Exploring supermarket loyalty card analysis to identify who buys fairtrade

The aim of this paper is to show how supermarket loyalty card data from a panel of over 1.7 million shoppers can be analysed to provide insights to profile the fairtrade shopper in order to enhance making targeted marketing decisions. The paper demonstrates the huge marketing potential that loyalty-card-based shopper segmentation can bring to objectively describe who buys fairtrade products, compared to profiling shoppers through a claimed/reported behaviour data-set. A paired-samples t-test is used to test the degree of appeal of fairtrade tea, coffee, chocolate, drinking chocolates, banana and sugar categories in Tesco to life-stage and lifestyle shopper segments in terms of their retail sales values over 104 weeks. The results show that analysing loyalty cards based on actual behaviour provides a more detailed picture of how specific fairtrade food product categories appeal to the various life-stage and lifestyle shopper segments.     

The importance of atmospherics in the choice of hypermarkets and supermarkets

Are the atmospheric variables equally relevant for supermarket and hypermarket customers? As a contribution to the customers' choice of the store format, firstly this work aims to determine the perception of differences between hypermarkets and supermarkets in terms of store attributes. Second, it sheds light on the role played by atmospherics in the customers' decision process. This study uses a logit approach to model the probabilistic choice of the customers' store format using atmospheric and other marketing variables as important attributes of the grocery store. The model's estimation is based on personal interviews conducted during the shopping process in urban supermarkets and hypermarkets belonging to the same retail chain. The findings show that although the atmospheric variables are significantly important for both store formats, the customers perceive differently the importance of each retail atmospheric cue and other marketing variables, when buying in a hypermarket or in a supermarket: the choice of buying in hypermarket is explained by the significant importance given to the latent variables named pleasant atmosphere and accessibility and responsiveness; in contrast, the choice of buying in supermarkets is explained by the significant importance given to the latent variable nice decoration and empathy with the staff. The other latent variable designated by other marketing variables is only significantly important in the decision of choosing supermarkets.     

Green apparel buying behaviour: A study on Indian youth

Changes in demographics and availability of global clothing brands have brought several changes in Indian apparel industry. Green or organic clothing brands are becoming popular among Indians and likely to contribute to the revenues of apparel sector. Global and national apparel manufacturers have introduced organic clothing lines to cater to ecological conscious consumers. The purpose of this research was to examine the effect of consumer susceptibility to interpersonal influence (CSII), past green behaviour, green peer influence and green apparel knowledge on Indian youth's green apparel buying behaviour. A mix of convenience and random sampling was used for data collection. The sample (n = 981) comprised of youth of age group 18–24 years. Structural equation modelling was used to test the hypothesized relationships. Findings suggest that past green behaviour influenced green apparel buying behaviour. Green peer influence and green apparel knowledge had no impact on green apparel buying behaviour. Moreover, CSII had no influence on green apparel buying behaviour. The findings differ from earlier studies that suggest influence of social norms and peer group had an effect on green buying behaviour. Practical implications of the present study are discussed.     

Anticipatory Savoring and Consumption: Just Thinking about That First Bite of Chocolate Fills You Up Faster

Two laboratory studies examine how consumers adjust their eating to the size of the portion they expect to receive. Participants who knew in advance that they would receive six pieces of chocolate waited less time before eating each piece and ate more pieces than participants who expected to receive only two pieces when they started, even though both groups were ultimately offered six pieces. In the second study, natural variance in how long participants waited before tasting the chocolates was negatively related to how many additional pieces they thought they could eat after finishing the last piece. These results suggest that increasing the interval prior to taking the first bite of a piece of chocolate reduced overall consumption. When consumers focus their attention on eating, the interval before taking the first bite captures anticipatory savoring—psychologically looking forward to the actual consumption experience.     

The Impact of Power-Distance Belief on Consumers’ Preference for Status Brands

ABSTRACT

We tested the impact of power-distance belief (accepting and expecting power disparity) on consumers’ preference for status brands (brands such as Rolex or Louis Vuitton, which are associated with social status). Our correlational and causal results show that consumers with high power-distance belief tend to have a stronger preference for status brands than those with low power-distance belief. Notably, buying status belief (a belief that buying status brands can enhance one's social status) moderates this effect. Further, this two-way interaction is stronger for people with a relatively lower, rather than higher, self-worth state.     

Marketing via smart speakers: what should Alexa say?

ABSTRACT

A smart speaker is a wireless device with artificial intelligence that can be activated through voice command. The artificial intelligence interacts in the form of a virtual personal assistant, such as Amazon’s “Alexa”. Companies are currently creating voice applications for smart speakers that allow consumers to use the personal assistant to perform tasks, such as acquiring information and ordering products. This is the dawn of a new type of interaction between brands and consumers, a new touchpoint. Brands need to catch the vision and create content for this new technology, content that is useful in the buying process. The purpose of this study is to determine what types of marketing messages people find acceptable on smart speakers. Based on the findings, a cognitive message strategy is effective with smart speakers. The paper presents three types of executional frameworks that are best suited for the design of a cognitive message: authoritative, testimonial, and slice-of-life. The overriding requirement for marketing on smart speakers is that the message must provide value to the listener.     

Testing the robustness of brand partitions identified from purchase duplication analysis

Purchase duplication analysis examines the extent to which buyers of any brand A also buy other brands B, C, D and so on. A generalised finding from its use is that brands share their buyers with other brands approximately in-line with the size of those other brands. The approach is widely used by analysts and managers. One important use of the method is to identify partitions – brands that share buyers at a higher than expected rate. Partitions may form among competitor brands, but also among ‘same name’ or sub-brands that share a parent name (e.g. Coke, Diet Coke). A partition among same-name brands means they are cannibalising each other. Whether one’s focus is on cannibalisation within a portfolio, identifying close competitors, or to generally understand market structure, duplication analysis can provide insights. However, there are two potential confounds to its use: family buying and buying multiple brands on the same occasion. This study tests if these two factors confound the use of purchase duplications, using data from 12 grocery categories. The principal finding is that the identification of partitions is robust to these confounds. The study finds partitions among same-name brands are common and are also not due to these confounds.     

The use of event related potentials brain methods in the study of Conscious and unconscious consumer decision making processes

The question of whether consumer purchasing decisions are conscious choices or unconscious has long been studied in marketing. The ability to measure mental changes with high temporal resolution makes the EEG-based event-related potentials (ERP) method very useful in studying the distinction between consciousness and unconsciousness. Although experiences with brands significantly affect the awareness or unconsciousness of decisions to purchase, ERP studies have ignored experiences of consumers in relation to brand purchases. For this purpose, EEG recordings of participants were taken in the order they saw brand names: experienced brands, review-based brands, and unknown brands. Participants chose one of the three options for the brands they saw on the screen: buying, not buying, and no idea. 35 people participated in the study. The results indicate that early ERPs, which are unconscious mental reactions, related to purchase decisions for previously unknown brands. Late ERPs associated with conscious mental reactions are related to purchasing review-based brands or experienced brands. We conclude that purchasing decisions about unknown brands occur as a result of automatic, unconscious mental processes, whereas purchasing decisions about previously experienced brands and based on consumer reviews result from conscious mental processes. Our study is the first that demonstrates the relationship between ERP's and purchasing decisions, with an experimental design focused on consumer experience and consciousness.     

An exploration of the standardization of targeting strategies and the use of promotional disciplines on the web: A cross-national study

This study examines how leading corporations standardize their regional sites from the integrated marketing communication (IMC) perspective. In terms of standardizing targeting strategies, data show that many leading brands view the online audiences as one mass. Customers and media are the two most targeted and standardized stakeholders for all brands and in each of the product categories (i.e. non-durable goods, durable goods, and service). This study also reveals that financial communities/investors, communities, and channel members are the other three most targeted and standardized stakeholders, even though their rankings are somewhat different across the product categories. Employees, government regulators, and special-interest groups are seldom targeted through corporate websites. In terms of standardizing promotional disciplines on the web, advertising is the most standardized, followed by customer relations, direct marketing, public relations, and sales promotions for all brands and each product category. As a whole, service brands have the highest standardization mean, while durable goods rank second and non-durable goods are last. The three product categories do not significantly differ in terms of the standardization of promotional tactics. A Web Standardization Model is developed to be compatible and comparable to Moriarty and Duncan's Standardization Model.     

Susceptibility to global consumer culture: A three‐dimensional scale

Prior research shows the existence of the construct “global consumer culture” and its related strategic implications for brand positioning strategies. However, the potential contribution of global consumer culture and associated positioning strategy to brand value would depend on consumers' susceptibility to global consumer culture (SGCC), a general trait of consumers that varies across individuals and is reflected in the consumer's desire or tendency for the acquisition and use of global brands. This study develops and validates a three‐dimensional scale that can be used to measure the conceptual domain of SGCC across cultures. Questionnaire surveys were conducted in China and Canada, and a three‐step structural equation modeling analysis was used to test the proposed scale for the two sample groups. Results indicate that SGCC is composed of three dimensions: conformity to consumption trend, quality perception, and social prestige. This scale could be used for empirical studies of aspects of global consumption behaviors. It may also help marketing managers develop a more focused positioning and communication strategy for global brands. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

I,me, and my everything: Self conceptual traits and compulsive buying behavior

Compulsive buying behavior is detrimental to the well-being of the consumers, brands, and the economy. Therefore, the current study aims to understand how the self-conceptual traits and values underline the corridors to the compulsive buying behavior of fashion apparel products. We collected self-administered data from systematically selected 744 young shopping mall consumers and employed structural equation modeling (SEM) via maximum likelihood method for analysis. Self-conceptual traits (physical and achievement vanity), materialism, and brand consciousness play a pivotal role in the development of compulsive buying behavior in young consumers of Pakistan. Furthermore, the presence of materialistic attitude and brand consciousness in consumers firmly explains vanity-driven consumer's excessive, chronic, and unneeded purchasing of fashion appeal products. Policymakers and fashion apparel marketers should limit the excessive use of self-oriented and self-defining appeals in their marketing campaigns and focus on strategies that build consumer relationships with brands based on mutual benefits and welfare.     

Pushing speed? The marketing of fast and convenience food

The Menu: This paper explores the complex relationship between the marketing of fast and convenience food, and Western constructions and experiences of time in late Modernity, through a polemical analysis of a set of recent British television advertisements for a variety of brands in this sector. A cursory reading of these ads reveals some apparent contradictions in the deployment of time in fast/convenience food marketing: they seem to celebrate both speed (time as “sameness” and “continuity”) and nostalgia (time as “difference” and “discontinuity”). We go beyond a simple understanding of these alternative tropes as indices of competing brand strategies by interpreting their wider relations to the systemic and cultural vicissitudes of contemporary global capital. We conclude that the temporal articulation of fast and convenience foods presented in the ads is not in fact paradoxical, but dialectical. This dialectical relationship is an essential and continuing ideological structure of late Modernity.     

Market testing of a major cassava flour product in the Accra metropolitan area*

The current study analyses consumer judgements about some existing as well as newly introduced brands of a processed cassava food product (fufu flour) by means of market testing. Except for colour, the respondents’ evaluation of the sensory attributes of the various fufu flours that they have consumed did not have much significant differences. Also, no significant differences in sensory attributes were identified when the fufu flour brands were compared with traditional fufu, except for hand‐feel, smoothness and elasticity. In addition, no significant differences were observed in the prices of the various fufu flour brands in comparison with the equivalent price of traditional fufu. The study finds diversification of the marketing outlet for fufu flour as a major factor that could contribute to improving the awareness of the product.     

Segmentation of impulse buyers in an emerging market – An exploratory study

Impulse buying promises to be a dominant buying behaviour in the highly conducive environment of emerging markets like India. However, existing research in these markets is largely within the context of product or market driven factors with inadequate focus on psychological exploration. The present study emphasizes on the role of an individual with underlying personality trait of impulse buying tendency being the focal point of the planned investigation. It uses the knowledge of impulse buying tendency and its contextual indicators as an effective taxonomical tool to profile the retail consumers’ psychologically and capture their demographic diversity. The analysis identifies and profiles three distinct impulse buying consumer segments: proactive impulsive, hesitant-hedonist and pragmatic-rationalist; thus providing manufacturers and retailers an effective marketing tool to address different consumer groups.     

A Study on Ethically Problematic Selling Methods in China with a Broaden Concept of Gray-marketing

This paper expands the definition of gray-marketing to include some ethically problematic marketing activities and techniques used in personal selling in China. Based on this, a conceptual model of gray-marketing for a particular type of selling in which both the sellers and the buyers exhibit problematic ethics in an exchange and the associated hypotheses are developed and tested. The findings show that, first, the respondents have different ethical evaluations of different marketing practices used in personal selling such as giving and accepting gifts, buying and accepting meals, and offering and accepting kickbacks. Some of these practices may not be considered unethical. Second, in terms of ethical assessment, gray-marketing practiced by buying agents is more unacceptable than when practiced by sales agents. Third, a person’s ethical evaluation of gray-marketing behavior, empathy for gray-marketing, and belief that gray-marketing has serious consequences, significantly affects his inclination to use gray-marketing. This paper concludes with a discussion of some possible applications of our research findings. Both authors contributed equally to this work. Guijun Zhuang (Ph.D., City University of Hong Kong) is a professor of marketing in the School of Management, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, the People’s Republic of China. His current research interests include marketing channel behaviors, relationship marketing, and consumer choice. He has published in European Journal of Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of International Consumer Marketing, and many leading marketing and management journals in China. Alex S.L. Tsang (Ph.D., City University of Hong Kong) is an assistant professor at the Department of Marketing, Hong Kong Baptist University. His research currently focuses on cross-cultural consumer behavior, marketing in China, and marketing communication. He has published in Journal of Business Research, European Journal of Marketing, and Business Horizons, among others.     

Mediational role of perceived personal legacy value between consumer agentic generativity and attitudes/buying intentions toward luxury brands

This study evaluates three luxury watch brands of different luxury intensity according to their perceived values with a special attention to personal legacy value. It uses the agentic dimension of consumer generativity as a segmentation variable for luxury brands. A parsimonious and reliable scale of perceived personal legacy value is first developed and further used to discriminate the luxury level of brands. Results show the superiority of a high-end luxury watch versus an accessible and a typical luxury brand on personal legacy. Structural equation modeling shows a mediation effect of personal legacy value between consumer agentic generativity and attitudes/buying intentions toward brands. Implications in marketing literature and industry practices highlight the important role of personal legacy as an added value for luxury brands. It also demonstrates the relevance of targeting agentic generative consumers in a luxury consumption context.     

The Buying of Private Brands and Manufacturer Brands in Grocery Retailing: A Comparative Study of Buying Processes in the UK,Sweden and Italy

Private brands in grocery retailing have evolved from a way to compete on price by selling low quality products at a low price, into a brand category in their own right, with a wide range of positioning options open to retailers. The buying and selling of private brands means that retailers' add new activities and processes to those that are traditionally associated with retailing. This paper compares the buying processes for manufacturer brands and private brands across three European countries in an attempt to analyse how the extension of the buying process inherent in private brand ranges, and the organisational contexts within which these processes operate impact upon complexity in the retail buying process     

Consumer Preferences and Buying Criteria in Rice: A Study to Identify Market Strategy for Thailand Jasmine Rice Export

ABSTRACT

Rice consumption per capita in many Asian countries decreased, but it is consumed more in non-rice-eating countries. This study aimed to investigate consumer preferences and attitudes toward Jasmine rice among consumers in target rice export countries to identify opportunities and strategic implications. A quantitative study with 1,128 consumers of target nationalities was conducted in combination with focus group discussions. Factor analysis of consumers' buying decision criteria yielded four factors: marketing activities (explained variance 26.8%), quality (13%), price (10.5%), and country of origin (7.7%). Discrimination analysis was performed to investigate differences in buying criteria between traditional rice-eating and non-rice-eating countries (p?=?0.000). Marketing activities, price, and country of origin were the best discriminators, whereas quality was a poor discriminator. Rice was not a substitute to other staple foods due to price change. Product quality, differentiation, and price play an important role. Building a reputation by using a clear statement on the country of origin should be a priority for Thailand. On the basis of their preference, consumers were segmented into three groups and marketing strategies were proposed.     

Status of brands in children’s consumption: What letters to Santa posted on La Poste website tell us

The purpose of the research is to identify different consumption styles based on a large collection of letters to Santa written by some children and/or their families and submitted to the French Post website (La Poste). One of our main interests focuses on the presence and weight of brands and licenses in children’s wish lists. We have had access to all the anonymous posts sent to Santa Claus through La Poste’s website during the 2013 and 2014 Christmas holidays. We analyzed the nature of the wish lists as shown in the 43,000‐post database using several textual data analysis techniques. Extensive heterogeneity was found among children’s and families’ postures regarding that specific ritual. The different types of emails reflect the meaning families associate with Christmas time but also their different consumption styles or attitudes toward consumption: reasoned, educational, hedonistic, or materialistic, for example. When focusing on brands and licenses, we can also observe significant differences in the way families and children include them in their consumption decisions. Brands could have a very different weight in Christmas wish lists and their natures reflect different value transmission modes. The French market for Christmas children brands is rather stable and focuses on a few top leading global brands such as Playmobil, Barbie, or Lego. At least one of the ten leading brands is mentioned in half of evaluated Christmas wish lists. The analysis confirms that brands are very clearly gendered and associated with the children’s ages. Peak time for brand desire is alleged to be reached between the age of 7 and 9. To our knowledge, our research is the first to analyze a large sample of spontaneous data to capture children’s consumption styles and attitudes toward brands. Because of our classification, a first typology of parental consumption styles has also been identified.     

How professional service firms compete in the market: an exploratory study

Abstract

This study investigates how professional service firms (PSFs) compete in the market. Drawing on strategic marketing literature, a managerial rather than customer perspective is adopted. The study investigates the competitive positions sought by professional service providers and the specific marketing activities actually undertaken to achieve these positions. Thirty-seven depth interviews with senior management from a range of PSFs indicate that firms seek to differentiate themselves by developing long-term relationships, providing better service quality and greater value, and developing brands with strong reputations. Organisations typically seek such interrelated competitive positions simultaneously. A list of marketing activities used by the PSFs to achieve these competitive positions offers practical insights into the specific activities needed to achieve the various competitive positions sought.