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The paper aims to address the issue of how customer value is created in the context of novel food products and how customer value influences product evaluation.

The study proposes a model formed by a series of causal relations among value (i.e. functional, social, hedonic, altruistic values) and cost perceptions (i.e. price, effort, evaluation costs, performance and product safety), their trade-offs (i.e. overall customer value) and product evaluation outcomes (i.e. satisfaction, trust).

Despite doubts about certain search (information), credence (safety) and experience (taste) attributes, perceptions about product quality, likeability and ethical image predominantly formulate customer value, indicating novel products’ potential to be evaluated positively by consumers.

The proposed model advances knowledge in the context of product innovation. Contrary to past research that focuses on consumer attitudes towards a manufacturing technology and individual technology-specific risks and benefits, the customer value approach refers to novel product-related consumer attitudes conceptualized as overall customer value; the latter results from product-related value-cost trade-offs, leading towards specific consumer–product evaluations.

The customer value approach refers to the value from the adoption of a new product that underlies a relevant set of product attributes (e.g. quality, image, sustainability, price, convenience, taste, safety, etc.) Focusing on product attributes that generate gain – loss perceptions impactful on consumer – product evaluations is highly relevant for product managers concerned with new product development.

The originality of this work lies in the successful contextualization and testing of an inclusive model that comprises both emotional and rational components, operational at the product level, to generate substantial insights on the widely unexplored interplay between consumer – perceived customer value and the generation of consumer – product evaluation outcomes.

This paper explores the potential impact of mobile marketing tools on consumer buying behaviour within the context of dining. The aim is to examine the influence of mobile marketing tools through their different functions on the stages of the consumer buying process. The study addresses a lack of relevant research with evidence from both customer and supplier perspectives.

The mobile tools that are found useful for dining were considered in this study. Qualitative interviews with marketers and consumer opinion leaders were conducted, given the limited extant research.

The results reveal that mobile marketing tools influence consumers' decision-making differently and their effect varies according to the customer type. Additionally, it shows that loyalty has a direct influence on mobile marketing effectiveness, as the decision-making process of loyal customers is more affected by mobile marketing tools than the non-loyal customers.

The limitations are mainly based on the qualitative nature of this study and are relevant to the research context. Further research could examine these findings in different service and geographical contexts.

Marketing activity through the smartphone should focus on loyal customers and opinion leaders with the use of appropriate mobile tools.

The study provides empirical evidence on the variable influence of mobile marketing tools on consumer decision-making and develops a conceptual framework. It is also found that loyalty is an important factor that positively affects smartphone tools adoption.

Values-attitudes hierarchical models are quite frequent in the consumer behaviour literature. In attitudinal models specific to food produced in an environmentally friendly way (i.e. “green” food), past research evidence mainly originating in Western cultures posits that the strongest path of the model can be found among collectivistic consumer values, general environmental attitudes, and attitudes specific to green food. On the other hand, in non-Western cultures (i.e. China), green food (e.g. organic) is perceived by consumers as safer to consume. With this as point of departure, the present paper aims to examine whether attitudes towards green food in a values-attitudes model in China are determined as postulated in past Western research.

A “typical” (i.e. Western research evidence-based) values-attitudes hierarchical model was developed and a questionnaire comprising 34 items reflecting the conceptual model was designed. Data collection was focused on six major Chinese cities, as this is where the current changes in eating habits are predominantly taking place. Data were collected by personal interviews conducted by local researchers between January and March 2009 through a mall-intercept method. A total number of 479 respondents were recruited, equally distributed among the six cities.

Collectivistic values and environmental attitudes were still found to be strong determinants of Chinese consumers' attitudes towards green foods; contrary to relevant Western findings, however, collectivism also influenced technological attitudes; which, in turn, influenced attitudes towards green food jointly with environmental attitudes. These findings point to the conclusion that Chinese consumers, possibly guided by altruistic predispositions, see technology as a positive determinant of both food safety and environmental friendliness in food production. Empirical findings like these highlight the need for adaptation of well-substantiated models to completely customised research approaches within new globally rising environments.

It is still not quite clear how green food products are perceived in South-East Asian consumer cultures, as well as in other non-Western contexts. This scarcity makes the empirical examination of well-established values-attitudes hierarchies in such contexts valuable from an academic and practitioner's point of view.

The evening meal is an important, regular event in the lives of many people and its daily practices lead consumers to develop habits that determine their food choices. The objective of the present work is to further investigate how consumers make choices by determining the stages as well as the content of the family's daily food (i.e. seafood and meat‐related) decision‐making process.

Twenty‐four families in Denmark, Norway and Iceland were asked to fill in a one‐to‐two‐week semi‐structured diary regarding any thoughts they had about the decision‐making sequence regarding their evening meals. Data were analysed by means of content analysis so as to gain insight into the main themes and distinctive patterns with respect to the four stages of the decision‐making sequence by identifying a number of codes and sub‐codes of high and lower abstraction level.

The main results were similar across the three countries. Planning was the most important phase of the evening meal decision‐making sequence, where Nordic respondents considered practical issues, and engaged in a more rational type of thinking, allowing cognitive aspects to prevail at this particular stage. The presence of rational thoughts was repeated in the successive stages of purchasing, whereas affective thoughts were elicited mainly during the later stages of preparation and consumption. Furthermore, the comparison of seafood and meat as choices that complied with respondents' demands and expectations revealed that the two food types were perceived as substitutes for each other; however, meat was considered a choice that respondents felt more confident with in terms of pre‐ and post‐purchasing experience.

This paper offers substantial insights into the factors that influence the decision making process, as well as the importance that consumers assign to those factors across most stages of the decision making process. This valuable, in‐depth information can only be collected by using qualitative methods such as the present diaries. Gaining insights into the factors that influence various stages of the evening meal decision‐making process enables researchers to identify the importance that consumers assign to cognitive and affective factors across the food provisioning stages for a variety of food products (including seafood).