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This study aims to examine the influence of social media usage (SMU) on minimalist consumption and how the fear of missing out (FoMO) underlies this effect.

Four preregistered correlational/experimental studies (n = 1,763) are used. A pilot study (n = 436) examines the correlations between SMU, FoMO and minimalism. Studies 1 (n = 409), 2 (n = 415) and 3 (n = 503) further investigate the influence of SMU on minimalist consumption intentions, including mindful purchase, forgoing free products and decluttering, and test for evidence of mediation via FoMO by measuring or manipulating FoMO.

The results show that a high SMU makes consumers susceptible to FoMO, leading to impulsive purchases and careless product acquisition. However, when campaigners promote minimalism as a social media movement, they can activate FoMO, persuading consumers to practice decluttering.

Future research might examine how subjective age affects FoMO and minimalist consumption tendencies. Could campaigners use young social cues to make older consumers more susceptible to FoMO appeals? Could old social cues cause younger consumers to perceive greater social responsibility and to embrace minimalist consumption?

Minimalist lifestyles can promote sustainable consumption. This research provides insights into how SMU is a double-edged sword – it can cause FoMO users to disdain minimalism. However, it can promote minimalism if a minimalist campaign is strategically positioned as a social media movement using a FoMO-laden appeal.

Extant consumer behavior research on minimalism has just begun to investigate the antecedents of minimalist consumption. FoMO is conceptually related to minimalism, but the relationship between FoMO and minimalist consumption has not yet been empirically tested. This research fills these gaps by examining SMU and the associated FoMO as antecedents of minimalist consumption. Empirical evidence for the impact of SMU on various minimalist consumption behaviors and the mediating role of FoMO is provided.

This study aims to explore the emotional landscapes and spatial preferences of digital nomads, focusing on how sentiments expressed in destination reviews influence their mobility and destination choices.

Employing a lexicon-based sentiment analysis of social media comments and reviews, alongside advanced geographical information systems (GIS) mapping techniques, the study analyzes the emotional tones that digital nomads associate with various destinations worldwide.

The analysis reveals significant patterns of emotional sentiments, with trust and joy being predominant in preferred destinations. Spatial patterns identified through GIS mapping highlight the global distribution of these sentiments, underscoring the importance of emotional well-being in destination choice.

Insights from this study offer valuable guidance for Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) in strategic planning, enhancing destination appeal through targeted marketing strategies that resonate with the emotional preferences of digital nomads.

This research introduces a novel approach by integrating sentiment analysis with GIS to map the emotional and spatial dynamics of digital nomadism, contributing a new perspective to the literature on tourism and mobility.

The data for this case were obtained primarily through a series of in-person interviews in Penang between the authors and Pete Browning (a pseudonym) from 2017 to early 2019. The authors also consulted secondary data sources, including publicly available material on BMax and “Company B”.

This case examines a key decision, or set of decisions, in the life of a small- to medium-sized management consultancy group, namely, whether they might expand their operations in Southeast Asia, and if so, where. These key decisions came in the wake of their having already established a very modest scale presence there, with an operating base on the island of Penang just off the north western coast of Peninsular Malaysia. The initial establishment of a Southeast Asian branch had been somewhat spontaneous in nature – a former colleague of one of the two managing partners in the USA was on the ground in Malaysia and available: he became the local partner in the firm. But the firm had now been eyeing expansion within the region, with three markets under particular consideration (Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand) and a further two (Vietnam and China) also seen as possible targets, though at a more peripheral level. The questions facing the decision makers were “was it time they expand beyond Malaysia?” and “if so, where?”

This case could be used effectively in undergraduate courses in international business. The key concepts on which the case focuses are the factors affecting market entry, particularly the choice of market and the assessment of potential attractiveness such markets offer.

This paper aims to investigate how and when visual referents in brand visual aesthetics (i.e. colours, shapes, patterns and materials) serve as design applications that enable consumer diasporic identity.

This paper uses an innovative methodology that triangulates 58 in-depth interviews with diasporic consumers, 9 interviews with brand managers and designers and a visual analysis of brands (food retailer, spices and nuts, skincare, hair and cosmetics, ice cream and wine) to provide a view of the phenomenon from multiple perspectives.

This study illustrates how and when particular applications and compositions of product and design referents support diasporic identity for Middle Eastern consumers living outside the Middle East. Specifically, it illustrates how the design applications of harmonising (applying separate ancestral homeland and culture of living product and design referents simultaneously), homaging (departing from the culture of living product and design referents with a subtle tribute to ancestral homeland culture) and heritaging (departing from the ancestral homeland culture product and design referents with slight updates to a culture of living style) can enable diasporic identity in particular social situations.

Although applied to the Middle Eastern diaspora, this research opens up interesting avenues for future research that assesses diasporic consumers’ responses to brands seeking to use visual design to engage with this market. Moreover, future research should explore these design applications in relation to issues of cultural appreciation and appropriation.

The hybrid design compositions identified in this study can provide brand managers with practical tools for navigating the design process when targeting a diasporic segment. The design applications and their consequences are discussed while visually demonstrating how they can be crafted.

While previous research mainly focused on how consumption from the ancestral homeland occurred, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine how hybrid design compositions that combine a diaspora’s ancestral homeland culture and their culture of living simultaneously and to varying degrees resonate with diasporic consumers.

Framed by nostalgia marketing, this research draws upon lessons from ParticipACTION, a Canadian non-profit health promotion organization, to examine one of their most well-known campaigns, Body Break with ParticipACTION, in order to assess the potential role for nostalgia-based marketing campaigns in sport participation across generational cohorts.

Exploratory sequential mixed methods involving two studies were completed on behalf of ParticipACTION, with the authors developing the research instruments and the collection of the data undertaken by research agencies. Study 1 was the secondary analysis of qualitative data from five focus groups with different demographic compositions that followed a common question guide. Study 2 was a secondary data analysis of a pan-Canadian online survey with a sample (n = 1,475) representative of the overall adult population that assessed awareness of, and attitudes toward, ParticipACTION, Body Break, physical activity and sport participation. Path analysis tested a proposed model that was based on previous research on attitudes, brand and loyalty. Further, multi-group path analyses were conducted to compare younger generations with older ones.

The results provide direction and understanding of the importance of nostalgia in marketing sport participation programs across generational cohorts. For instance, in the four parent-adult focus groups, unaided references as well as frequent and detailed comments regarding Body Break were observed. Similarly, Millennials reported that Body Break was memorable, Canadian and nostalgic, with a mix of positive and negative comments. The importance of nostalgia was supported sequentially via results from the national survey. For example, while 54.1% of the 40–54 age-group associated ParticipACTION positively with Body Break, so did 49.8% of the 25–39-year age group, most of whom were not born when the promotion ran. Further, brand resonance was found to explain 4% more variance in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), the proxy for sport participation, for younger people compared to older people.

Results provide direction to brands, properties and agencies around the use of nostalgia in sport marketing campaigns and sponsorship efforts. For brands seeking to sponsor sport properties to alter their image with potential consumers in a new market, associating with a sport property that many view as nostalgic could improve the impact of the campaign. On the sport property side, event managers and marketers should both identify existing assets that members or fans are nostalgic about, as well as consider building nostalgia into current and new properties they develop.

This research is valuable to the sport marketing and sponsorship literature through several contributions. First, the use of nostalgia marketing, and nostalgia in general, is novel in the sport marketing and sponsorship literature, with future research in nostalgia and sponsorship recommended. Second, the potential to adopt or adapt Body Break to other sport participation and physical activity properties is empirically supported. Finally, the finding that very effective promotions can have a long-lasting effect, both on those who experienced the campaigns as well as younger populations who only heard about it, is notable.

Virtual influencers (VIs), who are fictional characters, have gained popularity in recent years, particularly among Generation Z and millennials. With the hype surrounding VIs, more research is required. Thus, this study aims to examine how Gen Z members and millennials react to VIs used for marketing purposes.

This study follows an exploratory approach. The data were collected from 29 participants (14 male and 15 female) through two focus groups and semi-structured interviews.

The authors found that opinions about VIs were mixed, and two main themes emerged from the study: (1) challenges and potential and (2) decision-making and psychological aspects.

This study broadens the paradigm for analysing the efficacy of VIs. This emerging topic is of relevance for the marketing sector as well as for transdisciplinary research and practice.

This study aims to examine adolescents’ social media environment connected to unhealthy food marketing. As social media have become a ubiquitous part of young people’s everyday lives, marketers have also shifted their focus to these channels. Literature on this phenomenon is still scarce and often takes a quite narrow view of the role of marketing in social media. Furthermore, the experiences of the adolescents are seldom considered.

Using a sociocultural approach and netnographic methodology, this study presents findings from a research project conducted in Finland. The data consist of both social media material and focus group interviews with adolescents.

The findings elaborate on unhealthy food marketing to adolescents in social media from two perspectives: sociocultural representations of unhealthy foods in social media marketing and social media influencers connecting with adolescents.

The study broadens and deepens the current understanding of unhealthy food marketing to adolescents taking place in social media. The study introduces a novel perspective to the topic by looking at it as a sociocultural phenomenon.

This study aims to understand consumers' reactions to hospitality corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns under different resource scarcity reminders, an important but overlooked contextual factor, and examine how such scarcity reminders interact with message framing, a widely used technique in CSR communication.

Three experimental studies were conducted. Studies 1 and 2 examined the main effect of resource scarcity reminders (environmental vs personal) on consumer engagement via self-other orientation. Study 3 further investigated the interactive effect between resource scarcity reminders (environmental vs personal) and message framing (gain vs loss) with hope as a key mediator.

Studies 1 and 2 show that environmental (vs personal) scarcity activates a more salient other orientation, subsequently increasing consumers' donation and word-of-mouth intentions. Study 3 reveals that environmental (vs personal) scarcity makes people more hopeful with gain-framed messages. Moreover, the elevated hope enhances perceived efficacy (attitude toward the company), leading to higher donation (word-of-mouth) intention.

Hospitality marketers could remind consumers of the harsh environment to elicit other orientation and encourage CSR participation. Using gain-framed messages or other hope-inducing appeals would be particularly advantageous in engaging consumers in CSR campaigns during heightened environmental scarcity.

Focusing on consumer responses to CSR campaigns, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to reveal reminders of resource scarcity as a novel antecedent factor and further uncover how such reminders interact with message framing to affect CSR engagement.

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.

This study examined perceived brand attractiveness of and identification with fashion luxury brands given different levels of sexuality in advertisements. Sex in advertisements has become increasingly more common to generate attention and interest in fashion luxury products, with limited research on its influence on the consumer. However, the use of sexuality in luxury advertisements may counter the ethical expectations of brands by the current consumer in the United States.

A sample of 1,266 males and females completed a survey on brand attractiveness and identification after examining an advertisement of a luxury fashion product. Participants were assigned an advertisement that featured a same-gendered model at one of four levels of sexuality (fully clothed to nude). IBM SPSS Statistics was used to analyze the data which included descriptive statistics and a two-way multivariate analysis of variance followed by an analysis of variance.

The results indicated that less sexuality in luxury advertisements was better in generating attractiveness to and identification with the brand. The advertisements with models fully clothed were rated highest on brand attractiveness and identification. These relationships were statistically significant among groups of men and women.

These findings are important to scholars and marketers of luxury brands as sexuality in luxury brands continues to increase and becomes more provocative, as well as socially conscious.