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Geospatial data have a long history in marketing research that goes back to Huff's seminal gravity model from the 1960s. Their applications in research and practice range from location-based mobile targeting of individual consumers to store competition analysis and city marketing. In the past decades, geospatial data have become more readily available and have grown considerably in both breadth (i.e., countries and regions covered) and depth (i.e., granularity and diversity of information covered). Nonetheless, international marketing research has not yet fully embraced the opportunities that geospatial data bring to the field. To address this shortcoming, this article shows how geospatial data may propel international marketing research in various domains and develops future research questions for the field. In addition, it introduces OpenStreetMap as a rich geospatial data source to the discipline. The authors illustrate the use of geospatial data in general and OpenStreetMap in particular through a concrete application in which they analyze city center composition in nine countries across three continents. In doing so, they reproducibly describe the extraction of geospatial data, constructions of metrics and operationalizations, and visualizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consumers who are uninterested in or annoyed by a TV ad may avoid the ad, limiting the effectiveness of not only the ad but also the remaining commercial break. Active avoidance of ads by changing the channel—known as "zapping"—is potentially a major concern for both advertisers and broadcasters. In two studies, the authors investigate whether and why ad content drives or mitigates zapping and develop a conceptual framework linking multiple content factors to psychological reactions that then affect zapping. They test the content–zapping relationship by drawing on a data set reflecting the zapping behavior of over 2,500 German television viewers combined with advertising data and content information for 1,315 spots representing 308 brands from 96 categories. The results of the first study show that ad creativity is associated with less zapping, whereas a strong information focus and a prominent or early integration of branding elements are associated with more zapping. The findings also reveal that the effects differ significantly for products with a utilitarian (vs. hedonic) consumption purpose and for search (vs. experience) goods. The results of the second study show that irritation (determined by feeling, e.g., annoyed, offended, or overwhelmed), relative to enjoyment, acts as the central mechanism in explaining why ad content affects zapping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic conditions may significantly affect households' shopping behavior and, by extension, retailers' and manufacturers' firm performance. By explicitly distinguishing between two basic types of economic conditions—micro conditions, in terms of households' personal income, and macro conditions, in terms of the business cycle—this study analyzes how households adjust their grocery shopping behavior. The authors observe more than 5,000 households over eight years and analyze shopping outcomes in terms of what, where, and how much they shop and spend. Results show that micro and macro conditions substantially influence shopping outcomes, but in very different ways. Microeconomic changes lead households to adjust primarily their overall purchase volume—that is, after losing income, households buy fewer products and spend less in total. In contrast, macroeconomic changes cause pronounced structural shifts in households' shopping basket allocation and spending behavior. Specifically, during contractions, households shift purchases toward private labels while also buying and consequently spending more than during expansions. During expansions, however, households increasingly purchase national brands but keep their total spending constant. The authors discuss psychological and sociological mechanisms that can explain the differential effects of micro and macro conditions on shopping behavior and develop important diagnostic and normative implications for retailers and manufacturers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research and practice have called for the incorporation of customer mindset metrics (CMMs) to improve the accuracy of models that predict individual customer profits. However, as CMMs are self-reported data, collected through customer surveys, they are seldom available for a firm's entire customer database and in addition always measured with some degree of error. Their usage in models for individual-level predictions of customer profit has therefore proven challenging. We offer a solution through a new method called multiple overimputation (MO). MO treats missing data as an extreme form of measurement error and imputes the CMMs for both customers with observed, albeit with measurement error, as well as missing values, that are then included as predictors in a model of individual customer profits. Through a simulation study, empirical application in the pharmaceutical industry, and a customer selection exercise, we demonstrate the predictive and economic value of applying MO in the context of CRM., Author(s): Rajkumar Venkatesan [sup.1] , Alexander Bleier [sup.2] , Werner Reinartz [sup.3] , Nalini Ravishanker [sup.4] Author Affiliations: (Aff1) 0000 0000 9136 933X, grid.27755.32, Professor of Business Administration, Darden Graduate [...]

Abstract Many studies use variables from the Compustat database to measure various marketing constructs, yet no clear guidelines detail which metrics correspond with which constructs. Justifications rest mainly on the [...]

Digital platforms that aggregate products and services, such as Google Shopping or Amazon, have emerged as powerful intermediaries to brand offerings, challenging traditional product brands that have largely lost direct access to consumers. As a countermeasure, several long-established brands have built their own flagship platforms to resume control and foster consumer loyalty. For example, sports brands such as Nike, Adidas, or Asics launched tracking and training platforms that allow for ongoing versatile interactions among participants beyond product purchase. The authors analyze these emerging platform offerings, whose potential brands struggle to exploit, and provide guidance for brands that aim to platformize their business. This guidance comprises the conceptualization of digital platforms as places of consumer crowdsourcing (i.e., consumers drawing value from platform participants such as the brand, other consumers, or third-party businesses) and crowdsending (i.e., consumers providing value to platform participants) of products, services, and content along with a well-defined framework that brands can apply to assemble different types of flagship platforms. Evaluating the consequences of crowdsourcing and crowdsending for consumer–platform relationships, the authors derive a typology of archetypical relationship states and develop a set of propositions to help offline-born product brands thrive through platformization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital transformation has a strong impact on the retail industry. Activities that were once retail sector are moving to online stores, and specialized third parties are taking over physical distribution and payment. Naturally, store-based retailers are not taking this sitting down and many are reacting by starting to “digitalize” their point of sale. But in order to understand the true impact of digitalization and to react adequately, one needs to think backwards from the consumer and enter the scene at a much earlier stage. In our digital age, need occurrence, shopping and consumption are moving much closer in time and space and are being naturally integrated into our daily routine. If retailers still want their share, they have to build an ecosystem of presence and organize themselves around consumption and lived reality of their consumers. They have to be present in the mind of the consumer at the very instance a need arises. Being recalled in time matters now more than ever.

Digital transformation is taking place all around us and there is hardly a single aspect of life that has not been affected. It has an obvious, lasting, and even revolutionary impact, not only on the economic systems and commercial players, but also on the lives of individuals and on society at large. Digital transformation will bring greater tangible and intangible value, but the changes do come with certain costs and risks, sometimes unforeseen. In terms of business strategy, digital technology has been transforming businesses dramatically. Even young companies that have been at the forefront of digital disruption are forced to reinvent and transform themselves and their businesses permanently in order to survive and thrive. If incumbents themselves don’t take advantage of this digital progress to innovate, others will. A new wave of digital disruptors is changing the face of industries. The ability to innovate is thus more important than ever. Entire industries may be threatened if they do not react quickly, while others are emerging almost instantly as if out of nowhere. Handling speed and providing real-time solutions is therefore one of the most critical skills in a digital world.

Manufacturers invest in customer solutions to differentiate their offerings and sustain profitability despite declining margins from goods sales. Notwithstanding strong managerial and academic interest, an examination of whether and explanations for when and why solutions translate into superior performance are lacking. We test hypotheses developed from the resource-based theory and transaction cost economics, supplemented with in-depth theory-in-use interviews, on primary and secondary data collected from 175 manufacturers. From a model that corrects for endogeneity, the findings suggest that, compared with other service offerings, solutions are associated with increased return on sales. This positive profitability effect is enhanced in firms with greater sales capabilities; it is stronger in industries with greater buyer power but weaker in technology-intensive industries. These results caution against the simplistic view of solutions as a universal route to gaining competitive advantage and aid in better identifying the role of solutions in a manufacturer's offering portfolio., Author(s): Stefan Worm [sup.1] , Sundar G. Bharadwaj [sup.2] , Wolfgang Ulaga [sup.3] , Werner J. Reinartz [sup.4] Author Affiliations: (1) 0000 0001 2361 9429grid.413074.5BI Norwegian Business School, Department of [...]