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This paper aims to expand the emerging field of symbolic green consumer behavior (GCB) by investigating the impact of anticipated conspicuousness of the consumption situation on consumers’ choice of organic products. In addition, the paper also explores whether self-monitoring ability and attention to social comparison information (ATSCI) influence GCB in situations of anticipated high conspicuousness.

Two experiments test the study’s hypotheses.

The results of both experiments show that the anticipation of conspicuousness has a significant effect on GCB. Moreover, in Experiment 2, this effect is moderated by consumers’ level of ATSCI but not by their self-monitoring ability.

Because ATSCI significantly interacts with green consumption because of the anticipation of a conspicuous setting, although self-monitoring ability does not, we conclude that social identification is an important determinant of green consumption.

Marketers who focus on building green brands could consider designing conspicuous consumption situations to increase GCB.

Policymakers could enact change by making the environmental unfriendliness of non-eco-friendly products visible to the public and thus increase the potential for GCB.

The results validate the emerging understanding that green products are consumed for self-enhancement, but also expand the literature by highlighting that a key motivating factor of GCB is the desire to fit in.

Cause-related marketing (CR-M) – promising to donate to a charity when consumers purchase specific products – is a popular brand strategy, particularly in the social media context. In light of Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption, the purpose of this experimental study is to test the impact of a brand’s level and the conspicuousness of a brand’s CR-M campaign on consumers’ brand-related responses. Results reveal a novel mechanism underlying the effects by showing that pride and guilt mediate results.

This research is based on two studies that used a 2 (brand level: high-end vs low-end) × 2 (conspicuous of CR-M campaign: conspicuous vs non-conspicuous) between-subjects experimental design with random assignment to conditions and manipulation checks.

Results reveal that consumers respond more favorably when high-end brands participate in CR-M, particularly when the CR-M promotion is conspicuous. That is, when a high-end brand partners with a charity, especially under conspicuous conditions, it significantly improves consumers’ brand attitudes and intent to share with others. Moreover, pride and guilt are important mediators in effects.

The results of this study offer strong implications for brand managers seeking to partner with charities in CR-M campaigns. Results suggest that implementing CR-M campaigns may be fruitful for brands, particularly high-end brands when they enhance the conspicuousness of their CR-M campaign.

Results empirically extend the notion of conspicuous consumption by demonstrating that social status can be achieved by displaying not only acquired goods but also benevolence.

The purpose of this paper is to deepen the understanding of why text messages are superseded by using stickers, thus driving instant messaging software (IMS) users’ visual communication process.

Drawing on Uses & Gratifications (U&G) theory and using a semantic technique, this research begins by identifying design indices of stickers and user’s perceived gratifications that they describe and evaluate at their first impression of using stickers in Study 1. Study 2 introduces media richness theory and the expectancy model into the framework of U&G theory and further explains several causal linkages from the LINE stickers’ design quality indices to proximal users’ perception of gratifications and distal sticker use intention.

Study 1 explores four variables, playfulness, variety, delicacy and uniqueness, as stickers’ design quality indices and discloses two user perceptions of gratifications, i.e., the needs of self-expression and of flaunting to someone, as main intrinsic motives for users sending stickers. The results of Study 2 further support the finding that self-expression and a mentality that seeks conspicuousness are two important psychological variables mediating the effects of three design quality indices – playfulness, variety and uniqueness – on visual image use intention.

The main contribution of this research is to verify the psychological mechanism of visualized communication between IMS users. Moreover, the finding extends the digital marketing literature by highlighting conspicuous consumption that occurs not only in consuming luxury goods, but also in costless or cheaper digital product such as IMS stickers.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of a Disney collaboration and Disney product line extension type on the perceptions of masstige brands and purchase intentions. By identifying masstige brands as two types (i.e. born-masstige versus luxury-masstige brands), this study investigates how consumers respond to a Disney collection across different types of masstige brands.

The authors conducted three studies using an experimental approach.

Study 1 shows that compared to a traditional collection, a Disney collection lowered perceptions of brand luxury, but the negative effect is stronger for born-masstige brands than luxury-masstige brands. Studies 2 and 3 revealed that an upward extension enhanced perceptions of luxury for the born-masstige brand more than it did with a horizontal extension, whereas there was no difference between upward and horizontal extensions for the luxury-masstige brand.

This study contributes to understanding how Disney collaborations influence consumers’ perceptions of masstige brands. It has implications for brand positioning and pricing strategies for practitioners collaborating with Disney or similar companies.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first of its kind to investigate consumer responses to a Disney collaborated collection across two types of masstige brands by exploring their type of product line extensions.

This paper aims to examine to what extent congruity between ethical attributes (i.e. product attributes with positive implications for the environment, human rights, social issues and animal welfare) and brand concept (i.e. the unique meaning associated with a brand in consumers’ minds) influences consumers’ evaluations of brands offering ethical attributes.

Four studies involving North American consumers empirically tested the moderation effect of brand concept on consumer evaluations of ethical attributes and the mediating role of perceived congruity.

This research finds an interactive effect of ethical attribute type and brand concept on brand evaluations, such that congruent ethical attribute–brand concept pairings (i.e. a utilitarian [symbolic] ethical attribute offered by a brand with a utilitarian [symbolic] brand concept) result in more favorable brand evaluations (Studies 1, 2, 3 and 4). Consumers’ perceptions of congruity between ethical attributes and brand concepts mediate this interactive effect (Studies 2 and 3). Moreover, a positive congruity effect of ethical attributes and brand concepts emerges at higher levels of conspicuous brand consumption (Study 4).

It is important to acknowledge that the current research did not specifically consider the case of utilitarian and symbolic ethical attribute offerings by luxury brands. This is a question that is left to future investigations.

For marketing managers, findings indicate that brands gain from ethical attribute introductions only when these attributes are congruent with the brand concept. In addition, brands benefit to a greater extent from offering congruent ethical attributes when brand consumption is conspicuous.

The findings of this research contribute to the literature on the effect of ethical attributes on consumers’ responses to brands and highlight the importance of brands’ choice of ethical attributes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between conspicuous consumption and public self-consciousness, materialism and domain-specific self-esteem, demographics and shopping behaviour.

Focusing on clothing, public self-consciousness, materialism and domain-specific self-esteem are examined in relation to two characteristics of clothing: expensive and fashionable. Using a sample of 261 UK young professionals, the paper compares the five factors across three levels of clothing conspicuous consumption (low, medium and high).

Findings indicate that while the five factors were associated to different levels of conspicuous consumption, the relationship was not always evident. Expensive clothing was more related to conspicuousness than fashionable clothing and differences between low- and medium/high-conspicuousness individuals appear to be larger than the difference between medium and high-conspicuousness groups.

Price appears to be a more powerful influence on conspicuous consumption than the fashionable element and therefore a strategy focused on expensive prices is essential in attracting conspicuous consumers.

The study provides an insight into conspicuous consumption in the context of clothing and its relationship with public self-consciousness, materialism and self-esteem as they relate to the expensive and fashionable dimensions.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the underlying psychological mechanism and boundary conditions which drive materialists' purchase intention (PI) of sustainable over generic luxury products.

Four empirical studies (one survey and three experiments) were conducted to test the hypotheses.

Materialism has a positive effect on consumers' purchase intention of sustainable over generic luxury products because materialists tend to have higher perceived functional value of sustainable (i.e., green) luxury products. Product conspicuousness (i.e., publicly consumed versus privately consumed luxury) moderates the effect of materialism on PI of sustainable over generic luxury products. Materialism increases the perceived functional value and thus enhances the PI of sustainable luxury products over generic luxury products only when the product is privately consumed (as opposed to publicly consumed).

This article contributes to the literature that explores how materialism affects environmentalism. This study is among the first empirical works in the context of luxury that studies the relationship between materialism and purchase intention of green products over generic products. This study is also among the first in the context of materialists to empirically establish the importance of perceived functional value associated with sustainable over generic products in affecting PI. Moreover, this article investigates the moderating role of product conspicuousness, which enhances the generalizability of the findings.

This study aims to examine whether counterfeit luxury buyers’ tendency to impress others overrides their anticipation of embarrassment or whether the anticipation of embarrassment delimits their self-presentational goals.

This paper is based on three studies – a survey and two experiments that test the predictions. This study adopts a mix of moderation and mediation analyses to test the proposed hypotheses.

The findings reveal a greater counterfeit purchase likelihood and embarrassment aversion among publicly (vs privately) self-conscious consumers. Furthermore, a higher (vs a lower) audience class and a conspicuous (vs an inconspicuous) brand lead to lower counterfeit purchase intention, and anticipated embarrassment mediates both these effects. To mitigate the threat of embarrassment, publicly self-conscious consumers are more likely to buy counterfeits among a higher-class audience when the brand is inconspicuous (vs conspicuous). They, however, are indifferent to brand conspicuousness among a lower-class audience.

To deter counterfeit consumption, anti-counterfeiting campaigns must invoke consumers’ tendency to overestimate the degree of public attention. Ad appeals must accentuate the anticipation of embarrassment by enhancing self-consciousness through a higher-class audience involving a conspicuous brand.

This paper makes a novel contribution to counterfeiting literature by demonstrating that counterfeit luxury consumption is driven by countervailing motives of gaining approval and avoiding disapproval. The paper departs from mainstream theorizing by demonstrating that counterfeit luxury buyers engage in a protective self-presentation style by choosing inconspicuous counterfeits.

This study aims to focus on proposing and empirically validating a model that captures certain critical socio-psychological factors that nurture consumers' attitude towards affordable luxury brands in an emerging market context of India.

The data were collected via a cross-sectional questionnaire survey from 491 customers of different fashion accessory luxury products in India. The data were analyzed through structural equation modelling (SEM) using AMOS 23.0 SEM software.

The findings of this study reveal that conspicuousness, status consumption, brand name consciousness, need for uniqueness and hedonism positively affect consumer attitude towards affordable luxury, which consequently affects consumers' purchase intention. The findings further reveal that age acts as a moderator in driving consumers' neo-luxury consumption.

By uniting various socio-psychological factors with consumer attitude and purchase intention in a conceptual model, along with studying the moderating role of age, this study responds to the calls for further research regarding affordable luxury and offers a more granular understanding of specific consumer motivations that guide Indian consumers' affordable luxury consumption.

Despite the proliferation of casual advergames on web sites, there is relatively little scientific evidence on which product‐placement qualities and individual consumer characteristics allow a positive affect transfer from game to brand. The purpose of this paper was to examine the influence of placement conspicuousness, exposure duration, and player gender in an experiment with Spanish‐speaking adolescents under real‐world conditions.

Three versions of a casual advergame were created and posted on the popular web site www.jetix.es. Two of the versions embedded ads for M&M chocolate candy, each of which had a different degree of conspicuousness (less versus more conspicuous), and the third version showed no brand placement at all and was used as the control condition. The versions were randomly assigned to 405 participants, and changes in their attitudes to M&Ms were measured.

The positive affect induced by the casual advergame transferred to M&Ms when it was not inhibited by negative reactions to the brand placement. The transfer of affect occurred after both a brief exposure to the prominent placement and a long exposure to the subtle placement, but no transfer was observed under the opposite set of conditions. Significant transfer in female adolescents but the absence of transfer in their male counterparts suggests a strong gender bias.

There are two implications for marketers who want to persuade adolescents through casual advergames. First, these marketers should segment their casual advergames by designing subtle placements for games with lasting appeal and prominent placements for games with brief appeal. Second, to strengthen male adolescents' brand preferences, marketers should not focus on casual advergames but search for more appropriate entertainment vehicles.

The theoretical framework relies on an unprecedented combination of classical conditioning and psychological reactance theories. The results are of interest for marketers trying to persuade adolescents as well as for public policy advocates trying to protect this vulnerable target group.