Sharing consumers’ brand storytelling: influence of consumers’ storytelling on brand attitude via emotions and cognitions

Purpose Brand storytelling has been found to be an effective marketing tool. Unlike a brand story that originates from a firm, consumers’ brand storytelling is created, developed and shared by consumers. This research aims to examine whether consumers’ brand storytelling leads to increased favorable brand evaluations and compares its effects on consumer cognition and emotions, to a brand story generated by a firm. Design/methodology/approach Three experiments were conducted to test the hypotheses. In Study 1, a 2 (story: consumers’ brand storytelling vs brand story by a firm) × 2 (product: coffee shop vs airline mileage programs) between-subjects design was used. Studies 2 and 3 replicated Study 1 and investigated different measurements of the constructs using different brands. Additionally, a mediation analysis was conducted. Findings The results show that consumers’ brand storytelling increases favorable brand attitudes. Consumers present deeper cognitive processing and higher experienced positive emotions when they read consumer brand storytelling as compared to a firm-created brand story, leading to a more favorable brand attitude. Originality/value There is a lack of empirical research investigating how consumers’ brand storytelling is different from brand stories created by firms, and how consumers’ brand storytelling influences brand attitudes. This study extends the literature by clarifying how consumers respond to consumers’ brand storytelling and evaluates brands by exploring the underlying mechanism for the effect of brand storytelling via consumers’ cognitions and emotions.

Research on the Application of Contactless Intelligent Express Cabinet

Because of the COVID-19 epidemic situation, the advantages of intelligent express cabinet stand out, compared with the traditional terminal distribution. It can not only solve the problem of terminal delivery difficulty but also that of the user privacy assurance, in which the contactless delivery becomes deeply popular because cross-infection is avoided. This paper studies the domestic present situation of the application of intelligent express cabinet and the existing problems, according to the data of 207 copies of questionnaires, analyses the consumer cognition and attitude towards intelligent express cabinet. In order to expand the application market of intelligent express cabinets, the paper puts forward measures such as integrating resources, improving the utilization rate, investigating the needs, reasonable layout, integrating community services, and enriching the profit model.

Consumer scepticism: A systematic review of literature

Scepticism towards marketing activities is a common consumer cognition. Despite its widespread prevalence, no attempt has been made in the past to review and synthesise the extant literature on scepticism. This study presents a comprehensive review and analysis of consumer scepticism literature from various domains of marketing. The paper critically examines various definitions, operationalisations, typologies, and the theoretical foundation of consumer scepticism, and differentiates scepticism from related constructs of (dis)trust, dissonance, and ambivalence. It presents a synthesis of literature on the antecedents (individual, product, and claim-related factors) and consequences (for promotions, products, retailers, and firms) of consumer scepticism. A framework is proposed based on the synthesis. The framework can help researchers studying scepticism in a particular domain (like health-related claims) identify relevant variables from other domains (like environmental claims). Results of the review process reveal a lack of clarity on the dimensionality and the measurement of scepticism; a paucity of research on drivers and consequences of consumer scepticism; and the need for further investigation of the concept of situational scepticism.

Qualitative semiotics: Can we research consumer meaning-making?

The notion of “meaning” is central to marketing because it is only through the making of meaning that “added value” can be created. The marketing profession has several models of how such meaning is created, but Peircean semiotics can shed further light on the activity of meaning-making itself and the stages that are involved in this process. This article explores the differences between Peircean and Saussurian semiotics and discusses how these two semiotic traditions construe meaning creation. In particular, it applies the Peircean semiotic model of meaning-making to the notion of concept formation, and the classificatory aspects of this process. This enables convergences to be identified between qualitative research methodologies and semiotics. This, in turn, opens up the possibility of a new kind of qualitative research that understands, and explores, how individual consumers form their concepts. It does this by identifying the semiotic structures that are involved in this process. It will be argued that the resulting framework of “Qualitative Semiotics” has the potential to take semiotics beyond the remit of cultural analysis and to refocus it on processes of individual consumer cognition.