With the popularity of short videos, “short video e-commerce” are adopted by more and more companies. Short videos are very helpful in e-commerce context because they carry more information than texts and pictures do. However, what kind of short videos can more effectively promote product sales in e-commerce context? This paper draw samples o£ short videos on the "Mogujie" platform and extracts features that may affect the marketing effects of short videos, such as visual perception, auditory perception and video content. Then we construct multiple linear regression model, classification and regression tree model and random forest model to study the relationship between short video features and their marketing effects, which are measured by the sales of the products introduced in the short video. The research results show that although the visual, auditory and content features of short videos are all related to the marketing effects, the content features have the strongest effects on the sales performance.

With the popularity of intelligent products, more and more consumers can have personalized and diversified product experiences. Focusing on the anthropomorphism of intelligent products, this paper discusses the influences of different modes of intelligent voice communication on consumers' brand attachment. Based on the communication modes obtained from qualitative interviews, two experiments are designed and show that partner communication mode can stimulate consumers' brand attachment more significantly than servant communication mode can, and the para-social interaction between consumers and intelligent products explains its internal mechanism. In addition, brand personality plays a moderating role. According to the above conclusions, the research provides relevant management suggestions.

With the rapid development of digital technology, virtual influencers have become an important carriers of corporate marketing practices. However, existing research lacks exploration of the growth process of virtual influencers. This study proposes the concept of virtual influencers personal brand through an interpretative research of a core datasets of six virtual influencers under a leading industry company's Weibo accounts. From the perspective of corporate-led marketing practices, a process model for the personal branding of virtual influencers is established in this research. The model highlights the role of e-motional practices, centered around character positioning and self-narration, in establishing the personal brand of virtual influencers. It also elucidates the narrative mechanisms that integrate the human aspect and the technological aspect of virtual influencers ,and the role of identity recognition and intuitive image-building in shaping their influence. Based on this, the study points out the directions that corporates need to focus on the practice of branding virtual influencers.

Native  advertising, as  the  new  darling  of brand  marketing  communication  in  the digital age, is  widely  used  in  major  new media platforms, driving  in-depth  discussion and research  on  native  advertising. However, the existing  research  on  native  advertising  has problems  such  as  inconsistent concepts, scattered  research  systems, and  inconsistent conclusions  on  advertising effectiveness, which  hinder  the  further development  of  native  advertising research. Combined  with  the  literature  research  methods, and  based  on  the “5W  model” of  the  communication  process, this  paper  clarifies  the  concept  and  types  of  native advertising, summarizes and analyzes the influencing factors of native advertising effectiveness in existing research, outlines the  existing  research  outline, and  discusses  future  research  directions, in  order  to  provide  a  foundation  and  ideas  for  future theoretical research and corporate practice in this field.

Service robot is considered to be an important way to reduce costs, improve efficiency and promote service innovation. But how to use service robot to improve customer satisfaction, is a core concern of service enterprises. Drawing upon customer value hierarchy theory, this study constructs an impact model of service robots perceived intelligence and perceived cuteness on customer satisfaction, including the boundary condition of consumption motivation and the underlying mechanism of interactive experience. An exploratory study of 2,201 network texts of customers and two empirical studies of 622 adult respondents showed that perceived intelligence and perceived cuteness of service robot positively affect customer satisfaction and downstream behavior (patronage intention and willingness to share). Consumption motivation has a moderating effect on the influence of perceived intelligence and perceived cuteness of service robot. For utilitarian motivation, perceived intelligence has a greater impact on customer satisfaction than hedonic motivation. While for hedonic motivation, perceived cuteness has a greater impact on customer satisfaction than utilitarian motivation. And such moderating effect is mediating by customer engagement. This study not only makes theoretical contribution on clarifying the different effects of perceived intelligence and perceived cuteness of service robots on customer satisfaction, but also provides an important reference for service enterprises to introduce and apply service robots in practice.

Based on priming effect, this research examined the influence of whimsically cute products as environmental cues on consumers' tendency to behave unethically. Four experiments found that consumers who were presented with whimsically cute products were more likely to act unethically in subsequent situations. This effect was mediated by capricious association. When the association is made explicit or cut off, the effect weakens or even disappears. This research contributes to the literatures on cuteness perception and consumers' unethical behavior and has important practical value for marketers.

Carbon neutrality has profound implications for sustainable development in China and the world, and pro-environmental behavior of consumers can be an important contribution to achieving carbon neutrality. Based on this, our study explores how information intervention strategies can be taken to guide residents to use environmentally friendly products for waste separation. Four experiments of the research lead to the following conclusions: (a) the negative message framing (vs. positive message framing) has a better effect on the purchase intention of eco-friendly products, and the dual mediating path of perceived value and pro-environmental personal norms (PPNs) explains this effect； ( b) environmental concerns together with perceived value or PPNs play a chain mediating role in the influence of message content on purchase intentions; ( c) individuals’ mindset towards message ( construal level) moderates the mediating role of environmental concerns, such that environmental message (vs. self-message) has better persuasive effect on consumers who has a mind-set at the low level of abstraction. The research explains the differential impacts of message interventions on the purchase intentions of environmentally friendly products through multiple pathways, as well as the matching with individuals. Our findings extend the theory of message intervention and provide effective recommendations for companies to develop marketing strategies for environmentally friendly products.

Launching new products to the consumer market is full of challenges. In the new product advertisements, companies have long used colloquial expressions to advocate products. As more and more new products introduce many new features, technical terms which can represent the product's scientific and technological performance have gradually been adopted for product promotion. So how should companies choose between the two types of advertising styles? The present research explores the influences of advertising styles (technical terms and colloquial expressions) on the purchase intentions of different innovative types of products——really new products and incrementally new products. Based on the Linguistic Clues Theory, Construal Level Theory and three experiments, this research proposes and verifies that there is a significant interactive effect between advertising style and product innovation type on consumers' willingness to purchase new products: the advertising style of technical terms could effectively improve consumers' purchase intentions of really new products, and the advertising style of colloquial expressions could effectively improve consumers' purchase intentions of incrementally new products. Processing fluency has a mediating effect in the above-mentioned interaction. In addition, the study also finds the applicability of the above mechanism under the conditions of different product attributes, and excludes the alternative explanations of perceived risk and perceived quality. The conclusion of this paper will provide suggestions for enterprises to improve the effectiveness of new product advertising. 

In live  streaming commerce, the streamer group is the core factor that drives product's sales performance. This study aims  to understand  how  the  combinations  of streamers  volume, product's  line  breadth, and brand  type  influence  brands'sales performances in live streaming commerce. The study collected panel data on Douyin live streaming platform in an 18-week period from August to December 2020 of 17 luxury brands and 27 non-luxury brands that are representatives of the cosmetics industry, which  includes  261  streamers, 1,658 products and  3,119  live  broadcasts. We  used  a  two-way  fixed  effects  model  with STATA software, and  found  that  streamer  volume  has  a significant  inverted  U-shaped  impact  on brands' live  sales, and  the breadth  of product's  line  has  a  significantly  direct positive  impact  on  brands' live  sales. Besides, product's  line  breadth and brand type moderate the above inverted U-shaped effect.

Based on the warm-glow effect of impure altruism model and clue congruity theory, this study develops a research model to analyze the influence of ethical attributes of corporate social innovation products on customers' purchase intention. In addition, the mediating effect of warm-glow and the moderating effect of product types are verified. The results show that ethical attributes of corporate social innovation products can enhance customers' purchase intentions, and warm-glow plays a mediating role in the positive relationship between the corporate social innovation product's ethical attributes and customers' purchase intentions. Specifically, for hedonic corporate social innovation products, the symbolic ethical attribute (compared with the functional ethical attribute) can stimulate the customer's warm-glow, and thus can enhance the customer's purchase  intention. By contrast, for utilitarian corporate social innovation products, the functional ethical attribute (compared with the symbolic ethical attribute) can stimulate the customer's warm-glow, and thus can enhance the customer's purchase intention. 

Considering the differences of firms' digital capabilities, this paper studies how behavior-based pricing ( BBP ) affects pricing decisions, profits and strategy choices of both firms. We use Hotelling model to construct a two-period pricing model in a competitive market. By comparing prices and profits of both firms, the study reaches the following conclusions: (1) the equilibrium of the second period is jointly affected by the market share in the first period and digital capabilities gap, which leads to three possible equilibriums. Meanwhile, in the equilibrium of the second period, the price for current customers may be lower than that for new customers; (2) when the market share gap in the first period is large, BBP increases the profits of both firms in the second period. However, the profit of firm that shares a larger market in the first period is lower than the firm's competitor in the second period； (3) a pure strategy equilibrium exists, when the digital capability gap is large enough or small enough. Further, when the digital capability gap is large enough, the advantage firm can get new customers, which help it get rid of the prisoner's dilemma brought by BBP and achieve profit growth.

Chinese marketing academic community is working diligently in developing marketing and branding theories with Chinese characteristics. In this paper, I first explained how my research thinking changed from the American “ Black and White" thinking to the Chinese "Yin and Yang” thinking, next presented a Yin Yang branding concept, which I proposed with inspiration by Dao De Jing, a classic of Chinese philosophy, probably as a foundation concept of the Chinese branding thought, finally I shareed my thought on how we could provide the world with unique theories applicable to the world in the future.

This paper investigates that an emerging computerized text analysis technique, word embeddings, can capture cultural and concept change. In this paper, we utilize this technique to quantify temporal dynamics of the concept of happiness between 1979—2021 in China. We first conducted in-depth interviews and thus formed five dimensions that generally represent Chinese people's conception of happiness, including physical need, social support, self-actualization, environment harmony and patriotism. We then used word embeddings to analyze the associations of five dimension with well-being. Results show that the correlation between happiness and physical need declines over time while happiness's correlations with self-actualization and  with patriotism go upward obviously. What's more, individualism (“self-actualization”) and collectivism-oriented (“patriotism”) dimension shows a consistent trend, this means that traditional value centerring on family and country interest has also been preserved at present age. Although the harmonious relationship with natural environment has not gotten enough attention in  general, it tends to go upward these years. By comparing diachronic changes among five dimensions, this research captures the  social  economic  shifts, e.g., the Reform and Opening-up in the end of 1970s, economic reform since 1992, new millennium of 2000, the new era after 2013. Our method further proves to be valid by showing that changes in the embedding track closely with a series of domestic social surveys. Our research demonstrates the powerful utility of computational text analysis and would  facilitate intersection between machine learning and social science.

The development of emerging online platforms relies on attracting merchants with market operation experiences and capabilities. Taking the emerging online discount platform as an example, this study uses small and medium-sized merchants in a specific industry (e. g. , consumer electronics industry) as the observation sample, and employs an individual panel fixed effects model combined with Dynamic Capability Theory to explore the wilingness of merchants with high customer operating capability who mainly attract free traffic, and the willingness of merchants with low customer operating capability who mainly attract paid traffic to adopt the emerging online discount platform,  and analyses the boundary conditions that affect the willingness for adoption. The findings suggest that maintaining a competitive advantage and reducing traffic dependency are the main motivations influencing the adoption of emerging online discount platforms by both types of merchants. However, under the moderating effects of brand strength and user viscosity, the adoption of emerging online discount platforms varies among merchants with different traffic sources. This study enriches the research related to emerging online platforms' adoption and sheds new light on merchants' traffic attraction strategies. 

 In the context of the“domestic market's great circulation”and the“dual circulation of domestic and foreign markets”, global strategies of Chinese enterprises, especially in the markets along the Belt and Road, have attracted great attention in both industrial and academic fields. Based on the perspective of the Global Marketing Strategy Model, Institutional Theory and Resource-Based Theory, this research targeted Chinese central state-owned enterprises, and used dual-case study to explore their specific paths and mechanisms of brand globalizations in the countries along the Belt and Road. Research questions included the followings:(1) the advantages and challenges of Chinese central state-owned enterprises during the globalization process; (2) the stages of brand globalization; (3) the international marketing capabilities deployed to improve legitimacy and to establish competitive advantages. The conclusions demonstrated that motivated by internal and external factors, brand globalizations of Chinese central state-owned enterprises involved three stages:brand entry, brand differentiation and brand image cultivation. In each stage, enterprises needed to obtain externally cognitive, moral and pragmatic legitimacy respectively. Responsively, their internal resources, from the Chinese government, domestic business networks and their own,   provided strong supports, and three international marketing capabilities, namely percept and integration capability, development and value-added capability, and communication and bonding capability, could be leveraged to strengthen brand legitimacies. The conclusions enrich the theory of brand internationalization, and shed lights especially for emerging-market multi- national enterprises which enterred the developing markets. This research also provides managerial implications on brand globalization strategy for Chinese enterprises. 

Based on the Brand Architecture Strategy Theory, this paper puts forward the concept of brand architecture fitness and proposes the research hypotheses through theoretically analyzing how different brand architecture combinations between the acquiring party and the acquired party of M&A affecting the long-term performance of the acquirer. The empirical test uses the data of Chinese A-share listed companies which complete  100%equity M&A from 2010 to 2016, and establishes a control group based on the A-share listed companies that do not participate in M&A at the same time. With the panel data and multiple empirical analysis method, the results show that the long-term performance of the acquirer is higher when the brand architectures of both sides are inconsistent than that of both are consistent. More specifically, under the consistent situations, the long- term performance with house of brands architecture of both sides of M&A is higher than that with branded house architecture of both sides; while under the inconsistent conditions, no matter what brand architectures the both sides of M&A are, there are no significant differences in the long-term performances after M&A. In addition, there exist heterogeneous effects due to the factors such as brand equity gap between the two sides of M&A. This study extends the research on the brand effects of M&A from the impact of brand architecture characteristics of both sides on the short-term performance of M&A to the influence of the brand architecture fitness of both sides on the long-term performance, which provides valuable guidances for enterprises to better select the M&A target companies and gain higher long-term performances after M&A.

In recent years, China has proposed the construction of a unified national market and the establishment of a new development pattern focused on both domestic and international markets. In this context, the importance of marketing research has become increasingly prominent. Hence, conducting a comprehensive review of academic accomplishments and knowledge landscapes within the realm of marketing in China holds immense significance. It serves as a catalyst for advancing the establishment and growth of marketing disciplines, while also enabling a more effective utilization of academic insights to bolster local marketing practices in China. This paper conducts a literature review and quantitative analysis of marketing articles published in China's premier management journals from 2005 to 2020, focusing on depicting the multidimensional evolutionary trends of research areas, topics, methodologies, and data sources in the field of Chinese marketing. Through a comparative analysis with the development of international marketing research, it illustrates the distinctive features of marketing research in China.

Brand revitalization has emerged as an important strategy for enterprises to attain sustainable development. This study investigates the research overview, evolution context and research hotspots of brand revitalization by analyzing 256 articles form the Web of Science database, employing the bibliometric method. Results indicate that: firstly, the number of publications on brand revitalization is progressively rising year by year, and articles are mainly distributed in the United States and China. Secondly, the evolution stages of brand revitalization are divided into the budding period, the development period and the outbreak period. Specifically, research in the budding period is relatively sparse, which focuses on the conceptual evolution process of brand revitalization. Expanding upon this groundwork, this article redefines the concept of brand revitalization. In the development period, scholars shift their focus towards the theoretical research on brand revitalization. Since entering the outbreak period, strategy research has begun to outbreak. Thirdly, the study identifies 3 core hotspots of brand revitalization: conceptual development, theoretical research, strategy research. Building on this foundation and following the logic of “from conceptual development to theoretical construction, from antecedent to consequence, from enterprise performance to regional construction”, the research framework of brand revitalization is constructed. As such, this paper discusses the theoretical contributions and marketing implications, while also highlighting the future research directions.

A convergent product is a new product that physically integrates the functions of two or more categories into a common product form. Existing literature on convergent products lacks research regarding the degree of functional separation. Therefore, based on the technology acceptance model, the authors explore the impact mechanism of the degree of functional separation on the intention to use. Four studies examine consumers'perceived usefulness and perceived ease-of-use toward convergent products and how these perceptions change with complementarity. The results show that the higher the degree of the product's functional separation, the higher the consumer's perceived usefulness, and the lower the consumer's perceived ease-of-use. Complementarity weakens the effect of functional separation on perceived usefulness, which means for complementary products, the lower the degree of functional separation, the higher the consumer's intention to use. Therefore, enterprises should consider the complementarity while determining the degree of new product's functional separation. This paper fills the gaps in the related fields and has important practical significance for enterprises designing and developing new products.

Considering the differences of firms' digital capabilities, this paper studies how behavior-based pricing ( BBP ) affects pricing decisions, profits and strategy choices of both firms. We use Hotelling model to construct a two-period pricing model in a competitive market. By comparing prices and profits of both firms, the study reaches the following conclusions: (1) the equilibrium of the second period is jointly affected by the market share in the first period and digital capabilities gap, which leads to three possible equilibriums. Meanwhile, in the equilibrium of the second period, the price for current customers may be lower than that for new customers; (2) when the market share gap in the first period is large, BBP increases the profits of both firms in the second period. However, the profit of firm that shares a larger market in the first period is lower than the firm's competitor in the second period； (3) a pure strategy equilibrium exists, when the digital capability gap is large enough or small enough. Further, when the digital capability gap is large enough, the advantage firm can get new customers, which help it get rid of the prisoner's dilemma brought by BBP and achieve profit growth.