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In two studies, we investigated the effect of temporal thinking (past thinking vs. future thinking) on variety-seeking behaviors. In Study 1, 228 Chinese college students were recruited as participants, and they chose promotional items from a simulated supermarket in a behavioral laboratory. The findings indicated that, compared to participants who were not in a temporal-thinking condition, when participants had recalled a past event, they chose items from fewer categories in the promotional gift-selection task, and those who had imagined a future event chose from more categories. We uncovered that familiarity seeking associated with past thinking and novelty seeking associated with future thinking were the underlying mechanisms that presented two different psychological paths. However, in a real-choice task, the temporal-thinking effect was attenuated by self-irrelevant thinking (Study 2, 272 Chinese college students recruited as participants). We also found the temporal distance showed no influence on the temporal-thinking effect, regardless of whether the time cues were given (Study 1) or not given (Study 2).

Many electronic commerce platforms and retailers have increasingly adopted free product sampling to promote products and to attract product reviews. We conjecture that consumers who receive free samples may reciprocate by giving higher ratings as a return to retailers’ beneficial action, which causes rating biases. Specifically, we are interested in understanding how free sampling promotion of a product affects the product’s rating and the roles of important contingent factors, including product pricing (i.e., list price and price discount) and product popularity. Analyzing data collected from Taobao.com , we find that, on average, engaging in free product sampling increases product rating by 1.1%. Moreover, the bias would be larger with higher original price but smaller with larger price discount and higher product popularity. Our findings suggest that retailers could conduct free sampling promotions to improve their product ratings, but consumers should be cautious about the possible biases in ratings, and platform operators or rating system designers should offer solutions to correct the biases. Free product sampling has increasingly become a popular promotional strategy and served as a new mechanism of product review generation in e-commerce. We empirically analyze how a product’s engagement in free product sampling affects the product’s review rating, and we also examine important contingent factors of product pricing and product popularity. Using a rich data set from Taobao.com and multiple identification strategies and estimation methods, we find that engaging in free product sampling increases product rating by 1.1%. We argue that it is consumers’ reciprocal behavior of giving higher ratings as a return to retailers’ beneficial actions that causes rating bias. We further find that the bias would be larger with higher original price but smaller with larger price discount and higher product popularity. Our empirical findings provide important contributions to the literature on product sampling and word-of-mouth and offer critical managerial implications to online retailers, rating system designers, and consumers. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2018.0801 .

Companies often feature positive consumer reviews on their websites and in their promotional materials in an attempt to increase sales. However, little is known about which particular positive reviews companies should leverage to optimize sales. Across four lab studies involving both hypothetical and real choices as well as field data from a retailer’s website (Sephora), the authors find that consumers are more likely to purchase a product if it is recommended by a reviewer who has (vs. has not) made a prior purchase mistake. The authors define a purchase mistake as a self-identified suboptimal decision whereby people purchase a product that subsequently fails to meet a threshold level of expected performance. This persuasive advantage emerges because consumers perceive reviewers who admit a purchase mistake as having more expertise than even reviewers whose purchase experience has not been marred by mistakes. As a result, in marketers’ attempts to increase the persuasive influence of reviews featured in their promotional materials, they may inadvertently decrease it by omitting the very information that would lead consumers to be more likely to purchase recommended products.

Media doctors are tempted with life changing amounts of money to promote brands and products –and the public is often unaware of this exchange. Rebecca Coombes speaks to two high profile doctors, Chris and Xand van Tulleken, about their experiences and to GP Margaret McCartney, about her role in persuading them to stay conflict-free

This research investigates how firms can actively manage consumer-generated reviews in the form of highlighting authentic reviews on review platforms. While highlighting a positive review is expected to lead to positive product evaluation, this practice may elicit consumers’ skepticism when consumers are aware of the promotional intent of the firm. Our findings show that consumers often pay attention to a firm-highlighted review and anchor on it to process other reviews of the business; however, such an anchoring effect may not be favorable when consumers are skeptical about the highlighted review. When a business has highly varied ratings in an overall positive review context, or when a business has not established a strong reputation, it is useful for the business to alleviate consumers’ skepticism by highlighting a positive yet conservative review (i.e., a review with a 4-star rating out of 5). However, when all the reviews converge toward a positive or moderately positive assessment, or when the business has already established a good reputation, highlighting an extremely positive review may be an even more effective marketing strategy. User-generated content (UGC) is increasingly used in the marketing communication mix for promoting products. This research investigates how firms can actively manage consumer-generated reviews in the form of highlighting authentic reviews at firms’ discretion. Whereas highlighting a positive review is expected to lead to positive product evaluations, this practice may elicit consumers’ skepticism if consumers are explicitly informed of the promotional intent of the firm. In three studies, we examine the effect of presenting a firm-highlighted review on consumers’ consumption intention and behavior. Our findings confirm that highlighting a positive consumer review can effectively attract consumers’ attention to this review. However, the heightened attention does not always lead to higher consumption likelihood. In particular, the extremity of a highlighted review will interact with the variance of the review context as well as the reputation of the firm being reviewed to determine the effect of the firm-highlighting practice on consumers’ consumption behavior. When other reviews convey mixed opinions or when the firm has not established a strong reputation, highlighting a positive but less extreme review may effectively improve the likelihood of consumption, but highlighting a review that is extremely positive will not.

This study attempts to identify the potential determinants of advertising avoidance in the context of personalized advertising media, including unsolicited commercial e-mail, postal direct mail, telemarketing, and text messaging. Using a self-administered survey (n = 442), the proposed model is tested with structural equation modeling analysis. The findings indicate that while ad skepticism partially mediates the relationship between ad avoidance and its three determinants (perceived personalization, privacy concerns, and ad irritation), both privacy concerns and ad irritation have a direct positive effect on ad avoidance. However, increased perceived personalization leads directly to decreased ad avoidance.

In a sales context, a common promotional tactic is to supplement a required purchase (i.e., the focal product) by offering a free product (i.e., the supplementary product). We examined the underlying mechanism driving consumers' evaluation of the supplementary product after such a promotion, with 120 undergraduate student participants at a large public university in Taiwan. Results showed that consumers demonstrated higher (lower) willingness to pay for a supplementary product that had higher (lower) levels of attribute complementarity with the focal product. However, this effect occurred only when the price of the focal product was much higher than consumer's internal reference price for the supplementary product. Our findings contribute to the literature on bundled products, reference price theory, and consumers' postpromotion perception of supplementary products' price. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

The prevalence and widespread usage of email has given businesses a direct and cost-effective way of providing consumers with targeted discount offers. While these discounts are expected to increase the demand for the promoted products, are they effective in increasing revenues? Do they have effects beyond acting as price reductions? We study these questions using individual-level data from 70 randomized experiments run by a large online ticket resale platform. We estimate the redemption rates of the offers and also measure the broader impact of emailed promotions by comparing purchases by individuals who received the experimental promotions with purchases by those who did not receive the offers because of the experimental randomization. We find that the offers cause the average expenditure to increase significantly, by $3.03 (a 37.2% increase) during the promotion window. However, the redemption rate of these offers is low. Importantly, 90% of these gains are not through redemption of the offers. The individuals who spent more on the platform in the past are more responsive to the offers, and the effect of the offers is significantly higher among individuals who did not transact on the platform in the year before the offer was given. Interestingly, the offer causes carryover to the week after the promotion expires; we find that spending increases by $1.55 in the week after the offer expires. Additionally, we find evidence for cross category spillovers to nonpromoted products: offers not applicable to a ticket genre cause an increase in spending in that genre. We conclude that emailed offers can serve as a form of “advertising” for the firm’s products, in addition to being tools for price discrimination. This paper was accepted by Eric Anderson, marketing .

Purpose This paper aims to generate knowledge of the impact of different virtual reality (VR) set-ups in tourism promotion regarding destination image, place attachment and behavioural intention. Design/methodology/approach The paper presents a comparative study of the impact of different visualisation technologies (video, immersive VR and multisensory immersive VR) to promote tourism destinations. The study’s dependent variables are destination image, place attachment and behaviour intention. Findings Results show that VR content impacts these variables. Multisensory immersive VR is the preferred content type for destination promotion. It is also evidenced that female participants scored each variable higher than male participants. Males reported higher scores on the video set-up for destination image and place attachment. Behavioural intention reported higher values in the video when compared to immersive VR in both sexes. Practical implications This paper concludes that there is a preference towards multisensory set-ups, which suggests that incorporating audiovisual and sensory elements can significantly enhance the effectiveness of VR experiences in attracting and engaging potential tourists. Originality/value The paper contributes to the scarce body of knowledge regarding the impact of different VR factors on tourism promotion, including the multisensory VR component. 研究目的 本文旨在探讨不同虚拟现实（VR）设备在旅游推广中对目的地形象、地方依恋和行为意图的影响, 并增加对此方面的认识。 研究方法 本文对不同可视化技术（视频、沉浸式VR和多感官沉浸式VR）在旅游目的地推广中的影响进行了比较研究。研究的依赖变量包括目的地形象、地方依恋和行为意图。 研究发现 研究结果表明, VR内容对这些变量有影响。多感官沉浸式VR是目的地推广的首选内容类型。研究还证明, 女性参与者在每个变量上的评分高于男性参与者。男性在视频设备上对目的地形象和地方依恋评分较高。无论是在男性还是女性中, 视频在行为意图方面的得分都高于沉浸式VR。 实践价值 我们得出结论, 人们更偏好多感官设备, 这表明将视听和感官元素纳入虚拟现实体验可以显著提高吸引和吸引潜在游客的效果。 研究创新 本文对不同虚拟现实因素对旅游推广的影响, 包括多感官VR组成部分, 做出了有益的贡献。

Health tourism, including spa-based treatments, is an important segment of global travel, and its growth reflects increasing demand for experiences that combine physical well-being with contact with nature. Polish health spa resorts are rich in balneological resources such as mineral and thermal waters, peloids, and therapeutic gases, and they offer a variety of products and services based on geoheritage. This paper introduces the concept of geoproducts—goods and services inspired by abiotic nature—and explores their role in spa tourism and sustainable regional development. Through questionnaire surveys conducted in 48 Polish spa towns, the study examines how these resources are promoted and exploited, the forms and functions of local geoproducts, and the barriers to their dissemination. The results show that, although most spas acknowledge the value of geoheritage, promotion primarily employs traditional formats and is limited in educational content. Nevertheless, there is strong local interest in developing geotourism and geoeducation, especially through the creation of unique, regionally rooted products. The study underlines the potential of geoproducts to enhance spa attractiveness, support local economies, and contribute to broader environmental awareness.