Are we who we follow? Computationally analyzing human personality and brand following on Twitter

Abstract

In this study, we present a computational method for analyzing the congruence between personality of a brand’s Twitter account and the personality of their followers. We investigated attachment to brands on Twitter by computing personalities through a machine-learned computational analysis of Twitter postings rather than traditional personality tests. By studying three different brands, results revealed that on average, brand followers have personalities that are more congruent with the personality of brands they follow compared to users that do not follow those brands. Taking these findings into consideration, we discuss some considerations for advertising researchers and practitioners, as well as provide a new tool, the Brand Analytics Environment (BAE), to allow individuals without computer programming backgrounds to conduct this method themselves.     

Does live performance play a critical role in building destination brand equity — A mixed-method study of “Impression Dahongpao"

A tourism live performance is a critical carrier of localism. It condenses local symbols and creates a significant approach to building a destination brand. However, to date, few studies have investigated this significant topic. To address the unresolved problem of the function and mechanism of the effect of a live performance on destination brand equity, this study employed a quantitative-dominant, concurrent nested mixed-method approach using 507 questionnaires (Study 1) and 14 semistructured interviews (Study 2). Based on symbolic interaction theory, the results confirmed that tourism live performance enhanced the destination brand equity, and the key link is for tourists to achieve a flow experience. Further, creative performance, visual appeal, cultural contact and authenticity created tourists' flow experience. The original findings of this study provide potential contributions to the development of destination brand equity.     

Eco depletion: The impact of hunger on prosociality by means of environmentally friendly attitudes and behavior

The present research investigated the impact of hunger on prosociality in a consumer choice context by means of environmentally friendly attitudes and behavior. Two eye-tracking studies were conducted with hunger measured (Study 1) and manipulated (Study 2). The data were analyzed through bivariate correlations, Pearson's chi-square tests, and analyses of variance (ANOVAs). Our findings, based on cross-sectional and experimental evidence from field and lab settings, revealed that hungry consumers express more prosocial attitudes than their satiated counterparts in terms of general environmental concerns and importance ratings of buying eco-labeled products. However, we found no significant difference between hungry and satiated consumers regarding choice likelihood of eco-labeled products or visual attention towards prosocial (organic and sustainable) food options. Implications for retailers and organizations trying to encourage environmentally friendly behavior are discussed.     

The interplay between consumer self-view,cognitive style,and creative visual metaphors in print advertising

This paper examines the use of an advertising rhetoric technique – visual metaphor, and its persuasion effects in light of consumers’ cultural and individual dispositional characteristics when processing visually relational information. Of particular interest are the culturally driven self-views and individuals’ cognitive thinking styles. An experimental study involving visual metaphor manipulations in the context of print advertising was conducted. Results showed that, visual metaphor techniques significantly enhanced the persuasion outcomes through consumers’ evaluation of the advertising message and the brand. Both consumers’ self-construal orientation and their analytic-holistic processing style, moderate the effects of visual metaphors in print ads for low-involvement products, but not for high-involvement products. Implications for academics and practitioners, as well as future research directions suggested through the current experiment, are discussed.     

Revisiting customer analytics capability for data-driven retailing

Customer analytics is one of the most dominant strategic weapons in today's competitive retail environment. In spite of its strategic importance, there is scant attention to investigating customer analytics capabilities in the retail context. Drawing on a systematic literature review and thematic analysis, this study proposes a multidimensional customer analytics capability model by identifying relevant dimensions and sub-dimensions in retail settings. The principal contribution of this study is that the model links a customer analytics perspective to a resource-based view (RBV)-capability of the retailers by proposing six customer analytics capability dimensions and twelve sub-dimensions in the spectrum of market orientation and technology orientation. The customer analytics capability dimensions depict three crucial themes of marketing, such as value creation (offering capability and personalization capability), value delivery (distribution capability and communication capability), and value management (data management capability and data protection capability). By incorporating this capability dimensions, practitioners will likely be able to engage customers and enhance customer equity.     

Joint or separate? The effect of visual presentation on imagery and product evaluation

In this research, we examine the effect of joint versus separate visual presentation on consumers’ product evaluation. Counter to prior research on hedonic editing and unpacking, which suggests that separate presentation or unpacking produces greater utility, we propose and demonstrate in this paper that joint visual presentation can increase product evaluation. This pattern of effects occurs because presenting products together facilitates mental imagery of the product consumption, which leads to greater perceived psychological ownership and higher product evaluation. As such, the effect of joint presentation on product evaluation is attenuated when mental imagery is disrupted under joint presentation, encouraged under separate presentation, or when products lack complementarity to elicit mental imagery of one cohesive consumption episode. Evidence from seven studies provides converging support for these hypothesized effects and their underlying process. Our findings contribute to the literature on visual presentation, unpacking, and imagery, offering relevant implications to marketers and retailers.     

Decisive visual saliency and consumers׳ in-store decisions

This paper focuses on consumers׳ in-store visual tactics and decision-making. It has been argued that many consumers shop by routine or by simple rules and justification techniques when they purchase daily commodities. It has also been argued that they make a majority of decisions in the shop, and that they are affected by the visual stimuli in the store. The objective for this paper is to investigate the visual saliency from two factors: 1) in-store signage and 2) placement of products. This is done by a triangulation method where we utilize data from an eye-track study and sales data from grocery stores. The first study takes place in laboratory settings with a simulated purchase situation, and the second research design builds on manipulated in-store settings and data from real purchases. We found optimal placement of two comparable goods (branded good and private label) to increase visual attention and sale for both goods. The use of signage increases visual attention and sale as well, yet only for the product that the label addressed, implying a cannibalization effect. The limitation of the study and implications for retail managers and for brand owners are discussed.     

The effect of involvement on visual attention and product choice

Our study examined the effect of consumers' level of involvement on visual attention to product, information sign and price sign guided by the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM). We also investigated the relationship between visual attention captured by eye fixation on information and price sign and product choice for garden plants. Using a Tobii X1 light eye tracking device, we obtained data from 101 respondents in Texas and Michigan. We found that participants who had high (vs. low) product involvement paid more attention to the product and its information as demonstrated through higher fixation count (FC), longer total fixation duration (TFD), and total visit duration (TVD). We also found highly involved participants processed price information as a central rather than a peripheral cue. In addition, total visit duration (TVD) on an information sign was found as the strongest predictor of product choice.     

The visual impact of agricultural sheds on rural landscapes: The willingness to pay for mitigation solutions and treatment effects

New rural and industrial sheds cause significant transformations determining a negative change in landscape perception. In this paper the willingness to pay (WTP) of residents to mitigate the visual impact of sheds in the rural areas of the UNESCO World Heritage Site “Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont: Langhe-Roero and Monferrato” is estimated through a Choice Experiment (CE). The CE survey was carried out through face-to-face interviews involving 400 residents. The set of mitigation attributes was selected by means of a landscape analysis and presented to respondents using a set of images (close and distant views). Conditional Logit (CLogit) and Mixed Logit (MXL) models both in preference and in WTP space were estimated. From the empirical point of view, the study shows that sheds are generally perceived as negative landscape elements, and that residents are willing to pay for mitigation solutions, such as tree lines and formal hedgerows. The results are relevant for policy makers since they suggest how agricultural sheds are perceived and which mitigation strategies are preferred by local residents. From the methodological point of view, we estimate and test different models for assessing the effect of the visual treatment (close vs distant view). We show the theoretical equivalence of a fully interacted model (i.e., estimated on the whole sample and including interaction terms with the treatment), with split models of the choice for separate subsamples submitted or not to the treatment. We find that in estimation the equivalence holds in the results of Conditional Logit models, but not in Mixed Logit models. The reasons and implications are discussed.     

Urban lake spatial openness and relationship with neighboring land prices: Exploratory geovisual analytics for essential policy insights

Possessing ecological service functions, as well as social and economic values, urban lakes are an important part of urban open spaces. The improvement in the openness of urban lakes is crucial to enhancing the efficiency and fairness of urban land use. Accompanied by China's rapid urbanization, China's urban land prices continue to rise and the government relies on land finance. Meanwhile, the number of urban lakes is decreasing, the lake water surface area is shrinking, and water pollution is becoming more serious. By using exploratory indicators, this study quantifies the degree of openness of urban lakes, and focuses on the relationship between lake spatial openness and neighboring land prices. Taking Wuhan (China) as a study case, we proposed a conceptual framework to guide the analysis within the context of land use policy. Then, we created exploratory indicators to quantify the spatial openness of urban lakes and mapped the results. Afterward, we conducted an exploratory geovisual analytics of urban land prices and lake spatial openness. Finally, we used a regression model to examine the relationship between prices and openness. Our results show that our new indicators were able to reflect the openness of the lakes in the central urban area of Wuhan simply and effectively. The overall spatial openness is relatively high, the mean values of two main indicators reflecting the openness percentage of the lakes are 69.91 % and 67.57 % respectively. However, there are still obvious regional differences between the openness indicators. The relationship between openness and neighboring land prices is spatially heterogeneous. Based on our analysis, we finally propose policy suggestions for protecting urban lakes and rational land use in the rapid urban expansion occurring in developing countries.