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Consumers rely on their intuitions to make sense of a complex and uncertain marketplace. Current research investigates (i) the factors and (ii) consequences of consumers' intuitive theories about the market economy, companies, the use of smart algorithms, and marketing manipulation. The analyses of factors show that consumers' beliefs about the marketplace are immensely affected by the evolutionary adaptations. Although consumers' beliefs are accurate representations of the marketplace in most cases, they are oftentimes corrupted because humans' mind has not changed much in the last 10,000 years when humans were living in small hunter-gatherer societies. Development of manufacturing, economic growth, technological advancement-all were too rapid and recent so that the advantages of modern economy might not only be beneficial to consumers, but also frighten them. This is because human cognition is not equipped to think about such complex and opaque phenomena. In addition, it is highly-attuned to threats (even though falsely). The analysis of consumer behavior showed that these intuitions have significant effect on consumers' brand attitudes, choice, and sentiments around the entire market economy. The three papers not only examine the connection between evolutionary factors and consumer behavior, but also test the ways of making consumers' beliefs more accurate. This has theoretical contributions to the corresponding literatures and important practical implications for marketers and policymakers.

Sensory impressions are omnipresent in our everyday lives, and they continuously exert influence on human psychology and behavior. Recently, marketeers and retailers have consciously started to create sensory rich shopping environments. More work is necessary to understand the impact of multisensory environments on consumers. This thesis investigates the impact of sensory factors on consumer behavior focusing on (1) substantive issues benefiting from sensory marketing, (2) advancing conceptual perspectives on sensory marketing, and (3) empirically assessing the effects of multisensory in-store advertisements. Three papers prioritize each of these points to advance the current knowledge on sensory marketing: Paper 1. The first paper enhances our understanding of the substantive domains by conducting a thorough literature review highlighting sensory marketing effects with practical implications for retailers and marketing scholars. Paper 2. The second paper of this thesis contributes to current theories within consumer research and psychology by developing a new theoretical framework that combines sensory elements with retail atmospherics. Paper 3. The third paper empirically assesses the effects of multisensory retail environments via five field studies. Paper 3 draws on transportations theory and optimum stimulation theory to investigate the impact of visual, auditory, and olfactory elements on shopping behavior. The chapter reports the results and insights derived from shopping observations, sales data, and survey studies. The findings show that dynamic advertising content is most effective in increasing shopping behavior, while other sensory elements can enhance the attention customers direct to in-store displays.

This PhD aims to investigate how consumers form pre-release perceptions through trailer advertising campaigns and how movie trailers generate pre-release buzz which consequently drives audiences to the cinema on the opening weekend. This thesis is built on three studies: 1) Study 1 uses a survey to explore the relationship between understanding the movie trailer, liking, word-of-mouth intent and purchase intent. Findings from statistical analysis show that understanding what the movie is about, coupled with liking the movie trailer drives consumers to spread positive WOM online and to consider paying to see the movie. 2) Study 2 looks further into the antecedents and outcomes of understanding the movie trailer. A series of experiments assess elements of the trailer's content on consumers' objective and subjective understanding, and their effect on ad (trailer) and product (movie) liking. Findings show that the amount and order of information significantly influence consumers' understanding of what the movie is about. In addition, comparisons between objective and subjective understanding reveal that consumers are over-confident in the amount of information they feel they have understood, but it is the latter that drives ad and product liking. 3) Study 3 further tests these relationships through the collection and analysis of behavioural data. Trailers are categorised on the amount and order of information. YouTube comments collected on the respective trailers are analysed to extract different components of pre-release buzz. Confirming the findings of Study 2, results show that the amount and order of information do influence trailer liking, but relationships are further driven by movie-related parameters (e.g. genre). Analysis of pre-release buzz components demonstrate that commenting and liking are distinct activities. Among pre-release buzz components and movie-related parameters, the number of video views is the strongest predictor of opening weekend box office performance.