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The purpose of this paper is to conduct an in-depth interview with the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Larry Jewelry, a luxury jeweller with boutiques in Hong Kong and Singapore. Given the ever-evolving luxury jewellery market in South East Asia, it is paramount to understand the success factors of the luxury jewellery sector.

An in-depth interview approach is used to understand the antecedents of the success of the luxury jewellery sector. Specifically, this paper presents a complex business model of Larry Jewelry and an in-depth interview with the CEO of Larry Jewelry for current insights in the sector.

This paper highlights the history of Larry Jewelry, its product segments and the key elements of its business blueprint. Specifically, the success of Larry Jewelry is attributed to its business model and strong branding on quality, craftsmanship, rarity, human interaction and trust.

Despite the substantial growth in the luxury jewellery sector, there is relatively little research on the success factors of this industry, especially in South East Asia. The current research provides practical insights into business blueprint of a successful luxury jeweller in Hong Kong and Singapore.

This study aims to investigate the moderating role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) commitment in the relationships between antecedents and outcomes of consumer situational scepticism towards luxury brands.

The study used a questionnaire administered through a consumer panel, using established scales. A 2 (fictional, non-fictional) × 2 (low commitment, high commitment) factorial experimental design with four cells was implemented.

The results revealed that values-driven motives were associated with lower consumer situational scepticism, whereas egoistic-driven motives were linked to higher levels of consumer situational scepticism, regardless of the CSR commitment level of the luxury brand. However, the impact of strategic-driven motives and stakeholder-driven motives on consumer situational scepticism was only significant within the low commitment condition. Consumer situational scepticism was found to lead to lower brand resonance and resilience to negative information in both low and high commitment conditions.

This study contributes new knowledge by highlighting the crucial role of motives in shaping consumer perceptions, including scepticism, brand resonance and resilience to negative information, ultimately influencing consumer advocacy. The study further demonstrates that high commitment weakens the relationship between strategic-driven and stakeholder-driven motives and consumer scepticism. Moreover, high commitment also weakens the relationship between scepticism and the key outcomes examined in the study.

This study aims to examine the moderating role of principle-based entity (PBE) of luxury brands and its effect on perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) motives, consumer situational scepticism and brand resonance.

Structural equation modelling using multigroup analysis was used. Data were collected through a consumer panel.

Values-driven motives lowered consumer situational scepticism (CSS) significantly more in PBE than non-PBE. However, egoistic-driven motives increased CSS significantly more in PBE than non-PBE. Stakeholder-driven motives and strategic-driven motives did not elicit CSS, contrary to prior studies in non-luxury brands. PBE status also weakens the relationship between CSS and brand resonance more than non-PBE status.

This study is the first to provide empirical insights into PBE status and its effects on perceived motives, CSS of CSR initiatives and its influence in consumer and management outcomes in luxury brands.

The purpose of this study is to examine how perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) motives may influence situational scepticism towards luxury brands and its effects on brand resonance, resilience to negative information and consumer advocacy of luxury brands. The moderating role of perceived fit towards luxury brand CSR initiatives is also investigated.

An experimental approach on a 2 × 2 matrix was used. Data are collected through a consumer panel.

Values-driven motives were found to lead to lower consumer situational scepticism and egoistic-driven motives would lead to higher levels of consumer situational scepticism. While higher consumer situational scepticism leads to lower brand resonance, there is no significant relationship between scepticism and resilience to negative information and consumer advocacy. The findings also suggest that perceived fit moderates the relationship between consumer situational scepticism to resilience to negative information and consumer situational scepticism to consumer advocacy.

The key originality of the study is that it provides empirical insights into situational scepticism of CSR initiatives and its influence in consumer and management outcomes in luxury brands.

This paper aims to examine the role of religiosity on consumers’ forgiveness when celebrities get involved in transgression. The celebrity’s reaction and its impact on consumers’ forgiveness is tested as well. In addition, consumers’ attitudes towards the brand and celebrity as well as purchase intention for the endorsed brand are examined both before and after the transgression.

Data (n = 356) were collected through a self-administered online survey and analysed though structural equation modelling in AMOS 26.

The results show that consumers’ attitude towards celebrity, brand and purchase intention gets weaker once the celebrity gets into transgression. Consumers tend to forgive more if the celebrity apologises (vs denies) for the wrongdoing. The hypothesised relationship between attitude towards celebrity and purchase intention did not sustain after the transgression. In addition, consumers’ intrinsic religiosity strengthens the relationship between attitude towards the celebrity and purchase intention.

The findings of this research present valuable implications for brands practitioners. Brands should formulate actionable contingency plans to mitigate the negative ramifications of celebrity transgressions. Specifically, intrinsic religiosity and celebrity apologies should assist consumers in forgiving the transgression and negate the implications that could have arisen if the celebrity instead denied the transgressions.

This research extends the previous research by examining religiosity and forgiveness within the context of celebrity transgressions. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first few research studies to consider the role religiosity plays in consumers’ intention to forgive celebrity transgressions.

Consumers’ motivations for purchasing counterfeit branded luxuries are a topic of heated discussion amongst academics and practitioners. Drawing on self-discrepancy theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of actual-ideal self-discrepancy on consumers’ attitudes towards counterfeit branded luxuries. It investigates how self-monitoring and perceived social risk moderate this effect. Furthermore, it explores cross-cultural differences in the impact of actual-ideal self-discrepancy.

A pilot study provides preliminary evidence that highlights the importance of actual-ideal self-discrepancy in counterfeit consumption. Based upon a large-scale survey across Hong Kong, the USA and Australia, the principal study explores the moderating effect of self-monitoring and perceived social risk as well as cross-cultural differences.

The results indicate that self-discrepancy increases consumers’ tendency to engage in symbolic consumption, and that consumption of counterfeit branded luxuries can serve the social function of self-expression to reduce the discomfort induced by self-discrepancy. Self-monitoring and perceived social risk have significant moderating effects, with the former strengthening and the latter attenuating this effect. Moreover, the effect of self-discrepancy is more pronounced amongst individualistic consumers than collectivistic consumers.

This is the first study to highlight the significance of self-discrepancy in the consumption of counterfeit branded luxuries. It examines the important moderating effects of self-monitoring and perceived social risk. Consumers from collectivistic and individualistic cultures define their self-concept differently, thus the findings provide meaningful cross-cultural information on the impact of self-discrepancy in counterfeit consumption.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of social media marketing activities on brand loyalty, value consciousness and brand consciousness.

A self-administered questionnaire was developed and administered to a convenience sample of 346 undergraduate students

The findings of this research indicated that social media marketing has a significant effect on brand loyalty; brand consciousness and value consciousness mediate the relationship between social media marketing and brand loyalty.

This study confirms the growing importance of social media marketing. It also provides insights for marketers on envisioning brand loyalty.

This study aims to examine whether sport companies that promote gender equality through femvertising, an advertising trend that empowers women and confronts gender stereotypes, actually support women’s rights with institutionalized approaches to challenge gender issues. Some sport brands even have won awards for their femvertising efforts, however, not all of them have modified their policies and programs to support gender equality. Sport femvertising can be a new area for CSR-washing and this study investigated this potential.

Utilizing a content analysis, this study compared sport brands' (award-winning vs non-award-winning) level of engagement in internal and external CSR activities regarding gender equality. Sport brands’ CSR attempts and number of women in leadership positions were analyzed through companies’ CSR reports, annual reports and websites.

Only few differences between two groups (award-winning vs non-award-winning) of sport brands were observed regarding their gender equality CSR engagement. In some cases, non-award-winning sport brands had a greater percentage of women in leadership and practiced more internal gender equality CSR.

This paper provides valuable information about the potential of femvertising as an advertisement, as well as CSR strategy. Results of this study broaden our understanding of how sport companies embraced this advertising/CSR technique and the repercussions. Findings provide guidance for sport marketers who seek to improve their brand image through femvertising.

This research investigates three major research questions. First, how does brand alliance type, defined by a partner's location and brand quality, affect consumers' emotional value perceptions of higher education brand alliances for dual-degree programs? Second, does perceived brand fit mediate the relationship between brand alliance type and emotional value perceptions? Third, do individual differences in world-mindedness moderate the influence of brand alliance type on emotional value perceptions?

In total, two experiments are performed. Experiment one examines the effect of brand alliance type, at varying combinations of partner brand quality and partner location (domestic or foreign), on consumers' emotional value perceptions. Experiment two examines the moderating role of world-mindedness in the relationship between brand alliance type and consumers' emotional value perceptions.

Results provide evidence that consumers' perception of brand fit mediates the relationship between brand alliance type and consumers' emotional value perceptions of the alliance. Results also indicate that world-mindedness moderates the relationship between brand alliance type and emotional value perceptions.

This research extends the previous literature on higher education dual-degree brand alliances and introduces world-mindedness as an important consumer-based characteristic to consider in this line of research. It answers calls for more research on higher education branding and calls for research into the potential mediating role and importance of brand fit. It provides several theoretical and managerial implications relevant to the higher education brand alliances, particularly in dual-degree programs.