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Since Islamic markets are growing substantially, there is an urgent need to gain a better understanding of how Muslim consumers perceive products from a religious perspective. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the brain responses of Muslim consumers to Halal and non-Halal products using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology.

The research model is a simplified version of the theory of planned behavior. The initial experiment began by asking participants to divide a set of images into two groups: Halal and non-Halal products. The fMRI experiment uses a blocked design approach to capture brain activities resulting from presenting the two groups of images to participants, and to record the strength of their attitudes toward purchasing the products.

Across all participants, the level of brain activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex increased significantly when Halal images were presented to them. The same results emerged when the Halal images showed raw and cooked meat. The variations in the results may be due to the high emotional sensitivity of Muslim consumers to using religious products.

This study uses a unique approach to monitor brain activity to confirm that consumers from specific market segments respond differently to market products based on their internal beliefs. Findings from this study provide evidence that marketing managers targeting Muslim markets should consider the sensitivity of presenting products in ways that reflect religious principles, in order to gain higher acceptance in this market segment.

Although the literature reports considerable research on Muslim consumers’ behavior, most of the previous studies utilize conventional data collection approaches to target broad segments of consumers by using traditional products. This paper is the first to track the reactions of the Muslim consumer segment to specific types of market products.

Packaging and labelling have become essential to how food manufacturers generate and deliver value to customers. The information displayed on the packaging can be used to communicate to customers the properties and unique characteristics of a food product (e.g. nutrients, calories and country of origin). To achieve communication goals effectively, manufacturers need to understand how consumers evaluate products based on their attributes. In particular, companies should be aware of which specific product attributes affect consumer buying behaviour and which product attributes are more critical during food assessment. So, the paper aims to investigate consumer's behaviuor linked to typical product attributes indicated on the packaging.

The present study examines consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for a cherry jam with different attributes (brand, type of production method and price) on a sample of 2,166 Italian respondents through a choice experiment using a random parameter logit-error component model.

The results showed that WTP for jams can be affected by attributes such as brand, price and production methods; precisely, they indicated that the level of naturalness in the production process constitutes the main element for the consumer’s choice; however, the considerable weight that price and brand have in influencing the purchasing behaviour of the food consumer was still confirmed: in fact, a p-value of less than 0.05 was found in all cases.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that assesses the effect of different types of production on WTP for food products. In addition, this study also reflects on the importance of the level of education for consumer choice.

Dairy products are an essential part of a healthy diet, and dairy is an emerging food industry in China. Meanwhile, the dairy industry is one of the “disaster zones” with quality and safety issues occurring more frequently in its supply chain than in others. Based on qualitative research focused on consumers in the Northwest and South of China, the present study aims to understand and provide information on consumer perception of food safety in dairy products.

Nine focus group interviews were carried out from January to April 2018. Altogether, 61 participants (24 males, 37 females, aged 18–60 years) were recruited in four cities. Qualitative content analysis of the data was conducted using Nvivo version 11.4.0.

A high concern with the safety of dairy products is widespread, particularly among participants with children, who are especially worried about the safety of dairy products. High prevalence of food safety incidents causes consumers to lower their confidence in food safety, and make them pay more attention to the news about food safety incidents. Consumers tend to become less sensitive to price, focusing more on food safety and quality, while purchasing dairy products. Brand and purchase venue are the most important indicators for consumers to determine the quality of dairy products. Safety certification becomes increasingly important.

It has some limitations. The focus group interviews covered different two regions (Northwest and South of China). However, the number of focus groups was limited to nine because of budget constraints. The participants come from Northwest and South of the country, which means that the findings may not apply for another area of the country. A more representative sampling with a larger sample size would be necessary to increase the validity of the study. However, the results can serve as input for further research.

This paper explores the Chinese consumers' perception of food safety and dairy products, consumers' behaviour concerning dairy products based on focus group interviews with consumers. This study offers valuable insights to members of academia, food suppliers and policy-makers.

This study aims to identify integrated marketing communication (IMC) antecedents and the consequences of planned brand identity in the context of higher education, and empirically test a number of hypotheses related to the constructs of these antecedents and consequences.

A model of the IMC antecedents and consequences of planned brand identity was tested in a survey conducted among stakeholders in two London-based universities. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was applied to gain insight into the various influences and relationships.

The study identifies and confirms key constructs in planned brand identity. IMC antecedents of planned brand identity, such as brand elements, service attributes, public relations and place/country of origin, were found to positively influence the planned brand identity consequences of awareness, image and reputation. However, websites, social media, advertising and direct marketing were not found to have significant influence.

The focus on two UK universities limits the generalisability of the findings. Future research should be conducted in other country settings to test the relationships identified in the present study. Also, future research may build on the study’s findings by investigating the attitudinal and behavioural consequences of brand identification in the higher education context.

Professionals responsible for universities’ promotional and branding activities need to evaluate the relative contributions of the IMC antecedents of planned brand identity. Brand elements such as design, colour and name, for example, should be reviewed to determine whether modifications are required in different international markets. The increasing prevalence of social media, one of the key antecedents of brand awareness, offers opportunities for universities to engage in brand co-creation by interacting with past, present and future students on relevant digital platforms. Finally, the place/country-of-origin cue is of particular relevance to institutions of higher education given the increasing numbers of students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels who are choosing to study abroad (Melewar and Akel, 2005). The attraction of the UK as a country to study in, or the appeal of individual cities such as London, should be fully integrated into universities’ IMC strategies.

The study makes two main contributions. First is the theoretical contribution by identifying the core IMC antecedents and consequences of planned brand identity for universities and from this extrapolate key directions for future research. Second it is indicated that a number of managerial implications are designed to assist in the formulation of improved professional practice.

In servitization research, there has been a call to move further toward the development of business models based on a service approach. This article aims to answer this call by adopting service logic (SL) and developing strategies and organizational resources and processes to create a service-centric business model called servification, defined as the process of identifying and developing strategies and organizational resources and processes to create a business model based on SL.

This article is conceptual and extends servitization in the direction of service-centric business model innovation by drawing on and extending SL.

The article defines service as a higher-order concept according to SL and develops the concept of a helping strategy as the foundation for a service-based business model. Further, it develops a typology of organizational resources and processes that must be developed for the emergence of such a business model.

Since this article is the first to conceptually develop servification, more both theoretical and empirical research is naturally required. The development of servification takes servitization in the direction of service-based business model innovation and also contributes to the research on SL.

Servification enables the development of service-centric strategies and organizational resources and processes and service-based business models.

This article is the first to adopt SL in studies of business model innovation.

This study aims to investigate city branding as a post-pandemic COVID-19 outcome factor on brand satisfaction, brand experience, perceived risk and revisit intention. In addition, this research contributes to the discussion of post-COVID-19 city branding that needs to be considered in the development of future tourism marketing.

A quantitative approach was used with PLS-SEM statistical analysis and a 263-tourist sample. The study was conducted on tourists from Malang Regency in Indonesia by distributing questionnaires modified from previous studies in a similar context.

The results of this study found that there were significant influences of city brand personality on brand experience, brand satisfaction, brand experience on perceived risk, brand satisfaction on revisit intention and perceived risk on revisit intention. This study also presents the mediating role.

The study was only conducted on a small regency in Indonesia, and therefore the results cannot be generalized for other cities over the world.

The proposed study model suggests that stakeholders must seek to socialize services to potential tourists, so that tourists can understand the description of tourism activities that can be enjoyed during the COVID-19 pandemic and the way they travel in the future.

Understanding the determinant factors of city branding post-COVID-19 was valuable for developing marketing strategies to cope with intense competition among the city.

This study emphasizes the determinants of COVID-19 perceived risk and revisit intentions as explained in the tourism marketing literature by considering the role of brand satisfaction, brand experience and city brand personality which significantly contribute to build the city competitiveness. Therefore, various creative strategies should be implemented to promote the city as well as escalate tourist visits without ignoring the pandemic’s risks.

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.