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This study aims to examine how the clickbait headlines influence the perceived source credibility, subjective norm, perceived benefit and purchasing intention of customers on social commerce through social media platforms in different interpersonal relationship strength scenarios.

A total of three studies were employed online to test the hypotheses. Study 1 used a single-factor, two-condition (clickbait: yes vs no) between-subject design. Both study 2 and study 3 employed a 2 (clickbait: yes vs no) × 2 (relationships: close friend vs stranger) between-subject design. All data were sourced randomly from 729 respondents in China. Data and models were analyzed by using SPSS and Mplus.

Study 1 illustrated that clickbait has a negative effect on perceived credibility and purchase intention, and the perceived credibility mediated the relationship between clickbait and purchase intention. Study 2 replicated such finding and demonstrated that the interpersonal relationship strength interacts with the influence from clickbait to purchase intention. Study 3 enhanced the mechanism of source credibility found in the above studies and further revealed that perceived benefit and perceived norm had a mediating role in the purchase-making process online.

Research efforts to date concentrate on how to detect and reduce clickbait headlines. This paper adopts a different perspective, considering the consequences of clickbait in the marketing domain. This study reveals the effects of clickbait on purchase intention and the mechanism behind this process under different scenarios.

This study extends the commitment-trust theory from the perspective of relationship marketing and explores its effect on purchase intention under the moderation of trust by investigating vloggers' relationship marketing in the context of social media.

The study employs a survey investigation with online questionnaires in China, and the hypotheses were tested using multiple regression analyses, with 319 valid consumer responses.

The findings reveal that the extended commitment-trust theory is applicable in the context of social media. Perceived relationship commitment, expertise, physical attractiveness, social attractiveness and self-disclosure play a significant role in predicting purchase intention. Relationship commitment proves to be a mediator between the antecedents and purchase intention. Trust shows a moderating effect on the antecedents and relationship commitment.

The study provides evidence of the importance of the above-mentioned antecedents in influencing viewers' relationship commitment to vloggers in the context of social media. The results contribute to the development of the commitment-trust theory and an understanding of the theory's underlying mechanisms. The result also provides further evidence of the effect of trust on relationship commitment.

This study deployed a bibliometric analysis of 604 academic articles on celebrity endorsement collected from the Scopus database from January 1960 to August 2021 (the first published article dated back to 1976). This study integrated three bibliometric analyses: timeline visualization, co-citation cluster analysis, and historical direct citation analysis. This study conducted a qualitative review to further examine the obtained quantitative results.

This study reviewed the existing research on the celebrity endorsement domain. Based on a bibliometric review of existing literature, this study aimed to provide main theoretical roots and research trajectories and propose new research avenues concerning the theory, context, characteristics, and research methodologies adopted within the marketing discipline.

The findings revealed that the existing relevant research focused on celebrity endorsement in different periods. The main theoretical roots and research trajectories identified were developed under the influence of primary articles from co-citation analysis and historical direct citation.

Based on the quantitative bibliometric analysis and a qualitative literature review, this study has provided a comprehensive overview of the current stage of this domain. The study also has underscored an abundance of celebrity endorsement literature and revealed the research topics that require further investigations to theoretically and empirically advance the understanding of celebrity endorsement.

Some topics were recommended for further research within the theory, context, characteristics, and methodology aspects. Some practical examples and suggestions are also given in the study.

This study proposed a bibliometric overview of celebrity endorsement in the marketing discipline, especially based on timeline visualization, co-citation cluster analysis, and historical direct citation analysis. Furthermore, this study offered a research agenda for further studies in the marketing discipline.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the marketing results of video blogging (vlogging). In particular, the authors are interested in understanding which video bloggers (vloggers) can better help marketers develop their brand image, which vlog viewers tend to evaluate vlogger-endorsed brands more positively, and how these effects occur.

A questionnaire survey was conducted with a convenience sample online. A total of 401 valid responses were collected. Regression analyses and bootstrapping were used to test the hypotheses.

The authors found that vloggers’ physical and social attractiveness and the audience’s viewing motives (entertainment motive and relationship-building motive) and behavior (time spent on the media) increased the audience’s evaluations of the brands endorsed by the vloggers (perceived brand quality, brand affect and brand preference). The authors also found that these relationships were mediated by the parasocial interaction (PSI) between the vloggers and the audience.

The findings of this study suggest that marketers can develop relationships with consumers and enhance their brand evaluations via vloggers. This strategy is more effective when brand managers use more attractive vloggers and target viewers who spend a lot of time on vlogs seeking entertainment or hoping to build relationships.

This study contributes to the literature by showing that vlogging can affect brand evaluations through the development of PSI between vloggers and viewers. The authors extended the focus of vlog marketing research from consumers’ watching and sharing behaviors and their perception of vloggers to brand evaluations, from vloggers’ characteristics to viewers’ characteristics and from the Western to the Eastern context.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on how corporate social responsibility (CSR) (i.e. responsibility to customers, employees and society) influences customer behavioural loyalty in the hotel industry. The mediating effects of brand image and customer trust on the relationship between CSR and customer behavioural loyalty are also considered.

In total, 298 valid responses to questionnaire surveys were collected from a convenience sample in China in 2017. A structural equation model was used to test the hypotheses.

Hotel customer behavioural loyalty can be enhanced by CSR performance. Performance in each of the three CSR domains positively impacted customer behavioural loyalty to different degrees. The impact of CSR on the customer had the strongest influence on Chinese customers’ behavioural loyalty among the three CSR domains of customer, employee and society. Brand image and customer trust were found to be mediators of the relationship between CSR performance and customer behavioural loyalty.

The current research contributes to the literature by demonstrating that CSR activities are not all equally effective. Results reveal that the society dimension of CSR had the strongest impact on Chinese customers’ brand image of hotels among the three CSR dimensions investigated. In terms of Chinese hotel customers’ trust, the CSR–customer dimension plays the most effective role. The findings also support the notion that Chinese consumers are beginning to use CSR information to evaluate hotels.

Live streaming sales (LSS) is an emerging and flourishing practice in the retail industry. While its implementation has been pervasively attempted, there is a lack of systematic and academic exploration of the practice. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the LSS ecosystem and its development through a literature review and an industry analysis. Moreover, by pinpointing the pitfalls in current practices, this paper presents the practical implications of LSS and provides recommendations and directions for future academic exploration.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the developing trajectory, exclusive elements (such as multi-channel networks (MCNs) and live streamers) and other critical components of the LSS ecosystem using a mixed-methods approach that comprises content analysis of newspaper articles and press releases, literature view and industry analysis.

The results of the analyses indicate the presence of several nonfungible modular components in the LSS ecosystem, including upstream suppliers, MCNs, live streamers and platforms. It was also found that inequalities and hierarchies are inherent to the LSS ecosystem as it currently exists: low-end participants in the LSS industry and small- and medium-sized enterprise owners, who constitute the majority of LSS practitioners, cannot reach the break-even point via LSS hosted by top-level live streamers or others (low-level live streamers, employees, etc.).

This article discusses the LSS ecosystem based on the nature of the nonfungible modules within it. In addition, it discusses the modules (roles) and relationships among them based on the theory of ecosystem developed by previous studies. Furthermore, drawing from an analysis of the pitfalls in the LSS ecosystem, this article highlights strategies for two critical e-commerce processes: 1) choosing which type of LSS to apply based on the factors of brands, products and consumers and 2) integrating LSS to optimize post-sale service and appeal to the sustainability of development.

This study aims to introduce a compelling customer value score method (CVSM), which is applicable for different product categories, and elaborates customer values in three components (direct economic value, depth of direct economic value and breadth of the indirect economic value) throughout three stages of customer journey.

This study collected data from the Internet-shopping platforms, namely Taobao and T-Mall from 2019 to 2020 with particular focus on three product categories: lipstick (fast-moving consumer goods), mobile phones (durable goods) and alcohol (a hybrid of the other two product types) from 37 selected firms. The CVSM employs an entropy-based multiple criteria analysis, of which the weight of each indictor is not fixed artificially, but computed by the entropy-based method that calculates informative differences among the indicators (profit, revenue, positive reviews, search index and likes and favorites).

The result shows that product categories and market status have a moderation effect on three components in customer values. The findings suggested marketing strategies for different consumer goods, where the fast-moving consumer goods like lipstick should focus on the pre-purchase stage while the durable goods should emphasize post-purchase stage when the market is rapidly changing.

The study brings new insights to Kumar’s customer value theory by integrating product categories and the market status, revealing that three components of customer values differ in their contributions to the whole customer values. This paper further contributed managerial suggestions for marketers with regards to three stages of customer journey.

The purpose of this study is to summarize the factors that result in V-shape rebound of Macau gambling industry's from 2014 to 2019. Both internal and external factors are examined and discussed by representatives from academia, industry and government.

Practitioners from the gambling industry offered their cutting-edged analysis and viewpoints with observation and comments from scholars and government representatives in gambling domain.

Internally, actions are taken by both the Macau government and Macau casino operators to rebrand Macau with nongambling elements and to adjust the strategies to attract more tourists from a wider range. Externally, global economic upturn and support from the China government also enhance Macau's quick rebound. A total of nine key factors are finally recognized.

This study provides answers and sense-making explanations to why Macau gambling industry can recover in such a short time after a big drop in Gross Gambling Revenue in 2014. This work reveals that Macau, by learning the lessons from the dramatic decline, conducts various self-rescue action plans which contribute to the quick V-shape rebound. This study is also a self-examination of Macau gambling industry from the firsthand perspectives of scholars, government representatives and casino management.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of celebrity’s poses on consumer attitudes towards the endorsement advertisement by drawing from perceptual fluency hypotheses.

Study 1 used a single-factor, two-condition (distinctive pose and casual pose) between-subject design. Both Study 2a and Study 2b employed a single-factor, two-condition (distinctive pose, casual pose) between-subject design and tested the mediator of pose matchiness. Study 3 employed a 2 (pose condition: distinctive, casual)×2 (cognitive capacity: no load, load) between-subject design to test the moderator. All data were sourced from more than 600 respondents in China.

Study 1 illustrated that the existence of a distinctive pose can lead to higher consumer attitudes regarding advertising stimuli and the endorsed brands as well as more positive behavioural intentions towards endorsed products. Study 2a and Study 2b replicated such finding and demonstrated that the feeling of pose matchiness mediates the relationship between celebrities’ pose and endorsement outcomes. Study 3 further revealed that the cognitive capacity moderates such a relationship, that is, that the effect of a distinctive pose is stronger (lesser) when audiences’ cognitive capacity is loaded (not loaded).

Research efforts to date examining the nature of celebrity advertisement have been limited to celebrity’s faces and facial expressions. Little investigation in the marketing domain has considered the consequences of celebrities’ poses. This study takes the first step in revealing the positive effect of distinctive celebrity poses in product endorsement.

Travel websites allow tourists to share their thoughts, beliefs and experiences regarding various travel destinations. In this paper, the researchers demonstrated an approach for destination marketing organisations to explore online tourist-generated content and understand tourists' perceptions of the destination image (DI). Specifically, the researchers initiated an investigation examining how the destination image of Macau changed during the period of 2014–2018 based on user-generated content on travel websites.

Web crawlers developed by Python were employed to collect tourists' reviews from both Ctrip and TripAdvisor regarding the theme of “Macau attraction”. A total of 51,191 reviews (41,352 from Ctrip and 9,839 from TripAdvisor) were collected and analysed using the text-mining technique.

The results reveal that the frequency of casino-related words decreased in reviews by both international and mainland Chinese tourists. Additionally, international and mainland Chinese tourists perceive the DI of Macau differently. Mainland Chinese tourists are more sensitive to new attractions, while international tourists are not. The study also shows that there are differences between the government-projected DI and the tourist-perceived DI. Only the “City of Culture” and “A World Centre of Tourism and Leisure” have built recognition with tourists.

Given the easy accessibility of online information from various sources, it is important for destination marketing organisations to analyse and monitor different DI perspectives and adjust their branding strategies for greater effectiveness. This study uncovered the online DI of Macau by using text mining and content analysis of two of the largest travel websites. By analysing and comparing the differences and relationships among the frequently used words of tourist-generated content on these websites, the researchers revealed some interesting findings with important marketing implications.