Effects beyond click-through: Incidental exposure to web advertising

While Web advertising tends to be based on a direct response model, there is a growing debate about the brand building potentials of Web ads. Click-through rates (CTR) are disappointingly low, but Web ads can be effective at brand building in an environment where Web ads are outside of consumers' attentional focus. With this in mind we conducted two experiments. The first experiment examined the effects of incidental exposure to banner ads. Subjects who were incidentally exposed to banner ads reported greater priming effects induced by implicit memory, more favorable A_ad, and greater likelihood for the advertised brand to be included in a consideration set over no exposure to the ad. These effects were found without significant improvement on explicit memories (i.e. recall and recognition) and click-through intention. The second experiment to assess the conditions conducive to incidental exposure examined two advertising strategies: format (animated vs. static) and placement (congruency vs. incongruency). Findings suggest that the level of congruency between an advertised product and Webpage content play significant roles in affecting consumers' responses to incidentally exposed banner ads. This paper examines the results of these two experiments before discussing the implications for the role of Web ads on brand building and directions for future research.     

Cooperative pricing and scale efficiency: The case of Korean rice processing complexes

Unlike most investor‐owned enterprises, cooperatives often have freedom to choose among a variety of firm objectives. Using 2002–2008 plant‐ and province‐level data, we ask in the present article which of several alternative maximands a Korean cooperative rice processing firm pursues. In contrast to earlier studies, farmer‐member supply functions are incorporated into the cooperative's optimization framework. We show that only large cooperative firms have operated at efficient scale, while small and medium‐sized ones have been scale‐inefficient. Because the latter operate where scale returns are increasing, mergers of small and medium‐sized cooperatives likely would be cost‐reducing and member‐return‐enhancing.     

Revisiting Determinants of Convention Participation Decision Making

In the midst of the unprecedented economic downturn, attracting a large number of attendees at annual conventions is more challenging than ever for associations and meeting planners. In order to boost attendance, an organization must understand what would be the factors affecting convention participation decision of potential delegates, and what would be the reasons to put a particular convention on the top of their must-attend list. This article empirically validated the key determinants of convention participation decision making that had arisen from previous studies, and further examined the relative influence of each factor on the convention participation intention. Four determinants were identified (networking, destination, travelability, education), and they are largely in line with the major factors that had been suggested in the extant literature. The findings of the study showed that “networking” and “travelability” factors significantly influenced the convention participation intention of the survey respondents. Several implications and convention marketing strategies for associations and meeting planners were discussed.     

Trends in the use of statistics in major advertising journals over four decades

The use of statistical techniques in data-based articles appearing in the International Journal of Advertising, Journal of Advertising, Journal of Advertising Research and Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising was analysed over four decade intervals (i.e., 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s) and by journal. Among the trends, the study found: (1) nearly seven of every 10 journal articles reported statistical analyses (68.8% or 541 of 786); (2) the trend for statistically based articles was remarkably consistent over the time intervals and held true for the different advertising journals with one exception; (3) the use of different statistical techniques changed over time, with statistical techniques becoming more diverse and sophisticated through the years, but more so in some advertising journals than in others; (4) statistics were correctly applied in the majority of the research reports relative to ‘study purpose’; (5) the use of different statistical techniques varied by method of data collection generally and within articles appearing in three of the four journals; and (6) the presence or absence of hypotheses and/or research questions in the advertising studies was differentially associated with the application of different statistics. The inquiry serves to move advertising research forward in two ways: first, it documents how statistical analyses have changed over time and, second, it provides insight into where the field might be headed regarding the use of statistical techniques.     

Consumers’ preferences for the attributes of post-PC: results of a contingent ranking study

With the explosive growth of the internet and the change in consumer demand, post-PC is emerging as a substitute for the existing desktop PC and laptop PC. post-PC is a new computer which is portable with wireless networking, cheaper than the existing PC and specializing in the specific functions that consumers want. Rudimentary post-PCs such as PDA, web-pad and smart-phone are already in use. In the future, owing to technological progress, the heterogeneity of related companies and the low entry barrier, various post-PCs will be developed. This paper attempts to analyse consumers’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) for post-PC with such attributes as portability, CPU speed, data input method (using key board or electric pen), monitor size, and price. To this end, a contingent ranking method is applied, which makes the respondents rank hypothetical post-PC alternatives featuring various combinations of attributes, via a survey data collected in Korea. Using the estimated WTP, the shape and the capacity of future post-PC are predicted and policy implications drawn for national- and company-level R&D strategies.     

Inter-temporal examination of the trading activities of foreign investors in the Korean stock market

In the full market-opening period of the Korean stock market (1999–2006), when foreign equity ownership reached as high as 40% of the total stock market capitalization, foreign net flows move in the same direction contemporaneously with the domestic market return, while lagged foreign flows are not followed by any significant changes in the domestic market return. On the other hand, an increase (decrease) in foreign net buy is followed by Won appreciation (depreciation) relative to the US dollar; however, the reverse relation does not hold. Throughout the entire sample period (1995–2006), foreign flows are not significantly related to stock market return volatility.     

FALLING LABOR INCOME INEQUALITY IN KOREA'S ECONOMIC GROWTH: PATTERNS AND UNDERLYING CAUSES

Over the last twenty-five years, the economy of the Republic of Korea achieved a remarkable growth rate of 7 percent per year in real per capita income, causing it to be labeled, justifiably, as a "miracle economy." This exceptional economic growth has beenpp accompanied by an even more exceptional fall m labor income inequality. Using a newly-developed methodology, we use data from Korea's Occupational Wage Surveys to quantify the importance of various factors that have contributed to the fall in labor income inequality in Korea. We find the most important factors explaining the level of income inequality are job tenure, gender, years of education, and occupation, while those that are most important in explaining the change in income inequality are years of education, industry, occupation, and potential experience.     

An examination of consumer sentiment toward offshored services

This research identifies and analyzes the underlying elements and consequences of consumer sentiment toward offshored services. This is accomplished by initially conceptualizing consumer sentiment toward offshored services, then developing and validating a multi-dimensional scale (OFFSERVSENT) to measure the construct. This research determines that consumer sentiment toward offshored services is instrumental in explaining consumers’ commitment to and global attitudes toward firms that offshore services as well as consumers’ word-of-mouth behavior. The strength of these relationships varies depending upon the type of service being offshored. The results of this research contribute to the study of services offshoring, an emerging and fertile area of research for the services and marketing disciplines, and provide practitioners with increased knowledge regarding offshoring decisions.     

Attracting the Rival’s Customers in a Model with Switching Costs

We consider the option of a firm’s honouring the rival’s coupons in a duopoly model in which products are differentiated by both characteristics and a switching cost. A firm may honour its rival’s coupons to increase its market share only if its previous market share is less than one‐half but not too low and, as a result, the market share is increased but only up to one‐half. JEL Classification Number: D13.     

Evaluating alternative models of trend inflation

With the concept of trend inflation now being widely understood to be important to the accuracy of longer-term inflation forecasts, this paper assesses alternative models of trend inflation. Reflecting the models which are common in reduced-form inflation modeling and forecasting, we specify a range of models of inflation that incorporate different trend specifications. We compare the models on the basis of their accuracies in out-of-sample forecasting, both point and density. Our results show that it is difficult to say that any one model of trend inflation is the best. Several different trend specifications seem to be about equally accurate, and the relative accuracy is somewhat prone to instabilities over time.