The link between attractiveness of “Extrabrand” attributes and the adoption of innovations

While innovators may rush to purchase many new products, most consumers are more conservative and do not want to buy into fads but purchase only those new products that are viable. How do the majority of consumers make judgments about whether they will adopt an innovation? This article examines the evaluative aspects of adoption as a means for better understanding consumer adoption and the market factors that may influence the success of an innovation. This research introduces a conceptual model that shows how consumers’ evaluation of product category attractiveness affects the adoption decision for really new products. These consumer evaluations are based on the attributes of the product category (“extrabrand” attributes) rather than brand attributes. Results from a test of the model indicate that consumers do use extrabrand attributes to assess the attractiveness of innovative new products.     

财政、金融热点问题谈

所谓热点问题，是讨论比较多的问题。本文主要就财政、金融、会计三个方面作一些改革和发展情况的介绍，并且谈一些看法，最后讨论一些共性的东西。     

Can copycat private labels improve the consumer’s shopping experience? A fluency explanation

A top priority among retailers is enhancing the consumer’s shopping experience. With the number of private label products increasing at the same time retailers are shedding slower moving products, understanding how private labels impact the consumer’s experience at the retail shelf becomes critical. While one might think that private labels, in particular those that look similar to their national brand counterparts (i.e., copycat private labels), may hinder the shopping experience by making it more difficult for consumers to choose a product, we find the exact opposite. Adopting a fluency perspective, we show that when copycat private labels are included in a shelf set, consumers with high knowledge of the category experience greater choice ease, and as a result they subsequently evaluate their chosen product more favorably. Importantly, the choice ease and evaluations of novice consumers are found to be unaffected. Consequently, this research provides insights for retailers and manufacturers on how and why copycat private labels positively impact an important aspect of the consumer’s shopping experience (i.e., choice ease).     

When marketing strategy meets culture: the role of culture in product evaluations

This research investigates how national culture interacts with marketing strategy to influence consumers’ organic post-consumption satisfaction ratings of entertainment products rich in cultural content. Drawing upon a communication theory framework, we develop hypotheses concerning multiple interaction effects between culture and marketing strategies on consumers’ product evaluations. We test these hypotheses by analyzing consumer reviews of 260 movies in 25 country markets. In support of our hypotheses, we find that the cultural congruence between the product and the market improves consumer reviews, and that the effect is stronger in cultures characterized by collectivism, femininity, and uncertainty avoidance, as well as for products more heavily loaded with cultural content. In addition, we find that the negative effect of delay in product launch timing weakens for cultures characterized by long-term orientation, and that the positive effect of advertising spending on consumer evaluations is stronger in cultures characterized by high power distance belief. These results provide practical insights into how managers should make decisions concerning product design, launch timing, and advertising strategies in international markets.     

消费者对于产品召回事件的心理反应——基于风险和情绪的研究

产品召回事件中,风险和情绪是消费者心理的两条主线。本文从产品召回事件中消费者心理的角度,以Loewen-stein等人提出的"风险即情绪"模型作为研究框架,提出了以风险、情绪和购买倾向为核心变量的研究模型。随后,以汽车、笔记本电脑、奶粉三个行业为背景,采取系列实验的方法,并通过真实模拟事件报道作为刺激物来测度消费者的心理反应。研究表明,产品召回中的事件维度、企业维度对消费者感知风险和负面情绪具有不同的影响,验证了本文提出的模型的合理性以及在三个行业中的普适性。最后,为企业应对产品召回事件提出了有益的理论指导。     

Defining and measuring recreational shopper identity

The concept of recreational shopper identity, a dimension of the consumer—s self-concept, is contrasted with simple shopping enjoyment, which has characterized most past research on recreational shopping. Two survey studies investigate recreational shopper identity in a clothing shopping context. In Study 1, the Recreational Shopper Identity (RSI) Scale is validated with a sample of 561 adult consumers, demonstrating that recreational shopping is experienced as a true leisure activity. In Study 2, involving 354 adult consumers, the RSI Scale is used to identify three groups of shoppers who differ in the degree to which they incorporate recreational shopping into their self-concepts. Recreational shopping enthusiasts are found to engage more extensively in a range of retail shopping behaviors, to spend more money shopping (i.e., they are not just browsers), and are more “multi-channel” than other shoppers, reporting higher levels of Internet, catalog, and TV home shopping as well as traditional “brick-and-mortar” shopping.     

Habit slips: when consumers unintentionally resist new products

Consumers’ existing habits are a key driver of resistance to new product use. In an initial survey to identify this role of habit, consumers reported on products that they had purchased intending to use. They also reported whether or not they actually used them. For one-quarter of the products they failed to use, consumers slipped back into old habits despite their favorable intentions. However, consumers effectively used new products when integrating them into existing habits. A four-week experiment with a new fabric refresher confirmed that habit slips impeded product use, especially when participants thought minimally about their laundry and thus were vulnerable to habit cues. However, slips were minimized when the new product was integrated into existing laundry habits. Thus, in launching new products, managers will want to consider consumer habits that conflict with product use as well as ways to embed products into existing habits.     

Consumer decision to upgrade or downgrade a service membership

Service memberships are commonly used to support consumer relationships, yet the mechanisms for consumers’ membership decisions are poorly understood. This paper develops a model of consumers’ decision to modify (upgrade or downgrade) a service membership conditional on their decision to renew. Bridging insights from relationship marketing and consumer behavior, the proposed model conceptualizes how relational drivers differentially influence the upgrade/downgrade decision while also modeling the effect of transactional, membership and socio-demographic variables. The posited hypotheses are tested with a multinomial logit model with selection using multi-source (archival and survey) consumer-level data related to renewable service memberships in a not-for-profit context. Results suggest that modification decisions are driven by relational payoffs from ongoing experiences such that upgrade decisions evidence a “motivator” effect of consumer trust (quadratic), while downgrade decisions indicate a negative influence of consumer trust conditional on perceived knowledge. Managerially, the study indicates that, while membership modification and renewal are disparate decisions with remarkably divergent mechanisms, to examine and analyze them as independent decisions is to risk misjudgments about their determinants and waste resources in investments that are unlikely to yield desired return.     

Marketers’ use of alternative front-of-package nutrition symbols: An examination of effects on product evaluations

How front-of-package (FOP) nutrition icon systems affect product evaluations for more and less healthful objective nutrition profiles is a critical question facing food marketers, consumers, and the public health community. We propose a conceptually-based hierarchical continuum to guide predictions regarding the effectiveness of several FOP systems currently used in the marketplace. In Studies 1a and 1b, we compare the effects of a broad set of FOP icons on nutrition evaluations linked to health, accuracy of evaluations, and purchase intentions for a single product. Based on these findings, Studies 2 and 3 test the effects of two conceptually-different FOP icon systems in a retail laboratory in which consumers make comparative evaluations of multiple products at the retail shelf. While there are favorable effects of each system beyond control conditions with no FOP icons, results show that icons with an evaluative component that aid consumers’ interpretations generally provide greater benefits (particularly in product comparison contexts). We offer implications for consumer packaged goods marketers, retailers, and the public policy and consumer health communities.     

慈善捐赠对企业绩效影响的研究——基于消费者视角

利用我国沪深两市A股上市公司的数据,基于社会认同和消费者购买行为理论,实证检验了企业捐赠行为对企业绩效的影响。研究结果表明,企业捐赠行为对销售增长有显著的积极影响;与产品非直接接触消费者的企业相比,产品直接接触消费者企业的捐赠行为与销售增长之间的正相关性更强。     

Blowing bubbles: Heuristics and biases in the run-up of stock prices

Ads of stocks and mutual funds typically tout their past performance, despite a disclosure that past performance does not guarantee future returns. Are consumers motivated to buy or sell based on past performance of assets? More generally, do consumers (wrongly) use sequential information about past performance of assets to make suboptimal decisions? Use of this heuristic leads to two well-known biases: the hot hand and the gambler’s fallacy. This study proposes a theory of hype that integrates these two biases; that a positive run could inflate prices, while a negative run could depress them, although the pattern could reverse on extended runs. Tests on two experiments and one event study of stock purchases strongly suggest that consumers dump “losers” and buy “winners.” The latter phenomenon could lead to hyped-up prices on the stock market for winning stocks. The authors discuss the managerial, public policy, and research implications of the results.     

生鲜食品超市的业态成长:限制性因素与对策分析

本文在新“零售之轮”理论的基础上,讨论我国超市和农贸市场相对于技术边界的市场定位。认为就备货幅宽而言,农贸市场是比超市服务水平更高的生鲜食品零售业态;消费者效用最大化的生鲜食品购买场所选择中,超市的便利和舒适的购物环境是占权重小的消费者评判指标;超市潜在的质量安全优势尚未发挥出来。据此提出了相应对策。     

Materialism, status signaling, and product satisfaction

The consumer satisfaction literature has not, for the mos part, integrated individual values into the product evaluation process. Yet a comprehensive understanding of consumer satisfaction can best be attained by including both consumer and product factors. To demonstrate the usefulness of including individual values, this research focuses on one consumer value, namely, materialism. The authors empirically explore how this individual value is linked to consumers’ evaluations of products they have purchased. Using surveys, the authors collected data from a sample of college students (n=211) and a sample of adults (n=270). Across these two studies, using divergent samples and products, they find consistent evidence that materialism is negatively related to product satisfaction in product categories with high potential for status signaling, but unrelated to product satisfaction in product categories with lower potential for status signaling. The consumption goals that produce these product evaluations are empirically addressed Jeff Wang (jianfeng76@yahoo.com; PhD, City University of Hong Kong) is an assistant professor of marketing in the Faculty of Business at the City University of Hong Kong. This work was conducted when he was a doctoral student of marketing in the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona. His research interests include social networks and consumer behavior, consumer satisfaction and well-being, materialism and consumption meanings, and consumer interests and public policy issues. His dissertation studies credit card debt as a socially embedded phenomenon and investigates how consumers leverage their interpersonal ties as they accumulate and repay their debt. Melanie Wallendorf (mwallendorf@eller.arizona.edu) is Soldwedel Professor of Marketing in the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona. She holds an MS in sociology and a PhD in marketing from the University of Pittsburgh. Her articles on the sociocultural aspects of consumption have been published in theJournal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Advertising and Society Review, Addiction, Journal of Macromarketing, andAmerican Behavioral Scientist, among others. Her coauthored article on “The Sacred and Profane in Consumer Behavior” won theJournal of Consumer Research Best Article Award in 1992. Her research has been featured in theWall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, American Demographics, andFortune, and has been funded by the Marketing Science Institute, the Arizona Disease Control Research Commission, and the Office of Earth Science at NASA.     

The dual role of price: decomposing consumers’ reactions to price

Price plays two distinct roles in consumers’ evaluations of product alternatives: as a measure of sacrifice and as an informational cue. This article merges two streams of empirical research into the effects of price on consumers’ product evaluations by combining stated preferences, obtained from conjoint measurement, with data on self-reported measures in the form of beliefs or attitudes. It thus offers new, substantive insights into the dual role of price. Specifically, it differentiates between the informational and sacrifice effects of price using a choice-based conjoint approach and differentiates further among different subcomponents of these two main effects by combining choice-based measures with self-reported measures that pertain to potential sources of the dual role of price (price response drivers) and underlying consumer characteristics. Thus, this article presents a general procedure to quantify the impact of the dual role of price on choice shares for product alternatives within a market simulation. This procedure enables managers to simulate the choice share effects of changes in price response drivers, as well as modifications in segmentation and targeting strategies that involve changes in the levels of the price response drivers and thus the levels of the informational and sacrifice components of the price response of demand.     

试论认知价值定价法在产品定价中的运用

影响消费者认知价值的主要因素有产品质量、包装、价格、品牌知名度、消费者口碑以及顾客满意度等。企业制定价格时不仅要考虑成本、竞争者价格、企业利润目标等因素,而且要注重消费者对产品的认知价值。可通过提高产品的质量、改善产品的包装、提高产品的品牌知名度和树立产品的良好口碑形象等措施来提高消费者对产品的认知价值。     

How do enhanced and unique features affect new product preference? The moderating role of product familiarity

Companies often introduce products with enhanced or unique features to compete with the dominant brands in the market. This paper examines the moderating role of product familiarity in consumer preferences of products with enhanced or unique features in two experimental studies. Study 1 (208 participants) operationalizes product familiarity at the product category level and Study 2 (168 participants) measures it at the individual level as one’s prior experience with the product. The findings of two experiments show that when consumers are unfamiliar with a product category, they prefer a product with enhanced features to one with unique features. In contrast, when consumers are experienced, they perceive a product with unique features more favorably than an enhanced one. Furthermore, this effect is due to consumer perceived differentiation of and performance uncertainty about new products with enhanced or unique features.

Implementing an intended brand personality: a dyadic perspective

The authors examine the transformation of an intended brand personality (i.e., the way brand management would like consumers to perceive the brand??s personality) into a realized brand personality (i.e., the consumer??s actual perception of the brand??s personality). Drawing on the results of a dyadic empirical cross-industry study of 137 brand managers and 3,048 consumers, the authors show that the singularity of the brand personality profile, the competitive differentiation of the brand, the credibility of brand communication, consumers?? depth of product involvement, and consumers?? prior brand attitude all affect the degree to which the realized brand personality resembles the intended brand personality.     

Consumer perceptions of product variants positioned on atypical attributes

How do consumers perceive new product variants that are positioned on atypical attributes? The authors investigate the joint effects of three factors? brand familiarity, retail shelf display, and consumer goal orientation. The study focuses on snack foods positioned on the atypical attribute of low fat. There are three main findings. First, although high (vs. low) brand familiarity causes relatively unfavorable perceptions on the positioning attribute, it also creates sufficiently favorable perceptions on another determinant attribute, product taste, resulting in a net positive effect for brand equity on purchase likelihood. Second, goal-based versus taxonomic shelf display (i.e., placement with health foods vs. regular snack foods) results in relatively negative perceptions on the positioning attribute, yet more favorable buying intentions. Finally, more (vs. less) health-oriented consumers rate such product variants less favorably on fat content but more favorably on product taste; the former segment is also more likely to buy such product variants.     

Unjustified prices: environmental drivers of managers’ propensity to overprice

Ideally, a product’s price should strike a balance between extracting value for a firm and sharing some of that value with customers. Charging less than what is warranted by a product’s value “leaves money on the table”, but far greater long-run harm to the brand is caused when managers charge more than what is justified by the product’s benefits. This study examines the effect of environmental- and firm-level factors on managers’ judgment when setting prices. Using data collected from brand managers of major consumer goods companies, we found that managers are more inclined to charge unjustified prices in environments with less intense competition and in business units with a strong technological orientation. Brand strength is also positively related to the propensity to overprice, but this relationship diminishes as the brand becomes stronger.     

On the significance of statistically insignificant results in consumer behavior experiments

Experimentation is the sine qua non of consumer behavior research, and much of what is thought to be known about the behavior of consumers is based on findings from experiments. However, many articles that report consumer behavior experiments contain one or more results that are significantly insignificant. That is, one or more experimental results are so unusually weak or minuscule that they are unlikely to have come about by chance. As such, significantly insignificant results can be due to the “failure” of the theory underlying an experiment and/or the flawed design or implementation of an experiment. Consequently, significantly insignificant results have implications for the theories and methodologies employed in consumer behavior experiments, the quality of conclusions drawn from the experiments, and the credibility of the consumer behavior research discipline as a whole.