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.
