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The purpose of this study is to conceptually integrate business to consumer (B2C) into business to business (B2B), with a holistic consumer-centric, technology-reinforced, long-term vision for tourism industries and companies to survive and succeed in the era of new technologies 4.0. The research suggests that the tourism-marketing-new technologies decision-making involves customers as the center of the design and decision process.

The research design includes a qualitative study with 94 in-depth interviews, a literature analysis and a conceptual proposition. The qualitative study follows the tourism consumer desire data analysis, from categorization to integration. The literature analysis applies a systematic literature review approach based on the 29 most up-to-date new-tech papers from peer-reviewed journals. The analysis compares qualitative research findings and literature analysis results and matches the new technology applications with consumer desire understanding. The conceptual framework of tourism marketing/advertising is proposed based on qualitative research and literature analysis.

The qualitative research deciphers that consumers, based on their imagination and memorization, desire therapy and sceneries and connect such desires to the empathetic and resonating advertising messages. The literature analysis synthesizes the new tech applications in tourism and matches the qualitative research findings with the deciphered desires in tourism. The conceptual model proposes that B2C should be integrated into B2B to provide value for both consumers and businesses and opens avenues of research on this topic.

This research has made the following theoretical contributions: it offers an in-depth understanding of consumer desire, often hidden or subconscious, in the field of tourism. Consumer desires regarding tourism are mostly subconscious and exist long before consumers are exposed to advertising messages. These desires reflect the search for therapy and sceneries and become “embodied” – they exist on multisensorial levels and become part of the body and life and will lead consumers into positive perceptions when marketing communications/advertisements resonate with them. In the latter case, they will subjectively judge advertising as “good,” regardless of the advertising design quality. The research also connects consumer research with a new technologies research review and proposes a conceptual framework to integrate business to consumer (B2C) with business to business (B2B). As such, the research makes theoretical contributions to the integration or the “boundary blurring” between B2C and B2B research and practical suggestions that involved industries and consumers may all benefit from such integration. Conceptually, there is a lack of discussions of the pitfalls of new technologies, a dearth of empirical verification of the applications of new technologies in the proposed fields and a shortage of discussions about ethical issues. Qualitative methods, offering an efficient tool for understanding consumer desires in the tourism industry, have their own limits, as discussed in previous research. The sample is limited to the state of New York population and may be influenced by geographic, demographic and psychological characteristics related to the region.

This research provides advertising practitioners, new technology innovators and tourism industries with a framework to face the combined challenges of understanding hidden consumer desires and applying adequate technologies that resonate with consumer desires to tackle relevant issues. The conceptual proposition of this research fills the gap between qualitative consumer research without concrete practical resolution and new technologies applications without in-depth consumer understanding. Through the conceptual framework, the author provides insights into how industries may benefit from consumer understanding. The business relationships among the industries of marketing, tourism and new technologies should be centered around consumers. Thus, B2C and B2B should be naturally integrated into business practices.

Social implications of this research include three major points: first, the understanding of consumer desire for therapeutic power in tourism, which invites more attention to tourism as part of social well-being design instead of a purely for-profit business. Second, a profound comprehension of what consumers need and desire, without which the applications of new technologies may cause severe societal problems. Third, a way to tailor to consumers’ individuality and desires for advertising/marketing that may be considered abusive, stressful and socially destructive if applied in a nonpersonal manner.

Conceptually, this research adds consumer desire, an originally B2C concept, to the B2B context regarding the new technology applications in tourism marketing/advertising. It contributes to the B2B literature by proposing a strong consumer-centric approach, especially the consumer desire understanding, that is not yet investigated in the B2B literature; and a combination of empirical study and literature analysis and the matching of the two for better practice of advertising/marketing, tourism and new technologies applications.

This study aims at verifying the impact of literacy on over-the-counter (OTC) drug consumer vulnerability as evaluated by health literacy and label comprehension.

The item response theory (IRT) was used to estimate the health literacy of two groups and the two-way analysis of variance tests was used to test the hypotheses for the existence of mean differences between the two populations. The convenience sample involved 188 OTC consumers: 94 (50%) poorly literate and 94 (50%) university students/graduates.

University consumers/graduates have a level of health literacy and label comprehension that is superior to those presented by poor literate consumers. Also, age does not influence the level of health literacy by OTC drug users but has a significant impact on the understanding of OTC drug labels. Finally, the level of schooling and the “age group,” simultaneously, does not impact the understanding of OTC drug labels or health literacy.

This study has added in the field of knowledge by investigating the behavior of poor literate consumers in Brazil, a developing country. The results may be relevant to Marketing professionals, especially those in the pharmaceutical industry, and to police makers, as they help identify the main problems faced by poorly literate consumers.

It is necessary to raise awareness of the dangers of self-medication and wrong use of medications, mainly focused on people with low literacy. As a suggestion, a simple glossary presented along with the label could provide explanations of scientific terms, thus increasing health literacy and reducing the vulnerability of the consumers.

This study showed that when using common words such as gastritis to define a health problem, there is a higher degree of correctness. These results suggest the adoption of a more straightforward language and more precise explanations. By doing that, the pharmaceutical industry and policymakers will improve their social impact by increasing consumer power and taking care of the health of the most vulnerable population: the illiterate people.

This study contributes to the international literature, as it enhances and clarifies the knowledge about the customers’ power and vulnerability in developing countries. It fills a gap by evaluating label comprehension and heath literacy at the same time, giving an academic contribution for pharmaceutical consumers’ studies.

Consumer discourse is a narrative of generically (in)formed, goal‐directed activity. If research interprets such practice, it is often deemed to draw upon phenomenology. Returning to the philosophers (Gadamer, Heidegger, Merleau‐Ponty and Ricoeur) who shaped phenomenology, the purpose of this paper is to argue that consumer studies should further cultivate their important insight – that action (particularly perceiving) is structured temporally as always already realising our pre‐given meaning. Entities are prima facie experienced as “ready‐to‐hand” “equipment” enabling “potentiality‐for‐being”. Hermeneutic phenomenology is thus a philosophical resource offering appropriate spatio‐temporal images for people responding to media marketing's branded life‐styles.

Drawing upon authoritative academic resources, the paper proceeds from philosophical definition to resulting analytical methods in marketing research, using a brief Malaysian case study as an example. Philosophically, phenomenology's core perception is of persons as located in a life‐world of socially shared concepts whose employment/ emplotment is said to “fore‐structure” (Heidegger) their understanding, shaping their “projections” (Gadamer) or expectation of events. Phenomenology posits one engages in a “hermeneutic circle of understanding” – aiming at resolving contradiction between such “fore‐sight” and our subsequent perceptions of events. Consumers thematise “pre‐understood” experience in articulating their storied accounts.

Drawing on phenomenology's account of perceiving, the paper suggests qualitative marketing research unpacks consumers' generic expectation of branding narrative as equipment enabling potentiality‐for‐being, regarding narrative as addressing assumed audience expectation.

The paper provides a conceptual route through phenomenology's application to marketing communication research practice.

We aim to understand what happens when larger social and cultural myths become the incarnate understanding of consumers within the firm. This paper uncovers the varied myths at play in one Finnish company’s status as an inadvertent cultural icon.

Through a qualitative inquiry of Finland’s largest dairy producer and by employing the theoretical lens of myth, we conceptualize the entanglement of broad cultural, social, and organizational myths within the organization.

Macro-mythic structures merge with everyday employee practice giving consumer understanding flesh within the firm (Hallet, 2010). Mythological thinking leaves organizational members inevitably bound up in a form of consumer knowing that is un-reflective and inadvertently effects brand marketing management.

Working through a nuanced typology of myth (Tillotson & Martin, 2014) provided a deeper understanding of how managers may become increasingly un-reflexive in their marketing activities. This case also provides a cautionary tale for heterogeneous communities where ideological conflict underscores development and adoption of contemporary myths.

The aim of this paper is to discuss how corporate brand images evolve in consumers' everyday life and its implications for the company's branding strategies.

A conceptual discussion and a framework are presented that maps four alternative views on corporate brand images and market dynamics in relation to corporate branding.

Corporate brand evolution is suggested as a way of including consumers' everyday brand image constructions and re‐constructions in a company's branding strategy. Corporate brand evolution is based on two new concepts: image heritage and image‐in‐use. A model for understanding evolving strategic corporate branding is proposed.

The proposed view on evolving corporate brands is deliberately developed for understanding open source brand dynamics in ever‐changing markets. This paper is limited to make a conceptual contribution. Therefore, research implications are to develop empirically the understanding of image‐in‐use and image heritage in various business contexts.

An understanding on how brands evolve over time has two major practical implications for companies. First, companies need to develop new approaches and methods to understanding how brands evolve over time. For example, by investigating the consumer' image heritage of the company. This may enhance considerably possibilities for open branding strategies that meet consumer reality to be developed.

The two new concepts, image heritage and image‐in‐use, and the novel approach of evolving corporate brand images are important as they are based on a new consumer understanding, recognizing that consumers' corporate image constructions are dynamic ever‐changing processes and not static end‐states.

This study examines consumer brand associations, focusing on the differences between association held for western brands and eastern brands by young Singaporeans under the country‐of‐origin umbrella. The study also examines consumer ethnocentric tendencies (CET), finding very low levels of ethnocentrism among respondents, and results indicate CET had no effect on brand preference or purchase intention.

The purpose of this paper is to report how food regulators communicate with consumers about food safety and how they believe consumers understand their role in relation to food safety. The implications of this on the role of food regulators are considered.

In total, 42 food regulators from Australia, New Zealand and the UK participated in a semi-structured interview about their response to food incidents and issues of food regulation more generally. Data were analysed thematically.

Food regulators have a key role in communicating information to consumers about food safety and food incidents. This is done in two main ways: proactive and reactive communication. The majority of regulators said that consumers do not have a good understanding of what food regulation involves and there were varied views on whether or not this is important.

Both reactive and proactive communication with consumers are important, however there are clear benefits in food regulators communicating proactively with consumers, including a greater understanding of the regulators’ role. Regulators should be supported to communicate proactively where possible.

There is a lack of information about how food regulators communicate with consumers about food safety and how food regulators perceive consumers to understand food regulation. It is this gap that forms the basis of this paper.

This study aimed to investigate consumers' understanding of country of origin (CoO) information and its relative importance in the context of their everyday food purchase decisions.

A cross-sectional intercept survey of 402 consumers in two cities in New Zealand was conducted. Respondents were asked to describe what they had considered when selecting a food item in their trolley. This was followed by questions to assess respondents' knowledge of CoO and their use and understanding of common CoO labels.

Price (42 per cent), taste (40 per cent), health (18 per cent), and quality (18 per cent) were the most important factors that respondents mentioned. Only 3.5 per cent of respondents mentioned CoO as one of the factors influencing their decision. Of respondents 61 per cent, when prompted, stated that they knew the CoO of the food product selected. Of these respondents, 90 per cent were correct. Of respondents 62 per cent stated that they look at CoO labels when making food purchase decisions. Yet, only one third of respondents correctly understood the difference between the “Made in” and “Product of” labels.

The findings suggest that consumers that do access CoO labels are misinterpreting this information which may form the basis of their assumptions about the source of origin of the brands and food products they routinely purchase.

Mandatory CoO labelling policies may add costs and reinforce misconceptions that consumers already hold about the meaning of these labels.

This study contributes to understanding of the extent to which consumers are competent in their knowledge and understanding of these informational labels.

Service separation distress arises when service consumers worry that a useful service may become unavailable. This paper aims to integrate two theoretical explanations of ongoing service use, being service continuance and relationship commitment and a common foundation of cognitive social capital.

This study conducts an online survey of 245 cloud service consumers, which we use to test our research model.

This paper finds that relationship commitment mediates the service continuance explanation in explaining service separation distress.

While service features are important, they are less important than the consumer’s perceived relationship with the service in promoting perceived service separation distress. Contrary to expectations, the finding identified the service relationship as the dominant explanation for service separation distress.

Jeopardy to the consumer-provider relationship can create greater anxiety and distress to consumers than a disruption that threatens service features alone. Adding service features may not reduce customer separation distress regarding the service.

The unified cognitive social capital lens on service separation suggests that consumers value service provider relationships (e.g. commitment and trust) over service features. A stronger social relationship with the consumer, in turn, strengthens the perceived service offering.

This is among the first studies to unify two explanations of service continuance using social capital and to empirically identify how this explanation affects service distress.