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This study aims to demonstrate that brand experiences can influence perceived brand authenticity, and perceived quality mediates this link. The proposed nomological net also assesses the impact of perceived quality and brand authenticity on consumers’ loyalty intentions, a key consumer-level outcome.

A survey method based on data from a sample of 405 new car owners was used for empirical analysis. Structural equation modeling was performed to test the hypotheses.

The results provide broad support for the framework. All the direct effects and the key indirect effect are significant, as predicted.

As consumers are seeking brands that are genuine in its communication and behavior, building authenticity will be crucial to engage customers and create meaningful social values.

This work develops a framework and empirical evidence of how experiential marketing can contribute to brand authenticity directly and through perceived quality.

This paper proposes that categorization flexibility, operationalized as the cognitive capacity that cross-categorizes products in multiple situational categories across multiple domains, might favorably influence a consumer’s evaluation of unconventional options.

Experimental research design is used to test the theory. An exploratory study first establishes the effect of categorization flexibility in a non-food domain. Study 1 documents the moderating role of decision domain, showing that the effect works only under low- (vs high-) consequence domain. Studies 2A and 2B further refine the notion by showing that individuals can be primed in a relatively higher categorization flexibility frame of mind. Study 3 demonstrates the interactive effect of categorization flexibility and adventure priming in a high-consequence domain. Study 4 integrates the interactive effects of decisions with low- vs high-consequence, adventure priming and categorization flexibility within a single decision domain of high consequence.

Consumers with higher- (vs lower-) categorization flexibility tend to opt for unconventional choices when the decision domain entails low consequences, whereas such a result does not hold under decision domain of high consequences. The categorization flexibility effects in case of low-consequence decision domain holds true even when consumers are primed to be categorization flexible. Furthermore, with additional adventure priming, consumers show an increased preference for unconventional options even under a decision domain with high consequence.

This study could not examine real purchase behavior as results are based on cross-sectional, behavioral intention data. In addition, it did not examine the underlying reason for presence of cross-domain categorization flexibility index.

The results suggest that stimuli may be tailored to consumers in ways that increase the salience and the perceived attractiveness of unconventional choices. Further, data reinforce the notion of cross-categorical interrelations among different domains, which could be leveraged by marketers.

This study represents the first documentation of the potential ways by which unconventional product choice might be a function of individuals’ categorization flexibility level across different types of decision domains. The findings yield implications that are novel to both categorization and consumer decision-making literature.

The purpose of this study is to propose that high categorization flexibility’s positive influence on hedonic or affect-laden choice is attenuated by conservation and nutrition mind-sets. Further, categorization flexibility can also promote utilitarian or cognitively superior preference and may have a role in steering customers toward healthier dietary choices.

Two experimental studies document that the pro-utilitarian impact of food categorization flexibility can be facilitated by priming conservation mind-set and nutrition mind-sets.

The results of this study show that conservation and nutrition mind-sets not only mitigate the earlier-demonstrated facilitative influence of food categorization flexibility on hedonic food preference, but also facilitate utilitarian food preference.

The current study provides the first evidence that food categorization flexibility can facilitate both hedonic and utilitarian preferences. The findings contribute to literature streams on categorization flexibility, resource-scarcity and hedonic versus utilitarian consumption. In addition, the findings offer specific prescriptions about encouraging customers to choose utilitarian and relatively more healthful food options, which in turn will improve the general welfare of the society.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the interplay of brand experience and brand attitude and its influence on brand attitude. Specifically, it proposes that the relationship will be mediated by brand credibility.

The conceptual model is tested by estimating a structural equation model with survey data from a sample of new automobile users (n=405).

The analysis reveals a full mediation of brand credibility; that is, brand credibility is an underlying mechanism through which the effect of brand experience on brand attitude materializes. In addition, contrary to the general expectation, there was no direct effect of brand experience on brand attitude.

This study enables a new perspective on how experiential marketing underpins a brand’s influence on certain aspects of consumer behaviour. By elucidating the mediating role of brand credibility, this study adds to the understanding of how brand experience shapes brand credibility, leading to favourable brand attitude.

Based on knowledge-based view of the firm, and salesperson attributions, the purpose of this paper is to develop and test a contingency-based framework featuring how salespeople’s product knowledge: product and brand knowledge (PBK) and competitors’ product and brand knowledge (CPBK) and optimism impact salesperson performance.

Hypotheses are tested on survey data from 185 car salespeople in Southeast USA.

Results document support for the main effects of PBK, CPBK, and their joint effects. Furthermore, under high optimism, the positive impact of CPBK on salesperson performance is attenuated. However, optimism × PBK interaction was not supported.

Extant literature lacks insights into the impact of salespeople’s product knowledge. By examining salespeople’s product knowledge in a disaggregated fashion, and the interaction of product knowledge × optimism, this research highlights the multi-dimensional nature of product knowledge, whose complex ramifications cannot otherwise be uncovered by a globally conceptualized construct.

This study isolates salespeople’s domain-specific knowledge of products from the more global construct of salespeople’s knowledge. The focus on how PBK and CPBK exert a joint positive influence on performance is novel. In addition, by examining how optimism weakens the relationship between CPBK and performance, this research provides a notable contrast to extant findings and broadens the learned optimism paradigm.

This research aims to investigate how preference for marketing research methodology (quantitative vs qualitative) is contingent on the thinking orientation (analytic vs holistic) of the researchers.

Thinking orientation was measured and then manipulated in laboratory experiments. Cross-cultural evidence was sought by comparing Western and East Asian participants.

Results demonstrate that researchers with an analytic (holistic) thinking orientation tend to perceive quantitative (qualitative) methodology more favorably. Further, the need to offer reasons in support of the choice strengthened the effect of thinking orientation.

Understanding researchers’ preferences for one research methodology over the other has broad relevance for external constituents, as it involves a great deal of managerial commitment in terms of time and money and can affect the results of the research.

This is the first study to investigate factors that underlie researchers’ choice regarding research methodology, and it also extends the literature on analytic versus holistic thinking orientation in the marketing field.