The ‘big data’ myth and the pitfalls of ‘thick data’ opportunism: on the need for a different ontology of markets and consumption

ABSTRACT

The twin pillars of big data and data analytics are rapidly transforming the institutional conditions that situate marketing research. In response, many proponents of culturalist paradigms have adopted the vernacular of ‘thick data’ to defend their vulnerable position in the marketing research field. However, thick data proselytising fails to challenge several outmoded ontological assumptions that are manifest in the big data myth and it situates socio-cultural modes of marketing thought in a counterproductive technocratic discourse. In building this argument, I first discuss the relevant historical continuities and discontinuities that have shaped the big data myth and the thick data opportunism. Next, I argue that culturally oriented marketing researchers should promote a different ontological frame— the analytics of marketplace assemblages—to address how big data, or more accurately its socio-technical infrastructure, produces new kinds of emergent and hybrid market structures, modes of social aggregation, consumption practices, and prosumptive capacities.     

Creativity identity in Colombia: the advertising creatives’ perspective

ABSTRACT

This exploratory paper analyses the way in which context influences advertising creativity practices. To establish the role of context, this paper utilized both Social Identity theory and Systems Model of Creativity. Twenty four in-depth interviews with top creative directors of the main advertising agencies in Colombia (Latin America) were collected. Findings suggest the Colombian creative identity is under construction. This identity is influenced by the broader Colombian social context including the unique business characteristics of the country's communications industry, the level of economic hardship experienced by the population, and the actual social conflict lived situation. These findings extend the Systems Model of Creativity to include social hardships and industry level characteristics. Several practical implications not only in relation to Colombia, but also the broader global advertising industry are presented.     

Big data? Big deal: Searching for big data’s performance effects in HR

Big data continues to gather increasing interest in the business press as well as within the management literature. While this interest has spilled over into the realm of human resources (HR) management, solid evidence of its positive performance impacts is lacking. I explore three possibilities for this lack of evidence: (1) HR possesses big data but largely lacks the ability to use it; (2) HR does not actually possess big data; and (3) big data is generating value for HR and positively affects organizational performance, but the winners in the race to utilize big data in HR are not publicizing their successes. Following this, I discuss current forms of big data implementation, highlighting an evolutionary progression of implementations in various settings and emphasizing the importance of balancing deductive with inductive analytical approaches. Finally, I discuss conditions under which big data may hold greater value for the HR function, and I suggest ways managers and organizations can make the most of big data.     

Firms’ reactions to public information on business practices: The case of search advertising

Quantitative Marketing and Economics - We use five years of bidding data to examine the reaction of advertisers to widely disseminated press on the lack of effectiveness of brand search advertising...     

When I feel invaded,I will avoid it: The effect of advertising invasiveness on consumers’ avoidance of social media advertising

As companies increasingly use social media as the platform for promoting their products and services, it is critical for consumers to be receptive to social media advertising (SMA). However, consumers may feel invaded when viewing SMA. The literature on advertising invasiveness has focused primarily on consumers’ attention invasiveness (i.e., the interruption of their attention). We argue that such a focus is limited, and we propose space invasiveness as an additional dimension for understanding advertising invasiveness in social media. Data were collected from Chinese consumers, and the results show that space invasiveness had a stronger effect than attention invasiveness did on advertising irritation, and that irritation in turn led to advertising avoidance. Furthermore, psychological ownership moderated the relationship between social influence and space invasiveness. This study provides important guidelines for practitioners to reduce advertising avoidance in social media.     

The effects of tolerance of negativity on consumers’ responses to comparative attack advertising

This paper focuses on ‘tolerance of negativity’ (TON) as a means of understanding and predicting consumers’ responses to negative marketing communications. The results of three empirical studies suggest that consumers who are low (as opposed to high) in TON (when measured and/or primed) find negatively framed comparative ads to be less fair, less useful, and have less favorable attitudes toward the ad and sponsor brand. Importantly, cognitive elaboration is shown to moderate these effects. Specifically, one’s TON is found to be more impactful when individuals are engaged with an ad (i.e. when cognitive elaboration is greater) as opposed to when cognitive elaboration is lower. Interestingly, TON’s moderating influence was not observed in any of the studies when attitudes toward the compared-to brand were the dependent variable.     

The dynamics of the Chinese film industry: factors affecting Chinese audiences’ intentions to see movies

This study attempts to understand the dynamics of the rapidly growing Chinese film industry by relying on a revised reason action model that uses a data-mining approach with aggregated data to examine the determinants of people’s intentions to see movies. The results show that attitude towards seeing movies indicated by online film ratings, collective norms represented by box-office performance and Academy Award win(s) significantly predict intentions to see movies. In addition, a movie’s year of release, star power, country of origin, adaptation from a novel and status as a sequel were significant predictors of aggregated intentions.     

Correction to: Can your advertising really buy earned impressions? The effect of brand advertising on word of mouth

Quantitative Marketing and Economics - The table below should replace Table 1.     

The impact of regulatory focus on adolescents’ evaluation of targeted advertising on social networking sites

This article examines whether individual differences in chronic regulatory focus (prevention vs. promotion focus) among adolescents influences the way they evaluate targeted advertising on social networking sites. Study 1 (survey) reveals that adolescents with a promotion focus (who are oriented toward achieving positive outcomes) have a more positive attitude and a higher purchase intention toward targeted advertising, as compared to prevention-focused adolescents (who are dispositioned toward avoiding negative outcomes). Study 2 (experiment) investigates how adolescents’ chronic regulatory focus can alter their attitude and purchase intention on a mock social networking site that includes a targeted advertisement. Results show that a low personalized targeted ad is better evaluated (in terms of a more positive attitude and higher purchase intention) among prevention-focused adolescents, whereas a high personalized targeted ad results in better advertising outcomes among promotion-focused adolescents. Contributions to theory and implications for advertising practice are discussed.     

Tit for tat and big steps: The case of Swedish banks’ internationalization 1961–2010

This study examines four major Swedish banks’ internationalization process patterns during the period 1961–2010. The study complements earlier studies by also considering the banks’ levels of market commitment. One objective is to determine if ‘Tit for tat’-behaviour seen in earlier studies of Swedish banks still prevails after the deregulation. Adding to earlier studies, this study also considers the level of market activities and commitments. A secondary purpose is to examine how the financial crisis has affected the banks with reference to the banks’ internationalization patterns. The empirical study is based on archival data on the studied banks’ foreign operations. The results show that the banks’ behaviour follows ‘Tit for tat’-behaviour but that the internationalization has accelerated after the deregulation, hence being carried out with ‘big steps’ rather than small steps. The analysis also shows that the mimetic behaviour is complemented by other types of internationalization behaviours. The differences in bank internationalization also mean that the effect of a financial crisis varies depending on how the banks have internationalized.     

Can your advertising really buy earned impressions? The effect of brand advertising on word of mouth

Quantitative Marketing and Economics - Paid media expenditures could potentially increase earned media exposures such as social media posts and other word-of-mouth (WOM). However, academic research...     

Survey of Internet users’ attitudes toward Internet advertising

Many have speculated about the current state of Internet advertising (IA), how it compares to advertising in general (GA), and its implications for traditional marketing models and practices. Although many estimates exist regarding who uses the Internet as well as guidelines about how best to design IA, little is known about Internet users’ attitudes toward IA, much less what characterizes these attitudes. To test this, a national sample of over 400 participants with at least some exposure to the Internet was surveyed. The results revealed no majority opinion of IA: approximately a third of respondents liked, disliked, and felt neutrally toward IA, respectively. A regression analysis indicated that enjoyment of looking at Internet advertisements, its informativeness, and its utility for making behavioral (purchasing) decisions contributed to participants’ attitudes toward IA. Enjoyment of looking at IA contributed the most to attitudes toward IA, yet at the same time appears to be one of IA's weakest features. In order to assess whether attitudes toward and perceptions of IA might reflect attitudes toward advertising in general by this demographic group, rather than attitudes toward IA per se, responses were compared to those of a demographically weighted-to-match national sample of over 1,000 who answered similar questions in regard to advertising in general. The results indicate that more respondents found IA to be informative and trustworthy than a demographically similar sample found GA. Even though the attitudes and perceptions of IA and GA were significantly different, the structure of GA and IA attitudes was the same. Implications for the design of IA are discussed.     

SHANTOU The Hometown of Overseas Chinese

Shantou is located in southeast of Guangdong,China,adjacent to the South China Sea.It is known as the gateway of east Nanling Mountains and the communication hub of Southeast China because of its advantageous geographical location.The city covers an area of 2,064 square kilometers and has a population of 4.795 million people.It has jurisdiction over six districts-Longhu, Jinping,Haojiang,Chenghai,Chaoyang,Chaonan and Nan'ao County.The S EZ itself     

The practitioners’ path to customer loyalty: Memorable experiences or frictionless experiences?

Managers of CX programs are often faced with a decision between investing more in experience design (memorable CX) or improving experience delivery (frictionless CX). Current measurement approaches in both industry and academia do not provide a useful framework to address this dilemma adequately or directly. Using 6009 brand ratings by 1070 unique respondents, this research evaluates the impact of memorable vs frictionless CX on customer share of wallet, as well as the mediating effects of satisfaction on these relationships. Both memorable and frictionless CX have significant positive effects on customer share of wallet. These effects are partially mediated by satisfaction. There is an interaction between memorable and frictionless CX which suggests that attempts to maximize both have diminishing returns. The relative impact of each type of CX varies significantly by sector. This alternative method for measuring CX and assessing its impact provides incremental insight over common industry approaches.     

The Quality of Chinese Pens Upgraded

During the Eighth Five-Year Plan period, (1991-95), China's pen industry maintained sustained, rapid, stable and sound development with the further promotion of product quality and grade in production, and its technological advancement. At the same time, new varieties of products and more patterns and specifications were developed. The industry also further developed its business ties with clients abroad and ex-     

The effect of decision makers’ time perspective on intention–behavior consistency

This research demonstrates that decision makers?? time perspective??a cognitive, temporal bias that leads people to overemphasize the past, present, or future in their decision making??systematically influences self-reported behavioral intentions and thus intention?Cbehavior consistency for distant-future behaviors. Whereas present-hedonistic individuals overstate their intentions, present-fatalistic individuals understate theirs, so both types exhibit low intention?Cbehavior consistency. Future time-oriented individuals instead exhibit high intention?Cbehavior consistency because they are less likely to overstate their intentions. The findings are contributed to decision makers?? time perspective influencing the construal of distant-future behavior when reporting behavioral intentions. Accounting for decision makers?? time perspectives helps improve predictive accuracy and may change insights obtained from causal models that use self-reported intentions as a proxy for actual, distant-future behavior.     

Performance of China’s advertising agencies: a time series cross-sectional analysis

Although China has been the world’s second largest advertising market after the United States in terms of advertising spending since 2006, the performance of advertising agencies in China and the factors that contribute to this performance have been understudied. However, by incorporating the structure-conduct-performance model and agency theory into the integrative framework and conducting a time series cross-sectional analysis, we determine that the degree of concentration in the advertising agency industry and number of regulations in the advertising industry have had significant negative effects on the financial performance of agencies. In addition, agencies with mainly foreign capital have performed better than those with only Chinese capital. Agencies adopting strategies of initial public offering (IPOs) or engaging in name changes and mergers have performed better than those that have done nothing. Implications are also discussed.     

The effectiveness of fear appeals in ‘green’ advertising: An analysis of creative,consumer, and source variables*

This study focused on the effectiveness of fear appeal messages used to arouse a threat in green advertising. An experiment recruited 175 participants to test the influence of the advertising appeal (fear vs. non-fear appeal), source (for-profit vs. non-profit organizations), and involvement with the environment on attitude toward the ad (A_ad), attitude toward the product (A_p) and purchase intention (PI). Results revealed that a fear appeal in a green ad negatively affected A_ad and A_p and that participants who were highly involved with the environment were more likely to have positive attitudes toward the green ad and advertised green product as well as a stronger intent to purchase it. The source type in the green ad did not affect ad effectiveness and involvement with the environment did not moderate the effects of either appeal or source.     

Consumers’ willingness to disclose their personal data in e-commerce: A reciprocity-based social exchange perspective

While personal data is invaluable to firms, the drivers of e-commerce customers' willingness to disclose their personal data remain tenuous. Using social exchange theory, we develop a model that explores the impact of consumers' perceived benefit, and relative power, on store trust, in turn driving their willingness to disclose their personal data. We collected our empirical data using a representative online survey, with the results being analyzed by using structural equation modeling. The results corroborate that (a) consumer-perceived e-commerce store trust drives their willingness to disclose their personal data, and (b) perceived e-commerce provider reciprocity outweighs consumers’ perceived data disclosure benefit, suggesting the existence of symbolic (vs. purely instrumental) social exchange.