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This study aims to examine leader–follower interdependence from a different perspective to learn whether variations in the market leader (ML)’s level of market strength require followers to pursue different strategies Literature investigating this interdependence largely focuses on the market share consequences for the ML, considering the strategies that followers pursue.

A consumer scanner data set containing 375 followers provided input for a regression model, aimed at explaining the market share performance of followers.

The ML’s products and level of market strength influence whether a follower should be more similar to or different from it, as well as the performance outcomes of distinct product development strategies.

This analysis uses unique measures of market strength and product difference; both are significant, but their robustness is limited without further substantiation.

Managers must consider three factors that influence the outcomes of their product development strategies: the ML’s products, its market strength and the sum of product attribute differences across their range.

This study empirically validates several theoretical arguments for how an ML influences followers’ performance, including the existence of preference asymmetry toward the ML. In turn, it makes recommendations of optimal strategies that followers should pursue. Finally, this article details a method to measure overall differences and highlights the significance of this measure for explaining a follower’s performance.

Introduction: In today’s world of increasing competition, diminishing product differentiation, higher customer expectations, easy product replacements and lowering brand loyalty, organisations are evolving new marketing strategies for economic, societal and sustainability. Cause-related marketing (hereafter referred to as CRM), a strategic sustainable philanthropic practice, is the upcoming form of CSR. CRM plays an instrumental role in achieving self-brand connection and brand loyalty.

Purpose: To explore, integrate and interconnect concepts of CRM and self-brand connection to get more insights into the imperative role of CRM strategy in developing self-brand connections that can lead to brand loyalty in the most sustainable way. For this, CRM and self-brand connection, as proposed by societal marketing and branding literature, were explored. This chapter is a propositional inventory where the researcher has explored the antecedents of CRM strategy and its role in developing brand loyalty through self-brand connection.

Methodology: This chapter is centred upon the existing literature on sustainability, CRM and branding to understand better the relationships between dimensions and consequences of CRM and its interlinkage with brand loyalty.

Findings: The literature recommends that selected dimensions: Cause-brand fit, product type, altruistic motivation and brand credibility determine the effectiveness of CRM strategy. It also establishes the profound impact of attitude towards brand, brand perception and brand distinctiveness on self-brand connection. A theoretical framework based on the existing literature represents an amalgamated groundwork for developing effective, sustainable CRM strategies in conjunction with the self-brand connection. The proposed framework is distinct as no study conjoins the abovementioned concepts and aims to comprehend whether this integration is brand loyalty.

This study aims to investigate the influence of image and reputation of imported fresh fruits on consumer satisfaction and purchase intentions. The moderating role of familiarity with imported fruits was also assessed.

A total of 332 Taiwanese consumers who had purchased imported Korean pears participated using an online survey and were grouped based on their familiarity to Korean pears. Multi-group analysis with structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.

Image and reputation of imported Korean pears were identified as predictors of the satisfaction and purchase intention. Multi-group analysis results found the moderating effect of familiarity between image and satisfaction. Images were identified as predictors of the satisfaction and purchase intention of imported Korean pears for consumers with low familiarity, whereas image did not show any influence on satisfaction for consumers with high familiarity.

This study can contribute to the limited understanding of imported fresh fruit markets and provides insights into familiarity for consuming imported fresh fruits.

This paper aims to examine the psychological consequences of a customer engagement initiative through referral reward programs (RRPs) in online versus offline environments.

The authors conducted a qualitative study followed by a scenario-based experimental study.

The authors show that recommenders’ concern about how they are viewed by recommendation recipients (i.e. their metaperception) mediates the effects of incentives on referral likelihood in both offline and online environments. However, metaperception has a stronger effect offline where recommenders show higher impression management concerns compared to online. Furthermore, tie-strength and communication environment moderate the effect of incentives on metaperception. When referrals are made to weak-ties, incentives decrease metaperception favorability offline more than online. For strong-ties, this effect is lower, and it is similar in offline and online environments.

The study focused on an online versus offline dyadic communication and did not consider the differences among social media. Furthermore, the authors did not consider how other forms of positive metaperception, like being seen as helpful or knowledgeable, could be increased in an online incentivized referral context. It is possible that a recommender thinks others see him as more helpful or knowledgeable online because a lot more useful information and other resources could be offered here compared to offline communications.

The authors recommend managers to design both online and offline RRPs that minimize metaperception concerns; target strong ties in any communication environment as metaperception concerns are low; and target weak ties online where metaperception concerns are muted.

This work is the first to examine how recommenders’ psychological responses differ offline and online.

Producers and consumers – who represent opposing sides of the market – have different frames of reference, which may result in differences in classification of the same products. The authors aim to demonstrate that “classification gaps” have a negative effect on the performance of products and that these effects play a role in different stages of consumers’ decision process.

The data collection consisted of three comprehensive parts covering production and consumption in the music festival market in The Netherlands. The first part focused on festival organizers who were asked to classify their own music festival in terms of musical genres. In total, 70 festival organizers agreed to participate. The second part measured the genre classification of 540 consumers. In the third part, the authors interviewed 1,554 potential visitors of music festivals in The Netherlands about their awareness of the festival and if they considered visiting or actually visited the festival.

This paper provides empirical evidence that a classification gap between the production side and the consumption side of the market has negative effects on music festival performance. In addition, the authors found that this is in part because of lower activation of potential consumers in the marketplace.

An important practical implication of this study is that – in general – producers should be aware that classification gaps can occur – even if they are sure about the classification of their products – and that this can have serious consequences. The category membership of products is often seen as a given, whereas it cannot be assumed that the classification perceived by different economic groups is the same – as demonstrated in this paper.

This paper demonstrates that a fundamental – but understudied – disconnect between the two opposing sides of the market (i.e. producers and consumers) regarding the classification of the same products can have negative effects on performance of these products.

Primarily, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the interaction and direct effects of tie strength between sender and receiver of word of mouth (WOM) and the receiver’s service purchase decision involvement on WOM influence. A secondary aim is to investigate how a distinctive conceptualization of perceived risk, consisting of two types (outcome risk and psychosocial risk), affects service purchase decision involvement. A conceptual model incorporating these constructs and associated hypotheses is developed and tested.

In a survey of actual service consumers, respondents were asked to recall a recent instance where they had received service purchase information via WOM, and relate their responses to this instance. Established scales were used to measure the constructs. The hypothesized model was tested using structural equation modeling.

Principally, findings demonstrate a strong interaction effect between service purchase decision involvement and tie strength. Also, results highlight the complexity of the perceived risk construct, suggesting that it is appropriately modeled as two types: outcome risk, and psychosocial risk.

This research has contributed to the service marketing literature by testing a model that predicts WOM influence. Evidence confirmed that the effect of service purchase decision involvement on WOM influence is moderated by tie strength. Additionally, a conceptualization of two different types of risk associated with purchase decisions was suggested, together with empirical confirmation of their hypothesized antecedent effects on service purchase decision involvement. Findings have special implications for the literatures of persuasion, social and interpersonal influence, as well as consumer behavior in general.

To harness the power of WOM, managers should understand who their target audience is and how consumers are related to each other (tie strength) and to the service purchase decision (service purchase decision involvement). Recommendations are made with specific illustrations of how firms can leverage tie strength under conditions of low service purchase decision involvement to enhance WOM influence.

The formidable power of WOM wields substantial influence on consumers, particularly within a service (vs goods) purchase context, typically characterized by higher perceived risk and lower search qualities. The significant interaction between tie strength and service purchase decision involvement is a unique contribution to the service WOM literature.

This study aims to examine the moderating effects of two important consumer characteristics (product familiarity and risk aversion) on the relationships between two intransient cues (store image and product signatureness) and consumer quality perception of private label, as well as the interaction between the cues themselves.

This paper employs survey research to test three main hypotheses. The authors collected data from parents in an elementary school in a southern state.

The study yields some counterintuitive results. The paper finds that the combination of two diagnostic cues does not necessarily enhance the positive evaluation of private labels. Instead, store image reduces the effect of product signatureness. Further, product familiarity induces a positive moderating effect on product signatureness, whereas risk aversion exerts a negative moderating effect on store image.

Prior literature neglects the interactions between cues and consumer characteristics and the interaction between cues themselves in consumer quality evaluation of private labels. This research addresses these gaps and offers useful insights about private label strategies.

The present study focuses on the role of PDO certification in fostering the quality perception of certified-food consumers – highlighting the difference between quality brands and environmental labels. The case study of Mozzarella di Gioia del Colle DOP was taken into consideration to evaluate the opportunity of supporting a food product suitable for all families and promoting it worldwide through a quality certification.

The authors made a qualitative analysis on local Apulian consumers and, for testing our hypotheses, structural equation models were applied to evaluate the effect of familiarity on the relationships between perceived risk, trust, satisfaction, loyalty, resolution to pay a higher price and intent to purchase a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) certified food product.

The authors observed managerial implications which seek to improve the collaborative network between the subjects employed in the phases of the production process, the stakeholders and the consortia, in order to plan a holistic development territorial strategy. It is useful to start a process of knowledge and evaluation of the benefits of the quality mark in the territory of origin of the PDO food product.

The authors provided theoretical and managerial implications which aim at improving the collaborative network between the subjects employed in the phases of the production process, stakeholders and consortia, in the outlook of territorial development strategies.

According to the analysis of the theoretical background, the opportunity to recognise the origin of a certain product allows the consumer to easily appreciate its intrinsic quality, relating a combination of factors to the territorial matching. It also focuses on the analysis of a different feedback at a local level from consumers, showing a lower intention to pay by consumers living in the same area where the PDO product comes from rather than other food goods.

Empirical research presents conflicting findings with regards to the effectiveness of referral reward programs (RRPs) and supports two alternative and conflicting views on the effectiveness of incentivizing recommendations. They are, first, a positive effect via perceived attractiveness of the incentive, and second, a negative effect via metaperception of the recommendation. The purpose of this paper is to examine these two opposing psychological mechanisms to reconcile the conflicting findings.

The authors conducted three experiments. Study 1 tests the base model. Studies 2 and 3 add moderators to test whether each mediating variable operates exclusively on its intended relationship.

Incentive size enhanced the attractiveness of an incentive, but reduced the metaperception favorability of the recommendation. These two opposing mechanisms operated in parallel, independently and fully mediated the effects of incentive size to likelihood of making a recommendation. Thus, the net impact of incentives on recommendation behavior depended on the relative strengths of these two opposing forces.

The study recommends managers to design RRPs with incentives that recommenders perceive as highly useful (i.e. to increase attractiveness) but have a low face value (i.e. to reduce metaperception concerns) and to target RRPs to strong rather than weak ties.

Our work offers an integrated theoretical account of consumers’ responses to incentivized recommendations and provides managerially relevant guidelines for the design of effective RRPs.

This study aims to introduce the duration of uniqueness, an important dimension of unique products. It studies how choices between products with long versus short duration of uniqueness are influenced by the interaction between pressure and consumers’ need for uniqueness (NFU).

This research uses a multi-method study approach. A pilot field-study tested the novelty and importance of the research by asking retail professionals to predict the choice of a hypothetical consumer. A retrospective study assessed the importance of duration of uniqueness in unique product choices, by asking consumers about a real and recent unique product purchase. Four additional experimental studies directly tested hypotheses by manipulating pressure and by measuring or manipulating uniqueness motivations.

The pilot field-study showed the novelty and relevance of this research for professionals. Study 1 revealed that, retrospectively, uniqueness duration was considered important for the choice of unique products, by high-NFU consumers under pressure. Studies 2 and 3 demonstrated that pressure increases the tendency of high-NFU, but not low-NFU, consumers to choose products with long over short uniqueness duration. Study 4 provided initial evidence for the process behind the effect. Study 5 showed that considerations of uniqueness duration when choosing mediated the effects.

The results of the pilot field-study and retrospective study might be affected by recall bias or lay theories. The findings need to be replicated with other sources of pressure and uniqueness. This calls for further research.

Results are important for companies marketing unique products and they suggest that pressure-based marketing appeals can be used strategically to increase sales of products with long uniqueness duration but decrease sales of products with short uniqueness duration. Although the research provides these guidelines, managers should consider the ethical implications of pressure strategies.

This is the first attempt to empirically investigate the duration of uniqueness. Although extant research has examined choices between products with different degrees of uniqueness, this research studies choice of products with similar degrees of uniqueness, but different uniqueness duration. Thus, this research adds to the scarce literature studying the duration of symbolic benefits. Moreover, although pressure and NFU frequently co-exist in uniqueness consumption settings, this study is the first to study their joint effects.