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This study aims to investigate the construal congruence of anthropomorphized brand roles and product messaging and its underlying mechanism on consumers' product attitude.

Four experimental studies were conducted to test the hypotheses. Study 1 investigated the framing effect of anthropomorphized brand roles (servant vs partner) in consumers' minds. Study 2 examined the matching effect of anthropomorphized brand roles and product messaging on product attitude. 132 students were randomly assigned to a 2 (anthropomorphized roles: servant vs partner) × 2 (product messaging: higher-level construal vs lower-level construal) between-subject factorial design. Study 3 tested the mediation effect of processing fluency underlying the construal congruence mechanism. Study 4 replicated the results of study 3 and further examined the boundary conditions by introducing product innovation locus as a moderator. A total of 218 students were randomly assigned to a 2 (anthropomorphized role: servant vs partner) × 2 (product messaging: higher-level construal vs lower-level construal) × 2 (innovation locus: core innovation vs peripheral locus) between-subjects design experiment.

The results demonstrate that a construal match between product messaging and anthropomorphized brand roles –anthropomorphized “servant” with higher-level construal messaging and anthropomorphized “partner” with lower-level construal messaging – can positively influence consumers' attitude via enhanced processing fluency. Furthermore, this construal matching effect on product attitude is moderated by the innovation locus of the product.

This study reveals that anthropomorphized brand roles with compatible product messaging in the associated construal levels lead to more favorable product attitudes. Furthermore, the matching effect of anthropomorphized brand roles and product messaging is stronger for products with peripheral innovation than with core innovation.

Our study contributes to the literature in two ways. First, it provides new insights into the construal matching effect of anthropomorphized brand roles and product messaging. Second, it investigates the boundary conditions of the above-mentioned construal fit mechanism.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of conspicuous consumption on brand attitudes in the context of luxury brands market in China.

Two studies are conducted to test three hypotheses. In Study 1, the authors examine the mediating effect of self-brand association (SBA) on the relationship between social class and conspicuous consumption (H1 and H2); In Study 2, the authors examine the effect of observing others’ conspicuous consumption on the observer’s SBA (H3).

Results show that SBA negatively mediates the relationship between social class and conspicuous consumption. Moreover, the negative effect on SBA of observing conspicuous brand usage varies by social class.

The current study focused on the principal linkage between social class, SBA and conspicuousness, and future research could examine the influence of different personality traits on luxury consumption or the existence of sub-types or variants of conspicuous brand users.

The present study has important implications for luxury brand management, and provides rich insights to consumers’ motivations that lead to distinctive luxury consumption behaviors.

This paper aims to examine the B2B advertising effect on firm’s market value and whether/how its effectiveness can be enhanced with corporate social responsibility (CSR) strengths.

The authors propose that CSR can be a strategic complement to advertising and reinforce the latter’s positive effect on a firm’s performance in two logics: signaling mechanism and defensive mechanism. Using the Kinder, Lydenberg, and Domini database and final data obtained from Compustat, the authors applied fixed effect regression analysis to test the interaction effect of advertising expense and CSR strengths on firms’ market performance as operationalized in Tobin’s Q.

The result confirms that CSR moderates the B2B advertising effect on a firm’s market value. More importantly, the authors find that internal CSR activities that are closely related to a firm’s core business, compared to external CSR activities, more significantly enhance the advertising effectiveness on a firm’s market value.

This research provides guidelines for B2B firms to better prioritize resource allocation to CSR practices for achieving a better financial outcome.

The current study on the joint effect of advertising and CSR has important theoretical and managerial implications, given both tools are commonly used by most B2B firms but not necessarily integrated into one corporate marketing strategy.

This paper critically examines the effectiveness of male anchor in cross-gender endorsements and questions whether it can truly deliver positive outcomes for advertisers in the context of live streaming. It explores the underlying mechanisms of this effect by examining the mediation effect of perceived gender-identity incongruence and the moderation effect of anchor presence.

Three experiments are conducted to examine the effect of cross-gender endorsement on purchase intention.

The findings from three experiments provide empirical evidence that the endorsement of female-gendered products by male anchors leads to a significant decrease in the evaluation of these products among female consumers. This negative effect is mediated by a sense of gender-identity incongruence experienced by female consumers. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that female customers exhibit higher purchase intent for female-gendered products endorsed by male virtual anchors compared to real anchors; however, the same pattern was not observed in the case of female anchors.

This paper empirically examines the possible negative effects of the male anchor endorsement in the live streaming context. It reveals the underlying mechanism of this negative effect, and how the virtual “presence” take a role in this underlying mechanism.