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The purpose of this paper is to take the neglected influencing factors in brand alliance research into account based on consumer characteristics theory and discuss the influencing factors' interactive effects on brand alliance.

Based on the theory of consumer characteristics and the S&R model of brand alliance, an experimental design was conducted to examine the relationship among the various variables and moderators, which can test the changes of the dependent variables by controlling and manipulating one or more single variables. The sample includes 400 college students.

The results demonstrate that brand knowledge positively moderates the relationship between brand equity and consumer brand alliance, but not significantly affect the relationship between alliance evaluation and joint fit; in contrast, product involvement individually plays a positive moderating role on the relationship between joint fit, brand equity and consumer brand alliance evaluation.

Two consumer characteristic, brand knowledge and product involvement moderate the relationship between brand equity, joint fit and consumer brand alliance evaluation. Several empirical studies on brand alliance have documented mostly positive effects of brand alliance on consumer brand evaluations. Two important consumer characteristics' effect on brand alliance evaluation, brand knowledge and product involvement, were testified to expand the scope of influential factors of brand alliance evaluation on the basis of consumers' characteristic theory.

This paper aims to investigate whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts that are oriented toward shared value creation generate any perceptual advantages in terms of consumer product attributes evaluations compared with other types of CSR. The study also uncovers consumers’ pathways that channel the impacts of corporate associations on corporate and product evaluations and purchase intention.

This study uses a between-subjects experimental design. In all, 274 undergraduate students from a North American university participated in the 2 (low versus high corporate ability levels) × 4 (CSR types) study. The data were analyzed using the methodologies of path analysis and multiple group analysis in the context of structural equation modeling procedure.

The findings show that in the context of shared-value CSR, CSR image (i.e. consumer judgments on the moral aspect of the company) can spill over to product attributes evaluations, including perceptions of “product innovativeness” and “product social responsibility,” which, in turn, translate to purchase willingness. Meanwhile, perceived corporate trustworthiness mediates the effects of CSR image and corporate ability (CA) image on the overall corporate evaluation, which subsequently influences consumer product evaluation and purchase intention.

The research provides direct evidence showing that companies have the potential to improve their corporate brand and, in turn, their product evaluations by putting a stronger emphasis on the social responsibility components of their image and placing this at the core of their strategic agenda. Importantly, a contribution to the literature by identifying differential effects of CA image versus CSR image on consumer perception of product innovativeness within different CSR categories is made. The limitations of the research are discussed, which include the usage of a fictitious company and brand and a convenience sample.

The study offers guidance to managers in regard to their choice of different CSR practices to fulfill their company’s product-related strategic goals.

The present study takes a critical stance to show that previous experimental work investigating the impact of CSR image on product evaluations relied predominantly on bipolar manipulations of CSR practices (bad versus good) rather than bringing many shades of CSR into consideration. By incorporating a wide array of CSR formats, especially value-creating CSR, current research generates potential implications based on differential effects of various CSR focuses, which have not been captured by previous studies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impacts of product harm, consumers' product knowledge and firms' negative information disclosure on ethical evaluation of a firm, especially, the moderating effects of product knowledge and negative information disclosure.

A 3×2×2 between‐subject design with three levels of product harm, two levels of product knowledge, and two treatments of negative information was used in this study. The experimental product is diet food.

The findings reveal that the level of product harm affects consumers' ethical evaluation. Furthermore, the individual's ethical evaluation will influence his or her purchase intention. The main effect of subjective knowledge is significant while its moderating effect is not significant. It is also found that the negative information disclosure will lower consumer's ethical evaluation of a firm, and the effect of product harm on ethical evaluation will be stronger for harmful products than for harmless products when the negative information is disclosed.

Marketers might need to be especially responsive if their practices result in a diminished reputation for their firms and lost sales. Exploiting the vulnerability of consumers or worsening their situation by marketing harmful products might be evaluated as unethical under principles of justice. It is suggested that marketers include increased disclosures of actual product harm levels relative to industry norms.

Consumers' product knowledge and firms' negative information disclosure are integrated into the model, exploring the effect of product harm on consumer's ethical evaluation of a firm and their moderating effects are discussed.

Commodity display is an important cue for consumers’ prediction of the goods they purchase. Then why does a neat display (compared to a messy one) usually result in better product evaluation? This paper aims to discuss this issue.

By conducting three lab experiments, the authors proved the existence of “the pictorial effect.” In Study 1, the authors used Chinese knots as the material. Chinese knots are commonly used in decoration; therefore, their appearance is of high importance. The authors set a scenario of purchasing Chinese knots to dismantle for teaching how to knot, thus manipulating the importance of appearance into lower condition. The authors measured subjects’ attitude to display picture and product quality evaluation and examine the existence of “the pictorial effect.” In Study 2, the authors changed material to a functional product in daily life – playing cards. The authors used different usage scenarios to manipulate the importance of the playing cards’ appearance (high vs low). For the low importance group, the scenario is playing poker in a dormitory at the weekend; for the high importance group, the scenario is using playing cards to make a hat for a party. The authors add measurements of consumers’ perception of the popularity of product. Study 2 consolidates the conclusion of Study 1 and excludes the popularity inference effect. In Study 3, the authors used a comb as the material, thus manipulating the importance of product appearance through the different instructions on the comb’s packaging (focus on healthy function vs focus on hair appearance enhancement). Study 3 repeated the conclusion in Study 1 and Study 2, and proved the existence of a “display pictorial effect” by showing the main effect, mediation and moderating effect as well.

Current research brings forward the existence and conditions of “the pictorial effect,” i.e. when the goods are neatly displayed (relative to messily), the consumer’s attitude toward the display becomes more positive, hence leading to a higher product evaluation, and the consumer’s attitudes toward the display fully mediate “the pictorial effect”. However, “the pictorial effect” does not always occur; for the importance of the product, appearance plays a moderator role in the effect. If the consumer thinks the product appearance is not important, “the pictorial effect” could not be observed, which means there is no difference in product evaluation between messy and neat display of the commodity, and only when the product appearance is important, does the pictorial effect occur.

The authors have noticed that display is part of the retail environment; therefore, research on how an environment affects human behavior may be valuable to reference. For example, for the experiment designs, especially Study 2, the authors asked participants to imagine making a hat using playing cards, which is a very creative task. In this task, participants may pay attention to creativity, and this may have an effect on product evaluation. According to Vohs et al., orderly environments lead people toward tradition and convention, whereas disorderly environments encourage breaking with tradition and convention – and that both settings can alter preferences, choice, and behavior. Messy displays may favor the product evaluation of some creative products when the situation requires higher creativity. The authors will attempt to test the effect of this factor in future study.

In application, current research supports “the necessity of tally” in the site management of retailing, and further answers the question as to what kind of products need more effort to be kept in a good order in their displays.

For the first time, the authors put forward “the pictorial effect” in product displays. The research provides insight to the underlying process through which merchandise displays can put an effect on the product evaluation, and supplements the contamination theory and popularity theory, thus contributing to the research works on merchandise displays.

This study aims to draw on cue utilization and irradiation theories to: determine the extent to which country-of-origin image and its sub-dimensions exert an aggregate and relative influence on consumer brand evaluations; and identify the contextual and methodological factors that account for between-study variance in the focal relationship.

A random-effects model was used to examine 166 empirical articles encompassing 499,563 observations, and 282 effect sizes from 1984 to 2020 using Comprehensive Meta-Analysis software.

Results show that country-of-origin image has a positive, moderate effect on consumer brand evaluations. Moreover, findings reveal that each dimension of country-of-origin image – general country image, general product country image, specific product country image and partitioned country image – significantly influences consumer brand evaluation, but the effect of general product country image is the largest. What’s more, the aggregate impacts of country-of-origin image on consumer brand evaluation – brand commitment, brand-specific associations and general brand impressions – show that the effect on brand commitment is the largest. Finally, findings show that contextual factors (brand source, product sector, culture [individualism vs collectivism], brand origin continents and respondents’ continent) and methodological factors (cues, sampling unit, publication year and sample size) significantly account for between-study variance.

This study provides the first meta-analytic review of the relationship between country-of-origin image and consumer brand evaluation to help clarify mixed findings and balance out the literature, which has only seen quantitative reviews on product evaluation and purchase decisions.

This study aims to examine the effects of perceived product–brand fit and brand type on consumer evaluations of wearable smart masks’ technological, aesthetic and social attributes and how these affect consumers’ attitudes and intentions to use.

Through an experimental approach, a total of 240 US consumers’ evaluations of smart masks are compared according to perceived product–brand fit (high vs low) and brand type (electronics vs fashion).

The results showed that high perceived product–brand fit increases consumers’ evaluations, while brand type did not significantly affect consumers’ evaluations. Among various attributes, social acceptability had the greatest influence on consumers’ attitude and intention to use. Perceived ease of use, however, positively influenced attitude but negatively influenced intention to use.

As consumers’ interest in smart health-care wearables increases and air pollution is a serious issue across countries, research on wearable smart masks is being facilitated. Smart masks refer to the digitalized, reusable wearable masks that provide protection and health-care functions. However, their market penetration is still limited. To close this gap between smart mask technology and the market, this study examines how perceived fit and brand type can be used to enhance consumer evaluations.

To heighten shopper interest, fast moving consumer goods marketers often attach supplementary labels to the package front to promote product benefits. This study aims to use claim credibility as the foundation for investigating how an extra affixed label that addresses product benefits impacts consumer evaluation, as well as identifying important factors that might moderate the resulting responses.

Three between-subjects experiments examine how claim credibility mediates the influence of extra affixed labels on product evaluation (Study 1). They also test whether the impact on consumer responses of extra affixed labels, with emphasis on the same vs different benefits as those printed on the front of a package (Study 2.1) or with a high or low relevance between their claimed benefits and the front-of-package stated ingredients (Study 2.2), is dependent upon individuals’ need for cognition.

Results show the power of extra affixed labels in improving product evaluation. Claim credibility mediated the observed effects of extra affixed labeling. Yet, the favorable effects of extra affixed labels for individuals high in need for cognition is diminished when expressed in a different (vs same) claim from those printed on the package front or the claim about product benefits is low (vs high) relevance to the declared ingredients. The reverse holds true for those low in need for cognition.

This study advances knowledge on the effects of extra affixed label claims on product evaluation.

Capturing consumers’ notice by differentiating a product from competing brands in attaching an affixed label featuring product claims, as an alternative front-of-package (FOP) cue, has been widely used in fast-moving consumer goods retailing. This paper aims to apply perceived product newness as the basis for examining how affixed labeling, manipulated in terms of design features and message claims, can impact consumer evaluation.

Four between-subjects experiments examined the persuasive impact of the use of affixed labels. In particular, how product evaluation, in response to affixed labeling, varied as a function of its shape (Study 1a), location (Study 1b), the combination of shape and location cues (Study 1c) and the strength of message claims conveyed by such labels (Study 2). Perceived product newness is assessed as a mediator for all studies.

The results show the power of affixed labels in persuasion. Specifically, consumers tend to perceive the item as newer, achieving persuasion, when the affixed label has a distinctive shape or location. Yet, incorporating several unusual design components fails to trigger an elevated result if a singular visual stimulus serves as a cue for an item’s newness. Further, the strength of claims highlighted in an affixed label correlates to positive impact on evaluations.

This study offers an empirically based examination of consumers’ responses to affixed labeling and identifies perceived product newness as a mediator of the observed effect.

A salient, affixed label enables a credible cue for product newness, therefore, driving evaluation.

This paper contributes to understanding the influence on the persuasion of FOP labeling, with salience to retail promotional and sales messaging tactics.

The objective of this study is to examine the effects of pictures (consumer pictures vs. product pictures vs. no pictures) in online consumer reviews on product evaluation and to determine the mechanism and boundary conditions behind such effects.

The research consisted of three laboratory experiments.

The results showed that consumer pictures led to the most favorable product evaluation. Study 1 showed that persuasive effect was the mechanism behind the main effect. Study 2 showed that for problem-solving products, consumer pictures increased product evaluation significantly; for enhancing products, there was no significant difference of product evaluation among consumer pictures, product pictures and no picture. The results of Study 3 showed that for the unfamiliar brand, consumer pictures significantly enhanced product evaluation; for the highly familiar brand, there was no significant difference among consumer pictures, product pictures and no picture. The present research used persuasive effects to examine the mechanism behind the interaction effects.

The study provides managerial implications for online store owners about how to manage pictures in online reviews.

This study supplements the literature on online consumer reviews and enriches the study of effects of pictures.