Packaging always plays a "silent" salesperson role in the sales process of products, especially environmental friendly products, the customer's first impression of product packaging often determines the evaluations of the extent of the greenness of the products.  Based on theories of processing fluency, this research argues that environmental friendly products' packaging characteristics (color, material and with/without environmental claim) will influence consumer's green purchase in­tention.  This research presents three studies that supported the hypotheses and explore how environmental friendly products' packaging characteristics influence consumer's purchase intention, including the mediating role of perceived green value and the moderating role of consumer's environmental cognition.  The experimental results show that changing the packaging charac­teristics of environmental friendly products can make consumers perceive higher green value, improving their green purchase intention.  Specifically, green color is better than red color, fiber material is better than plastic, and with green claims is bet­ter than without green claims.  Meanwhile, the consumer's environmental cognition also plays a significant moderating role.  When the consumer's environmental cognition is high, the impact of these packaging characteristics will be more obvious, but when the consumer's environmental cognition is low, the impact will be relatively weak or even vanish.  The research conclu­sions provides managerial instructions for package strategy of environmental friendly products in green marketing practice.

 With the development of more than 40 years of the reform and opening-up policy, China's service economy has made historic progress. The GDP of China's tertiary industry's contribution rate to the national economy is more than 50%. Thus, China is marching into the service economy era, and the development direction of China's service economy is gradually changing from high-speed development to high-quality development. With it, the service marketing theory is constantly evolving, and profound changes take place in the background of The Times. This paper aims to review and map the research streamline, provide future insights into service marketing in China in the past 30 years, and depict a panorama of service marketing research in China by applying statistical analysis and literature analysis tool CiteSpace. It shows the critical areas of service marketing research institutions and the leading network of cooperation between scholars. Furthermore, we extract the essential research topics and reveal the main direction by establishing the "creation—delivery—improvement" service value chain.

The rapid development of digital economy has led to a transformation of big data in marketing science. Based on the three dimensions of time, space, and connection, this article uses the "Time-Space-Connection (TSC)" framework of big data from the perspectives of social networks, mobility, and the integration of the two to summarize the research progress of big data marketing in the past decade, gain insights into changes of corporate marketing strategies and consumer behaviors in the context of big data, and discuss the future research directions of big data marketing. In particular, COVID-19 pandemic has changed people’s behaviors and social environment, demonstrated the importance of "space-time-connection" of big data in business transformation and marketing model innovation, and expanded the scope of marketing research from business efficiency to social well-being. In conclusion. the "space-time-connection" framework of big data not only offers a perspective for marketing research in the digital age, but also provides guidance and suggestions for companies to develop new marketing models.

This research examines the effect of red in the consumption environment on consumer preference for brand image and its underlying mechanism.  Previous studies have shown that red decreases purchase intention.  However, through one preliminary experiment and four experiments, the authors find that red increases consumer preference for competent brands ( but not warm brands) , and competitive spirit plays a mediating role in this effect.  More specifically, red (vs. other colors) activates the concept of dominance, bringing about a desire for dominant status and hence a stronger competitive spirit.  Individuals with a stronger competitive spirit are more eager to express their competence rather than sincerity.  Therefore, they prefer competent brands over brands with sincerity.  This effect will be weakened when consumers make purchases for others ( vs. for themselves) .  Our findings contribute to the relevant literature on brand image preferences, color and competitive spirit, and provide important practical instructions on color selection and design in marketing communication.

The digitalization has brought big changes to the economic society, namely, virtualization of market players, digitization of factors of production, dynamization of the production process and platformization of market organizations. These four features of digitalization have further reconstructed the real management world, resulting in disruptive changes of internal and external relationships between organizations, and the underlying logics of production and operation. The nature of marketing is to answer how to solve the interactive relationship between the supplier and the consumer in the best way to realize the value co-creation. Obviously, digital technology is disrupting the traditional interactive relationship, which greatly weakens the effectiveness of the 4P and 4C marketing matrix. Therefore, we are intended to put forward the 4I (Interaction, Interest, Interface, Iteration) framework to reconstruct the marketing matrix in the age of digital intelligence. Finally, we offer some future topics of marketing strategy research and the new development direction of the discipline.

After a century of development, modern marketing science has increasingly played a great role in theoretical exploration and practical application. In the past 20 years, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) has continued to fund marketing research, and the number of funded projects and funding intensity have been increasing. From 5 projects totaling 556,000 yuan in 2000 to 69 projects totaling 25.86 million yuan in 2020. NSFC has strongly promoted the basic research of marketing science in China.Future marketing science research should strive to build a "4422" system: adhere to four oriented strategies, promote four integrated strategies, adopt two new tools (new methods and new theories), and solve two types of problems (marketing technology and human welfare), so as to achieve the deep integration of marketing technology and human welfare for the benefit of society.Finally, this paper presents thoughts on future key program of NSFC marketing science from two aspects, including marketing technology and human well-being.

In main stream literature, marketing is defined as to create superior customer value and to build profitable customer relationships. It seems that such a way of defining marketing can help enhance marketers’ status in the company. Contrary to expectation, it actually obscures functions of firm-level system and those of marketing system. Marketing as a sub-system of company, it creates value for customers by performing functions of connecting, matching and transacting. Among the three marketing functions, matching supply with demand is considered as the most important one. In this paper, we not only offer a new definition of marketing with matching as a core element, but also propose an integrated marketing framework which attempts to extend the extant dominant marketing paradigms.

 Carbon-peak by 2030 and carbon-neutrality by 2060, is the major strategic decision for China’s sustainable development, and the specific initiatives for creating a community of shared future for mankind. With the carbon-neutral objective, carbon is the essential factor that changes the production function and consumer effect function. Change on theoretical hypothesis brings a series of new research problems for the development of economics and management, which are mainly in the fields of growth theory, carbon finance theory, market design, industry and public policy, enterprise strategy and business model innovation, and exchange rate system, etc. The in-depth study of these problems will promote the realization of carbon-neutrality, and bring the possibility on the innovation of economics and management theory and breakthrough of research paradigm. The ideological achievements will become an organic part of China's economic management theory that radiating the world.

It is essential for enterprises to adjust brand positioning according to the changes of target customers for sustainable development. The growth of instrumental internet products (internet Apps) presents obvious stages.  From providing free tools (to generate more traffic) to becoming a platfbnn, the connotation of instrumental internet products has changed explicitly. Exploring the growth stages and positioning of internet applications in different stages could help us understand the evolution characteristics of internet App brand positioning and provide inspirations for such enterprises to actively adjust brand positioning for sustainable growth. In addition, this paper explores how internet App brands ( bom and developed in the social media context) apply communication strategies to establish brand positioning, which provides a useful reference for enterprises to improve the efficiency of applying social media.  This research was based on the analysis of brand management practice of Youdao dictionary in 2007-2020.  Finally, this study have the following findings: (1) the internet App brand positioning should actively evolve with different stages of enterprise development.  Specifically, the initial period, the developing period and the extension period are suitable for adopting functional positioning, symbolic positioning and emotional positioning respectively and aiming at core customers, peripheral customers and extensive customers respectively to estahlish a brand image in line with the objectives of the brand stage to realize the development path of "tool-content/community-platform" ；  (2) enterprises should set up appropriate communication goals according to different stages of brand positioning, select and match communication tools with the guidance of communication objectives in the social media context, and evaluate communication effects based on communication objectives.  These findings contribute to the adjustment of brand positioning to achieve long-term development and the improvement of social media communication efficiency for the internet Apps.

Based on the perspective of Chinese marketing scholars, this paper answers three questions about how to tell a good China story through case study (1) What is a good China marketing story through case study? To put it simply, marketing scholars describe China's marketing phenomenon and explore the law of China's marketing development through the method of case study, so as to realize the mission or goal of solving China's marketing problems and contributing to the world's marketing new knowledge. (2) Why do case studies tell China's story well? There are four reasons for this: the subjects of case studies are good for telling true and complete management stories; Case studies, by their nature, are suitable for telling interesting and credible management stories; From the type of case study, it is suitable to tell a rich and different management story; (3) How to tell a good marketing story in China through case studies? The right decisions need to be made in the following four aspects: clarify whether the mission of research is to serve China or to influence the world; Determine the topic of research is to solve the problem of China or to pursue the frontier of international theory; Whether the research object selected is the sample within China or the global sample; These questions are of great significance for Chinese scholars to fulfill their mission of serving China and influencing the world.

After the rapid development of the past 30 years, Chinese marketing has achieved preliminary achievements in four areas: first, academic institutions and discipline systems have been formed; second, the academic community and its research paradigm related to the former are becoming more mature; third, The dialogue mechanism between the academia with the practice and its social influence have begun to play; fourth, the international influence of the discipline and its academic research is beginning to see light. However, the development of China's marketing discipline has also made researchers in the field of marketing realize that the theoretical research of China's local marketing is weak, and has not yet developed a systematic theoretical perspective to guide China's marketing practices. At the end of the article, the future thinking about the development and innovation of China's marketing discipline is launched from three aspects: the rigor, relevance, and impact of scientific research.

With the rapid development of live streaming industry, live streaming firms try to increase performance by forming users’ payment habits through social network.  This paper collected the live streaming data of nearly 30, 000 users in an online music community.  Based on social presence theory, we tested the impact of the number of strong ties on user's gift-giving decision in user-generated live streaming.  Besides, we studied the moderating effect of audience scale, network centrality of tippers and levels of tipped broadcasters.  When a user engaged in a live streaming, the results show that, ( 1) the number of strong ties has a positive effect on tipping to friends； (2) the increase of the size of live streaming weakens the above effect； (3) when the user has a relatively higher social centrality, the main effect becomes lower； (4) The main effect is more pronounced when the levels of tipped broadcasters become higher.  Overall, this research has significant implications for firms' strategies to facilitate live streaming and achieve competitive advantages.

In this invited essay on the celebration of the official launch of Journal of Marketing Science in China, I share some thoughts on the challenges and opportunities faced by marketing science researchers as the results of the changing technological, social and business environment. The discussion then moves on to the latest developments and the emerging trends in the field as observed by the author, as well as the concerns regarding the future success of quant marketing research. The essay ends with a few suggestions on the paths to the highly expected innovations and research contributions by the academia of marketing science in China.

Using anthropomorphic characters ( such as anime characters and virtual idols) as spokespersons is a common strategy in the advertising industry. Still, few scholars pay attention to the impact of consumers' anthropomorphic perceptions on the persuasiveness of spokespersons. Previous researches divided anthropomorphic perceptions into two types: systematic and heuristic. Systematic anthropomorphism is to treat anthropomorphic objects as an individual entity that can generate social interactions , while heuristic anthropomorphism is an implicit effect. Based on these two types of anthropomorphism, this study takes different types of spokespersons ( anthropomorphized/real people) as the stimuli to verify the impact of consumer anthropomorphic tendency on the persuasiveness of different spokespersons. Experimental data show that under the moderation effect of individual anthropomorphic tendencies, consumers' perceptions of the parasocial interaction and positive emotions of the spokespersons have a simultaneous impact on the spokespersons’ persuasiveness. Participants with low anthropomorphic tendencies have significantly higher perceptions of parasocial interactions with real people than anthropomorphized spokespersons ； participants with high anthropomorphic tendencies have significantly higher positive emotions for anthropomorphized spokespersons than humans. The research results complement the existing anthropomorphism marketing research and could help companies choose appropriate anthropomorphic strategies for consumer preferences.

In the research of online reviews, few scholars pay attention to the order bias of online reviews.  Based on previous studies on the effects of the first consumer review on the producfs home page, this article explores the influence of negative reviews on the first page on product sales.  Based on the analysis of 1161 negative reviews on the home pages of 387 Taobao products ,this article finds that the number of the negative reviews' additional reviews on the first page and the negative reviews rate have significant negative impacts on product sales.  The additional review depth and the seller reply depth of the negative  reviews on the first page have positive moderating effects on the relationship between the number of the negative reviews' additional reviews on the first page and product sales.  The additional review depth and the seller reply depth of the negative reviews on the first page have negative moderating effects on the relationship between the negative reviews rate and product sales.  On the one hand, this finding proves the existence of the important influence of the negative reviews' contents on the first page on consumers' purchase decisions.  On the other hand, it expands the research realm of the order bias and the first impression bias of online reviews, providing researchers with a new research direction.

Prior research has shown that top managers' marketing background significantly affects firm performance.  Meanwhile ,firm performance is also impacted by external stakeholders such as equity investors.  In this way, will the marketing background of investment firm's top management teams ( TMTs) influence the performance of the start-ups being invested?  Based on a data set covering the information of investment firms and the start-ups being invested in China, this research explores the effect of investment firm’s TMTs’ marketing background on start-ups performance.  We find that the percentage of top managers with marketing background in investment firm's TMTs has a positive effect on the investment returns of the start-ups.  Furthermore, this effect is moderated by the industry and development stage of the start-ups.  Specifically, investment firm's TMTs' marketing background has a more pronounced positive effect on the start-ups in emerging industries than those in established industries.  The positive influence of investment firm's TMTs' marketing background is more prominent on start-ups in the A round, compared with start-ups after the B round.  Overall, this research not only broadens the relevant literature on marketing executives and entrepreneural management, but also provides instructions for investment firms, start-ups, and policymakers.

With the advent of the era of "digital economy" , enterprises are more and more willing to invest in advertising in order to further attract consumers' attentions and enhance market share.  How to stimulate consumers' positive purchase  intentions through advertising design? —this is particularly important for brands.  Therefore, based on the construal level theory and from the perspective of information processing fluency, this study explores the influence of the interaction between advertising scene presentation and product type on consumers' purchase intention.  The results show that, for utilitarian products, when they are presented with close shot advertising, it is easier for consumers to generate purchase intention than panorama shot advertising ； for hedonic products, when they are presented with panorama shot advertising, it is easier for consumers to generate purchase intention than close shot advertising.  In addition, the way of advertising appeal has a significant moderating effect. The specific performance is as follows: compared with the prototype appeal, the exemplary appeal used in the close shot advertising of utilitarian products can make consumers' purchase intentions more positive ； compared with the exemplary appeal, the prototype appeal used in the panorama shot advertising of hedonic products can make consumers' purchase intentions more positive.  This study broadens the application of construal level theory in the field of marketing, and the research conclusions have strong practical guiding values for brand designers to creatively design advertising and make advertising strategies.

Researches have shown that encouraging consumers to touch a product can prompt consumers to generate a positive attitude towards the product.  However, consumers’ haptic input when examining a product during product demonstration is often restricted by retailers, salespersons and front-line employees in many offline retail settings.  To date, we know little a- bout whether the usage of haptic -restriction strategies can induce negative marketing consequences. This research conducts four studies, including a field experiment and three lab experiments, to document a novel variety-seeking effect of haptic restrictions.   Previously restricting (versus not restricting) consumers from touching a product induces consumers to conduct variety seeking and options shifting in a subsequent and different situation (Experiments 1-2).  Moreover, this effect is driven by perceived  threats to personal freedom in general (Experiment 3) and is mitigated when consumers' need to elevate the extent of personal freedom is low ( Experiment 4).  This research contributes to the literature of product touch and variety seeking, offering specific implications for offline retailing.

The current marketing environment faced by Chinese enterprises has four important characteristics. Facing the new marketing environment, the mission of marketing research has also changed. This study proposes a new marketing research mission in the face of the ever-changing marketing environment. It reviews five aspects of relevant literature, including omni-channel marketing research in the era of mobile Internet, information dissemination and consumer behavior research on Internet platforms, corporate social responsibility in marketing activities, marketing research toward important events, and interface of marketing and corporate finance. On the basis of that, it further provides a comprehensive discussion on potential research issues and offers recommendations for future research.