ABSTRACT With green, natural, and sustainable values becoming a core focus in marketing, natural packaging imagery has emerged as a key strategy for conveying authenticity, purity, and environmental responsibilities. Through four independent online experiments (N 1 = 149, N 2 = 234, N 3 = 110, N 4 = 240), this study examines how two types of natural packaging imagery (iconic vs. symbolic) influence consumers' green purchase intentions. Drawing on semiotic theory, we investigate the mediating roles of schema congruity, processing fluency, and perceived product naturalness, as well as the moderating effect of verbal message type (explicit vs. implicit). The findings show that iconic natural imagery enhances schema congruity and processing fluency, thereby increasing perceived product naturalness and green purchase intention. Symbolic imagery, which requires greater cognitive effort, reduces fluency and purchase intention; however, pairing symbolic imagery with explicit verbal messages improves fluency and evaluation. By integrating semiotic theory with consumer information processing, this study's results clarify how natural packaging imagery and verbal message types jointly shape green purchase intentions. It broadens the interdisciplinary literature connecting semiotics and marketing and provides practical insights into eco‐friendly packaging design.

ABSTRACT The visual roughness of packaging is widely adopted as a design strategy to promote healthy food and beverages. However, empirical evidence on its impact on consumers' health perceptions shows marked inconsistencies. Based on associative learning theory, this study examines consumer lay beliefs about the visual roughness of packaging and how and when it impacts consumer purchase intention through four studies. The findings reveal that visually rough (vs. smooth) packaging significantly enhances consumers' purchase intention, with perceived naturalness and perceived healthiness functioning as serial mediators. Moreover, the effect is moderated by the presence (vs. absence) of an organic label on the packaging and the processing levels (unprocessed vs. processed vs. ultra‐processed) of food and beverage products. Specifically, when an organic label is present or the product is unprocessed, the serial mediating effects of perceived naturalness and perceived healthiness on purchase intention become non‐significant. Notably, for ultra‐processed products, visually smooth packaging increases consumers' purchase intention. These findings contribute substantially to the literature on visual marketing and consumer health perceptions. Furthermore, this study provides practical guidance for food and beverage enterprises regarding package design.

ABSTRACT Despite efforts to increase the visibility of minority‐owned small businesses, such as ownership badges and photos on e‐commerce platforms, the impact of these initiatives on consumers remains unclear. This study addresses the gap by exploring how different types of minority‐ownership cues affect consumer responses in online commerce. Study 1 tested a minority‐ownership badge with a casually dressed minority owner photo, while Study 2 incorporated the company's support for social causes and a business‐attired minority owner recognized as a leadership awardee. Given the limited attention to these cues within e‐commerce contexts, this study offers insights into how consumer responses may be shaped by minority cues, such as badges, owner photos, attire types and social cause messages. The findings indicate that the current marketing approach of simply presenting minority‐ownership cues is neither effective nor sufficient to enhance consumer support for minority‐owned businesses.

ABSTRACT Employing virtual streamers in e‐commerce live streaming has become a popular marketing strategy. However, the effect of different streamer partner types (human–human vs. human–virtual vs. virtual–virtual) on consumers' approach intention remains unclear. Based on the Howard–Sheth model, this research conducts four scenario‐based experiments with 515, 508, 581, and 501 participants, respectively. Results show that compared with both human–human and virtual–virtual streamer partners, human–virtual streamer partners lead to the highest approach intention. Studies 1, 2a, and 2b, conducted across diverse contexts, consistently demonstrate that human–virtual streamer type significantly influences consumers' approach intention and reveal the underlying mechanisms of perceived interactivity and perceived manipulative intent. Study 3 introduces consumers' familiarity with live‐stream shopping as a moderating factor, demonstrating that human–virtual streamer type is more effective for consumers with lower familiarity, thereby enhancing their approach intention. These findings provide valuable insights for e‐retailers in selecting appropriate streamer partners to enhance the effectiveness of live streaming marketing.

ABSTRACTConsumers express their commitment to environmental protection by engaging in a variety of environmentally protective behaviors. We thus suggest that strengthening consumers' commitment to environmental protection will cause behavioral spillover, which is the joint change in multiple environmentally protective behaviors. This idea differs from other spillover notions that draw on psychological processes that follow a change in a specific behavior. By reanalyzing data from a pre‐post treatment‐control quasi‐field experiment with customers of a retail company in which one group was exposed to a multiple‐component intervention over the course of 8 months, whereas the other was not, we corroborated a significant commitment gain in the experimental group (n = 81) that did not occur in the control group (n = 152). This commitment gain manifested in the expected spillover effect that mirrored the Rasch‐model‐implied likelihood gains in increasingly favorable behavioral expressions of people's commitment to environmental protection. This research complements existing models of behavioral spillover by providing theoretical and empirical arguments that strengthening consumers' commitment to environmental protection can result in spillover. In practical terms, focusing on people's commitment to environmental protection could thus be a promising avenue for directly promoting sustainable lifestyles.

ABSTRACT While prior research has demonstrated that consumers generally respond more positively to human sales assistants than to AI during service encounters, limited attention has been given to situations when the opposite might be true. Across five experiments, we find that particularly in a sales situation characterized by an evident persuasion attempt, consumers consider messages communicated by AI sales assistants more credible than those from human counterparts. This difference stems from the lay belief that AI sales assistants are less likely to have hidden motives, making consumers less suspicious. We further show that such a difference is diminished when AI sales assistants are associated with company‐specific information, which prompts consumers to think about the company and its hidden motives in the sales encounter. Our findings contribute to the literature on consumer–AI interactions by demonstrating that consumers' attribution of persuasive intent is influenced by both the nature of the sales assistant (i.e., human vs. AI) and contextual cues that indirectly signal persuasive intent (i.e., company‐specific information). These insights have practical implications for the design of AI‐driven sales strategies, suggesting ways to leverage AI without triggering consumer suspicion.

ABSTRACT This research investigates how bundling substitutes versus complements affects consumer evaluations of individual products. Prior studies have observed spillover effects in bundles of complementary products whereby the valuation of a known product transfers to an unknown one. The current study explores whether this effect holds for substitutes and suggests that bundling an unknown product with a substitute may attenuate or even reverse spillover effects. This occurs because consumers, guided by market efficiency intuition, may infer that firms offset deficiencies in one product by excelling in another. Across four experiments, results indicate that bundling an unknown product with a poorly performing substitute increases its perceived effectiveness, whereas bundling with a poorly performing complement decreases it (Study 1). Bundling with a well‐performing substitute decreases the unknown product's perceived effectiveness (Study 2). The effect is moderated by price information (Study 3) and purchase stage (Study 4), which alter consumers' beliefs about market efficiency, in turn impacting their inferences about unknown products. Together, these findings suggest that bundling strategies should consider the nature of the products and consumer market beliefs, offering important theoretical and managerial implications.

ABSTRACT In the retail context, consumers frequently choose between national brands and private labels. This poses a strategic challenge for companies: how to optimally configure their marketing mix to effectively align with consumer preferences through pricing strategies, promotional activities, or assortment adjustments? Against this backdrop, the present study introduces an empirical approach to refine marketing mix management. Specifically, we decompose and comparatively analyse the market shares of national brands and private labels across regular and promotional price settings. This approach enables both researchers and practitioners to identify shifts in consumer behaviour between products sold at regular prices and those sold under promotion. Using fixed effects regression models on transaction data from 29 380 households and 9 012 531 purchases over a 15‐year period covering four product categories and 10 retailers in Germany, we examine how various marketing mix variables influence these shifts. The results show that price changes and promotional activities drive shifts within market shares between regular‐ and promotional‐price products, while changes in national brand assortment dominance do not prompt such internal shifts. These patterns could not be revealed with previous analytical approaches, underscoring the theoretical and managerial relevance of the proposed decomposition method. This research offers valuable insights into consumer decision‐making and market share dynamics and lays the groundwork for future applications of market share decomposition in marketing research. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the approach is not limited to market shares but can also be extended to other dependent variables, such as volume‐based sales or revenue.

ABSTRACTGender issues, such as gender diversity and equality, have recently been prominent in both media and workplace discussions. While prior research has investigated the consequences of gender composition in the workplace, its impact on consumer perceptions and responses remains underexplored. On the basis of the Stereotype Content Model, this research explores this question from a consumer behavior perspective. A series of studies demonstrates that consumers perceive a company employing more female employees as warmer and, in turn, show more favorable responses to the company (e.g., consumer attitudes, purchase intentions, click‐through rates, and willingness to pay). The authors also establish boundary conditions and find that the proposed effect is attenuated when the typical user is male and when products are utilitarian. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, highlighting the importance of considering employee gender composition in shaping consumer behaviors and company strategies.

ABSTRACTEmojis are increasingly becoming a significant part of brand communication and affecting how consumers interact with brands. Despite their growing popularity in digital marketing communication, the existing literature provides limited understanding of the extent to which emojis foster brand‐consumer relationships. Prior research has systematically reviewed the existing literature on the role of emojis in computer‐mediated communication from psychological, linguistic, and interpersonal communication perspectives. However, there is no comprehensive framework connecting these perspectives in the context of the brand‐consumer relationship. The study bridges the above gap by conducting a scoping review followed by thematic analysis of 37 research papers to provide a comprehensive state of existing literature on the effectiveness of emojis in marketing communication and brand‐consumer relationships. Drawing from the TCCM (Theory, Concepts, Contexts, and Methodology) framework, it maps the current emoji literature in the marketing discipline and identifies emerging themes and patterns. Our findings contribute to the existing literature by suggesting that emojis foster strong brand‐consumer relationships by developing an emotional connection between them, strengthening brand attitudes, enhancing customer engagement, and promoting purchase intention. However, their effectiveness may depend on cultural contexts, consumer demographics, and communication platforms. The study classifies the scope for future research and research questions based on theoretical foundations, concepts, context, and methodological approach. It further provides guidelines to marketers on how brands can use emojis to enhance the effectiveness of their digital communication and build strong relationships with their consumers.