Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine the interaction effects of spokes-character dynamism (high vs low) and brand personality (sincere vs competent) on consumers’ evaluation and the mediating role of processing fluency.

Two experiments were conducted to test the hypotheses. Study 1 establishes the interaction effect between evoked spokes-character dynamism and brand personality on brand trust and examines the mediating role of processing fluency. By introducing a control group and using purchase intention as the dependent variable, Study 2 further extends the results of Study 1.

The results of Studies 1 and 2 show that for sincere brands, spokes-characters with high dynamic imagery contribute to significantly higher consumer evaluation than the control group and the group of spokes-characters with low dynamic imagery. However, for competent brands, spokes-characters with low dynamic imagery contribute to significantly higher consumer evaluation than the control group and the group of spokes-characters with high dynamic imagery. In addition, processing fluency mediates the interaction effect between evoked spokes-character dynamism and brand personality on consumers’ evaluation.

The studies considered only one method, “frozen motion,” to evoke perceived movement. Further studies using other methods are needed to allow for generalization.

The discerning use of dynamic imagery in spokes-character design involving advertisements may aid marketers in maximizing spokes-characters’ effect on consumers’ evaluation.

The perceived movement of spokes-characters is integrated into the cognition of brand personality. Marketers should take into account how the match between spokes-character dynamism and brand personality may influence consumers’ evaluation of the brand.

Consumers are becoming increasingly socially conscious when making their purchasing decisions, which in turn is providing an incentive for firms to integrate social responsibility considerations into their product offerings. Explaining the various categories of socially responsible consumption (SRC) is therefore important. The purpose of this paper is to explain the various categories of socially responsible consumption.

Grounded in the theory of planned behavior (TPB), this paper surveyed a sample of 1,202 Hong Kong consumers.

The findings indicate that attitude towards the behavior, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control are all significant predictors of three categories of SRC (i.e. intention to purchase from firms based on their CSR performance, intention to practice recycling and intention to try to avoid or minimize their use of products based on their environmental impact). Intention to engage in SRC was then shown to be a significant predictor of SRC behavior.

This paper relied on only the single-factor test as a measure of socially desirable responding. Furthermore, while the quota sampling was designed for broad representativeness, it is difficult to verify if the well-controlled quota controls entirely removed the possibility of a biased selection of respondents within each cell.

Recommendations are made for public policy-makers and marketers to devise ways to shape consumer behavior to facilitate more responsible consumption.

Previous research relating to SRC has not explained the various categories of SRC and often failed to test the relationship between intention and behavior, representing a considerable gap in the literature. This paper applied the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to explain intention and behavior with regards to the various categories of SRC.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the interplay of valences (positive or negative) between review texts and ratings affects consumers' reactions to the reviews and the product being assessed.

An experimental design with hypothetical movie reviews was used to investigate how inconsistent text‐rating reviews affect people's intention to consume a particular product and their perceptions of the review itself.

It was found that text valences (positive or negative) significantly influence how subjects perceive the interestingness and trustworthiness of reviews. The texts also have an influence on the subjects' movie‐attendance intention compatible with their valence. In addition, a cross‐over interaction was found between texts and ratings that affects a review's trustworthiness.

The study enriches understanding of consumer decision making when different formats of information about the same object are presented.

Marketers can benefit by incorporating review texts and rating valences to enhance the prediction accuracy of their products' sales performances. Review publishers can get a better understanding of how to present their reviews to enhance their perceived interestingness and trustworthiness.

Product reviews are commonly found in the mass media. These reviews use ratings as evaluative summaries of the texts. However, little research has been conducted regarding the communication effects that the ratings have in relation to the texts. The study seeks to fill this gap.

Consumers use cues to assess whether a recovery is effective. Prior literature on service recovery has focused mainly on individual-related factors. This paper aims to study how other consumers in the same failure and recovery influence an individual consumer to evaluate the firm ' s recovery efforts.

Two experiments were conducted. Experiment 1 tested the interaction effects between recovery modes (public vs private) and recovery dimensions (economic vs social) on an individual consumer ' s evaluation of a recovery strategy for a group service failure. Experiment 2 investigated the complementary role of social recovery on economic compensation.

Experiment 1 identified a significant interaction effect. Results suggest that an individual in a group service failure responds more favorably to public economic recovery than to private recovery. However, an individual ' s reaction to social recovery follows the opposite pattern. Furthermore, in experiment 2 a complementary effect between economic recovery and social recovery was found.

One potential contribution is that the paper sheds light on the issue related to the influence from other affected consumers in the same service failure and recovery situation in affected consumers ' recovery evaluation. An individual will consider the recovery other individuals receive when he or she evaluates the recovery ' s strategy. The paper also provides insight into the complementary use of economic and social recoveries to enhance a consumer ' s evaluation of a firm ' s overall recovery at a reduced cost.

The purpose of this study is to examine the antecedents of consumers' intention to seek samples, a previously unexplored aspect of consumer behavior.

Using as a backdrop Ajzen's theories of reasoned action and planned behavior, a survey of 154 respondents tested the proposition that attitude toward sample seeking behavior, and the congruity between a person's self‐concept and their image of the type of person who engages in sample seeking behavior (i.e. self‐concept congruity), are linked to the intention to seek samples.

Attitudes toward sample seeking and self‐concept congruity, as well as their interaction, were found to positively predict the intention to seek samples.

This research is the first of its kind to identify the predictors of sample seeking. By addressing the traits that predict sample seeking, marketers can stimulate consumers to seek out samples, and this can in turn stimulate product trial and diffusion. The paper also offers directions for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to look at product reviews from a cross‐cultural perspective. Product reviews are potentially an influential form of marketing communication, as well as a predictor of sales performance. With Hofstede's typology as a backdrop, the basic proposition of this study is that collectivistic cultural values place more emphasis on giving face to others, even in impersonal social environments, resulting in them giving more positive product reviews than their individualistic counterparts.

The paper uses content analysis of Chinese and American computer game reviews to test the hypotheses.

The results showed that Chinese reviews use fewer negative comments and give higher final ratings for the same set of products than their American counterparts. In addition, Chinese reviews showed a lower consistency between their evaluative comments and their final ratings. Also confirmed is a common belief that final ratings are a summary of the evaluative comments of the review‐texts.

Future research is invited.

Theoretically, the study refines the understanding of differences between individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Practically, it is suggested that if consumers' cultural values are reflected in product reviews, international marketers should weigh and balance possible cultural bias when they decode evaluations of their products from reviews published in other countries' media.

Product reviews are a rich but ignored resource with high marketing value. It is hoped that the study can stimulate both marketing researchers and practitioners to make better use of product reviews to further understand marketing phenomena and make better marketing decisions.

This paper seeks to explore factors that can help generate a bigger ripple for diffusive Word‐of‐Mouth (WOM) in an online environment. Specifically, the paper aims to demonstrate how the characteristics of WOM information influence the ripple effect.

The paper used a survey based on real posts in online discussion forums to collect the data. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was utilized for analysis.

WOM as diffusive communication could generate a ripple effect. All of the WOM characteristics, which were investigated (quality, authority, authenticity and interestingness), have a positive effect on resenders' acceptance toward WOM, which, in turn, have a significant positive impact on resenders' resending intention. Furthermore, the positive impacts of WOM characteristics on resenders' acceptance exist, regardless of whether the valence of WOM information is positive or negative.

This study provides insights into the role of WOM information in facilitating the WOM ripple effect. However, the specific characteristics of WOM information that influence consumers' perceptions of WOM are not explored in the present research.

The results of the study may help practitioners manipulate and use online WOM information in order to make marketing communications more efficient and influential.

It is common for companies to sponsor sports teams. The aim of this paper is to examine experimentally the impact of two team attributes (team performance and the presence of a star in the team) on consumers' intention to purchase the sponsor's product. The moderating role of team identification on the relationship between these two team attributes and intention to purchase is also to be studied.

An experiment was conducted in Hong Kong. A series of hypotheses relating to team performance, presence of stars in the team, and team identification were tested.

Team performance significantly influenced consumers' intention to purchase the sponsor's product, and this influence was more pronounced for casual than for avid fans and more pronounced when the team contained a star. A winning team with a star generated the strongest purchase intention. A losing team with a star produced the lowest purchase intention.

The trade‐off between internal and external validity when using experimental research methods constitutes the main limitation of this study. This limitation aside, the study suggested that sponsors should try to sponsor a winning team, especially if it contains a star player. A sponsor of a losing team might encourage the team management to take actions that increase the level of team identification among consumers. If the losing team also contains a star, the sponsor ought to promote other strengths of the team instead of focusing on team performance.

The paper extends previous work in the area by examining how team performance and the presence of a star in a team impact intentions to purchase the sponsor's product, and how team identification moderates the influence of these two attributes.

Handbills are an interesting advertising medium since they are distributed by people in a social context. Little, however, is known about why handbills are often avoided. This study was designed with the purpose of extending previous research on advertising avoidance by using social psychological variables to explain consumers' avoidance of handbills in Hong Kong and the UK.

A survey of 337 individuals was conducted (166 in Hong Kong and 171 in the UK). A series of hypotheses relating to perceived handbill clutter, perceived goal impediment, and the perceived manner of the distributer were tested.

Perceived handbill clutter was found to be the strongest predictor of handbill avoidance in both Hong Kong and the UK. The second strongest predictor was perceived goal impediment. The perceived manner of the distributor did not predict handbill avoidance in Hong Kong, but it did predict handbill avoidance in the UK.

The study's methodology has a number of limitations. First, the measure of the distributor's perceived manner may not have directly tapped the distributor dimensions of importance to handbill avoidance. Second, no account was taken of non-response bias. The model also did not recognize that there may be other variables capable of explaining handbill avoidance.

The results suggest that effort is needed to raise the perceived value of handbills so that their perceived value neutralizes any perceptions of goal impediment. In addition, handbill designers need to find creative ways to stand out from the clutter. In the UK, deportment should be considered when distributors are recruited and trained.

Handbills are frequently used as a promotional tool. In two contrasting countries, this study found that perceived handbill clutter, perceived goal impediment, and perceived manner of the distributer influence handbill avoidance. The research has extended theoretical knowledge related to advertising avoidance and generated insights that are likely to be of practical value to marketers.

To investigate the impact of situational factors on mall shoppers' buying decisions.

Based on Belk's framework on situational factors in a sales situation, the study employed a dataset of mall shoppers in the USA, China and Hong Kong and logistic regression for analysis.

It is found that, whether in the combined sample or in the individual samples, nine of the 13 situational factors considered significantly affected shoppers' purchases of food or non‐food products. However, situational influences on purchases varied according to the types of products bought. More importantly, the findings on the impact of some factors were consistent across three or two samples, suggesting that their external validity may be extended to certain conditions.

The study had a limitation in the selection of the malls where the interviews were conducted, so some of the findings may be mall‐specific rather than representative of the general population of shoppers in the nations or regions.

The information disclosed here may help the practitioners to better understand shoppers' (especially Chinese shoppers') behaviour in malls and, as a consequence, to undertake more efficient marketing strategies in malls (especially in the malls in China).

The distinguished feature of this paper is that it simultaneously examined the impacts of 13 situational factors on mall shoppers' purchase decisions with multinational data. This allowed researchers to check both the internal validity and the external validity of the observed impacts of the situational factors.