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This research demonstrates that under states of certainty, consumers with a relatively stronger global (local) identity prefer global (local) brands, whereas under states of uncertainty, consumers with a relatively stronger global (local) identity prefer local (global) brands. This effect occurs because uncertainty (certainty) activates a divergent (convergent) thinking style, which results in a preference for options that are more distant from (closer to) the identity to which consumers associate more strongly. The effect holds both when individuals' global–local citizenship identity is measured and when it is manipulated. The research further establishes an important boundary condition for the effect. The effect holds in the citizenship identity context because people normally associate themselves with both local and global citizenship identities, and situational or dispositional factors only influence the degree to which they associate with each identity. The effect does not surface when individuals construe their local–global citizenship identities as interfering, meaning they conceive that holding one identity conflicts with holding the other.

[Display omitted] •Consumers’ mental representation moderated the effect of product touch on PI and WTP.•The touch effect was evident under concrete (versus abstract) representation.•The moderation effect was mediated by perceived risk and perceived ownership. As offline retailers struggle to compete with online ones, the importance of a consumer’s ability to touch a product prior to purchase becomes important to study. Prior research has found inconsistent results on whether product touch facilitates consumers’ product-related decision making. Some studies report a positive effect, whereas others do not. The current research reconciles this inconsistency and draws retailing implications. Across three experiments, we show that the effect of product touch on consumers’ purchase intentions and willingness to pay for a product being evaluated is evident when consumers’ mental representation of the product is concrete, but not when abstract. We further show that perceived risk and perceived ownership simultaneously mediate this moderating effect of mental representation. Implications are drawn for both offline and online retailers.

The authors propose an augmented conceptual model explaining consumer preferences for global brands versus local brands in emerging markets and test the model using data from a Chinese consumer sample. The model adds high brand-identity expressiveness as well as high trust and positive affect toward these brands. The results support these additions and replicate previous findings that brand quality and prestige are important links between perceived brand globalness (PBG) and perceived brand localness (PBL) and favorable behavioral intentions. The most novel finding is that both PBG and PBL can enhance a brand's identity expressiveness. The results establish the mediating roles of these additional variables between PBG/PBL and behavioral intentions and also identify the incremental explanatory value of these additional mediators, which have been neglected in previous global branding research. Furthermore, PBG—which affects behavioral intentions through pathways of brand prestige, trust, and affect—is more influential than PBL, which operates mainly through brand identity expressiveness.

In this paper I review, from the perspective of experimental research, studies that have examined how brands acquire cultural meaning, and suggest future research directions. McCracken’s (Journal of Consumer Research, 13, 1986 and 71) model of the meaning transfer process gained influence about thirty years ago, but experimental studies of the processes it posited have been limited in their scope. The review is organized around three questions. First, what should be the dependent variables: the types of meanings that can adhere to brands? Second, what have we learned from studies on the types of visual, sensory, and human cues that are the sources of particular types of brand meaning—our independent variables? Third, what do we know, and need to know, about the inferential and other processes through which consumers “take possession” of these brand meanings from these cues? The review concludes with a research agenda.

This research examines the impact of a salient global (or local) identity on individual's regulatory goals. Specifically, we show that when people's identity as a global citizen is salient, they are more likely to focus on promotion goals; whereas when their identity as a local citizen is salient, they are more likely to focus on prevention goals. We further show that this arises because people are likely to adopt a more abstract or higher level (vs. concrete or lower level) construal when their global (local) identity is salient. Evidence from three studies supports this central proposition.

With the challenges presented by new media, shifting media patterns, and divided consumer attention, the optimal integration of marketing communications takes on increasing importance. Drawing on a review of relevant academic research and guided by managerial priorities, the authors offer insights and advice as to how traditional and new media such as search, display, mobile, TV, and social media interact to affect consumer decision making. With an enhanced understanding of the consumer decision journey and how consumers process communications, the authors outline a comprehensive framework featuring two models designed to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of integrated marketing communication programs: a \"bottom-up\" communications matching model and a \"top-down\" communications optimization model. The authors conclude by suggesting important future research priorities.

In two experiments, the authors show that corporate image associations with innovation and trustworthiness (but not social responsibility) influence product evaluations more when consumers perceive high (versus low) risk in the product purchase. Their findings extend previous research by identifying perceived risk as a moderator of the effects of corporate image on product evaluations. The authors discuss implications for the conditions governing the \"flow-through\" of corporate image to individual product evaluations.

In today's multinational marketplace, it is increasingly important to understand why some consumers prefer global brands to local brands. We delineate three pathways through which perceived brand globalness (PBG) influences the likelihood of brand purchase. Using consumer data from the U.S.A. and Korea, we find that PBG is positively related to both perceived brand quality and prestige and, through them, to purchase likelihood. The effect through perceived quality is strongest. PBG effects are weaker for more ethnocentric consumers.

Using a grounded theory approach, the authors investigate the nature and consequences of brand love. Arguing that research on brand love needs to be built on an understanding of how consumers actually experience this phenomenon, they conduct two qualitative studies to uncover the different elements (\"features\") of the consumer prototype of brand love. Then, they use structural equations modeling on survey data to explore how these elements can be modeled as both first-order and higher-order structural models. A higher-order model yields seven core elements: self-brand integration, passion-driven behaviors, positive emotional connection, long-term relationship, positive overall attitude valence, attitude certainty and confidence (strength), and anticipated separation distress. In addition to these seven core elements of brand love itself, the prototype includes quality beliefs as an antecedent of brand love and brand loyalty, word of mouth, and resistance to negative information as outcomes. Both the firstorder and higher-order brand love models predict loyalty, word of mouth, and resistance better, and provide a greater understanding, than an overall summary measure of brand love. The authors conclude by presenting theoretical and managerial implications.

Advertising needs to capture consumers' attention in likable ways, and the visual complexity of advertising plays a central role in this regard. Yet ideas about visual complexity effects conflict, and objective measures of complexity are rare. The authors distinguish two types of visual complexity, differentiate them from the difficulty of comprehending advertising, and propose objective measures for each. Advertisements are visually complex when they contain dense perceptual features (\"feature complexity\") and/or when they have an elaborate creative design (\"design complexity\"). An analysis of 249 advertisements that were tested with eye-tracking shows that, as the authors hypothesize, feature complexity hurts attention to the brand and attitude toward the ad, whereas design complexity helps attention to both the pictorial and the advertisement as a whole, its comprehensibility, and attitude toward the ad. This is important because design complexity is under direct control of the advertiser. The proposed measures can be readily adopted to assess the visual complexity of advertising, and the findings can be used to improve the stopping power of advertisements.