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This study aims to examine the following issues: whether consumers use a dog’s facial expressions and gaze on a product’s packaging to interpret the emotions of a dog and evaluate product quality and how owner identification with the dog moderates the effect of a dog’s facial expressions on product evaluations.

A field study and three lab experiments were conducted to examine the moderating roles of a dog’s gaze on the product package (Study 1) and owner–dog identification (Study 2) in the effect of facial expressions of a dog on product evaluations.

Results showed that the facial expressions of a dog presented on the product package influenced the perceived mood of a dog and product quality evaluation. The effects of the facial expressions were strengthened when the dog looked at the front. Furthermore, those who were more likely to identify with their dog tended to be more responsive to the dog with a smiling face and evaluated the product quality more positively than those who were less likely to identify with their dog.

Marketing practitioners in the pet industry can use the findings of this study to select and place an appropriate pet image on the product package. Happy facial expressions and the direct gaze of a pet can influence positive evaluations of a product and, as a result, increase the purchase intention. Product managers also can place words, phrases or images on the product package that highlight a dog as an inseparable part of the owner’s everyday life and as a representation of his/her identity. Emphasizing the owner’s dog as an extension of him/herself or a part of his/her identities can encourage the active processing of a dog’s facial expressions on the product package and the positive evaluation of a product.

The present work adds valuable empirical findings to the limited marketing literature for the pet-related industry. The results of the experiments showed how consumers process the facial expressions and gaze of a dog and use them to infer the quality of a product. Furthermore, the findings extend prior literature reporting that dog owners with a greater identification are more likely to humanize their pet dogs and develop empathetic abilities.

Prospective students are exposed to abundant choices, and they are eagerly searching for information to select the best universities for themselves. Likewise, prospectuses are regularly produced by universities to meet this information needs; the purpose of this paper is to examine the key marketing messages used in their prospectuses.

The 2017 undergraduate prospectuses of 121 universities in the UK (out of the 134 members of University UK) were thematically analysed using NVivo10.

Messages were predominantly about the location, the course, student experience, credibility and career progression. They are framed in an appealing way, filled with facts and figures, images of beautiful buildings and smiling students, testimonials of facilities and experiences that form a sense of compatibility and belonging.

This study provides insights for the higher educational institutions to enhance their future marketing communications strategies in terms of effectively differentiating one university from another by highlighting the predominantly used appeals among 121 prospectuses and the need for adopting a more consistent approach between the clearing period and non-clearing period in terms of designing the prospectuses. This study has considered only the print platform, and therefore future studies should also look at social media and university websites in the context of the integrated marketing communications.

Accurate and coherent narratives should be provided, taking into consideration the diverse nature of target audience. Universities need to realise that they can be held responsible for the promises presented in their prospectuses. Using the city appeal by many universities may be challenging, as there is need to attract students not just to the city itself, but to the university’s campus.

Having a significantly larger sample than any other previous studies in this field, the empirical evidence provided in this paper is rich and in-depth, thanks to the size and age of the sample as well as the integrated and combined methodological approach. Five keys themes with sub-themes, descriptions and examples were provided, suitable for future research in higher education marketing.

This paper aims to explore how children’s developing ability to effectively regulate their emotions influences their consumer behavior .

Working with 80 children and one of their parents, this study used direct observations of child behavior in a task where they needed to regulate their emotions and a survey of parents about their child’s emotional development and consumer behavior. The research used quantitative methods to test whether children’s emotion regulation predicted parent reported consumer behavior (e.g. purchase requests, parent–child purchase related conflict) via multiple regression analyses.

After controlling for children’s age and linguistic competence, the study found that children’s ability to control positively valenced emotions predicted consumer behavior. Specifically, children who had more difficulty suppressing joy/happiness were more likely to ask their parents for consumer goods and were more likely to argue with parents about these purchases.

Content analyses of commercials targeting children have shown that many of the persuasive appeals used by advertisers are emotionally charged and often feature marketing characters that children find affectively pleasing. These findings suggest that these types of marketing appeals may overwhelm younger children which can lead to conflict with parents. Consequently, marketers and policy makers may want to re-examine the use of such tactics with younger consumers.

While the potential link between children’s emotional development and consumer behavior has been suggested in theoretical work, this is the first known study to empirically test this theorized relationship.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of online reviews on consumers’ intention to visit restaurants, with the moderating role of involvement.

The research framework was built on signaling theory, message appeals and involvement theory. To test the proposed framework, three experiments were conducted online with real customer samples. T-tests, ANOVA and SPSS PROCESS macro were used for data analysis.

The results revealed that online reviews with higher online ratings and emotional appeal led to higher restaurant visit intention. Review appeal significantly moderated the effect of online ratings on restaurant visit intention. Customers with low restaurant involvement were more impacted by emotional comments than by functional comments.

The present study extends our knowledge on the effects of online reviews moderated by levels of customer involvement. By combining signaling theory with involvement theory, it adds value to the literature on customer online behavior, especially in the foodservice context. The present study has limitations that might provide opportunities for future research. It used evaluations (TripAdvisor scores) and only positive reviews (texts), so customers’ intentions considering negative reviews could not be examined. The level of hedonism concerning consumption in restaurants and prior knowledge regarding restaurant reviews was not controlled for. It is possible that the level of hedonism perceived and prior review knowledge may moderate the customers’ intention to visit the restaurant.

The present study shows the importance of online comments for the promotion of restaurants that have low evaluation scores. It is essential that restaurant owners and managers encourage potential customers by using comments to elaborate on their marketing strategies and promotion. At the same time, they should invite customers to share their emotional experiences, and not just their views on service efficiency (a functional aspect). During the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of the internet and mobile devices has become more prominent. Managers could therefore use emotional messages on the restaurant’s website or apps to attract customers with low restaurant involvement. Also, a system to identify the involvement of customers with restaurants could be implemented online or on mobile devices to present specific messages. The present study also recommends the use of online tools as virtual tours, photographs taken from different angles, smiling faces, floor plans and sittings and pre-determined emotional expressions. Also, the restaurant could promote lives on cooking different dishes to motive customer’s interaction and comments. These would help to increase customers’ visit intentions.

This study extends knowledge about the effect of restaurant online reviews (both ratings and appeals) moderated by the level of customer involvement. The present study also adds value to the customer online behavior literature showing that customers with low involvement are more sensitive to emotional content as they use the affective route to process information rather than the central route.

在线评论对餐厅到访意愿的影响：运用信号理论和参与理论

本研究旨在探索以顾客参与度作为调节变量, 关于在线评论对餐厅到访意愿的影响。

本文以信号理论, 信息诉求, 参与理论来建立研究框架。为测试提出的理论框架, 本研究进行了三个在线消费者实验。T-检验, 方差分析, 和SPSS PROCESS 来作为统计方法。

研究发现评论分值越高, 运用感情诉求往往导致更高度的到访意愿。评论的诉求形式显著调节了评分对到访意愿的影响。对于参与度较低的顾客, 情感诉求比功能性诉求更加能影响顾客意愿。

本研究对餐厅在线评论（评分和诉求种类）对顾客到访意愿影响, 以及如何被消费者参与度所调节贡献了新知识。本研究对消费者在线行为做出了贡献, 发现参与度较低的顾客对和情感有关的内容更敏感, 相对于中央路径, 由于此类顾客更倾向于情感路径来处理信息。

This paper aims to examine the joint role of the pandemic-induced source of crisis (i.e. health and social crisis) based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and message appeal in customer perception of and behavioral intention toward a restaurant.

This study uses a 2 (source of crisis: social, health) × 2 (message appeal: social, health) between-subjects factorial design. A total of 181 samples was collected and data was analyzed by using ANCOVA and PROCESS.

The results showed a significant two-way interaction between source of crisis and message appeal on to-go intention. With the potential effect of risk aversion being controlled, message appeal significantly impacted perceived competence, which influenced both dine-in and to-go intentions.

The research findings suggest a crucial role of perceived fit between message appeal and customer concerns during crises. Therefore, restaurant managers should actively communicate their safety practices with their customers to inspire customer confidence.

This study identifies crisis dimensions based on human needs during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which determines the persuasiveness of marketing messages.

The impact of image is widely investigated in various research fields. However, its effect in online health communities is rarely studied. In this research, the authors develop a theoretical model to assess the impact of physicians' image on patients' choices in online health communities.

The authors developed a web crawler based on R language program to collect more than 40,000 physicians' images and other related information from their homepages in Haodf.com–a leading online health community in China. The features of physicians' images are computed by Face++ Application Programming Interface (API) through the following variables: beauty, smile and skin status.

The empirical results derive the following findings: (1) physician's beauty or physical attractiveness has no significant effect on patients’ choice; (2) Smile has a positive effect on patients’ choices; (3) Physician's skin status also positively affects patients' choices; (4) Physician's professional capital strengthens the effect of beauty, smile and skin status on patients' choices; (5) Beauty and skin status are the substitutes for each other, and smile and skin status are the substitutes for each other too.

Also, this study provides implications for both physicians and online health community platform managers.

This study provides new evidence in understanding the impact of physician's online image and contributes to the literature on signaling theory, impression management theory and patients' choices.

Presents findings from an empirical study which investigates the effects of different advertising appeals used across cultures. Cultural differences along the individualism‐collectivism dimension are hypothesized to affect people’s reactions to certain advertising appeals. Results indicate that appeals which emphasize individualistic benefits are more effective in the USA than in China. When appeals emphasizing collectivistic benefits are employed, they are generally more effective in China. However, such effects can be moderated by product characteristics. Different product types may serve to influence the effectiveness of culturally‐congruent advertising appeals. Discusses the implications of the findings.

Using the backdrop of an (apparently) extended visit to the West Indies, analogies with key concerns of internal audit are drawn. An unusual and refreshing way of exploring the main themes ‐ a discussion between Bill and Jack on tour in the islands ‐ forms the debate. Explores the concepts of control, necessary procedures, fraud and corruption, supporting systems, creativity and chaos, and building a corporate control facility.

Using the backdrop of an (apparently) extended visit to the West Indies, analogies with key concerns of internal audit are drawn. An unusual and refreshing way of exploring the main themes ‐ a discussion between Bill and Jack on tour in the islands ‐ forms the debate. Explores the concepts of control, necessary procedures, fraud and corruption, supporting systems, creativity and chaos, and building a corporate control facility.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of price bundling and message framing on attitudes, intentions, and beliefs about attributes of teeth whitening products. Although each of these variables, message framing and price bundling, has been explored individually, few attempts have been made to investigate them jointly. This study is based on a full factorial design that allows for testing of interaction effects. Second, the market for whitening products is maturing, resulting in a target market that is gaining knowledge about these products. Thus, we use knowledge as a covariate in the above investigation to determine if the communication strategy should be changed as the product moves from introduction to maturity.

The study is based on a 2 × 2 factorial design with price bundling (bundle price – individual price) and framing (positive – negative). The setting for the study is a hypothetical brand name of teeth whitening products.

The results reveal a mixed picture with respect to effectiveness of pricing and framing on attitudes and intentions. The effect of price bundling is not significant on attitudes; it is significant on intentions. Framing has a greater impact on intentions than on attitudes. Nevertheless, the interaction effects are significant on both attitudes as well as intentions. Finally, the impact of knowledge as a covariate is significant.

Caution is advised in extrapolating the results beyond the issues investigated in the study.

The findings help marketers in formulating effective marketing strategy using both price bundling and message framing strategies.

Although price bundling and message framing have been explored in marketing studies, the research is lacking on the combined effects of these two important variables. The findings show a significant interaction effect of pricing and framing on changing attitudes and intentions. Prior research recommends using negative framing. The present research shows that for bundle products, a positive framing approach is desirable.