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This paper addresses the repositioning of Kmart Australia in 2011. It shows how by calibrating emotional as well as cognitive reactions and estimating their impact on purchase intentions, Kmart was [...]

In this paper we explain how practice, prior knowledge and task difficulty interact to affect demand for hedonic experiences. As predicted by the human capital model, we propose that the key determinant of demand for hedonic experiences is the increase in performance efficiency that can be gained through practice. In addition, we argue that the nature of the effect of practice is distinctly different in hedonic consumption, compared to utilitarian consumption. Specifically, for hedonic experiences, practice allows consumers to extract greater value within a given period of time, rather than reduce the amount of time spent on a (utilitarian) task. Finally, we argue that if changes in performance efficiency across repeated hedonic experiences adhere to the power law of practice, then both prior knowledge and task difficulty will be important moderators of the main effect of practice on demand. These predictions are tested in two experiments that use an online panel to examine consumer demand for videogames. Keywords Experience * Power law of practice * Human capital model * Videogames * Internet * Hedonic products * Utilitarian * Prior knowledge * Decision making, Consumers spend a lot of their money and time on hedonic experiences. Indeed, some have argued that we live in an 'experience economy' and that managing consumers' experiences is the [...]

A research to determine the effects of price-related phonemes on consumer perceptions of sale price value, relative discount, and purchase intentions is presented. Multiple regular versus sale price combinations chosen were used to reflect phonetically relevant sounds that have been demonstrated to affect size perceptions. Details of the results are also discussed.

A study to determine whether belief in karma, with its emphasis on a longer-term orientation, counteracts the tendency to lower expectations is presented. The study focus on India since the extent of belief in Karma is a major influence there. The results show that the extent of belief in karma does moderate the effect of invalid sensitivity on expectations.

How consumers differentiate nonprofit and for-profit organizations based on their apparent warmth and competence is presented. Three experiments show that consumers perceived nonprofits as being warmer than a for-profit firm but are less willing to buy a product from them due to lack of competence. The importance of consumer stereotypes of the firms is also discussed.

Byline: Isabella Soscia (1), Simona Girolamo (2), Bruno Busacca (1) Keywords: Comparative advertising; Perceived differentiation; Perceived similarity; Involvement; Advertising effectiveness Abstract: Purpose Comparative advertising is seen as an effective means of conveying the differentiating advantages of a brand. Nevertheless, several studies show that a primary effect of comparative advertising is to lead consumers to associate the advertised brand with the competitor brand identified within the ad: it seems that comparison generates perceived similarity among brands instead of differentiation, per se. In order to clarify the issue, the aim of the research is to investigate the relative effectiveness of comparative and non-comparative advertising in communicating the differentiating attributes of a brand. Results A two independent group experiment was conducted. Two hundred and eighty participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions in which they were exposed to a comparative or a non-comparative print ad. Results show that comparative advertising's effect depends on consumers' perceived differentiation among the brands and consumers' level of involvement with the specific product category. Findings demonstrate that high-involvement consumers that perceive low differentiation among brands represent the perfect target group for comparative advertising in case the aim of the marketing manager is to distinguish a particular brand among the others. Conclusion This study provides evidence of the relevance of these two moderating factors: not all customers belonging to a product target group perceive comparative advertising equivalently. As a consequence, marketers should implement the advertising strategy which is more likely to be effective considering the characteristics of the main target. Author Affiliation: (1) Marketing Department via Roentgen 1, Universita Luigi Bocconi, 20136, Milan, Italy (2) Telecom Italia, Milan, Italy Article History: Registration Date: 06/08/2009 Online Date: 18/09/2009 Article note: Received and reviewed by former editor, George Neuman.

The associations of sex and eyedness of consumers in a market and the market's lighting and wall color with price attraction and perceived quality of goods and the inside visual appeal were studied using an inventory after shopping by 440 men and 478 women, 20 to 60 years old (M = 29.3, SD = 10.2). Two lights (soft and bright) and 4 colors (blue, yellow, green, and red) and neutral light (white) were used. Women rated the prices of goods more attractive compared to men. In the total sample, left-eye preferents rated visual appeal higher compared to right-eye preferents. Bright light was associated with higher visual appeal than soft light. Green was associated with the highest inside visual appeal and perceived quality of goods, which may be due to its intermediate wavelength.

People tend to contribute more towards experimental public goods based on the higher contributions from others. In this context, conformity and reciprocity towards public good provision is examined.

Typicality and novelty have often been shown to be related to aesthetic preference of human artefacts. Since a typical product is rarely new and, conversely, a novel product will not often be designated as typical, the positive effects of both features seem incompatible. In three studies it was shown that typicality (operationalized as 'goodness of example') and novelty are jointly and equally effective in explaining the aesthetic preference of consumer products, but that they suppress each other's effect. Direct correlations between both variables and aesthetic preference were not significant, but each relationship became highly significant when the influence of the other variable was partialed out. In Study 2, it was furthermore demonstrated that the expertise level of observers did not affect the relative contribution of novelty and typicality. It was finally shown (Study 3) that a more 'objective' measure of typicality, central tendency -- operationalized as an exemplar's average similarity to all other m embers of the category -- yielded the same effect of typicality on aesthetic preference. In sum, all three studies showed that people prefer novel designs as long as the novelty does not affect typicality, or, phrased differently, they prefer typicality given that this is not to the detriment of novelty. Preferred are products with an optimal combination of both aspects., When consumer products are on the market for a longer period of time, their technical specifications tend to become less and less varied and the importance of product design as [...]

Research concerning the intention versus the actual purchasing of organically produced food is presented. In 320 German university students, interventions consisting of monetary benefits, formation of specific plan and a combination of both methods are used to determine the actual purchasing behavior.

This study investigates the relationship between perceived (un)control and consumer attributions following a service encounter. In addition to looking at the effects of consumer attributions on postconsumption behavior, our study also explores the key antecedent of consumer causal inferences. Results obtained confirm that level of uncontrol is positively related to the triggering of attributions. Moreover, the reported cause of a positive or negative service encounter is also associated with level of uncontrol experienced by the consumer.

A salesperson's first impression of a potential customer is significantly associated with salesperson effectiveness. Sales personnel face the challenge of establishing a relationship while completing a sale and satisfying the customer.

This paper refers to herding behaviour as developed in Bikhchandani et al. (1992), Bannerjee (1992) and Choi and Scarpa (1994). We examine the behaviour of a potential customer who does not know how many of her predecessors decided not to purchase the product. We show that, ceteris paribus, a smaller (larger) customer base increases the likelihood of a positive (negative) cascade. Hence, a firm can signal its commitment to high quality (Schelling 1960) by choosing to develop a customer base that relies upon the customer's 'private' information rather than one that relies on an informational cascade.

This article discusses values and ethics of professionals and consumers in the area of mental illness treatment and care. While professionals focus on the knowledge in the field and professional ethics, consumers characterize their relationships with the care givers based on a set of core values and experience.

Information technology, especially as it is applied to the Internet, are some of the most significant factors in moving political power away from nations and toward international organizations. Issues of cyberspace activity and the ways it modifies human behavior need further ongoing investigation.

A study was conducted to analyze the role of comparisons in the evaluation of options' attractiveness and the influence of grouping on choice. Two assumptions which imply that whenever the options under consideration have both meaningful advantages and disadvantages were examined. Results indicated a number of observations concerning the importance of grouping in choice. Findings also showed that a same set of options may produce systematically different choices under various groupings.

This field study investigated the extent to which stereotypically French and German music could influence supermarket customers' selections of French and German wines. Music with strong national associations should activate related knowledge and be linked with customers buying wine from the respective country. Over a 2-week period, French and German music was played on alternate days from an in-store display of French and German wines. French music led to French wines outselling German ones, whereas German music led to the opposite effect on sales of French wine. Responses to a questionnaire suggested that customers were unaware of these effects of music on their product choices. The results are discussed in terms of their theoretical implications for research on music and consumer behavior and their ethical implications for the use of in-store music.

Research has shown that servers can increase their tip percentages by writing 'Thank you' or by drawing a happy face on the backs of customers' checks. In the current study, a third approach of this type was tested. An experiment was conducted in which a female server either did or did not write a helpful message about an upcoming dinner special on the backs of checks before delivering them to customers. It was predicted that adding the helpful message would increase tip percentages because of reciprocity, in which customers would tend to respond to the server's 'tip' with an increased tip of their own. Results were consistent with this prediction: Mean tip percentages increased from about 17% to 20%.

This study was done to replicate and extend prior research efforts as called for in 1996 by Gaski. Specifically, the relationship between customers' dependence on a manufacturer for products sold and customers' perception of the power of that manufacturer was investigated, where customers' dependence is the need to obtain resources from the manufacturers whose products they sell to increase their own performance and manufacturer's power is the manufacturer's ability to control decision-making variables by their customers. Data were collected from 406 intermediary customers in a marketing system. A regression model was used to quantify the relationship between ratings of manufacturers' power and customers' dependence. Contrary to previous findings, analysis indicated a near absence of an effect of customers' dependence on the manufacturer for products to be sold on customers' perception of manufacturer's power.

Consumers mentally acknowledge and reconcile the benefits versus the cost of items at the time of committment. Once the investment in time, money of effort has been made the consumer will generally purchase the product even if though benefits do not outweigh the costs. In prepayment types of transactions, the consumer will increase his interest in the product or service nearest the time of payment.

The duality of consciousness experienced by consumers is one aspect of marketing research that has received insufficient attention among academians. Despite the vagueness associated with the mental state of consumers, it has been established that under altered consciousness, consumers tend to verbalize their decision-making skills better. It was revealed that people under hypnotic stages tend to be more vocal about their decisions, providing them with more emotional explanations than in a non-altered state.

The predictive validity of two measurement methods of self-image congruence - traditional versus new - were compared in six studies involving different consumer populations, products, consumption settings, and dependent variables (brand preference, preference for product form, consumer satisfaction/dissatisfaction, brand attitude, and program choice). The traditional method is based on tapping the subject's perception of product-user image and the subject's perception of his/her self-image along a predetermined set of image attributes and adding the self-congruity scores across all image dimensions. Three problems were identified and discussed in relation to the traditional method: (1) the use of discrepancy scores, (2) the possible use of irrelevant images, and (3) the use of the compensatory decision rule. The new method is based on tapping the psychological experience of self-congruity directly and globally. The findings demonstrated the predictive validity of the new method over and beyond the traditional method. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

A laboratory study investigated the effect of circadian orientation on consumers' emotional state at different times of day. Subjects' emotional state was measured using the Pleasure-Arousal-Dominance scale in the morning and in the evening. Individual circadian orientation (morningness-eveningness) was also assessed. Analyses showed that changes in consumers' emotional state as a function of the time of the day is moderated by individual differences in circadian orientation. Morning-types were in a more pleasurable emotional state in the morning than in the evening. The predicted reversed pattern for the evening-types did not reach significance. Null effects were reported for the arousal and submissive/dominance dimensions of emotional state. Morning-types rated themselves as more awake than evening-types. Morning-types were more awake in the morning than in the evening and vice-versa for evening-types. The magnitude of the differences between evening-type and morning-type individuals was significant in the morning. Findings are discussed from methodological, theoretical, and marketing perspectives.

We simultaneously analyze the impact on consumer memory of the duration and serial position of a commercial and of the number of competing commercials in a block using a marketplace database of 2,677 television commercials. Our results indicate that duration, competition, and the time lag until the onset of a commercial in a block have large effect sizes, while primacy and recency have only modest effect sizes. By decomposing serial position into its ordinal and time-lag aspects, this study shows that recency effects are masked by the time until the onset of a commercial in a block. The findings suggest that, given comparable costs and a goal to maximize brand recall, placing a commercial first is better than placing it last. In addition, the analyses identify several significant and previously undocumented interactions. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

A survey sent to banking customers indicates that different consumer motivations led to use of different technological services. Technologies examined include debit cards, telephone banking, and automated teller machines.

Consumers make distance judgments when they decide which store to visit or which route to take. However, these judgments may be prone to various spatial perception biases. While there is a rich literature on spatial perceptions in urban planning and environmental and cognitive psychology, there is little in the field of consumer behavior. In this article we introduce the topic of spatial perceptions as an area of research in marketing. We extend the literature on spatial perceptions by proposing that consumers use the direct distance between the endpoints of a path, or the distance 'as the crow flies,' as a source of information while making distance judgments - the shorter the direct distance, the shorter the distance estimate. We study two spatial features that affect direct distance - path angularity (i.e., the size of the angle between path segments) and path direction (i.e., whether the path retraces back or not). We further propose and demonstrate that the direct-distance bias is due to the perceptual salience of direct distance and is used by consumers in an automatic manner. Theoretical implications for the manner in which consumers process spatial information and the use of cognitive heuristics while making spatial judgments are discussed. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

The present inquiry examines the psychological meanings and processes that shape consumers' sense of body image and the consumption behaviors motivated by those perceptions. Poststructuralist interpretive procedures were used to analyze interviews with 30 male and female consumers, aged 6-54. This discourse analysis led to the development of three process-oriented themes: (1) the ideology of self-control, (2) the social processes of normalization and problematization, and (3) the operation of the disciplinary gaze. The systematic manifestations of these themes are illustrated across a range of consumer experiences and body-focused perceptions. Implications of these themes for the theoretical conceptualizations of body image and the nature of self-concept in contemporary consumer culture are discussed. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

A widespread practice in grocery store advertising is to compare the advertised store's prices to a competitor's prices on multiple items. An important, but largely unexplored, issue is how this information is processed and used in conjunction with prior beliefs to influence price perceptions. In our initial studies we manipulated prior beliefs to influence price perceptions. In our initial studies we manipulated prior beliefs and two data-based cues - to determine their relative influence on consumer price perceptions. Results indicate that prior beliefs affected price perceptions but that the frequency cue exerted a dominating influence. Several follow-up studies demonstrate the robustness of this phenomenon across a variety of presentational and instructional conditions. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Consumerism has a psychological function of serving as a buffer against unpleasant reality, and media consumption facilitates this by imposing a break with reality which could be psychotic. For example, the impact of real violence can be defused by television imagery. As viewers engage in social defense against the outer world, they lose touch with their fears and anxieties while retaining images and information which impede knowledge.

Earlier research by Cacioppo and Petty has shown need for cognition scores to be related to the early conceptualization of cognitive style of Witkin, Dyk, Faterson, Goodenough, and Karp. For a sample of 69 female and 98 male undergraduate business students, the present study investigated relationships between need for cognition and cognitive style as measured by the sensing-intuiting and thinking-feeling components of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Need for cognition scores were statistically related to cognitive style. As hypothesized, subjects high on Intuiting-Thinking scored highest, and those scoring high on Intuiting-Feeling and Sensing-Thinking had intermediate scores. Subjects scoring high on Sensing-Feeling scored lowest. Five of six paired contrasts of need for cognition scores were significant. Market applications and implications for consumer psychology are discussed.

An alternative process for the study of consumer psychology is presented. The standpoint of consumer research often begins with a consideration of the consumer's interests. Consumer psychology is a segment of the field of economic psychology, which studies how individuals respond to their economic environment and try to manipulate their socio-economic conditions. The alternative process studies the consumer's reaction to economic occurrences, the consumer's deliberations based on internal and external data and the consumer's action or inaction through the communication of signals.

A discussion of the market factors which affect consumer behavior is presented. A definition of market is not easy to arrive at because of the rapid changes changes among manufacturers, suppliers, consumers and by internationalization and segmentation. Some of the major market changes discussed are the increasing number and varieties of product categories, the technological advances attained by many products and the variety of meanings which brands are called upon to convey.

Using an improved measure of consumers, socially responsible behavior, testing a national sample of 1,503 consumers and being guided by Eagly's 1987 social role theory of sex-based differences in social behavior, support was found for the contention that women exhibit more concern for others and society as consumers in their behavior and decision making.

An analysis was conducted on the use of operant psychology in determining consumer behavior. Results show that an unreconstructed operant behaviorism cannot be used to establish a model of purchase and consumption. However, a workable behavioral perspective model reflecting influences in consumer choice can be determined by using radical behaviorism as a basis for operant performance.

Consumer psychology provides a link between academic psychology and practical marketing which was developed in the early 1900s. Psychology attempts to understand people's motivations and their decision-making processes while marketing attempts to exploit that very understanding to promote products that may or may not be necessary. Sales persons are trained to recognize certain psychological characteristics to improve their chances of making a sale while consumers adopt characteristics to improve their chances of getting a deal.

While product involvement has received considerable attention in the research literature on consumers, service involvement has received comparatively little despite its potential usefulness. The present study utilized a survey to explore descriptively 231 consumers' involvement across six services. To this end, the factor structure, internal consistency, and subscale relationships were examined for the Revised Personal Involvement Inventory, which was developed within a goods context by McQuarrie and Munson in 1986. Further, the relations of scale dimensions to selected outcome measures were assessed. Over-all, it appears the use of this measure of involvement holds promise for researchers and practitioners as a means for gaining insights into consumer-service relationships and as a marketing tool.

In three learning experiments we examined how subjects' level of involvement during initial exposure to consumer trivia influences what they learn and what they subsequently come to belive. Subjects rated consumer trivia statements as more true when they had been exposed to those statements earlier in the experiment. Simple repetition increased subsequent truth ratings. Moreover, when subjects processed the information during initial exposure in a less involving fashion, the effect of repetition on truth became more pronounced. Familiarity emerged as a key mediator fo the truth effect. When subjects experienced an 'it rings a bell' reaction, they judged the information to be more true. Finally, under low-involvement processing, the truth effect increased when subjects engaged in a processing task (rote rehearsal) that increased familiarity without increasing evaluative processing of the information. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

This study examines individuals' reports about emotive experience vis-a-vis their attitudinal judgments as predictors of subsequent behavior. Hypotheses are developed around the general premise that emotional reports tap information with motivational implications that need not be integrated into attitude judgments and thus should supplement attitude in prediction. The hypotheses are tested with a unique data base that allows categorization of subjects on the basis of diverse levels of prior experience and features naturally occurring behavior over a 12-month period as the criterion variable. The data support the premise that emotional variables can serve as incremental predictors in instances in which situational pressures may inhibit formation of meaningful attitudes. Also, the data suggest that emotional reports may furnish some unique information about what perpetuates a behavior. Implications for further integration of emotional experience into consumer research are discussed. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

A 'joint production' model that combines aspects of household production and the economics of information is formulated to explain variation in time spent in price information search for groceries by dual earner households. Enjoyment of search time, a psychological variable, is incorporated into the model. Empirical estimation using grocery expenditure data indicates that enjoyment, income, age, the price of search time, presence of young and teenage children, daily use of a microwave oven, and the percentage of a market basket filled with name brand items are significant factors in explaining variation in time spent in price information search. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.), Time as a Direct Source of Utility: The Case of Price Information Search for Groceries Dual earner households face increased demands on their time due to labor market activity. These [...]