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Drawing on the branded service encounters perspective, the purpose of this study is to investigate how frontline service employees’ environmentally irresponsible behaviors affect customers’ brand evaluations.

The research conducted two experiments. The first experiment explored the effect of frontline service employees’ environmentally irresponsible behaviors on customers’ brand evaluations via corporate hypocrisy. The second experiment explored the moderation effect of employees’ prototypicality and the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) among customers.

Experiment 1 indicates that for firms with a green brand image, frontline employees’ environmentally irresponsible behaviors result in customers’ perception that the firm is hypocritical, thus reducing their brand evaluations. Experiment 2 shows that employee prototypicality and CSR importance to the customer enhance the negative impact of frontline employees’ environmentally irresponsible behaviors on customers’ brand evaluations through customers’ perception of corporate hypocrisy.

This study is one of the first efforts to explore how frontline service employees’ environmentally irresponsible behaviors affect customers’ responses. It helps understand the impact of frontline employees’ counter-productive sustainable behaviors on customers’ brand perception, as well as the relationship between CSR and employees.

This study suggests that firms’ green brand image does not always lead to positive customer response. When frontline employees’ behaviors are inconsistent with firms’ green brand image, it can trigger customers’ perceptions of corporate hypocrisy and thus influence their brand evaluations. Therefore, firms should train frontline service employees to make their behaviors align with the firms’ green brand image.

This study is one of the first efforts to explore how frontline service employees’ environmentally irresponsible behaviors affect customers’ responses. It helps understand the impact of frontline employees’ counter-productive sustainable behaviors on customers’ brand perception, as well as the relationship between CSR and employee.

The present study aims to investigate the impact of perceived quality, brand extension incongruity, involvement and perceived risk on consumer attitude towards brand extension across three product types, namely, FMCG, durable goods and service (FDS) sectors. More importantly, the study seeks to explore the importance of involvement profile comprising relevance, pleasure, sign‐value, risk importance and risk probability and perceived risk facets (financial, psychological and performance) in acceptance of brand extension across FDS.

Three questionnaire‐based surveys were conducted to collect the data for FMCG, durable and service brand extensions. Regression analyses and Chow test were computed to investigate differences in consumer evaluation across FDS.

Results revealed significant different effects of variables across the three product types. The impact of perceived quality was greater in the case of services than FMCG and durables. On the other hand, perceived risk and involvement had stronger influence on evaluation of durables and service than FMCG brand extensions.

The present study gives a comprehensive view of how consumers evaluate the service and non‐service brand extensions.

The major contributions of this study are: generalization of the findings related to brand extension incongruity in the service area; examination of the multidimensional role of involvement in terms of relevance, pleasure, sign value, risk importance and risk probability in brand extension context across FMCG, durables and service product types; and exploration of the role of risk facets, namely, financial, performance and psychological in determining consumers' attitude towards brand extension.

Given its importance in the brand management of service firms, the present research initiative primarily concerns the investigation of the formation process of consumer-brand relationships in the service industry. By considering a chain of effects’ model, this paper aims to integrate two brand commitment paradigm’s perspectives with service evaluation theory, representing the attitudinal and behavioral aspects of the relationship building process, to better explain the way consumers relate to a service brand. The proposed conceptual model is tested in the context of mobile broadband internet services.

A survey of 573 customers of mobile internet services was conducted using a structured questionnaire with established scales. Data were analyzed with partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The results indicated that brand loyalty is determined by relationship commitment, which, in turn, is influenced by the consumer-brand relationship components – trust, satisfaction, investment size and quality of alternatives – as well as by the service brand’s perceived value. Finally, the relationship quality components of the brand, trust and satisfaction to a large extent, and investment size to a lesser extent, mediate the relationships between service brand evaluation and brand commitment.

The sample is industry-specific, and this may affect generalizability of findings. Also, the cross-sectional design adopted does not reflect temporal changes.

From a practical point of view, the findings suggest that providers can improve their loyalty figures through the establishment of strong consumer-brand relationships as a result of the development and delivery of high quality, valuable services and other relationship-building tactics that support the consumer-brand binding.

Although there are previous studies that extend either the relationship investment model or the commitment-trust theory with the service evaluation theory, the proposed model is the first to combine the previous three research streams into one causal chain model, to explain the development and flow of events in the consumer-brand relationship process toward brand loyalty.

This study aims to examine the relative impact of three drivers affecting consumers’ usage consideration for a brand extension into a service category using data from actual consumers of a national oil change retailer contemplating various service brand extensions.

Data for the study were collected in two separate surveys using structured self-administered questionnaires. Three drivers were measured for their effect on consumers’ usage consideration for service brand extensions (dependent variable), namely, parent brand evaluation, extension fit and degree of service intensity of the extension.

The results indicate that parent brand evaluations are the strongest drivers of brand extension usage consideration, regardless of the extension fit or the degree of service intensity of the extension. In addition, the findings suggest that the closer the fit to the parent brand, the more likely the extension will be considered. In contrast, consumers are less likely to consider using an extension as the level of service intensity increases.

This study’s use of actual customers of the brand, for real service brand extensions provides a higher degree of external validity than previous work in this area, and it yields a deeper understanding of the criteria used by consumers when evaluating service brand extensions. The study also provides managerial implications that are of practical value to academics and practitioners alike.

This study is one of the first efforts in sports marketing literature to assess sports fans' evaluation of brand extensions introduced by a professional sports team. Using measures of perceived fit between the parent brand and the extensions, it is hypothesised that increased fit will result in more positive fan evaluations and higher intention to purchase the team's extension. Results from correlation and regression analyses provide support for this hypothesis.

This paper aims to provide an empirical investigation into extension category effects on service brand extensions, both to other services (service–service extensions) and to products (service–product extensions), and the extension category’s influence on brand/consumer-level success drivers, as well as the perceived quality of the extension.

This study included an empirical testing of a conceptual framework using a hierarchical linear modeling approach and testing of hypotheses with a multilevel regression analysis. The data set consisted of 216 respondents reporting on both product and service extensions. Data were collected on three levels, namely, consumer level, parent brand level and extension level.

The findings indicate a general and consistent extension category-dependent effect that moderates the importance of brand extension success drivers. The influence of parent brand reliance and perceived parent brand quality were found to have stronger effects, whereas parent brand conviction was weaker in the context of service-to-service extensions.

The study focuses on two brands with four extensions. Further research could replicate the study with a broader range of brands and extensions.

The study provides guidance to service managers to enhance consumers’ extension evaluations through better-positioned communication efforts when extending to different categories.

The study is one of the first empirical investigations into category-extension effects and its moderating role regarding brand and consumer level success drivers. Sparse research has been dedicated to a real-world occurrence of services extending between extension categories; this study thus furthers service brand research in terms of brand management decisions.

This study seeks to examine the effects of three communication avenues, namely controlled communication (e.g. advertising/promotions), uncontrolled communications (word‐of‐mouth (WOM)/publicity), and brand name, on consumer service brand evaluation.

This study employed a quantitative methodology and data were gathered from consumers intercepted in a shopping mall via a self‐completed survey.

The results show that controlled communications and brand name have a significant effect on customer satisfaction, brand attitudes and brand reuse intentions. WOM was shown to have a significant influence only on brand reuse intentions. In addition, comparisons made across different retail service types (e.g. stores and banks) showed differences in relationships between the examined variables.

The brand stimuli used in the survey instrument limit the findings to retail stores and banks and, thus, may not be applicable in all service situations. On this basis, it is recommended that future research should further explore the key constructs of this study in other service settings.

The findings suggest that controlled communications and brand name are pivotal in establishing consumer expectations, thus influencing satisfaction and brand attitudes. Therefore, these types of advertising should be utilised to communicate realistic service experiences, while brand names should reinforce consumer confidence, trust and safety in usage. Positive WOM advocating proven reliability and consistency of the brand should be encouraged and rewarded to encourage new usage and reusage behaviour.

The value of this paper lies in the comparison of different brand communications with different consumer responses to the brand not previously examined. The results therefore suggest ways in which marketers can maximise the benefits of their communications.

The impact of the service experience on consumers' feelings, satisfaction and service brand attitudes are of vital importance to service marketers. In an attempt to understand how consumers evaluate service performances this study seeks to explore the dimensions of the service brand that influence consumers at time of service consumption. In addition, the study also examines post‐consumption evaluations. A study of 254 bank consumers revealed that the core service, employee service and servicescape make a significant contribution to the service consumption experience. Furthermore, the service experience was found to significantly effect feelings, satisfaction and brand attitudes.

This paper aims to investigate the individual and combined effects of three types of psychological contracts between customers and service employees (i.e. transactional, relational and communal), resulting from the service organizations’ relational marketing efforts, on their customers’ service brand evaluations in terms of their satisfaction, trust and commitment toward the brand.

This study uses a field-survey of 303 regular customers of beauty salons and hairdressers in Auckland, New Zealand. All the constructs were measured using adapted versions of well-established scales and data was analyzed using SmartPLS due to the relatively smaller sample size and the primary research objective being the prediction of the three outcome variables (i.e. satisfaction, trust and commitment).

Transactional and relational contracts have a negative and positive impact, respectively, upon communal contracts. Communal contracts mediate the impact of transactional and relational contracts on trust and commitment but not on satisfaction. Trust also mediates the relationship between satisfaction and commitment.

This paper collected data from female customers of beauty salons and hairdressers in New Zealand, which may affect the generalizability of the results.

This study provides practical insights into the differences in the roles of psychological contracts between the customers and service employees, which may help managers in service firms improve their customer relationship outcomes.

This paper extends the relationship and services marketing literature to reveal the individual and combined effects of the three types of psychological contracts on customer satisfaction, trust and commitment toward their service brand.

This research aims to examine how credence, search and experience attributes compete with suggestive brand names that are incongruent with the attributes they cue (e.g. expensive EconoLodge Motel, short-lasting Duracell battery and joint-stiffening JointFlex pill).

This study relies on experimental studies, together with analyses of variance, t-tests and logistic regressions.

Incongruent suggestive brand names can distort product evaluations and alter perceptions of product performance in joint product judgments involving contradictory credence attributes; they can misdirect product evaluations even if the search attributes conflict with competitor brands. Furthermore, they are more likely to backfire if contradictory experience attributes are readily available to consumers.

This test of the role of incongruence between suggestive brand names and actual product features includes key concepts that can inform continued studies, such as search attributes that consumers can readily observe, experience attributes that can be observed only after product use and credence attributes that might not be observed even after use.

This study provides applicable guidelines for managers, consumers and policymakers.

The findings expand beyond prior literature that focuses on memory-based, separate evaluations of advertised benefits and inferences or expectations of unavailable attributes. Specifically, this study details the implications of congruence between the suggestive brand names and different types of attributes observable at different consumption stages.