Although brand authenticity is gaining increasing interest in consumer behavior research and managerial practice, literature on its measurement and contribution to branding theory is still limited. This article develops an integrative framework of the concept of brand authenticity and reports the development and validation of a scale measuring consumers' perceived brand authenticity (PBA). A multi-phase scale development process resulted in a 15-item PBA scale measuring four dimensions: credibility, integrity, symbolism, and continuity. This scale is reliable across different brands and cultural contexts. We find that brand authenticity perceptions are influenced by indexical, existential, and iconic cues, whereby some of the latters' influence is moderated by consumers' level of marketing skepticism. Results also suggest that PBA increases emotional brand attachment and word-of-mouth, and that it drives brand choice likelihood through self-congruence for consumers high in self-authenticity.

Sharing instead of buying is regaining traction among today's consumers. This study aims at identifying segments of sharing consumers to unearth potentially viable clusters of a consumer behavior that is a market of growing economic relevance. By means of a qualitative study and a survey with a roughly representative sample of 1121 Swiss‐German and German consumers, a set of trait‐related, motivational, and perceived socioeconomic variables is identified that can be used to group individuals into segments that differ with regard to their approach to sharing. A cluster analysis based on these variables suggests four potential clusters of sharing consumers—sharing idealists, sharing opponents, sharing pragmatists, and sharing normatives. Two sets of testable propositions are derived that can guide further research in this domain and pave the way to a more targeted approach to the growing market of “sharing” businesses.

Research on the effects of ethical attributes has recently gained traction. However, limited research has addressed consumer response to ethical attributes in the current context where product ratings have become of primary importance to make decisions. Specifically, this study examines the relative effect of ethical attributes on product evaluations across different product ratings. Building on cue consistency theory and the negativity bias, we suggest that ethical attributes gain weight when consumers evaluate a low-rated product. This process leads consumers to anticipate more warm-glow feelings, generating better evaluations for such low-rated products featuring an ethical attribute (vs. another type of attribute). Two experiments provide consistent empirical support for this prediction, and demonstrate that, compared to other attributes or no attribute, an ethical attribute increases product evaluations to a larger extent when the product received low (vs. higher) ratings. We show that this effect occurs because of warm-glow feelings: when product ratings are low, consumers anticipate more warm-glow feelings from purchasing a product with an ethical attribute (vs. another type of attribute), leading to better product evaluations. These findings have direct managerial and ethical implications for practitioners.

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