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Short-term rentals (STRs) are of great significance to the hospitality industry, but suffered heavy losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, how to increase individuals’ intention to book STRs has appeared as a major issue. This research responded to the issue from an emotional perspective by examining the fueling role of awe. Our hypotheses were tested through four experimental studies using various awe manipulations, divergent assessments of booking intention, involving samples from different sources, and testing participants both in laboratory and field settings. The results showed that participants exhibited a heightened booking intention in STRs after being primed with awe (vs. neutral emotion or happiness). Moreover, such occurrences of the phenomenon were revealed to be driven by social connectedness, and two alternative accounts were ruled out. Beyond theoretical contributions to the existing literature, our findings offered managers some insights into how to leverage individuals’ emotions in short-term rental marketing.

Given this backdrop, understanding how to achieve the effectiveness of health ads is of importance. To vividly show product efficacy, marketers attempt to exhibit the change that products bring. A change ad, which is widely used in the marketplace, is defined as an ad that shows the corresponding changes delivered by a health product (or service). A change ad can be classified as either a progression ad or a before/after ad (Cian et al., 2020). For instance, when highlighting the changes that occur after orthodontic treatment, a progression ad will present the state of the teeth that range from irregular (before) to slightly aligned (intermediate) and finally to perfectly aligned (after), while a before/ after ad will only compare irregularly aligned teeth (before) with perfectly aligned teeth (after). Other health persuasions (e.g., weight-loss programs, acne treatments, hair-growth treatments, and teeth-whitening products) could be also promoted through change ads to emphasize product efficacy.Recent research has documented that compared with before/after ads, progression ads are more likely to encourage consumers to engage in process simulation spontaneously and therefore make the ads more credible and persuasive (Cian et al., 2020). However, a particular type Siyun Chen and Sining Kou share the co-first authorship.

This study demonstrates a visual phenomenon in online product presentation: product size perception is influenced by the depth of field of the presentation image. Depth of field refers to how blurry or sharp the background around the focused subject is a shallow depth‐of‐field image result in a clear focused subject and a blurry background, while in a deep depth‐of‐field image, both the subject and the background are clear. One eye‐tracking study, three behavioral experiments, and one field study show that a shallow (vs. deep) depth‐of‐field product presentation (i.e., a clear product with a blurry background) increases consumers' product size perceptions. This effect is mediated by the greater attention allocated to the product and is moderated by product familiarity. Specifically, when product familiarity is low, consumer attention mediates the significant effect of depth of field on product size perception. However, when product familiarity is high, the effects of depth of field and consumer attention decrease. The current research contributes to the previous research on product presentation and product size perception by investigating the effect of a novel factor, the depth of field, on consumers' estimations of product size. Overall, the findings encourage online retailers to carefully adapt the depth of field technique in their product presentation according to their objectives (e.g., attract consumers' interest vs. provide accurate information) and consumers' familiarity with their products.