The depicted service employee in marketing communications: An empirical assessment of the impact of facial happiness |
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| Institution: | 1. Center for Retailing, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden;2. School of Business, Stockholm University, Sweden;1. Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Wholesale & Retail Leadership Chair, Cape Town, South Africa;2. Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Marketing Department, Cape Town, South Africa;3. Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Retail Business Management Department, Cape Town, South Africa;1. AIS New Zealand, P.O Box 2995, 42 Woodside Rd, Mt Eden, Auckland 1140, New Zealand;2. Department of Marketing, New Zealand;1. California State University, Sacramento, USA;2. Carroll University, USA;1. Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK;2. University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK;1. Associate Professor of Marketing Griffith Business School Griffith University, 170 Kessels Road, Nathan QLD 4111, Australia;2. Professor of Marketing Business Research Unit (BRU/UNIDE), Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Portugal |
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| Abstract: | Employees are often depicted in service firms’ marketing communications material. This study examines one particular aspect of such depictions: the signaling of happiness in terms of the employees’ facial expressions. It is assumed that depicted faces transmit emotional signals, that receivers are hardwired to react to such signals, and that the emotional signals influence the outcomes of the receivers’ information processing activities. Our empirical results show that this was indeed the case: employee display of happiness was positively and significantly associated with employee evaluations. The contribution of employee happiness remained significant when other characteristics of the depicted face (e.g., attractiveness) were controlled for. Our results also show that employee evaluations had a positive impact on the overall evaluation of the offer of the employee's firm, and that the employee evaluations mediated the association between employee display of happiness and the evaluation of the offer. |
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| Keywords: | Depicted faces Facial expressions Emotions Happiness Service marketing FaceReader |
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