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.

 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.

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 matching of writing direction and product facing direction in advertising can affect the persuasive effect of advertising  and consumers' attentions. Based on knowledge activation theory and matching theory, three eye-tracking experiments with 280 participants were conducted to investigate the effects of text writing direction and product facing direction on advertising effect.  In experiment 1, we found an interaction between the writing direction and the product facing direction.  The persuasion and attention effects were better when the vertical writing direction matched the left-facing product or the horizontal writing direction matched the right-facing product.  Experiments 2 and experiment 3 found that brand or product positioning further interacted with the matching effect above.  Traditional brand or product ads perfbnn better when texts are written vertically with the product facing left, while modem brand or product ads perform better when the texts are written horizontally with the product facing right.  Three experiments confirmed the mediating role of sense - correctness.  The triple interaction between text writing direction, product facing direction, and brand or product positioning provides guidances for the theoretical system of advertising effect and enterprise practices.

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.

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.

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.

Based on the realistic background of the increasing floating population, this study takes the agricultural regional public brand as an example to explore whether and how the regional cultural distinctiveness perceived by sojourners affect the brand of the residence negatively, and what is the possible mechanism to reduce this negative impact.  The experimental data from Zhijiang and Chongqing show that when participants perceive a great regional cultural distinctiveness, their self-brand connection with the agricultural regional public brand in the residence will be reduced, comparing with those who perceive little regional cultural distinctiveness.  This effect is achieved through group identity. The greater the distinctiveness of regional culture perceived by the sojourners, the lower their senses of group identity to the local people will be, and the weaker their self-brand connection with the brand of the residence will be.  However, the social acceptance of the sojourners can adjust the influence of regional cultural distinctiveness on sojourners’ self-brand connection of agricultural regional public brand.  Under the circumstance that social acceptance exists, the negative effect of regional cultural distinctiveness on self-brand connection with the agricultural regional public brand is weakened.