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This paper aims to use the cognitive appraisal theory to investigate the effects of brand engagement and materialism on the positive emotions of joy and excitement evoked by a product at different stages of the purchase process.

Two complementary studies were conducted to achieve the research objectives. Study 1 used a longitudinal design, examining the pre-purchase stage and a moment shortly after the purchase. Study 2 adopted a cross-sectional approach, focusing on the post-purchase stage. Relationships among variables were analyzed through hierarchical regression and moderation analyses.

The findings indicate that materialism is not significantly associated with consumers’ positive product-evoked emotions (joy and excitement) before and shortly after purchase. At these two stages, brand engagement predicts positive emotions. In the post-purchase stage, where materialism is weakly related to joy and excitement, a robust positive link exists between brand engagement and positive product-evoked emotions. Moreover, higher levels of materialism reduce the experience of joy and excitement among participants with high levels of brand engagement.

Experiencing joy and excitement is crucial in consumer behavior. However, little is known about the determinants of these emotions in the consumption context, especially concerning internal consumption-related factors and different stages of the purchase process. This paper contributes to the field by shedding light on the role of brand engagement and materialism in the experience of positive product-evoked emotions. The findings provide evidence that brand engagement significantly enhances consumers’ positive product-evoked emotions, highlighting its importance in consumer behavior research.

This paper seeks to examine the antecedents of online shopper excitement, its consequences for behavioural intentions as expressed by intent to return, and positive word‐of‐mouth communication.

A conceptual model is developed based on the literature. Instrument item scales to measure all constructs in the model were as informed by the literature and adapted from prior studies. An online structured questionnaire survey was sent by e‐mail to a UK consumer panel (n=626). The results were analysed using LISREL 8.7.

Convenience, involvement, attributes of the web site and merchandising all collectively influence shopper excitement. The attributes of the web site and merchandising directly influence intent to return. E‐shopper excitement leads to positive word‐of‐mouth (WOM) and increases the intent to return.

The study may be limited in that no differentiation is made between the types of goods that e‐consumers purchased. A future extension of this work could be to investigate how the study can be applied to various products, including experience goods such as entertainment.

It is shown that shopping excitement can increase intent to return and positive WOM. Understanding online shopper excitement can explain some of the reasons why consumers shop online, which in turn can help e‐tailers improve their offerings to their consumers.

The study presents a comprehensive model of online shopper excitement. This is the first study to validate such a model empirically, and therefore the study adds to the understanding of the antecedents and consequences of consumer excitement in the online shopping environment.

The purpose of this paper is to present the improvement gap analysis (IGA), a simple method to direct improvement opportunities in services that overcomes limitations of the traditional IPA regarding excitement and basic attributes.

The proposed method is theoretically developed and simulated. The theoretical simulation explains why IGA overcomes limitations of the traditional importance performance analysis (IPA) and how it could identify the impact of excitement innovative attributes. A case study with 287 customers of supermarkets was used to empirically test IGA and compare it to IPA.

The case study confirmed that the traditional IPA may lead to wrong improvement decisions for basic and excitement attributes. It happens because IPA is based on current attributes' performance and considers the relationship between attribute performance and customer satisfaction as a linear one. Also, it cannot identify the impact of excitement innovative attributes on customer satisfaction. Using only information about the company's customers, IGA could differentiate neutral from excitement attributes in the case study and, differently from IPA, it correctly identified improvement decisions for basic and excitement attributes.

Although IGA can theoretically distinguish between excitement innovative and neutral attributes, the case study presented in the paper did not test any innovative attribute. All attributes were already experimented or known by the subjects. Future research should empirically test IGA's real capability to identify excitement innovative attributes.

Managers should be aware that IPA may lead to wrong improvement decisions. It may leave excitement attributes unnoticed or direct the company to the improvement of basic attributes that already have adequate performance. IGA can be a good substitute for IPA with the additional advantage that it does not need information about competitors in the analysis. Also, since service quality evaluation depends heavily on customer perception, IGA is particularly suitable to this industry, but it could also be used for product improvement.

The literature presents several papers discussing IPA's problems. Some papers present the possible decision errors of IPA when dealing with excitement and basic attributes. Fewer have tried to propose methods to overcome these problems. This paper confirms the problems of IPA and presents a simple method that overcomes these limitations, distinguishing between excitement and neutral attributes. Also, because it does not use information about competitors, it can be easily used by companies that have difficulties in gathering such information.

This study aims to explore the role of brand personality traits in explaining how different levels of brand favorability evoke affect from and forge connections to consumers.

The authors used a quantitative approach consisting of within-subjects (Study 1) and between-subjects (Study 2) experimental designs. Mediation analyses were tested using OLS regression with the MEMORE and PROCESS macros.

Findings suggest increases in brand excitement and sincerity to be related to differences in positive affect evoked by favorable and unfavorable brands; decreases in brand sincerity to be related to differences in negative affect between favorable and unfavorable brands (Study 1); brand competence and excitement to be related to the relationship between brand favorability and self-brand connection; and brand competence and excitement to best distinguish favorable brands from unfavorable brands (Study 2).

These results support the importance of brand personality traits that are considered to be universally positive and provide managers with an initial roadmap for which brand personality traits should be prioritized when communicating with consumers.

Researchers suggest that trust building may be challenging in the face of conflict. However, there is an emerging proposition that conflict is critical for trust. Using affective events and attribution theories as a framework, the purpose of this paper is to present a model of the mediating effects of positive emotional arousal and self‐conscious emotions in the relationship between conflict and trust.

Data were collected from 325 students enrolled in varied postgraduate programs in a large business school. The authors employed Preacher and Hayes's bootstrapping SPSS macros to test the direct and mediation effects of the connection between conflict, emotions and trust.

Results showed that task, relationship and process conflict were associated with differing aspects of positive emotional arousal (enthusiasm, excitement) and self‐conscious emotions (guilt and shame). Similarly, behavioural guilt was linked with trust while emotions mediated the link between conflict and trust.

The authors acknowledge that there are possible covariates (e.g. how long ago did the conflict occur?) with the variables used in the current study. Future research should include such covariates in the study of the relationship between conflict emotions and trust. Also, the data were largely cross‐sectional, drawn from a relatively small sample. In future, researchers should examine similar constructs with longitudinal data and in large organisational sample. In spite of the above limitations, the validity of the results presented in this paper is not compromised. The study extends self‐conscious emotions literature by demonstrating that guilt and shame have cognitive and behavioural properties and with differing connections with conflict and trust.

The paper's findings suggest that managers who want to engender trust in conflict situations should stimulate task conflict to arouse enthusiasm and excitement. These discrete emotions are critical for building integrity based trust. Alternatively, by managing reparative emotions of guilt effectively, managers may increase levels of perceived trust. Overall, the results suggest that focusing on the effect of conflict on trust without considering the positive emotional arousal and self‐conscious emotions could yield disappointing outcomes.

The study provides new insights into the influence of conflict on trust and the mediating role of emotions (e.g. guilt and shame) in the link between conflict and trust. The paper also offers a practical assistance to individuals interested in building trust, especially in the face of conflict.

The study aims to explore how fashion visual symbols influence consumers' inclination for repurchasing. It attempts to investigate the intricate interplay among three essential variables (social presence, collective excitement and cultural identification) from the perspective of Interaction Ritual Chains theory. Meanwhile, an attempt is made to reveal the underlying patterns in these relationships, fully harnessing the positive impact of fashion brand visual symbols in brand marketing.

This study employs a quantitative research methodology, administering an online survey in China, from which 381 valid responses were collected by simple random sampling. The acquired data were subjected to structural equation model and hypotheses testing.

The analysis reveals that heightened visual symbol perception significantly strengthens consumers' social presence, consequently elevating the probability of collective excitement. This establishes a mediated chain model, reinforcing repurchase intention. Additionally, the moderation effect analysis indicates that cultural identification negatively moderates both direct paths in the mediated chain model, with particularly pronounced effects for low cultural identification.

This study establishes a closed-loop system in fashion brand product marketing, continuously enhancing the intimacy and interactive willingness between consumers, as well as between consumers and the brand. The objective is to increase brand repurchase rates. Additionally, the research provides valuable recommendations and strategies for fashion brands to adapt to Chinese consumer demands, strengthen emotional attachment between consumers and the brand, and achieve sustainable development in the realm of fashion consumption.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a value‐based framework for the consumer e‐trust building process.

The data collection procedure consisted of two steps. The first was a brief questionnaire measuring potential informants' personal values. From this pool of potential informants, 30 were recruited for the interviews: five security‐ and five excitement‐minded consumers from three fields of electronic commerce; electronic newspapers, electronic grocery shopping, and electronic healthcare services.

The findings of the study reveal two value‐based external factors in e‐trust building that consumers perceive as risks in e‐commerce, and three value‐based behavioral patterns in e‐trust building that informants adopt to reduce perceived risks and build trust in e‐commerce. Furthermore, findings of the current study suggest that e‐trust building process is different based on individuals' personal values.

This study takes into account only two consumers' personal values, security and excitement, and ignores others. However, it identifies the role of the consumers' personal values in e‐trust building, and thus opens new perspectives for further e‐trust research. The study also identifies different strategies that consumers can use to build trust in e‐commerce.

This study opens new perspectives in e‐trust research by exploring the role of consumers' personal values in e‐trust building process. The study also provides new insights for other researchers to develop understanding on mechanisms that consumers use to build e‐trust.

This study aims to fill in new evidence related to theoretical explanations on how perception of sincerity, excitement and sophistication relates to attitudes towards the different kinds of brand extensions, namely, horizontal extension and vertical extension.

Taking an established Chinese brand as a test object and a survey sample data from three cities in China, the strength of perception of brand personality and its effect on attitudes towards brand extension is tested. T‐test is used to analyze the data.

Results show that, a salient perception of personality “sincerity” is significantly favourable to downward extension, but has no significant effect on upward, near or far extension. A salient perception of personalities “excitement” and “sophistication” is significantly favourable to upward and far extension, but has no significant effect on downward or near extension.

Although the data used for testing the hypotheses in this article are taken from three cities in China, spanning four major age groups, this collection of data does not eliminate the possible errors introduced in the course of survey. Another limitation is that this survey takes one single established brand.

This study provides targeted strategies for the long‐term management of Chinese local brands, particularly established brands. Decision makers for enterprises of established brands are consequently faced with two alternative solution approaches. One is to undertake brand extension and develop and promote new products to improve brand personality. The second is to reform a brand's personality to make it conducive for reasonable market extension.

This study contributes to branding theories by pioneering research on attitudes towards a parent brand as an evaluation factor in research on the mechanism of brand extension, as well as by enriching research on matters related to brand personality traits.

This paper seeks to examine whether violence embedded in stories in ads can contribute to advertising effectiveness along the same lines as well‐researched ad elements such as the celebrity endorser and the physically attractive ad model. More specifically, the paper aims to assess whether violent content in an ad story adds to excitement perceptions and to overall evaluations such as the attitude toward the ad and the attitude toward the advertised product.

The paper uses an experimental approach comprising two studies in which participants were randomly allocated to ads with different levels of violence in an ad story.

The main finding is that representations of real violence (as opposed to staged violence) produced higher levels of excitement, attitude toward the story, attitude toward the ad, and attitude toward the advertised product compared with no violence. Such effects, however, were moderated by the level of congruence between the ad story and the advertised product; the highest response levels were obtained for ads with violent story content dealing explicitly with the advertised product.

The finding that violent stories in ads can have a positive charge is consonant with the assumption that violence is a narrative device that may heighten the excitement created by a story. It is also in accord with the observation that many consumers appear to relish stories with a violent content. Yet the main finding challenges existing research on violent ads in which violence consists of an image visually co‐exposed with a brand – and it questions the dominant approach in media violence research, which emphasizes the negative effects of media violence.

Using two theoretical lenses – social identity theory and generation cohort theory – the present study analyzes the influence of sport motivations (i.e., patriotism, drama and excitement of the game, nostalgic associations, interest in star players and social influence) on the intentions to watch the International Cricket Council (ICC) Twenty-20 (T20) World Cup of three different generation cohorts (i.e., Generations X, Y and Z).

Data were collected from N = 499 cricket lovers from Pakistan based on a non-probability sampling technique. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), structural equation modeling (SEM) and multi-group modeling techniques were used as methods.

SEM results show that cricket fans' intentions to watch the T20 World Cup are positively influenced by patriotism, drama and excitement of the game, and social influence. The results of multi-group modeling reveal significant differences between Generation X-ers, Y-ers and Z-ers regarding the effect of sport motivations on their intentions to watch the ICC T20 World Cup. Specifically, our findings show that for X-ers, interest in star players and nostalgic associations are the main motivations behind watching the T20 World Cup, whereas drama and excitement appeared to be an important predictor for Y-ers, and patriotism and social influence are more likely to increase Z-ers' intentions to watch the T20 World Cup.

This study is the first of its kind to report the motivations of Generations X, Y and Z to watch the T20 World Cup.