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The study employs two independent experimental studies to collect data. It focuses on the matching effect between advertising appeals and product types. The Elaboration Likelihood Model serves as the theoretical framework for understanding the cognitive processing involved in consumers' responses to these advertising appeals and product combinations.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of advertising appeals on consumers' intentions to purchase organic food. We explored the interaction between advertising appeals (egoistic vs altruistic) and product types (virtue vs vice) and purchase intention. The goal is to provide insights that can enhance the advertising effectiveness of organic food manufacturers and retailers.

The analysis reveals significant effects on consumers' purchase intentions based on the matching of advertising appeals with product types. Specifically, when egoistic appeals align with virtuous products, there is an improvement in consumers' purchase intentions. When altruistic appeals match vice products, a positive impact on purchase intention is observed. The results suggest that the matching of advertising appeals with product types enhances processing fluency, contributing to increased purchase intention.

This research contributes to the field by providing nuanced insights into the interplay between advertising appeals and product types within the context of organic food. The findings highlight the importance of considering the synergy between egoistic appeals and virtuous products, as well as altruistic appeals and vice products. This understanding can be strategically employed by organic food manufacturers and retailers to optimize their advertising strategies, thereby improving their overall effectiveness in influencing consumers' purchase intentions.

This study aims to investigate the rising trend of virtual influencers – digitally created characters with human-like attributes. It aims to evaluate and compare their effectiveness with human influencers in terms of brand attitudes and purchase intentions. It uncovers the mechanisms underlying the differences in effectiveness observed between virtual influencers and their human counterparts.

The research uses a 2 (influencer type: human vs virtual) × 3 (product type: functional vs symbolic vs experiential) between-subjects design. Through a pilot study (n = 334) and a main study (n = 352), the research examines the interactive effects of influencer and product type on brand attitude and purchase intentions. Hypotheses were developed and tested using moderating mediation models centered on authenticity and product–endorser fit.

Virtual influencers are perceived as less authentic than human influencers across all product types, negatively influencing brand attitude and purchase intention. However, the extent to which influencer type affects brand attitudes and purchase intentions, mediated by product–endorser fit, varies based on the product type.

This research emphasizes two key mechanisms – authenticity and product–endorser fit – influencing the effectiveness of virtual influencers. It suggests that aligning virtual influencers with suitable product types can offset their perceived authenticity deficit, significantly affecting their endorsement effectiveness.

The study aims to develop a holistic model identifying the constructs that impact customer loyalty in retail banking and introduce product type as a moderating variable to the model.

A conceptual model of customer loyalty is introduced and empirically tested with 416 valid samples obtained from Australian retail banking customers. The data were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling and multigroup analysis.

This study confirms the moderating effect of high- and low-involvement products on the relationship between customer loyalty and satisfaction, trust, service quality, commitment and perceived value. Surprisingly, the effect of satisfaction on loyalty was much stronger with low-involvement product types and the effect of commitment on loyalty was much stronger with customers who utilise high-involvement products.

The study uses a sample population in Australia who utilise one of the top four banks and investigates three product types. Further research could expand the product selection and include customers who use credit unions and other banks not in the top four categories.

This study is the first to confirm the moderating effect product type has on the customer loyalty relationship in retail banking in regard to high- and low-involvement product categories. The research provides a deeper understanding of the factors that influence customer loyalty and identifies which types of products influences customer loyalty the most. Additionally, this study highlights the importance of understanding the different needs and priorities of customers using different product types in order to effectively influence their loyalty.

Downward line extension is a valuable growth strategy that enables multiple products and services to meet diverse customer needs. However, downward extended products launched by high-status brands may be challenged by horizontal extended products launched by relatively low-status brands when these two types of products target similar consumers. This study aims to examine the impact of product type (horizontal extended versus downward extended) on consumers’ purchase intentions, the underlying mechanism and the moderating role of power distance belief.

Four scenario-based experiments were conducted to probe the research questions.

Consumers develop lower purchase intentions for downward (versus horizontal) extended products due to the reduction of perceived fit and self-congruity (Study 1). Beyond that, power distance belief moderates the impact of product type on consumers’ purchase intentions, as a low power distance belief reduces the negative effect of downward line extension (Studies 2a, 2b and 2c). Perceived fit and self-congruity mediate the interaction effect between product type and power distance belief on consumers’ purchase intentions (Study 2c).

This study provides marketing practitioners with guidance on implementing the strategy of downward line extension.

This study serves as a preliminary effort to compare consumers’ responses between downward and horizontal extended products, which deepens the understanding of downward line extension. It also contributes to the body of knowledge about line extension and power distance belief by demonstrating the moderating role of power distance belief in a line extension context.

With the development of social media, live-streaming has become an indispensable marketing activity for firms, especially in China. From the initial cooperation with the influencer, firms begin to create their own live-streaming channel, namely, the brands' self-built live-streaming. The purpose of this study is to explore the process of consumer engagement in the brands' self-built live-streaming.

This research comprises two experimental studies. Study 1 examined the effect of streamer types (CEO vs. celebrity) on consumer engagement. Study 2 investigated the moderating effects of product innovativeness.

Results showed that CEO streamers could enhance consumer engagement by increasing consumers' cognitive trust, and celebrity streamers could enhance consumer engagement by increasing consumers' emotional trust. In addition, consumer engagement was higher for really new products (vs. incremental new products) in CEO streamers' (vs. celebrity streamers') live-streaming.

Compared with previous studies that focused on streamers based on the influencer marketing, this study expands the scope of research on the live-streaming ecosystem by exploring the effect of different streamer types on the brands' self-built live-streaming. By investigating consumer engagement, this study gives implications for the sustainable traffic issue in live-streaming e-commerce.

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.

This paper aims to reveal the influence of the presentation of online product information (POPI) on consumer attitudes in the context of online buying digital products.

Two main experimental designs are used to collect data. The ANOVA, t-test and Bootstrap methods are applied to check hypotheses.

Findings of Study 1 indicate that if the POPI is combined with different types of celebrity endorsement (CE) (real vs virtual), the self-brand connection will be changed and further influence consumer attitudes toward digital products. Study 2 verifies the diverse moderating effects of the type of virtual CE. The CRP (central-route presentation) online product information with SVCE (super-realistic-digital virtual CE) can decrease consumer attitudes, while the PRP (peripheral-route presentation) online product information with AVCE (anthropomorphic virtual CE) can enhance consumer attitudes.

E-commerce enterprises should optimize the current layout of POPI by considering diverse matchings between POPI and CE to increase consumer attitudes. Moreover, marketers could make various schemes of POPI considering (virtual) CE and self-brand connection.

Findings contribute to understanding the relationship between POPI and consumer attitudes considering the mediation of self-brand connection and the mediations of virtual/real CE. Additionally, this study bridges the gap between research on virtual CE and business practices.

While regular price discount (RPD) promotions remain popular, marketers have also introduced gambled price discounts (GPDs) in recent years. There is a need to understand the performance and limitation of the relatively novel GPD, because the importance of pricing and the surprise element inherent in GPD could cause the promotions to backfire when inappropriately applied. This study compared the performance of GPD and RPD via consumers' perception of their attractiveness through quality cues of product types (experience and search goods) and word-of-mouth (WOM) content (affective and cognitive).

Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied on a 2 (product type: experience goods [hotel rooms] vs. search goods [printers]) × 2 (word-of-mouth type: affective vs. cognitive) × 2 (price promotion type: GPD vs. RPD) between-subjects scenario experimental design (resulting in eight conditions).

Analysis of the 600 returns revealed that RPD does well for both search and experience goods, but GPD is more attractive for the marketing of experience goods. GPD works better with cognitive than with affective WOM.

GPD is a relatively new domain in marketing research. This study contributes to GPD literature and behavioral pricing literature. The study also adds to a better understanding of the dynamics, usefulness and limitations of GPD by considering the roles played by surprise element inherent in GPD and comparing it with RPD.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing product recommendations, but little is known about consumer acceptance of AI recommendations. This study examines how to improve consumers' acceptance of AI recommendations from the perspective of product type (material vs experiential).

Four studies, including a field experiment and three online experiments, tested how consumers' preference for AI-based (vs human) recommendations differs between material and experiential product purchases.

Results show that people perceive AI recommendations as more competent than human recommendations for material products, whereas they believe human recommendations are more competent than AI recommendations for experiential products. Therefore, people are more (less) likely to choose AI recommendations when buying material (vs experiential) products. However, this effect is eliminated when is used as an assistant to rather than a replacement for a human recommendation.

This study is the first to focus on how products' material and experiential attributes influence people's attitudes toward AI recommendations. The authors also identify under what circumstances resistance to algorithmic advice is attenuated. These findings contribute to the research on the psychology of artificial intelligence and on human–technology interaction by investigating how experiential and material attributes influence preference for or resistance to AI recommenders.

According to construal level theory, close (versus far) psychological distance is associated with low (versus high) construal level. Despite the evidence for discount frame effect, it is unclear whether psychological distance and product nature play moderating roles. In addition, little has been known whether the effect of discount frame can extend to other dependent variables such as willingness to pay (WTP). Driven by construal level theory, five experiments were conducted to explore whether the effect of discount frame is dependent on psychological distance and product nature (i.e. utilitarian versus hedonic product).

The experimental method was used, with discount frame, psychological distance and product type as the independent variables and purchase intention, attitude towards the advertisement, perceived value and WTP as the dependent variables. Participants were presented with promotion scenarios in which psychological distance and discount format were manipulated. In order to test the generalizability of results, promotional scenarios for both utilitarian (i.e. backpack bag and shampoo) and hedonic products (i.e. scenery ticket and perfume) were presented. Data were collected via the online experiment platform (i.e. www.Credamo.com).

The authors found an interaction between discount frame and spatial distance in that consumers had more positive attitude toward percent off than amount off under near-spatial distance. However, no interaction was observed between discount frame and temporal, social or hypothetical distance.

Taken together, the current study for the first time reveals that the effect of discount frame is contingent on a specific dimension of psychological distance (i.e. spatial distance), regardless of whether the product is utilitarian or hedonic. Findings from this study for the first time pose a challenge to the notion that construal-level match necessarily leads to more favorable consumer responses, suggesting that there may be a unique mechanism underlying the joint effects of spatial distance and discount frame. The current findings can provide important implications for marketers and retailers in an effort to design effective promotional messages.