Despite evidence that people believe that the unhealthier the food, the tastier it is, some studies also suggest the opposing belief—the healthier the food, the tastier it is. A framework is proposed to reconcile this contradiction, and four studies demonstrate that the discrete categorization of foods as healthful versus unhealthful determines which intuition consumers use. When stereotypically unhealthy foods (e.g., candies, ice cream, hot dogs) are encountered, they are automatically categorized as unhealthful and the properties associated with that category (e.g., sweetness, saltiness, fat content) become accessible. Inferences about taste are then based on these properties and the unhealthier the encountered products are (i.e., the higher the sugar and fat content they have), the tastier they are perceived to be (unhealthy = tasty belief). Conversely, when stereotypically healthful foods (e.g., fruits) are encountered, other properties (e.g., freshness, vitamins) become salient, and tastiness is mainly inferred based on these properties, leading to the inference that the healthier these foods are (i.e., the more freshness and vitamins they have), the tastier they are perceived to be (healthy = tasty belief). Marketers and policymakers can leverage these findings to understand better when emphasizing healthiness benefits or hurts taste perceptions.

This research investigates how structured service environments can mitigate negative customer responses to service failures. We propose a proactive strategy that aims to preemptively manage customer expectations. Drawing on the meaning maintenance model, we theorize and find that heightened perceptions of predictability inherent in structured environments reduce customers’ need to make sense of discrepancies between actual and expected outcomes. In turn, customers are less likely to blame the firm and more likely to repurchase from it. Our research includes a field experiment and three online and lab experiments across various contexts. We identify key boundary conditions: structured environments are less effective when failures appear predictable due to recurring causes (stability attribution) or when the firm could have prevented them (controllability attribution). Furthermore, if the firm is merely associated with the failure but not directly involved, the mitigating effect of structured environments does also not occur. These insights offer managers a novel proactive strategy to buffer customer responses to service failures.

Despite extensive research on advertising appeals, the role of gender in shaping consumer perceptions of the informational and transformational cues used in ads, and how such perceptions influence brand equity variables, remains underexplored. This study applies gender schema theory to examine how these appeals impact brand equity dimensions across male and female audiences. Using a survey-based analysis of UK consumers, this study captures consumer perceptions of the informational and transformational advertising appeals that have been used in actual brand communications of leading TV brands and explores their effects on brand personality, perceived brand quality, company associations, and attitudes toward advertisements. The findings from structural equation modeling reveal that informational appeals are more effective for male audiences in enhancing brand personality, perceived brand quality, and company associations. Conversely, for female audiences, transformational appeals are more effective in improving attitudes toward advertising and brand personality, while performing equally well as informational appeals in fostering positive quality perceptions and strengthening company associations. These findings highlight the importance of aligning advertising strategies with gender-specific cognitive processing patterns, offering valuable insights for optimizing message effectiveness based on audience composition and strategic objectives. Full text available here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author/7FQNQFCIQR2E2WNZVUAZ?target=10.1111/ijcs.70093

Though Humanoid Service Robots are the “holy grail” of robotics, the discomfort, specifically the feelings of eeriness, they elicit in consumers still raises concerns as to their successful implementation in service settings. From a firm’s point of view, the main question revolves around how to integrate humanoid service robots without hurting consumers' repurchase intent as a result of their perceived eeriness. The results of four experiments (including a study involving real interactions), using four distinct humanoid service robots and four different service settings, collectively examine a novel marketing solution which consists of consumers assigning a name to a humanoid service robot. We show that humanoid service robots with customer-assigned names versus no name or store-assigned names increase consumers' repurchase intent. This is because the act of naming simultaneously increases perceived familiarity of the humanoid service robot and control over it, which decrease its perceived eeriness and consequently increase consumers' interaction enjoyment. Altogether, our studies offer theoretical and managerial insights on how engaging consumers in the act of naming can facilitate technological infusion into service frontlines.

Prior literature suggests that, for low involvement products, transformational advertising should be favored over informational advertising. The current study on 927 consumers from the United Kingdom indicates that transformational and informational ad appeals are equally effective in enhancing brand awareness, but informational ad appeals are more effective in increasing positive quality perceptions and company associations. Confirming previous findings, the positive effect of informational ad appeals on brand awareness is greater for utilitarian products than for hedonic products. This study provides insights guiding the adoption of informational and transformational ad appeals to achieve specific advertising objectives depending on the product type.