Deriving happiness through extraordinary or ordinary brand experiences in times of COVID‐19 threat

The authors examined how the joint effect of brand experience type (ordinary vs. extraordinary) and COVID‐19 threat on consumer happiness changed at different stages of the COVID‐19 pandemic. The findings from five studies, with the COVID‐19 threat and lockdown status measured as well as manipulated, suggest that COVID‐19 threat exerts converse moderating influences on the extraordinariness–happiness relationship under no lockdown and lockdown. Under lockdown, threat attenuates the effect of brand extraordinariness on happiness; extraordinary brand experiences bring more happiness than ordinary brand experiences when the perceived threat of COVID‐19 is low, but consumers derive comparable happiness from extraordinary and ordinary experiences when perceived threat is high. Under no lockdown, threat amplifies the positive effect of extraordinariness on happiness. Consumers rarely experience a large‐scale lockdown due to a pandemic, and this research advances understanding of how consumer happiness from a brand experience changes with the trajectory of a pandemic.