pricing strategies for practitioners collaborating with Disney or similar companies.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first of its kind to investigate consumer responses to a Disney collaborated collection across two types of masstige brands by exploring their type of product line extensions.

Consumers often use various cues such as health stars and nutrition claims on product packaging to draw inferences regarding healthfulness. However, much less is known regarding the role of brand names in consumer decisions around healthfulness. The purpose of this study is to introduce angelic branding as a brand naming strategy that may act as a supernatural agent benevolence (i.e. loving, kind and merciful) prime that leads consumers to perceive that the brand’s products are healthful.

Study 1 examines the effect of angelic brand names on brand healthfulness perceptions. Study 2 investigates the mediating role of brand virtuousness perceptions on the relationship between angelic branding and brand healthfulness perceptions and the downstream consequences on purchase intention. Study 3 explores the moderating role of authoritarian supernatural agent belief (i.e. angry, vindictive and punishing) on the relationship between angelic branding and brand virtuousness perceptions, and subsequent brand healthfulness perceptions and purchase intention.

The results of this study demonstrate that angelic branding results in healthfulness perceptions for a healthy product (i.e. vitamins; Study 1a), an unhealthy product (i.e. cookies; Study 1b; eliminating perceptual fluency as a potential alternative explanation for the phenomenon) and across different product categories (i.e. surface spray; Study 1c). The results from Study 2 find that angelic brand names prime brand healthfulness perceptions because of the activation of brand virtuousness perceptions (not brand quality perceptions; eliminating a general halo effect as a potential alternative explanation for the phenomenon). The results of Study 3 show that strong belief in authoritarian supernatural agents attenuates the angelic brand name–brand healthfulness priming effect.

This research is limited, as it only considers angelic brand naming and not any other benevolence cues in brand logos, such as halos and angel wings. This research is also limited in that it only considers healthfulness perceptions drawn from English angelic brand name cues and from participants within the USA and the UK.

This study has important implications for brand managers in the development of new brand names. Angelic brand naming is suggested as a strategy for brand managers to prime perceptions of brand virtuousness and brand healthfulness and to influence consumer behavior. However, brand managers are cautioned against the use of this brand naming strategy if it is intended to mislead or deceive consumers, resulting in detrimental effects on their health.

This research makes a unique and novel contribution to the literature in brand names on consumer decision-making. Angelic branding is introduced as a brand naming strategy that can act as a supernatural agent religious prime to influence perceptions of brand virtuousness, brand healthfulness and consumer behavioral intentions (i.e. purchase intention).

Sensory perception is an important factor to understand and effectively appeal to consumers. As consumers process information consciously and subconsciously, both perception levels (explicit and implicit) are essential to investigate. This paper aims to analyze the effects of explicit and implicit sensory perception on brand experience and brand-related performance indicators and then investigate the correlations between the senses and experience dimensions.

The authors conducted a field experiment in a coffee house. For data collection, the authors used a questionnaire for explicit measures and a response latency measurement for implicit measures. For data analysis, structural equation modeling and a correlation analysis were conducted.

The results reveal positive relationships between explicit and implicit sensory perception, brand experience and brand performance in the context of gastronomy. Furthermore, implicit perception acts through explicit perception, and brand experience plays a major role as a mediator between sensory perception and consumer responses. Moreover, visual and haptic perception reveal the highest weights in the structural model and the strongest correlations with the experience dimensions.

This paper contributes to consumer research by providing empirical evidence for the importance of both the explicit and implicit sensory perception to effectively appeal to consumers. The results give valuable insights on the effectiveness of sensory marketing in generating memorable brand experiences and positive brand performance. Furthermore, the findings provide new knowledge on which senses (explicit and implicit) are related to different types of experiences.

In recent years, brands have increasingly engaged in corporate political advocacy (CPA; also termed brand activism or corporate sociopolitical activity) by taking positions on polarizing sociopolitical issues. Recent experimental research suggests that consumers respond to CPA based on its alignment with their own values, and that it typically induces an overall negative response. This study aims to provide additional insights by exploring consumer brand perceptions following CPA.

An event study of 106 CPA events and weekly consumer brand perception data was conducted. A regression model was used to investigate the moderating effects of CPA effort, concurrence and the strength of the online protests evoked by the CPA.

The results show that CPA had a negative effect on consumers’ brand perceptions and that the effect was stronger for customers relative to non-customers. The negative effect was attenuated by CPA concurrence and amplified by effort. Additionally, online protests were driven by the CPA effort and had a strong negative effect on brand perception. Online protests were stronger in the past, and, in turn, the negative effects of CPA on brand perceptions have slightly weakened in recent years.

This study contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the role of online protests following CPA and distinguishing consumer and customer responses. This study also provides converging evidence of the moderating effects of effort and concurrence identified in previous studies.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the structural relationships between chain restaurant patrons' brand attitude, utilitarian value, hedonic value, well‐being perception, and behavioral intentions with the moderating role of involvement.

A review of the current literature in these areas revealed ten theoretical hypotheses, from which the authors derived a structural model. The model was tested utilizing data collected from 433 chain restaurant patrons. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were utilized to test the proposed theoretical relationships.

Data analysis indicates that brand attitude and hedonic value bear a positive impact on patrons' well‐being perception. However, it was revealed that utilitarian value does not have significant impact on patrons' well‐being perception. It was also found that well‐being perception is the most powerful determinant of patrons' positive behavioral intentions. More importantly, well‐being perception played a full mediating role in the relationship between hedonic value and behavioral intentions. Lastly, it was revealed that the moderating role of involvement in the relationships between well‐being perception and behavioral intentions is significant.

The findings emphasize the significance of the study variables in maximizing patrons' well‐being perception and in inducing positive behavioral intentions. Since there has been little study of consumer well‐being (CWB) in the chain restaurant industry, the model verified here may serve as a guide for future research aimed at understanding the formation of CWB and its potential impact on other marketing variables in the chain restaurant industry.

The model verified in this study is the first that explains the formation of CWB and its impact on patrons' behavioral intentions.

This research aims to examine the impact of brand design elements (logo shape, brand name, type font and color) on brand masculinity and femininity perceptions, consumer preferences and brand equity.

This research empirically tests the relation between brand design elements, brand masculinity and femininity and brand preferences/equity in four studies involving fictitious and real brands.

Brand design elements consistently influenced brand masculinity and femininity perceptions. These, in turn, significantly related to consumer preferences and brand equity. Brand masculinity and femininity perceptions successfully predicted brand equity above and beyond other brand personality dimensions.

Although this research used a wide range of brand design elements, the interactive effects of various design elements warrant further research.

This research demonstrates how markers of masculinity and femininity that are discussed in the evolutionary psychology literature can be applied to the brand design of new and existing brands.

This research considers the impact of multiple brand design elements (logo shape, brand name, type font and color) and involves a wide range of brands and product categories.

Most business-related studies on ethics focus on consumers in developed western economies but ignore developing economies. Therefore, to fill this void in the literature and address the concerns of prior studies, the purpose of this paper is to examine the ethical perceptions of Chinese consumers as an example of effective and efficient management of company/brand strategies in an economy experiencing rapid socioeconomic growth.

This study examines 328 Chinese consumers’ purchase intentions based on their ethical perceptions toward Apple and P&G through mediating (i.e. consumer–corporate identification (CCI) and brand trust) and moderating (i.e. consumer gender, age, education and residence) effects. Structural equation modeling is used to analyze the constructs and overall model.

The ethical perceptions of consumers translate into purchase intentions, both at the corporate and product brand levels. Similarly, a significant direct relationship between CCI and brand trust reveals that corporate-level ethical identification is a trivial matter to customers, although these perceptions do apply to product brands under a corporate umbrella. Furthermore, to identify target groups of Chinese consumers who are receptive to ethical appeals, moderating variables were found to be useful.

The results confirm that the mediating role of CCI is more influential in the context of Chinese consumers’ ethical perceptions, followed by brand trust. In relation to demographics, ethical perceptions affect CCI and brand trust more positively in females and highly educated consumers in China. Similarly, the relationship between consumers’ ethical perception and their trust in brand is revealed more influential in urban residents than they do in rural. This broadens the applications and contexts of this research model. The results provide managerial guidance on enhancing potential ethical perceptions.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a suggestion for the research framework on tourists as target groups for planning city branding strategies with reference to possible differences for tourists having a different country of origin. This framework was applied to analyze and compare the perception of Banja Luka city brand (Bosnia and Herzegovina) by four main target group by country of origin.

The suggested research framework combines qualitative generation of tourist’s city brand associations and brand personality with quantitative measurements of city brand perception (scale developed following the framework of Anholts’ (2006) City Brand Index adjusted to tourists as target groups).

The developed research framework was demonstrated in the example of Banja Luka main target groups. Three dimensions of city brand which largely coincide Anholt’s (2006) dimensions were extracted: tourist attractiveness, life standard and safe and pleasant atmosphere. Differences between analyzed countries were found in city brand perception, brand associations, brand personality, but also in all other analyzed categories.

Possible limitation of the study is the fact that results were interpreted including both those who have visited Banja Luka and those who are not personally familiar with it.

Practical implications of research findings are demonstrated in form of branding suggestions focused on particular target groups.

The study suggests a research framework on tourists as target groups in the city branding process. Also, it contributes to a very scarce research on differences in city brand perception by target groups by country of origin, but also to the literature related to Banja Luka city brand and tourism development.

This paper aims to investigate what influence the perceptions of two parent brands have on the perception of a newly formed co-brand. Furthermore, it elaborates whether respondents’ evaluations of the parent brands, their familiarity towards the parent brands and their usage of the parent brands affect this influence.

Building on both cognitive consistency and information integration theory, this paper proposes a model-based approach to quantify the parent brands’ influence on the co-brand’s perception. Using an empirical study with 317 respondents collected by a professional online market research firm, this paper highlights the benefits of this model-based approach.

The results indicate that the perception of a co-brand arises from a weighted merge of the parent brands’ perceptions. The findings further reveal that the better (worse) a parent brand’s evaluation is in contrast to the other parent brand’s evaluation, the more (less) familiar a parent brand is in contrast to the other parent brand, and the more (less) frequent a parent brand is used in contrast to the other parent brand, the larger (smaller) is its influence on the co-brand’s perception.

The findings shed light on the formation of a co-brand’s perception which can be crucial when selecting the right co-branding partner. Additionally, by quantifying the parent brands’ influence on the perception of the co-brand, this model-based approach helps brand managers to analyze co-brand pairings beforehand and select the best pairing in accordance with their goals.