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Dressing formally or informally as an academic may be a trade-off when it comes to managing impressions towards students, but the extant body of literature remains limited with only mixed results. This research is the first focussed investigation to examine the effects of academic dress formality on the 'big two' of impression formation, perceptions of warmth and competence. In a series of three controlled laboratory experiments (total N = 1361), we find dress formality to increase perceptions of competence but to decrease perceptions of warmth, which leads to 'downstream' effects on students' evaluations of instructors and behavioural intentions to enrol in a course. Furthermore, we demonstrate that perceptions of competence may be subject to other information cues (success communication and discipline norms) that can mitigate negative effects associated with dress informality. Implications for higher education practitioners are provided.

The theory of the post-emotional-self and post-emotional society proposes that the industrialized world has become a post-emotional society in which emotion has become separated from action and feeling. If this were the case, then the language used over time should reflect a change from actual emotions, inner feelings, and sensitivities, to outer directed signals designed to influence and manipulate. To test this hypothesis, we analyze the text of almost a quarter of a century of 10-K reports – detailed, objective records of financial performance, filed annually by a publicly traded company. The textual analysis approach we employ is that of Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC). This considers language in terms of analytical thinking, clout, authenticity, and tone. Our findings largely confirm the rise of the post-emotional society and offer intriguing insights into the direction of how language is changing. Implications for the theory and practice of public relations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wine, a product steeped in tradition and history, is often challenging for consumers to decipher due to its intricate characteristics. Appealing to non-wine connoisseurs to break into untapped market segments requires both innovation and creative thinking. To accomplish this, three wine brands utilized augmented reality (AR) technology to craft unique brand storytelling experiences that centered around the label, without focusing on physical product attributes, ultimately resonating with new market segments. This article explores the use cases of three wine brands; 19 Crimes, Barefoot, and Enosophia Wines, that employed AR technology as a form of disruptive rhetoric, to supplement their wine label storytelling. The study sheds light on how multisensory technology such as AR can be used to carve out new wine target markets and proposes an AR experience model with accompanying propositions outlining how the experiential realms can be leveraged to achieve key brand objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, the production and distribution of advertising material has relied on human effort and analog tools. However, technological innovations have given the advertising industry digital and automatic tools that enable advertisers to automate many advertising processes and produce "synthetic ads," or ads comprising content based on the artificial and automatic production and modification of data. The emerging practice of synthetic advertising, to date the most sophisticated form of ad manipulation, relies on various artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, such as deepfakes and generative adversarial networks (GANs), to automatically create content that depicts an unreal, albeit convincing, artificial version of reality. In this article, a general framework is constructed to better understand how consumers respond to all forms of ad manipulation. It is anticipated that this article will help explain how consumers respond to the more sophisticated forms of synthetic ads—such as deepfakes—that are emerging at an accelerating rate. To guide research in this area, a research agenda is developed focusing on three manipulated advertising areas: ad falsity, consumer response, and originality. Furthermore, the implications for theory and industry are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]