Mediational role of perceived personal legacy value between consumer agentic generativity and attitudes/buying intentions toward luxury brands

This study evaluates three luxury watch brands of different luxury intensity according to their perceived values with a special attention to personal legacy value. It uses the agentic dimension of consumer generativity as a segmentation variable for luxury brands. A parsimonious and reliable scale of perceived personal legacy value is first developed and further used to discriminate the luxury level of brands. Results show the superiority of a high-end luxury watch versus an accessible and a typical luxury brand on personal legacy. Structural equation modeling shows a mediation effect of personal legacy value between consumer agentic generativity and attitudes/buying intentions toward brands. Implications in marketing literature and industry practices highlight the important role of personal legacy as an added value for luxury brands. It also demonstrates the relevance of targeting agentic generative consumers in a luxury consumption context.     

Business at the fingertips of consumers: a scale for measuring resale motivations in online settings

Our current understanding of what motivates consumers to resell second-hand products online is limited. This article lays out the development and validation of an online resale motivation (ORM) scale based on three studies involving 1119 respondents. Study 1 presents the ORM scale development process and the resulting multidimensional construct, including the protester, economic, generative, recreational, practical and social facets of motivation. Study 2 replicates the scale and investigates its predictive value, demonstrating that the ORM scale successfully predicts online resale frequency. Study 3 examines the mediating role of ORM on the relationship between planned resale intentions and online resale behaviour. The findings show that there is no direct link between a consumer’s intention to resell an item prior to its purchase and the frequency with which they resell online. Rather, consumers who more frequently resell online items that they acquired with the intention of reselling do so because they perceive positive economic, practical and recreational outcomes associated with online reselling.     

Consumer attitude toward US versus domestic apparel in Taiwan

This study investigates whether or not consumer attitudes toward domestic‐ vs. US‐made apparel differ among consumers in Taiwan. Variables to be examined include (1) apparel attributes; (2) self‐concept; and (3) demographics. The Fishbein attitude model was used to measure consumer attitudes. The mall‐intercept method was used to collect most data in four major cities of Taiwan. A total of 485 Taiwanese consumers completed and returned useable questionnaires. Results indicated that consumer attitudes toward Taiwan vs. US‐made apparel differed significantly among consumers in Taiwan. Consumers had an overall more positive attitude towards US‐made apparel compared with Taiwan‐made apparel with regards to care instruction label, colour, quality, apparel fibre content, fashionableness, attractiveness, brand name, and comfort apparel attributes. For self‐concept variables only modest/vain and thrifty/indulgent had a significant difference between consumers who preferred US‐ over Taiwan‐made apparel. Demographic factors of age, gender, education, residence area, travelled abroad and country‐of‐origin preference had a significant relationship with consumer attitudes toward apparel. This study is aimed at understanding Taiwanese consumers’ attitudes toward foreign‐made apparel. Overall, Taiwanese consumers preferred US‐made apparel; however, the apparel attribute of size range needed improvement to increase customers’ satisfaction.     

It's no longer mine: the role of brand ownership and advertising in cross-border brand acquisitions

Although cross-border brand acquisitions are increasingly common in the global marketplace, research on how consumers respond to them is limited. Building on social identity and psychological ownership theories, we introduce the concept of brand ownership to the advertising literature, and show its negative effects on consumer reactions to a brand acquisition. Furthermore, we demonstrate that consumers’ disidentification (i.e., an oppositional motivation) with an acquiring country moderates the negative effect of consumers’ brand ownership on consumer attitudes after a brand acquisition. The results reveal that consumers with high levels of brand ownership develop more negative post-acquisition brand attitudes when a brand is acquired by a country with which consumers strongly disidentify (i.e. dissociative vs. out-group). Furthermore, our research introduces the concept of a brand ownership appeal in advertising, and demonstrates that it is an effective advertising strategy in enhancing post-acquisition brand attitudes for consumers with high levels of brand ownership. Important theoretical and managerial advertising implications conclude this research.     

The effects of between‐partner congruity on consumer evaluation of co‐branded products

Branding studies, especially those focusing on brand extension, have often centered on establishing the relationship between consumer evaluation and the match between a product concept and the brand (concept congruity). This study introduces an additional type of congruity that arises in the evaluation of co‐branded products, the congruity between brand partners (between‐partner congruity). Between‐partner congruity has not previously been explicitly considered in the co‐branding literature, but is potentially an important influence on consumer perceptions of a brand partnership. Thus, this study represents an initial attempt to understand how the level of between‐partner congruity will affect consumer response to cobranded products. Several findings in the marketing literature have suggested that when respondents have the motivation to resolve incongruity, the relationship between congruity level and evaluation is nonmonotonic. In other words, moderately incongruent concepts are preferred to congruent or highly incongruent concepts to form an “inverted‐U” data function. Yet, when motivation to process is low, evaluation becomes less favorable in a linear fashion as incongruity increases. This study examines whether these findings can be extended to co‐branding. When concept congruity is controlled across brand pairs, the nonmonotonic relationship between between‐partner congruity level and product evaluation is observed when consumers are encouraged to elaborate on the rationale for the partnership (high involvement). However, when consumers attend to the global similarity of the partners (low involvement), product evaluation becomes less favorable as between‐partner incongruity increases. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Me,Myself, and Future Generations: The Role of Affinity and Effectiveness in the Creation of Consumer Environmental Stewardship (CENS)

Policymakers, consumer advocate groups, and researchers agree that consumers need to increase their proenvironmental behaviors if a decent standard of living is to be ensured for future generations. Despite high levels of environmental concern, consumers still refrain from large‐scale adoption of proenvironmental behaviors. Social marketers agree that a change in attitudes is not enough to stimulate the necessary behavioral change and are looking for ways to help consumers overcome the costs (e.g., price premiums, inconvenience) that are often associated with proenvironmental behaviors. Currently, consumers often see proenvironmental behavior as a trade‐off between short‐term personal benefits and longer term collective benefits. The authors contribute to the social marketing literature on proenvironmental behavior by introducing the concept of Consumer Environmental Stewardship (CENS), which centers on the use of intrinsic motivation to stimulate a personal sense of responsibility for the environment. The findings, based on a survey and three experiments, show that the stimulation of consumers’ affinity with future generations (AFGs) and perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE) can help to promote CENS, which in turn raises proenvironmental behaviors. However, this research also shows that increasing levels of AFGs can backfire and result in lower levels of CENS, if consumers experience low levels of PCE.     

An assessment of ethical obligation and self‐identity in ethical consumer decision‐making: a structural equation modelling approach

Research has supported the addition of ethical obligation and self‐identity to models of consumer decision‐making in ‘ethical’ contexts. The particular placement of ethical obligation and self‐identity within a model of ethical consumer decision‐making remains unclear. Are these measures an antecedent to attitude or behavioural intention? This paper presents findings from a large scale survey of ethical consumers that explores, through structural equation modelling, the specific placement of these measures within a validated model of ethical consumer decision‐making, which uses the theory of planned behaviour as an initial framework. This research is examined within the ‘ethical’ context of fair trade grocery purchasing. (Fairly traded products are those purchased under equitable trading agreements, involving co‐operative rather than competitive trading principles, ensuring a fair price and fair working conditions for the producers and suppliers.)     

Determinants of Consumer Attitudes and Purchase Intentions With Regard to Genetically Modified Food – Results of a Cross-National Survey

Previous research has shown consumers to be highly sceptical towards genetic modification in food production. So far, however, little research has tried to explain how consumers form attitudes and make decisions with regard to genetically modified foods. The paper presents the results of a survey which was carried out in Denmark, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom to investigate the formation of consumer attitudes towards genetic modification in food production and of purchase decisions with regard to genetically modified yoghurt and beer. Altogether, 2031 consumers were interviewed in the four countries.Results show that attitude formation and decision-making are more comparable among Danish, German, and British consumers than with Italian consumers. Italian consumers turned out to be significantly less negative towards genetic modification in foods than particularly Danish and German consumers. Across countries, the attitude towards genetic modification in food production was deeply embedded in more general attitudes held by the consumers, in particular attitude towards nature and attitude towards technology. These general attitudes were found to influence perceived risks and benefits of the technology. Purchase decisions with regard to the two product examples were almost exclusively determined by attitudes towards purchasing the products. These were, in turn, significantly influenced by the overall attitude towards genetic modification in food production through their effects on beliefs held by consumers regarding the quality and trustworthiness of the products.The results suggest that attitudes towards genetically modified foods are quite strong, despite their lack of basis in actual product experience. Likewise, the strong relation of product-specific attitudes to the attitude towards using genetic modification in food production suggests that at present consumers reject the technology overall rather than evaluate products on a case-by-case basis. This situation may, however, be changed by a possible increased availability of genetically modified food products on the consumer market.     

Effects of institutions on ecological attitudes and behaviour of consumers in a developing Asian country: the case of the Philippines

This study examines the effects of institutions emanating from the social environment on ecologically sustainable consumer behaviour in a developing country context. Drawing on the behavioural perspective model of consumer choice and institutional theory, this study argues that the regulative, normative and cognitive dimensions of the institutional environment play critical roles in shaping the pro‐environmental attitudes called eco‐attitudes of consumers. In turn, eco‐attitudes positively influence the eco‐behaviour of consumers. The structural equation modelling of data from a survey of 1045 consumers from the Philippines shows the significant and positive effects of the regulatory, normative and cognitive dimensions of the institutional environment on the eco‐attitudes of consumers, which in turn have strong positive influence on eco‐behaviour. The findings about the partial mediating role of eco‐attitudes offer a more nuanced explanation on how institutions explain the eco‐behaviour of consumers which is a topic that is less understood especially in a developing country context. The study highlights the theoretical, methodological, policy and future research implications of the findings.     

Headless: The Role of Gender and Self‐Referencing in Consumer Response to Cropped Pictures of Decorative Models

Product pictures with “headless” decorative models, whose heads have been cropped out of the pictures, are often used in online retailing. This article reports findings from three experiments comparing attitudes for clothing displayed in pictures with cropped and uncropped male and female models, focusing on the moderating effects of consumer and model gender and the mediating effects of product self‐referencing. Results indicate that the effects on product attitudes are moderated by the gender of both models and consumers and mediated by self‐referencing. Pictures with uncropped male models result in more positive product attitudes, irrespective of consumer gender. For product pictures with female models, male consumer attitudes are also more positive for products displayed with uncropped models. In fact, attitudes are only more positive for clothing shown with cropped, “headless” models when both models and consumers are female. Implications of the findings for research and practitioners are discussed.     

Older consumers’ perceptions of functional foods and non‐edible health‐enhancing innovations

Increasing interest in health and well‐being is likely to drive a growth in demand for products that have positive effects on health. Consumers’ acceptance of and willingness to buy functional foods has been widely studied, but there has not been research on consumers’ attitudes towards innovative non‐edible products with health effects. This study examines how older consumers perceive functional foods and novel non‐edible health‐enhancing products, how willing they are to purchase such products, and how health orientation influences their views. As an example of a ‘radical’ innovation, consumers’ acceptance of rubbing their hands in a specific soil‐based mixture to modulate the immune system is explored. The research material, 13 thematic interviews, was collected in Lahti region, Finland, in 2015. The study indicates that the older consumers’ market is not homogeneous. Based on a qualitative, in‐depth approach, the study distinguishes four consumer segments with different lay understandings of health and attitudes towards health‐enhancing products, which influence people's willingness to purchase such products. The segments are health‐seeking consumers, cautious consumers, critical consumers and natural health consumers. Various motives and barriers for using products with health claims are also identified. The case of rubbing hands in organic soil‐based mixture indicates the difficulty of predicting which consumer segment will first adopt this kind of ‘radical’ innovation. The results highlight that the credence qualities of a novel product must be communicated and advertised before entering the market while also taking into account the sensory properties of the product. ‘Radical innovations’ must be in a form that consumers can easily accept.     

When Do Nutrient Content and Nutrient Content Claims Matter? Assessing Consumer Tradeoffs Between Carbohydrates and Fat

Substantial concern about the wide variety of carbohydrate‐related claims appearing on consumer packaged food products have been expressed by members of both the marketing and public policy communities. As a result, a number of petitions requesting the establishment of carbohydrate levels required for a low‐carbohydrate nutrient content claim have been submitted to the Food and Drug Administration, and the agency is considering the establishment of criteria for such a claim. This research examines the potential effects of a “low‐carbohydrate” claim, relative to the effects of a “low‐fat” claim, across selected product fat and carbohydrate levels. The study also considers whether consumers’ motivation to process nutrition information serves as a potential moderator of the effects of the nutrient content claims and nutrient levels on the dependent measures. As predicted, the results show key differences across consumer motivation levels. The policy implications of our findings are discussed.     

Young consumers’ innovativeness in apparel choices: A model including consumer self‐confidence

In industries with network effects, consumer innovators help to trigger the critical mass needed for a product innovation to be successful. Thus, firms can benefit from actions that increase consumer innovativeness in their target markets. Consumer innovativeness has been associated with variables such as hedonic shopping motivation, impulsiveness and status seeking. There is limited work on the impact on consumer innovativeness of consumer characteristics that reflect consumers’ self‐confident ability to choose. This study proposes and tests a model for consumer innovativeness that incorporates variables from previous research and uncovers the importance of consumer self‐confidence. We collect survey data from 534 Chilean girls, ages 10–15. After building constructs with the help of exploratory factor analysis, we analyze the data with linear regression estimation (via OLS). Our results reveal that consumer self‐confidence is positively and significantly related to consumer innovativeness. Our findings also add evidence ‐from a younger age group‐ regarding the significance of status seeking, impulsiveness and hedonic shopping motivation on consumer innovativeness. Results suggest that companies could leverage consumer innovativeness by taking actions to increase consumers’ self‐confidence. Innovative apparel choices in young consumers could possibly also be strengthened by communicating status achievement and by enhancing shopping enjoyment.     

Consumer Reaction to Nutritional Labels on Food Products

In order to design the most useful instruments of consumer protection, it is necessary to understand how consumers perceive and use such instruments. Often, basic consumer rights are considered more extensively in the design of consumer protection policies than basic patterns of consumer behavior and motivation. We are more likely to make information on labels complete as viewed by the expert than useful in the normal behavior of the consumer. This study is devoted to discovering how consumers perceive nutritional labels on food products. It draws conclusions about their meaning and usefulness to consumers.     

Labelling wool products for animal welfare and environmental impact

The notable growth of the market in recent years indicates apparel consumers' interest in organic fibre products. Yet less is understood about how apparel consumers would respond to labelling for other credence attributes associated with animal‐fibre products, such as animal welfare or eco‐friendliness. An online survey of 507 US consumers was used to compare consumers' reactions with a variety of labelling schemes for wool product attributes, including animal‐friendly, organic and environmentally friendly production. Consumer segments were created based on frequency of label choice, and analysis of variance and multinomial logit regression were used to identify and characterize the demographics and psychographics of the consumer segments that found labelling for animal welfare or environmental concerns appealing. The study identified a segment of consumers (19% of the sample) who were motivated to purchase apparel products labelled for animal welfare. These animal‐focused consumers could be identified with relatively high accuracy from the demographic and psychographic variables in the model. The model variables, which included familiarity with organic products and self‐perceived knowledge about environmental damage related to apparel production, were not effective in identifying the environment‐focused apparel consumers. The results also demonstrated the ability of a general belief in animal rights to motivate the apparel consumers in the sample, suggesting that acting on a concern for animals could be a more powerful motivation for consumer behaviour than acting on a concern for the environment.     

Investigating social motivations,opportunity and ability to participate in communities of virtual co‐creation

Communities of virtual co‐creation are emerging as a new form of consumer engagement, where through a collaborative and interactive process, ideas and knowledge from consumer are applied differently to create new value for the consumers themselves, the company and all stakeholders. The aim of this paper is to explore the drivers, namely motivation, opportunity and ability, of consumer willingness to participate in communities of virtual co‐creation. The role of social motivations, that is, altruism and social reputation, particularly relevant inside online communities, is investigated. Data were collected through an online survey on 180 consumers from diverse nationalities. The unit of analysis was a virtual co‐creation activity for food products. Findings show that consumer motivation and ability have a relevant influence on willingness to participate in co‐creation projects, while opportunity has not. In particular, ability showed to be the most relevant factor, suggesting that virtual co‐creation initiatives should be properly designed to facilitate the engagement of consumers. Further, results indicate that consumers' motivations are driven by both altruism and social reputation, where altruism plays a greater role. This confirms that social relations are key motivational drivers in virtual communities, where value is created through interaction with like‐minded people, exchange of information and experiences, provision of support.     

Positioning Strategies for Animal-Friendly Products: A Social Dilemma Approach

Many consumers express concerns about the welfare of animals in agriculture, but often refrain from purchasing animal-friendly alternatives that address their concerns. To support consumers in making choices in line with their values and attitudes, this study approaches consumer animal-friendly product choice as a dilemma between maximizing the buyer's self-interest and maximizing societal interest. To address this social dilemma, we developed and tested positioning strategies that reinforce the animal welfare label with complementary consumption values (functional, emotional, social, and epistemic). The results from a choice experiment with Dutch chicken meat shoppers showed that two strategies—emotional and epistemic—effectively increase consumer value perceptions. These insights imply that animal-friendly products positioned to invoke emotion or curiosity drive consumers towards animal-friendly product choices, and that these strategies are most effective for consumers who base their choice solely on maximizing either self-interest or societal interest.     

Value chain integration of base of the pyramid consumers: An empirical study of drivers and performance outcomes

The seminal works on Base of the Pyramid (BOP) markets encourage companies to explore untapped low-income markets and to alleviate poverty by providing affordable products and services. The transition to second generation BOP strategies has centred on the integration of local consumers across value chain activities. This integration presents challenges both for firms and for low-income consumers due to the nature of informal BOP markets, severe institutional voids and lack of local knowledge of firms. In this context, little is known about the motivational drivers of firms to integrate BOP consumers in value creation activities and the impact on different performance dimensions, namely economic, social and ecological. This study adopts the perspective of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and investigates drivers and performance outcomes of BOP consumer integration. For this purpose, we develop a theoretical framework and test it empirically by employing a unique dataset of 142 enterprises which provide basic products and services to low-income markets. Our findings provide empirical support for the claim that BOP consumer integration enhances economic, social and ecological performance. MSMEs in our sample engage consumers mainly due to a strong intrinsic motivation to drive social impact rather than a pragmatic motivation to overcome information asymmetries. While studies of multinationals entering BOP markets almost exclusively report the need for cross-sector partner collaboration, our findings suggest that this may not be the case for MSMEs.     

Effect of knowledge on decision making in the context of organic cotton clothing

This research was designed to study whether consumer knowledge on organic cotton and relevant issues influences attitude toward and price acceptance of organic cotton clothing. The effect of consumer knowledge was also studied on the way consumers use product label information in purchasing organic cotton clothing. An online survey was developed to measure the variables including experimental choice‐based conjoint models for mandatory and auxiliary label specifications. Four hundred ninety‐eight people completed the survey. The results indicated that moderately and highly knowledgeable participants were more willing to buy organic cotton clothing at higher price points and they had more positive attitudes toward organic cotton clothing than low knowledgeable participants. The results suggest that differentially knowledgeable consumers may attend to different types of information provided on product labels to evaluate organic cotton apparel products. Providing product‐related information on product labels is essential; however, providing additional information on the benefits of using organic cotton and socially responsible business practices may improve consumers’ knowledge and acceptability of organic cotton apparel products.     

The Ethical Consumer. Moral Norms and Packaging Choice

This study investigates whether the claim that environmental attitudes are based on moral reasoning is valid with regard to consumer buying attitudes, as it has been shown to be in other domains of consumer behaviour. It is proposed that two conditions make moral reasoning in the buying situation more likely: environmental concern and the absence of other highly involving characteristics. The paper presents a study of a case with these two characteristics: Danish consumers' choice of environment-friendly packaging. With regard to this case, the evidence supports the claim. A majority of Danish consumers have developed personal norms about choosing environment-friendly packaging and the personal norm is a significant predictor of their (self-reported) propensity to choose environment-friendly packaging in the supermarket (whereas perceived costs have a minor influence on the choice). It is recommended that attempts to promote this and similar behaviour focus on strengthening consumers' intrinsic motivation and on facilitating its transformation into behaviour.