There are multiple reasons why multinational brands are in legitimacy distress when they are introduced into their host countries, markets.  The brands from developing countries encounter difficulties of tearing various “negative labels” off, thus leading to multinational brands under enormous legitimacy pressure.  This article analyzes the cases of the internatioanlization process of Gionee and Wiko based on organizational identity theory.  It explores how the brands build a new and beneficial identity through brand identity forming when they expand overseas for the first time.  Consequently, they can overcome the disadvantages of their original identities and gain brand legitimacy.  Researches in this article show that, during the brand's internatioanlization process, it can build a new brand identity that fits the host country market better through making optimization and adjustment to its identity label and means.  Furthermore, transnational brands need to know how to adjust their brand identity label layer and means layer selectively according to the criterion whether their home country has a comparative institutional advantage and an international model of brand.  Meanwhile, the article also concludes the content involved in constructing the brand identity's label and means, and concludes that these should be spreaded by applying relative identity communication strategies, thus helping enterprises transmit the new identity clearly to gain legitimacy.

Brand-related user-generated content can reduce purchase uncertainty and influence consumers’ brand attitude and purchase decisions.  Numerous studies have analyzed the content characteristics of brand-related user-generated content, yet the content's appeals have not been fully discussed.  Based on the brand-related user - generated content data of skincare products from Xiaohongshu App, this study explores the impact of brand-related user-generated contenfs functional appeal on consumers’ social media engagement.  In addition, we use Heuristic - Systematic Model to understand the bias effect between the physical attractiveness of the profile picture and the functional appeal.  The study finds that the functional appeal of brand- related user-generated content has a significant positive impact on consumers' social media engagement.  The more functional contents the brand-related user-generated content contains, the higher the consumers’ social media engagements will be. The users' physical attractiveness of the profile picture plays a positive moderating role.  The more attractive the profile picture is, the stronger the impact of brand-related user-generated contenfs functional appeal on consumers' social media engagement will be.

Brand identity is one of the most important visual symbol of a brand. As an eye-catching visual element, color is an important content of brand identity design, which can stimulate the psychological response of consumers and affect their  cognitions.  From the perspective of the effect of color stimulation of brand logo on consumers’ price perception, this paper discusses the mechanism of brand logo with high saturation and color matching of contrasting colors to induce consumers' sense of cheapness.  By applying virtual brand logos in the field of catering, hotel, sporting goods, etc, we conducted a series of five experiments to study the effects of color collocation of hues and saturation and their interactions, and the cultural values of collectivism/ individualism of social groups.  The results show that, compared with similar colors and low saturation, contrasting colors and high saturation can induce people to regard the brand as cheap brand. When the two factors interact, the order of people's price perception from low to high is high saturation with contrasting colors, high saturation with similar colors, low saturation with contrasting colors and low saturation with similar colors.  The cheapness effect of color mentioned above is only found in domestic consumeis with high collectivism tendency, and there is no obvious regular conclusion in consumers in countries with high individualism tendency represented by the United States.

The researches on the impact of decision in self-control conflicts on consumers’ well-being has inconsistent conclusions and unclear mechanisms.  One of the important reasons is that these researches ignored the interaction between consumers' personal characteristics and self-control conflict, lacked systematic analysis of lay rationalism, self-control conflicts, and consumers' well-being.  Across 4 studies, we propose that the effect of decision in self-control conflicts ( self-control versus self-indulgence) on consumers' well-being depends on individual differences in lay rationalism.  This paper found consistent evidence that compared with consumers with low (high) -level lay rationalism, consumers with high (low) -level lay rationalism will have higher positive emotions, satisfaction, and self - development after self - control ( self - indulgence ). Moreover, positive emotions and satisfaction play a different mediating role in the interactive effect between decision in selfcontrol conflicts and lay rationalism on consumers’ well-being.  In addition, when consumers indulge themselves in the condition of injunctive norms, consumers will have lower positive emotions and self - development.  These findings enrich the research contents of self-control conflicts, lay rationalism and consumers' well being, and also provide practical implications for consumers to realize themselves, and provide some enlightenments for enterprises in product recommendation and service recovery.

This paper analyzed the impact of two gamified distribution methods of coupons ( namely games of chance and games of skill) on consumers' intentions and behaviors of coupon redemption.  A cognitive -emotional dual-path theoretical model is proposed to account for the underlying mechanisms. Across two field experiments and one online experiment, we found that compared with directly-delivered coupons, coupons delivered through chance-based or skill-based games are more likely to be redeemed. These effects are mediated by perceived scarcity of the coupon and perceived enjoyment of the coupon delivery process. In addition, the impact of chance - based games on perceived enjoyment is mediated by perceived luck, whereas that of skill-based games is mediated by perceived effort.  Our research contributes to the literature on coupon promotion and gamification design, and provides important guidances for the design of coupon promotions.

Focusing on getting the best deal with speculative intention under the brand crisis, this paper studies the social anomie caused by economic rationality.  Taking the Guoxiaoyun event happened on Tmall platform as example, this paper adopts the research method of grounded theory.  Through sorting out and analyzing 413 posts and 9195 comments on more than 5 websites, and applying the theory of social norms, we conclude that the social anomie caused by people's rational behavior in pursuit of economic benefits, mainly embodied in internal control and external control.  The study finds that the internal control anomie mainly includes anomies of human morality and business ethics; external control anomie mainly includes industry anomies of rules and legal system.  When economic rational behavior breaks through social norms, people's thinking begins to shift from the perspective of norms to the perspective of laws, people believe that the macroscopic causal laws will restrict and limit them to a certain extent.  The conclusion of this study can not only supplement the relative theories of brand crisis and its governance, but also provide comprehensive and systematic guidances for the macro management of getting the best deal with speculative intention in the context of brand crisis.

In real life, advertisements with emotional appeals are quite common. By expressing positive and warm emotions in advertisements, companies attract consumers' attentions and improve their love for advertisements to stimulate their willingness to purchase. Previous research has shown that advertisements with positive emotional appeals ( VS. advertisements with negative emotional appeals) can stimulate consumer's higher willingness to purchase.  However, unlike the past advertisements with positive emotional appeals, Sang Tea, UCC Coffee and some other brands, choose to spread negative emotions in advertisements, such as"negative energy in everyday life".  These kind of "negative marketing approach" has become a new form of marketing. Therefore, it is necessary for the academia to explore why advertisements with negative emotional appeals can enhance consumers’ willingness to buy products and when consumers prefer advertisements with negative emotional appeals.  Based on the trend of the Sang-marketing, this study defined "Sang" as the high level of actual-ideal self-discrepancy, and classified advertisements of "Sang" as advertisements with negative emotional appeals.  On the basis of former scholars' research results, this study further explored how actual-ideal self-discrepancy and emotional appeals affect the consumers' advertisement attitude and purchase intentions. Based on the self -discrepancy theory, three experiments were carried out.  Experiment 1 found that when perceived high ( VS. low) level of actual-ideal self-discrepancy, consumers held better attitude towards negative (VS. positive) emotional advertisements, and were more willing to buy products with negative (VS. positive) emotional advertising appeals.  Experiment 2 examined the mediating role of empathy. Perceiving the consistent emotional appeals from the advertisements, consumers turned to increase their willingness to purchase.  Experiment 3 further investigated the boundary conditions of this effect. Only when consumers' motivations of self-verification were activated, would they prefer negative emotional appeals in advertisements after experiencing actual-ideal self- discrepancy.  The results provide a reasonable explanation and theoretical support for the question why Sang-marketing is capable of inducing positive results. They also demonstrate that buying goods is able to create mental value for consumers under the influence of advertisement’s emotional appeals.

Busyness has been an identity signal. This paper examined how the subjective perceptions of busyness impact consumers' face-related product consumption.  According to the data from the 2010 National Household Appliance Product Consumption Questionnaire, this paper has found that consumer’ perception of busyness could increase their face product preference. From the perspective of social identity theory, this paper found that the perception of busyness can improve consumers' social identity motivation, and then promote busy consumers to choose face-related products to support their“busy as success" identity image.  In addition, this paper has found that consumes’perceived economic mobility moderats our main effect: compared with consumers with low economic mobility, the impact of perception of busyness on face product preference for consumers with high economic mobility would be strengthened.