Effects of functional green advertising on self and others

This study examines the effects of a functional green advertising promoting the environmental advantages of a product. It presents the results of three experiments designed to (a) explore consumers’ perceptions of a functional green ad's effects on themselves and others, (b) determine how those perceptions are influenced by consumer environmental concern, and (c) examine how individualism–collectivism relates to self–other effect perceptions. Findings indicate that (a) consumers believe that functional green advertising exerts a stronger influence on others’ purchase decisions than on their own purchase decisions; (b) the self–other difference is more salient among consumers with high environmental concern; (c) in the individualistic culture, the perceived effectiveness on self, not on others, predicts consumers’ support for the regulation of functional green ads, while this effect is reversed when consumers are in collectivistic cultures. The study's findings extend several lines of research, including the literature on green advertising and the third‐person effect.     

The impact of 3d virtual haptics in marketing

Tactile input plays a key role in consumers' evaluation of products' substance properties. Utilization of haptic interfaces and force feedback devices that enable consumers to feel and manipulate three‐dimensional (3D) virtual products is a promising but under‐explored area in marketing and consumer behavior research. This study investigated 3D virtual touch created by Novint Falcon haptic interfaces and its impacts on consumer behavior in the interactive marketing of automobiles. It was hypothesized that consumers' instrumental Need for Touch (NFT) plays a significant moderating role in haptic interfaces. Results from a 2 (nature of tactile stimuli: haptic input with force feedback versus no force feedback) × 2 (haptic orientation: high NFT versus low NFT) full factorial between‐subjects experiment indicated that consumers high in instrumental NFT evaluate products more positively, enjoy the test‐driving experience more, and show stronger brand–self connection when there are force feedback haptic stimuli as opposed to when there is no force feedback. Theoretical and managerial implications of the study are discussed. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Make it Your Own: How Process Valence and Self‐Construal Affect Evaluation of Self‐Made Products

Self‐production, participation of consumers in the production process of products for their own consumption, leads to consumers’ enhanced evaluations of the self‐made products. Three experimental studies investigate how and why self‐production affects consumers’ product evaluations and reveal that not all production experiences create additional value for all consumers. In particular, Studies 1 and 2, using hypothetical stories and real experiences, show that only positive (vs. negative) production experiences enhance evaluations of self‐made products over products made by others. Positive (but not negative) experiences decrease the psychological distance between the self and the product and strengthen identification with it. Study 3 manipulates self‐construal (independent vs. interdependent) to investigate its role on evaluation of self‐made products and products made with close others as a group (i.e., group‐made). Consumers with independent self‐construal evaluate self‐made (vs. other‐made) products more favorably only if the process is positive. However, consumers with interdependent self‐construal evaluate self‐made products more favorably even if the process is negative. Additionally, consumers with interdependent (vs. independent) self‐construal exhibit more favorable evaluation of group‐made products. Finally, even if consumers know how another person feels while making a product, other people's process emotions do not affect consumers’ product judgments as strongly as their own experienced process emotions.     

Cents of self: How and when self-signals influence consumer value derived from choices of green products

Consumers choosing between green and conventional products often believe such choices imply trade-off decisions, such that green products provide morally-related advantages but embody price or quality-related disadvantages compared to standard products. We study the consequences of such trade-offs for consumer value in the context of privately consumed green products. To develop our theoretical model, we draw from the perspective of self-signaling – consumers' act of signaling information about their internal qualities to their own self through choice. We explore how and when self-signals from such trade-off decisions influence consumer value gained from comparative choices of green versus standard products. Six studies were conducted, using divergent measures of the dependent variable, multiple product categories, and measured as well as manipulated self-concept clarity (SCC). We find a joint effect of self-signals from comparative choices and self-concept clarity on consumer value, such that positive self-signals lead to incrementally higher satisfaction and willingness to pay for consumers with low SCC but not significantly so for those with high SCC. Results show that this joint effect may occur for consumers with low SCC because they gain incremental value from perceived self-concept alignment – a state that is construed from the perception that a self-signal is aligned with the consumer's self-concept. This study contributes to marketing research by proposing and testing a novel mechanism that can underlie self-signaling.     

Shopping East and Shopping West—Chinese Consumer Behavior in Two Worlds

ABSTRACT

In today's China, consumers not only have the chance to sample products and services from around the world, but to experience cultural influences from a vast range of countries. In particular, Western products and services—and cultural values—have become increasingly popular. Consumers now shift between different worlds (Chinese and Western) with seeming ease. This research identifies the factors that encourage consumers to shift between these different worlds—and values. The factors include the situation and context (of the shopping experience), peer influence and dynamics, the role of conversation at or near the time of purchase, and the nature of the product and service. The role of “time,” “chance,” and “intuition” in the shopping experience and cultural shifts are also examined. What emerges from the study is a changeable, mobile, and flexible community quite capable of shifting between different sets of values (and consumer attitudes) easily and often very quickly. For companies, the key to success (at least to some degree) is to place their goods and services in a context that helps to create a complementary, integrated, and supportive image of the world they wish to create in the minds of their Chinese consumers.     

How the Temporal Framing of Energy Savings Influences Consumer Product Evaluations and Choice

Consumer interest in behavior that is good for the environment is increasing, but actual behavior consistent with this objective has not risen accordingly. This may in part be due to consumers not realizing that their environmentally protective behaviors may have tangible future benefits for them. These studies examine the influence of message frames and a consumer's propensity to think about the future for products that have future benefits. More specifically, these studies examine how consumers respond to temporal frames of savings on product packaging for energy efficient products. Two studies suggest that the temporal framing of savings can influence product choice, purchase intentions, attitudes, and perceptions of savings. The results indicate that future‐oriented consumers are likely to have more positive evaluations when savings are framed in the distant future compared to the near future. In addition, there is a mediating effect of perception of savings. These experiments provide information of interest to marketers and researchers regarding the influence of temporal frames and a consumer's temporal orientation on products that have future benefits.     

How a “China-made” label influences Chinese Youth's product evaluation: The priming effect of patriotic and nationalistic news

This study is to verify whether and how a “China-made” label can influence online consumers' product evaluation as adding labels to highlight products' attributes has become an acquainted measure online by e-tailers/firms to attract online consumers' attentions. For this purpose, we conduct a 2 (label of “China-made” vs. no label) x 3 (patriotism priming vs. nationalism priming vs. no priming) between-subject factorial design to verify hypotheses. The results reveal that when consumers' nationalism is primed, the label significantly enhances the product evaluation by increasing the perceived social value of the product. Priming consumers’ patriotism, on the other hand, does not play a moderating role for this effect. A follow-up study confirms such effects for both low involvement and high involvement products. Therefore, e-tailers/firms that own China-made brands/products are advised to signal the “Chinese identity” of their products to online consumers under the current circumstance when nationalism and domestic brands are rising in China. The results also indicate that although products produced in a developing country are marked with a negative country of origin effect, marketers can turn it into a strength in marketing in certain conditions.     

When the frugal become wasteful: An examination into how impression management can initiate the end-stages of consumption for frugal consumers

Premature disposal of functional products is a global problem adding to waste and feeding a consumer culture. Contrary to this, frugal consumers take care and extend the life of their products, elongating the usage and value obtained from their possessions. Despite this, little is known about frugal consumers and the factors that eventually initiate their actions towards the end-stages of consumption (e.g., declined usage). The present research explores one such psychological factor that may dictate frugal consumers’ willingness to discontinue usage of their products; impression management. Three studies demonstrate that when the marketplace's opinion of an owned product is negative (e.g., inferior value), then the well-accepted frugality-usage intentions relationship diminishes. This effect is due in part to the undesirable image that owning such a product portrays, that of a consumer who makes poor choices. By examining what can initiate the end-stages of consumption for frugal consumers, this study broadens our understanding of anticonsumption lifestyles postpurchase, exploring factors beyond functionality, and obsolescence that influence decisions to continue or discontinue using products consumers already own.     

The different roles of product originality and usefulness in generating word-of-mouth

This paper explores how the dimensions of new products, specifically, the originality and usefulness of the products, influence word-of-mouth (WOM). In four studies, using lab and field setups, we find that originality and usefulness have different effects on WOM. We show that consumers spread more WOM about original products, but the valence of what they say depends on the usefulness of the product. Therefore, originality enhances the effect of usefulness such that consumers spread relatively more and more positively valenced WOM about original and useful products compared to less original but equally useful products. Conversely, consumers spread more and more negatively valenced WOM about original products that are not useful compared to less original products with the same level of low usefulness. The results indicate that product originality should be managed carefully when developing and positioning new products. Although originality increases buzz, it might lead to negatively valenced WOM when the usefulness of the product is perceived to be low.     

Consumer–Brand Relationships: A Contrast of Nostalgic and Non‐Nostalgic Brands

This research examined how consumer–brand relationships change when one contrasts brands perceived as nostalgic with brands perceived as non‐nostalgic. Paired comparisons of brands in six product categories revealed that brand attachment, self‐brand connections, and storytelling, as well as, the propensity to offer the brand as a gift and collect brand‐derived products, depend on the nostalgic status of the brand. On a sample of 606 consumers, the results showed that a brand's nostalgic status has a positive effect on attachment, self‐brand connections, and storytelling. These effects had not previously been considered in nostalgia research. Furthermore, the nostalgic status of a brand has positive effects in terms of intention to purchase the brand as a gift and collect brand‐derived products. Moreover, ANOVA results illustrate that consumer relationships with nostalgic brands are systematically stronger than with non‐nostalgic brands. Finally, results indicated that product category moderates all of the dimensions of brand relationships while gender does not.     

When consumers penalize not so green products

To cash in on consumers’ willingness to pay higher prices for green products, several companies are promoting conventional products as green by highlighting a few green attributes. Through a theoretical lens, the authors investigate how consumers perceive such attempts. This research illustrates that not so green products make consumers sensitive to the monetary sacrifice associated with the purchase of such products. The current research shows that consumers have a negative attitude toward such products and they become concerned about the ethicality of the company when they encounter such products. Both implicit and explicit measures suggest that consumers notice the company's motive behind such practices which, in turn, impacts their price perceptions.     

Similar or contrastive? Impact of product–background color combination on consumers' product evaluations

Based on arousal theory, this study explores the impact of product–background color combination on consumers' product evaluations through four empirical analysis. As predicted, the interaction of product–background color combinations and product types has a significant influence on consumers' product evaluations. For functional products, the product–background similar color combination can cause consumers' higher product evaluations. However, for sensory-social products, the product–background contrastive color combination can cause consumers' higher product evaluations. Moreover, the arousal level mediates the interaction effect of product–background color combinations and product types on consumers' evaluations. This research also demonstrates that only when the product color matches product type, the interaction of product–background color combinations and product types can improve consumers' product evaluations through increasing (decreasing) the arousal level, however, the interaction effect is no longer significant when the matching degree of product color and product type is low. We contribute to the visual marketing research by providing new insights and useful implications for using color clues to present products in marketing practice.     

Product information and consumer choice confidence in multi-item sales promotions

This research augments efforts to produce a richer understanding of the drivers of consumer choice confidence. It examines the interplay between two marketing interventions that consumers encounter in retail marketplaces, diagnostic product information and multi-item sales promotions. Results indicate that the influence of product information varies as a function of sales promotion format. The information effect is weaker when consumers are allowed to select the products that will be included in the promotion. Perception of information adequacy is revealed as a mediator of the information diagnosticity effect. The implications for marketing theory and promotional strategy are discussed.     

Quality disclosure in the presence of strategic consumers

Consider a market for short-life products, such as smartphones, where a firm and consumers have asymmetric quality information, the firm sells products in two periods, and consumers make purchase decisions strategically. We investigate when a firm should disclose quality and the interaction between consumers' strategic behavior and the firm's disclosure behavior. We obtain several findings. First, regardless of whether consumers have low or high patience, the firm should disclose quality information if product quality is high and conceal it if product quality is low. However, for products with moderate quality levels, the firm will disclose more quality information to consumers with relatively high or low patience levels than when consumer patience is moderate. Second, firms will disclose less information when consumers behave strategically than when they are myopic. Third, when concealing quality information is an equilibrium, product prices are affected only by disclosure costs and independent of true product quality. Finally, the firm can benefit from consumers' strategic behavior and a higher disclosure cost, but greater patience might be detrimental to consumer surplus and social welfare.     

The effect of product touch information and sale proneness on consumers' responses to price discounts

Since price discounts are costly and can negatively affect consumers' perceptions of quality, it is crucial to identify the factors that make them effective in stimulating purchase behavior. Drawing on cue utilization theory, we examine price discount effectiveness in affecting consumers' reliance on the sale cue based on the provided product touch information as an intrinsic cue and individual consumer differences in sale proneness. Two experimental studies indicate that price discount information, product touch information, and sale proneness interact to determine consumers' responses. Perceived quality is the underlying mechanism behind the observed effects. For nonsale-prone consumers, product touch information favorably influences responses to large price discounts by addressing product quality concerns and enhancing purchase confidence, but has no effect for regularly priced or low discounted products. For sale-prone consumers, product touch information is not effective in increasing their responses regardless of the discount size. A qualitative study provides support for these results and highlights the role of perceived quality and purchase confidence. The research contributes to behavioral pricing, cue utilization theory, and sensory marketing and suggests that marketing managers should provide consumers with product touch information when implementing high discounts for products for which prepurchase touch is important.     

The effects of perceived product-extrinsic cue incongruity on consumption experiences: The case of celebrity sponsorship

The level of congruity is determined by the degree of match or mismatch between an object and its associated attribute. Product evaluations are positively influenced when there is moderate incongruity between a product and its association; this finding is termed the moderate schema incongruity effect (Mandler 1982). The purpose of the current study was to investigate the influence of incongruity between a product and one of its extrinsic cues on consumers' product evaluations. Furthermore, we examined the moderating role of consumers' level of product knowledge. Incongruity was created by partnering a product with a sponsor. We found that consumers who were highly knowledgeable of the product gave the highest taste evaluations to the moderately incongruent product–sponsor pairing, whereas taste evaluations for consumers with low product knowledge did not differ across product–sponsor pairings. The results of our study have important practical implications for marketers, namely that product–sponsor fit can enhance consumers' consumption experiences.     

Customizing a consumers’ story for you: The impact of protagonist geographical distance on willingness to share

Consumers' stories, which reveal the interactions between consumers and brands from the perspective of consumers, are increasingly prevalent in advertisements and service communications. Although previous research has explored the impact of consumers' story plots, elements, types, and endings on story effectiveness, the connection between the audience and story protagonist is often of greater concern to consumers. This study examines how the geographical distance between audiences and consumers' story protagonists can prompt audiences to share a consumers' story. A dataset was collected from leading social platforms, and four scenario–based experiments were conducted, which demonstrated that the geographical distance between the protagonist and audience enhanced audience–protagonist similarity and interpersonal identity leading to a more positive willingness to share the story. Additionally, the effect of geographical distance on willingness to share is stronger when the story is based on true events; this effect is attenuated when the story is fictitious. The findings provide a proximal protagonist that advertisers can use in a story to prompt audiences to share consumers’ stories.     

Adolescents’ perceived brand deprivation stress and its implications for corporate and consumer well‐being

Stress can impact various aspects of a person's well‐being. While some researchers have suggested that consumption‐related activities may cause stress, no research has yet explored such stress among vulnerable, younger consumers. To better understand this phenomenon, the concept of adolescents’ perceived brand deprivation stress (BDS) is introduced as a state of tension perceived negatively by a young consumer when he or she does not have specific brands from a particular product category. In a series of three studies with adolescents aged 11–17 years, a reliable and valid measure of BDS is developed and a framework encompassing antecedents and consequences of it is tested. This research demonstrates that an adolescent's peer group compared to the media exerts the strongest influence on BDS which is also affected by product involvement and age. In turn, stress influences both brand purchase intentions and psychosomatic illnesses, with the latter being reduced by consumer self‐confidence. The studies show that BDS is real, but seemingly problematic for only a small portion of vulnerable adolescents. The findings suggest that marketers should be cautious when targeting young consumers and that educational programs aimed at developing consumer skills and confidence in adolescents are advisable.     

Influence of augmented reality product display on consumers’ product attitudes: A product uncertainty reduction perspective

In the online retail market, consumers' uncertainty about products caused by the physical separation between consumers and products has long been an obstacle. In recent years, online retailers have begun to display their products by using augmented reality technology. However, whether and how the features of augmented reality influence consumers’ product uncertainty remains unclear. In this study, we explore the effects of augmented reality features on product uncertainty reduction and product attitude. The results show that augmented reality can reduce product quality and fit uncertainty by increasing perceived informativeness, sense of presence, and mental imagery. The relationship between augmented reality features and product uncertainty reduction are moderated by product involvement, need for sensory richness and self-brand connection. Ultimately, the reduction of product uncertainty leads to positive product attitude.     

Promoting Products Through Volume Discount: Evidence from Malaysia

ABSTRACT

This study examines the effectiveness of the determinants that influence consumers' intention to purchase products under volume discount scheme (VDS). In addition, the moderating role of age is tested. A pilot study of 259 consumers was performed to conceptualize the underlying constructs and identify questionnaire items through employing exploratory data analysis. This was followed by a comprehensive survey of 583 Malaysian consumers. Data were analysed using partial least squares technique. The results indicate that brand image, store image, message framing, product characteristics, scheme characteristics, and subjective norms are crucial factors for the successful implementation of VDS. There is a wide gap noted between young and mature consumers in terms of the factors that influence on their purchasing behavior under VDS. The results help retailers to promote products under VDS in an effective way.