Comparative Effects of Organization–Public Relationships and Product‐related Attributes on Brand Attitude

This study empirically investigates how the dimensions of organization–public relationships, i.e. trust, control mutuality, commitment, and satisfaction, are related to brand attitude formation. In order to establish a benchmark for analysis, it also compares the effects of organization–public relationships on brand attitude to those of product‐related attribute beliefs. The results of a survey conducted using a branded laptop computer product showed that, while both organization–public relationships and product‐related attributes were significantly related to attitude towards the brand, among the dimensions of organization–public relationships only ‘satisfaction’ was a significant predictor of brand attitude. In addition, the explanatory power of organization–public relationships was found to be weaker than that of product‐related attribute beliefs in predicting brand attitudes.     

Does Celebrity Image Congruence Influences Brand Attitude and Purchase Intention?

We examine whether image congruence (IC) of celebrities have significant effect on purchase intention (PI) and whether attitude towards brand and attitude towards advertisement mediate the relationships in a developing country, based on sample data from India. The data was collected using a Likert Scale of 1 to 7. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was employed to test the recursive model incorporating endorser-brand IC, advertising effectiveness (AE), attitude toward advertisement (ATA), attitude towards brand (ATB), and purchase intention (PI). It was found that the celebrity image congruence (IC) has a negative significant effect on ATB and positive significant effect on ATA whereas advertising effectiveness (AE) had significant effect on both attitude towards brand and attitude towards advertisement. Finally AE and ATA both had significant positive effect on PI. Drawing on research on moral reasoning associated with celebrity endorsement, we provide strong theoretical as well as empirical evidence that celebrity (endorser-brand) IC is not a strong predictor of PI in a developing country. Spending huge resources on endorsers for IC does not always provide the desired benefits in countries like India. Findings would be useful for both multinational firms engaged in international marketing as well as local firms.     

Advertisement Disclaimer Speed and Corporate Social Responsibility: “Costs” to Consumer Comprehension and Effects on Brand Trust and Purchase Intention

It is not uncommon for advertisers to present required product disclaimers quickly at the end of advertisements. We show that fast disclaimers greatly reduce consumer comprehension of product risks and benefits, creating implications for social responsibility. In addition, across two studies, we found that disclaimer speed and brand familiarity interact to predict brand trust and purchase intention, and that brand trust mediated the interactive effect of brand familiarity and disclaimer speed on purchase intention. Our results indicate that fast disclaimers actually reduce brand trust and purchase intention for unfamiliar brands, suggesting that there are both economic and social responsibility reasons to use less rapid disclaimers for unfamiliar brands. Conversely, disclaimer speed had no negative effects on brand trust and purchase intention for highly familiar brands, presenting ethical tensions between economic interests (e.g., an efficient use of advertisement time) and social responsibility. We discuss the implications of our framework for advertising ethics, for corporate social performance, and for corporate social responsibility.     

Does Being Social Matter? Effects of Enabled Commenting on Credibility and Brand Attitude in Social Media

Public relations practitioners are actively building relationships with bloggers to obtain high-credibility brand mentions and reviews. Practitioners may request bloggers limit comments to maintain control over messages and constrain dissonant perspectives; however, the impact of limiting social features of blogs is unknown. Utilizing source credibility and warranting theory, this article examines the relationship between enabled comments on blogs and brand attitudes, with the moderating variables of credibility and expertise, from both a public relations and consumer behavior perspective. Using an online experiment (N = 527) we found that socialness increases perceptions of blogger expertise, brand attitudes, and purchase intention, but not credibility.     

Impact of Food Brand Controversy on Consumers’ Attitude Toward Brand and Company

It is critical to understand the impact of controversy on the consumer. There is a scarcity of research measuring post-controversy consumer attitude on both product and corporate brand during a controversy. The study is based on a recent brand controversy linked with instant noodle brand “Maggi” in India. The study examines impact on brand perceived quality, credibility, trust and loyalty, and attitude about brand and company. Data have been collected during July–October 2015 when the brand Maggi was banned in India due to quality-related controversy. Results indicate that respondents, with higher post-controversy brand loyalty, hold positive attitudes about brand. The interaction effect reveals that the relationship is significant and positive. During controversy, consumers’ attitude about brand and company is not identical. For a strong brand, consumers may have positive attitude but they become quite negative about company.     

Separate or Integrate? Assessing the Impact of Separation Between Product and Service Business on Service Performance in Product Manufacturing Firms

Purpose: Investigating how the separation of the product and service business mediates the effect of management's commitment to the service strategy on service performance in product manufacturing firms.

Methodology: The authors surveyed 216 European manufacturers in the high-value durable equipment industry moving into the service business. After assessing adequacy of measurement scales, the authors tested statistically for mediation. Their results hold when replicating the study using a structural equation modeling approach and while testing for common method biases.

Findings: The authors find evidence that the creation of a separate service organization, organized as a profit center, has a significant positive mediating effect between managerial commitment and the services' financial performance. Although separation also has a positive mediating effect between commitment and non-financial performance, organizing services as a profit center had a negative effect on the service's non-financial indicators.

Research Limitations: Research limitations include (a) a sample limited to German-speaking firms in the high-value durable equipment industry, (b) measurements based on self-reported managerial perceptions of service performance, and (c) conceptualization of service as a single strategic response.

Practical Implications: Although the complementarity between products and services is high in the market, the authors' research suggests few synergies to leverage their integration inside the organization. Accordingly, management should, at least in transition efforts similar to the ones included in this sample, look into creating a separate and distinct service organization.

Value/Contribution: This research was driven by practical concern on how to organize service operations in a manufacturing firm. Initial framing of the research through the creation of the construct of separation of product and service business was used.     

Store Brand Quality and Retailer’s Product Line Design

This study analyzes a retailer’s store brand quality decision in vertically differentiated product categories. We analyze a game theoretic model composed of one or two national brand manufacturers and a retailer, who strategically chooses the quality level(s) of its store brand(s) relative to the well-established national brand position(s) to maximize its category profit. Our analysis reveals that the nature of a retailer’s store brand quality positioning is quite different from the manufacturer’s national brand positioning decision, and that the best position for a store brand is not “as close to a national brand as possible” as previous studies suggest. Instead, the optimal quality position of each store brand is remarkably sensitive to the distribution of consumers’ willingness-to-pay. In particular, the relative proportions of quality sensitive consumers and price sensitive consumers determine the balance of three key strategic forces — the market expansion force, the retail margin force, and the consumer profitability force, leading to different optimal product line designs for store brands across different category environments. Interestingly, against multiple incumbent national brands, the retailer’s optimal product line design includes a store brand positioned at the highest quality level in the category only if most consumers are moderately quality conscious. We also analyze the implications of national brands’ brand equity for retailers’ store brand strategy.     

The Relationship Among Customer-Retailer Affection, Mianzi Consciousness and Purchase Intention of Retailer＇s Store Brand

本文将消费者与商店之间的情感关系定义为消费者的商店情感,并将其引入到自有品牌感知价值和购买意愿的研究之中。在将自有品牌的感知价值分为金钱节省价值和质量价值后,本文探讨商店情感和自有品牌购买程度对感知价值的影响,以及消费者的面子意识对上述影响关系中的调节作用。通过实证研究发现,商店情感和自有品牌购买程度均对金钱节省价值和质量价值有正面作用,面子意识负向调节质量价值对自有品牌购买意愿的影响,但是面子意识在金钱节省价值对自有品牌购买意愿的影响关系中缺乏调节作用。     

The Impact of Cause-Related Marketing on Millennials’ Product Attitudes and Purchase Intentions

This study, using scenarios, examined the impact of two kinds of cause-related marketing (CRM) efforts (a traditional donation of a portion of sales to a related cause and a more strategic one-for-one donation of donating a product to a related cause when that product was purchased) on millennials’ (those born between 1982 and 2000) attitudes and purchase intentions for four different consumer product categories. The four different consumer product categories selected included a specialty good (laptop), a shopping good (hat), a convenience good (bottled water), and a service (food restaurant). Given the importance of social media to millennials, this research also examined the role of social media on CRM awareness. While millennials had relatively low awareness of CRM campaigns, there was a positive correlation between social media use and CRM awareness. Additionally, CRM efforts may not work for all products as there was no impact on attitude or purchase intention for the product category of laptops. Additionally, the positive attitudes created by marketers’ CRM efforts will not always translate to increased purchase intentions. The use of a strategic one-for-one CRM effort though had a greater impact, specifically for products that deal with needed fundamentals, such as food and water.     

Meaning or Sound? The Effects of Brand Name Fluency on Brand Recall and Willingness to Buy

This research argues that both meaning fluency (conceptual fluency) and sound fluency (perceptual fluency) of a brand name affect brand evaluations. Specifically, this research investigates the effects of brand name meaning and sound fluency through an application of information processing fluency theory. The results provide insight into previously unexplained findings in the brand management literature. Two experiments demonstrate that perceptually more fluent brand names lead to higher brand recall, for perceptually less fluent brands names, high conceptual fluency leads to higher brand recall and in cases of low consumer involvement, high perceptual fluency leads to higher willingness to buy.     

Superior Quality and Strong Brand the Reasons behind the Popularity of CEIB S MBA Graduates

It is known that 127 CEIBS 2002 MBA graduates are leaving their Alma Mater for their new jobs and also another step towards their lifelong dream. In the worries of the devaluation of MBA degree and poor employment prospects, what is ahead waitingfor them?     

Shopping on the Internet–Online Purchase Behavior of New Zealand Consumers

ABSTRACT

The Internet provides an evolving channel for both business people and consumers to achieve their mutual aims. The rapid growth of Internet users in New Zealand provides a developing prospect for E-marketers. New Zealand has literate, educated, technology savvy “netizens” who are willing to spend time and money over the Internet. If E-marketers know the demographics of online New Zealand purchasers and the relationships between these demographics and online buyers' behavior, then they can further develop their marketing strategies to convert potential customers into active ones, while retaining the existent online customers. This paper provides an insight into the demographic profile of New Zealand's online purchasers. Some implications are also provided in this research.     

Segmenting Police ‘Customers’ on the Basis of their Service Quality Expectations

Customer expectations form the standards against which organisation performance is often assessed. Additionally, knowledge relating to customer expectations provides information concerning the differentiated performance requirements of heterogeneous customer groups. Relatively few studies have explored the segmentation potential of ‘customer expectations, und to the best of this author. knowledge, none of these has addressed the issue it1 the non-profit sector. This study addresses this need by investigating the extent to which demographics constitute expectation segmentation criteria in the context of the police service. Both the desired and predictive expectation standards are considered. Managerial arid research implications are given.     

Get in the Game: The Effects of Game-Product Congruity and Product Placement Proximity on Game Players’ Processing of Brands Embedded in Advergames

This study focused on the effects of game-product congruity and product placement proximity on advergame players’ brand memory, brand attitude, game enjoyment, and future intention to play. A 2 (congruity) × 2 (proximity) repeated-measures experiment was used. Results revealed that players’ implicit memory improved for congruent games only. Explicit memory measures also showed signs of improvement for brands in the congruent/central game condition. Surprisingly, it appears that the incongruent/peripheral game condition produced the best results overall with the smallest negative attitude change, the most game enjoyment, and the highest intention to play again in the future. These contradictory findings suggest to brand marketers who design advergames to be careful when combining multiple game featurescongruity and proximity) within a single advergame because this strategic move may provide optimal brand memory while also producing the opposite desired effect for attitude toward the brand, game enjoyment, and intention to play.     

Can Ecological Product Win Consumers in China？ A Study on the Effect of Product Attributes and Consumers＇ Face Consciousness on Ecological Product Preference

This research explores what product attributes consumers value and how consumer face consciousness influences ecological product preference. Study I shows that environmental attribute enhances product preference to a greater extent when consumers value gentleness-related attributes more than strength-related attributes. However, when the strength-related attributes are valued, the benefit of environmental attribute is attenuated, and sometimes even leads to greater preference for non-ecological products. Study lI reveals that Chinese consumers with high face consciousness show a significant difference between explicit and implicit preferences for ecological products. In other words, these consumers believe in only their own preference for ecological products. In contrast, Chinese consumers with low face consciousness show no difference between explicit and implicit preferences, i.e., they believe that other people prefer ecological products as much as they do.     

External Brand Placement: The Effects on Game Players’ Processing of an In-Game Brand

Video games are now a venue for branded messages. Hence, game players may be exposed to brands in and outside game environments. This study focuses on the latter, that is, external brand placement. Drawing upon the literature on involvement and on the limited capacity model (LCM) of information processing, this study explores the mechanism by which external brand placement influences game players’ processing of a brand placed within a game, known as an in-game brand. The results show that players exposed to an external brand identical to an in-game brand showed greater in-game brand recall than those not so exposed. Players exposed to a competing external brand—whether congruent or not—showed lower in-game brand recall. When the brand was incongruent, however, they showed a preference for the in-game brand.     

Does a Virtual Like Cause Actual Liking? How Following a Brand's Facebook Updates Enhances Brand Evaluations and Purchase Intention

Studies have shown positive associations between liking a Facebook brand page and brand evaluations, but causal evidence is lacking. This online pre–post-measure experiment compared brand evaluations of ‘current followers’ of a target brand's Facebook page, with ‘new followers’ instructed to ‘like’ the page, and ‘non-followers’ over one month. Results showed a significant positive increase for new followers on brand evaluations, whereas non-followers showed no change. Current followers were most positive in evaluations overall, but showed no change over time. This provides evidence that following a brand's Facebook updates can cause positive changes in brand evaluations. The effects were explained by perceived conversational human voice, indicating the importance of brand interactivity. Implications for brands' social media presence are discussed.     

Dangerous Donations? The Effects of Cause-Related Marketing on Charity Attitude

SUMMARY

How might cause-related marketing affect attitudes toward the charity involved? Could charity attitudes be harmed? These questions were addressed in a controlled laboratory study. Positive/negative fit between the organizations was manipulated, and company attitude was measured. The results suggest that charity attitude may be negatively impacted if consumers' attitudes toward the company are negative, or if the organizations have negative fit. Alternatively, CRM may improve charity attitude if company attitude is positive or the organizations share positive fit. The effect of fit is stronger than the effect of company attitude, so positive fit may compensate for pairing with a company toward which consumers' attitudes are negative.     

Revisiting Country Image – Examining the Determinants towards Consumers' Purchase Intention of High Technological Products

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to investigate consumers' perceptions towards a developed country image (e.g. USA) and a developing country image (e.g. China) in relation to evaluating and buying high technological products, more specifically, smartphones. In addition, the research also examines the effects of consumer aspirations and product knowledge as consumption traits towards buying behavior. A self-administered questionnaire was employed for this study using established scales with the questions formulated around two countries, USA and China. It was administered through a mall intercept method and a particular focus will be associated to the comparison of China and USA. The stark contrast between the two countries in terms of their image and stature presents an insightful inquiry into the relevancy of country image and country of origin image importance in modern day context. The results show that country image as an evaluation cue is still pertinent in a generation where globalization is present. Results further highlights that although possessing a positive country image leads to a positive evaluation of the product country image, it however does not ensure a successful purchasing intent. Additionally, it is beneficial to note that the results for both USA/IPhone and China/Xiaomi showed a significantly greater path coefficient as compared to other causal paths. Potential moderating factors such as product involvement or pricing can also be explored. Future research should attempt to account for socio economic or demographic factors such as important controls for education, social status and income that are bound to impact on the relationships at the heart of the proposed research hypotheses.