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Sentiment is fundamental to human communication. Countless marketing applications mine opinions from social media communication, news articles, customer feedback, or corporate communication. Various sentiment analysis methods are available and new ones have recently been proposed. Lexicons can relate individual words and expressions to sentiment scores. In contrast, machine learning methods are more complex to interpret, but promise higher accuracy, i.e., fewer false classifications. We propose an empirical framework and quantify these trade-offs for different types of research questions, data characteristics, and analytical resources to enable informed method decisions contingent on the application context. Based on a meta-analysis of 272 datasets and 12 million sentiment-labeled text documents, we find that the recently proposed transfer learning models indeed perform best, but can perform worse than popular leaderboard benchmarks suggest. We quantify the accuracy-interpretability trade-off, showing that, compared to widely established lexicons, transfer learning models on average classify more than 20 percentage points more documents correctly. To form realistic performance expectations, additional context variables, most importantly the desired number of sentiment classes and the text length, should be taken into account. We provide a pre-trained sentiment analysis model (called SiEBERT) with open-source scripts that can be applied as easily as an off-the-shelf lexicon.

Purpose While extant research has predominantly focused on outcomes of customer satisfaction that benefit the focal firm such as customer engagement behaviors (CEBs), little is done to understand human capital-related outcomes that directly benefit customers and thus benefit the firm indirectly. Drawing on the theory of reasoned action, broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions and human capital theory, this study aims to understand how and why a satisfied customer benefits the firm directly (CEBs) and indirectly (human capital-related outcomes). Design/methodology/approach Following a sequential mixed-methods approach, two studies are conducted in an extended service encounter context (higher education) where customers also constitute key human capital of the service firm. First, a qualitative study is conducted, which is then followed by a quantitative study. Survey data collected from students working as interns in organizations and their immediate managers resulted in 209 “intern–manager” dyads. Findings The findings demonstrate that customer satisfaction on its own does not substantially account for either human capital-related outcomes or CEBs (except word of mouth [WOM]). Both emotional and cognitive mechanisms play key and unique mediating roles in translating satisfaction into outcomes that benefit a service firm directly and indirectly by benefiting its customers. Research limitations/implications While much research demonstrates benefits of customer satisfaction for the focal firm, this research advances our understanding of the novel consequences of customer satisfaction by shedding light on human capital-related outcomes that directly benefit customers. It also aids in explicating prior inconsistent findings on the relationship between customer satisfaction and CEBs by uncovering the underlying mediating mechanisms. Practical implications This investigation provides a deeper understanding of the significance of customer satisfaction by demonstrating how and why satisfied customers increase firm value beyond purchase, for instance, by being direct (through positive WOM) and indirect (through enhanced human capital performance) promoters, consultants (through participation) or investors (through monetary giving). A key implication of this research is that simply enhancing customer satisfaction on its own may not suffice as the findings suggest that satisfaction translates into beneficial outcomes only when satisfaction is channeled toward enhancing customer perceptions of competence and their positive emotions. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature by providing a deeper understanding of how and why customer satisfaction influences outcomes that not only benefit the firm but also its customers in extended service encounter context.

By means of a meta-analysis, we synthesize the findings of over two decades of research from 88 empirical studies regarding four well established and theoretically rooted determinants on consumers’ attitude towards digital advertising: informativeness, entertainment, irritation, and credibility. Among other findings, we show that the effects of these determinants have changed over the past 20 years as the internet has developed. We also find that the effects differ depending on which type of online touchpoint was considered. In particular, we differentiate between the most prominent online touchpoints: email advertising, social media advertising, search engine advertising, web display banner advertising, electronic word-of-mouth communication, and corporate website advertising. Additionally, we extend the well-established determinants by more recent ones accounting for the ongoing digitalization and advances in online touchpoints (i.e. personalization, privacy concerns and interactivity). We also derive important managerial implications and several fundamental directions for future research.

Previous research shows mixed findings on whether stress increases or decreases novelty seeking. In three studies, using both archival and experimental data, and including more than 61,000 consumers from over 55 different countries, we show that it can do both, albeit for consumers differing in “life history strategies” (LHSs), that is, short-term, impulsive, and reward-sensitive (fast) versus long-term, reflective, and controlled (slow) strategies. We find that stress increases (helps) novelty seeking for fast, but decreases (hinders) novelty seeking for slow LHS consumers. Moreover, under baseline (low stress) conditions, fast LHS consumers display a lower tendency for novelty seeking than slow LHS consumers. Interestingly, these effects are present for acute stress but not for chronic (pandemic) stress. We discuss the implications of our findings for public policy and positioning strategies, specifying when and for whom novel (versus familiar) products and services might be most effectively and efficiently marketed.

Building barriers to lock in customers and improving the affective customer experience are two key strategies employed by firms to enhance customer retention. Although pursuing the same goal, these strategies work differently: the former relies more on a calculative, cost–benefit approach to the exchange, while the latter promotes affective aspects of the relationship. Integrating experiential learning theory with social exchange theory, we provide a conceptual framework to understand the impact of lock-in and affective customer experience on customer retention, and the moderating role of relationship depth. Using a comprehensive data set for a sample of 13,761 customers covering all firms in one telecom market for two different services, we empirically test the framework via multinomial logit modeling. The results offer novel insights into the interplay between the two strategies. For poor affective customer experience (i.e., a score below five on a 0–10 scale), lock-in helps firms reduce customer churn (between 49.03% and 47.86%). However, the impact of lock-in decreases when affective customer experience improves and turns to be insignificant once the experience reaches the “acceptable level” (i.e., a score above seven on a 0–10 scale). Importantly, the separate and joint effects of the two strategies are stronger when there is a low relationship depth, and weaker when heavy relationships are established. The findings offer useful practical advice to manage these strategies in an efficient and optimal way.

Recent research views nostalgia as a valuable resource that can be accessed in times of distress and discomfort. The present work complements this literature by examining novel and previously uncovered triggers and downstream consequences of nostalgia in the consumer domain: disease-threat and protective behavior. The current paper argues that nostalgia functions as such a psychological resource with buffering qualities and is used as a coping mechanism to maintain comfort when experiencing disease threat—the perception of a potential threat posed by an infectious disease. Using an archival data set and five experiments, the authors demonstrate that when facing a disease threat, but not an actual occurrence of disease, consumers experience a higher need for nostalgia and show an increased preference for nostalgic products. That is, internet searches for nostalgic products rise during flu season as well as COVID-19 pandemic (Study 1), disease threat induces increased levels of experienced nostalgia (Study 2), which translate into increased preferences for nostalgic products (Study 3 and Study 5), mediated by disgust (Study 4). Finally, the authors show the resource value of product-induced nostalgia, demonstrating the ironic effect that it can compensate for disease-protective behavior (Study 6). The results provide important practical implications for marketers and policy-makers who could focus on promoting nostalgic products or incorporating nostalgic cues in product design and communication that would generate positive consumer evaluations when the threat of illness or disease is salient.

Multi-Tier Loyalty Programs (MTLPs) have become a popular marketing instrument to develop customer-firm relationships. Within a MTLP, customers are assigned to different tiers based on their purchase behavior. In this article, we examine whether and when tiers in the MTLP are effective in influencing customer purchase behavior, specifically share of wallet (SOW). A unique business-to-business dataset of a firm in the German agricultural market from 2009 to 2017 is used for the analysis. Data is available on the customer-specific tier level in the MTLP each year. We utilize a Tobit-style panel regression model for the analysis which is inspired by the Regression Discontinuity Design approach. This study makes several important contributions. First, it examines the effect of status in MTLPs and uses causal design to quantify the hitherto intangible effect of customer tiers. Second, this study reveals important insights on how the tier levels interact with other drivers of customer-firm relationships. Third, we use an interesting dataset from a B2B market and thereby contribute to the limited existing literature on the effectiveness of loyalty programs in B2B markets. Armed with a new understanding of how customers respond to tier levels or the negative effects of tenure especially in the highest tier, academics and managers gain new perspectives of whether and how loyalty programs affect customer behavior and drive desired outcomes in the marketplace. © 2022

This manuscript investigates if and how startups can utilize referral campaigns to increase Internet enabled software adoption. It is analyzed how geographic proximity, tie strength and status differences between referrer and referee and the sender's network position impact adoption success. This study complements a complete diffusion dataset of a startup launching Internet enabled software with user survey data on dyad characteristics. Using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis, we show that there are different combinations of network position and dyad characteristics that facilitate adoption success. Results reveal that referral campaigns provide a feasible go to market strategy for software startups.

In recent years, firms’ privacy practices have received increasing attention from consumers. While firms largely see this development as a threat, as consumers might prohibit collection or use of data, we suggest that it can also represent an opportunity for firms. On the “market for privacy,” firms can gain a competitive advantage by differentiating and actively promoting preferred privacy practices. In this context, the authors study how consumers trade off five privacy elements, three relating to distributive fairness (i.e., information collection, storage, use) and two relating to procedural fairness (i.e., transparency, control). Moreover, they analyze how the impact of these elements differs among four industries that vary in information sensitivity and interaction intensity. By using discrete choice experiments, the authors show that all privacy elements matter to consumers, even when in a trade-off with price. In highly sensitive industries, differences in information collection and use matter more, while storage matters less, for differentiation. When consumers have less frequent interactions with companies, they require more transparency about their privacy practices. The authors demonstrate empirically that optimizing privacy practices can lead to robust changes in market shares (Study 1) and higher revenues in equilibrium (Study 2) when firms embrace the market for privacy.

The present research extends findings on when and why consumers (fail to) adopt innovative food products by showing that consideration or consumption of such products (functional foods) can backfire when they entail an inherent and incompatible trade-off between healthiness and naturalness. Four experiments, examining consumers’ willingness to buy, try, and actually consume such foods, show that this trade-off yields a sense of ambivalence that spills over from single product exemplars to negatively affecting (unrelated members of) the parent category of functional foods. However, this effect is not invariant across consumers. Ironically, it is more pronounced for consumers that tend to be more open to novel experiences and also more open to ambivalent feelings to occur—consumers with lower levels of the Preference for Predictability. Implications for marketing practice are discussed.

Scholars and practitioners widely argue that strong, successful brands are built on consistent and unique positioning, which should be reflected in the brands’ advertising. Surprisingly, however, little empirical evidence supports this claim, especially with regard to advertising content. The authors investigate whether and to what extent brands’ advertising content consistency—the similarity in the firm's own advertising content over time—and commonality—the similarity between the firm's and competitors’ advertising content—affect brands’ sales. Insights emerge from the analysis of the impact on sales of the content of 247 television ads aired by 33 brands in six consumer packaged goods categories over a four-year period. Results indicate that more than advertising spending, both consistency and commonality in advertising content affect sales, especially with respect to long-term cumulative sales. However, brands differ considerably regarding the direction of the effects. While small brands tend to benefit from increased consistency and commonality in advertising content, large brands tend to suffer from increased consistency. Thus, whether consistency and commonality in advertising content will help or hurt depends on the size of the brand.

Although collecting personal information about consumers is crucial for firms and marketers, understanding of when and why consumers accept or reject information collection remains limited. The authors conceptualize a privacy calculus that represents a consumer’s trade–off of the valence and uncertainty of the consequences of the collection, storage, and use of personal information. For example, usage-based car insurance requires drivers to share data on their driving behavior in exchange for a discount (certain benefit) but at the risk of third parties intercepting location data for malicious use (uncertain disadvantage). Building on this conceptualization, the authors develop the privacy calculus (PRICAL) index. They empirically confirm the validity of the items (Study 1) and the index as a whole (Study 2). The PRICAL index is generally applicable and improves the explanation of behavioral intentions (Study 2) and actual behavior (Study 3), compared with currently used constructs (e.g., privacy concern, trust). Overall, the PRICAL index allows managers to understand consumers’ acceptance of information collection regarding financial, performance, psychological, security, social, and time-related consequences, which the authors demonstrate using the top five most valuable digital brands (Study 4).

Advertisers increasingly use personal information in social media advertisements as a strategy to promote positive brand attitudes. Personalized ads can be perceived as both positive and negative. This two-sided effect of personalization refers to the personalization paradox. An online experiment (N = 209), in which the level of personalization was manipulated in a Facebook setting, aimed to provide a potential explanation for this paradox. The findings showed that a highly personalized ad resulted in stronger perceived personalization than a less personalized ad. Furthermore, the stronger the perceived personalization, the stronger the relevance. The relevance of the ad positively influenced brand attitude and fully mediated the relationship between personalization and attitude. However, in line with the assumptions of the information boundary theory, the more the ad was perceived as intrusive, the weaker the relevance–attitude relationship, thereby showing a boundary condition for the effectiveness of personalized information when targeting consumers on Facebook.

Music is a key and heavily researched stimulus in tourism and hospitality service settings. However, this growing body of research has produced contradictory results in terms of direction, strength, and statistical significance, rendering conclusions and evidence-based decisions questionable and precarious. This meta-analysis of 56 studies and 209 effects quantitatively synthesizes empirical evidence regarding the influence of music in tourism and hospitality service settings. We consider five dimensions of music and assess their effects on a wide range of customers’ organismic reactions and behavioral responses. The results indicate that it is not so much the presence of music but the design of it that influences customers. In addition, the preferential dimensions of music have a much stronger influence on customers than the physical dimensions of music. The large number of relationships examined offers practical guidance to professionals on the effective use of music in tourism and hospitality settings.

Consumer information is an increasingly valuable resource in the digitally interconnected modern world. Globally, the number of firms collecting and exploiting consumer information to optimize their marketing efforts is increasing rapidly. The authors determine how four cultural dimensions—power distance, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation—affect consumers’ willingness to share their personal information with firms (WTS). The authors empirically test the direct effect of national culture on WTS, as well as its moderating effect on the link between WTS and two of its key drivers, privacy concerns and perceived benefits. Drawing on regulatory focus theory, the authors develop a conceptual framework and test it using multilevel modeling on data from 15,045 consumers across 24 countries. The empirical findings demonstrate that national culture directly affects WTS and moderates the effects of both privacy concerns and perceived benefits on WTS. These results highlight the need for managers and marketers to consider international cultural differences when collecting consumer information.

In the hope of benefiting from the increasing focus on sustainability in Western markets, national brands are introducing new sustainable products. We investigate the success of new sustainable products with a unique dataset combining household panel data, consumer survey data, expert panel survey data, and advertising expenditure data. We show that sustainable new product introductions achieve lower sales than their conventional counterparts. Investing in corporate social responsibility activities compensates for this negative effect and is therefore a viable strategy to boost sales of new sustainable products. Importantly, making sustainable new products clearly innovative mitigates the negative effect of a sustainability claim on new product sales, whereas price promotions aggravate the negative effect. We furthermore caution that the negative effect of sustainability may not decrease as sustainability becomes more mainstream, even if our data covers a period before the currently increased interest in sustainability.

E-commerce has significantly reshaped consumers’ shopping processes and habits. The need to understand the key drivers of online shopping has received keen attention and fueled a rich strand of studies. To help managers and researchers synthesize this growing body of evidence, we conducted a comprehensive meta-analysis to unearth the factors that influence consumers’ online shopping. Our main takeaways reveal that the most important drivers of online shopping (a) conform to the TAM and TPB theories, in addition to (b) website characteristics and past experience. In particular, the multiple predictors are strongly related to online purchase intentions and purchase behavior, where attitude and convenience show the strongest impact. Furthermore, moderator analyses indicate that cultural traits have specific moderating effects on the links between purchase intention and some of its drivers. For instance, power distance and uncertainty avoidance have a positive effect, while individualism, indulgence and masculinity have a negative one. Finally, we apply meta-analytic structural equation modeling to test a conceptual framework including four groups of drivers (consumer–channel interactions, website characteristics, social influence, and consumer characteristics) and different aspects of online shopping. The findings provide valuable insights for online shopping research and practice.

This paper examines the influence of a permanent discount strategy on customer purchase behavior, i.e., purchase incidence in each week, purchase quantity (in units), and total order spending (in CNY). Permanent discounts are defined as discounts continuously provided by retailers. We identify two types of permanent discounts, namely, product-specific price discounts (PD) and order coupons (OD, which can be redeemed for a total order). We collect transactional data from a Chinese online retailer and empirically examine the effects of the two types of permanent discounts and customers’ expectations of PD and OD. We find nonlinear relationships between permanent discounts and customer purchase behavior. PDs negatively influence spending when they are lower than 19% but show a positive effect beyond this threshold, hence depicting a U-shaped relationship. They also affect purchase quantity positively but at a decreasing rate. Customer expectations of PD influence purchase incidence, spending, and purchase quantity following a U-shaped patter with a positive influence appearing when PD expectations are high than 31%, 27%, and 18% respectively. On the other hand, ODs influence spending and purchase quantity positively at an increasing rate. Customer expectations of OD influence purchase incidence, spending, and purchase quantity following a U-shaped relationship where the positive influence on purchase incidence shows beyond OD expectations of 426 CNY, and the positive effect appearing on spending and purchase quantity when these expectations are higher than 34 CNY. We also find that customer expectations of discounts interact with current discount levels in their influence on spending. Combining these results and considering that order coupons negatively affect the profit margin of the total basket, we suggest that retailers should offer order coupons with relatively low value but product-specific price discounts with high discount depth.

Despite the rise of digital, direct mailing as a marketing communication tool remains relevant and widely applied in practice. Nevertheless, research into the effectiveness of direct mailing in the online environment is scant. Key questions that remain entail how direct mails affect different online and offline consumer activity metrics throughout the purchase funnel and how they interact with digital marketing communication tools. The current paper, therefore, investigates these two questions by conducting two studies. First, we focus on the effect of direct mailing on zip-code level upper, middle, and lower funnel performance metrics over time by analyzing quasi-experimental data from a large European insurance firm. The results reveal that direct mailing significantly influences consumer activity metrics in the online channel (i.e., online search and clicking behavior), in support of cross-channel effects of direct mailing. Moreover, direct mailing is shown to be effective throughout the purchase funnel, both directly and indirectly, with a positive net sales effect. Second, we study the joint effect of direct mailing and display advertising by analyzing field experiment data from the same insurance firm. The results show positive synergy between direct mailing and display advertising. Therefore, despite the rise of digital, direct mailing still serves as an effective marketing tool, both by itself and in combination with digital marketing.

In this paper, I discuss some reflections on the emerging literature on multi- and omni-channel retailing. I discuss four important area’s of prior research and briefly describe some general findings. Next, I consider three important emerging trends: 1) digital only, 2) Covid-19 effects and 3) New Technologies. I discuss the implications of these trend for omni-channel retailing and provide some ideas for future research on these trends.

Online retailers are increasingly using third-party online marketplaces (e.g., Amazon, Taobao) as an alternative sales channel to their website. While cross-channel sales elasticities have been established for many sales channel combinations (e.g., adding bricks to clicks), we lack an understanding of whether the use of third-party marketplaces grows or cannibalizes a retailer's sales. Practitioners argue that firms can build their e-commerce business through acquiring customers by selling on the marketplace. Indeed, a marketplace could complement a retailer's offering (e.g., acquiring new customer segments), although inventory effects might mitigate this complementarity. Alternatively, cannibalization might occur from losing customers from one's website to the online marketplace. The present research investigates which of the two opposing forces prevails using a time series of category sales data from one of the largest global marketplace sellers. The authors use vector autoregressive modeling to show that marketplace sales increase sales on a retailer's website (0.014% for every 1% in marketplace sales). This effect is strongest for categories with large choice and low product prices. Acquiring customers through the marketplace might be cheaper than through other sources (estimated at 24% of initial sales). However, online retailers should be aware that this strategy strengthens the marketplace and may have potential negative long-term consequences (e.g., through marketplace control of the customer relationship).

Some companies design processed foods to contain aesthetic imperfections such as non-uniformities in shape, color, or texture. Simultaneously, consumers annually discard millions of pounds of unprocessed, safe-to-eat fruits and vegetables owing to aesthetic imperfections. Why design processed foods with aesthetic imperfections when people discard unprocessed foods because of them? Seven studies, including a choice study at a grocery store and an incentive-compatible study, show that the effect of aesthetic imperfections on consumer preferences depends on whether foods are unprocessed or processed. While imperfections negatively influence preferences for unprocessed foods, they positively influence preferences for processed foods. We attribute this preference shift to consumers making opposing inferences about the human care involved in producing aesthetically imperfect processed and unprocessed foods. Building on research highlighting the positive effects of human presence in production, we thus show that perceived care drives food choice. We discuss implications for product design, retail promotion, and sustainability.

Despite significant research and progress in examining the effects of loyalty programs on consumer behavior and firm performance, the firm value implications of these programs are still unclear. The article investigates whether loyalty program introduction affects firm value, as measured by abnormal stock returns. The authors test the hypotheses empirically by conducting an event study of 260 announcements which cover 110 firms in the United States across different industries for 18 years from 2000 to 2017. Findings reveal that the introduction of loyalty programs, on average, positively influences firm value. The results of this study also reveal the existence of contingencies including synergies with complementary market-based assets and market conditions of lower uncertainty in determining the value of loyalty programs. The authors conclude that the value of loyalty programs is greater when the perceived risks of purchase are lower.

As extant literature on social media has generally focused on investigating the psychological factors, which makes a person more susceptible to social media addiction, it has not yet investigated how social media addiction is portrayed by the media. However, the media framing of addictions can have considerable implications for consumers, as extant literature has shown them to use media texts as cultural resources through which they attempt to understand and justify their behaviour. The media can also have more indirect effects by, for instance, driving stigmatization or public policy initiatives. Thus, this study compares the media framing of social media addiction in the United Kingdom and the United States through longitudinal, mixed-methods frame analysis. It then extends the extant literature by showing how social media addiction has been framed in both the United Kingdom and United States. It shows that concern regarding the issue has increased in both countries. In addition, the findings show that while previously social media addiction has been seen as an individual, psychological problem, concerns about the addictiveness and, thereby, about the lacking public policy measures have also increased in both countries. Implications for individual consumers, public policy and managers are considered.

This research investigates how the timing of the promotional encounter, whether consumers encounter a promotion in isolation or at the moment of choice alongside other products, influences how consumers evaluate and redeem a promotional offer. Three studies demonstrate that isolated promotions for premium brands are more effective than traditional shelf promotions in persuading consumers to purchase the promoted product as these promotions alter how consumers evaluate and justify purchasing the promoted products. Specifically, isolated promotions lead consumers to focus relatively less on the price of the promoted product compared to its quality. This reduced focus on price assuages the negative effect of guilt associated with purchasing a more expensive, premium brand. These findings offer insights into consumer response to promotions, the most effective timing for promotions, and the best ways to optimize promotional strategies.

Data is considered the new oil of the economy, but privacy concerns limit their use, leading to a widespread sense that data analytics and privacy are contradictory. Yet such a view is too narrow, because firms can implement a wide range of methods that satisfy different degrees of privacy and still enable them to leverage varied data analytics methods. Therefore, the current study specifies different functions related to data analytics and privacy (i.e., data collection, storage, verification, analytics, and dissemination of insights), compares how these functions might be performed at different levels (consumer, intermediary, and firm), outlines how well different analytics methods address consumer privacy, and draws several conclusions, along with future research directions.

Digital transformation and resultant business model innovation have fundamentally altered consumers’ expectations and behaviors, putting immense pressure on traditional firms, and disrupting numerous markets. Drawing on extant literature, we identify three stages of digital transformation: digitization, digitalization, and digital transformation. We identify and delineate growth strategies for digital firms as well as the assets and capabilities required in order to successfully transform digitally. We posit that digital transformation requires specific organizational structures and bears consequences for the metrics used to calibrate performance. Finally, we provide a research agenda to stimulate and guide future research on digital transformation.

We propose that digital technologies and related data become increasingly prevalent and that, consequently, ethical concerns arise. Looking at four principal stakeholders, we propose corporate digital responsibility (CDR) as a novel concept. We define CDR as the set of shared values and norms guiding an organization's operations with respect to four main processes related to digital technology and data. These processes are the creation of technology and data capture, operation and decision making, inspection and impact assessment, and refinement of technology and data. We expand our discussion by highlighting how to managerially effectuate CDR compliant behavior based on an organizational culture perspective. Our conceptualization unlocks future research opportunities, especially regarding pertinent antecedents and consequences. Managerially, we shed first light on how an organization's shared values and norms regarding CDR can get translated into actionable guidelines for users. This provides grounds for future discussions related to CDR readiness, implementation, and success.

The penetration of mobile devices has reshaped consumers’ shopping journeys, drawing the attention of both scholars and practitioners. Over the last two decades, a rich strand of empirical studies across disciplines has been conducted on the factors underlying mobile shopping behavior. We provide and test a comprehensive framework for both the key drivers of consumers’ initial adoption and the continuance intention to use mobile devices for purchasing. To achieve this goal, we conduct a meta-analysis, in which we integrate the findings from the literature and apply a structural equation modeling approach. Our work builds on the existing theories (Technology Acceptance Model, Theory of Planned Behavior, and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology) and offers an extensive understanding of the variables that shape mobile shopping behavior. Based on 207 articles, with 228 studies, 4,354 effect sizes, a total sample size of 68,944 shoppers, our findings show that mobile shopping is influenced by variables that reflect the evolution of technological innovations and the consequent improvement of the functionality and convenience of mobile devices (previous digital experience and ubiquity). Managerially, based on these findings, we provide a future research agenda and the key implications for firms to develop for a successful marketing strategy throughout the mobile customer journey. Companies should focus on both utilitarian and hedonic variables to stimulate the intention to use the mobile for the first time. In addition, to increase continuance intention to use mobile for shopping, they improve customer satisfaction, through enjoyment and the three dimensions of quality of the mobile channel.

PurposeOne of the most important factors for the success of an organization is the quality of its managers. However, this is a rather general statement, because there are many different types of managers with different work styles. This begs the question: are all types of managers, regardless of their work styles, important to organizational success or only managers with specific work styles? This study aims to investigate the answer to this question by examining the relationship between two specific elements of managers' work styles – the role a manager plays in the work team and the preferred manner of change management a manager applies – and their effect on the level of performance of their organization, as measured by the high-performance organization (HPO) framework.Design/methodology/approachThis study was part of a larger study into the drivers of success of franchise supermarkets in The Netherlands. A questionnaire was constructed, in which, among others, the following were explored: the level of performance (according to the HPO Framework), the preferred team role of the franchiser (using the Belbin team role model) and the change management approach of the franchiser (using De Caluwe and Vermaak's color theory). The questionnaire was sent to 400 Dutch supermarket franchisers, and the data received were subject to statistical analysis.FindingsThe study results clearly indicated that certain types of managers are important to organizational success in the supermarket sector. There are specific types of managers – in the sense that these managers have specific roles they play and specific change styles they apply – that seem to be more effective in creating and maintaining an HPO. These roles, as described by Belbin, are chairman and plant; the change style is De Caluwe and Vermaak's color red.Research limitations/implicationsThe study results add to the literature on high performance and HPOs, because team roles and color change styles have not been related to the factors for high performance to date.Originality/valueAlthough the fact that certain types of managers, in certain contexts, are more effective than others is not a new finding, this is the first time specific team roles and a specific change style have been found that would enable managers to create and maintain an HPO.

Using unique data from 609 parent–daughter (8–16 years of age) dyads, in an online experiment we studied two pivotal antecedents of young viewers’ cognitive advertising literacy: influencer-generated sponsorship disclosure (written and/or spoken) and parental mediation style (active or restrictive). A between-subjects, single-factor design was applied with three experimental conditions: written disclosure, spoken disclosure, and both written and spoken disclosure, and a control condition—no disclosure. Variance-based partial least squares structural equation modeling in Smart-PLS 3.0 shows that policy makers’ and parental measures to safeguard young consumers from negative consequences of sponsored vlogs can lead to unanticipated effects. While the combination of written and spoken sponsorship disclosure information as well as an active parental mediation style increase cognitive advertising literacy, restrictive parental mediation negatively affects cognitive advertising literacy. In addition, cognitive advertising literacy negatively affects young viewers’ evaluation of the vlogger and positively affects the attitude toward the sponsored brand. Our findings provide important insights for parents, practitioners, and regulators and contribute to the discussion of how to make influencer marketing more effective and ethical.

Contains fulltext : 283401.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) Today, consumers expect companies to be socially responsible. However, the literature is undecided about the effects of communicating one's corporate social responsibility activities to consumers. This raises the question of how sustainability-driven companies can best advertise their products to stimulate ethical consumption: using self-benefit frames, where the main beneficiary is the consumer, or using other-benefit frames, where the main beneficiary is a third party. Using three experiments, this study examines the effect of other-benefit (vs. self-benefit) advertising frames on consumers' impulse purchases from sustainability-driven companies. Increasing impulse purchases can help such companies to strengthen their competitive positions. Additionally, it is studied to what extent two types of justification (moral versus deservingness) explain the proposed effect of advertising frames. The results show that only other-benefit frames affect impulse buying behavior, both directly, as mediated by moral justification. This study's insights may help sustainability-driven companies to decide on their advertising strategies by providing evidence that other-benefit-framed advertisements are more effective in enhancing impulse purchases than self-benefit-framed advertisements. 13 p.

Autonomous cars are considered to be the next disruptive innovation that will affect consumers. It can be expected that not only traditional automakers will enter this market (e.g., Ford) but also technology companies (e.g., Google) and newer companies dedicated to self-driving cars (e.g., Tesla). We take a brand extension perspective and analyze to what extent consumers prefer autonomous cars from these brand categories. Our empirical study is based on discrete choice experiments about adopting autonomous vehicles in a purchase scenario and in a renting context. Our findings show that brands play a central role when making autonomous driving decisions. Brand preferences differ systematically when buying versus renting a self-driving car. While technology brands are most preferred overall, consumers favor automaker brands over new brands only when purchasing, not when renting. We further disentangle the brand strength into the marginal effects of image associations. For example, Google’s strong brand positioning can be explained by experiences with the parent brand, but it could still improve brand strength by highlighting the relevance of the associated brand portfolio for self-driving cars. The effect of these brand extension success factors differs between parent-brand categories and also between the renting and purchasing scenarios, which requires a dedicated brand management.

PurposePhysical stores are increasingly dependent on impulse visits and the impulse purchases of passers-by. Interactive advertising screens in store windows could help retailers increase impulse-visit urges and impulse-buying urges. However, the effects of interactive screens in physical surroundings have not been studied before. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the effect of interactive screens on impulse urges and gain insight into the underlying mechanism that explains the possible effect.Design/methodology/approachAn interactive screen was placed in a store window. Using three field experiments, we studied the effect of interactivity-level (high vs low) on the impulse-visit and impulse-buying urges of passers-by, and the mediating role of self-agency in these effects.FindingsHighly interactive (compared to less interactive) advertising screens in store windows positively affect impulse-visit and impulse-buying urges through self-agency. Retailers can therefore use interactive advertising screens to increase the number of impulse purchases if feelings of self-agency are activated.Originality/valueThis is the first study to examine the extent to which interactive screens in a store window enhance the impulse-visit and impulse-buying urges of passers-by and the mediating factor of these effects. By conducting three field experiments, we achieved a high external validity and managed to share very reliable results owing to the replication of the findings.

Two prominently discussed sustainable food alternatives—lab-meat and edible insects—elicit disgust among consumers, thereby preventing acceptance. While providing prospective consumers with more information on, for instance, the environmental benefits of lab-meat has shown some success in increasing consumer acceptance, we argue that the disgust response—the main barrier to the societal acceptance of these foods—is not addressed. This is, we argue, because disgust is not the result of misperceptions (e.g., edible insects carry diseases) and thus unlikely to be overcome by information alone. Building on the latest insights into the social origins of disgust, this manuscript reviews an alternative strategy to foster the broader acceptance of sustainable food alternatives that currently elicit disgust. Specifically, we explain why and how public exposure could be a promising avenue for marketers to reduce consumers’ disgust response and thus increase the acceptance of sustainable food alternatives.

Choice-based conjoint (CBC) studies have begun to rely on simulators to forecast equilibrium prices for pricing, strategic product positioning, and patent/copyright valuations. Whereas CBC research has long focused on the accuracy of estimated relative partworths of attribute levels, predicted equilibrium prices and strategic positioning are surprisingly and dramatically dependent on scale: the magnitude of the partworths (including the price coefficient) relative to the magnitude of the error term. Although the impact of scale on the ability to estimate heterogeneous partworths is well known, neither the literature nor current practice address the sensitivity of pricing and positioning to scale. This sensitivity is important because (estimated) scale depends on seemingly innocuous market-research decisions such as whether attributes are described by text or by realistic images. We demonstrate the strategic implications of scale using a stylized model in which heterogeneity is modeled explicitly. If a firm shirks on the quality of a CBC study and acts on incorrectly observed scale, a follower, but not an innovator, can make costly strategic errors. Externally valid estimates of scale are extremely important. We demonstrate empirically that image realism and incentive alignment affect scale sufficiently to change strategic decisions and affect patent/copyright valuations by hundreds of millions of dollars.

The proliferation of new touchpoints empowers today's customers to design their own journey from search to purchase. To address this new complexity, we segment customers by their use of specific touchpoints in the customer journey, investigate the association of several covariates with segment membership, consider the rise of mobile devices as potential "game changers" of existing segments, and explore how the relationships among product satisfaction, journey satisfaction, customer inspiration, and customer loyalty differ across segments. Based on anticipated utility theory and using latent class analyses on large-scale data from two samples of 2,443 and 2,649 journeys, we identify five time-consistent segments-store-focused shoppers, pragmatic online shoppers, extensive online shoppers, multiple touchpoint shoppers, and online-to-offline shoppers-that differ considerably in their touchpoint and mobile device usage, their segment-specific covariates, and their search and purchase patterns. The five segments remain unchanged in the two data sets even though the usage of mobile devices has increased substantially. Furthermore, we find that the relationships between various loyalty antecedents and customer loyalty differ between the segments. The insights from this paper help retailers develop segment-specific customer journey strategies. (C) 2019 Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of New York University.

A key question for retailers who already offer a mobile website is, whether they should add an app as an additional purchase channel. We address this issue by exploring whether consumers' app adoption stimulates additional purchases and how this change in purchase behavior differs across customers with different levels of spending share for different product categories and customer loyalty. By using transactional data from a Chinese online retailer, we show that app adopters have higher purchase incidence, buy more frequently, and spend more in each order than non-adopters. We also find that app adoption has a stronger positive effect on the order size of customers who have a lower spending share of high-price products and customers who are less loyal to the focal retailer. Hereby, we contribute to multichannel and mobile marketing literature by empirically examining the effects of adding a similar (mobile) purchase channel to an already established (mobile) purchase channel. Managerially, our results suggest that apps are worth investing in despite their similarity to mobile websites and can induce non-loyal customers to purchase more and thus potentially foster these customers' loyalty.

Purpose Using food brands as a case in point, the purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between a local vs global brand positioning strategy and buying impulsivity, as well as the mediating role of construal level. The findings add a psychological argument to the array of reasons for firms to opt for a local instead of a global brand positioning strategy: local food brands promote higher levels of buying impulsivity than global brands by lowering consumers’ level of construal. Design/methodology/approach Five experiments use student and nonstudent samples, different construal level indices and generic and brand-specific buying impulsivity measures to test the hypotheses. Findings Local food brands promote higher levels of buying impulsivity than global brands by lowering consumers’ level of construal. Because local brands are proximal to consumers’ lifestyles, values, preferences and behaviors, they decrease the psychological distance between the brand and the consumer, compared with global brands. The smaller psychological distance lowers consumers’ construal level and renders the immediate, concrete, appetitive attributes of the product more salient, thus making consumers more prone to impulsively buy a local brand than a global one. Practical implications For the choice between a global or local brand positioning strategy, this paper argues in favor of the latter. Local (food) branding is a concrete brand positioning mechanism that can influence and benefit from consumers’ buying impulsivity. Originality/value The research reveals heretofore unknown but important implications of local vs global brand positioning strategies for consumers’ construal level and buying impulsivity.

This multi-method study aims to shed light on digital platforms' decisions regarding their openness. Platform openness results from a series of decisions on how open a platform is regarding: (a) suppliers, (b) customers, (c) complementary service providers, as well as to (d) product categories and (e) channels. By conducting a scoping literature review, we analyze the current body of knowledge about the drivers, dimensions and outcomes of platform openness. Using an expert panel discussion and analysis of real-world digital platforms, we confront this existing knowledge with current business challenges to identify research challenges. We address how future research can advance platform research by tackling these challenges.

To reduce traffic congestion and air pollution, public policy makers often try to stimulate the use of public transport, as it is a more sustainable alternative to traveling by car. This study therefore investigates the impact of firm-initiated marketing actions and traveler satisfaction on monthly cumulative traveled distance of a Western European railway firm, as well as possible effects of this cumulative traveled distance on satisfaction. Analysis of time-series data on traveled distance, advertising, promotions, and satisfaction using a vector autoregressive model with exogenous variables that accounts for seasonality, trending behavior, and gasoline prices reveals positive effects of advertising and promotions. Advertising elasticities are considerably smaller than meta-analytic values of brand-advertising elasticities. Similarly, promotion elasticities are lower than those frequently reported in marketing. The authors find no effect of satisfaction on traveled distance; however, they do find a negative effect of traveled distance on satisfaction, which could be explained by capacity constraints. The authors conclude that firm-initiated marketing actions are useful and effective in fostering public transport usage.

This study investigates the effect of call-to-action (CTA) direct mailings (DMs) on customers' purchase behavior and how this effect is moderated by incentive type as well as customer characteristics. The authors analyze individual purchase behavior of a panel of 179,525 customers across 40 Dutch optical retailers over 9 years. The empirical results show that CTA DMs that include an incentive have a higher positive impact on customer's purchase probability compared with those without an incentive. Furthermore, non-monetary incentives, especially utilitarian ones, have a higher positive impact than monetary incentives. Our results also show that customer heterogeneity plays an important role in the influence of CTA DMs on purchase incidence. More specifically, CTA DMs have a higher impact on purchase incidence for customers with higher past purchase frequency, lower purchase recency, longer relationship duration and for customers who received DM more recently and frequently. The results of the study provide valuable insights for managers allocating their direct marketing budget: it is better to use non-monetary (preferably utilitarian) incentives and to target customers based on relationship history as well as DM history. (C) 2019 Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc. dba Marketing EDGE. All rights reserved.

This study examines the impact of value-added tax (VAT)-free promotions on sales performance. VAT-free promotions are a recently adopted form of price promotions where consumers are exempted from paying the VAT amount across almost all products in the assortment during a limited number of days. They are typically organized once per year and surrounded by a large amount of media attention from the involved retailer. To test the effects of this promotion on store and category sales, and investigate the differences between loyalty program (LP) members and non-LP members, the authors use scanner data from a Dutch durable goods retailer across a range of categories. The results show that VAT-free promotions positively impact store performance. Moreover, the findings indicate that more non-LP members are attracted to the store and that they increase the amount they spend in the store. While LP members also spend more in the store, this increase in shopping basket size does not compensate for the significant drop in the number of LP members that visit the store, leading to an overall decrease in sales coming from LP members during VAT-free days. We furthermore find that the positive effect of VAT-free promotions for non-LP members (rather than LP members) generalizes across all investigated categories. Our results provide key insights for retailers and direct marketers with regard to the effectiveness of VAT-free promotions in order to strategically segment the customer base.

Hard discounters, such as Aldi and Lidl, have become more important in the last decade. Recent research suggests that the presence of a hard discounter (HD) decreases customers’ share of wallet. In this study, we aim to understand why this occurs, by considering how HD presence affects store attributes and store satisfaction. In particular, we investigate whether HD presence affects store satisfaction formation as well as the effect of store satisfaction on share of wallet. We analyze Dutch data on store attribute evaluations, store satisfaction and share of wallet. Our results show that HD presence decreases convenience evaluations of a store, satisfaction and share of wallet. Moreover, we show that the relationship between convenience and store satisfaction becomes more important when a HD is present, while we then also find a stronger positive relationship between satisfaction and share of wallet. Simulations based on our model estimations show that especially price-oriented retailers should fear decreases in share of wallet when a HD is present.

There is a growing body of evidence that customer satisfaction is predictive of firms’ future financial performance. However, studies of this relationship have been limited to competitive markets, and monopolistic markets have been largely ignored. This study explores the large and important utilities market and exploits its unique regulatory requirements that generate detailed and reliable operating and accounting data to examine the overall relationship between customer satisfaction and utility profit and establish the causal mechanisms involved. Using data from U.S. public utility firms, the authors show that even when customer satisfaction does not affect future revenues, it does positively predict future profitability by reducing utility firm operating costs. More specifically, they find that higher satisfaction reduces the costs of utility firm distribution, customer service, and sales and general administration expenses. These findings and additional post hoc evidence are consistent with the notion that customer satisfaction (1) generates efficiency-enhancing benefits for utility firms by lowering the direct and employee engagement costs of dealing with dissatisfied customers and (2) fosters greater trust and cooperation from customers. This study has important implications for both managers and regulators and provides important new insights for market-based asset theory and regulatory economic theory.

Although robots are increasingly used in service provision, research cautions that consumers are reluctant to accept service robots. Five lab, field, and online studies reveal an important boundary condition to earlier work and demonstrate that consumers perceive robots less negatively when human social presence is the source of discomfort. We show that consumers feel less judged by a robot (vs. a human) when having to engage in an embarrassing service encounter, such as when acquiring medication to treat a sexually transmitted disease or being confronted with one's own mistakes by a frontline employee. As a consequence, consumers prefer being served by a robot instead of a human when having to acquire an embarrassing product, and a robot helps consumers to overcome their reluctance to accept the service provider's offering when the situation becomes embarrassing. However, robot anthropomorphism moderates the effect as consumers ascribe a higher automated social presence to a highly human-like robot (vs. machine-like robot), making consumers feel more socially judged.The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11747-022-00862-x.

To compete in today's omni-channel business context, it is essential for firms to co-ordinate their activities across channels and across different stages of the customer journey and the product flow. This requires firms to adopt an integrative approach, addressing each omni-channel design decision from a dual demand-side (marketing) and supply-side (operations) perspective. However, both in practice and in academic research, such an integrative approach is still in an immature stage. In this article, a framework is developed with the following key decision areas: (i) assortment & inventory, (ii) distribution & delivery and (iii) returns. These affect both the customer journey and the product flow. As a consequence of the resulting interdependencies between the firm's functions, addressing the issues that arise in the three decision areas requires an integrated marketing and operations perspective. For each of the areas, the key decisions that affect or involve both the customer journey and product flow are identified first. Next, for each decision, the marketing and operational goals and the tensions that arise when these goals are not perfectly aligned are described. The opportunities for relieving these tensions are also discussed and possible directions for future research aimed at addressing these tensions and opportunities are presented.

The internet of everything (IoE), connecting people, organizations and smart things, promises to fundamentally change how we live, work and interact, and it may redefine a wide range of industry sectors. This conceptual paper aims to develop a vision of how the IoE may alter business models and the ways in which individuals and organizations create value. We review literature on networked business models and service ecosystems, and show that a clearer understanding is needed of how the IoE will impact on the ways that organizations go about their business at the micro, meso and macro levels. Combining this with an inductive, vignette-based approach, we present a new taxonomy of smart things based on their capabilities and their connectivity. We derive their implications for business models and conclude the paper with propositions that form a research agenda for business researchers.

The advent and enormous growth of digital technologies, and associated data, force firms to respond to novel digital challenges and increasingly lead them to transform their existing business models. Importantly, given that digital transformation has a strong impact on multiple disciplines, such as logistics, marketing, and strategy, and involves multiple stakeholders, such as service providers, platforms, employees and end-users, it also requires researchers and businesses to adopt a multi-disciplinary, multi-stakeholder perspective, in which multiple research and business fields cooperate in order to create collaborative solutions. In this editorial to the special issue, we aim to bring together insights from multiple research fields to account for the multi-faceted nature of digital transformation. We discuss the relevance of this multi-disciplinary, multi-stakeholder perspective, propose an overarching research framework, and highlight future avenues of research.

Although webrooming has become common practice in omnichannel consumer behavior, only a few empirical studies have managed to shed light on the phenomenon. With this research work, we aim to investigate important antecedents of webrooming. We base our conceptual framework on anticipated utility theory and expect that customers’ anticipated utility from using the physical store versus the online store for purchase can be predicted by four groups of antecedents: psychographic variables, shopping motivations, channel-related variables, and product-related variables. With the help of a data set from a large cross-national online survey in which 1497 customers reconstruct their last purchase journey, we differentiate webroomers from pure online shoppers. In addition, we disentangle customers who used retailer-owned, competitor-owned, and independent touchpoints along the search and purchase phase of the customer journey in order to characterize webroomers in an omnichannel context and assess their prevalence in different countries and industries. Our insights on the characteristics and antecedents of webrooming help retailers to detect and better understand the psychology behind the webrooming phenomenon from a consumer perspective in an omnichannel retailing environment. In addition, results from our exploratory analysis on the positive association between webrooming and customer spending contribute to research and practice by providing first evidence on the economic value of webrooming.