This study involved the formulation and testing of a model of Chinese consumers' cognitive and affective responses to a vignette television commercial drama for a vacation resort area on the South China Sea. Results indicate that response to the commercial was cognitive in nature with perceived homophily, sympathy, beliefs and attitude toward the ad partially mediating the influence of perceived verisimilitude on attitude toward the brand. Unexpectedly, empathy did not play a mediating role. Possible reasons for this, including cultural factors, are discussed. The results also suggest that to effectively promote tourism services a commercial's production value and realism must be high to produce sufficient verisimilitude. In addition, the behavior and appearance of the actors chosen for the commercial should match those of the intended target audience in order to produce sufficient homophily.
BlockChain technology has grown exponentially over the last several decades. Early on, cryptocurrency presented a substitute for hard currency as a way to purchase goods and services. Recently, cryptocurrency has entered the video game world. How cryptocurrency, which has value outside of a video game, may impact the virtual reality world, is an open question. Presence, or the state of being in an environment, will be affected by the ability to escape within video games as cryptocurrencies are used. As video games often provide a place to escape the real world, bringing the real world into the game may have negative impacts. On the other hand, cryptocurrency brings with it another dimension. Video games are more and more realistic and including currency that has value in and outside of the game increases the realistic nature of the game. The way in which the inclusion of cryptocurrencies is marketed will have an important effect on the trajectory it takes. The blurred lines between reality and virtual will only continue to grow, and the effect on video games remain unclear.
Sales education research recently has turned its attention to using artificial intelligence (AI) technology, but much remains in our understanding of its use in the online and virtual sales education environment. AI can be useful for helping online students improve their sales presentations and vocal delivery skills. Examined through the lens of control value theory, this study is a pilot investigation into AI’s effectiveness. Based on a paired samples t-test, our results indicate that student use of AI technology is effective in improving self-efficacy for sales presentations while also significantly improving vocal delivery skills, including pitch, pace, volume, and pausing. Theoretical and practical implications to teaching vocal presentation skills in sales education are discussed.
Retailers are interacting with customers via an ever-increasing number of touchpoints. The addition of social media and mobile devices to the traditional physical and virtual retail platforms has created an evolving consumer practice of using several such "touchpoints" in the course of a single purchase (the "omni-channel”). The difficulty of providing high levels of customer service has increased with the necessity of managing multiple channels under the retailer’s control and coordinating formally or informally with touchpoints not directly within the retailer’s own operations. Multiple sources of potentially conflicting information (e.g., order fulfillment) can lead to miscommunication, and thus poor service experience for customers. The purpose of this paper is to describe two preliminary studies that explore how well retailers are prepared for this increasing complexity via a content analysis of retailer website language regarding customer service policies. Implications of our findings and recommendations for further research are then discussed.
This paper presents a conceptual model of the impact of social media influencer power on consumer attitudes toward a brand. The research uses naïve theories of social influence, consumer socialization theory and market signaling theory to support the contention that social media influencer power will impact consumer brand attitudes. However, the impact of the social media influencer power on consumer brand attitudes is posited to be mediated and/or moderated by the social media influencer source credibility. In turn, the social media influencer source credibility is modeled as being positively related to the social media influencer’s expertise/competence with respect to the product, the social media influencer’s goodwill toward the consumer, and the social media influencer’s trustworthiness.
