Given increased branding competition in the hotel industry, it is imperative to explore the importance of marketing communications in generating desirable customer responses. Building on previous ...anthropomorphism research, two experiments in this research explore the role of anthropomorphism-based communications for hotel brands. Study 1 investigates the moderating role of sociality via accommodation type, and Study 2 examines the moderating effect of effectance on the relationship between anthropomorphism and customers’ responses via appeal type. These interaction effects enhance perceived warmth, leading to customers’ higher visit intentions. Consistent with the tenets of anthropomorphism, we find anthropomorphism qualifies as an effective hotel communication strategy. Results also provide insights into when anthropomorphism-based communications become more effective in hotel advertising strategies.
Responding to constant market changes, hotels incorporate innovativeness into their operations. Focusing on the customer-centric perspective, this study explores the effects of different types of ...hotel innovativeness on customers’ self-pleasing and relaxing experiences, which in turn affect customers’ wellbeing and behavioral intentions. Using a self-administered, online survey among a sample of 375 U.S. residents, this study finds that perceived product-related, service-related, and experience-related innovativeness positively affect customers’ self-pleasing and relaxing experiences while perceived promotion-related innovativeness negatively affects customers’ self-pleasing and relaxing experiences. Both self-pleasing and relaxing experiences positively affect customers’ wellbeing and behavioral intentions. Results of this study expand theoretical contributions of innovativeness into experience design and provide an effective innovativeness strategy in the hotel context.
Various branded content is developed on social media; however, not all branded content stimulates customer curiosity. Based on the uses and gratification theory as a theoretical background, this ...paper investigates antecedents and outcomes of customer curiosity on social media. Using a self-administered, online survey, data were collected from customers who used hotel social media platforms within the previous 12 months. Results identified that utilitarian, social bonding, and aesthetic branded content experiences positively influenced customers’ curiosity, which then influenced customers’ brand engagement and purchase intentions. Results of this study contribute to branded content, customer curiosity, and experience design literature. Results also provide suggestions to industry practitioners by exploring the role of branded content experiences on customers’ emotional and behavioral responses.
Purpose
– A desirable experiential environment is an essential source of competitive advantage in the festival industry. Understanding festival attendees' experience is imperative for festival ...organizers because attendees' experience is a predictor of their future behavior. With the experience economy concept of Pine and Gilmore (1998), the study identified four underlying dimensions of festival attendees' experience (education, entertainment, esthetics, and escapism) and examined the impacts of these experience dimensions on festival attendees' vividity of memory and loyalty.
Design/methodology/approach
– Data were collected from online surveys completed by 338 attendees of VEISHEA festival. This study employed confirmatory factor analysis, regression analysis, and structural equation modeling to achieve its goals.
Findings
– Experience has a positive effect on vivid memory, which consequently influences loyalty. Each dimension of experience economy significantly influences vividity of memory. However loyalty is affected only by the entertainment and esthetics dimensions.
Practical implications
– Festival marketers are advised to design activities that provide memorable experiential products and services for attendees based on the four dimensions of the experience economy.
Originality/value
– The study is a pioneer in the evaluation of vividity of memory to the festival context.
Providing a distinctive brand experience is critical to differentiate each hotel brand from others, due to the intangible characteristics of the hotel industry. Rooted in congruity theory, this study ...investigated how three congruities (i.e., self-image congruity, online–offline brand image congruity, and value congruity) influenced customers’ online brand experiences and their brand trust. Results from this study indicated both self-image congruity and online–offline brand image congruity significantly influenced both customers’ online brand experiences and their trust toward the hotel's brand. Extending brand experience literature and congruity theory, this study suggested hotels should develop a strategy that could capture these three congruity effects in online and offline channels because these effects should be key determinants for customers’ online brand experiences and their responses.
With the growing number of customers engaged with social networking sites (SNSs), scholars have started investigating the effects of SNSs’ activities on customers’ well-being perceptions. However, ...the extant literature has not fully investigated SNSs’ activities that influenced customers’ well-being perceptions when customers shared their hotel experiences. This study explored the effectiveness of the well-being marketing to investigate SNSs’ activities that influenced customers’ psychological needs and impact of a sense of well-being on customers’ brand usage intent, based on self-determination theory in the context of the hotel industry. Results from this study provided theoretical and practical implications on the roles of SNS activities that led to customers’ well-being perceptions.
This study aimed to investigate how a firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices affect customers’ attitudes, their self-brand connection, and, in turn, brand preference with ridesharing ...services (e.g., Uber). Adopting a second-order construct of perceived corporate social responsibility (PCSR) reflected from three CSR dimensions—environment, economy, and ethics—this study posited PCSR influences customers’ brand attitudes, self-brand connection, and brand preference. A total of 300 valid responses was collected from a convenience sample. Results revealed PCSR showed significant impacts on customers’ brand attitudes and self-brand connection. However, no direct impact of PCSR on customers’ brand preference was identified, while mediation effects were detected between PCSR and brand preference by brand attitudes and self-brand connection. This study also discussed the managerial and theoretical implications of PCSR practices for a ridesharing service industry.
