Consumer study uncovers increased electronic word-of-mouth from cartoon mascots in heritage brand tourists, highlighting viable transformation strategies for traditional businesses.
Time-honored brands, renowned for their rich historical legacy and exceptional craftsmanship, hold immense cultural symbolism and attract a significant number of tourists. Nevertheless, many of these brands are confronted with the challenge of transformation amidst shifting market dynamics. Against this backdrop, drawing on meaning transfer theory, cognitive appraisal theory, and from the perspective of symbolic consumption, this study investigates the effect of cartoon characters as one of the transformation strategies on tourist electronic word-of-mouth (EWOM). The results reveal that the cultural meaning and cuteness of the cartoon character image can positively influence EWOM, with positive emotions mediating this relationship. Moreover, tourists’ familiarity with the image significantly positively moderates the impact of cultural meaning on positive emotions, while not affecting the impact of cuteness on positive emotions. These insights offer managerial implications and novel perspectives on brand image design and the sustainable legacy of traditional brands.
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Chen et al. (2025) studied this question.
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