This study provides insights into young consumers’ responses to sustainable labels. Drawing on signaling theory, the article studies how third-party labels (TPLs) act and interact with company-level claims, trying to better understand their impact on young consumers’ perceptions and willingness to buy (pay for) a chocolate bar. A between-subjects factorial experiment—conducted by manipulating third-party sustainable labels (presence/absence of the labels) and self-declared claims (absence of the claim, formal claim, and friendly claim)—was used to test: (a) the effect of TPLs and self-declared claims on consumers’ perceptions, purchase intention, and willingness to pay, (b) whether this effect was mediated through the perceived credibility of the sustainability message, and (c) what kind of tone-of-voice adopted in the company’s claim was more effective. Data were collected via an online survey among a sample of 315 consumers (age range: 18–39 years) in South Italy. We found that third-party labels, “alone” were not effective in influencing consumers’ perceptions and willingness to buy/pay, while a self-declared claim, especially if characterized by a formal tone of voice, had a much more relevant impact. The combination of TPLs and self-declaration affected most consumers’ willingness to pay when the copy claim was informal. The perceived credibility of the sustainability message mediated the relationships between self-declared claims and the majority of the dependent variables, while, with reference to the relationship between TPLs and dependent variables, it did not act as a mediator.

The market value of global influencer marketing has more than doubled since 2019 (Statista, 2021). The emergence of the so-called virtual influencers (VIs) has redefined the boundaries of possibilities in this “industry” attracting the interest of many brands and raising several questions about their development, ethics, purpose in marketing and perspective. These ‘new’ social media celebrities have also attracted the attention of the scientific community but research has yet to explore how VIs are likely to reshape the practice of marketing. This study aims to better understand the attitudes and reactions of Generations Y and Z (the most attractive target group for influencers) towards VIs—in particular, to find out how VIs are perceived by younger customers and whether VIs can effectively persuade them to buy certain products. Two focus groups were conducted to facilitate an initial response to a relatively new phenomenon, and to gain a social, contextual view of the issue. Our results showed that human influencers still outperform the virtual ones for a number of reasons, ranging from the impossibility of identifying with digital creatures, the inability of the latter to demonstrate the efficacy of the products on themselves and the impossibility, expressed by many respondents, of empathising with entities that appear soulless and largely manipulated by those who—anonymously, behind their backs—are only interested in selling products.

Aims: New trends in drug consumption reveal increasing polydrug use. Epidemiological indicators in the current use are based on the prevalence and the associated potential harm of a single “main” substance. We propose new indicators to evaluate frequency and potential harm of polydrug use. The indicators are used to compare drug use among countries based on survey data on adolescents' substance use in 38 European countries. Methods: The approach is based on analysis of the frequency of use in the various population samples: lifetime use, twelve months use or last thirty days, depending on available data, and on the risk of harm for the substances used. Two indicators are provided: the frequency of use score (FUS) by summing the frequency of use of each substance, and the polydrug use score (PDS) that weight all the substances used by their risk. Results: The indicators FUS and PDS were calculated and the distribution functions were used to characterise substance use across ESPAD countries. The analysis shows important differences in poly-substance use severity among countries presenting similar prevention policies. Conclusions: Systematic analysis of substance use and the related risk are of paramount interest. The proposed indicators are designed to better monitor and understand consequences of polydrug use and to measure the resulting risk at country or population level. The indicators may also be used to assess the effects of policy interventions.

The study of entrepreneurial motivation has undergone a remarkable development in recent decades. Entrepreneurship scholars have shown a particular interest in understanding of the reasons that lead to entrepreneurial action in contexts characterised by considerable resource constraints. In relation to these contexts, many studies have drawn on push-pull theory to argue that necessity (push) or opportunity (pull) related motivations explain how entrepreneurial intention is formed. As part of the debate on entrepreneurial motivations in disadvantaged contexts and adopting a gender perspective, this paper aims to explore the motivations of women entrepreneurs leading young ventures. Their entrepreneurial action is not only subject to the vulnerabilities generally ascribed to young ventures and to the resource constraints of the territory in which they operate, but is also hampered by an additional obstacle in the form of gender roles, which involve behaviours not typically attributable to entrepreneurship. In particular, on the basis of a sample of 74 women entrepreneurs, we investigate the varying intensity of entrepreneurial motivations with reference to different groups defined on the basis of generations. For this purpose, a Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was carried out. The results showed that younger women entrepreneurs generally had higher values for the entrepreneurial motivations considered. Looking at individual items, significant differences were found in several cases, which can be traced to both necessity and opportunity motivations. Thus, we cannot claim that generational diversity alone implies a different intensity of necessity or opportunity motivations. Rather, we believe that younger women are generally more entrepreneurially motivated, and if well educated, they are able to proactively seek out opportunities, even if they decide to start a business out of necessity, as a way of escaping precarious work or the risk of having to emigrate from their home country.