Price advantage distinguishes a sharing economy. Two-sided markets underlie sharing economies and contribute to price advantage. Airbnb employs a platform based on 2-sided markets which are lower in price than traditional hotels. Next, we investigate internet technology as a major disruptive innovation. We demonstrate the impacts of internet marketing as an outgrowth of internet technology. The continued growth of the sharing economy is examined within the framework of internet marketing evolution. We then study the growth of the sharing economy due to use of the Internet. The growing importance of access to consumption supersedes possession through ownership. The Airbnb case is our prime case study and it will be used to illustrate that most consumers benefit from 2-sided markets. Five major hypotheses are generated on the benefits of 2-sided markets, and implications for entrepreneurship are discussed.
In marketing, sponsorship has been considered as an essential marketing strategy and communication tool. Despite the continued growth of sponsorship research relative to the effectiveness of sponsorship in marketing, a number of sponsorship factors, its effects, and the individual information-processing mechanics remain unexplored. The current research extends on previous conceptual work and incorporates a number of controllable and uncontrollable sponsorship factors such as antecedent factors, mediating factors, market, and personality factors. This paper reviews the literature on sponsorship and presents a commentary to inform future research and development of a comprehensive conceptual model for sponsorship effects.
Customer engagement has been increasingly recognised as a measure of corporate performance. Several practitioners and researchers have proposed various customer engagement concepts. The concept of engagement has been discussed earlier in academic fields such as psychology and education before the notion of customer engagement became popular. However, researchers across disciplines have not reached a consensus on the implications, the factors that constitute engagement and the measures of engagement. Therefore, inconsistencies in the interpretations of engagement have complicated the use of the customer engagement concept to understand complex customer behaviours and to measure customer–company relationships. In this context, the present study summarises the differences in the interpretation of engagement concepts across disciplines, and identifies the sources of difficulty in interpreting engagement. The study develops a framework in terms of definitions, measurement methods and scales, research methods, and constructive concepts to better understand the concept of customer engagement.
The purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic literature review of 26 papers in which an eye tracker has been used to analyse how e-commerce websites can impact customers' behaviour. Most journal articles included in the literature on consumer neuroscience only provide a summary of the actual functions of neuroscience techniques. There are no reviews of studies that focus on the use of an eye tracker on e-commerce websites in either the consumer neuroscience or marketing research literature. The findings show that websites affect customers differently according to variables such as age, gender, nationality, etc., so there is a need to make changes in how the website is designed, depending on the types of users and audiences of the websites. This review article discusses limitations and suggestions for future research as well as detailing the theoretical and practical implications for neuromarketing.
This is a conceptual paper which explores recent trends in sports analytics for event management and the influence thereof on viewership, sponsorship and athletic performance. The content analysis here entails multiple case studies on sporting events; recommended practices for organising sporting events are highlighted using a site-ordered effects matrix. Analysis yields unprecedented outcomes related to sporting event ticket prices (relevant especially to fans and organisers), willingness of athletes to participate in mega events, technologies to be used to effectively reach out to passionate fans, and innovative practices to build a sound infrastructure involving sponsors, athletes and authorities.
The aim of this paper is to explain anthropomorphic marketing by illustrating the factors associated with the sociality motivation , effectance motivation, and elicited agent knowledge model (SEEK). This model was designed to explain anthropomorphic tendencies of a brand, as we do not know much about why people view non-human entities as human-like. In addition, this paper also focuses on how anthropomorphic representation strategies are used by marketers in the present scenario to build strong consumer-brand relationships and how these anthropomorphic marketing strategies affect the consumer-brand evaluation process. This paper examines the anthropomorphism of the brand by examining in depth the factors related to the SEEK model and explaining the anthropomorphic patterns of the market. It shows how consumers or advertisers view, imagine, interpret and exploit a non-human entity. Consumers can evaluate an anthropomorphic marketing strategy either positively or negatively. Therefore, marketers should use this tendency to anthropomorphise any brand or a product carefully. This literature review has important implications and it provides direction for researchers, as well as advanced investigation of brand anthropomorphism.
In the 21st century, the use of Internet and web applications have become a major component of advertising. The advantage of online advertising is that advertisers can monitor the online behaviour of consumers and show personalised advertisements to targeted consumers. There has been a phenomenal rise in the number of conscious consumers who believe that a company's values should match their own. Some organisations work to achieve a higher purpose. There arises a need for such conscious consumers to be identified, based on their characteristic features, as a separate segment. The values of this particular segment should match with those of a purpose-driven company. The best way to do this is by showing personalised online advertisements to these target consumers so that they are aware of the higher purpose that the company wants to achieve. Thus, this research paper attempts to present a conceptual framework to identify the segment of conscious consumers and inform them about the higher purpose which a conscious business wants to achieve through online behavioural advertisements, and instil in their minds an implied social label.
Marketing managers and practitioners believe that effective emotional labour strategy and big data techniques are essential elements for firms to optimise customer service encounters. However, no common understanding of emotional labour in a big data context exists, and knowledge about how big data techniques affect emotional labour's service delivery is limited. In this study, I use emotional regulation and role/script theories to propose ways in which surface acting decreases and deep acting increases customers' perceived customer orientation (PCO), resulting in enhanced word of mouth (WOM). Because big data analytics tools provide information to shield employees from emotional dissonance and depletion, this study further proposes that big data analytics will augment the aforementioned benefits. However, the influence of big data analytics may depend on a firm's data verification ability. Lastly this study suggests that firms strengthen their data verification capability to achieve the big data bonus.
The objective of this paper is to present a review and classification of academic work done on consumer behaviour in the green marketing domain over a 25-year period. Suitable keywords were used for identifying articles in top rated journals between the years 1994 and 2018. Two hundred and sixty-seven articles cleared the filtering criteria. These articles were analysed for their year of publication, publication outlet, authorship, article impact, geographical distribution of sample, frequently used theories, keywords, and products used for study. Studies were also classified on their primary themes and the underlying theories therein were presented. This research provides various indicators to researchers intending to work in the area of exploring consumer behaviour for green offerings.
Online product reviews (reviews) play an important role in the consumer's purchase decision, which affects sales and assists business firms in improving quality (by receiving feedback). The number of reviews available, even for a product that has mediocre popularity, can reach a few hundred or a thousand. In order to get the most informative review to the customers first, from the plethora of reviews available online, online retailers came up with the 'helpfulness voting' feature. This became a major hit and now almost all websites, as well as academics, search for the most helpful review, according to the number of consumer votes that a review has received. Previous research has acknowledged the importance of 'review helpfulness'. Review helpfulness has been conceptualised and evaluated by researchers, as well as websites, according to their requirements. In this study, we have tried to inspect the evaluation of the review helpfulness construct in the extant literature and have proposed a conceptual framework of a formative index as the measurement instrument of review helpfulness.
This research paper aims to explore and identify the impact of corporate identity on brand citizenship behaviour within retail organisations. The study analyses the influence of corporate identity of an organisation, and more particularly on the employees' desire to engage in brand supporting behaviours. Relationships were identified between corporate identity, internal communication and composites of employee perception of corporate identity - resulting as determining influences on employee behaviour intentions. These relationships are presented as a conceptual model that depicts the influence of corporate identity on employee brand citizenship behaviours. The study makes contributions to the employee branding, services marketing, and organisational citizenship literature, but its main contribution is to extend the corporate identity literature into a new area of employee behaviour through internal communication.
By introducing the statistical network method of Exponential Random Graph Modelling (ERGM) we adhere to the call of Lucarelli and Brorström (2013) in The Marketing Review to think of new ways to analyse and make inferences about participatory processes of place branding. The ERGM is more suited for studying the interactive dynamics in participatory processes of place branding than traditional methods like case study research or regression analysis. ERGM is a relatively new methodology. Only a few scholars in the neurosciences, international relations, and political sciences have worked with the inferential social network method. We show that the new ERGM methodology helps to gain more insights into the social processes and tie-formation mechanisms which generate emergent interaction patterns in participatory processes of place branding. Hence, this article brings a novel methodology to the area of place branding.
The scarcity promotions of Big Billion Day in India, Boxing Day sales in the UK and Black Friday sales in the US, point to negative sentiments, frightening moments, violence, and even incidents of shooting leading to death. These promotions delight the few who can take advantage but trigger a negative experiential journey for the majority. In the past, negative emotions were neglected as an object of research. Prior literature on the dark side of scarcity promotions affirmed the presence of aggression in general. This research advances a step further by: (1) highlighting the presence of instrumental aggression rather than aggression in general, during promotions; (2) providing a conceptual framework for a negative experiential journey; and (3) defining aggression in a consumption context during scarcity of resources which are not necessary for survival (e. g., luxury goods) as opposed to survival resources (e.g., food or water). The study conceptualises the customer's negative experiential journey, uncovers the underlying causal mechanisms and customer response strategies, and provides recommendations for firms to inhibit aggression. For practitioners, we recommend displaying equal numbers of promotional and explanatory leaflets.
Scepticism towards marketing activities is a common consumer cognition. Despite its widespread prevalence, no attempt has been made in the past to review and synthesise the extant literature on scepticism. This study presents a comprehensive review and analysis of consumer scepticism literature from various domains of marketing. The paper critically examines various definitions, operationalisations, typologies, and the theoretical foundation of consumer scepticism, and differentiates scepticism from related constructs of (dis)trust, dissonance, and ambivalence. It presents a synthesis of literature on the antecedents (individual, product, and claim-related factors) and consequences (for promotions, products, retailers, and firms) of consumer scepticism. A framework is proposed based on the synthesis. The framework can help researchers studying scepticism in a particular domain (like health-related claims) identify relevant variables from other domains (like environmental claims). Results of the review process reveal a lack of clarity on the dimensionality and the measurement of scepticism; a paucity of research on drivers and consequences of consumer scepticism; and the need for further investigation of the concept of situational scepticism.
Besides a few extra mentions in case studies and conceptual articles, the concept of place brand architecture has received limited attention in the place branding literature. Moreover, the literature lacks a convincing theoretical foundation of the concept of place brand architecture. This lack of scholarly attention for the concept of place brand architecture is striking, because it means that we ('as scholars') have little knowledge about the different manifestations of place brand architectures. From a critical stance, it can even be argued that scholars have failed to scrutinise the scholarly question of under what circumstances a specific set-up of place brand architecture is most suited for a specific type of multistakeholder place branding campaign. To this end, the goal of this article is to contribute to the place branding literature by theorising on what the concept of place brand architecture entails, what the different dimensions of a place brand architecture are, and what ideal types of place brand architectures can be distilled from the literature. These ideal types, which, as the article shows, can also be observed in practice, may help future research to look with specific theoretical lenses at set-ups of place brand architectures.
Limited theoretical support on establishing a brand as a source of sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) has impaired the idea of strengthening brands for SCA. Acknowledging brands as assets and exploring brand makeover strategies could be helpful for an organisation to create and sustain a competitive advantage. This paper aims at proposing and cementing this view about brands and explores various strategies for brands to enjoy competitive advantage. An extensive literature review has been carried out to build associations between a brand and resulting SCA, and a theoretical classification that can encapsulate all possible brand makeover strategies has been proposed by analysing various facets of brands, known as brand elements. Firms must ensure that brands undergo a makeover regularly in order to sustain this competitive advantage. Brand makeover strategies will help marketing managers to secure and exploit brands as an asset in the long term and in a profitable way.
Brand love is becoming central to modern marketing theory and practice. In academia, researchers are showing increasing interest in investigating its causes and consequences. In practice, a growing number of consultancies and advertising agencies are currently proposing love scores, love indices, and love rankings for brands. An exacting examination of the extant literature reveals, however, that: (1) brand love's conceptual proprieties have always been entirely elusive; (2) its measurement is still substandard; (3) extant empirical studies are full of methodological flaws and far-fetched findings; and that (4) researchers have ignored one important issue while investigating brand love, that is, culture. This paper tries to draw attention on the aforesaid four deficits with the intent of instigating discussions, debates and, in due course, a deeper understanding of this concept.
This paper aims to suggest measures necessary for the survival of Zimbabwean banks and other related institutions globally. The author shares his insights pertaining to the ways in which banks can adapt in a bid to promote growth and sustainability. The banks in Zimbabwe have been on a quest for new innovative ways of improving their customer service experience. In the paper, matters relating to approaches useful for added customer value, leveraging environmental scanning, entrepreneurial strategy, envisaged business model, internal creative climate, key stakeholders role in driving customer value, collaboration, engagement, learning and change, refined team recruitment, development of agile marketing function leadership, adoption of IT function and networking are addressed, in line with Zimbabwean banks. The major contributions of the paper include exposing potential markets by suggesting the adoption of a 'Blue Ocean Strategy' through innovation and marketing functions, leveraging on key external stakeholders for survival, and inclination towards profitable collaborations or alliances, important for policy, practice, theory, and subsequent marketing and financial services research.
Practitioners and marketers have leveraged brand equity in order to charge a premium price for their products, relative to competition, in the marketplace, yet, we do not find a systematic literature review that captures the importance of this metric as an outcome of brand equity. The purpose of this review is to fill this gap. This review (a) identifies and summarises the relevant literature, providing an understanding of brand equity; (b) highlights the academic literature which compares various brand equity measures and identifies price premium as a key metric; and (c) highlights empirical research work that identifies and validates price premium as a key metric in the B2C marketplace. This review suggests future research directions, exploring the relevance of a price premium metric as a service brand equity measure.
