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The spread of broadband Internet has resulted in the increase of spyware and adware. This study highlights their damaging effects and proposes a model that captures defensive measures adopted by Internet users. Specifically, our model indicates that knowledge has a positive impact on self‐efficacy that, in turn, is presumed to trigger technical defensive measures. Moreover, concerns for privacy and previous experience with spyware and adware are likely to evoke both tactical and technical defense measures. Data collected by the PEW Internet and American Life research project are utilized to test the proposed model and the findings are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to propose and test a conceptual framework of attitudinal constructs that influence attitude toward the brand in movie product placements. Advertising literature is replete with studies on factors that influence attitude toward the brand (A_b). However, this topic remains under-explored for product placements.

Our framework showcases several theories to relate attitude and fit constructs to attitudes toward the product placement and attitude toward the brand. We use the structural equation model approach to estimate the conceptual framework.

Several attitudinal movie constructs (attitude toward the actor, the character and the movie) influence attitude toward the product placement, which in turn mediates the relationship between the former attitudinal constructs and attitude toward the brand. Interestingly, only the fit between the actor and placed brand impacted attitude toward the product placement, with no effects found for the fit between the character and the fit between the movie and brand and the attitude toward the product placement.

We focus on explicit attitudes; implicit attitudes need future research attention.

Findings affirm a key role for the actor featured in the placement in directly or indirectly shaping the attitude toward the brand.

This is the first study to apply the structural equation modeling approach to this research area.

Rewards from sales promotions may be either immediate (e.g. instant savings, coupons, instant rebates) or delayed (e.g. rebates, refunds). The latter type is of interest in this study. The purpose of this paper is to present the hyperbolic discounting framework as an explanation for how consumers delay‐discount rewards, and test whether this holds for both high‐price and low‐price product categories.

Data were collected by administering two online surveys to respondents. One survey presented choice scenarios between sales promotion formats for a high‐priced product (a laptop, n=154) and the other for a low‐priced product (a cell phone, n=98). Hyperbolic and exponential functions were then fitted to the data.

The hyperbolic function had a better fit than the exponential function for the low‐priced product. However, this effect was not evident in the case of the high‐priced product; no significant difference was found between the functions. The rate of discounting was greater for the high‐priced product than for the low‐priced product. Thus, for low‐priced products, rather than discount a reward rationally, consumers tend to discount the value of the reward at a decreasing rate.

This study addresses delay discounting in the context of a typical consumer buying situation. It also addresses the possibility of consumers applying different forms of discounting to products at different price levels and tests for the same. The results are of considerable significance for marketers wishing to offer price discounts to consumers. For low‐priced products, marketers seem to have more flexibility in delaying the reward, since the rate of discounting decreases for longer delay periods. At the same time, the discount rate for high‐priced products is higher than that for low‐priced products, hence delay periods may have a more critical role as discounted values fall steeply with an increase in delay to reward.

There are two main objectives of this paper. The first is to analyze household consumption pattern of soyfood products. The second is to investigate effect of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allowed health claims on consumption of soyfoods.

The objectives were accomplished in two stages. In the first stage, the role of consumers' perceived attributes of soy‐based foods such as convenience of preparation and consumption, health benefits, and taste in consumers' decisions to consume soy‐based food products was investigated. In the second stage, the study analyzed whether the decision of the Food and Drug Administration to allow food manufacturers to use health claims had influenced consumers' willingness to participate in soy‐based food market or willingness to increase consumption, if they are currently consuming such foods. Lancaster's characteristics model was combined with Fishbein's multi‐attribute model to develop a soybean demand function that included perceived attributes of soyfood. Zero‐inflated negative binomial model (ZINB) was used as an empirical specification to address zero consumption of soyfood products. Data were collected using a convenience sample drawn from a Midwest college town in the United States. Two questionnaires (i.e. one with information about the FDA's decision and the other without it) were given to students taking introductory marketing courses. In total 400 questionnaires were distributed and 315 respondents returned completed questionnaires.

Attributes of soy‐based food products such as convenience and tastefulness had statistically significant effect on the consumption pattern. Consumers who perceived beneficial health attributes in soyfood products were more likely to participate in the soyfood market as well as increase consumption frequency. The results indicated that frequent users of soyfood products who were exposed to the decision of the FDA would be more inclined to increase their consumption of soy‐based foods as compared to those who were not exposed to such information. Yet the information about FDA's decision did not influence the behavioral intentions of infrequent consumers or non‐consumers.

Research evaluating the impact of government allowed health claims on food consumption pattern is scarce. This paper sets up a platform for carrying out the evaluation of such health claims by other food products.

Researchers often attempt to assess how different features and content will improve the experience of web site users. One assessment technique is to measure the attitude toward the site. A common version of this measure is the Chen and Wells attitude toward the site scale. The purpose of this paper is to determine if there is a difference in performance between that scale and the less used Bruner and Kumar scale so that researchers might use the better of the two related, but different, published scales.

Analysis is done on survey data from an experiment utilizing three different experimental groups that all completed surveys with both the Chen and Wells and the Bruner and Kumar attitude toward the site scales. Scales are assessed for loading and reliability, as well as measures compared for equivalence within groups and used within partial least squares (PLS) models to compare overall model fit.

In all tests, the Bruner and Kumar scale is better than, or equivalent to, the Chen and Wells scale in each comparison.

The research implication is that the Bruner and Kumar scale would be a better choice when selecting scales for future research projects.

Although Bruner and Kumar had previously performed comparisons of the two scales, in a follow‐up article, this is the first paper to compare the two scales between three different groups and demonstrate how the two different scales would perform within the same conceptual model using PLS structural equation modeling. It will help researchers select the best scale for attitude toward the site.

This research aims to explain consumer attraction to brands when stimulation needs are paramount using the perspective of the Self‐Expansion Model. In doing so, it seeks to identiy brand romance – a more proximal construct to brand loyalty and aims to offer a complementary perspective to understand emotional attachment to brands.

A series of four studies developed and validated a three‐factor, 12‐item measurement scale for brand romance using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Reliability, convergent, criterion, discriminant and nomological validities were established.

Brand romance is a reliable, valid, and a more proximal construct that explains loyalty significantly better than attitudes.

Student subjects constitute the sample and the findings are cautiously generalizable to adult populations. Future research should focus on teasing out product category effects, extending generalizability to other product categories and integrating the Attachment Theory perspective with the study's findings to offer a more comprehensive explanation for loyalty.

Consumers are likely to remain loyal to brands to which they are attracted. The brand romance construct captures this attraction. Marketers need to infuse their brands with novel perspectives, resources and identities on a continuous basis to satisfy stimulation needs and keep the attraction strong. This involves creating new brand associations that help the brand to stay relevant.

To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to apply the Self‐expansion Model to brand relationships. The research contributes a unique perspective in explaining emotional attachment to brands brought on by stimulation needs. It fills a gap in the emotional attachment literature and provides marketers with a tool to monitor consumers' attraction to brands.

The purpose of this paper is to make contributions toward new knowledge and understanding of how marketers can provide effective online customization experiences for customers. The practicality of online mass customization has received much attention as consumers perceive more value from customized products than from their standardized counterparts. Little research has been done to understand consumers’ behavioral intentions in response to these value additions. This study incorporates product information framing in developing and empirically testing a model of the relationship between online customization and price sensitivity, endowment addition and expected likelihood of product return.

The relationship among the constructs specified in the model was tested using multiple group structural equation modeling analysis.

The findings indicate that consumers perceived knowledge gain via customization process influences the utilitarian value, which directly impacts levels of likelihood of product return and price sensitivity. The process value, on the hedonic side, influences more on the endowment addition. Endowment addition is found to mediate the relationship between the hedonic benefits and the two utilitarian outcome variables: price sensitivity and likelihood of product return.

Understanding the consequences of customization is particularly crucial for marketers. This research is the first to expand and further our knowledge of customization, particularly in relation to its outcomes of customers’ behavioral intentions.

Despite significant business spending in areas such as personalization tools and add-on options representing levels of product attributes, most marketers do not know the amount of value that is directly attributable to their e-customization strategies. This study aims to offer an in-depth investigation of consumers' value perceptions of e-customization and their relationship with perceived sufficiency of information and cognitive cost. The context effects on value perception in e-customization are studied together with antecedent constructs.

The research consists of a 2×2 between-subjects factorial design. The full model is tested using multiple-group structural equation modeling analysis to verify the significance of the inter-relationships between constructs, as well as the main and the interaction effects of two experimental factors (product information framing and product type).

The experimental results showed that perceived e-customization value does not simply stem from the ability to “narrow-cast” content more specifically related to a shopper's interests (i.e. anticipated fulfillment value). Rather, this value also stems from the dynamic flexibility of the information system and its ability to entertain and educate during the information dissemination process (i.e. process value and knowledge value). Furthermore, when the customization framing features are better matched with product type characteristics, e-customization seemed to increase value in ways that are difficult to achieve in conventional shopping environments.

By testing the proposed structural model simultaneously with two experimental factors of product type and information framing, this work is the first to address the question of context effects on value creation in an area of increasing substantive importance.

This study empirically examines the impact that statements on wine labels directing consumers “to learn the health effects of wine consumption, send for the Federal Government's Dietary Guidelines for Americans” may potentially have on attitudes and wine consumption intentions in college students both over and under the legal drinking age. The results of the study suggest that directional statements on wine labels will not have a significant impact on attitudes toward alcohol, the wine brand, disease risk, label believability, or purchase intention. The results, however, do show that college students both over and under the legal drinking age perceived the winery with the directional statement on the label as more “socially concerned” than the winery that did not use the statement.