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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the unexplored part of the historical evolution of travel agencies in Spain, from the end of the 20th century to the 21st century. When examining promotion strategies, the study focuses on the change in marketing and public relations strategies based on the incorporation of information and communication technologies and, in particular, the use of the internet.

This study draws on a qualitative analysis of the different strategies used by traditional agencies and online agencies in Spain from the mid-19th century to the present. This analysis shows how traditional communication strategies survived at the beginning of the 21st century, together with other more innovative ones, while some disappeared, being eliminated by the new online travel agencies, which created a particular conception of marketing and communication. This paper is divided into the following parts: the introduction; the beginnings of travel agency promotion in the 20th century; the evolution of promotion in travel agencies since the late 20th century; communication innovation at the beginning of the 21st century; online travel agencies; and conclusions.

This study shows that although online agencies did not manage to position themselves with a large turnover, they generated advantages and sharpened their imagination to create a new, more economical advertising model, eliminating the costs of public relations and advertising campaigns. In addition, they allowed clients to have greater independence when making their reservations, while enabling them to monitor the tastes of potential and real clients and add blogs so that consumers could express their degree of satisfaction with the product or services provided by the agency.

The focus of attention is the travel agency sector in Spain and, more specifically, communication. Studies on travel agencies and their marketing have been very scarce and partial, impeding professionals in the tourism sector from having a broad vision to direct their promotional and public relations actions. The originality of this article lies in its making a comparison between two different visions of tourism marketing and, specifically, of travel agencies, that is, the traditional vision and the innovative one. It thus helps all professionals in the sector to value and improve their marketing and communication strategies.

This study examined perceived brand attractiveness of and identification with fashion luxury brands given different levels of sexuality in advertisements. Sex in advertisements has become increasingly more common to generate attention and interest in fashion luxury products, with limited research on its influence on the consumer. However, the use of sexuality in luxury advertisements may counter the ethical expectations of brands by the current consumer in the United States.

A sample of 1,266 males and females completed a survey on brand attractiveness and identification after examining an advertisement of a luxury fashion product. Participants were assigned an advertisement that featured a same-gendered model at one of four levels of sexuality (fully clothed to nude). IBM SPSS Statistics was used to analyze the data which included descriptive statistics and a two-way multivariate analysis of variance followed by an analysis of variance.

The results indicated that less sexuality in luxury advertisements was better in generating attractiveness to and identification with the brand. The advertisements with models fully clothed were rated highest on brand attractiveness and identification. These relationships were statistically significant among groups of men and women.

These findings are important to scholars and marketers of luxury brands as sexuality in luxury brands continues to increase and becomes more provocative, as well as socially conscious.

This paper critically examines the effectiveness of male anchor in cross-gender endorsements and questions whether it can truly deliver positive outcomes for advertisers in the context of live streaming. It explores the underlying mechanisms of this effect by examining the mediation effect of perceived gender-identity incongruence and the moderation effect of anchor presence.

Three experiments are conducted to examine the effect of cross-gender endorsement on purchase intention.

The findings from three experiments provide empirical evidence that the endorsement of female-gendered products by male anchors leads to a significant decrease in the evaluation of these products among female consumers. This negative effect is mediated by a sense of gender-identity incongruence experienced by female consumers. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that female customers exhibit higher purchase intent for female-gendered products endorsed by male virtual anchors compared to real anchors; however, the same pattern was not observed in the case of female anchors.

This paper empirically examines the possible negative effects of the male anchor endorsement in the live streaming context. It reveals the underlying mechanism of this negative effect, and how the virtual “presence” take a role in this underlying mechanism.

This study aims to examine how young consumers perceive the advertising effectiveness of endorsements by virtual idols and how endorsements by virtual idols differ from endorsements by real human celebrities such as traditional celebrities and online influencers.

An experimental study was conducted with 400 randomly selected young respondents in China in December 2022. A 3 × 2 factorial design was used to test how the type of celebrity endorser and level of product involvement influence the persuasiveness of advertising aimed at young adults. Among 400 respondents, the average age was 21.5 years. A total of 193 male and 207 female respondents participated in the experiment.

Young consumers find virtual idols, online influencers and traditional celebrities attractive. Although virtual idols are the least credible among the three types of celebrity endorsers, young consumers tend to be more convinced by their endorsements of products with low levels of consumer involvement than those with high levels of involvement. Among the three types of celebrity endorsements, young consumers find traditional celebrities the most effective. In addition, young consumers’ attitudes toward celebrity endorsers mediate the impact of celebrity endorsers’ attractiveness and credibility on their attitudes toward the advertisements. The perceived level of product involvement moderates the transfer of meaning from the attitude toward the celebrity endorsers to the attitude toward the advertisement.

First, when choosing celebrity endorsers to advertise products targeting young consumers, marketing communication practitioners should give priority to the endorsers’ perceived credibility, as young consumers have a variety of views about them that can significantly affect their attitudes toward the advertisement. Second, real human celebrity endorsers are more effective than virtual idols in celebrity endorsements. However, virtual idols may be suited for use in advertisements to promote products with low involvement levels, such as soft drinks.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first experimental study to attempt to analyze the effectiveness of virtual idols in advertising aimed at young consumers. This is also the first comparative study to introduce virtual idols as celebrity endorsers in product advertising and to compare their effectiveness with that of the two other types of commonly discussed celebrity endorsers, traditional celebrities and online influencers.

There is a lot of talk about the electric car today, but these vehicles are not new. Indeed, thebeginning of the 20th century saw electricity and the automobile take hold in North American society, so that by 1910, the electric car was everywhere. Until the turn of the 1920s, a new era dawned for transportation in the USA, but without the electric car. The purpose of this study is to question Why did it happen.

This paper develops such a comparison, not of the cars themselves, through a detailed engineering analysis, but rather of the marketing of electric vehicles in the USA in 1910 and 2010, as it appeared in the marketing strategies of the manufacturers.

There are many technical and economic reasons for this, but not only; there are also commercial strategy reasons. The position of manufacturers, especially through advertising and the press, can tell us about this golden age of the electric car, what precipitated its fall, and its reappearance a century later.

It is a comparison of images, of how electric vehicles had been and are proposed to the public, through the exploration of mainly promotional material and newspaper articles.

This study aims to investigate the ecological awareness of Chinese consumers towards fast fashion and examine the effect of social sustainability claims on green brand image and purchase intentions in China, considering China’s unique environmental policy landscape and its significant role in the global fast fashion industry. The study explores the role of altruistic values in promoting sustainability within the well-known fast fashion brand “H” and how they shape brand image, consumer satisfaction and brand equity.

The study collected data from 257 Chinese participants and used a serial mediation model through the PROCESS macro in SPSS to analyse the correlation between green brand image, created through sustainability claims and consumer purchase intentions. The model also assessed the intermediary effects of brand image, satisfaction and equity.

The findings of the research indicate a direct and positive relationship between green brand image and consumer purchase intentions, emphasising the need for clothing and textile industry marketers to strategically promote altruistic values in their sustainability efforts and highlighting the importance of ecological awareness in shaping consumer behaviour in the Chinese context. This approach enhances green satisfaction and green brand equity and ultimately leads to higher green purchase intentions.

This study provides significant insights into the effectiveness of incorporating social sustainability claims in advertising to improve a brand’s green image and influence consumer behaviour. It emphasises the importance of altruistic values in sustainability strategies, offering valuable guidelines for marketers in enhancing green satisfaction and brand equity, thereby boosting consumer purchase intentions in the context of green branding and sustainability advertising. Focussing specifically on the Chinese market, this research sheds light on the impact of ecological awareness among Chinese consumers within the fast-fashion industry. Given China’s substantial role in shaping global fast-fashion production and its evolving environmental policies, this focus adds significant depth to our understanding of sustainability claims’ influence within this crucial consumer base.

From managerial perspective, the authors investigate the boundary and effective conditions of recruitment practices (e.g. job advertising and manager recruiting behavior) on recruitment outcomes that include employer image and organizational commitment in the context of recruitment practices. Drawing on signaling theory, the authors argue that using recruitment practices is generally more effective for creating employer image and organizational commitment.

The authors received a final sample of 213 from the employees of beverage industry. In doing so, statistical softwares SPSS (v.23) for data screening and SmartPLS (v.3.3.3) were used for hypothesis testing.

Using survey-based study, the study finds (1) that recruitment practices including job advertising and managers' recruiting behavior can be superior to developing employer image that positively can value the organizational commitment (2) The study identifies a significant role of employer image that is mediating between recruitment practices and post recruitment outcome (e.g. organization commitment).

The outcomes of the study provide valuable directions for human resource (HR) managers in national and multinational public organizations. The article offers recruitment strategies/practices to enhance employer image and organizational commitment.

The novelty of the study is the unique research framework, as the current paper is among the pioneers to empirically analyze the effect of recruitment practices on post-recruitment outcome testing the mediating relationship of employer image between job advertising organizational commitment and between managing recruiting behavior and organizational commitment.

This paper aims to review the history of Roldós y Compañía, one of the oldest advertising agencies in the world and the oldest currently operating. This research aims to highlight the importance of this agency and its founder, Rafael Roldós Viñolas – the first documented advertising agent in Spain to this day – in shaping the emerging Spanish advertising industry at the end of the 19th century.

The methodology used in this paper is based on a review of period and contemporary literature, as well as on newspaper sources and documents from the private archive of Roldós, S.A.

In its early years, the agency’s participation in two of the most significant events for the modernization of the city of Barcelona, the Universal Exhibition of 1888 and the International Exhibition of 1929; as well as the ideation and implementation of several urban projects with the aim of finding new formulas and advertising media are factors that make it one of the most important in the country. In 1929, the alliance Roldós-Tiroleses, S.A. de Publicidad, the first great merger of advertising agencies in Spain, which lasted three years, was led. The outbreak of the Civil War and the subsequent post-war period marked a few years of business irregularities and advertising silences that gave instability to its activity. During the last third of the 20th century, the agency was immersed in the generalized advertising euphoria around the world. With the arrival of North American agencies in Barcelona and the consequent business movements, Roldós, S.A. specializes in the processing of advertisements and media planning. The 21st century began with important changes in the media planning sector, and the agency was forced to restructure its services and organizational structure. In 2022, it celebrates 150 years of uninterrupted activity, recognized by the country’s business sector.

This research aims to internationalize the history of the Roldós y Compañía agency, so that it can be studied together with other names of Anglo-Saxon advertising pioneers who were contemporaries of Rafael Roldós.

Scientific research on the history of advertising agencies, especially in Spain, is scarce, so this paper aims to help fill this gap.

This study aims to examine how veganism is “seen” by young adult non-vegan consumers and how prevailing attitudes reinforce or challenge stigmas around veganism.

Photovoice methodology was used to explore young non-vegan consumers’ attitudes and beliefs towards veganism. Data was collected from students studying advertising at a major university in Australia, who produced images and narratives reflective of their own attitudes towards veganism. Polytextual thematic analysis of the resulting visual data was then undertaken to reveal the dominant themes underpinning participants’ attitudes. Participant narratives were then reviewed to confirm whether the ascribed meaning aligned with participants’ intended meaning.

Participant images were reflective of first, how they saw their world and their place within it, which showed the interplay and interconnectedness between humans, animals and nature, and second, how they saw vegans within this world, with both positive and negative attitudes expressed. Interestingly, vegans were simultaneously admired and condemned. By situating these attitudes along a spectrum of moral evaluation, bounded by stigmatisation and moral legitimacy, participants saw vegans as being either Radicals, Pretenders, Virtuous or Pragmatists. For veganism to become more widely accepted by non-vegans, there is an important role to be played by each vegan type.

This study offers a more nuanced understanding of how and why dissociative groups, such as vegans, become stigmatised, which has implications for messaging and marketing practices around veganism and associated products/services. Future research could use a similar methodology to understand why other minority groups in society are stereotyped and stigmatised, which has broader social implications.

Virtual influencers (VIs), who are fictional characters, have gained popularity in recent years, particularly among Generation Z and millennials. With the hype surrounding VIs, more research is required. Thus, this study aims to examine how Gen Z members and millennials react to VIs used for marketing purposes.

This study follows an exploratory approach. The data were collected from 29 participants (14 male and 15 female) through two focus groups and semi-structured interviews.

The authors found that opinions about VIs were mixed, and two main themes emerged from the study: (1) challenges and potential and (2) decision-making and psychological aspects.

This study broadens the paradigm for analysing the efficacy of VIs. This emerging topic is of relevance for the marketing sector as well as for transdisciplinary research and practice.