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There is growing interest among marketers in advertising and promoting their brands by adopting an online celebrity endorsement strategy. However, how online celebrities build their own brand equity and how online celebrity brand equity impacts fans’ purchase behavior have not been extensively researched in the extant literature. This paper aims to explore the factors that contribute to online celebrity branding and improving fans’ purchase intentions.

A survey and an experiment were conducted among consumers from the mainland of China. A total of 12 hypotheses were proposed to exam how self-congruity and virtual interactivity impact online celebrity branding and to explore the moderating role of perceived quality and product type.

This paper reveals that customers’ perceived self-congruity with online celebrities’ image and virtual interactivity positively impact the brand equity of online celebrities. Additionally, compared with virtual interactivity, the effect of customer perceived self-congruity on a brand is more significant. The brand equity of online celebrities thereby drives followers’ purchase intentions and the perceived quality of products positively moderates this relationship.

The research conclusions provide managerial implications for marketing practitioners for how to use human brands on social media platforms in the web 2.0 era and ultimately enhance consumer purchase intentions.

This study aims to contribute to the social media agility literature by examining the impact of perceived social media agility on customer purchases. More specifically, this study seeks to reveal whether perceived social media agility positively affects customer purchases. Furthermore, this study examines the moderating roles of social media self-efficacy and social anxiety to increase the model's explanatory power. That is, this study investigates whether social media self-efficacy positively moderates the impact of perceived social media agility on customer purchases. Similarly, this study examines whether social anxiety negatively moderates the impact of perceived social media agility on customer purchases.

An online survey was conducted on Qualtrics platforms to test the research hypotheses. To test the main effect, a linear regression was used. To test moderating relationships, PROCESS Macro Model 1 was used. Finally, the moderating effects were probed with the Johnson–Neyman technique to gain further insights into the interaction effects.

The study results show that when customers perceive a brand as agile on social media platforms, they are more willing to buy the goods/services of the brand. Notably, individuals who are high on social media self-efficacy (relative to low on it) display more willingness to purchase the brand's products/services. However, customers who are high on social anxiety (relative to low on it) are less willing to purchase the brand's products/services.

This study examines the effect of perceived social media agility on customer purchases while accounting for the moderating role of perceived social media self-efficacy and social anxiety. The results provide noteworthy theoretical and managerial contributions.

The purpose of the present research is to investigate how consumers’ purchase posting behavior on social media influences their own happiness.

The paper presents three studies. Study 1 was an experiment that manipulated purchase and posting behavior. Studies 2 and 3 utilized surveys which asked participants to report their actual purchases and posting behaviors. Data were examined using regression and bootstrap mediation analysis.

Posting purchases on social media has a positive influence on consumers’ happiness through the mediating roles of perceived impact of purchases on self and interpersonal relationships.

This paper contributes to the research on social media by demonstrating that because of its remarkable characteristics, posting purchases on social media significantly increases consumers’ happiness. It fills the research gap of how word-of-mouth and conspicuous consumption influences the storyteller’s happiness. It is also the first research which suggests that user-generated content of purchases actually can be a new carrier of conspicuous consumption. The findings shed light on the substantial influences of posting purchases on the use/consumption stage of consumer behavior.

Because posting purchases on social media increases consumers’ happiness, marketers can develop strategies to encourage consumers to post about their purchases more.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to demonstrate the positive effect of social media purchase posting on consumers’ happiness and identify the mechanism under which this effect occurs.

This paper aims to analyze the impacts of distinct advertising appeals on brand attitudes and purchase intentions toward green brands across two different product categories (technology-intensive and technology non-intensive) among the young adult consumers.

On the basis of focus group discussion, recyclable shopping bags (technology non-intensive) and hybrid cars (technology intensive) were identified as two product categories for the final study. A total of eight advertisement copies were developed (three in each product class + two control group ads) and distributed across 240 young consumers. A 4 (three advertising appeals + one control group) × 2 (product classes) between group experimental design was used to test the hypotheses formulated.

The study findings show that all the three advertisement appeals significantly influence attitudes and purchase intentions toward green brands across both the product categories. However, it was also found that functional appeal generated significantly lower mean scores for brand attitude and purchase intention for recyclable shopping bags compared to hybrid cars, whereas emotional appeal generated significantly lower mean scores for brand attitude, as well as purchase intention for hybrid cars compared to bags. This implies that functional green ad appeal would be more effective for technology-intensive products and emotional green ad appeal would be more effective for technology non-intensive products. Self-expressive green ad appeal was found to be equally effective in impacting brand attitudes and purchase intentions across both product categories.

The value of this research lies in investigating how the effects of distinct green brand advertising appeals on brand attitude and purchase intention can vary across technology-intensive and technology non-intensive products.

Social media influencers have become constant companions of a large audience of young consumers, but a crucial yet underexplored area of examination relates to the implications of exposure to influencers for an individual’s self-concept. This study aims to examine if and how individuals experience self-discrepancies when exposed to influencers and the impact of such discrepancies on their affect, cognition and behaviors toward the influencers and the brands they endorse.

The authors thematically analyze 17 semistructured interviews, develop a conceptual model and present a set of hypotheses. The hypotheses are tested by analyzing survey data from 503 respondents using structural equation modeling.

Individuals actively engage in comparisons with influencers’ virtual self-presentation and treat them as emblematic of an ideal self. The associated self-discrepancy can lead to both negative and positive affect, but while the latter has a positive impact on e-word of mouth (WOM) and purchase intent, the former has a negative impact. Perceived homophily dampens the impact of exposure to influencer content on discrepancy and strengthens the link between discrepancy and positive affect. Self-acceptance and mindfulness positively moderate the impact of discrepancy on positive affect and negatively on negative affect. Perceived authenticity strengthens the impact of positive affect on e-WOM and dampens the impact of negative affect on purchase intention.

The authors contribute to the literature on self-discrepancies by identifying a consumer context where, in addition to the theoretically predicted negative affect, an individual may experience more positive emotions like feeling motivated or inspired because of the perceived attainability of an influencer as an ideal self. The authors contribute to the influencer marketing literature by examining the influencer–follower relationship and its implications for an individual’s self-concept, including the role played by perceived homophily and authenticity. The authors also contribute to the literature on consumer well-being and identify the role of self-acceptance and mindfulness in shaping consumer experiences.

The authors provide a nuanced analysis of the impact of influencer marketing on consumer behavior with a focus on its impact on an individual’s self-concept. The authors argue for the role of perceived homophily and authenticity in shaping favorable consumer behavior outcomes and offer evidence for more inclusive approaches to marketing.

The authors identify the influencer–follower relationship as a unique social exchange where the source of self-discrepancy is also a homophilic solution provider for achieving one’s ideal self and report both positive and negative effects as outcomes of experiencing a self-discrepancy induced by a target perceived as more attainable. The authors situate understandings of perceived homophily and authenticity along these relationships and identify self-acceptance and mindfulness as mechanisms used by individuals to deal with discrepancies.

This paper investigates the degree to which self-selection explains the apparent higher purchase value of research shoppers.

An online survey was administered to 594 retail shoppers. The purchase value of research shoppers and single-channel shoppers was compared before and after propensity score matching to account for self-selection effects.

Prior to matching, research shoppers spend significantly more than single-channel shoppers. This difference persists after accounting for self-selection but is reduced by 25%. The impact of self-selection differs across product categories and channels, with the online channel most likely to lead to higher purchase value.

The findings build on existing literature on the value of omni-channel retail strategies and provide insights for retailers to determine the likely impact of encouraging research shopping among their customers.

The research provides important insights into the role that self-selection plays in the value of multi-channel shoppers, and the likely value to retailers of omni-channel strategies.

One of the main challenges that brands face is the ability to provide a real-life experience through online platforms. The aim of this study is to analyze consumers' self-concept and testimonials through an augmented reality (AR) try-on app versus a website.

An online survey was conducted with 222 participants, in which they were randomly exposed to two scenarios: AR try-on app or website experience and positive versus negative reviews presence.

The findings indicate positive effects of ideal self-congruence on purchase intention and confidence in fit. Low self-esteem consumers experience greater ideal self-congruence using AR when compared to the website. Confidence in fit partially mediates between ideal self-congruence and purchase intention. Higher levels of diagnosticity of reviews conduct to higher levels of purchase intention.

This study contributes to interactive marketing by exploring the effect of appearance self-esteem in the relationship between AR app versus website and ideal self-congruence and how this influences consumer behavior. In addition, the study also emphasizes the role of testimonials in shaping consumer intentions.

The study aims to investigate the impact of brand nostalgia, self-brand connections and parent brand trust on brand extension purchase intention. Additionally, the research examines the moderating effect of brand attachment on the link between brand nostalgia and intention to purchase brand extensions, as well as the relationship between self-brand connections and intention to purchase brand extensions.

The study collected data from 458 respondents in India using a cross-sectional survey research methodology. The collected data were analysed in two stages in SPSS, using structural equation modelling and the process macro bootstrapping method.

The study’s results indicate that although brand nostalgia and self-brand linkages exert a favourable impact on intention to purchase brand extensions, this effect is not significant when it comes to brand trust. Brand attachment acts as a moderator between brand nostalgia and the intention to purchase brand extensions. Additionally, brand attachment acts as a moderator between self-brand connections and the intention to purchase brand extensions.

The study adds to the consumer–brand relationship and brand extension literature by proposing and empirically testing a comprehensive model that determines the role of brand nostalgia in the formation of self-brand connections with the brand, trust in the parent brand and, finally, the intention to purchase brand extensions. Additionally, it examines if consumers’ attachment to the parent brand increases or decreases their intention to purchase brand extensions.

Consumer brand nostalgia may be leveraged while introducing brand extensions into the market. What is more, managers could use brand attachment to enhance the impact of brand nostalgia for favourable brand expansion assessments.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research to examine the influence of brand nostalgia and self-brand connections on the intention to purchase brand extensions. Besides, it tests the moderating impact of brand attachment on the relationship between brand nostalgia and intention to purchase brand extensions.

This study aims to examine the influence of two significant product labelling strategies (geographical indication [GI] vs country-of-origin [COO]) on shaping customer product attitude and purchase likelihood, considering consumers’ ethnocentric and cosmopolitan tendencies. The authors also investigate the boundary conditions and intervening mechanisms to manage the adverse consumer product evaluations and present mitigating procedures which reinstate favourable product evaluations and purchase likelihood.

The collected data from these all these studies were analysed using ANOVA and mediation anlaysis. The study tests the proposed hypotheses using three follow-up experimental investigations.

The study found that GI (vs COO) labels have a more significant impact on customers’ product evaluation and likelihood of purchase and supported the dispositional effect of ethnocentric and cosmopolitan inclinations. Further, the results indicated that self-product congruence can efficiently regulate consumer dispositions. Also, the results confirmed the significant impact of product identification on influencing consumer attitudes.

The above-said insights add practical insights, particularly concerning product labelling. Also, the insights on product attitudes and purchase likelihood intricacies in the context of product labelling enable companies to comprehend better the significance of GI labels, COO labels and self-product congruence.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time a study has compared the role of two significant product labelling strategies (GI vs COO) in shaping customer product evaluations, confirmed its boundary conditions and shown how to transform them into helpful customer product outcomes.