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Natural environments and imagery are known to have a myriad of effects on people’s physical and psychological states. However, little is known about how exposure to nature-related imagery can influence consumers’ motivational states. This research investigates the effect of exposure to nature on consumers’ regulatory focus. More specifically, this paper proposes that consumers exposed to nature will exhibit stronger promotion-oriented focus and weaker prevention-oriented focus, and as such, these consumers will prefer promotion-framed marketing messages over prevention-framed ones. This paper aims to explore a mediating mechanism and a boundary condition for this effect.

A series of six experiments, including an Implicit Association Test, examined the effect of exposure to images of natural objects and scenes (in contrast with non-nature imagery) on consumers’ regulatory focus and whether they experienced regulatory fit when encountering promotion-framed (vs prevention-framed) advertising messages.

The results revealed that consumers exhibited lower prevention-focused and higher promotion-focused motivational orientation after exposure to nature. Furthermore, exposure to nature led consumers to experience more regulatory fit with promotion-oriented marketing messages than prevention-oriented ones. This study found that natural environments offer urban consumers a reprieve from their day-to-day life, which mediates the effect of exposure to nature on regulatory focus. This study investigated the boundary condition of engaging in maintenance of nature (e.g. mow the grass) in which the effects of nature on regulatory focus were attenuated.

This study used text and pictures related to nature as a way to expose the online participants to nature. Future research may use field studies with participants in real natural settings, with expectation of stronger effects. Second, this study examined mostly urban American participants. There may be cultural differences or living situations (e.g. living “off the grid” and in the “wild”) that influence people’s relationship with nature. Future research may examine how these differences can affect the influence of exposure to nature on motivational orientation.

The findings have direct implications for marketing managers and other related stakeholders. Exposing urban consumers to nature – even images of nature – they become more receptive to promotion-framed advertisements and marketing communications (vs prevention-framed messaging).

Little is currently known about how exposure to nature can influence psychological processes such as motivational orientation. This research contributes to the understanding of consumers’ responses to nature-related imagery in advertising and the effect that nature imagery has on consumers’ motivational orientation. This research also contributes to the body of work on regulatory focus by identifying a novel context in which consumers’ motivational orientation can be influenced.

The purpose of this paper is to show that high similarity between a parent brand and an extension category can have a detrimental effect on how a brand extension is perceived to perform on specific attributes. This happens because similarity influences the perceived positioning of a brand extension: lower similarity extensions can be perceived as “specialized” products, whereas high similarity extensions are perceived as “all-in-one” products not performing exceptionally well on any specific attribute.

The authors test the hypothesized effect through three experimental studies. The authors manipulate similarity both within subjects (Study 1a) and between subjects (Study 1b and Study 2). Further, the authors test the effect for specific attributes that are physical/concrete in nature (Study 1a and Study 1b) as well as attributes that are abstract/imagery-related in nature (Study 2).

High compared to low similarity improves perceptions of overall performance (i.e. performance across all attributes). But as expected, the authors also find that a high similarity brand extension is perceived to perform worse on the attribute on which a low similarity brand extension specializes, even when the parent brands of the extensions possess that attribute to the same extent. This perception of attribute performance carries on to influence brand extension purchase likelihood.

The degree of brand extension similarity has consequences for how brand extensions are perceived to be positioned in the marketplace. Although high similarity extensions receive positive evaluations, they might not be suitable when a company is trying to instil a perception of exceptional performance on a specific attribute.

The authors demonstrate a consequential exception to the marketing wisdom that brands should extend to similar categories. Although the degree of brand extension similarity has been repeatedly shown to have a positive effect on brand extension evaluation, the authors document a case when its effect is actually detrimental. This study’s focus on the dependent variable of perceived performance on specific attributes is novel in the brand extension literature.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how green brand positioning facilitated by utilitarian environmental benefits and nature connectedness may influence green brand image, as mediated by green perceived value (GPV) and brand innovativeness and how brand type moderates these relationships.

Data were collected using an online survey method, and structural equation modeling was employed to test the research hypotheses with a sample of 826 Chinese respondents.

The results demonstrate that utilitarian environmental benefits directly enhance green brand image. Both utilitarian environmental benefits and nature connectedness indirectly influence green brand image through GPV and brand innovativeness. Subsequently, green brand innovativeness positively affects GPV. The moderating effects of brand type on the relationships in the model are also established.

Organisations should enhance green value and brand innovativeness when adopting green brand positioning tools to strengthen green brand image and implement diverse green branding strategies between brands of physical goods and services.

Although previous studies have investigated how perceived benefits affect the development of brand image, the issue has not been examined based on the human associative memory framework from a green branding perspective. No empirical study has simultaneously included both green brand innovativeness and GPV in this formation process. Additionally, the moderating role of brand type in the model has not been explored previously.

The clean beauty phenomenon is gaining momentum and beauty brands are getting creative with on-pack sustainability claims. With the increasing focus on sustainability from both brands and consumers, sustainability communication has the potential to raise the profile of sustainable production and consumption. Further attention is needed on the creative approach behind on-pack sustainability marketing communications as companies no longer focus on single eco labels but instead use a bundle of claims to advertise their commitment to sustainability which finds consumers confused and brands open to accusations of greenwashing. This chapter explores on-pack sustainability communications in the beauty industry through the lenses of creative marketing communications which need to be both original and appropriate. This study contributes to the longstanding debate on the role of sustainability claims in marketing communications and addresses the role of on-pack sustainability claims design and creativity.

Building on associative priming, anthropomorphism and biophilia theories, this study aims to explain that a natural–organic (that shows a natural object) and an anthropomorphised natural–organic logo (that shows an anthropomorphised natural object) both act as primes and imbue specific product value perceptions, which subsequently influence willingness to pay a premium price when products have not been used by or are unfamiliar to consumers.

Two between-subjects experiments were conducted with different products (one with real, but unfamiliar to consumers brand and another with a fictitious brand). Structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses.

Experimental studies showed that natural–organic logos evoked stronger utilitarian (functional and economic) value perceptions, which triggered greater willingness to pay a premium price compared to anthropomorphised natural–organic logos. The effect of hedonic (emotional and novelty) values on willingness to pay a premium price was stronger when an anthropomorphised natural–organic logo was used.

This research offers novel theoretical contributions highlighting the importance of careful logo design to imbue desired value perceptions when products have not been consumed or trialled.

Anthropomorphised natural–organic and natural–organic logos can provide different benefits to brand managers and can be used strategically to form desired value perceptions before products are consumed. Brands that wish to enhance premium pricing via hedonic values should consider using an anthropomorphised natural–organic logo. Natural–organic logos may be more suitable for brands that want to emphasise superior utilitarian values.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research provides the first empirical assessment of the differential effects of the two forms of natural–organic logos on value perceptions and willingness to pay premium price.

Given the observable increase in images of nature in advertising on a global scale, this study aims to ask whether such creative strategies should adapt imagery to the natural environment of the target audiences or could it be standardised globally.

Two samples of respondents living in different geographic locations with contrasted climates and natural environments were exposed to a set of experimental green advertisements visually featuring different categories of natural scenery and one urban landscape. Attitude towards each advertisement and emotional responses evoked by it were measured and compared across the range of stimuli and the two samples.

Results did not support either the hypothesis that individuals prefer advertisements showing the natural habitat in which they had grown up or the hypothesized universal preference for advertising imagery displaying savannah type landscapes. However, the observed preferences across both samples for advertisements featuring natural landscapes with abundant green vegetation and clear water are consistent with evolutionary psychology, which proposes that perception of beauty in a landscape is universal and hypothesizes preferences for landscapes with those characteristics.

The study was experimental in nature and based on only two specific geographic locations, as well as on one product and experimental brand. Findings and conclusions must therefore be adopted with due caution. Future research should be conducted on a broader geographic scale, across a wider range of natural and cultural environments, and with a greater variety of products and brands.

Results discourage the adaptation of nature imagery to the geographic location of a target audience, and support a global strategy based on the standardised use of landscapes universally perceived to be beautiful, following the principles of environmental aesthetics.

This is the first study to apply evolutionary and environmental psychology to an investigation of the influence of a target audience's natural environment on its behavioural responses to natural imagery in advertising.

This paper aims to examine how olfactory imagery, triggered by scent brand names prior to smelling, influences scented-product purchase intention.

Five studies were conducted. Logistic regression analysis was used to predict likelihood of olfactory imagery formation. ANOVA and t-test analyses were used for scent brand name group comparisons, and serial mediation analysis was used to test how scent brand names impact purchase intention through olfactory imagery vividness and the (dis)confirmation between imagined (i.e. expected) and experienced scents.

Scent name familiarity stimulates olfactory imagery formation. Scent brand name specificity (e.g. “Lavender Bouquet” vs. “Floral Bouquet”) influences purchase intention, with specific names leading to lower purchase intention, because they generate vivid olfactory imagery and induce a disconfirmation between imagined and experienced scents.

Branding scents on products should be a strategic product design decision. Surprisingly, although specific scent brand names trigger vivid olfactory imagery and precise scent expectations, they mitigate purchase intention and thus are riskier. General scent brand names are safer.

This research contributes by extending the literature on the effect of verbal cues on scent perception by considering the role of scent brand name specificity on purchase intent. It also adds to work on how olfactory imagery influences purchase intention by incorporating olfactory imagery vividness. Finally, it proposes and tests an underlying cognitive mechanism to explain the relationship between scent brand names and purchase intention.

The concept of “Thought Self‐Leadership” involves individual self‐influence through cognitive strategies that focus on self‐dialogue, mental imagery, beliefs and assumptions, and thought patterns. A plethora of studies from various fields including management, counseling psychology, sports psychology, education, and communication, address the effect of these Thought Self‐Leadership cognitive strategies on cognitions and behaviors. This research provides consistent support for the relationship between constructive self‐leadership of these cognitive processes and enhanced performance. The application of these cognitive strategies to the entrepreneurship domain, however, is sparse. We propose that the application of these principles to the entrepreneurial process offers the potential to enhance individual performance and mental states for both practicing and aspiring entrepreneurs. Propositions derived from the proposed framework are developed to serve as catalysts for empirically testing the applicability of Thought Self‐Leadership to the entrepreneurship context.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of web-surfers’ conative reactions to websites’ dominant hue by taking into account mental imagery’s role.

A conceptual model considering mental imagery as a mediator of web-surfers conative reactions to websites’ dominant hue was tested. It also supposes that mental imagery promoted by websites’ dominant hue is moderated by web-surfers’ involvement towards the product sold. To validate this model, an online experiment was conducted with a sample of 400 web-surfers.

Results reflect the importance of “vividness/clarity” and “valence” dimensions of mental imagery. In fact, hues congruent with the website’s content seem to be more able to generate vivid and positive mental images which affect positively web-surfers’ conative reactions. However, this relationship is reversed when web-surfers are strongly involved with the product sold.

Although this study focused on a particular product category, the obtained results can help the research community to understand better conative reactions of web-surfers to websites’ dominant hue through the consideration of mental imagery’s role.

Findings can help managers to better the performance of their commercial websites through the choice of the adequate background hue.

This study highlights the importance of mental imagery prompted by dominant website’s hue taking into account its congruence degree with the website’s content. It provides empirical evidence about its mediating role.