•Uncovers the effect of two storytelling modes on consumer responses to Initial Coin Offerings.•Fact-based storytelling produces stronger intentions to invest in a new crypto.•Emotional storytelling ...facilitates consumer online advocacy.•When factual storytelling is used, expert-based messages generate higher online brand advocacy.•Consumers are willing to invest more in a new crypto when an altruistic purpose is attached to it.
Given the scarce insights around the effectiveness of different brand communication strategies in Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), this work, through four experimental studies, investigates the role of storytelling in affecting consumer responses to ICOs. Drawing on Elaboration Likelihood Model, study 1 uncovers the differential effect of two storytelling modes (i.e. factual vs emotional) on consumers’ amount of investment and online brand advocacy in ICOs. Study 2 examines the moderating effect of endorser expertise (i.e. high vs low) on consumer responses to ICOs. Study 3 investigates the framing of the storytelling message (i.e. loss- vs gain-framed) whereas study 4 explores whether the cryptocurrency purpose (i.e. altruistic vs profit-oriented) affects consumer responses to ICOs. Our findings uncover the differential benefits (e.g. financial vs reputational) that storytelling modes bestow to consumers and provide directions on how issuers should strategize their brand communication during ICOs.
Purpose
The purpose of this conceptual paper is to delve into the implications of blockchain technology adoption for brands and consumers. Drawing on the existing branding literature and real-life ...applications of blockchain, the challenges, risks and opportunities from blockchain adoption for four important areas of the branding literature are canvassed (i.e. brand positioning and corporate brand image, consumer–brand relationships, online brand communication and consumers’ trust in the brand). Also, a future-oriented discussion is provided that highlights some important avenues for researchers in the field.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper sheds light on the potential implications of blockchain technology for brand–consumer relationships. To do so, an analytical review of the blockchain literature is conducted, the nature of blockchain technology is presented and its unique features and functions for brand–consumer interactions are discussed.
Findings
This paper ignites an exploratory discussion around how blockchain applications and platforms can affect consumer–brand relationships, drawing on a number of real-life examples of blockchain adoption. This discussion sheds light on how blockchain features can impact on various areas of interest for strategic brand management, such as the adoption of digital currencies, brand storytelling, use of blockchain-enabled loyalty programmes, role of intermediaries in online advertising, counterfeit consumption, brand transparency and trust for brands in online marketplaces, amongst others.
Originality/value
This is one of the first conceptual efforts in the branding literature that draws on the scarce existing knowledge around blockchain adoption and discusses the potential implications of blockchain technology for brands and consumers whilst also providing directions for future research.
Purpose
This paper aims to re-examine the nature, aim and scope of internal market orientation (IMO) and introduce it as a value creation mechanism for the firm’s internal market. A service-dominant ...logic (SDL)-based perspective of the IMO notion is advanced, and the key steps and phases for value creation in the internal market are outlined.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper bridges the IM discourse with the SDL literature, and the latter’s implications for internal marketing theory and practice are discussed.
Findings
Drawing on the premises of the SDL, IMO re-surfaces as an interconnected operant resource that can be enacted through performing three sets of activities central in the value creation process for internal stakeholders (i.e. value-identifying, value-generating and value-enhancing activities). These groups of relevant value-enabling activities required for IMO enactment are extensively discussed and their role in the value creation process is scrutinized.
Originality/value
This conceptual paper aspires to provide a managerially relevant understanding of value creation in the firm’s internal market. An SDL-driven understanding of IMO is advanced setting it as a value creation mechanism appealing to a wider range of organizations.
Activist brands commonly engage in controversies to redefine which opinions and ideas are acceptable to express publicly. We conceptualize this practice as free speech boundary work. How can activist ...brands negotiate the boundaries of free speech to authenticate their activist positioning? By conducting a comparative case study of 18 activist brands, we identify three controversial strategies—creating monstrous hybrids, challenging the establishment, and demonstrating exemplarity—each of them challenging the boundaries of free speech through a distinct mechanism. The results show that whether these strategies authenticate brands’ activism depends on their ability to communicate brands’ moral competency, defined in terms of moral sensitivity, moral vision, and moral integration. This study contributes to the literature on brand activism by proposing an integrative framework that articulates the mechanisms underlying the reformative power of controversial brand activism. Second, we contribute to the literature on brand activism authentication by introducing a competency‐oriented view that reveals the heterogeneous and multidimensional nature of activism authenticity and expands our conception of the spectrum of moral territories with which activist brands can engage.
This conceptual paper aspires to provide a theoretically sound understanding of the value creation process of a specific value network (i.e., firm–employee context). Drawing on service-logic and ...resource-based frameworks, a classification of four diverse resource types in an organizational context is introduced (i.e., core, augmented, add-on, peripheral resources), based on their exchangeability and their contribution to employees’ value creation and co-creation. This classification enables a better understanding of the nature and the unique features of different firm–employee exchanges in an organizational context, and delineates each type’s distinctive role in employee-based value creation activities. Four propositions derive from this classification; this suggests that not all resource types can be exchanged and that the relative contribution of various firm–employee exchanges to value creation is asymmetrical. A future research agenda is also presented, discussing the potential implications of this classification for contemporary organizations.
•This conceptual paper aspires to provide a theoretically sound understanding of the value creation process in a firm-employee context.•Drawing on service-logic and resource-based frameworks, a classification of four diverse resource types available for exchange in an organizational context is introduced (i.e. core, augmented, add-on, peripheral resources).•This classification enables a better understanding of the nature and the unique features of different resource types in an organizational context and delineates their distinctive role in employee-based value creation.•A future research agenda is presented discussing the potential implications of this classification for contemporary organizations.
A wealth of research examines firm or consumer‐based brand equity but largely ignores internal stakeholders' perceptions of the brand asset. The present study focuses on service employees who affect ...both internal (i.e. other employees) and external (i.e., customers) stakeholders through their interactions. The study draws on cognitive psychology and social identity theory to develop and empirically test an integrated model of antecedents and consequences of employee‐based brand equity (EBBE) that distinguishes between a cognitive and an affective route for its development via brand knowledge and brand identification respectively. The research extends the limited work on EBBE by examining how perceptions of employees about their supervisors' brand leadership behaviors and their supervisors' focus on their subordinates significantly drive employees' responses to the internal brand. The proposed model also highlights the significant role of EBBE vis‐à‐vis two citizenship behaviors, namely brand value dissemination and customer orientation.
This study advances current knowledge by examining how employee deviance and customer participation during a single employee-customer exchange generate favourable customer responses. This work ...bridges the employee deviance stream with the service encounter literature and illustrates the importance of equity theory in deviant service exchanges between customers and employees. Moreover, results add to the ongoing debate on service nepotism by canvassing the consequences from the customer's active participation in deviant exchanges which appears to enhance customer perceptions of the exchange. A 3 × 2 between-subjects experimental design was adopted which manipulates three types of pro-customer deviance along with customer's participation (or not) to the exchange. The dependent variables capture three types of perceived customer justice (cognitive outcomes) and customer's affective state (affective outcome). Findings illustrate that customers approve employees' deviance for their own benefit while also indicate favourable outcomes from deviant exchanges with employees such as higher perceived justice and a more positive affective state. The article concludes with a discussion of the theoretical and managerial implications, limitations and research directions that emerge from this study.
This work is a first attempt to explain the phenomenon of customer threats and identify the individual and situational factors that drive this phenomenon in tourism and hospitality. Towards this ...goal, one qualitative and two quantitative studies are employed. Study 1 conceptualizes customer threats by uncovering two of the most common forms of verbal threats (i.e., threat to switch and threat to negative word of mouth) and their distinctive features as well as customers’ motivations behind them, and some situational conditions that favor the enactment of customer threats. Using a survey-based approach, study 2 sheds light on three incident-specific drivers (i.e., psychological reactance, rumination, and justice perceptions) of the two main forms of customer threats. Finally, using an experimental approach, study 3 assesses the effectiveness of two service recovery strategies (self-service recovery vs. human-based recovery) at mitigating customer threats following service failure incidents.
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