As demand for "quiet" luxury grows, advertisers face a strategic question: how prominently should brand markers be displayed? Across five studies (N = similar to 2,000), we show that the effectiveness of brand prominence depends on consumer mindfulness. When mindfulness is low, prominent logos reinforce extrinsic status motives and increase preference for loud luxury. When mindfulness is high, subtle branding aligns with intrinsic, self-congruent motives and increases preference for quiet luxury. The findings offer an actionable targeting principle: match logo prominence to contextual and behavioral signals of consumers' inward- versus outward-oriented status motives.
This research investigates how temporal loss framing in advertising (prospective versus retrospective) influences purchase intention. A prospective loss frame warns that one is about to miss out unless acting now (e.g., "Sale ends tonight"); a retrospective loss frame makes a prior miss salient while inviting a renewed chance (e.g., "Missed our last sale?"). Across four experiments, retrospective (vs. prospective) framing increases purchase intention. The effect operates via heightened fear of missing out (FoMO). Two boundary conditions qualify it: the retrospective advantage attenuates in customized (vs. broadcast) channels and when explicit scarcity cues are already present, which limit its incremental force.
Using schema congruity theory and four experimental studies, this study explores how the interaction between influencer type (virtual vs. human) and luxury brand message appeal (modern vs. heritage) affects consumers' purchase intentions. Furthermore, the results reveal the mediating role of perceived exclusivity, and the moderating roles of psychologically proximal senses and trustworthiness of the influencers. Findings suggest that VIs close to realism have massive potential for luxury brands that focus on the brand's modern appeal to stay relevant to their current customer base. The study's findings challenge earlier research suggesting consumers favor human influencers over virtual ones due to their superior proximal senses in the context of luxury domain.
Luxury fashion brands must balance transparency with exclusivity. Drawing on signaling theory, this research examines how transparency is communicated, perceived, and strategically managed on TikTok. Study 1 analyzes 5,565 posts, revealing limited explicit transparency and showing that production-focused content drives the highest engagement. Study 2 combines an online experiment with managerial expert interviews. Results show that production transparency increases perceived transparency and engagement, whereas social impact transparency reduces perceived exclusivity and engagement. Expert insights highlight how brand type and platform dynamics shape selective disclosure strategies. The findings extend signaling theory and offer guidance for managing transparency without eroding luxury value.
Brand heritage is a central dimension of luxury brand identity and is frequently leveraged in storytelling advertising to influence consumers' evaluations of advertisements and downstream purchase-related responses. While prior research emphasizes the positive outcomes of such strategies, this paper reveals important boundary conditions. Across one observational study, one experimental pretest, and three experimental studies, heritage-focused storytelling is shown to backfire for close-to-self products, such as perfumes, by reducing ad evaluations and purchase intentions. Conversely, heritage-focused storytelling enhances consumer responses to distant-from-self products. These findings advance the brand heritage literature by identifying potential downsides of heritage-based storytelling in luxury advertising.
This study investigates whether displaying a product's internal components in sustainability-focused advertisements can boost recycling intentions. Five experiments show that such anatomical depictions enhance consumers' perceived leftover functionality of the product, leading to stronger recycling intentions. This effect is attenuated when the product form is distorted. These findings highlight the positive impact of showcasing internal components in ads and offer valuable insights for designing more effective recycling campaigns.
Although artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly integrated in sales frontiers, its role as a social actor remains underexplored. Adopting a social interaction perspective, we examine how interacting with AI (vs. human) agents influences consumers' identity motives and product preferences. Seven preregistered studies (N = 2,900) reveal that AI (vs. human) agents activate need for differentiation (vs. assimilation), increasing preferences for distinctive (vs. mainstream) products. These effects diminish when identity motives are made salient or when products are intended for private (vs. public) use. These findings advance understanding of AI-human differences and guide firms' agent deployment and recommendation strategies.
Shoppable ads collapse sales funnels by enabling purchases within media platforms. Guided by Expectancy Violation Theory, Study 1 interviews showed shoppable ads often violated viewers' expectations, eliciting positive (informativeness, convenience) and negative (intrusiveness, disruption) appraisals. Study 2 introduced the MAVEN framework to test how media motivations, cognitive appraisals, and advertising value shape ad evaluations across streaming TV and social media. Shoppable ads were more unexpected and more negatively valenced overall, but more positively evaluated on streaming TV than on social media. Positive appraisal valence improved attitudes and purchase intentions, with informativeness and information-seeking motivations enhancing evaluations, particularly on social media.
Celebrity capital refers to the celebrity's level and frequency of media visibility and consists of four stages: acquisition, consolidation, decline and resurgence. Two between-subject experiments with non-student respondents find that consolidation-stage endorsers are the most effective in positively influencing consumer evaluations, followed by acquisition-stage endorsers. Advertisements featuring decline-stage celebrities are no different from endorser-less ads. Furthermore, while consolidation-stage celebrities are more effective for unfamiliar brands, acquisition-stage celebrities are as effective as consolidation celebrities for familiar brands. Our findings suggest that brands should only retain consolidation or acquisition-stage endorsers.
Green advertising's effectiveness hinges on both message and messenger. This study examines how influencer type (virtual vs. human) and interest appeal (self- vs. biosphere-interest) shape consumer responses. Across one secondary analysis and two experiments, findings show virtual influencers outperform humans with self-interest appeals (mediated by perceived competence), while humans excel with biosphere-interest appeals (mediated by perceived warmth). Green attribute centrality further moderates these effects, shifting the impact of influencer-appeal alignment. The research advances theory by revealing how non-human messengers reshape persuasion dynamics in sustainability contexts, offering practical insights for leveraging virtual influencers in green advertising.
Virtual influencers (VIs) mimic how human influencers (HIs) persuade consumers. This meta-analysis (n = 46 experimental studies) compares the persuasiveness of HIs and VIs, including human-like (HVIs) and anime-like (AVIs) appearances. VIs were less persuasive than HIs in source and message attitudes, but matched HIs in message perceptions, behavioral intentions, and actual behaviors. VIs were less persuasive than HIs when their follower counts were low or undisclosed, these differences were negligible when they had high follower count. HVIs outperformed AVIs in source perceptions and behavioral intentions, though both were equally effective in other outcomes. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
AI is increasingly generating creative content, from ads to visual designs, but consumers often respond with aversion. Across six experiments, we show when and why this resistance can be reduced. We reveal a counterintuitive effect of expectancy disconfirmation: AI underperforming increases the likelihood that consumers choose its content (compared with human-generated content), whereas AI overperforming decreases it. This effect is driven by overperformance triggering perceptions of threat and dehumanization, whereas underperformance reduces threat and fosters humanization. These findings challenge traditional views of expectation disconfirmation. We also identify managerially actionable boundary conditions of this effect.
The rise of AI influencers challenges traditional endorsement strategies. Study 1 (N = 289) examines how influencer type (human vs. AI) interacts with advertising style (transformational vs. informational), finding that transformational ads work better with human influencers whereas informational ads increase credibility and purchase intentions when delivered by AI influencers. Study 2 (N = 297) investigates the role of human-like qualities in AI influencers, revealing that highly human-like AI influencers perform as effectively as humans in transformational advertising by fostering a sense of connection and authenticity. The findings advance the CASA and Uncanny Valley frameworks within the influencer marketing context.
Advertising offers a unique lens through which to examine the shifting values, norms, and ideals of society over time. Far beyond promoting products, advertisements and brand communications reflect and reinforce what cultures define as desirable, acceptable, or aspirational. Building on Schwartz's human values framework, this study examines the differential impact of messages containing human values on social media engagement. Analyzing 27,900 branded posts from 47 brands across fashion, retail, sportswear, and tech & electronics industries, the study employs text mining to categorize messages into conservation, self-transcendence, openness to change, and self-enhancement values. Findings reveal that high human value content does not necessarily lead to greater engagement. Specifically, fashion brands show an inverted U-shaped pattern, where posts with lower human value expressions generate more engagement. After controlling for posting time, emotionality, and complexity, engagement levels vary for values like openness to change. This research contributes to the literature by examining the threshold effect, the point at which value alignment begins to lose its effect and drawing on persuasion knowledge theory to explain how value-based messages may shape audience behavioral engagement.
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) enable constant connectivity at work, and employees are challenged to manage the boundaries between work and their personal lives. Drawing on boundary-setting theory and regulatory focus theory, we examine how health-related advertising appeals can influence employees' ability to manage work-life boundaries. Two studies among employees (n = 494, n = 440) provide evidence that health-related advertising can increase boundary-setting intention, but that the effects depend on the message appeal. Overall, gain-framed appeals appear to be more effective than loss-framed appeals. The effectiveness of both appeal types increases under fit conditions, but only when regulatory focus is induced (Study 2), not with a chronic regulatory focus (Study 1). The effect of regulatory fit is particularly pronounced among employees lacking boundary-setting habits. Implications for practitioners and policy makers are discussed.
