With the challenges presented by new media, shifting media patterns, and divided consumer attention, the optimal integration of marketing communications takes on increasing importance. Drawing on a ...review of relevant academic research and guided by managerial priorities, the authors offer insights and advice as to how traditional and new media such as search, display, mobile, TV, and social media interact to affect consumer decision making. With an enhanced understanding of the consumer decision journey and how consumers process communications, the authors outline a comprehensive framework featuring two models designed to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of integrated marketing communication programs: a "bottom-up" communications matching model and a "top-down" communications optimization model. The authors conclude by suggesting important future research priorities.
To help marketers to build and manage their brands in a dramatically changing marketing communications environment, the customer-based brand equity model that emphasizes the importance of ...understanding consumer brand knowledge structures is put forth. Specifically, the brand resonance pyramid is reviewed as a means to track how marketing communications can create intense, active loyalty relationships and affect brand equity. According to this model, integrating marketing communications involves mixing and matching different communication options to establish the desired awareness and image in the minds of consumers. The versatility of on-line, interactive marketing communications to marketers in brand building is also addressed.
Influencer marketing represents a $10 billion industry in 2020 and is becoming of increasing relevance for many firms, especially those operating in a business-to-consumer environment. Few firms in ...the fashion, beauty, travel, food, or beverage industries are running marketing campaigns these days that do not include, at least to some share, a collaboration with popular users on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. However, many marketing managers still have a less than adequate understanding of those platforms compared with their knowledge of more traditional media channels and often find it hard to make the right decision in this fast-moving environment. To provide some guidance in this respect, this article aims to give an introduction to the most critical platforms for influencer marketing. It then presents advice to firms who want to engage in influencer marketing as well as specific questions on identifying the right influencers to collaborate with.
Service-dominant logic continues its evolution, facilitated by an active community of scholars throughout the world. Along its evolutionary path, there has been increased recognition of the need for ...a crisper and more precise delineation of the foundational premises and specification of the axioms of S-D logic. It also has become apparent that a limitation of the current foundational premises/axioms is the absence of a clearly articulated specification of the mechanisms of (often massive-scale) coordination and cooperation involved in the cocreation of value through markets and, more broadly, in society. This is especially important because markets are even more about cooperation than about the competition that is more frequently discussed. To alleviate this limitation and facilitate a better understanding of cooperation (and coordination), an eleventh foundational premise (fifth axiom) is introduced, focusing on the role of institutions and institutional arrangements in systems of value cocreation: service ecosystems. Literature on institutions across multiple social disciplines, including marketing, is briefly reviewed and offered as further support for this fifth axiom.
Although social media usage in business markets continues to grow, managers still struggle with designing popular brand message posts. This research investigates the key factors that contribute to ...Facebook brand content popularity metrics (i.e., number of likes and comments) for Fortune 500 companies' brand posts in business-to-business (B2B) versus business-to-consumer (B2C) markets. Building on psychological motivation theory, the authors examine key differences in B2B and B2C social media message strategies in terms of branding, message appeals, selling, and information search. Using Bayesian models, they find noteworthy differences in the propensity of viewers to popularize brand posts. Specifically, the results indicate that the inclusion of corporate brand names, functional and emotional appeals, and information search cues increases the popularity of B2B messages compared with B2C messages. Moreover, viewers of B2B content demonstrate a higher message liking rate but a lower message commenting rate than viewers of B2C content.
•The authors examine Facebook likes and comments as a measure of the popularity of B2B versus B2C content strategies.•Viewers of B2B content exhibit a higher liking rate than viewers of B2C content.•Both functional and emotional appeals increase the number of message likes in B2B messages more than in B2C messages.•Informational cues and links generate more likes and comments in B2B messages compared with in B2C messages.•Corporate brand names increase the number of message likes in B2B messages more than in B2C messages.
Sharing systems are increasingly challenging sole ownership as the dominant means of obtaining product benefits, making up a market estimated at more than US$100 billion annually in 2010. Consumer ...options include cell phone minute-sharing plans, frequent-flyer-mile pools, bicycle-sharing programs, and automobile-sharing systems, among many others. However, marketing research has yet to provide a framework for understanding and managing these emergent systems. The authors conceptualize commercial sharing systems within a typology of shared goods. Using three studies, they demonstrate that beyond cost-related benefits of sharing, the perceived risk of scarcity related to sharing is a central determinant of its attractiveness. The results suggest that managers can use perceptions of personal and sharing partners' usage patterns to affect risk perceptions and subsequent propensity to participate in a commercial sharing system.
Marketers using social media are struggling with its successful implementation, specifically in engaging their audiences through creation of popular brand content. Yet, creating popular brand content ...can lead to positive financial and brand outcomes. This research examines Fortune 500 companies' brand content strategies that contribute to Facebook content popularity metrics (i.e., number of likes and comments) for service versus goods offerings. Building on psychological motivation theory and the noted differences in culture and capabilities between goods and service firms, the article analyzes the key differences in service and goods brand content strategies in terms of branding, message appeals, and vividness. The findings from a multivariate multilevel Poisson model show that the use of corporate brand names is more popular for service messages whereas the use of product brand names, images, and videos is more popular for goods messages. Furthermore, service messages generate a higher number of comments than goods messages.
Brand experience is conceptualized as sensations, feelings, cognitions, and behavioral responses evoked by brand-related stimuli that are part of a brand's design and identity, packaging, ...communications, and environments. The authors distinguish several experience dimensions and construct a brand experience scale that includes four dimensions: sensory, affective, intellectual, and behavioral. In six studies, the authors show that the scale is reliable, valid, and distinct from other brand measures, including brand evaluations, brand involvement, brand attachment, customer delight, and brand personality. Moreover, brand experience affects consumer satisfaction and loyalty directly and indirectly through brand personality associations. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
Contractions are common in both written and spoken English. For example, it is common to use “they’re” instead of “they are.” Contractions are also popular in marketing communications and ad copy. ...However, despite the popularity of contractions, there is no existing work on how their use can influence individuals’ information processing. Given that language—not just the text but also linguistic forms—can exert an influence on information processing, the possibility that contractions might also do so warrants investigation. Across three experiments, we examine the effect of contractions on consumers’ product choices and judgments. We find that contractions increase choice for products that are higher on feasibility (vs desirability) and those with secondary (vs primary) features while they decreased intentions to engage in COVID-protection behaviors that would be high on feasibility. These effects are consistent with greater concrete thinking. Thus, we situate our research within Construal Level Theory to propose that contractions have an effect on individuals’ cognition, which we demonstrate in consumption-relevant settings. Our work contributes to marketing theory and practice. But, since our effect is novel, in our General Discussion, we also highlight limitations to our work and offer suggestions for future research.
•We compare the impact of multiple touchpoints on consideration in four categories.•Respondents report on six touchpoints using the real-time experience tracking method.•Touchpoint positivity and not ...just touchpoint frequency influences consideration.•In-store communications positivity is more influential than that of ads, WOM or PR.•Peer observation, a hardly studied touchpoint, is both pervasive and persuasive.
Marketers face the challenge of resource allocation across a range of touchpoints. Hence understanding their relative impact is important, but previous research tends to examine brand advertising, retailer touchpoints, word-of-mouth, and traditional earned touchpoints separately. This article presents an approach to understanding the relative impact of multiple touchpoints. It exemplifies this approach with six touchpoint types: brand advertising, retailer advertising, in-store communications, word-of-mouth, peer observation (seeing other customers), and traditional earned media such as editorial. Using the real-time experience tracking (RET) method by which respondents report on touchpoints by contemporaneous text message, the impact of touchpoints on change in brand consideration is studied in four consumer categories: electrical goods, technology products, mobile handsets, and soft drinks. Both touchpoint frequency and touchpoint positivity, the valence of the customer's affective response to the touchpoint, are modeled. While relative touchpoint effects vary somewhat by category, a pooled model suggests the positivity of in-store communication is in general more influential than that of other touchpoints including brand advertising. An almost entirely neglected touchpoint, peer observation, is consistently significant. Overall, findings evidence the relative impact of retailers, social effects and third party endorsement in addition to brand advertising. Touchpoint positivity adds explanatory power to the prediction of change in consideration as compared with touchpoint frequency alone. This suggests the importance of methods that track touchpoint perceptual response as well as frequency, to complement current analytic approaches such as media mix modeling based on media spend or exposure alone.
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