Involvement,attributions, and consumer responses to rebates

This paper examines effects of both purchasing involvement and product involvement on consumers' responses to rebates. In Part One, the study examines the effects of involvement on consumer responses to a rebate price promotion. Specifically, the study reports that consumers with high levels of purchasing involvement and consumers with high levels of product involvement are more likely to experience satisfaction with a shopping experience involving a rebate and, subsequently, are more likely to express intentions to engage in repeat purchase behavior and word-of-mouth communication about the product. High purchasing involved (but not high product involved) customers are also more likely to use rebates. In Part Two, the study examines effects of involvement on consumer attributions for satisfaction with the price deal and reports that high purchasing involvement is significantly related to a tendency to make internal, rather than external, attributions for satisfaction with a rebate shopping experience. Results of hierarchical moderated regression suggest that consumer responses to the rebate price promotion are moderated by these internal attributions. Implications of the findings for a theoretical understanding of involvement effects on attributions and for the effectiveness of price promotion strategies in the marketplace are discussed.     

Differences in consumer preferences when facing branded versus non‐branded choices

Because brands can signal reputation and serve as proxies for trust, consumer preferences for credence attributes may differ for branded and non‐branded products. We test this hypothesis using data from a choice experiment conducted with US pork consumers. The results indicate that consumers are usually willing to pay more for a certification attribute in a non‐branded as compared to branded product. Additionally, greater variation in consumer willingness‐to‐pay for credence attributes is observed in the non‐branded case. This latter characteristic of the results may represent the increased uncertainty some consumers internalize concerning quality consistency when brand information is not provided. These results have interesting implications for producers, processors, retailers, and policy makers. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cognitive anthropology and the problem‐solving behaviour of green consumers

• This paper examines the contextual aspects of problem‐solving behaviour of ‘green’, environmentally oriented consumers. It is argued that by profiling the consumer in cognitive terms, a more robust understanding of green consumer behaviour can be provided.
• To illustrate this, we draw upon the cognitive anthropological concepts of practical thinking and bricolage. These are used to integrate ‘context’ into a model of cognition via qualitative, interview‐based research which examined how consumers assess the environmental friendliness of supermarket products.
• In order to increase external validity two respondent groups were compared, British and German consumers. Different levels of successful and unsuccessful practical thinking and bricolage were identified.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Consumer brand choice: individual and group analyses of demand elasticity

Following the behavior-analytic tradition of analyzing individual behavior, the present research investigated demand elasticity of individual consumers purchasing supermarket products, and compared individual and group analyses of elasticity. Panel data from 80 UK consumers purchasing 9 product categories (i.e., baked beans, biscuits, breakfast cereals, butter, cheese, fruit juice, instant coffee, margarine and tea) during a 16-week period were used. Elasticity coefficients were calculated for individual consumers with data from all or only 1 product category (intra-consumer elasticities), and for each product category using all data points from all consumers (overall product elasticity) or 1 average data point per consumer (interconsumer elasticity). In addition to this, split-sample elasticity coefficients were obtained for each individual with data from all product categories purchased during weeks 1 to 8 and 9 to 16. The results suggest that: 1) demand elasticity coefficients calculated for individual consumers purchasing supermarket food products are compatible with predictions from economic theory and behavioral economics; 2) overall product elasticities, typically employed in marketing and econometric research, include effects of interconsumer and intraconsumer elasticities; 3) when comparing demand elasticities of different product categories, group and individual analyses yield similar trends; and 4) individual differences in demand elasticity are relatively consistent across time, but do not seem to be consistent across products. These results demonstrate the theoretical, methodological, and managerial relevance of investigating the behavior of individual consumers.     

The moderating role of consumer entitlement on the relationship of value with customer satisfaction

This research provides an extension of Oliver's (1980) expectancy disconfirmation model of satisfaction by examining the moderating role of consumer entitlement in the relationships between service quality and perceived value with customer satisfaction. Using a sample of season ticket holders of the National Hockey League franchise in the southeastern USA (n = 234), we found that consumer entitlement moderates the relationship of value with satisfaction, such that the impact of consumer‐perceived service value on satisfaction is mitigated for highly entitled consumers. That is, the positive value–satisfaction relationship is stronger for individuals low in consumer entitlement. This finding suggests that highly entitled consumers' satisfaction judgments are dominated by expectations, while less entitled consumers rely more on disconfirmation assessments. Strengths, limitations, suggestions for future research, and practical implications are offered. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

“Do human values matter for promoting brands on social media? How social media users' values influence valuable brand‐related activities such as sharing,content creation,and reviews”

Companies consider social media‐based consumer engagement behaviors such as sharing, content creation, and reviews for brands as more valuable than “liking” or consuming brand content. Studies show that branded content shared or created by consumers on social media may drive more brand awareness and loyalty than “likes” (Adweek, 2013). Global companies are increasingly focusing their efforts on motivating consumer‐driven content creation (e.g., Coca‐Cola #shareacoke and Apple #ShotoniPhone; Sprout Index, 2018). However, marketing practitioners are only recently beginning to understand social media audiences who engage in such activities (Adweek, 2018). This study posits that human values can be used to identify and segment audiences for social media‐based valuable brand activities. Three online surveys were conducted with Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram users (ages 18–34) on Amazon Mechanical Turk (N = 491). The relationship between social media users' values and their reported social media activities was examined. Findings indicate that the human values examined (conservation, self‐enhancement, openness to change and self‐transcendence) are significant drivers of valuable brand‐related social media activities. Companies should address conservation‐driven users in order to elicit brand sharing and creation activities. Companies should target conservation‐driven users for sharing promotions, self‐enhancement‐driven users for sharing informational content and writing of product reviews, and openness to change‐driven users for user‐generated content. Bussinesses should further highlight their corporate social responsibility efforts as a negative relationship is found between users' self‐transcendence values and brand activities. Recommendations are provided on how brandscan address users' values in their social media marketing to motivate sharing of branded content and content creation.     

An fMRI study of advertising appeals and their relationship to product attractiveness and buying intentions

This study examines the effects of various visual apparel advertisements on consumers' brain activation during exposure to different types of advertising appeals (i.e., celebrity, non‐celebrity, and rational). The influence on consumer perceptions of products and their subsequent buying intentions are also measured. A repeated measures experimental design was employed, and the total of 27 right‐handed female subjects participated in the study. The results of the quantitative data showed significant differences in perceived product attractiveness for each of the three types of advertising appeals, but not in buying intentions. Regarding the fMRI results, our findings support the notion that celebrity advertising appeals are associated with heightened brain activation of memory‐related/retrieval regions, reflecting how consumers remember the ad and are influenced by the attractiveness of the source. Non‐celebrity advertising appeals were more closely associated with brain activation of regions thought to mediate self‐reflection and also engaging executive functions. For rational advertising appeals, our findings showed significant activation in brain areas associated with logical evaluative decision making reflecting more logical processing value assessments and reward potential. Therefore, retailers/marketers must be particularly mindful to match the appropriate advertising appeal to the specific purpose of the advertisement. This study also provides brain‐based insight into the effectiveness of different types of advertising appeals and whether or not they have the desired impact on the consumer. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Experiential tourist shopping value: Adding causality to value dimensions and testing their subjectivity

Previous literature on consumer behavior has tackled the experiential approach in retailing services in depth; however, most of the previous studies have concentrated on the simultaneous but not concatenated effects of value dimensions on satisfaction and/or loyalty. Furthermore, tourists' shopping behavior remains an underdeveloped area of study from the experiential perspective. This work explores experiential tourist shopping value, aiming to (a) explain tourists' loyalty to retailers by adding causality to experiential dimensions and (b) prove the subjectivity of these values. After a diachronic and synchronic review of the literature on experiential shopping value, a structural model with a chain of effects consisting of product quality, service quality, self‐esteem and shopping enjoyment on loyalty, and a multidimensional index as a second‐order model were built with partial least squares and tested on a purposive sample of 374 tourists in Valencia (Spain). Our findings revealed a sequential approach to tourists' shopping experiences where utilitarian values led to social and hedonic ones, all of which were antecedents of loyalty to retailers. Furthermore, the index showed differences by gender and nationality. Although our results are context specific, they add to the value creation process as they show a sequence of effects, and a fully subjective value provision, which changes according to demographics. The originality of this work is that it contributes to the suitability of the experiential paradigm in explaining tourists' shopping behavior by promoting interest in this specific, underdeveloped target area, and also by adding causality and proving the subjectivity of experiential value dimensions.     

Critical factors in consumer supermarket shopping behaviour: a neural network approach

This paper studies UK supermarket shopping behaviour, by analysing the antecedent variables of three critical factors: overall levels of customer satisfaction, number of trips to the supermarket, and amount spent. A neural network approach predicts these factors using ten input variables and three hidden nodes. Results show that the most satisfied and high‐spending customers tend to be those who have the income to take full advantage of the choice and quality offered. Other customers are more concerned with prices being reasonable and discounts available, but the satisfaction of these shoppers is also linked with store atmosphere. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications.     

顾客为什么参与创造？ ——消费者参与创造的动机研究

从消费者参与企业价值创造的角度研究了消费者创造动机与创造意愿之间的关系,结果说明,一般创造性理论所证实的认知需求并未对消费者创造意愿产生显著影响,而独特性产品需求、独特性体验需求以及创造激励对消费者创造意愿产生了显著的正面影响研究还发现,信任和创造激励分别调节了独特性产品需求和独特性体验需求与创造意愿之间的关系     

Spanish consumers' perceptions of US apparel speciality retailers' products and services

Apparel speciality retailers' success in international markets is contingent upon their knowledge of culturally‐defined values, norms and behaviour that influence consumer decision making and impact acceptance of products and services. An integrated theoretical framework of retail internationalisation guided this investigation of the viability of the Spanish market for US retailers. This study examined consumers' store patronage and apparel purchase behaviour, acceptance of US apparel brands, perceptions of retailers' products and services, and perceptions of the impact of foreign retailers on local communities. Data were collected from 375 consumers in Barcelona, Madrid and Valencia. The influence of retailer characteristics on consumers' store patronage varied by age and income. Product characteristics that influenced apparel purchases varied by gender, income and age, while acceptance of US brands differed by gender and age. The perceptions of Spanish, European and US retailers differed regarding quality, fashionability, product assortment, extent and quality of customer service, convenience of location, payment options, national brands and store layout. Consumers' acceptance of US apparel brands was a function of age, household income, apparel product country of manufacture and price. Perceptions of US retailers were a function of household income, selected apparel characteristics and consumer acceptance of US apparel brands. Differences among perceptions of the impact of retail development were found by city. The findings provide insights into the opportunities and challenges for US apparel speciality retailers as they contemplate entry into the Spanish market. The affinity for US apparel among young Spanish consumers, particularly males, suggests optimism regarding opportunities in this market. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Who Deserves Faulty Products? How Blaming the Victim Prevents Consumer Punitive Action

A core requirement of a functioning free‐market system is that consumers hold companies accountable for selling faulty products. Following a harmful product failure, any blame that is incorrectly directed toward the victim may threaten consumer well‐being. Four experiments—in contexts of both fictitious and actual high‐profile product failures—show that this may in fact occur. The findings show that for a victim possessing immoral character: (a) consumers exaggerate blame because, (b) the victim is seen as deserving of suffering in general and, as a result, (c) consumers are less likely to take punitive action against the company (e.g., petition signing, negative word of mouth, and supporting financial justice). One field experiment and three online experiments converge to show that morality's effects are unique from other traits (e.g., sociability), but may be attenuated based on severity of harm to the victim and consumers’ own beliefs about justice. In sum, the current research furthers understanding of how and why victims are blamed, how doing so may threaten consumer and societal well‐being, and how it might be prevented.     

Perceived helpfulness of online consumer reviews: The role of message content and style

The rise of online reviews written by consumers makes possible an examination of how the content and style of these word‐of‐mouth messages contribute to their helpfulness. In this study, consumers are asked to judge the value of real online consumer reviews to their simulated shopping activities. The results suggest the benefits of moderate review length and of positive, but not negative, product evaluative statements. Non‐evaluative product information and information about the reviewer were also found to be associated with review helpfulness. Stylistic elements that may impair clarity (such as spelling and grammatical errors) were associated with less valuable reviews, and elements that may make a review more entertaining (such as expressive slang and humor) were associated with more valuable reviews. These findings point to factors beyond product information that may affect the perceived helpfulness of an online consumer review. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Back to consumption and production? Prosumers negotiating the WMG lockdown on YouTube

There is a growing body of literature that explores the increasingly blurred divide separating production and consumption. Within this stream of work, digital environments are commonly depicted as sites of consumer empowerment, participation, co‐creation and prosumption, the intertwined process of production and consumption. Yet, in response to the mounting commercial and legal pressures, Web 2.0 companies pro‐actively regulate prosumption, deploying advanced technological devices and innovative contractual arrangements. Exploring the case of Warner Music Group lockdown on YouTube, we investigate the role of a content‐sharing platform in (re)formatting prosumption. We draw from prosumption theory and Ritzer's “prosumption continuum” to highlight how shifting arrangements of rights and content regulation shape prosumption of corporate content (in our case music owned by record labels). In contrast to the studies emphasizing the blurring of the line between consumer and producer, we illustrate how prosumption can also be transformed (back) into more conventional forms of consumption and production. We highlight several mechanisms that make this process of “de‐prosumption” possible despite considerable consumer opposition, and consider the implications facing prosumers of corporate content. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Customer Satisfaction and Switching Barriers: Effects on Repurchase Intentions,Positive Recommendations,and Price Tolerance1

The current article attempts to extend previous research by testing the effects of customer satisfaction and 2 types of switching barriers—negative and positive—on key manifestations of attitudinal loyalty (repurchase intentions, positive recommendations, and price tolerance). The work also studies whether the effect of customer satisfaction is linear or nonlinear. Finally, the paper analyzes whether switching barriers moderate the relative strength of the customer satisfaction/attitudinal loyalty relation. To this end, a total of 554 private mobile‐phone customers were surveyed. The distinction between negative and positive switching barriers is important to draw theoretical and managerial implications.     

Extraordinary consumer experiences: Why immersion and transformation cause trouble

This paper presents and discusses how consumers are transformed in and out of immersion during extraordinary, long‐lasting wilderness canoeing experiences. Based on a hermeneutic multi‐phase empirical approach, we show how extraordinary experiences can be dynamic, multifaceted, and emergent. The positive connotations of prior research are questioned as we find that consumers face various paradoxes and ambiguities throughout the various consumption phases. While a major part of research today focuses on the co‐creation efforts of consumers when they combine various on‐site resource of experiencescapes, our findings point to the importance of understanding consumer resources. The distinction held between the ordinary and the extraordinary does not hold within the present context, and we discuss how role conflicts may influence transformation and immersion during consumption of experiences.     

基于消费者自我概念的高尔夫消费动机研究*

首先编制了消费者自我概念量表,对高尔夫球会客人进行了消费者自我概念的测查,将高尔夫消费者划分为事业自我型、交际自我型、精明自我型、家庭自我型和表现自我型五大类,进而分析了这五类消费者在参与高尔夫球运动动机和购买高尔夫球会会籍动机方面的差异。结果表明,(1)锻炼身体是消费者参与高尔夫球运动的主要动机。不同自我概念消费者参与高尔夫运动的动机的差异表现在事业自我型消费者与其他群体的差异显著;(2)商务交往是消费者购买球会会籍动机的主要动机,不同自我概念消费者购买球会会籍动机的差异表现在家庭自我型消费者与交际自我型、表现自我型消费者之间存在显著差异。     

The Role of Consumption Emotions in the Satisfaction Response

We report 2 studies that served to clarify the role of consumption emotions in the satisfaction response. In the 1st study, we examined the role of consumption emotions within the expectancy‐disconfirmation model of consumer satisfaction and investigated whether consumption emotions are a result of product performance or disconfirmation. The findings show that both positive and negative emotions are primarily a function of product performance and influence satisfaction even when the effects of expectations, performance, and disconfirmation are controlled. In the 2nd study, we proposed and tested an alternative framework for understanding the role of consumption emotions in the satisfaction response for situations in which consumers use more of an experiential perspective to anticipate and experience consumption. According to this model, consumers form affective expectations about how consumption of the product will make them feel, experience positive or negative emotions as a result of these expectations and product consumption, and evaluate the discrepancy between experienced and anticipated emotions. All 3 variables, then, impact satisfaction. The results empirically support many of the relations in the new model of the experiential satisfaction response but also raise several interesting avenues for future research.     

Analyzing the returns of the first transaction satisfaction on intention to purchase and willingness to pay: Evidence for new food products

The present study sheds light on the kind of relationships that link first transaction consumer satisfaction (CS), purchase intention, and willingness to pay for new food products. The article presents a comparative evaluation of linear and nonlinear quadratic and cubic specifications used to assess the relationships involved. The study uses empirical evidence from three product‐testing field experiments with consumers in different natural settings such as at‐home and out‐of‐home. Statistical tests with structural equation modeling reveal that, for new food products, the CS–purchase intention relationship is characterized by a nonlinear functional form with increasing marginal returns, while the CS–willingness to pay relationship is defined by a linear functional form with constant marginal returns. The study contributes to the existing body of knowledge that so far has mainly described the relationship between cumulative CS and profit chain outcomes in the context of established products (brands). We discuss the implications for managers responsible for launching new food products and give hints on allocating resources to the most probable customers. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Watch out: Themes in timepiece communities of counterfeit consumption

Although online communities of counterfeit consumption (OCCC) enhance the demand for counterfeit products, research that improves marketers' understanding of this phenomenon is lacking. This article's purpose is to investigate how online communities of consumption have transformed the acquisition, sharing, and processing of information by consumers of counterfeits. Through the use of netnography in an online counterfeit watch community, this work identifies four themes as factors that draw consumers to OCCC. The themes are technical competence of community members, willingness to pay, members' expectations of product performance, and trust in dealer. These communities strengthen consumer consumption of counterfeit products by broadening the ways in which consumers can engage, learn, identify, and ultimately decide to purchase counterfeit products. Managerial and theoretical implications are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.