Marketing and society: Preface to special section on volunteerism, price assurances, and direct-to-consumer advertising

We discuss the reasons why this call for papers was issued and describe the process of selecting the three articles presented in this special section. We argue that maximizing stakeholder welfare and not just consumption maybe a new goal for marketing that will be consistent with emerging societal trends. Three articles on volunteerism, price assurances, and direct-to-consumer advertising result from our call and are presented in this section. This introduction is an overview of the three articles.     

I Have Paid Less Than You! The Emotional and Behavioral Consequences of Advantaged Price Inequality

This study examines the emotion blends and the subsequent customer reactions that occur in advantaged price inequality situations, that is, when consumers learn that retailers charged them a lower price than what the same retailers charged another customer. Drawing on the appraisal theories of emotion and on social comparison theory, an experiment (n = 272) and a field study (n = 261) are conducted. The results reveal that in advantaged price inequality situations, customers experience a host of positive and negative emotions depending on two factors: the quality of relationship that the customer has with a disadvantaged other customer (neutral, positive, or negative) and the attribution of agency for the price advantage (situational attribution to competition, external attribution to store policies, or internal attribution to customer abilities). Positive emotions include happiness, gratitude, pride, and malicious joy; while negative emotions include pity, outrage, and guilt. These emotions are shown to mediate the occurrence of customer reactions (i.e., customer satisfaction, loyalty, WOM referral, and WOM activity). The article concludes with theoretical implications and recommendations for retail practitioners on how to use dynamic pricing.     

The relationship between store image and store brand equity: A conceptual framework and evidence from hypermarkets

Retailers are making considerable efforts to improve their brand management. The challenge they face, however, is how best to integrate coherently their stores, as brands, and their various distributor brands (store brands, private labels, etc.), in order to increase their brand equity and offer the market differential value that will stimulate customer loyalty. From this perspective, it is crucial for retailers to investigate the relationship between the store and their own brands. This study proposes two theoretical models showing the mechanism whereby store image helps increase the equity of a specific type of distributor brand (the store brand). The approach used in this analysis is based, on the one hand, on defining brand equity through its components, using the model in Aaker (1991), and on the other, on including (social and strategic) corporate dimensions in measuring store image. The empirical research made in the hypermarket sector in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa backs the majority of the proposed hypotheses. The results show that store image can be used by retailers to influence all components of store brand equity, essentially through its commercial and strategic dimension. This research is intended to address the clear lack of research on store brand equity.     

Why the Generalized Bass Model leads to odd optimal advertising policies

We show that the optimal advertising strategy under the Generalized Bass Model (GBM) involves beginning at an extremely low level (the lower the better) and then increasing spending throughout the planning period. This strategy remains optimal in the presence of decreasing prices that affect both margins and diffusion speed. We provide a simple explanation for why this happens. We further show that the intuitively appealing patterns of continuous decrease or increase-then-decrease (both with an uptick towards the end) identified in earlier research are also possible as optimal dynamic advertising paths under the GBM structure, but only if the advertising at launch is constrained to be higher than a particular threshold, which we identify. The constraint necessary to generate intuitively appealing strategies lowers overall profits. Therefore, the GBM generates advertising policy recommendations that most marketers would deem odd. This casts doubt on the value of the GBM for normative purposes. Other existing diffusion models are preferred when seeking normative guidance on optimal dynamic advertising policies for new products subject to word of mouth.     

上海大型综合超市调查发现与对策分析

上海超市经历二十五年的演变,从小超市发展到大型综合超市,出现了差异化发展趋势,外资以大型综合超市为主导,内资以中小超市为主导,各有优势与缺陷。本文首次公布了上海商学院管理学院市场营销系对上海普陀区六家大型综合超市的调查数据,提供了调查的七项发现,并指出了大型综合超市进一步发展的四大趋势与三点建议。     

铁矿石价格上涨的宏观经济影响

近年来,铁矿石价格的持续飙升给我国经济造成了巨大的影响.本文采用国家信息中心与澳大利亚MONASH大学共同开发的SICGE模型对进口铁矿石涨价的影响进行了模拟.结果显示,与2010年基准情景相比,铁矿石价格上涨90%对我国总体经济影响很小(-0.37%).从物价水平角度来看,与现有文献的结论有很大的不同,铁矿石价格上涨...     

政府对垄断行业价格管制的经济学分析——以自来水行业为例

自来水行业是社会公益性的自然垄断行业,其中存在市场失灵。通过模型分析对自来水价格管制前后的各受益主体显示,政府对垄断行业的价格管制是十分必要的。通过合理的价格管制,最终增加社会净福利。最后,提出要重视听证会制度在价格管制中的作用,以及要完善政策制定过程。     

苏州市土地承载力分析及提升对策

从苏州市土地的耕地人口承载力、土地生态和建设用地承载力三方面分析了制约苏州社会经济发展的瓶颈因素,剖析耕地锐减、土壤污染、粗放式经营和资源消耗型发展的成因与社会经济发展的资源与空间制约困境,结合土地资源主要功能、生产方式和价值的变化、土地生态功能健康的维护以及集约化发展的要求,提出了苏州土地承载力提升的对策.     

Willingness to pay for brands: a cross‐region,cross‐category analysis

Using survey data collected in multiple locations (California and Texas in the United States and Revohot in Israel), we quantify category‐ and location‐specific variations of consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for brand products after controlling for consumer characteristics. We find that consumers have a similar qualitative assessment of brand value in different product categories across different locations. That is, consumers have a stronger preference and higher WTP for brands in consumer electronics, followed by clothing and then processed food, and the lowest in fresh produce. Furthermore, we simulate price premiums and market shares of brands relative to generic products in different categories. Simulation results suggest that brands in fresh produce have the highest price premium but lowest market share. Despite the similarities, the magnitude of WTP for brands as well as the simulated price premium and the corresponding market share in the same product category are location variant. The similarities and dissimilarities suggest validity of having global brand strategies adapted to local conditions, that is, the so‐called “thinking globally and acting locally” strategy.     

World market integration for export and food crops in developing countries: a case study for Mali and Nicaragua

Using a generalized error correction model, this article measures and compares market integration for export cash crops versus imported food crops for Mali and Nicaragua, and computes transmission elasticities between changes in the goods’ border and domestic prices. Both Mali and Nicaragua obtain the bulk of their export revenue from a particular agricultural commodity—cotton for Mali and coffee for Nicaragua—and both import the same key staple food of rice. To reap the economic gains from this trade specialization, the two countries’ agriculture must be well‐integrated into world markets. The two countries present an important policy contrast that affects their degree of world market integration and price transmission. In Mali, a parastatal enterprise controls its cotton industry, while Nicaragua has less state direction over agriculture. Reflecting this difference, the results show that for both its main export and import commodity, Nicaragua is more integrated into world markets and has higher price transmission than Mali. The results for Nicaragua also show much higher integration and price transmission for its main agricultural export (coffee) than its major import (rice).