• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.97-115
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• 2013

This paper was motivated by two gaps in the extant literature on brand portfolio planning. First, research has shown that, as the number of products connected to a brand increases, the extended product receives more favorable evaluations. However, this result was obtained by comparing two brands with different number of products while controlling the brands' breadths. Hence one may question if the above result would hold when the brand is narrow as well as broad. Second, the literature has investigated the effect of brand breadth on the perceived fit and evaluations of an extended product within a relatively limited range ("narrow vs. broad") and not considered the case of a "very broad" brand. To address these gaps, we propose two hypotheses: 1) the effects of the number of products associated with a brand on the perceived fit and evaluations of a moderately far brand extension are moderated by the brand's breadth (H1); and 2) the relationship between a brand's breadth and a moderately far extension's perceived fit and evaluations looks like an inverse-U shape (H2). Study 1 was conducted to test H1. Study 1 employed a 2 × 2 within-subjects design in which the first factor was the number of products (small (2) or large (5)), and the second factor was brand breadth (narrow or broad). We measured brand breadth as the perceived similarity among products associated with a brand. Participants provided the perceived fit and evaluations of an extended product. Study 2 was conducted to test H2 as well as to replicate Study 1 in a more general setting and with different products. It employed a 2 × 3 within-subjects design, in which the first factor was the number of products (small (2) or large (5)), and the second factor was brand breadth (narrow, broad, or very broad). The results from two experiments support both hypotheses. This paper contributes to the literature on brand extensions in two ways. First, it broadens our understanding of the effects of product number and brand breadth on extended product evaluations by considering the two factors jointly. Second, we believe this study to be the first to present evidence that brand breadth can exert an inverted U-shape effect on the perceived fit and evaluations of an extended product. The results also offer implications for marketers. First, marketers should heed the finding that adding similar products to a narrow brand does not help the brand's extension launch. Second, the finding that the relationship between brand breadth and extended product evaluations might not be linear provides practical implications. While a narrow brand should not keep launching close extensions, nor should a broad brand continue producing far extensions to broaden its breadth. A firm with a broad corporate or family brand might want to consider introducing a new brand instead of adding dissimilar products under the brand umbrella.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.99-111
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• 2014

This study looked into the scarcity effect based on the consumers' self-regulatory modes and determined the effect that such a regulatory mode and that quantity-scarcity messages would have on evaluations of fashion products. To that end, the study used a 2 (regulatory mode: assessment mode/locomotion mode)${\times}2$ (message type: quantity-scarcity message/non-scarcity message) between-subjects factorial design in which buying impulsiveness was presented as a mediator variable that showed differences in product evaluations depending on the message type and on the presence of a self-regulatory mode. The results of this study showed that locomotion-oriented consumers evaluated products more positively compared to assessment-oriented consumers when the quantity-scarcity message was presented. When a non-scarcity message was presented, no significant difference was observed in product evaluations based on the consumers' self-regulatory modes. In addition, buying impulsiveness in consumers served a mediator role in the evaluations of fashion products. The results of this study imply that a clear understanding of consumers is a prerequisite for maximizing the scarcity effect and that companies need to differentiate in terms of the way they use scarcity messages based on consumers' self-regulatory modes.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.31 no.9_10
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• pp.1333-1341
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• 2007

The purposes of the present study were to investigate the impact of a apparel brand and an ingredient brand on evaluation(perceived quality, favorable attitude, purchase intention) of apparel products, and to examine the differences in evaluations toward apparel products allied with ingredient brands between groups divided by product knowledge and leisure involvement. The subjects were 235 men and women aged 20 to 40. Two-by-two factorial design were employed. A series of ANOVA were used to determine if significant differences existed in evaluations of apparel products. There was a significant interaction effect of an apparel brand and an ingredient brand on evaluations of apparel products. Empirical results showed that ingredient brands would improve the consumers' perceived quality, favorable attitude and purchase intention toward apparel products. In addition, the results indicated that the respondents that had high leisure involvement and high product knowledge were more likely to evaluate apparel products based on the ingredient brand of the products. However, the respondents that had low leisure involvement and product knowledge were more likely to evaluate apparel products based on the host brand of the products.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.63-82
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• 2016

Individuals gather information online to resolve problems in their daily lives and make various decisions about the purchase of products or services. With the revolutionary development of information technology, Web 2.0 has allowed more people to easily generate and use online reviews such that the volume of information is rapidly increasing, and the usefulness and significance of analyzing the unstructured data have also increased. This paper presents an analysis on the lexical features of expert product reviews to determine their influence on consumers' purchasing decisions. The focus was on how unstructured data can be organized and used in diverse contexts through text mining. In addition, diverse lexical features of expert reviews of contents provided by a third-party review site were extracted and defined. Expert reviews are defined as evaluations by people who have expert knowledge about specific products or services in newspapers or magazines; this type of review is also called a critic review. Consumers who purchased products before the widespread use of the Internet were able to access expert reviews through newspapers or magazines; thus, they were not able to access many of them. Recently, however, major media also now provide online services so that people can more easily and affordably access expert reviews compared to the past. The reason why diverse reviews from experts in several fields are important is that there is an information asymmetry where some information is not shared among consumers and sellers. The information asymmetry can be resolved with information provided by third parties with expertise to consumers. Then, consumers can read expert reviews and make purchasing decisions by considering the abundant information on products or services. Therefore, expert reviews play an important role in consumers' purchasing decisions and the performance of companies across diverse industries. If the influence of qualitative data such as reviews or assessment after the purchase of products can be separately identified from the quantitative data resources, such as the actual quality of products or price, it is possible to identify which aspects of product reviews hamper or promote product sales. Previous studies have focused on the characteristics of the experts themselves, such as the expertise and credibility of sources regarding expert reviews; however, these studies did not suggest the influence of the linguistic features of experts' product reviews on consumers' overall evaluation. However, this study focused on experts' recommendations and evaluations to reveal the lexical features of expert reviews and whether such features influence consumers' overall evaluations and purchasing decisions. Real expert product reviews were analyzed based on the suggested methodology, and five lexical features of expert reviews were ultimately determined. Specifically, the "review depth" (i.e., degree of detail of the expert's product analysis), and "lack of assurance" (i.e., degree of confidence that the expert has in the evaluation) have statistically significant effects on consumers' product evaluations. In contrast, the "positive polarity" (i.e., the degree of positivity of an expert's evaluations) has an insignificant effect, while the "negative polarity" (i.e., the degree of negativity of an expert's evaluations) has a significant negative effect on consumers' product evaluations. Finally, the "social orientation" (i.e., the degree of how many social expressions experts include in their reviews) does not have a significant effect on consumers' product evaluations. In summary, the lexical properties of the product reviews were defined according to each relevant factor. Then, the influence of each linguistic factor of expert reviews on the consumers' final evaluations was tested. In addition, a test was performed on whether each linguistic factor influencing consumers' product evaluations differs depending on the lexical features. The results of these analyses should provide guidelines on how individuals process massive volumes of unstructured data depending on lexical features in various contexts and how companies can use this mechanism from their perspective. This paper provides several theoretical and practical contributions, such as the proposal of a new methodology and its application to real data.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.407-416
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• 1998

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of brand knowledge on evaluations of brand extensions in fashion market. Here, consumer knowledge toward the parent brand was based on the brand and on the company which introduced the brand. The brand extensions were classified into brand-name extension and corporate-name extension. For this study, questionnaires were administered to 700 single women in twenties. The questionnaires were designed to measure brand extension evaluations and brand knowledge in terms of familiarity, use experience and self-assessed knowledge, evaluations of the attributes and attitudes based on the brand and corporate. Employing a sample of 621 women, data were analyzed by t-test. Major findings of this study are summarized as follows; 1) The higher the level of brand knowledge such as brand familiarity, brand use experience and self-assessed brand knoil- edge was, the higher positive effects were on the evaluations of brand-name extension. Also, evaluations of brand attributes and brand attitude positively influenced the evaluations of brand-name extension. 2) The higher the level of corporate knowledge such as corporate familiarity and use experience of product manufactured by the company was, the higher positive effects were on the evaluations of corporate-name extension. Also, evaluations of corporate attributes and attitude on corporate positively influenced the evaluations of corporate-name extension. These results demonstrate that positive knowledges and affects on the parent brand are transferred to its extended product through categorization process.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.83-95
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• 2022

Purpose - With the recent spread of COVID-19, U.S. consumers' consumption pattern is changing towards purchasing large-capacity products, as they stay at home longer. Thus, the current research investigates the effects of box shape and component diversity for large-sized products on product evaluation in logistic business. Moreover, this research examines that information-processing fluency mediates the moderating effects of box shape and product components on target evaluations to confirm psychological mechanism for generating this effect. Design/methodology - In order to examine the hypotheses, the current research conducts two online experiments. The 184 participants (Study 1), and 205 participants (Study 2) of U.S. nationality were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk. This research analyzes the data by using SPSS 25 and PROCESS macro 4.0. Findings - Study 1 demonstrates that when the height of a box is greater than its width, products with single components promote positive target evaluations, while when the width of box is greater than its height, products with a variety of components lead to positive target evaluations. Study 2 shows that the same results are replicated in other product categories and with different box shape ratios. Moreover, Study 2 also finds that the ease of information processing mediates the interaction effects of box shape and component diversity on U.S. consumers' target evaluations. Originality/value - The current research has originality in that it investigates the effect of box shape and product composition diversity on U.S. consumer product evaluation from the perspective of information-processing theory Moreover, this research has practical implications for global traders who prepare for entering the U.S. market.

• Human Ecology Research
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.455-472
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• 2013

This paper's aim is to explore how China's country image affects the product evaluations and purchase intentions through three major hypothesize. Four hundred eighty-nine Korean adult consumers, who have the purchase experiences of goods made in China before, were invited to take part in this investigation. Data analyses were conducted by reliability test, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling with SPSS ver. 19.0 and AMOS ver. 18.0. This study focused on multi-dimensional country image and found that China's country image contains 5 elements (people, evolution, politic, economic and culture). Empirical verification through structural equation modeling indicates that the data offer substantial supports, such that China's country image represents the predominant influence on product evaluations and people, evolution, and politic image showed positive effects. Also, China's country image has a positive influence on the product purchase intentions directly (culture image) and indirectly (people, politics, and evolution image) through the product evaluations. Practical implications of findings will be discussed and suggested as follows. First, this study complements the lack of researches on China among the studies regarding country image. Secondly, research results would help us to understand the perception on China's country image of Korean consumers' and to seek the criteria by which consumers evaluate goods made in China. Finally, this research can help Chinese companies to make market strategies effectively when they entering Korean market by exploring the factors which have strong influences on Korean consumers' purchase behaviors.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.27-37
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• 2016

This study examined consumer perceptions towards outdoor wear differentiation and product attributes for outdoor wear differentiation to develop an outdoor wear differentiation strategy. It also investigated how consumer's evaluated product attributes according to consumer's demographic characteristics. Data were acquired from a survey of 454 adult respondents aged over 20 that was analyzed with descriptives, frequency, t-test, one-way ANOVA, factor analysis, and reliability. The results were as follows. First, it showed that consumers did not have a positive or a negative perception toward outdoor wear differentiation, and they thought outdoor wear should be differentiated. Those married and older tended to think that outdoor wear should be differentiated more than that for those single and younger. Consumer evaluations were significantly different on the necessity of outdoor wear differentiation according to age and total income. Second, consumers assessed that color, pattern and textiles had similar characteristics among outdoor wear brands; in addition, brand recognition and brand image had very different characteristics. Third, product attributes for outdoor wear differentiation were service and store, product quality, brand and popularity, and product designs with mean values of product quality, product design, service and store, and brand and popularity, respectively. Fourth, consumers were significantly different in the importance assessment of product attributes for differentiation according to gender, marital status and age.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.25-43
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• 2017

This paper addresses the central issue of whether it is effective for a firm to discourage the purchase of its own product in order to support a social cause. The objectives of this study were: a) to examine whether a cause-related self-prevention ad would stimulate more positive evaluations compared to promotional ad, particularly when the product category is more negatively socially accepted; and 2) to determine if a negative attitude toward the product could induce a boomerang effect of a selfprevention ad. Results from three experiments revealed that socially responsible prevention campaigns against firm's own product may be more effective for the product category negatively associated with social concerns or welfare. If products are more limited in the social context, communications of product prevention are beneficial to improve the public image of the brand. However, the self-hurting approach may be inappropriate for potential customers who currently possess a strong negative attitude toward the product.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.148-158
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• 2020

With the limited product information available in the m-shopping context, product-naming strategies affect consumer choices by expressing the key product features or the brand's images. Given the increasing dominance of the mobile commerce in consumption across various product categories, few studies have examined the role of product naming in consumer choices in the m-shopping. In filling the research gap, this study empirically analyzes the influence of the perceived diagnosticity of product names in m-shopping on consumer attitude towards the product. Moreover, the study tests the moderating influences of the individual characteristics of consumers (i.e., age, gender, and m-shopping experience) in the dynamics of the perceived diagnosticity impacting the product evaluations. The results of the study using an online survey reveal that the perceived diagnosticity of the product names significantly increases consumer attitude towards the product. Additionally, the moderating effects of gender, age, and m-shopping experience are all found significant: (1) The positive influence of the perceived diagnosticity of the product names is greater for males than for females. (2) The older the respondent, the more statistically significant the positive influence on diagnosticity. (3) The more respondents having m-shopping experience, the more positive the impact of the diagnosticity. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed.