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The purpose of this paper is to extend the conclusions of a previous synthesis of attraction effect research (1995), focusing on the influence of background and design variables on the magnitude of the effect, and to identify additional factors that question the effect’s practical market relevance.

Meta-analysis and moderator analysis (meta-regression) are used to summarize the findings and assess the explanatory power of background variables on the magnitude of the attraction effect.

Analyses indicate significant effects for procedure and the pre-entrant target percentage in addition to decoy type and decoy location found in previous synthesis. These factors explain 16 per cent of the variance. Previous findings that between-subject designs result in stronger attraction effects are not substantiated. Viable decoys led to a reversal of the attraction effect.

This research contributes conceptually by demonstrating that the attraction effect is sensitive to research design factors which in some cases reverse the effect. This suggests that the underlying theory needs qualification and that generalizability may be limited. Given the constraints of meta-analysis, design factors that are idiosyncratic to a single study or are constant across studies could not be tested.

This research suggests that for the attraction effect to have practical relevance, knowledge of the effect needs updating because critical realities in the marketplace have been somewhat ignored by researchers in building theories regarding this effect.

By focusing on background variables that can moderate the magnitude of the attraction effect, the authors open a venue to expand the theoretical understanding and the practical relevance of the attraction effect in marketing.

A high level of product involvement is typically assumed to accompany higher information search, a fewer number of acceptable alternatives, and a higher number of choice criteria than does low level of product involvement. Inferring the level of product involvement from these behavioral or evaluative characteristics is, however, potentially misleading. Two factors are identified as mediating the relationship between the high level of involvement and these characteristics: (1) product trial, and (2) the consumer learning stage. The results of the present study support this view. Even for high involving products, considerable variations exist in these characteristics, depending on product trialability and consumer learning stage. Several strategic marketing implications stemming from these results are offered.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to explore the influence of an individual’s attitude towards advertising and country-of-origin (COO) images (brand origin (BO) and country of manufacture (COM)) on brand equity creation; and second, to investigate how brand typicality moderates the effect of BO macro image on perceived quality.

The data to test the hypotheses were elicited from a consumer survey in the Greater Lisbon area (305 Portuguese consumers). The product category of smartphones was selected for two main reasons: it has not been extensively analysed in previous studies on the subject of brand equity; it is a device well-known to Portuguese consumers (particularly in the Greater Lisbon area). Three criteria guided the selection of the brands. The first criterion is to select brands which are well-known to consumers. The second is to choose brands with a distinctive BO and a main COM. The third and final criterion is to consider brands in different positions in the brand ranking. In order to estimate structural path coefficients, R², Q², and bootstrap techniques, the current study employs the partial least squares approach.

The results show that individuals’ attitudes towards advertisements have a positive impact on brand equity creation, whereas those towards the COM do not significantly influence brand equity creation. Attitudes towards BO only have a partial influence. Brand typicality, however, exerts a significant direct effect on brand equity dimensions and, hence, does not have a significant moderating effect.

The authors suggest analysing the influence of COO on dimensions of brand equity considering consumer segmentation, types of industry and a range of brands, as well as different levels of consumer involvement with the product category. Several brands with the same COO should be analysed in order to understand whether the effects on brand equity depend on the product category. Although the current study is a first attempt to combine the potential effect of individuals’ attitudes towards advertisements and COO on creating brand equity, further research should examine additional potential antecedents of brand equity. Finally, cross-cultural studies are recommended.

Regarding managerial implications, three main aspects should be taken into consideration. First, creative, original and different advertising strategies are more effective than the COO in creating brand equity and, consequently, in building loyalty among smartphone consumers. Second, consumers do not tend to care about the place, country or region where the smartphone is produced, but the image of the country where the brand originated may be important. Finally, managers should be aware that, at least, in the smartphone sector, the way consumers create favourable associations with the brand and typicality, trust the company and consider it good value for money, are more effective in building brand loyalty than the perceived quality of the product/brand.

Relating to the interrelationship between COO and brand equity, the results of the current study prove that the effects of COO are category specific. Therefore, more studies focussed on other contexts of products and brands are still needed to know in more detail how COO exerts an influence on brand equity dimensions. Even within a product category context, the results can depend on individual brands being analysed.

To the knowledge of the authors, this study is the first to investigate the dual (simultaneous) effect of individuals’ attitudes towards advertisements and COO images on brand equity dimensions. Adding to the originality of the paper, the category of smartphone with respect to brand equity has not been extensively analysed in previous studies.

This study aims to investigate the influence of two critical brand extension design components

brand design consistency and category design consistency

on the formation of consumers ' product attitudes and purchase intentions. It also aims to examine the underlying mechanism for attitude formation towards new brand extensions using processing fluency theory and the moderation of brand strength.

A 2 (brand design consistency: high vs low)×2 (category design consistency: high vs low)×2 (brand strength: strong vs weak)×2 (processing fluency: conceptual vs perceptual) between subjects experiment with 642 participants was used to test the proposed hypotheses and model.

Results obtained from SEM and ANCOVA demonstrate that both brand and category design consistencies assert significant effects on new product attitude in brand extensions; however, the relative effect of category design consistency is greater. Further, the effect of category design consistency varies as a function of brand strength, and is stronger for weak brands than for strong brands.

Brand managers should maintain consistency of extension product design with both the parent brand and the new product category, and prioritize the latter for weak brands.

This study integrates brand extension and aesthetics research on prototypicality to formulate and test important research questions, previously unexamined. Further, realistically-rendered product images, allowing both conceptual and perceptual processing, were used in the experiment to provide a better imitation of real product choices – an approach different from most extant brand extension studies, which utilize verbal stimuli.

Focusing on social network services (SNS), the purpose of this paper is to propose a research model to investigate individuals’ SNS usage facilitators and inhibitors from the perspective of individuals’ media system dependency (MSD) and privacy concerns.

The research model will be tested with data collected from online users of Facebook. The survey yielded a total of 403 responses for the data analysis which was conducted by measurement and structural models.

The findings indicate that SNSs members strive for understanding, orientation, and play dependencies which facilitate their satisfaction and social presence, and subsequently fosters their continuance intention toward the SNS. In addition, the members’ privacy concerns decrease satisfaction and social presence online.

First, this study has contributed to the authors’ understanding of an individual’s SNS facilitators and inhibitors from the theoretical perspective (i.e. MSD theory and privacy concerns). Second, satisfaction is a strong antecedent of continuance intention and would dilute the effect of social presence on an individual’s SNS continuance intention.