In services research, little attention has been devoted to long-term intrinsic personality traits. Long-term personality traits predict short-term affective states and thus understanding them is important from a service standpoint. Further, identifying long-term personality traits facilitates the targeting of customers who are predisposed to evaluate services in a positive manner. This study focuses on one long-term affective trait, happiness, and examines its impact on service evaluation and commitment, as it has been shown that the level of happiness affects whether people perceive life events, both great and small, in a positive or negative manner. Three studies were conducted to research the issue. The first study shows that customers who are happier evaluate service quality in utilitarian services in a more positive manner than do customers who are less happy. The second study shows that for hedonic services, involvement serves as an antecedent to perceived service quality; happier customers are also more involved in hedonic services, and thus perceive service quality in a more positive manner. Study 3 examines the link between happiness and commitment and shows that customers who are happier are also more prone to be committed to hedonic services. These results contribute to the marketing literature Psychology & Marketing, Vol. 28(9): 934-957 (September 2011) View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/mar

PurposeService scholars have questioned the usefulness of the concept of tangibility/intangibility as a characteristic of services for two reasons: first, it is ambiguous and does not differentiate between services and goods; and second, because all offerings, despite their characteristics, render service to customers. Consequently, scholars have suggested discarding the concept altogether. The purpose of this paper is to subject the concept to critical evaluation and argue that tangibility/intangibility is useful, because it influences consumers' experiences with offerings. In this paper, the authors argue that it is necessary to re‐conceptualise tangibility/intangibility to overcome the previous critique.Design/methodology/approachThe authors draw upon empirical research from the service marketing and psychology literature in order to advance knowledge on the nature of tangibility/intangibility and its influence on the formation of consumer experiences.FindingsIt is proposed that tangibility/intangibility should be investigated from a consumer perspective, rather than an inherent characteristic in offerings. Also, it is shown that the concept is relevant for understanding consumer experience formation at different stages of the purchase process.Originality/valueThe paper provides propositions on the conceptualization of tangibility/intangibility and its relationship with pre‐, ongoing use and post‐purchase consumer experiences. The authors call for caution in dismissing tangibility/intangibility as a concept in the service marketing literature.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine women’s reactions to celebrity endorsers holding positive and negative public images and the consequences for purchase intentions of the endorsed product. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws on the social comparison literature and applies the theory of upward and downward comparisons to the celebrity endorsement context. Findings Study 1 shows that exposure to celebrities holding a positive public image decrease consumers’ temporal self-esteem, while celebrities holding a negative public image increase temporal self-esteem. Study 2 suggests that this change in self-esteem transfers to the product depending upon the type of social comparison focus (similarity vs dissimilarity) which people have. Study 3 shows that for consumers low in true self-esteem, i.e. self-esteem based upon a stable foundation, celebrities holding a positive public image decrease purchase intentions. For consumers high in true self-esteem, there was no difference between exposure to celebrities holding a positive and a negative public image for purchase intentions. Study 4 focused on replicating the results found in Studies 1-3 in the context of an achievement celebrity (as opposed to a regular celebrity). The findings in Study 4 provide further support for the results of Studies 1 and 3, and identify expert celebrities as a boundary condition for the effects found in Study 2. Practical implications The results provide evidence suggesting that celebrities holding a negative public image can be used as celebrity endorsers in product categories in which it can be considered helpful to protect women’s self-esteem, such as beauty products or self-expressive products. Originality/value This research contributes to the literature on celebrity endorsement by adding a boundary condition for the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement. According to the results, choosing a positive celebrity can, for some groups, have negative effects on purchase intensions and that a negative celebrity might be the safer choice.

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Previous research has argued that in order to become happier, consumers should prefer experiences over material objects. However, this experience recommendation is based upon measures of short-term happiness. In two empirical studies, we test the experience recommendation for both short-as well as long-term happiness. In line with previous results, it was found that the experience recommendation holds for short-term happiness but data did not support the superiority of the experience recommendation for long-term happiness. More specifically, it was documented that adding a material component to the experience had the best effect upon long-term happiness.