Viriya Taecharungroj and Ioana S. Stoica
The purpose of this paper is to examine and compare the in situ place experiences of people in Luton and Darlington.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine and compare the in situ place experiences of people in Luton and Darlington.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used 109,998 geotagged tweets from Luton and Darlington between 2020 and 2022 and conducted topic modelling using latent Dirichlet allocation. Lexicons were created using GPT-4 to evaluate the eight dimensions of place experience for each topic.
Findings
The study found that Darlington had higher counts in the sensorial, behavioural, designed and mundane dimensions of place experience than Luton. Conversely, Luton had a higher prevalence of the affective and intellectual dimensions, attributed to political and faith-related tweets.
Originality/value
The study introduces a novel approach that uses AI-generated lexicons for place experience. These lexicons cover four facets, two intentions and two intensities of place experience, enabling detection of words from any domain. This approach can be useful not only for town and destination brand managers but also for researchers in any field.
Details
Keywords
Role of digital channels in car buying has increased manifold and consumers are making significant use of various digital channels throughout the decision-making process. However…
Abstract
Purpose
Role of digital channels in car buying has increased manifold and consumers are making significant use of various digital channels throughout the decision-making process. However, there are very less number of studies available if one wishes to understand the specific reason(s) for the use of a particular digital channel of communication. This study deals with the identifications of the reason(s) leading towards the usage of particular digital channel of communication while buying a car.
Design/methodology/approach
Quantitative methodology was adopted for the study. A total of 10 digital channels namely the websites, social networking sites, YouTube, Smartphones, Online communities, Digital TV, Digital Outdoors, e-mails and others were considered in the study. Data was collected from 603 car buyers from Delhi using digital channels of communication.
Findings
The results of the study revealed that Website and YouTube were used for being compatible. Social networking sites, smartphones, digital outdoors and e-mails were used for being informative. Online communities were used for offering customers and experts' reviews. Digital TV was used for being easy to use.
Research limitations/implications
The study considers the respondents from Delhi only. A more representative sample covering various parts of the country would offer more relevant results for the marketers as digital divide existing between rural and urban India cannot be simply ignored.
Practical implications
The study reveals that car buyers are making ample usage of digital channels wherein website is the most used digital channel and smartphones are the most used digital devices used by the car buyers.
Social implications
Study also reveals that car buyers might use search engines to reach the marketer's website, so effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategies should be adopted. Important keywords used in the search engines should be used in the website as well as in the links.
Originality/value
Majority of the available studies use digital as an umbrella term for myriad digital channels. So understanding about the usage of specific channel of communication remains an under-researched area. Such understanding strengths and broadens the existing knowledge about technology mediated consumer behaviour especially in extended problem-solving product category.