Search

Firms often emphasize "green" benefits for products that are only partially more sustainable than alternatives (e.g., a more sustainable packaging with similar product ingredients). The current article posits that such strategies can lead to a perceived claim–fact discrepancy and examines to what extent this makes consumers feel deceived and detracts from attitudes and purchase intentions, even though consumers can intrinsically value the (partial) sustainability improvements. In addition, given that marketing communication often relies on puffery such as exaggerated language and (visual) hyperbole, the article also investigates the effect of the use of puffery versus more subdued claims. Findings from two experiments unveil that when the actual sustainability of packaged products is (partially) discrepant with an overt sustainability claim, this leads to higher perceived deception. The use of puffery has both pros and cons, such that it adds to perceived sustainability but also to perceived deception, and it moderates the effects of actual sustainability. Furthermore, the results provide initial support for the idea that sustainability improvements in only peripheral attributes (packaging) are perceived as more deceptive than sustainability improvements in only central attributes (product contents). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, marketing education has broadened to poor people in developing and emerging countries. In this article, the authors use four empirical studies that apply well-established training design procedures to design a marketing training program for Ethiopian pastoralists. Because pastoralists operate in extremely remote, traditional, and sparsely populated regions of developing and emerging markets, the training complements trainings for the poor applied in urban areas of these countries. As such, the article provides implications for training program designers on how they can adapt the training program procedures to other contexts, thereby making marketing ideas accessible to a large and important new target group for marketing education.

International marketing literature suggests that through market learning, businesses develop market-valued capabilities that are the basis of their performance. Therefore, market learning is also of importance to producers at the base of the pyramid (BoP), whose ability to climb out of poverty often depends on the purchasing power of those in export markets. However, the ways in which BoP-producer-based export chains learn from foreign users of their products and incorporate these insights into their decisions are not yet clear. Using case studies from Benin, the authors examine how market learning processes function in supply chains at the BoP. A cross-case comparison suggests that market connections are established when export market information is generated by formal-sector organizations and when such organizations establish formal ways of sharing information with BoP producers. The access to export markets becomes sustainable if formal institutions also support the use of information. The study has implications for procurement by exporters and for pro-poor development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internally regulated eating style, the eating style that is driven by internal bodily sensations of hunger and satiation, is a concept that has received increasing attention in the literature and health practice over the last decades. The various attempts that have been made so far to conceptualise internally regulated eating have taken place independently of one another, and each sheds light on only parts of the total picture of what defines internally regulated eating. This has resulted in a literature that is rather fragmented. More importantly, it is not yet clear which are the characteristics that comprise this eating style. In this paper, we identify and describe the full spectrum of these characteristics, namely, sensitivity to internal hunger and satiation signals, self-efficacy in using internal hunger and satiation signals, self-trusting attitude for the regulation of eating, relaxed relationship with food and tendency to savour the food while eating. With this research, we introduce a common language to the field and we present a new theoretical framework that does justice not just to the full breadth of characteristics that are necessary for the internally regulated eating style but also to the associations between them and the potential mechanisms by which they contribute to this eating style. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insights into how consumer attitudes toward nanotechnology are formed and develop are crucial for understanding and anticipating possible barriers in consumer acceptance of nanotechnology applications. In this study, the influence of affect and cognition on overall opinion is investigated longitudinally for emerging nanotechnologies, and compared with conventional technologies. Overall, in attitude formation toward nanotechnology applications, people rely relatively more on affect than cognition. Over time, reliance on affect decreases whereas reliance on cognition increases for nanotechnology. This suggests that over time nanotechnology applications have become somewhat more integrated within people’s already existing knowledge structure. However, for conventional technologies the influence of affect and cognition on overall attitude remains stable over time. The current study shows that it is essential to address both affective and cognitive aspects of public opinion of nanotechnology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]