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The impact of colour is acknowledged within the marketing field. However, research on colour communication is limited, with most prior studies focusing on pre-defined meanings or colour associations. The purpose of this paper is to reveal insights into colour meaning and propose an alternative view to understanding colour communication.

The study takes a conceptual approach and proposes Peircean semiotics to understand colour communication. The proposed framework is applied to analyse a set of colour meanings detected by prior colour research.

The study elucidates the underlying mechanism of how colour is read and interpreted in various marketing activities, and how meaning is conveyed. This study addresses this mechanism by identifying colour semantics and colour as a symbolic, iconic and indexical sign.

The study contributes to the scholarly knowledge of colour in marketing. It enriches the understanding of how consumers interpret representations of single visual signs expressed in contexts such as products, brands and brand packaging to make informed product decisions.

By understanding consumer interpretation as a stage in the communication process, marketers can develop more informed marketing activities to communicate the intended meanings. This may well strengthen the brand identity and contribute to the perceived brand value.

By elaborating on how colours convey meanings and the mechanism that explains such meanings, this study demonstrates that colour meaning is far more than mere association. The study contributes to the current knowledge of colour by facilitating a deeper understanding of how consumers interpret representations of single visual cues expressed in various contexts.

To provide insights into holiday well-being, the purpose of this paper is to examine two inevitable traveller activities related to destinations’ gastronomy: pre-trip food information sourcing and the daily meals consumed.

A survey was carried out among 243 Finnish travellers. The findings are based on univariate analysis (t-test, ANOVA and regression analysis).

Pre-trip behaviour to ensure holiday well-being is based on travellers’ interests in food, an emotional desire for a sense of safety and a functional desire for convenience, while they collect information from the internet and guidebooks about recommended food places and local food as well as food safety and price level. Travellers’ place the highest importance on dinner for their holiday well-being, especially foodies – those travellers with a keen interest in food. Breakfast is the second most important meal contributing to holiday well-being.

These findings inform destination marketing organisations about what food dimensions they should emphasise in destination gastronomy-related marketing communication for tour operators and hotel and local restaurants about the essence of dinner and breakfast for holiday well-being.

The study provides insights into the role of destinations’ gastronomy in holiday well-being, which deserves to be studied in the current era of experiences and food interest.

This study aims to examine how cruise ship dinescapes, as a specific type of organized and staged service environment, influence customers’ attitudes, on-board behaviour, satisfaction and behavioural intentions.

Data was collected using a cross-sectional survey from 552 passengers on-board one of the big cruise ships with a Caribbean itinerary.

Cruise ship dinescape, as an on-board food experience platform, is built on three dimensions: restaurant atmospherics, interactions with other guests and restaurant staff. The findings show how these dimensions influence passengers’ emotional experiences and quality perceptions. The results also show how travellers’ cruise ship dinescape satisfaction affect their overall vacation satisfaction and future travel behaviour.

The findings imply that cruise companies should pay extra attention to organised food service environments like dinescapes staged for passengers. Through these scapes cruise companies may provide favourable platforms enabling dining satisfaction, but also social interaction and co-creation of memorable experiences.

This study builds a comprehensive model in cruise ship context, which links dinescape experiences to overall cruise ship dining experiences and dining behaviour mediated by emotional and perceived quality outcomes with further consequences.

Research has largely disregarded consumer–packaging interaction in contexts other than retail. Focusing on the powerful cue of colour and consumers’ pleas for sustainability and drawing on the customer journey and moments of consumption, this study investigates how packaging colour meanings are redefined from retail to home and how the meaning of sustainability for colour transforms.

A qualitative methodology was employed with 27 informants, who were interviewed in pairs or in small groups of three.

First, colour meanings emerge outside the retail context, confirming the idea of the packaging journey. Colours are dynamic, as meanings are redefined throughout the voyage. In retail, colour conveys brand, product, environmental and origin-related meanings, while at home it conveys product, food- and health-related meanings. At the end of the journey, colour communicates disposal, environmental, health and origin-related meanings. Second, the meaning of sustainability for colour transforms during the voyage from being conveyed by a colour hue to being perceived as a material and, therefore, as a waste and recycling concern.

The study adds insight into the role of colour in the packaging life cycle, wherein colour transforms from a visual packaging cue to an issue of materiality. The recyclability of colours is a prevailing sustainability issue that deserves attention within the packaging industry. The study argues that although the consumer–packaging interaction in the retail context is essential, managers should recognise that the interaction continues with colours from in-store purchase decisions to consumers’ homes (use and recycling).

Past research on luxury is fragmented resulting in challenges to define what the construct of luxury means. Based on a need for conceptual clarity, this study aims to map how research conceptualises luxury and its creation.

This study presents a scoping review of luxury articles published in peer-reviewed journals. Of the initial 270 articles discovered by using the database of Scopus, and after control searching in Web of Science and reference scanning, 54 high-quality studies published before the end of 2020 were found to meet the inclusion criteria and comprised the final analytical corpus.

The findings demonstrate that research approaches luxury and its creation from three different perspectives: the provider-, consumer- and co-creation perspectives. In addition, the findings pinpoint how the perspectives differ from each other due to fundamental and distinguishing features and reveal particularities that underlie the perspectives.

The suggested framework offers implications to researchers who are interested in evaluating and developing luxury studies. Based on the identified luxury perspectives, the study identifies future research avenues.

The study contributes to the luxury research stream by advancing an understanding of an existing pluralistic perspective and by adding conceptual clarity to luxury literature. It also contributes to marketing and branding research by showing how the luxury literature connects to the evolution of value creation research in marketing literature.

The aim of this study is to explore the contextual influences of packaging design and its cues on respondents' preferences.

To explore the contextuality of packaging cues, a multi-attribute valuation technique, conjoint analysis was used for two types of pharmaceutical products (painkiller and sore throat medicine) across seven countries. Data were collected among respondents (N = 461) from Finland, Ghana, Mongolia, Nigeria, Portuguese, South Africa and the USA.

Similarities and dissimilarities were observed between the product types and countries analysed in terms of the impact of packaging cues. The findings demonstrate the global and local nature of brand cues expressed in retail packaging.

The study implies that some cues may serve global markets, while some cues may need to be localised in order to meet the needs of local markets. Understanding these cues and their influences on consumers' brand preferences and choices at the point-of-purchases may enable companies to enter new markets, help them create sustainable and credible global brands.

The study contributes to the existing retail packaging literature and pharmaceutical branding literature by providing empirical evidence of the multidimensional aspects of sensory packaging cues. Second, it contributes by showing the contextual nature of retail packaging and its associated cues for OTC pharmaceuticals.

This study aims to explore factors affecting travellers’ food-related behaviour by focusing on the local food market. By doing so, the study contributes to the research on food experience in tourism and food-based regional development. The local food phenomenon presents essential research issues from various perspectives.

A self-administered questionnaire provided to attendees of a travel fair gauges respondents’ food attitudes and food-related behaviour related to information sourcing and perceptions of food experiences.

The study reveals three types of food-related behaviour. Experiencers are committed; they perceive food as essential to destination choices. They search for food-related information before their trips and value originality, newness and locality, as well as authenticity and uniqueness in local food, which eventually have an impact on travel satisfaction. Enjoyers have more casual attitudes towards food, though they view it as an important aspect of their holiday. For survivors, the local food of their destination serves mainly physiological needs.

Travellers’ food-related attitudes vary, and they behave according to these variations. This information serves as a means to brand hospitality and tourism businesses. Local food attracts travellers and it contributes to the tourist experience, indicating marketing potential for hospitality industries, tourism business and regional development.

This study adds to tourism research by exploring the effect of food attitudes on behaviours related to local food and local food markets. In particular, it highlights information sourcing, including local food and restaurants, and reveals food and eating characteristics that contribute to various types of travellers’ local food experiences, which have received little prior research attention.

The purpose of this study was to explore what luxury represents to contemporary consumers in their own life contexts.

A mixed-methods qualitative approach was adopted that comprised individual, personal interviews and focused interviews with small groups.

The study contributes to the field of luxury research by highlighting consumers’ interpretations of luxury as highly subjective, relative and contextual; showing that according to consumers, luxury relates to both consumption and non-consumption contexts; illustrating the value of luxury as a multidimensional construct in both contexts; and demonstrating how luxury may relate to a consumer’s desire to be meaningful and genuine, thereby generating prudential value. In these cases, luxury is closely linked to consumers’ perceptions of meaningfulness and well-being.

For marketing managers, the findings suggest that the wave of new luxury – seeking meaningfulness – may serve as a novel means of branding.

This study demonstrates that the significance of the concept of luxury transcends commercial settings and offerings, i.e. the brand, product or service. The findings show that luxury may also be generated in non-commercial contexts and specific activities (e.g. running, gardening). Based on these findings, it is proposed that luxury in non-commercial settings is characteristic of the new wave of luxury, and that in such settings, luxury may contribute to personal well-being, thereby generating prudential value.

The changing health care market is affecting consumers who are now expected to take greater responsibility for their health. Their means for doing this include purchasing self‐medication and medical self‐service, which coincides neatly with an increase in the number of over‐the‐counter (OTC) pharmaceuticals. Additionally, OTC pharmaceuticals are progressively becoming available in a wider range of stores, where the pharmacists' knowledge of the OTC products is absent. This study aims to examine packaging as media that conveys the product message at the point of purchase, and to explore the impact of its extrinsic verbal and visual product cues.

An exploratory conjoint analysis was conducted in Finland, the USA, and Ghana. In total, 89 respondents conducted conjoint tasks for two product types, i.e. a painkiller and sore throat medicine.

The results showed differences and similarities in the impact of the packaging product cues across Finland, the USA, and Ghana. Differences and similarities were also detected across the two different, but related, product types. The study found that the impact of product cues is contextual, varying across the samples and product types.

The results are limited by the exploratory nature of the conjoint analysis. They highlight that medical marketers should recognize the varying impact of salient cues on consumers' product preferences and choices.

The study deals with a mostly unexplored issue and provides exploratory insights into the phenomenon.

The purpose of this article is to focus on travellers’ perceptions of culinary-gastronomic sensations as experiences and how these relate to the locality. The aim of the study is to explore the factors that contribute to travellers’ culinary-gastronomic dining experiences with an emphasis on the local food markets.

One-hundred and fifty-eight prospective travelers at an annual fair in Helsinki completed a self-administered survey questionnaire. On the questionnaire, the respondents were asked to rate the importance of 17 items related to eating and food experiences when deciding on a destination for their next leisure trip.

The findings reveal a frequency distribution of the sample characteristics and travel behavior, the respondents’ use of food and eating experiences as evaluative criteria when choosing travel destinations and latent factors of food and eating experiences. Based on an explorative factor analysis using a varimax abstraction method, the study concludes that eating and food experiences are influenced by the overall service (i.e. the food and where it is served and the dining setting and how it is served). The factors show that culinary-gastronomic food experiences are founded on local, original and authentic food that represents the local food culture.

The study attempts to provide insights into aspects to consider for promotional activities related to local food and, ultimately, as a means for destination branding. The Finnish sample has a casual attitude to food, where new but also rather mundane experiences are sought. Accordingly, slow food preparation and atmospherics contribute to local food experiences that may lure travelers to revisit certain locations.

Local food as a means of culinary-gastronomic sensations deserves scholarly attention, as many questions related to its consumption by tourists remain unanswered. Accordingly, the topic of the current study is truly timely and this research contributes by studying a rather unchartered issue.