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Purpose – This paper aims to investigate how consumers react to corporate managers publicly espousing an ideological belief regarding a social issue. In particular, this paper investigates anger derived by consumers as a mediator explaining why consumer attitudes change. Design/methodology/approach – An experiment was used to present respondents with a scenario about managers espousing specific ideological beliefs. All independent and dependent variables were measured. Variable relationships were analyzed utilizing general linear models to understand direct effects and bootstrapping to understand mediation. Findings – When made public, managers’ stances can make multiple, possibly competing, ideologies salient to consumers. Consumer reaction to a stance is most positive when held ideological beliefs are competing and consumers anchor on one ideology in agreement with the manager’s stance, leading to less anger and enhanced brand attitudes. When competing beliefs exist, consumers minimize the importance of dissonant beliefs. Further, preexisting brand attitudes provide a halo effect which helps to determine the amount of anger derived and any potential shift in brand attitude. Practical implications – This paper offers insights into when a reparative brand strategy may need to be structured after a manager’s ideological stance is made public. Not all of a company’s targeted demographic will take offense, and any reparative communications may need to focus on the consumer relationship with the brand rather than an outright apology. Originality/value – This paper adds to the literature investigating the intersection of ideology and marketing. This paper shows that there is an opportunity for managers to strategically shape marketing messages to capitalize on situations where consumers hold multiple, possibly competing ideological beliefs. Thus, this paper highlights that understanding consumers’ brand attitude shifts requires a more encompassing view of ideologies, as opposed to viewing them in isolation.

The authors propose that segmenting loyal consumers according to their history of switching in a product category may help managers improve advertising effectiveness by stimulating appropriate levels of elaboration. More elaboration by multiple-brand consumers for their current brand choice increases the likelihood of future switching, whereas single-brand consumers are unaffected. For single-brand consumers, need for cognition decreases switching intent under high elaboration conditions, whereas multiple-brand consumers are unaffected. Lastly, the effect of cognitive processing on brand switching is greater for single-brand consumers for high elaboration advertisements, and greater for multiple-brand consumers for low elaboration advertisements.

When judging the expensiveness of a product or service, consumers often make comparisons to similar offerings that serve as reference points. Extant pricing literature shows that reference items in the consideration set may trigger a \"contrast effect,\" where higher-priced items make the target item seem less expensive. Two studies show that the effect of reference price depends on the consumer's level of abstract thinking-or \"construal level\" -at the time of judgment. Concrete construal leads to the standard contrast effect, but abstract construal leads to an assimilation effect, where higher-priced reference items make the target seem more expensive.

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the effects of minorities’ who experienced discrimination on perceptions of offensiveness tied to brand imagery that stereotypically depicts other minorities classified as out-group members. Design/methodology/approach – Study 1 utilizes factor analysis to develop dependent variables, and a path analysis to model relationships between the focal independent variable (IV) and dependent variable (DVs). Study 2 uses an experimental approach analyzing data with ANOVA and bootstrapping methodologies. Findings – Minorities who report experiencing more discrimination perceive more offensiveness tied to branding containing overt stereotypical depictions of out-groups. This effect is mediated through a perceived sympathy for the out-group. However, while some minorities perceive these branded logos as relatively more offensive, minorities, as a group, do not perceive these stereotyped logos as overly offensive. Research limitations/implications – Minorities not depicted in or alluded to in stereotypical imagery associated with a brand may be a valuable consumptive bloc that can be recruited to oppose such uses of stereotypes. This research highlights that any sympathy that these minorities report holding for depicted minority groups may be important to future targeted communications. Brand managers may need to aggressively defend the brand against negative attributions derived from non-depicted minorities’ felt sympathy. Depicted minorities fighting to remove stereotypical imagery in brands may be able to leverage non-depicted minorities’ expressed sympathy to form coalitions. Depicted minorities’ communications, however, may need to increase issue relevance to non-depicted minorities. Originality/value – This research explores how non-affected groups perceive stereotypes infused in branding. It demonstrates that, depending on past experiences, these individuals may defend against a perceived social threat targeted at a societal out-group.

This exploratory study analyzes online ratings of cruises to identify the drivers of consumer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The goal is to highlight that attributes vary in impact across price tiers. This research involved using Impact Range Performance Analysis and Impact Asymmetry Analysis on data from online consumer reviews across four price tiers (budget, premium, deluxe, and luxury). These techniques allowed for the classification of cruise attributes into five types based on their ability to satisfy or dissatisfy consumers. Using this directional information, importance levels, and perceived performance, the authors show that the order in which cruise lines should dedicate their resources varies across price tiers. The contribution of this article addresses the need for managers to understand not only which attributes their passengers care about most (i.e., importance weight), but also the potential of each attribute to cause either satisfaction, or dissatisfaction. This will allow strategic allocation of resources depending on whether the cruise line needs to reduce dissatisfaction, or increase satisfaction. Consequently, this research should interest academicians - as an application of creative research methodology, and managers - as a prescriptive tool for resource allocation.

This dissertation examines consumer valuations of product attributes while they pursue two goals, (1) aspirations to reach a higher state, and (2) preservation of a previously achieved goal. Consumers rely on products and their attributes to help them to reach these goals. However, new attributes often have some performance variability, which makes it difficult for consumers to estimate the true value of the attribute before purchasing it. This may result in consumers discounting the attribute because they are not sure how well it will perform. Marketers address this by spending on consumer education and marketing communications to deflect attention away from performance variability. In this research, we question whether performance variability is always bad from the marketer’s standpoint. Marketers offer new product attributes in two ways—either as an option that may be added to a base model for a higher price, or as an option that may be deleted from a fully loaded model for a price reduction. The decision task created by this addition/deletion framing interacts in specific ways with each of the goals mentioned above. Regulatory fit occurs when the decision task matches with the natural manner dictated by the goal. When regulatory fit is high, consumers feel more confident about their decisions and rely more on their own judgments, and conversely when regulatory fit is low, consumers are more willing to give the benefit of the doubt. We use this theory to create a better understanding of how goal frames, offer frames (attribute addition/deletion), and performance variability interact in consumers’ valuation of product attributes. We find a significant three-way interaction between these variables. Specifically, in attribute addition, performance variability has a positive effect on valuations under preservation goals, but has no effect on valuations under aspiration goals. In the deletion frame, performance variability has a negative effect under preservation goals but a positive effect under aspiration goals.