Mobile Marketing in the Retailing Environment: Current Insights and Future Research Avenues

Mobile marketing, which involves two- or multi-way communication and promotion of an offer between a firm and its customers using the mobile, a term that refers to the mobile medium, device, channel, or technology, is growing in importance in the retailing environment. It has the potential to change the paradigm of retailing from one based on consumers entering the retailing environment to retailers entering the consumer's environment through anytime, anywhere mobile devices. We propose a conceptual framework that comprises three key entities: the consumer, the mobile, and the retailer. The framework addresses key related issues such as mobile consumer activities, mobile consumer segments, mobile adoption enablers and inhibitors, key mobile properties, key retailer mobile marketing activities and competition. We also address successful retailer mobile marketing strategies, identify the customer-related and organizational challenges on this topic, and outline future research scenarios and avenues related to these issues.     

Asymmetries in the Effects of Drivers of Brand Loyalty Between Early and Late Adopters and Across Technology Generations

Mobile marketing activities are growing at a rapid pace. The success of mobile marketing hinges on consumers' adoption of mobile devices. However, consumers' mobile device adoption is not well understood at the brand (e.g., Apple, Nokia, Samsung) level. We propose a conceptual framework linking mobile device brand loyalty (repurchase intention) to its drivers including perceived value, brand satisfaction, brand attachment and trust, and develop hypotheses about the moderating roles of adopter type and mobile technology generation in some of these linkages. We test these hypotheses using structural equation modeling on a unique cross-sectional dataset of attitudes toward mobile phone brands spanning two technology generations, 2.5G and 3G. The results reveal important asymmetries between adopter types and between technology generations: early adopters of mobile devices emphasize perceived value, whereas late adopters rely on brand satisfaction in developing brand loyalty; and consumers depend more on trust and less on perceived value in developing loyalty for the new generation than for the existing generation. We outline how brand managers of mobile devices should adapt their marketing strategies to different adopter types and technology generations.     

Luxury fashion brand customers’ perceptions of mobile marketing: Evidence of multiple communications and marketing channels

Previous studies have addressed some of the issues of customers' perceptions of mobile marketing, particularly the affordances of multiple communications and channels. Despite a proliferation of studies in this field, the theoretical exploration of luxury fashion customers' perceptions of multiple mobile communications and marketing channels remains at an exploratory stage. Drawing on the elaboration likelihood model and a social constructivist perspective, the current study conducted 37 in-depth interviews with Generation Z mobile luxury customers. We specifically examined how customers' emotionally and cognitively based perceptions emerge as they navigate multiple mobile marketing channels and message communications. Our model conceptualizes four elements of customers' perceptions of their mobile marketing journey that can drive mobile customer engagement and acquisition behavior. The integrative model opens up interesting avenues for further research on mobile marketing and luxury fashion consumers’ perceptions of the effects of multiple communications and marketing channels.     

Brand in the hand: A cross-market investigation of consumer acceptance of mobile marketing

Given the great potential of developing marketing campaigns delivered via mobile devices and the evolution of near-field communication technologies, this study examines factors influencing consumers’ acceptance of untethered, or mobile, marketing across three influential markets: the United States, China, and Europe. We examine the extent to which the usefulness of mobile information/programs and individual characteristics—namely innovativeness, personal attachment, and risk avoidance—jointly influence attitudes toward mobile marketing, and how the latter influences consumers’ mobile marketing activity across three large and influential markets. We found perceived usefulness, consumer innovativeness, and personal attachment to directly influence attitudes toward mobile marketing in all three markets. In China and Europe, risk avoidance also negatively influences attitudes toward mobile marketing. Marketers seeking to build and maintain customer relationships via mobile platforms should view these individual characteristics as levers brands can push to amplify consumers’ acceptance of mobile marketing.     

Mobile marketing: A literature review on its value for consumers and retailers

The article describes the existing knowledge of how mobile marketing can increase the value for consumers and retailers. Mobile device shopping, and consumers' use of mobile devices while shopping is shown to be both an extension of consumers' shopping behaviours developed on Internet-connected desktop and laptop computers (PC), and potentially new behaviours based on a mobile devices' uniquely integrated features such as camera, scanners and GPS. The article focuses on how mobile marketing creates value for consumers and retailers, enabling more precise research and development of managerial concepts and tools while providing both managers and academics with increased understanding of mobile marketing and its value outcomes for retailers.     

Mobile Shopper Marketing: Key Issues,Current Insights,and Future Research Avenues

The intersection of mobile marketing and shopper marketing, known as mobile shopper marketing, is a rapidly evolving area. We formally define mobile shopper marketing as the planning and execution of all mobile-based marketing activities that influence a shopper along and beyond the path-to-purchase: from the initial shopping trigger, to the purchase, consumption, repurchase, and recommendation stages. However, not much is known about mobile shopper marketing. We plug this gap by first discussing mobile shopper marketing and its scope in depth and then presenting a process model that connects the mobile shopping journey with four key entities, i.e., shopper, employee, organization, and mobile technology. For each of these themes, we identify the challenges that offer future research opportunities.     

The impact of customised mobile marketing on passenger shopping behaviour in the airport terminal

With growing popularity of mobile devices, digital marketing strategies are increasingly important for modern airports. This paper studied context-aware mobile marketing strategies in the airport retail environment. An on-site mobile marketing experiment was conducted at a partner airport to explore how preference and/or location-based mobile coupons could affect passengers’ retail behaviour. Results show that retail shopping became more efficient (less browsing time) with mobile marketing influence, but not necessarily more effective (not higher spending amount). Randomly pushed mobile marketing information is effective in keeping passengers in shops for longer but context-aware mobile marketing is more effective in increasing spending amount.     

Challenges and opportunities in high-dimensional choice data analyses

Modern businesses routinely capture data on millions of observations across subjects, brand SKUs, time periods, predictor variables, and store locations, thereby generating massive high-dimensional datasets. For example, Netflix has choice data on billions of movies selected, user ratings, and geodemographic characteristics. Similar datasets emerge in retailing with potential use of RFIDs, online auctions (e.g., eBay), social networking sites (e.g., mySpace), product reviews (e.g., ePinion), customer relationship marketing, internet commerce, and mobile marketing. We envision massive databases as four-way VAST matrix arrays of Variables?×?Alternatives?×?Subjects?×?Time where at least one dimension is very large. Predictive choice modeling of such massive databases poses novel computational and modeling issues, and the negligence of academic research to address them will result in a disconnect from the marketing practice and an impoverishment of marketing theory. To address these issues, we discuss and identify the challenges and opportunities for both practicing and academic marketers. Thus, we offer an impetus for advancing research in this nascent area and fostering collaboration across scientific disciplines to improve the practice of marketing in information-rich environment.     

Product Placement of Medical Products

Abstract

Product placement is a well-established marketing technique that nevertheless continues to provoke considerable criticism and debate. Likewise, direct-to-patient marketing of pharmaceuticals is legally acceptable but is controversial among ethicists and medical professionals. Little has been published regarding the ethical challenges and pitfalls involved in medical marketing, including the issues of whether medical products should be treated differently from consumer products and whether pharmaceuticals are distinct from medical devices. Discussed are examples of pharmaceutical marketing as well as an episode from the Chicago Hope television program in which a medical device was touted as a solution for a problem for which the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved the use of the device. Legal and ethical considerations for product placement of medical products as they influence patient demand are also analyzed, as well as some of the pitfalls that may accompany direct marketing of medical products.     

可操作的关系营销与相关的道德问题

关系营销是营销理论界的一个热门话题。然而,历经近20年的发展,它的操作性问题却没有解决好。关系营销的可操作性涉及三个问题:关系市场、关系营销组合和关系营销的道德问题。关系营销是一种道德问题颇大的营销方式或营销思想。要解决关系营销的道德问题,需要对关系营销的范围加以限制,需要降低对于关系营销的道德要求,或者需要为关系营销建立一套新的道德标准。     

Gamification and Mobile Marketing Effectiveness

A variety of business sectors have been buffeted by the diffusion of mobile technology, a trend that presents a variety of difficult challenges but interesting opportunities to marketers. One such opportunity is gamification, which, one hopes, will enhance appeal to mobile consumers. Our sense from both personal experience and the literature is that the gamified mobile apps currently offered by firms mostly miss the mark. We provide a systematic overview of game design and note how principles derived from that field are highly applicable to gamification in mobile marketing settings. We are aided by the work of Schell (2008), whose Elemental Game Tetrad Model allows us to offer a coherent look at how gamification should affect mobile marketing outcomes.     

巧夺先“机”——移动互联网新营销策略探析

本文针对当下的媒体发展状况提出穆动互联网营销的新策略方向。结合经典案例分析了移动互联网的特征．移动互联网营销的优势,跨媒体营销策略。阐述了数字媒体时代移动互联网已迅速崛起．充分运用移动营销的优势．实行跨媒体移动整合营销将是符合时代发展需求的营销策略,展望了移动营销的发展趋势。     

Mobile advertising to Digital Natives: preferences on content,style, personalization,and functionality

Digital advertising is the fastest growing form of marketing. Within digital, mobile is the fastest growing medium. Mobile advertising occurs on any mobile device, such as smartphones and tablets. The upcoming generation of Digital Natives is especially prone to viewing mobile advertising. Digital Natives have grown up with digital communications; they use their smartphones to connect with the world and make purchases. Mobile advertising and Digital Natives are both new to the marketplace and, thus, research is scarce on both. This paper investigates the preferences of Digital Natives regarding mobile advertising. Several preferences were found and recommendations are provided.     

Under the sway of a mobile device during an in‐store shopping experience

Mobile device technology is transforming the retail shopping experience. Today's consumers are mobile dependent, preferring to consult with their phone, instead of using the salesperson, while shopping at the retail store. In the absence of literature investigating how the salesperson might sell to this omni‐channel, mobile‐connected consumer, this paper proposes a conceptual model and tests its proposed linkages. The empirically tested model presents a dyadic view of the omni‐channel consumer and the salesperson. Uniquely contributing to the omni‐channel and marketing literature, samples from an emerging economy (India) and developed (United States) economy represent the contexts. Specifically, the research examines the salesperson's role in selling to a mobile‐dependent consumer who uses mobile technology to search for information during the sales meeting. Findings show that adaptive selling can affect purchase intention and customer predisposition to comply with salesperson input. Results also reveal how perceived control, mobile dependence, and customer predisposition to comply with mobile device input affect purchase intention. Managerial and research implications specifically appropriate for the omni‐consumer retail setting are offered.     

Planning and implementing effective mobile marketing programs

Mobile marketing is an ever increasingly important component of a firm's overall promotional strategy. The importance of this medium can be seen through time spent on mobile media, number of searches, and direct and indirect mobile-generated sales. Despite its increased importance, the effectiveness of mobile marketing needs to be improved based on such metrics as bounce rates, add-to-cart rates, shopping cart abandonment, and average order size. Strategies to increase the effectiveness of mobile marketing are discussed. Firms need to capitalize on the three major strategic advantages of mobile marketing: (1) the fact that mobile marketing devices are always on, always connected, and always with the consumer; (2) the ability to generate location-sensitive offers; and (3) the ability to send relevant personalized messages and offers. Firms also need to develop and implement an effective mobile marketing strategy through a series of activities. These include understanding and reacting to the complexity of mobile marketing, designing sites based on ease of use versus ‘bells and whistles,’ increasing opt-in rates, using effective customer engagement strategies, and developing effective mobile coupons. Criteria to evaluate the effectiveness of mobile marketing are discussed.     

Mobile diaries – Benchmark against metered measurements: An empirical investigation

Researchers seeking to study the relationships between consumers' communications, attitudes, and behaviors could benefit from monitoring consumers over time, across multiple locations and channels, and in a way that reflects consumers' subjective perceptions. Diaries on smartphones (mobile diaries) can be used as a research tool for such purposes. A mobile diary is a self-report instrument whereby people use their mobile handset to repeatedly report experiences of interest. Mobile diaries are increasingly used in psychology, geography, medicine, and commercial marketing. Yet they have rarely been used for quantitative marketing research, and were not benchmarked against best-practice metrics in marketing.In this study, we aim to set the ground for using mobile diaries in quantitative marketing research. We first lay out the theoretical infrastructure for the usage of mobile diaries, and describe possible respondent reporting concerns, including concerns related to non-reporting, reporting over time, and concerns stemming from individual-level heterogeneity.We demonstrate the potential of mobile diaries, as well as the importance of the various concerns, using a benchmark test case in the context of primetime TV viewing. Our benchmark uses a sample of respondents with both mobile diary viewing reports and Nielsen People Meter (NPM) records. Our analysis reveals that averaging across all conditions, 47.4%–64.7% of the NPM records are reported by the diary. The major sources for mismatch are random time periods without alarms, short viewings, and periodic reporting inactivity (pulsing). Concerns such as a decrease in reporting rates over time (e.g., fatigue), smartphone ownership, and demographic variation across individuals have relatively small effects on reporting likelihood. Analyzing the cases in which diary reports do not have a matching NPM record, we find many of them can be attributed to out-of-home viewing and viewing on non-metered devices. This finding demonstrates how mobile diaries can complement metered measurements. Overall, aggregate diary-based ratings have a 0.90 correlation with NPM ratings.We discuss implications for designing and using mobile diary studies in marketing.     

中小企业移动营销应用研究——以苏州为例

随着3G的商用,移动营销将成为一种性价比较高的新的营销方式。苏州市移动信息化程度较高,为苏州中小企业开展移动营销带来广阔的市场前景,而目前苏州绝大部分中小企业尚未开展移动营销或仅以低端强推式短信广告为主。因此,应充分利用移动互联网络资源,开展精准营销,为顾客提供增值服务,提高营销收益。     

Two hearts in three-quarter time: How to waltz the social media/viral marketing dance

The concept of viral marketing has been discussed in the literature for over 15 years, since Jeffrey Rayport first introduced the term in 1996. However, the more widespread use of social media has recently pushed this idea to a whole new level. We provide insight into the relationship between social media and viral marketing, and illustrate the six steps executives should take in order to dance the social media/viral marketing waltz. We define viral marketing as electronic word-of-mouth whereby some form of marketing message related to a company, brand, or product is transmitted in an exponentially growing way—often through the use of social media applications. We consider the three conditions that need to be fulfilled to create a viral marketing epidemic (i.e., giving the right message to the right messengers in the right environment) and present four different groups of social media viral marketing campaigns (nightmares, strokes-of-luck, homemade issues, and triumphs). We conclude with five points of caution that managers should heed when trying to launch their own viral marketing campaign.     

Retail in my pocket– replicating and extending the construct of service quality into the mobile commerce context

Nowadays, retailers are interested in how customer preferences regarding service quality are changing due to the adoption of different devices for shopping purposes in both the desktop and mobile contexts. To answer this question, this paper first replicates, in the mobile commerce (m-commerce) context, the results from Blut et al. (2015), who conducted a meta-analytic review of electronic service quality. Replication results question the robustness and generalizability of the conceptualization in the mobile service quality context. Thereby, practitioners and academics are encouraged to adapt a customer-centric approach in organizing marketing practices. The replication extends the conceptualization of electronic service quality by considering a unique dimension named ubiquity of services, defined as the retailer's ability to provide offers based on location and time. To reveal psychological mechanisms explaining the results of the replication study, a follow-up study draws on these contextual factors. In this context, this study uses a quasi-experimental approach by utilizing propensity score matching to account for self-selection effects to examine differences between desktop and mobile device users. As a result, this research contributes to the literature by identifying contextual boundary conditions regarding the shopping trip intentions and risk perceptions of mobile device users and desktop device users. Based on the results, major implications for retailers and further research are given.     

Mobile Commerce Applications in Supply Chain Management

Abstract

As wireless technologies evolve, the coming mobile revolution will bring dramatic and fundamental changes to supply chain management. When complete, the revolution will impact numerous facets of organizational life. It will provide important data in real time to assist decision makers, exert great influence on the ways businesses communicate and develop relationships with consumers and suppliers, and ultimately transform the way we manage the supply chain. This paper examines issues in integrating mobile commerce and supply chain management. The paper discusses issues such as the absence of killer applications, mobile device limitations, networking problems, infrastructure constraints, security concerns, and user distrust in mobile applications. Research issues, such as usability, user interfaces, mobile access to databases, agent technologies, and mobile business models, are also discussed.