Sean Sands

Swinburne University of Technology

Recent years have seen increased calls for marketers to embrace diversity and emphasise inclusivity, allowing brands to communicate with audiences more authentically. Such calls have spanned brand communications, advertising, social media and the like. Simultaneously, there has been a rise in virtual environments (i.e. virtual reality and the metav...

Rapid advances in AI technology have important implications for, and effects on, brands and advertisers. Increasingly, brands are creating digital models to showcase clothing and accessories in a similar way to human models, with AI used to customize various body types, ages, sizes, and skin tones. However, little is known about how the underrepres...

In this article we develop a comprehensive understanding of diverse representation in advertising. While numerous studies highlight increasing demand for diversity among some consumers, such enthusiasm is not universal. This is creating challenges for brands, some of which have faced backlash, either due to a perceived lack of authenticity in their...

The substantial growth of e‐commerce sales, driven by digital advancements, has enticed brands to sell direct‐to‐consumers (DTC) online. Despite the growth of the DTC online retail model in practice, academic literature remains fragmented. This systematic review is timely as it meets the need for a comprehensive understanding of the evolution of DT...

Purpose Although saving for retirement is critical, many people are reluctant to contribute money now in anticipation of a future event, namely their retirement. This study aims to investigate the interaction effect between message frame and message appeal on individual preparedness for retirement, specifically in terms of an individual’s willingne...

Many luxury brands are investing heavily in creating dynamic video content to actively engage consumers. While it is straightforward to calculate the views or “likes” from a particular campaign to benchmark performance, analyzing consumers' comments on luxury brands' dynamic video content presents a challenge due to the unstructured nature of natur...

Cancellations, often referred to derogatively as "cancel culture", are becoming increasingly pervasive in public discourse, political debate, and the marketing field. Cancellations pose a clear threat to established market actors and have the potential to re-organize institutional structures. However, empirical work investigating this phenomenon is...

Today's marketers are increasingly faced with the need to collect and interpret data to aid firm strategic decision making. At the same time, there has been an explosion of text-based data and numerous advances in big data that enable marketers to mine the collection and aggregation of text. However, for many marketers there is a need to better und...

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is ubiquitous in today’s public discourse, underpinned by societal recognition of inequality and demands for less discrimination. Further, DEI is increasingly serving as a resource for brands to express their identity and align with consumer values. However, implementing DEI as a brand management strategy requ...

In recent years, marketers have placed increased reliance upon artificial intelligence (AI) and, subsequently, the use of virtual agents in customer service contexts is on the rise. Despite such service digitalization, service can still fail. While there is an increasing literature on the effect of virtual agents in service settings, questions rema...

Influencer marketing has become a dominant and targeted means for brands to connect with consumers, but it also brings risks associated with influencer transgression and reputation damage. In recent years, virtual influencers have gained popularity and given rise to falsity, or artificially created and manipulated influencers that are revolutionizi...

Research has shown that customer engagement contributes positively to competitive advantage. It is well-established that in the process of building and maintaining customer engagement, companies may make mistakes (service failures) that can jeopardise the success of customer-firm relationships. Studies on customer engagement have mostly focused on...

This article explores how firms, through characteristics of physical environments, can inspire consumers to engage in creating and posting environment-cued indirect advertising, or what is commonly known as “Instagramming.” The first study is used to qualitatively understand what makes an environment “Instagrammable” from the designer perspective....

Purpose Increasingly, retailers are adopting technologies such as augmented reality (AR) as tools to enhance the customer experience. However, little is known about consumers' differing attitudes towards AR. The aim of this study is to explore how consumers differ in terms of the value they receive from using AR, as well as the trade-offs they expe...

Marketing plays a critical role in addressing macro‐level societal problems, one of which relates to the reduction of meat consumption and increased consumption of alternative proteins. Such consumption practices are gaining attention given the rising concerns about food sustainability, safety, security, nutrition, and animal welfare. This paper pr...

Purpose This research explores anticipated long-term change in the retail and services marketplace, directly arising as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach A series of 20 in-depth interviews were conducted with retail and service stakeholders (executives, suppliers and thought-leaders) from across Asia-Pacific (New Zeala...

Purpose This paper aims to examine how consumers respond to social media influencers that are created through artificial intelligence (AI) and compares effects to traditional (human) influencers. Design/methodology/approach Across two empirical studies, the authors examine the efficacy of AI social media influencers. With Study 1, the authors esta...

Brands are increasingly seeking ways to engage consumers in deep and meaningful brand experiences. As technological advances have developed, brands have an increasing arsenal to draw on in creating brand experience. One increasingly common tactic is product customization, whereby consumers are provided the ability to create their own products from...

Traditionally, advertising relies on creativity to increase its effectiveness. However, little is known about the use of creativity in negatively-valenced situations. For instance, in times of crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, how should retailers engage in advertising? Should they strive to deliver creative advertising, or not? We investigate...

Consumer data is a crucial resource for retailers. Yet accessing this data increasingly requires consumers to willingly participate in data exchange. This paper draws on social exchange theory and privacy calculus to investigate differences in consumer willingness to exchange data with retailers. Consumers are also profiled on their perceptions of...

Ephemeral social media is growing in popularity and brands are increasingly using this method to engage with and advertise to consumers. Yet, little research attention has been paid to how consumers perceive and retain social media content, particularly marketing communications, when they are aware it will disappear. Across five studies we find tha...

Despite its benefits, the online environment fosters darker consumer behaviours including conflict, revenge, and aggression. Trolling has recently entered the marketing lexicon and poses a substantial threat for consumers and brands. However, current understandings of trolling are limited by a lack of empirical research, and a focus on undiscernibl...

Traditionally, the production and distribution of advertising material has relied on human effort and analog tools. However, technological innovations have given the advertising industry the digital and automatic tools enabling advertisers to automate much of the advertising processes, and produce "synthetic ads," or ads comprising content based on...

As government-mandated lockdowns and steep declines in trade set in as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, a common theme became apparent in the advertising of the time: it was all the same. Regardless of the product category or brand personality, many ads were remarkably similar, beginning with melancholy music, voiceovers reminding the audience th...

On-the-go (OTG) consumption is a growing phenomenon in the food and beverage industry. Drawing on the theory of consumption values, this study is conducted to acquire a better understanding of the influence that retail-mix elements have on OTG consumption outcomes. Specifically, this study examines the role of value for money, customer service, gen...

Drawing on cultural branding research, we examine how brands can craft national identity. We do so with reference to how brands enabled New Zealand’s displaced Pākehā (white) majority to carve out a sense of we-ness against the backdrop of globalization and resurgent indigenous identity claims. Using multiple sources of ethnographic data, we develo...

Many retailers seek growth by strategically enabling a category captain to manage a category on their behalf. Past research assesses the efficacy of category captaincy from a retailer perspective, with results showing effective categorycaptain arrangements depend on the respective abilities of actors to effectively operate in such a network structu...

Purpose For consumers, cross-channel behaviour is increasingly prevalent. Such behaviour involves consumers actively engaging in (and deriving benefit) from one channel during a product search but switching to another channel when making a purchase. Drawing on multi-attribute utility theory, this study proposes a cross-channel behaviour typology co...

This article demonstrates the value of brands employing the use dark stories. Dark stories, also referred to as ‘grotesque’ stories, are created by using shocking, disgusting, or deviant imagery. This paper operationalizes dark storytelling and takes initial steps in scale creation, validating a preliminary three-item scale for the construct. In an...

Purpose This paper investigates the degree to which self-selection explains the apparent higher purchase value of research shoppers. Design/methodology/approach An online survey was administered to 594 retail shoppers. The purchase value of research shoppers and single-channel shoppers was compared before and after propensity score matching to acc...

Purpose This paper develops a generalizable, machine-learning-based method for measuring established marketing constructs using passive analysis of consumer-generated textual data from service reviews. The method is demonstrated using topic and sentiment analysis along dimensions of an existing scale: lodging quality index (LQI). Design/methodolog...

Sharing platforms are becoming increasingly common, transforming how organisations and customers interact across diverse categories. While there is clear demand for the sharing economy, less is known about heterogeneity of consumer preferences and the varying demand that exists for sharing experiences across different categories of consumption. In...

Many firms, including Amazon and IKEA, utilise augmented reality (AR) technology to enhance the consumer experience. In the retail industry, AR is gaining increasing traction as a means of improving the customer experience overall. In this research, we conduct an exploratory analysis to determine whether AR contributes positively or otherwise to cu...

Increasingly, many brands are handing over to consumers the control of the design process, allowing for the customization of products, experiences, and services. While there is a clear demand for customization, the general assumption is that such demand is homogeneous among consumers. We propose that heterogeneity exists in consumer demand for cust...

Purpose Brands are increasingly considering the use of chatbots to supplement, or even replace, humans in service interactions. Like humans, chatbots can follow certain service scripts in their encounters, which can subsequently determine the customer experience. Service scripts are verbal prescriptions that seek to standardize customer service int...

Service that falls below customer expectations is framed as a service failure. While many researchers have investigated service failures, they have tended to focus on large service failures. This is likely because large failures are more noticeable by firms and more likely to prompt customer complaints than small failures. However, we argue that sm...

Purpose Increasingly, customers are demanding products that fit their individual needs. Many firms respond by cultivating product individualization via mass customization, often integrating this capability via interactive platforms that connect them with customers. Despite such customization, research to date has lacked cohesion, often taking the o...

Shopping well-being has become a topic of interest in retail defining the contribution of the shopping activity to life satisfaction. However, little is known about how it may benefit consumers or retailers. This paper examines shopping well-being by assessing the role of consumer decision-making (CDM) styles. Based on a large-scale survey of consu...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is at the forefront of a revolution in business and society. AI affords companies a host of ways to better understand, predict, and engage customers. Within marketing, AI’s adoption is increasing year-on-year and in varied contexts, from providing service assistance during customer interactions to assisting in the ident...

Purpose This paper aims to develop a novel and generalizable machine-learning based method of measuring established marketing constructs through passive analysis of consumer-generated textual data. The authors term this method scale-directed text analysis. Design/methodology/approach The method first develops a dictionary of words related to speci...

The consumption of on-the-go food and beverages is increasingly common among today's time-pressed consumers, yet it has not been thoroughly investigated. Drawing on behavioral decision theory, this research blended attitudinal and behavioral elements of decision-making to examine the heterogeneity of on-the-go consumption (OTG) preferences. Data fr...

Social media affords brands and users a variety of benefits. However, a recent stream of research identifies a multidimensional dark side to social media. We contribute to this growing body of research in four key ways. First, we empirically investigate user perceptions of the dark side of social media in terms of the risks proposed by Baccarella e...

Customers are critical actors in the service ecosystem, with their presence and interaction influencing service delivery and consumption. The interactions between customers in service settings can play an important role, with fellow customers having the potential to impact a focal customer's service experience, evaluations, and subsequent outcomes....

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the indirect relationship between dynamic capabilities (DCs) and organizational outcomes through matching and creating market change. In addition, the research aims to gain a deeper understanding of the role of marketing in DCs and to extend beyond a simplistic discussion of DCs by studying proactive...

Temporary retail activations have been increasingly adopted by brands as an innovative experiential marketing strategy to engage existing and new customers. Through a series of in-depth interviews with multiple-actors (agency executives, brand managers, and consumers), this study identifies divergences and commonalities in defining the concept of t...

Consumers may have a variety of reasons for using a retail brand's website, including browsing, purchasing, or browsing followed by purchasing. In this study we examine visits to three different retail websites to develop a typology of website visit behaviors and reveal factors that are associated with each visit type. We find four visit types that...

While store remodeling can increase customer sales, not all remodeling efforts are successful. In this study, two treatment stores from a large national retailer are matched with control stores in a field experiment. Even though the cost of remodeling the treatment stores was the same, and the remodeled stores had identical layout, color, furnishin...

Purpose This paper aims to use systems thinking, systems theory and Camillus’ framework for responding to wicked problems to provide social marketers with a theoretically based framework for approaching strategy formation for wicked problems. The paper treats fast fashion as an illustrative case and takes a step back from implementation to provide...

While bricks-and-mortar stores and the Internet are dominant retailing channels, mobile and social media have rapidly emerged and challenge traditional retail models and consumer behavior. However, researchers have yet to account for how consumers integrate mobile and social channels throughout the various stages of the buying process. Using Latent...

Second-hand consumption has been quietly undergoing a makeover in recent years. As part of this shift, the concept of shopping for second-hand goods has been redefined. In today's retail marketplace, a mix of thrift stores, high-end stores, and online retailers are recognising the value of second-hand and hosting flea markets or launching their own...

Belgium, a relatively small country, with roughly 10 million people ranks fifth in terms of wine importations with roughly 300 million bottles per year. As a result of a complex history and profound and ongoing political crisis, the country is mainly composed of two communities: the French speaking and the Dutch (Flemish) speaking. Despite the cult...

While recent years have seen an increased use of educational and entertaining events within the store environment, little seems known about how consumers value such events. This study investigates how the staging of education and entertainment-focused in-store events impacts on consumers’ value perceptions, arousal levels and store satisfaction. It...

Purpose - To understand how consumers may be segmented with respect to their reactions to social network marketing. Design/methodology/approach - We segment consumers on the basis of attitudes toward social network marketing and explore the association among psychological, economic, and socio-demographic covariates using data from 883 consumers an...

Environmentally conscious consumption is one of the key concerns in modern society generally, and increasingly among the consumer population. However, consumers often overstate their willingness to purchase environmentally conscious products, with global purchasing of these products relatively low. Much research has considered the role of drivers i...

For retailers, the adoption of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) can act as a source of differentiation and affect reputation, customer loyalty, and competitive advantage. Despite these potential benefits, there has been limited empirical investigation of CSR within the retailing literature. This paper proposes that for retailers to implement C...

Retailers find themselves in a state of constant evolution and transformation. In recent years, the Internet has changed many aspects of the industry, from the way products are distributed to how retailers connect with consumers. More recently, social media has been changing the way retailers engage with consumers (and vice versa), and today, affor...

The Internet has transformed consumer behaviour, particularly the manner in which consumers search for information prior to making a purchase. However, we know relatively little about the relationship between consumer information search strategies prior to visiting a physical retail store and the amount of money spent on product purchases. This rai...

Purpose Periods of economic downturn can severely affect the performance of firms in general, and retailers in particular. However, all retailers are not equally affected by recessionary periods, with some viewing this time as an opportunity to invest and establish competitive advantage and others cutting back and waiting for the recession to pass....

Retailers are increasingly using in-store events to provide shoppers with unique experiences that will enhance shopping value and help differentiate their stores from competitors. However, relatively little is known about how consumers respond to experiential retail events in terms of their store choice decisions. The purpose of this research was t...

This paper investigates the potential for experience enhancing in-store retail events to impact consumer value perceptions and behavior. We report findings from a survey where the presence and type of in-store experiential event was varied by shopping scenario descriptions with regard to DIY category shopping. ANOVA and mediation tests are conducte...

Retailers develop branded experiences in order to enhance consumers' perceptions of the brand and bring the brand to life. Consumers are effectively immersed in a branded world and experience the brand on a cognitive, emotional and visceral level. Yet, to date, our understanding of retail experience has been limited to studies on the effect of one...

This paper investigates how experience enhancing in - s tore retail events impact consumer shopping value perceptions. We report findings from a survey among DIY shoppers who were presented with shopping scenarios that varied the presence and type of in - store experiential event available in their preferred sto re . ANOVA tests are conducted and i...