No abstract

Established brands endeavor to extend their products into new categories to grab market share and benefit from the positive spillover effect. The "fit" between extension products and their parent brands is a critical challenge companies face when launching a new product in a new product category, which is very different from the category served by the parent brand. A potential clue influencing consumers' perceived fit and attitudes towards extension products is the nondiagnostic haptic cues in touch environments. Thus, this study predicts that soft perception elicits more favorable attitudes towards extension product through attitude certainty and perceived fit than hard haptic perception. It develops a conceptual framework to anticipate that not all extension product judgements are equally affected by nondiagnostic haptic cues. Consumers' attitudes are less affected by nondiagnostic haptic cues when the extension product is from a close brand extension. The study examined the conceptual framework of four studies. Results of this work have many implications for package and offline stores design while contributing to the research in brand extension, cognition, and embodiment.

Nowadays, with the rapid development of the platform economy, Big Data-based Discriminatory Pricing (BDDP) has become a common phenomenon in which big data and algorithms are applied to excessively seize consumer surplus and thus damage the rights and interests of consumers. This work aims to explore the equilibrium strategies of the consumers, the government, and the service platform and discuss factors affecting the BDDP practice of the service platforms. This study constructs a tripartite evolutionary game model among consumers, service platforms, and the government. Two evolutionary equilibrium strategies are derived and validated using simulation. Numerical experiments are conducted using MATLAB to reveal players’ evolutionary stability strategies under various settings. The study shows that (1) the strategies of the government and the platform always influence each other, (2) a reasonable adjustment of tax rate helps regulate the platform’s behavior, and (3) the proportion of consumers who switch the platform after they realize themselves suffering BDDP is an important factor influencing platform’s strategy. This study lastly summarizes the managerial insights for dealing with the platform’s BDDP behavior and safeguarding consumers’ rights from the perspectives of macro-regulation and privacy data protection. The conclusions of this study can help promote the high-quality development of the platform economy.

Visual symbols, such as logos, landmark pictures, and mascots, play a significant role in attracting tourists and improving destination images. However, only a few studies have examined how the basic visual elements of these symbols influence potential tourists’ responses to a destination. This study aims to investigate the role of color lightness in destination visual symbols. Through three experiments, we repeatedly found that lightened visual symbols nudged consumers to evaluate their destination better. Furthermore, positive mental imagery mediated this effect. Nonetheless, the positive effect of lightened visual symbols on destination images was diminished when informational interventions were present. Our study provides new theoretical insights into destination images research by highlighting the positive effect of a fundamental visual attribute—symbol lightness. We suggest that tourism practitioners can make a “big difference” to the destination image by making “small changes,” such as adjusting visual symbol lightness.