Whether and when gratitude appeals work: the role of online community identity and an other-focused mindset

Purpose This research examines whether and when gratitude appeals are effective in online community contexts. It tests whether community identity salience enhances their persuasiveness, identifies the underlying psychological mechanism, and examines community- and brand-level boundary conditions. Design/methodology/approach Across three experiments, this study tests the proposed framework. Experiment 1 examines whether an other-focused mindset mediates the effect of online community identity salience on purchase intention for products promoted through gratitude appeals. Experiment 2 tests community interaction structure (reciprocal vs broadcast-oriented) as a community-level boundary condition. Experiment 3 compares Guochao (China-chic, culturally symbolic) with non-Guochao branding to test a brand-level boundary condition. Findings Online community identity salience increases purchase intention for products promoted through gratitude appeals by activating an other-focused mindset. This indirect effect emerges in reciprocal rather than broadcast-oriented communities, and it is weaker under Guochao than non-Guochao branding. Originality/value This research shows that gratitude-appeal effectiveness depends on the social context in which the message is processed. By integrating online community identity, identity-based persuasion, and gratitude-appeal research, it identifies an other-focused mindset as the mechanism and specifies community interaction structure and culturally symbolic branding as boundary conditions. Treating Guochao as an instance of identity-based brand positioning, the study offers a multi-level account of relational persuasion with implications beyond China.