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It is assumed that consumers consume games to experience hedonic and utilitarian value. However, there is no conceptual model or empirical evidence that supports this hypothesis in the game context or clarifies whether these consumption values have dual mediated or individual effects. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to model the relationship between hedonic and utilitarian consumption and game purchase and usage.

This research question is answered through two studies. In Study One, qualitative interviews with 18 gamers were implemented to explore the relationship between hedonic and utilitarian consumption and, game purchase and usage behaviour. In Study Two, we surveyed 493 consumers and conducted confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling across four game types to model this relationship.

The paper concludes that hedonic rather than utilitarian consumption positively impacts purchase and usage. Support was also found for the utilitarian‐hedonic dual mediation model (UHDM). Therefore, utilitarian consumption has an indirect causal effect on game purchase or usage through hedonic consumption.

Game development for consumers online, on wireless devices and on consoles should place greater emphasis on the practical implications of hedonic consumption. Attention could be focused on perceived enjoyment, self‐concept, self‐congruity and self‐efficacy as the primary drivers of use and purchase. Practical solutions should also be developed to develop the UHDM effect.

This is the first paper in the game context to explore and model the relationship between hedonic, utilitarian consumption and the UHDM effect on game purchase and usage. This paper is also unique because it provides results across four game groups: all games (ALL), Sports/Simulation/Driving (SSD), Role Playing Game/Massively Multiplayer Online Role‐Playing Game Strategy (RPG), and Action/Adventure/Fighting (AAF).

This paper aims to identify two boundary conditions (consumption motive and claim set-size) affecting the effectiveness of an advertisement’s creativity.

Across two experiments, the authors find support for hypotheses using both hedonic vs utilitarian products (Study 1) and hedonic vs utilitarian decision goals within the same product category (Study 2).

Creativity is more effective for an advertisement when the consumption motive is utilitarian (vs hedonic). Further, using a larger claim set-size within an advertisement increases (decreases) the effectiveness of advertisement creativity for those with hedonic (utilitarian) consumption motives.

This research contributes to the creativity literature by showing when creativity matters depending on the consumption motive and claim set-size. In addition, this research expands the utilitarian vs hedonic consumption literature by highlighting another way in which these two motives differ. Finally, this study expands the claim set-size literature by demonstrating that the effects of claim set-size depend on both consumption motive and features of the ad (i.e. its level of creativity).

These findings help marketers manage their advertising budget more effectively and efficiently knowing when advertisement creativity matters and thus when to invest in creativity.

The present research is the first to explicitly study boundary conditions for when ad creativity matters and shows that creativity matters more (i.e. enhances persuasiveness of the ad and attitudes toward the ad) when the consumption motive is utilitarian, especially when ads have small claim set-size. Additionally, creativity matters for hedonic consumption contexts if the advertisement has a large claim size.

This paper aims to examine two important factors in developing convergence products: the congruence of basic product and the addition in terms of utilitarian or hedonic consumption goals, and the overall coherence of consumption goals. In recent years, the proliferation of convergence products, i.e. any product that combines two or more basic product functionalities in consumer electronics, is increasingly prevalent. For manufacturers, the lingering question in developing convergence products is what kind of basic product functionalities can be combined and can elicit favorable response from consumers.

The study is a 2 × 2 × 2 experimental design, with basic product functionality’s consumption goals (utilitarian, hedonic) as the between-subject factor, and the additional product functionality’s consumption goals (utilitarian, hedonic) and the coherence of consumption goals (coherent addition, incoherent addition) as the two within-subject factors.

It confirms and validates prior work on goal congruence effects. More importantly, this study finds that overall consumption goal coherence elicits higher value addition irrespective of goal congruence or incongruence on utilitarian or hedonic consumption goals.

In some literatures, the combination of two or more product functionalities from different product categories is considered as product bundling. While product bundling concept can be used in many different product categories, convergence product concept is utilized more specifically in consumer electronics.

As convergence era offers wide opportunities for manufacturers to develop new convergence products, this study provides guidance as to what kind of new functionalities need to be added.

Not only does the present research investigates the likely success of convergence products involving the congruence of basic product and the addition, but also in more comprehensive way by looking at the overall coherence of consumption goals.

People express subjectivity and objectivity in everyday communication, yet little is known about how such linguistic content affects persuasion in electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). Drawing on the congruity theory and the selectivity model, the present study proposes that the effectiveness of subjectivity/objectivity expressions in an online review is contingent on whether the consumption experience is primarily hedonic or utilitarian, and whether the decision maker is a male or female. Furthermore, this study aims to examine the psychological mechanism that underlies the proposed effects.

This research used an experimental design to test the hypotheses. Four versions of online review stimuli were created. Participants were asked to read the online reviews and to complete a survey.

The findings indicate that expressing subjectivity (vs objectivity) in online reviews effectively boosts men’s purchase intention in the hedonic context and women’s purchase intention in the utilitarian context. Furthermore, the mediation analysis reveals that perceived relevance of the review is the psychological mechanism explaining the joint effects of linguistic style, consumption type and gender on purchase intention.

This research is the first to examine expressing subjectivity (vs objectivity) as a persuasion strategy in online reviews. Findings of this research add to the growing literature on linguistic effects in eWOM. Furthermore, this research deepens the understanding of conversational norms for hedonic vs utilitarian consumption in consumer-generated content and gender differences in processing online reviews.

When communicating with consumers, firms frequently highlight their underdog status to evoke a favorable attitude. Previous research has confirmed consumer preference for underdogs over top dogs in various domains. However, very little research has been conducted on the business types and decision contexts in which underdog effects produce the most impact. This paper aims to investigate some of the unexplored boundary conditions of underdog effects and addresses two issues: consumption domain and retail crowding.

Two experiments with a 2 (biography: underdog or top dog) × 2 (consumption domain: hedonic or utilitarian) × 2 (retail crowding: adequately crowded or uncrowded) factorial between-subjects design were conducted to test hypotheses. The two experiments differ in the consumption domains and the approaches used to depict crowding conditions. Furthermore, the first experiment targeted college students and the second experiment targeted online consumer panels across various age groups.

Underdog effects were more easily evoked when the consumption domain was more hedonic than utilitarian. In addition, retail crowding was an informational cue for judging acceptance of underdog businesses and enhanced the evaluation when the retail environment was adequately crowded rather than uncrowded. This role of crowding was also evident for top-dog businesses when consumers perceived high risk in the businesses.

This is the first study to distinguish between hedonic and utilitarian consumption domains with underdog effects and to demonstrate a positive effect of crowding as an informational cue, indicating acceptance by other consumers.

The purpose of this study is to interpret consumers' emotion in their consumption experience in the context of mobile commerce from an experiential view. The study seeks to address concerns about the experiential aspects of mobile commerce regardless of the consumption type. For the purpose, the authors aims to propose a stimulus‐organism‐response (S‐O‐R) based model that incorporates both utilitarian and hedonic factors of consumers.

A survey study was conducted to collect data from 293 mobile phone users. The questionnaire was administered in study classrooms, a library, or via e‐mail. The measurement model and structural model were examined using LISREL 8.7.

The results of this research implied that emotion played a significant role in the mobile consumption experience; hedonic factors had a positive effect on the consumption experience, while utilitarian factors had a negative effect on the consumption experience of consumers. The empirical findings also indicated that media richness was as important as subjective norms, and more important than convenience and self‐efficacy.

Few m‐commerce studies have focused directly on the experiential aspects of consumption, including the hedonic experience and positive emotions among mobile device users. Applying the stimulus‐organism‐response (S‐O‐R) framework from the perspective of the experiential view, the current research model is developed to examine several utilitarian and hedonic factors in the context of the consumption experience, and indicates a comparison between the information processing (utilitarian) view and the experiential (hedonic) view of consumer behavior. It illustrates the relationships among six variables (i.e. convenience, media richness, subjective norms, self‐efficacy, emotion, and consumption experience) in a mobile commerce context.

Although experiential consumption has received some attention from tourism and hospitality researchers in the past decade, the profile of experiential consumers has not been discussed thus far. The purpose of this paper is thus twofold: to test the sociodemographic antecedents of experiential versus utilitarian consumption for profiling purposes and to examine the potential behavioral consequences of experiential versus utilitarian consumption tendencies.

On an online research platform, 413 respondents answered questions concerning logic-based/emotion-based decision-making traits, as well as sociodemographic characteristics and several travel behavior variables.

Data revealed that emotion-based decision makers are more likely to be females, who are more passionate about their travel needs than are logic-based decision makers. Results also revealed that the importance that emotion-based decision makers place on travel preferences, potential travel risks and travel information sources is higher than that of their logic-based counterparts.

The current study used one personality trait, emotion-based decision-making, as a proxy for experiential consumption. There are other potentially explanatory traits that should be investigated in future studies.

Destination marketing organizations (DMOs) promoting destinations with historical and cultural attractions can capitalize on the finding that these attractions are highly demanded by both types of decision makers, whereas DMOs of man-made attraction destinations may need to find ways to embellish the significance of these attractions for both types of decision makers.

Even though social risk was the lowest-rated item in general, both decision-making traits were highly correlated with social risk. The higher the tendency in the decision-making style, either logic-based or emotion-based, the more important how a trip would make them look within their social circle. Social risk concerns for both types of decision makers should be addressed in marketing messages.

The current study represents one of the earliest attempts to draw a picture of experiential consumers in comparison with utilitarian consumers in sociodemographic and behavioral characteristics.

This study aims to investigate how individuals’ regulatory focus affects perceived value and consumption emotions and how differently perceived value and emotions influence the future behavioral intentions of ethnic restaurant customers.

The proposed model was empirically tested with the online survey sent to frequent American travelers who have had dining experiences at Asian restaurants. A total of 435 valid responses were obtained and analyzed by means of structural equation modeling analysis.

The results indicated that promotion-focused individuals are more likely to perceive both hedonic and utilitarian values, and as a result experience positive emotions while dining at Asian restaurants. On the other hand, prevention focus was not significantly related to either hedonic or utilitarian values in itself, and it has a significant effect on negative emotions. The results also demonstrated that perceived hedonic and utilitarian values directly and/or indirectly influence behavioral intentions through consumption emotions.

This study contributes to existing knowledge on regulatory focus theory by identifying significant theoretical relationships among cognitive and affective consumption responses and regulatory focus. Specifically, the main contributions include suggesting novel perspectives that promotion focus is associated with consumers’ value perception, whereas prevention focus is not, and making a first attempt to discover a relationship between regulatory foci and two general types of consumption emotions (positive and negative emotions) and identifying theoretically important associations that promotion focus (vs prevention focus) is more strongly related to positive emotions (vs negative emotions).

Even with the evidence that participation in home-sharing is highly ecologically sustainable, the existing consumer communication studies in the hospitality sector have predominantly focussed on the social and economic benefits. This study aims to examine how the environmental sustainability benefits of home-sharing services can be effectively communicated to consumers.

Two scenario-based experiments (Study 1: n = 377 and Study 2: n = 290) examined the effects of consumers’ consumption orientations, and the appeal of environmental sustainability benefits emphasised advertising on their home-sharing adoption intentions.

Study 1 demonstrated that when consumers with either a hedonic or utilitarian consumption orientation book travel accommodation, their home-sharing adoption intentions increase depending on whether advertisements are designed as hard- or soft-sell appeal, respectively. Study 2 showed that the influence of an environmental sustainability benefits emphasised advertisement that has considered consumers’ consumption orientation and applied the corresponding advertising appeal design is as effective as a home-sharing service that offers economic benefits and is even better than an advertisement that emphasises social benefits, particularly for utilitarian-oriented consumers.

This study is the first in the lodging sector examining the ways in which the environmental sustainability benefits of home-sharing services can be effectively communicated to consumers. The findings shed light on corporate practices pertaining to information that home-sharing service marketers can control and provide an essential basis for further advertising, consumer differences, environmental sustainability awareness and collaborative consumption studies.

The purpose of this study is to propose an integrated approach to diverse and convoluted types of consumption. The new theoretical framework represents composite types of tangible and intangible consumption contributing to consumer life satisfaction (LS) in EMs.

A field study conducted in Brazil surveyed real-world consumers belonging to various social and income groups. Data reflecting LS derived from consumption were analyzed using PLS methodology.

Empirical tests indicated that experiential-utilitarian, experiential-hedonic and material-utilitarian consumption types positively affect EM consumer LS. An interesting and somewhat surprising outcome is an insignificant effect of material-hedonic consumption. The strength of LS correlation with each type of consumption differs and partial effects also depend on household income of EM consumers.

Although reasons exist to expect the general validity of the suggested theoretical framework across many markets, its scope of empirical testing needs to be expanded beyond a single emerging market, even so large as Brazil.

The new taxonomy can help marketing practitioners better understand the main sources of LS stemming from each type of consumption to customize marketing mix and more effectively communicate to EM consumers.

In spite of the scope limited to Brazil, this study shall help policy-makers and NGOs design public goods and services, thereby significantly increasing consumer LS and improve living conditions in EMs.

A systemic approach contributes to the body of marketing theory by replacing the dichotomic classifications of consumer LS with a clear conceptualization of all types of consumption that are integrated into a holistic framework.