Effect of brand name on consumers' risk perceptions of online shopping

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between brand names and consumers' perceived risk. Hypotheses dealt with whether the presence of a product's brand name affects consumers' perceived risk towards shopping online; whether the familiarity with a brand name influences consumers' perceived risk; and whether online shoppers and non‐shoppers perceive risk towards shopping online differently. Results indicate that the presence or absence of a product's brand name affects online shoppers' perceived risk, but in the opposite direction to that expected. There was no significant difference between online shoppers' perceived risk vis‐à‐vis brand familiarity; however, online shoppers possessed lower perceived risk than non‐shoppers. Implications and limitations are discussed and recommendations for future research are provided. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications Ltd.     

Hooked on a feeling: The effect of music tempo on attitudes and the mediating role of consumers' affective responses

With today's high degree of advertising clutter, marketers might greatly focus on evoking emotion or creating hedonic (e.g., feeling) experiences for consumers in order to improve practice. These strategies minimize the effort needed to process a message and can influence consumers' decisions. In 4 studies, we examine the effects of music tempo on consumers' attitudes toward the brand while further considering the mediating role of evoked feelings. Study 1 and 2 supports that music tempo in commercials influences consumers' affective response to the music in advertising. Study 3 replicated this effect using a controlled experiment and extended the research by demonstrating that tempo also affects general mood states, in addition to feelings evoked by the music. Last, Study 4 demonstrates that need for emotion moderates the role of affect as information. This research contributes to theory in sensory marketing and consumer behavior and offers practical implications to improve marketing practice.     

When a product takes on characteristics of the person who created it: Sometimes it sounds sweeter

We investigated when consumers' judgments about a product reflect information about its product source (the person who creates the product). Three experiments manipulated congruence between the source's gender and the gender-typing of the source's product. When congruent with expectations (a male conductor played male-typed music), pre-trial source information had the same effect on post-trial product judgments as when source information was absent. Incongruence (a female conductor played male-typed music) distorted product attribute judgments when the source's competence was questioned. Her music was judged to be more delicate, less powerful and worse quality than his. This process of product experience being assimilated into incompetence stereotypes required minimal cognitive resources. When the incongruent source was undoubtedly competent, the amount of experiential evidence about an attribute influenced distortion. Consumers judged powerful music as powerful regardless of conductor gender, but, lacking much evidence about its delicacy, judged hers as more delicate than his. The selective effect of source gender information reflects consumers' cognitively effortful hypothesis testing of beliefs that gender expresses itself in a person's output against experiential evidence.     

Experiential response and intention to purchase in the cocreative consumption of music: The Nine Inch Nails experiment

Customers allowed to cocreate products are more willing to purchase them eventually because of not only their utilitarian but also their hedonic and experiential value. Experiential responses seem especially relevant in the cocreative consumption of cultural and intangible goods, such as music. To examine how such intangible aspects of cocreation can influence a consumer's intention to purchase, we let two groups of participants rate their experience consuming music in either a traditional or cocreative way, in an experimental situation inspired by the work of American rock band Nine Inch Nails. Participants in the traditional group had to passively watch a series of music videos; participants in the cocreative group were tasked to produce a video montage using the same material. In the traditional group, purchase intention was predicted by music quality, mediated by willingness to reexperience; in the cocreative group, however, purchase intention was only predicted by the consumers' experiential response, with no mediation of either music quality or willingness to reexperience. Additionally, the overall experiential response to music was lower in the cocreative group than in the traditional group, leading to lower intention to purchase. These results suggest that cocreated value for intangible goods is predicted at least as much by the consumers' experiential response as by their evaluation of product quality. It also suggests that there is nothing systematically positive in having consumers participate in the coproduction of intangible goods and that research is needed to identify the factors predicting the perceived quality of a cocreative experience. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Are humans rational? Exploring factors influencing impulse buying intention and continuous impulse buying intention

This study investigates the effects of consumers' impulsivity traits, option framing, product type, and cash refund promotion on consumers' online impulse buying intention. This study follows two stages to investigate factors influencing impulse buying intention and continuous impulse buying intention. In Stage 1, this study investigates the influence of impulsivity traits (high/low), option framing (+OF/−OF), and product type (hedonic product/utilitarian product) in online shopping on impulse buying intention. In Stage 2, this study explores factors moderating the continuous impulse buying intention. Cash refund promotion (high/low) serves as the moderator. The experiment results demonstrated that subjects with high impulsivity traits, “subtractive option framing (−OF), and hedonic products” are more likely to engage in impulse buying intention. In addition, cash refund promotion at a higher level increases consumers' continuous impulse buying intention. The findings provide guidance for designing appropriate online promotion situation to induce consumers' impulse buying intention that favors online retailers. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Consumer privacy concerns in entrepreneurial contexts: Evidence from an online experiment

The causal link between customer privacy concerns and organizational nature—specifically, entrepreneurial startups versus mature enterprises—remains unexplored. Using an online experiment, this study examines whether consumers' privacy concerns differ between these two types of organizations. Drawing on protection motivation theory, the study investigates whether customers' privacy concerns are stronger toward entrepreneurial startups than toward mature firms when both declare privacy protection. It further explores whether consumer participation in designing privacy protection mechanisms differently affects consumers' privacy concerns toward start-ups versus mature firms. The empirical results of an online experiment using a sample of 373 college students support the study hypotheses that (i) for unilateral privacy protection declarations, consumers' privacy concerns are higher toward entrepreneurial startups, and (ii) when consumers are invited to participate in designing privacy protection mechanisms, consumers' privacy concerns toward entrepreneurial startups significantly decrease. Our findings complement the literature on consumer privacy defensive behaviors by highlighting that consumer privacy concerns are associated with the organizational nature and privacy protection initiatives.     

Consumers' attributions and brand evaluations in product‐harm crises: The role of implicit theories of personality

This study aims to examine the moderating role of implicit theories of personality in the relationship between corporate recovery strategy (i.e., support versus stonewalling) and consumers' attributions (and brand evaluations). It is suggested that consumers' implicit theories about the fixedness/malleability of personality can affect consumers' attributions and brand evaluations during a product‐harm crisis. In addition, corporate image (i.e., strong versus weak) can moderate the influence of the role of implicit theories of personality. Two experiments were conducted to examine the proposed hypotheses. Results of Experiment 1 show that consumers who endorse entity theory (i.e., entity theorists) are likely to attribute crisis as more internal, stable, and controllable, particularly when they do not have any prior knowledge about the firm. The entity theorists would have more negative brand evaluations than incremental theorists (who endorse incremental theory), when “support” strategy was used by the firm. Results of Experiment 2 show that entity theorists are prone to have more external (internal) and unstable (stable) attributions toward a firm with a strong (weak) corporate image. Furthermore, entity theorists would provide more positive brand evaluations than incremental theorists when “stonewalling” strategy was used by a firm with strong corporate image, but not when “support” strategy was used by a firm with weak corporate image. Managerial implications are provided to managers with regard to product‐harm crisis and recovery strategies. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Factors affecting consumers' trust in online product reviews

In this study, we apply the uncertainty reduction theory from communication to delineate the antecedents of consumers' trust in online product reviews. We test the competing effects of information content (argument quality) and social component (perceived background similarity) on consumers' trust in reviews. We also hypothesize that the strength of the effect is moderated by consumers' involvement. To test the hypotheses, we adopted a 2 × 2 × 2 repeated measures experimental design. The results show that both argument quality and perceived similarity contribute to increased trust but in varying degrees. The results provide mixed support to the moderating role of involvement. While argument quality played an important role in the high involvement mode, perceived similarity explained more variance in the low involvement mode. We discuss the implications of these results for both research and practice. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of payment notifications on consumer purchase decisions: The role of pain of payment

Payment notifications are becoming ubiquitous due to the popularity of online payment, which are usually considered to be records of consumption. However, the effect of payment notifications on consumer behavior has not been fully understood. Given this research void, this study explores the effects of payment notifications on consumers' consumption amount during a multiple-purchase shopping journey. Considering the prevalence of online payment in China, we conducted four experiments using Chinese samples. The results confirm that payment notifications can evoke consumers' pain of payment, which consequently reduces consumers' subsequent shopping amount. Additionally, we argue that the effects of payment notifications on consumer behavior are different in the early/late stage of the shopping journey or in the gift-purchasing/self-purchasing conditions. The findings of this article could help payment application developers to better design payment notification functions.     

The interaction effect of ad appeal and need for cognition on consumers' intentions to share viral advertisements

Viral advertising has become a popular form of persuasive communication to promote brands on social media. Extant research on viral advertising has focused mostly on evaluating content characteristics as drivers of virality, but very few studies have examined the potential influence of consumers' personality variables that affect their information processing and subsequent ad‐sharing behavior. By taking a consumer‐centric approach, two experimental studies were conducted to examine how consumer's need for cognition (NFC: high vs. low) interacts with message appeal (emotional vs. informational) used in the branded viral advertisements and extent of brand information (high vs. low brand prominence) present in the branded viral advertisement to influence consumers' intentions to share viral advertisements. As compared with low‐NFC individuals, high‐NFC individuals reported higher sharing intentions for viral ads that use informational appeal and also for an emotional viral ad where brand prominence is high. This finding is consistent with the elaboration likelihood model (ELM). Further, the results of these studies show an interesting finding that contradicts the existing understanding originating from ELM; that is, high‐NFC individuals reported higher sharing intentions for viral ads with an emotional appeal as compared with low‐NFC individuals, even when the brand prominence is low. Possible explanations and implications of the findings are discussed in this paper.     

Impact of consumers' corporate social responsibility‐related activities in social media on brand attitude,electronic word‐of‐mouth intention,and purchase intention: A study of Chinese consumer behavior

This study examines how consumers' corporate social responsibility (CSR)‐related activities in social media affect their responses to brands. We defined consumers' CSR‐related activities in social media as the extent to which consumers use social media to engage in CSR communication by companies. An online survey was conducted to examine social media users in China, the largest consumer market in today's global economies. This study developed a theoretical model and empirically tested the relationships between consumers' CSR‐related activities in social media, identification with the brand, and three consumer behavior outcomes: electronic word‐of‐mouth (eWOM) intention, brand attitude, and purchase intention. The results suggested that consumers' CSR‐related activities in social media significantly impacted eWOM intention and purchase intention through enhancing identification with the brand and positive brand attitude. This study provides important insights on consumer behavior and CSR by investigating social media, an important and emerging marketing platform. Moreover, this study fills in the research gap about the association between consumers' CSR‐related activities in social media and their responses to brands. Theoretical and managerial implications for CSR strategies in social media are discussed.     

Value-based adoption of augmented reality: A study on the influence on online purchase intention in retail

The increasing use of digital technology-based retail services provides new opportunities for digital marketing. In this paper, we investigate how augmented reality (AR) technology can be leveraged as part of the firm's strategy. We explore the online purchase intention through AR smart glasses (ARSG), considering consumers' value assessment through a cost–benefit analysis and the influence of technical, experiential and social AR value drivers. We develop an augmented value-based adoption model addressing four main objectives: (1) Evaluate the effect of the perceived value of ARSG, (2) Evaluate the effect of immersion (experiential dimension), (3) Evaluate the effect of AR devices and technical complexity (technical dimension) and (4) Evaluate the importance of subjective norms (social dimension) on the online purchase intention through AR technology. Based on an ESIC Tech Lab experiment with two types of ARSG from market leaders and AR retail apps, the study uses survey data from 253 participants. The results suggest that the technical dimension has an ambiguous effect, with tech-complexity enhancing directly the perceived value of ARSG for online purchase while reducing the net value of consumers' economic cost–benefit analysis. We find strong evidence that the experiential and social AR dimensions (in the form of immersion and subjective norm) have a significant positive influence on consumers' purchase intention online, which are better predictors than the pure economic cost–benefit assessment (through usefulness and difficulty). Furthermore, the technical innovativeness of consumers is found to increase directly the online purchase intention through ARSG.     

Operatic flash mob: Consumer arousal,connectedness and emotion

This study examines the influence of an operatic flash mob on consumer behaviour and consumer experience in a public market. A field experiment was conducted to assess the impact of operatic music on consumers' emotions and connectedness in three conditions: spontaneous live music (flash mob), recorded music, and no music. We analyse audience responses to the shopping experience in all three conditions, with particular focus on temporary group formation and felt emotion. Results show that the flash mob enhanced consumer arousal, connectedness and positive emotions, as well as consumer‐to‐consumer interaction. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

调节定向视角下在线评论感知有用性的眼动研究

本研究采用2评论类型(属性型VS体验型)×2调节定向(促进VS预防)的眼动实验,深入探讨消费者对在线评论的加工过程和感知有用性的认知机理。研究发现：(1)与属性型评论相比,个体对体验型评论的认知过程更短,感知有用性却更高。(2)相对于预防定向个体而言,促进定向个体对在线评论的认知加工过程更短,感知有用性更高。(3)评论类型和调节定向的交互效用,在属性型评论情境中显著,但在体验型评论情境中不显著。研究结果揭示了评论类型和调节定向影响消费者对在线评论认知评估的作用机理。     

Consumers' implicit theories about personality influence their brand personality judgments

Three studies document that consumers' implicit theories about the fixedness/malleability of personality guide brand personality updating in a brand extension context. The first two studies show that extension fit with the parent brand impacts brand personality updating only for incremental (vs. entity theorists). Specifically, for incremental theorists, brand personality is enhanced (vs. diluted) when extension fit is poor (vs. good), and only when brand personality is salient. The third study identifies conditions under which entity theorists focus on brand personality. Interestingly, overall evaluations of the parent brand and extension vary only with extension fit. Implications of our research are discussed.     

Nonmonetary and nonreciprocal freecycling: Motivations for participating in online alternative giving communities

This research examines consumers' participation in a nonmonetary, nonreciprocal form of online consumer exchange wherein consumers may decide to give only, receive only, or both give and receive. Given the lack of financial incentives or relational norms that would traditionally drive participation in this societally beneficial consumption activity for which we advance the term alternative giving, this research examines consumers' participation motivations. Are consumers, as prior research suggests, motivated to participate in alternative giving activities on the basis of prosocial motives or for other reasons? Through a content analysis of the online Freecycle Network, we found that participation is driven primarily by fundamental consumer needs and wants, though other prosocial, less materialistic factors are also drivers. Our findings also identify an inconsistency in product categories between what givers offer and what receivers seek, suggesting that supply–demand imbalances can emerge within alternative giving communities.     

Is Salesperson Attractiveness a Boon or a Bane? The Moderating Role of Perceived Labor Cost‐To‐Price Ratio in Retail Bargaining

This research examines the important but unexamined effects of salesperson attractiveness on consumer bargaining behavior in retail contexts. In line with our theorizing, three studies demonstrate that the effect of salesperson attractiveness on consumer bargaining depends on their general beliefs regarding the impact of labor costs on retail prices. While consumers bargain less with an attractive salesperson when their labor costs‐to‐price (LP) ratio beliefs are relatively low, they bargain harder with an attractive, as opposed to a less attractive, salesperson, when their LP ratio beliefs are relatively high. As well, we provide evidence for the process, based on the salesperson's perceived trustworthiness and consumers' consequent bargaining stance toward her.     

Partisan Provocation: The Role of Partisan News Use and Emotional Responses in Political Information Sharing in Social Media

Citizens increasingly rely on social media to consume and disseminate news and information about politics, but the factors that drive political information sharing on these sites are not well understood. This study focused on how online partisan news use influences political information sharing in part because of the distinct negative emotions it arouses in its audience. Using panel survey data collected during the 2012 U.S. presidential election, we found that use of proattitudinal partisan news online is associated with increased anger, but not anxiety, directed at the opposing party's presidential candidate and that anger subsequently facilitated information sharing about the election on social media. The results suggest partisan media may drive online information sharing by generating anger in its audience.     

Consumer perceptions of bundles and time‐limited promotion deals: Do contracts matter?

Marketers use various types of deals to positively influence consumers' product evaluations. Across two experiments, we manipulated print advertisements to examine whether the commonly used deal content of both bundling and time‐limited promotions affect consumers' perceived confusion, risk and value. In study 1, the influence of this content was tested in the context of a 2‐year telecommunications (telco) contract. Here, consumers associated a three‐item bundle with greater perceived value than a single item, but perceived value was reduced and risk heightened when it was only available for a limited time. We speculate that this is because of the long‐term nature of the contract. Study 2 removed the contract restriction, examining the bundling of a video game console and game(s), again with a time‐limited promotion. However, in this context, we failed to locate any interaction effects. It appears that consumers further appraise the drawbacks of a long‐term telco contract when accompanied by a time‐limited promotion and may perceive the switching costs for study 1 three‐item telco bundle to be particularly risky. Our studies represent the first empirical investigation of the effect on consumers' perceptions of offering a bundle in conjunction with a time‐limited promotion. Testing these effects in contract and no contract conditions adds to the contribution of our studies by delineating a boundary condition. From a managerial perspective, our findings are thought‐provoking in respect to information integration, or how consumers process different deal content together. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.