Games people play with brands Molesworth, Mike; Grigore, Georgiana F; Jenkins, Rebecca
Marketing theory,
03/2018, Volume:
18, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Relationships have been normalized in marketing theory as mutually beneficial, long-term dyads. This obscures their emotional content, ignores critical conceptualizations of corporate exploitation ...and fails to capture the range of possible marketplace relationship forms, including those that may result from individuals’ biographical psychology and that lead to repeated dysfunctional exchanges. In this article, we offer Berne’s (1964) transactional analysis (TA) as a way to uncover the biographical psychology that informs marketplace relationship structures and their accompanying emotions and to provide a critique of such arrangements. We first explain TA, its origins, its relationship with psychoanalysis, its limitations and contemporary extensions beyond therapy. We then present the structural basis of marketplace relationships from a TA perspective, before illustrating how a game in TA can be applied through an analysis of the iPhone and related mobile phone contracts and the Games If I didn’t Love Apple and Smallprint. Finally, we discuss the implications of such an approach for transforming market practices based on recognition of marketplace Games and their modification.
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This article looks at the formation of trust in developing economies focusing on food manufacturer–distributor relationship. The study used the descriptive phenomenological method to understand how ...actors in the food value chain develop trust in a business environment where one cannot enforce the contract. In general, the study identifies three dimensions of trust in the food manufacturer–distributor relationship in Tanzania, namely, the use of personal relationship, social gathering and trade credit. The article shows the implication of the study to managers and policy and areas for further research were provided.
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Achieving customer loyalty is a primary marketing goal, but building loyalty and reaping its rewards remain ongoing challenges. Theory suggests that loyalty comprises attitudes and purchase behaviors ...that benefit one seller over competitors. Yet researchers examining loyalty adopt widely varying conceptual and operational approaches. The present investigation examines the consequences of this heterogeneity by empirically mapping current conceptual approaches using an item-level coding of extant loyalty research, then testing how operational and study-specific characteristics moderate the strategy → loyalty → performance process through meta-analytic techniques. The results clarify dissimilarities in loyalty building strategies, how loyalty differentially affects performance and word of mouth, and the consequences of study-specific characteristics. Prescriptive advice based on 163 studies of customer loyalty addresses three seemingly simple but very critical questions:
What is customer loyalty
?
How is it measured
? and
What actually matters when it comes to customer loyalty
?
•Customer engagement on CSN comprises three dimensions: conscious participation, enthusiasm, social interaction.•Customer engagement has a direct and significant influence on stickiness.•Customer ...value co-creation mediates the relationship between customer engagement and stickiness.•CSN managers should take actions to strengthen customer engagement for better business promotion.
Company social networks have become an important means for the socialized marketing of a company, forming a new challenge to companies on how to attract customers. Based on such theories as customer engagement, value co-creation, and relationship marketing, this paper presents a model of the influence of customer engagement on stickiness. Data collected from 260 valid questionnaires from Sina’s enterprise microblog users were analyzed by structural equation modeling. Empirical results show that customer engagement has a direct and positive influence on customer stickiness as well as an indirect influence through customer value creation. This study enriches previous researches on existing theories of customer engagement, value co-creation, and stickiness, and gives practical guidance for companies to encourage customer engagement and enhance the stickiness of company social networks.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
Purpose
This study aims to propose the emotional response of gratitude as a mediating mechanism to explain the relationship between perceptions of a service organisations’ relationship marketing ...investments, customer cynicism and reciprocity and overall satisfaction. Further, the study seeks to test the significance of the mediation effects of these constructs on customer overall satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach
Using theories from service marketing and consumer psychology, this study develops and tests a customer gratitude model (CGM). Field surveys based on existing measures were used to elicit data from 1,104 respondents. The measures were validated and subsequently the CGM was tested to establish the veracity if the nomological network presented.
Findings
Results indicate that perceived relationship marketing investment exerted an indirect effect on gratitude through the mediating effect of reciprocity and cynicism. Further, perceived relationship marketing investments impacted overall satisfaction through its mediating effect of gratitude, and gratitude explained the indirect influences of reciprocity and customer cynicism on overall satisfaction.
Research limitations/implications
This study contributes to services marketing literature by examining the emergent role of gratitude between customer perceptions of service organisations and pro-organisational attitudes, like overall satisfaction.
Practical implications
This research encourages service organisations to implement relationship-building strategies, beyond that of purely economic benefits, that seek to enhance the emotion of gratitude, which will lead to greater overall customer satisfaction.
Originality/value
Despite emphasising relationship longevity between customers and service organisations, literature has not yet focused on the role of gratitude. The CGM provides valuable insights for further inquiries.
Transformational Relationship Events Harmeling, Colleen M.; Palmatier, Robert W.; Houston, Mark B. ...
Journal of marketing,
09/2015, Volume:
79, Issue:
5
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Exchange events are fundamental building blocks of business relationships and essential to relationship development. However, some events contribute to incremental relationship development, as ...predicted by life cycle theories, whereas others spark "turning points" with dramatic impacts on the relationship. Such transformational relationship events are encounters between exchange partners that significantly disconfirm relational expectations (positively or negatively); they result in dramatic, discontinuous change to the relationship's trajectory and often reformulate the relationship itself. With a three-study, multimethod design, the authors (1) establish a foundation for differentiating dramatic and incremental exchange events on the basis of relational versus product expectations and disconfirmations, thus revealing that strong relationships benefit product disconfirmations but harm relational disconfirmations, and (2) conceptualize, define, and differentiate transformational relationship events from other types of disconfirming events and then link them to exchange performance.
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BFBNIB, INZLJ, IZUM, KILJ, NMLJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, ZRSKP
While service providers strive to maintain customer relationships, a nontrivial number of customers downgrade their services, something that has been particularly true during the post-pandemic period ...or economic recession. Studying downgrade behavior is vital because it damages the bottom-line performance of service providers and reflects a reduced customer commitment. Unlike previous studies, we further divide downgrade behavior based on whether there is a change in the product category, that is, a downgrade to a lower-priced service option within the same product category (“pure downgrade”) versus a downgrade to a lower-priced service option in a different product category (“hybrid downgrade”). An analysis of customer data collected from a major telecommunications company shows fundamental differences in the determinants and consequences of these two downgrades. Transaction-related variables, such as service usage, have a significantly stronger positive effect on the likelihood of hybrid downgrade than on that of pure downgrade. Conversely, relationship-related variables like relationship length have an inverted U-shaped effect on pure downgrade but barely affect the likelihood of hybrid downgrade. Interestingly, customers who engage in pure downgrade are more likely to churn than those who engage in hybrid downgrade. The empirical findings offer valuable insights on customer relationships and churn management.
Graphical Abstract
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The current study adopted cluster and discriminant analyses to investigate how differentially upscale restaurant customers view (a) the four dimensions of restaurant quality (price fairness, food ...quality, service quality, and physical environment), (b) the three dimensions of relational benefits (confidence benefits, social benefits, and special treatment benefits), and (c) revisit intentions and favorable reciprocal behaviors as proxies for customer reciprocity when customers perceive different levels (high vs. low) of relationship marketing investment (RMI). When customers perceived high RMI, they (high-RMI customers) evaluated all the aforementioned factors positively. By contrast, customers who experienced low RMI (low-RMI customers) rated the same factors negatively. High- and low-RMI customers were best distinguished by service quality, confidence benefits, and favorable reciprocal behaviors. Understanding the distinction between high- and low-RMI customers will shed light on how operators of upscale restaurants develop and reinforce perceived RMI to achieve favorable customer reciprocity.
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Guanxi, a social exchange mechanism built on mutual favors, is an integral part of Chinese culture and a necessary relationship management tool for businesses operating in the People's Republic of ...China (PRC). This paper uses the cognition-affect-conation trajectory to illustrate the subtle differences between guanxi approach and the conventional relationship marketing approaches on customer loyalty and word-of-mouth intentions. This process is mediated by calculative trust and affective attitude toward the service provider, while operationalizing the in-group identification construct to gauge in-group membership. Findings from a field-survey with Chinese retail-banking customers (N=420) support most of the hypotheses. Besides extending relationship marketing literature by highlighting the need to incorporate unique aspects of different cultures (especially in the emerging markets), this paper also provides many useful managerial implications and directions for future research on phenomena similar to guanxi (e.g., “blat” in Russia, “wa” in Japan and “inhwa” in Korea).
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
Online platforms aggregating brands, such as Amazon and Alibaba's Tmall, have emerged as powerful intermediaries for brands. Although these platforms offer unprecedented access to consumers, the ...platform controls this access. Thus, concerns are raised about how these platforms interfere with the brand experience and, ultimately, performance. The question of how brands can govern their platform operations more effectively thus arises. There are essentially two types of governance models: a one-party (1P) marketplace (wholesaling to the platform) and a third-party (3P) marketplace (selling directly to the consumer on the platform). However, it is unclear how 1P or 3P operations affect brand performance. To that extent, the authors study the market share implications of operations on JD.com, a 1P platform, and Tmall, a 3P platform, for almost 2,000 brands. On average, 1P operations decrease shares, whereas 3P operations lift shares. These changes depend on different brand-specific moderators. For 1P operations, share drops are more substantial for brands that are unable to elicit a trustworthy consumer relationship, when alternative brands abound and rogue-seller activities are severe in the product category. The 3P share lifts, in contrast, are more substantial for premium-priced, nonleading brands with prior direct-to-consumer experience.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
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