Soon-Ho Kim, Min-Seong Kim and Dong Hun Lee
Coffee shops are becoming more aware that brand loyalty can be an effective strategy for securing a competitive edge in business. To supplement current understanding of the…
Abstract
Coffee shops are becoming more aware that brand loyalty can be an effective strategy for securing a competitive edge in business. To supplement current understanding of the importance of coffee shop branding, this study investigates the role of personality traits and congruity in the formation of brand loyalty. This study finds that personality traits have direct effects on congruity and customer satisfaction, the two defining factors of brand loyalty. Overall, our results suggest that the interaction of personality traits, congruity, and satisfaction is essential to the process of influencing coffee shop customers’ brand loyalty.
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The study applies a multimodal approach to position aesthetic innovation, i.e., the strategic use of aesthetic design attributes, such as color and shape, as an institutionalized…
Abstract
The study applies a multimodal approach to position aesthetic innovation, i.e., the strategic use of aesthetic design attributes, such as color and shape, as an institutionalized aspect of competition, rather than as a firm-specific differentiation strategy, in settings that favor the symbolic meanings of products. Empirically, the study offers a detailed case study of the personal computer (PC) industry to examine the institutionalization of aesthetic innovation as a dimension of competition across industrial firms. The study examines the color and shape of PCs over the 1992–2003 period and situates changes to these attributes in the competitive conditions that characterized the industry, paying particular attention to the introduction of the Apple iMac in 1998. Furthermore, it examines the discursive manifestations of aesthetic innovation by content analysis of reviews of PCs and interviews with industry executives. Findings demonstrate that, in a period coinciding with a decline in demand for PCs and an overall mature market as well as with the introduction of the iMac, the majority of firms engaged in aesthetic innovation and used a greater number of aesthetic words in describing their PCs.
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Raji Srinivasan and Gary L. Lilien
The products of some firms emerge neither from new technology developments nor from attempting to address articulated consumers’ needs, but from a company-internal design-driven…
Abstract
Purpose
The products of some firms emerge neither from new technology developments nor from attempting to address articulated consumers’ needs, but from a company-internal design-driven approach. To explore this design-driven approach, we propose a construct, design orientation, as a firm’s ability to integrate functionality, aesthetics, and meaning in its new products. We hypothesize relationships between a firm’s design orientation, customer orientation, technological orientation, and willingness to cannibalize on its new product performance.
Methodology/approach
We use data from surveys of senior marketing executives entrusted with design in 252 US firms, we validate the construct of design orientation and establish its distinctiveness from related constructs of creativity, technological orientation, and customer orientation. Using a structural equation modeling approach, we test the hypotheses and find support for them.
Findings
Individually, design orientation, technological orientation, and customer orientation improve new product performance. In addition, customer orientation decreases the positive effect of design orientation while willingness to cannibalize increases the positive effect of design orientation on new product performance.
Implications for theory and/or practice
More than two-thirds of respondents (69%) perceive that their firm can improve its new product performance by increasing its design orientation, an overlooked organizational capability.
Originality/value
Although practitioners have acknowledged the importance of design as a strategic marketing issue, there is little in the literature on how firms can benefit from building capabilities in the design domain, the issue we focus on in this research.
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Silvia Ranfagni and Massimo Rosati
The chapter proposes to investigate online reputation of hospitality brands and its measurements. Brand reputation is generally defined as an overall appraisal of a company by its…
Abstract
The chapter proposes to investigate online reputation of hospitality brands and its measurements. Brand reputation is generally defined as an overall appraisal of a company by its stakeholders, which is the result of the company's past actions and predictions about the company's future (Ferguson, Deephouse, & Ferguson, 2000). Being viewed as the opinion shared among a group of stakeholders (Dowling, 2008), it plays an important role in the tourism industry. With the progress of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), reviews and user-generated contents of destinations and of hospitality companies together with the related emerging brand reputation can influence consumers' behaviors and choices. Brand reputation analysis could be more useful in the hospitality brand management when integrated with brand image and brand identity analysis, mainly because in tourism businesses and destinations, brands are typically affected by an inherent fragility determined by the service nature of products (Casarin, 1996). According to Biel (1991), the meanings that consumers assign to a brand are synthesized into brand associations formed by the components perceived to underlie the brand's image. As well as brand reputation, strong, positive and unique associations reinforce a brand and increase its equity that requires significant internal brand identity efforts, which should create a corresponding brand image through integration in overall marketing programmes (Keller, 2003). It makes sense to develop an analytical research approach that compares online brand reputation (OBR) with brand association matching as a measure of the alignment between brand identity and brand image in hospitality companies. This comparative analysis emerging from brand reputation, brand image and brand identity analysis can reveal divergent situations (i.e., high brand reputation and low brand association matching) and orient brand managers in reviewing online brand communication. Brand reputation and brand image analysis will be contextualized in an online community as a social setting that is considered to be a new type of market (Muniz & O'Guinn, 2001). We focus on hospitality online communities populated by consumers and other actors such as influencers and bloggers: their brand perception could be separately compared with brand identity that we will extract from company communications including presentational information and brand-related press releases found on websites, nonfinancial narrative from annual reports, and interviews with managers published in mainstream media sources. In our analysis we will focalize on a cluster of luxury hospitality companies integrating a netnographic and text-mining techniques. We will use both the techniques in order to (1) extract and study brand associations in terms of brand reputation, brand image, and brand identity; (2) develop indicators of brand reputation and brand association matching; and (3) discuss their utility in the management of the hospitality company brands.
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Natrawan Amornpornwiwat and Supara Kapasuwan
This study focuses on tourists’ perceptions of a capsule hotel, a budget form of accommodation with a unique appearance and the small size of a sleeping pod. The data were…
Abstract
This study focuses on tourists’ perceptions of a capsule hotel, a budget form of accommodation with a unique appearance and the small size of a sleeping pod. The data were obtained in Bangkok from 402 foreign travellers from over 30 countries. The results indicate that room size, sleep ambient control system and in-room television were the three main attributes that were positively correlated with decisions to stay in such hotels. Tourists with previous experience of staying in capsule hotels had more positive perceptions regarding room size and indicated higher intentions to stay than those without such experience. The researchers also found that budgetary considerations negatively moderated the relationship between room size and intention-to-stay. Additionally, the relationship between intention-to-stay and three other hotel attributes, including room size, the service scape and perceived security, was weaker for female travellers than for male travellers. Lastly, risk avoidance also positively moderated the relationship between intention-to-stay and location and security.
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This special “Anbar Abstracts” issue of the Marketing Intelligence & Planning is split into nine sections covering abstracts under the following headings: Marketing Strategy;…
Abstract
This special “Anbar Abstracts” issue of the Marketing Intelligence & Planning is split into nine sections covering abstracts under the following headings: Marketing Strategy; Customer Service; Sales Management/Sundry; Promotion; Marketing Research/Customer Behaviour; Product Management; Logistics and Distribution.
Hector Bajac, Miguel Palacios and Elizabeth A. Minton
The purpose of this paper is to understand how congruence influences product evaluations in an international Latin culture context, as moderated by the public vs private nature of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand how congruence influences product evaluations in an international Latin culture context, as moderated by the public vs private nature of the product and user-image vs product-personality congruence.
Design/methodology/approach
Participants were recruited from two universities in Spanish-speaking, Latin cultures: Spain – Latin Europe (n=340) and Uruguay – Latin America (n=400). All participants were asked to indicate product-personality congruence (i.e. congruence between one’s self and the product) and user-image congruence (i.e. congruence between a product’s typical user and the product) for two private and two public products.
Findings
Two types of congruence (product-personality and user-image) positively influence brand evaluations more for publicly consumed than for privately consumed brands for consumers in both Latin cultures, with effect sizes being greater than prior research in other cultures.
Research limitations/implications
This research supports congruence theory in showing that similarity between a consumer and a brand leads to more favorable attitudes. Limitations include the sole use of student subjects and examination in only two countries of Latin culture.
Practical implications
Regardless of a brand’s personality, brands should seek consumers with similar personality traits, especially in Latin cultures.
Originality/value
This research addresses several limitations in prior research by examining both publicly and privately consumed products in one study, exploring congruence across Latin cultures, and testing products not confounded by addictive properties.
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In the tourism sector, the differentiation is difficult in the commoditized market. The main challenge for businesses is to design the experiences which would create awareness and…
Abstract
Purpose
In the tourism sector, the differentiation is difficult in the commoditized market. The main challenge for businesses is to design the experiences which would create awareness and difference. With this foresight, this chapter aims to show an experience-based service design path built around various elements such as sensations, emotions, human relations, innovations, and values.
Methodology/approach
This chapter is based on extensive literature review, including books, journals, articles, conference papers, and search reports. Furthermore, the Singapore Airlines web page was used as an important source of information to examine the instructional path built suggested in the literature review.
Findings
As it has been determined by the general review, experience-based service design contains different components, and with these evaluations the experience-based service design was established in this chapter within three steps: explore, design, and positioning. Furthermore, on the case study of Singapore Airlines, the tracks of these three steps have been investigated. Especially, explore and design dimensions have been identified to be used mainly during the experience design.
Practical implications
From the highlights of the literature review, an instructional path for experience-based service design and implementation process is highlighted in three parts and this instructional path would guide business managers/experience engineers.
Originality/value
As the experience-based service design has been increasingly receiving the attention of the business’ managers in the tourism sector, an overview examination of experience design, and being instructional guide will direct them to implicate the dimensions in practice.