This study investigated the effect of numerical customer identification (i.e., assigning numbers to identify customers) in the service context on the numbered customers' reaction to service failures. We manipulated numerical identification in different ways (room number, customer number, table number, and order number) and measured customers' tolerance of services across various settings (in a restaurant, a spa, and a café) in four studies. The results demonstrated that after being identified by a number, customers tend to exhibit a higher tolerance of service failures (Studies 1 and 2), and this effect is mediated by a sense of self‐dehumanization among the numerically identified customers (Study 3). Moreover, the investigated effect diminished when customers had heightened individuation (e.g., by disclosing personal information) to buffer against dehumanization (Study 4). Our findings contribute to the underexplored research area on customer identification, broaden the numerical research and dehumanization literature in marketing, and bring practical implications for firms to mitigate the negative effects of service failures and decrease customer dissatisfaction.

What determines an individual's preference for high‐ or low‐intensity visual stimuli? This research designed four studies, including one incentive‐compatible study, to explore a novel situation—imbuing a product with sentimental value to drive consumer consumption of intense visual stimulation. We manipulated imbuing a product with sentimental value from both the consumers' (via hypothetical scenarios) and the marketers' (via brand positioning) perspectives. The results reveal that when a product is imbued with sentimental value, consumers exhibit a greater preference for high‐intensity visual stimuli (highly saturated colors; Studies 1 and 2), and this effect is driven by consumers' heightened desire for memorability (Study 3). Moreover, the investigated effect diminishes when the expected usage time frame of products is short (vs. long; Study 4). Our work contributes to sentimental value, memory, and visual sensory marketing literature. The findings also provide strong managerial implications for marketing practitioners to properly use and design visual sensory stimuli. Specifically, we offer a viable way to incorporate sentiment into retailing (i.e., via brand positioning) and identify factors that marketers should consider (e.g., manufacturing materials) to promote rich visual elements in situations involving imbuing products with sentimental value.

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At present, the object grasping system of robot based on vision is one of the research hotspots, and it has a broad application prospect in industry, especially in the part of sorting. The key technologies of this system include robot hand-eye calibration, grasping target detection, grasping path planning, etc. This paper provides an overview about the current status of these key technologies by collating relevant literature, including the four kinds of hand-eye calibration methods, deep learning based grasping target detection algorithms, and the advantages and disadvantages of three kinds of grasping path planning methods. In this paper, the key technologies of vision-based robot object grasping system are summarized and prospected, which can be helpful to researchers in related fields.