Information Sensitivity Typology: Mapping the Degree and Type of Risk Consumers Perceive in Personal Data Sharing

Surveys show significant public concern regarding information privacy. To better understand how consumer concerns vary by type of personal data, the authors created a typology of information types based on perceived associated risks. In a national consumer survey, 52 information types were analyzed along four perceived risk categories (physical, psychological, monetary, and social), consumers' overall sensitivity regarding the information, and their willingness to provide it. This resulted in six highly distinctive clusters—Basic Demographics, Personal Preferences, Contact Information, Community Interaction, Financial Information, and Secure Identifiers—organized around similarities in perceived risk profile. Additionally, consumer segmentation analysis shows rank order of cluster risk perceptions to be stable, even when perceived magnitude and overall risk propensities change by segment. This research advances the conversation from an outdated PII/non‐PII framework to a more meaningful, consumer‐based understanding of the perceived risks associated with different types of personal information.     

Effects of background music endings on consumer memory in advertising

Background music is widely used in advertising to attract audiences' attention. However, no research to date has considered the effect of background music endings on consumer memory for advertised products and messages. Across two experiments, the present research shows that background music that ends abruptly (i.e., truncated ending) distracts consumers' attention, reducing memory for both products and messages, compared to background music that ends with a note in the chord of the dominant tonality (i.e., regular ending) or that concludes with a fading-out ending.     

Does corporate advertising work in a crisis? An examination of inoculation theory

The primary purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework of consumer evaluation of corporate advertising in a corporate crisis. It also suggests future research propositions by investigating how the so-called inoculation effect from pre-crisis corporate advertising influences consumer response to corporate advertising during a crisis. First, the paper describes how the inoculation effect confers resistance to negative news in a corporate crisis. Next, the paper determines whether the inoculation effect further reduces consumer resistance to corporate advertising during a crisis. Other factors that figure into the broader context of corporate crises are then discussed. These include four other types of external impacts on a crisis situation – the crisis, the corporation, the media, and individual differences. The article concludes with implications for research and practice.     

Ad agencies

This article highlights advertising agencies as marketplace icons. The role of ad agencies in creating iconic brands can sometimes be obscured, yet ad agencies are central to how the contemporary marketplace works. While ad agencies are no longer the hegemonic instance of consumer culture that they were from the 1950s to the 1990s, they have adapted to today's democratic advertisingscape by shepherding cultural content produced elsewhere to market. Ad agencies have remained the engine behind significant shifts in consumer culture, such as the warming of relations between music and advertising, by acting as the ‘midwife’ between art and commerce, facilitating new cultural practices in the process.     

Green Demarketing in Advertisements: Comparing “Buy Green” and “Buy Less” Appeals in Product and Institutional Advertising Contexts

This research compares consumer response to traditional green advertising appeals to that of less conventional, “green demarketing” (GD) appeals—messages by for-profit companies encouraging reduced category consumption for the sake of the environment. Rather than encouraging greener consumption, modern environmentalism calls for decreased consumption overall, a trend reflected in recent advertising campaigns (e.g., Patagonia's “Don't Buy This Jacket”). Despite its potential impact and unconventionality, research on GD in general is sparse, and no empirical research has examined consumer response to GD appeals relative to traditional green appeals. In three experiments, we find that, in the context of product advertising, consumers' attitudes for green ads are more favorable than those for GD ads, mediated by greater inferences of genuine environmental concern. However, we find the reverse pattern in the context of institutional ads. Further, an “anti-consumption amplifier” message embedded in the ad—espousing the potential harm of overconsumption—further boosts favorable consumer attitudes for the GD institutional ad relative to its traditional green counterpart. Importantly, we assess all effects while controlling for consumers' individual levels of green consumerism, such that implications may be applied more generally rather than to a specific segment of green consumers.     

The Effects of Idealized Advertising Imagery on Social Comparisons,Psychological and Emotional Outcomes,and Consumer Vulnerability: A Conceptual Model

This article integrates marketing and social psychology theories and findings into a conceptual model that describes the conditions for which idealized advertising images induce positive (or negative) consumer outcomes. Extending Bessenoff's moderated mediation model, the authors propose that: (1) effect of social comparison on the relationship between exposure to idealized advertising images and psychological/emotional outcomes will be moderated by internalization of ideals and self-discrepancy; (2) effect of psychological/emotional outcomes on the relationship between social comparison and consumer vulnerability will be moderated by attainability of ideals; and (3) product claims should moderate the relationship between psychological and emotional outcomes and consumer vulnerability.     

Music influences on mood and purchase intentions

Mood and emotional elements of advertising and consumer response have received increasing attention from practitioners and scholars in recent years. Among the various sources of mood induction is the frequently used practice of accompanying commercial messages with background music. This paper extends marketing's discussion of the role of music in influencing audiences, by using music theory to analyze and investigate the effects of music's structural profiles on consumers. The experiment's results indicate that music may have significant impact on audience moods and purchase intentions, without necessarily affecting intervening cognitions.     

Consumer resistance in a world of advertising clutter: The case of Adbusters

The pervasive influence of advertising and consumer culture is examined in relation to a postmodern condition marked by increased speed, fragmentation, and the decentering of the subject. This condition often prompts the consumer to develop ad‐avoidance strategies that protect his/her psychic space by filtering out excess advertising clutter (which also colonizes the public and discursive space of consumer culture). The struggle for these cultural spaces resembles a war of position between the ideology of consumerism and its opponents, who attempt to cultivate alternative worldviews toward consumerism. Although some perspectives see consumption as a means for self‐expression and the fashioning of multiple identities, this position valorizes consumption practices irrespective of their environmental and social impact. An evaluation of the antiadvertising magazine Adbusters illustrates the obstacles inherent in launching challenges to consumerism, and the difficulty of resisting consumerism given advertising's control over cultural spaces. Marketers have converted resistance efforts from some of consumption's most ardent critics into market segments by targeting certain goods and services toward them. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Priming a Cross‐Category Brand Alliance: The Moderating Role of Attribute Knowledge and Need for Cognition

Firms often enter cross‐category advertising brand alliance strategies with the goal to increase their market share by association with popular but noncompeting brand allies. However, firms are often not aware of the effects of these alliances on consumer perceptions of participating brands. This research explores the factors moderating brand attribute inferences following exposure to a cross‐category advertising brand alliance. It is proposed that attributes of a brand ally may serve as anchors that produce assimilation effects and move perceptions of a target brand toward the ally's attribute value, or as standards of comparison that produce contrast. This work provides evidence that attribute judgments in a cross‐category advertising brand alliance are moderated by attribute knowledge and individual differences in information processing motivation as reflected in self‐reported need for cognition (NFC) ratings.     

Online Music Consumption in Today’s Technological Context: Putting the Influence of Ethics in Perspective

Whereas in the past ‘free’ and ‘illegal’ were nearly synonymous in the music industry, consumers nowadays face a myriad of music platforms with widely different characteristics in terms of business model (advertising supported, fee based, etc.), delivery mode (streaming, downloading, etc.), and others. The current research examines music consumption preferences in this new context. In order to break with the outmoded free-illegal versus paid-legal dichotomy, the present research studies consumer preferences for a broader range of music platform attributes, including free versus paying business models, (il)legality of use, artist revenues, downloading versus streaming, and audio quality. Based on a literature review and a qualitative study with in-depth interviews (N = 92), an online conjoint survey (N = 764) quantifies online music preferences. Results show that consumers of all ages clearly and consistently prefer legal and ethical options if available, but favor different ways of making this economically viable. Youngsters and young adults are more open to advertising, while middle-aged adults are more often willing to pay for advertising-free platforms. Thus, in real-life choices, youngsters may appear to be less ethical and law abiding, but the driving force behind this is mainly economical. Finally, a market segmentation provides deeper insights into online music consumer preferences and leads to recommendations on how to define viable legal and ethical music offerings.     

Why buy new when one can share? Exploring collaborative consumption motivations for consumer goods

The notion of collaborative consumption or sharing economy—where consumers share access to ownership of properties such as cars, clothes and accommodations—has gained tremendous popularity in recent years. Development of communication technologies and peer‐to‐peer communities has enabled consumers to coordinate sharing activities through various online platforms. Collaborative consumption involves sharing of both intangible (e.g., music, space and car rides) and tangible assets (e.g., household items, clothes and furniture). Activities such as renting, swapping, trading and purchasing/selling used consumer goods are included in the latter. Despite increasing academic attention on collaborative consumption, little research has been pursued in the context of consumer goods. The nature of consumption for tangible goods can be entirely different from that of intangible goods because people can exercise greater control over tangible goods, which results in greater psychological ownership than that for intangible goods. To address this gap, the objective of this study is to develop a scale that examines consumer motivations for collaborative consumption of consumer goods. Following Churchill's paradigm of scale development, the procedures of scale item generation, purification and validation were conducted via in‐depth interviews, literature review and surveys. The study identified five underlying dimensions of collaborative consumption of consumer goods: concern‐for‐sustainability, social, variety‐seeking, fun and cost‐saving. Study findings and implications are discussed, and future research avenues are suggested.     

“It's MY Service,it's MY Music”: The role of psychological ownership in music streaming consumption

Music streaming services have become today's most popular way of consuming music. These services give their users access to a comprehensive music library without providing legal ownership of that music. However, recent research suggests that music streaming users still continue to experience feelings of ownership. To advance our understanding, this study investigates the role of psychological ownership in music streaming consumption. In particular, based on the theory of psychological ownership, it is analyzed how service‐ and music‐based psychological ownership emerge. The study further investigates the relationship between these two targets of ownership and whether music‐based psychological ownership is positively related to users' intention to switch from a music streaming service's free version to its paid premium version. Using structural equation modeling, the results indicate that service‐based psychological ownership, stemming from users' investment of self into the service, is positively related to music‐based psychological ownership, which is positively influenced by the sense of control over the music accessed. The results also show that music‐based psychological ownership is strongly related to users' intention to switch from free to premium, which highlights the importance of psychological ownership for providers of music streaming services, particularly those operating a feature‐limited freemium model.     

Development and validation of the Personal Nostalgia Scale

This research conducts five studies and uses 1185 respondents to develop and validate a six-item, seven-point Likert scale capable of measuring a personal nostalgia response to an advertisement. Traditional forms of scale development and a variety of experimental conditions are undertaken to develop and validate the scale. Statistical techniques include t-tests, correlation, regression, confirmatory factor analysis and a multitrait–multimethod matrix. This research fulfils a significant gap in the current knowledge as the current scales neither distinguish between the distinct types of nostalgia nor measure personal nostalgia as a response to advertising independently of other reactions. This is despite personal nostalgia being considered as a distinct form of nostalgia with a suggested differing influence on a number of important consumer behaviour responses. The scale has implications for researchers undertaking future studies exploring personal nostalgia's influence on consumer behaviour reactions. Nostalgia is also a commonly used and has effective advertising appeal, and this research provides practitioners with a parsimonious instrument to measure the level of personal nostalgia experienced as a result of advertising exposure. This assists in ensuring accuracy when predicting consumer reactions.     

‘Fear of Missing Out’ (FOMO) marketing appeals: A conceptual model

The ‘Fear of Missing Out’ (‘FOMO’) is a well-known concept in popular culture. Consequently, it has been co-opted and successfully utilised in commercial advertising appeals to initiate sales. However, academic research to date has focussed exclusively on FOMO as an individual trait leading to self-initiated FOMO-driven behaviours. By contrast, the success of FOMO sales appeals relies upon consumers’ responses; therefore, it is necessary to understand these response mechanisms. This is the first known academic research to investigate consumer response mechanisms in relation to externally initiated FOMO appeals. In doing so, this research develops an original taxonomy of FOMO appeals; establishes a thematic map of response elements; identifies theory relevant to individuals’ responses; formulates an operational response model; and proposes a future FOMO research agenda.     

Mapping the consumer‐subject in advertising

Traditionally marketing communication‐or more specifically advertising‐has been framed in terms of products/ services, needs and wants of consumers as if these were real givens, existing independently of the forms and acts of marketing communication itself. From this perspective, advertising is merely seen as a purveyor of information about products/services/needs between producers and consumers but hardly as actively implicated in shaping, not only the relation between the processes of production and those of consumption, but also the conception of the consumer‐subject. This paper makes a brief diachronic account of advertising with a view to highlighting how the consumer‐subject is represented. Whereas early advertising conceives of the consumer‐subject as a “rational” decision‐maker, aware of its needs and desire, more recent advertising constitutes the consumer‐subject in a hyperreal, dream‐like world, which seduces and spellbinds it.     

Green intentions under the blue flag: Exploring differences in EU consumers’ willingness to pay more for environmentally‐friendly products

Recent research on consumer social responsibility highlights the need to examine psychological drivers of environmentally‐friendly consumption choices in a global context. This article investigates consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) more for environmentally‐friendly products across 28 European Union (EU) countries, using a sample of 21,514 consumers. A multigroup structural equation modeling analysis reveals significantly different patterns and relationships, in how (a) subjective knowledge about the product's environmental impact, (b) environmental product attitudes, and (c) the perceived importance of the products’ environmental impact influence consumers’ WTP more for environmentally‐friendly products across countries. The hypothesized model predicts WTP for 20 out of 28 countries and the findings show that a “one‐size‐fits‐all” approach is inadequate in capturing the heterogeneity of EU consumers. Hosfstede's cultural dimensions of uncertainty tolerance and individualism explain differences in WTP for environmentally‐friendly products across EU countries. Business, marketing communications, and policy making implications are discussed.     

‘Hello,Mrs. Sarah Jones! We recommend this product!’Consumers' perceptions about personalized advertising: comparisons across advertisements delivered via three different types of media

As new technologies (e.g. online, mobile and interactive TV) develop worldwide, numerous types of personalized advertising, in which companies use an individual's name and/or other types of personal information, have become more popular in many countries. Using many types of information about specific individuals, personalized advertising is designed to convey a customized message at the right time to the right person using diverse media. However, despite its universally increased use, few academic studies have explored the effectiveness of personalized advertising and consumers' response to it. This exploratory study focused on consumers' perceptions of personalized advertising delivered online (e‐mail) and offline (letter and telephone call). The results show that consumers generally have negative perceptions of personalized advertising, regardless of how it is delivered, with the strongest negative reaction to telephone calls.     

Social Interaction and Beer Consumption

The aim of this article is to describe young consumers’ attitudes and conduct regarding beer consumption, analyzing the consumer as an individual (addressing internal factors) and in a collective (external factors). The research was designed in Brazil involving 52 participants, divided into 16 focus groups, and the respective data was transcribed and analyzed. The findings show three distinct types of consumers were identified. The authors termed these the Inductor, the Induced, and the Sophisticated. The article details how each type of consumer can be distinguished through different attitudes and factors. The results suggest that, rather than thinking of beer consumption as an individual item, beer consumption should be thought of as different types, involving different behavior, attitudes, and social interaction. The article demonstrates originality and value to put forward the notion that beer consumption should not be defined as an individual item. The framework offered in this article will assist future researchers to consider consumption of different types and brands of beer, based on social interaction.     

Modeling heterogeneous effective advertising stock using single-source data

This paper presents a nonlinear modeling of market response between advertising stock and direct utility with heterogeneous parameters using single-source data. We examine advertising threshold effects and measure the effective advertising stock at the individual consumer level. Two kinds of information, i.e., TV advertising exposure data and consumer’s purchase history data, are combined for the modeling. The former is used for constructing advertising stock over calendar time via heterogeneous carryover parameters and the latter is applied to the choice model. The Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method is applied to estimate these heterogeneous parameters. Compared to other possible nonlinear specifications, it is shown that the proposed threshold utility function model with discontinuity at the threshold performs better than other smooth market response models. The empirical results support the existence of an advertising threshold and suggest the pulsing or “on/off” policy for our datasets. In terms of the effective reach, implying the reach after suspending the ad exposure to investigate how it is damping out for a possible “on/off” advertising policy, the optimal “off” interval was measured to be quite short to support a high-frequency pulsing policy, because the carryover parameter as well as the difference of ad stock and threshold are not large enough for our datasets.      

Phenomenology of Aesthetic Organising--Ways Towards Aesthetically Responsive Organizations

Through explication of a visual research method, this paper theorizes how masculine identity interacts with consumption—of imagery, products, desires, and passions in advertising and consumer culture. We analyze the male body as a discursive “effect” created at the intersection of consumption and several marketing discourses such as advertising, market segmentation, and visual communication, balancing between brand strategy—what the marketer intends—and brand community—the free appropriation of meaning by the market. The paper’s contribution rests in extending previous work on male representation into historical, ontological, and photographic realms, providing a necessary complement between understanding advertising meaning as residing within managerial strategy or wholly subsumed by consumer response. We argue that greater awareness of the connections between the traditions and conventions of visual culture and their impact on the production and consumption of advertising images leads to enhanced ability to understand how advertising works as a representational system and signifying practice.