Whether digital transformation can promote the brand value of time-honored brand is an important practical issue for time-honored brands to realize brand rejuvenation in the era of digital economy. This paper takes Chinese listed time-honored enterprises from 2017 to 2022 as research samples to empirically investigate the impact of digital transformation on the brand value of time-honored enterprises and the moderating effect of marketing ability and entrepreneurship. The results show that enterprise digital transformation can promote the brand value of time-honored brands, and enteprise marketing ability and entre preneurship play a positive moderating role in the positive impact of digital transformation on the brand value of time-honored brands. Further heterogeneity analysis show that the promotion effect of digital transformation on the value of time-honored brands is more obvious in the enterprise with high traditional culture level and state-owned enterprises. This paper provides some guidance and suggestions on how to achieve high-quality digital transformation and enhance brand value for time-honored enterprises.

This research explores the mechanism by which sellers' use of anhropomor-phism to describe used products influences buyers’ judgments of product quality. The results of three studies show that sellers' anthropomorphic descriptions of used products can significantly improve buyers’ perceived quality of used products, and this effect is mediated by buyers’ perception that used products are better cared for by the seller. The results also show that when used products are described as emotional use, non-anthropomorphic descri-ption will reduce the quality perception than anthropomorphic description. When described as instrumental, there was no significant difference. And sellers’ anthropomorphic deseriptions of used products as a partnership rather than a servant will encourage buyers to make more favorable inferences about used poroducts and increase transaction will-ingness. This research enriches the theoretical mechanism of anthropomorphic rhetoric on improving consumer product cognition and inference, and has important practical value for improving the effectiveness of personalized marketing communications and promoting second-hand transactions.

Appropriate presentation of adertising effects significantly enhances consumer perception, where as the temporal distance to achieve the advertising effect is a focal point of consumer attention, directly influencing their advertising attitudes and purchase decisions. Drawing on the Construal Level Theory, this paper validates the matching effects between the advertising effect presentation (before/after vs. progression advertising) and temporal distance (distant vs. proximate) through four experiments. Specifically, for products that require a longer duration to manifest effects (distant temporal distance), consumers exhibit a more favorable attitude towards before/after advertise-ments. Conversely, for products that demonstrate effects in a shorter time span (proximate temporal distance), consumers hold a more positive attitude towards progression advertising. The congruity between these factors is mediated by imagery fluency. The findings of this research extend the related research on ad-vertising effect presentation, offering new insights for enterprises to enhance the effectiveness of advertising for transformative products.

More and more companies are building brands through storytelling. However, few studies have divided brand stories into manufacturing stories and service stories, and explored the effect of brand stories with AI and human as the protagonist of the story. Based on fit theory, this paper discusses the interaction effect of brand story type (manufacturing vs. service )and story subject ( Al vs. human) on consumers' brand attitude and its internal influence mechanism. Through three experiments to test the research hypothesis, the results show that: for the manufacturing story, consumers have a more positive brand attitude towards the brand story with Al as the protagonist, while for the service story, consumers have a more positive brand attitude towards the brand story with human as the protagonist; the interaction effect of brand story type and story protagonist on brand attitude is mediated by brand story trust. This study enriches the relevant theories of brand story, and provides practical enlightenment for brand story marketing.

To mitigate the widespread crisis communication of brand negative publicity on social media, many brands have applied comment management strategies (such as managing featured reviews) to moderate unfavorable reviews. Drawing from the Persuasion Knowledge Model, this paper conducts three experiments with Weibo users to examine the impact of featured review set characteristics (balance, sequence, and type) on consumers’ crisis communication. The results show that a fully positive set of featured reviews or presenting positive comments earlier in a sequence stimulates stronger inferences of ulterior motives, further trggering secondary crisis communication. Furthermore, defensive featured reviews (as opposed to advocative reviews) lead to stronger inferences of ulterior motive in the negative-positive sequence, while the effect is not significant in the positive-negative sequence. Theoretically, this research observes the counterproductive effect of featured reviews and provides new directions for social media crisis response strategies. In addition, this paper has practical insights for companies to apply comment management strategies in response to negative publicity.

Although consumers have ample opportunities to be exposed to nature in their daily lives, research on the potential impact of exposure to nature on consumers within the marketing field remains limited. From an environmental perspective, the present research focuses on shapes, which are commonly used in product design and brand logos, and investigates the influence and underlying mechanism of exposure to nature on consumers' shape preference through four experiments. Utilizing an implicit association test, Study 1 reveals that consumers tend to associate natural environments with rounded shapes and built environments with angular shapes. Studies 2 and 3 further demonstrate that exposure to nature affects consumers’ shape preferences. In contrast to exposure to built environments or the control group, exposure to natural environments significantly increases consumers’ relative preference for rounded (vs. angular) shape designs, with perceived congruence acting as a mediator. Study 4 demonstrate that the above effect would be attenuated for consumers with a salient competitive mindset. These findings enrich the literature on exposure to nature and shape preferences, and provide actionable implications.