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The purpose of this study is to examine how luxury and non-luxury brands portray women in social media advertising shedding light on their femvertising practices.

Quantitative content analysis and multiple correspondence analysis are used to examine female representations in the advertising of personal care products on social media. The sample includes brand posts from 15 brands on two social media platforms.

The results demonstrate that non-luxury brands use femvertising to a greater extent compared to luxury brands. In particular, this study shows that luxury brands rely more on stereotyped gender expressions and use more sexualisation in their advertising, relative to non-luxury brands.

This study provides an analysis of luxury and non-luxury brands’ femvertising practices on social media. In doing so, this study extends the study of femvertising to the context of luxury and social media, which is currently underexplored. In terms of practical implications, this study sheds light on the extent of the application of femvertising across luxury and non-luxury brands on social media.

The findings drive a number of suggestions for luxury marketers, including the use of more independent gender roles and more racial diversity in their social media advertising and the lessening of unrelated sexuality.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to compare femvertising practices of luxury and non-luxury brands on social media, delineating different facets of femvertising (e.g. gender roles, diversity, etc.) and extending scholarly understanding of the possible facets of this concept.

The current challenges international charities face with regards to their deteriorating image, as a result of recent scandals (e.g. Oxfam, Save the Children), provide the impetus for this exploratory research, where the purpose of this paper is to examine the conceptualization and dimensionality of non-profit brand image across national cultures.

The study employs a quantitative research design, using multi-country samples from India, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the UK. The authors first examine the psychometric properties of the non-profit brand image scale via confirmatory factor analysis across countries, identifying the optimal model for invariance testing. Further, the authors use multi-group invariance analysis to evaluate whether non-profit brand image (using an 18-item scale and six factors) provides equivalent measurement across cultures.

The study shows that individuals in the three countries perceive non-profit brand image equally, and as consisting of perceptions of usefulness, efficiency, affect, dynamism, reliability and ethicality. However, the results also indicate that the means of the dimensions of non-profit brand image are not comparable across different cultures.

The study extends limited current literature on non-profit brand image in international contexts, deriving insightful suggestions for further theoretical approaches in this under-developed research domain. It also yields key implications for charities and other non-profit organizations operating internationally, as they can use non-profit brand image and its dimensions as actionable tools in their communication campaigns to shape their brand image.

This study aims to follow a rigorous approach to identify, critically analyze and synthesize 75 papers published from 2000 to 2022.

The study presents a systematic literature review on identity expressiveness (IE), clarifying and expanding what is currently known about the concept.

To synthesize current knowledge on IE, the study uses the overarching framework of antecedents-phenomenon-consequences, using this same framework to identify gaps and future research directions. The findings show individual and brand-related factors such as the need for uniqueness and anthropomorphism as antecedents of IE, and eWOM/WOM, impulse purchases and upgrading to more exclusive lines as consequences of IE.

The study contributes to theory by synthesizing and mapping current understanding of the state of knowledge on the concept of IE while highlighting gaps in the extant literature and paving future research directions for scholars in the field.

The study offers useful insights for practitioners, broadening marketers’ actionable options in identity-based marketing. Marketers can use insights from this study to inform marketing strategy and communication campaigns for different types of brands.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first of its kind and offers an integrative review of the current literature on IE, thus enhancing understanding of the concept, its antecedents and consequences. The study also contributes to knowledge by highlighting future research priorities for researchers in this field of enquiry.

The present paper explores how advertisers use consumer culture positioning (CCP) strategies in advertising across countries and product categories.

The study employs a content analysis approach to investigate usage of CCP strategies and symbols across different CCP strategies, countries and product categories. The authors focussed on country of origin (COO) cues as symbols of CCP. The authors collected printed advertisements from countries at different levels of economic development and communication orientation for the content analysis, namely, Austria (n = 182), Hungary (n = 199) and Turkey (n = 120) and products with high- vs low-involvement levels.

Findings of this study indicated that global consumer culture positioning (GCCP) and local consumer culture positioning (LCCP) advertisements relied more on implicit symbols, while foreign consumer culture positioning (FCCP) advertisements predominantly employed explicit ones. Types of symbols and their utilisation varied across countries and product categories, with language, tag lines/logos and brand names being key components across different advertisements.

The results document the practices of CCP-based advertising, offering important insights on whether and how symbolism can be effectively used for communicating different CCPs across markets.

Little is known in terms of how specific symbols are used to communicate consumers’ culture. In this study, the authors analysed the content of 501 real-print advertisements across multiple countries and product categories. This study contributes to the theory and practice by revealing how consumers’ culture manifests through diverse COO symbols in advertising imagery and by facilitating the application of such manifestations across market contexts.

The extant literature highlights the significant role of brand perceptions in buying behavior and brand equity. Despite the importance of brand perceptions and the proliferation of online brands, research in an online context is still scarce. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap by investigating the effect of positive and negative comparative affective states (online vs offline) on online brand perceptions. Consistent with existing evidence, highlighting the role of culture on brand perceptions and affective states, this research is conducted in a cross-national setting to identify the stability of the hypothesized relationships among countries.

The study uses consumer survey data from five countries (UK, USA, Australia, Canada and China). After imposing metric and factor variance invariance, we used multi-group CFA to test the hypotheses regarding the impact of positive and negative comparative affective states on online brand perceptions across the five countries in the sample.

The results show that positive comparative affective states have a significant and positive impact on online brand perceptions across the countries studied, although the impact size varies by country. The findings also show that negative comparative affective states, which are context-specific and not induced by any particular brand, have no effect on online brand perceptions across the country samples.

Managers can use the findings reported in this research to inform their branding strategies. For instance, managers may focus on triggering feelings of comfort online as these lead to more favorable online brand perceptions rather than on supressing feelings of caution, as the latter do not directly impact online brand perceptions.

The study builds on and extends the recent work of Christodoulides et al. (2013) by focussing on online brand perceptions and looking into the role of affective states in a cross-national setting.

To better understand the disparity of private label performance across countries, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the role played by national culture. Two types of impact are considered: a direct influence of cultural dimensions on the performance of private labels in a country and an indirect one where national culture favours the development of modern retailers, which, in turn, benefits private label performance.

Using the five dimensions of the Hofstede model to describe national culture, this paper performs a structural equation modelling incremental building model approach using secondary data collected from a sample of 65 countries.

The results show that individualism (positively) and long-term orientation (negatively) directly impact private label performance. Moreover, four dimensions (individualism, masculinity, power distance and uncertainty avoidance) are shown to have a significant indirect impact on private label performance via the mediation of retail market development, positively for individualism and negatively for the three other dimensions.

The findings provide retailers with important insights into the critical decisions of the selection of new markets and adaptation of the private label strategy according to the culture of the country.

This research pioneers by being the first to determine the impact of all the dimensions of the Hofstede cultural model on private label performance, use a very large number of countries to test this impact and study the role of important retail market factors in this phenomenon.

This study aims to examine the drivers and outcomes of the usage intention of branded mobile applications (apps), revealing findings of theoretical and practical relevance. First, it uncovers the specific technological features that underpin the perceived usefulness and ease of use of branded apps driving (directly and indirectly) usage intention. Second, it outlines two key outcomes that are relevant to the strategic management of branded apps: willingness to recommend the app and willingness to pay to continue using the app.

This study uses data randomly derived from a panel of one million UK consumers, analyzed via structural equations modeling. The unit of analysis was individual apps prominently displaying a brand identity. The study tested indirect relationships between the key drivers considered and usage intention via perceived usefulness and ease of use.

Consumers who view branded apps as protecting their privacy, customizable and compatible with what they do, will have stronger perceptions of usefulness and ease of use and greater intention to use the app. These effects also occur indirectly. Furthermore, usage intention drives the willingness to recommend the app and to pay to continue using it.

To influence usage intention, managers can improve the perception of usefulness of branded apps by protecting consumer privacy and improving the app’s design and its compatibility with people’s needs and lifestyle. Managers can also enhance the perception of ease of use of the branded app by heightening its security and ubiquity. Combined, these factors can enhance (directly and indirectly) the intention to use the app, which will lead to the willingness to recommend the app and pay for it.

This study extends previous research by examining factors driving the intention to use branded apps and the resulting outcomes. It also offers a model that yields predictions for individual branded apps (not the brand powering the app), thus providing practical recommendations on how to manage, in general, apps with a brand identity.

Limited research has examined the segment of ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs). This study aims to explore how this segment self-presents with regard to luxury on Instagram.

We use a qualitative research approach to content-analyze 815 publicly available photos on Instagram. The analytical approach involves multiple stages and yields three key themes.

Through Instagram images, UHNWIs engage in inconspicuous consumption via subtle displays of luxury possessions and more cues that indicate luxury experiences, power and social connections. The results further identify four dimensions of self-presentation in luxury consumption on social media: ostentatious, humble, revealed and hidden.

The study adopts an inductive approach to identify themes related to UHNWIs’ self-presentation on Instagram. Other research could adopt a quantitative approach to identify drivers of the various themes. In addition, the unit of analysis was the photo posted by the UHNWI rather than the UHNWI himself or herself. Further research might explicitly consider the overall profile of each UHNWI and their holistic approach to posting with a view to developing a typology of UHNWIs based on the way they self-present and portray their luxury consumption.

Luxury marketers should focus on inconspicuous products and experiences that allow the UHNWIs to decelerate and spend time with their loved ones, access rare experiences and demonstrate power via their networks.

We extend prior research on self-presentation on Instagram. The authors focus on UHNWIs, a neglected yet significant segment of the luxury market.

The purpose of this paper is to present a buying process for the multichannel consumer (MCC) that starts at online information search and ends at the offline retail channel and then seeks to determine the universality of such behavior across countries.

A structured questionnaire was administered to MCCs from Russia, Singapore and the USA. The model was estimated using partial least square and country comparisons were conducted with a multi-group analysis.

The empirical results validated the conceptual model. In country comparisons, there is both converging (online information search) and diverging (retail store) MCCs’ behavior exhibiting nuanced differences.

Future research should examine values of MCCs at the individual level so as to increase the generalizability of the findings.

The convergence of MCCs information search behavior suggests that there is an opportunity for companies to standardize their online information strategy to educate global MCCs prior to their visiting brick and mortar stores. In-store salesperson remains important and effective for MCCs in the USA and Singapore, but not Russia.

A new conceptual framework that integrates economic and psychology theories is presented to depict the shift of control tilting in favor of MCCs in the buying process and introduces the concept of “reversal” information asymmetry in which consumers perceive to have more knowledge than the vendors.