Innovations in Shopper Marketing: Current Insights and Future Research Issues

Shopper marketing refers to the planning and execution of all marketing activities that influence a shopper along, and beyond, the entire path-to-purchase, from the point at which the motivation to shop first emerges through to purchase, consumption, repurchase, and recommendation. The goal of shopper marketing is to enable a win–win–win solution for the shopper–retailer–manufacturer. Shopper marketing has emerged as a key managerial practice among manufacturers and retailers, who are eagerly embracing innovations in the different aspects of shopper marketing. We review current and potential innovations in shopper marketing. We identify the managerial challenges to achieving new win–win–win solutions among shoppers, manufacturers, and retailers in shopper marketing and outline future scenarios and research issues related to these challenges.     

Double-fortified salt reduces anemia,benefit:cost ratio is modestly favorable

Iron deficiency is very widespread, with adverse consequences for health and cognition. Iron supplementation is not popular for long-term use, and cereal fortification is not feasible where milling occurs locally. Double-fortified salt (DFS: using both iron and iodine) is an alternative. The study undertakes a literature survey to find the effect of DFS on hemoglobin, and then uses a previous algorithm to make calculations for India. The benefit:cost ratio was estimated as 2.4:1 if only the benefits to children and women were included, and between 4:1 and 5:1 if anemia levels for men also decreased. This is just a little lower than the median ratio estimated for iron fortification of cereal staples (6.7:1), for home fortification for children less than two (37:1), and for biofortification – breeding for high iron – of cereals (high, but no exact figure available). Double-fortified salt is therefore a good alternative for improving iron status in populations where fortification of other staple foods does not achieve desired coverage.     

Learning from Neighbours

When payoffs from different actions are unknown, agents use their own past experience as well as the experience of their neighbours to guide their decision making. In this paper, we develop a general framework to study the relationship between the structure of these neighbourhoods and the process of social learning.
We show that, in a connected society, local learning ensures that all agents obtain the same payoffs in the long run. Thus, if actions have different payoffs, then all agents choose the same action, and social conformism obtains. We develop conditions on the distribution of prior beliefs, the structure of neighbourhoods and the informativeness of actions under which this action is optimal. In particular, we identify a property of neighbourhood structures—local independence—which greatly facilitates social learning. Simulations of the model generate spatial and temporal patterns of adoption that are consistent with empirical work.     

“Am I Getting It or Not?” The Practices Involved in “Trying to Consume” a New Technology

In recent years, high rates of failure of technology‐based products have spurred interest in understanding the psychological and sociological barriers to consumer learning of technological innovations. The main focus of this research was to examine the learning process and consumers’ coping mechanisms when they encounter technological innovations. A study was designed to understand the learning process in real time as consumers engaged in a set of activities associated with the novel interface. The goal was to investigate how consumers cope with high levels of complexity during their initial interactions with a technology‐based product and how their coping strategies may hinder the learning process. Verbal protocol measures were used in order to understand the consumer's learning process as he or she interacts with a technology‐based product in real time. They were told that they would have to think aloud while performing certain tasks and that their thoughts would be recorded for further analysis. The personal digital assistant (PDA) with handwriting recognition as its interface was chosen for this study. The main task for the participants was to learn how to use Graffiti writing—i.e., the product's handwriting recognition software. We proceeded to a thematic analysis in which interpretations were generated by the researchers going back and forth between the transcribed texts, the developing interpretation, the new interface itself, and also the relevant literature. The results suggest that the new product's interface serves to structure the consumer's learning process even as he or she responds in relatively unstructured ways. The findings identify three basic factors that interfere with the learning process during consumers’ initial interactions with a technological innovation: interface and functionality practices, social influence, and causal attributions. Specifically, the results suggest that in designing technology‐based products there is a gap between the levels of know‐how between the manufacturer and the user. The challenge for manufacturers is to understand the consumer's learning experience and coping strategies and provide mechanisms that would make the transition easy and intuitive. This could be achieved by incorporating into the new interface some degree of flexibility that will allow consumers to modify tasks based on their preferences, or by including indicators that will provide feedback to the user. Furthermore, in the context of communication strategies, in order to minimize the negative impact that prior knowledge and social influence may have on learning, marketers could communicate specific steps describing how to use the new interface.     

Did decimalization hurt institutional investors?

We examine institutional trading costs around the move to penny size ticks in 2001 (i.e., decimalization). We find that overall trading costs declined, with improvements in most partitions across order size, firm size, and manager style. Improvements were most pronounced for orders that were executed over multiple days and for stocks where the minimum tick sizes were likely to have been binding. However, costs did increase for orders executed within a single day. The improvements we document contrast with changes accompanying the reduction of minimum ticks to sixteenths in 1997 though, in both cases, results suggest that more patient traders fare relatively better than those that demand immediacy.     

FCC policy on CB radio: Impact on consumer decision making

A consumer decision making model was created and tested in research sponsored by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC was considering a series of policy changes with regard to equipment and rules of operation. Discriminant and regression statistical results were combined into a simulation model which projected the impact of the proposed policy changes.