On the Determinants of Online Short Videos’ Effectiveness Relative to Parents’ Attitudes, Behavioural Intentions and Consideration of Alternatives

The purpose of this research is to examine the key content factors of short videos and their influence on parents’ attitudes, behavioural intentions and consideration of alternatives in the education sector. In particular, the current study is the first to explore elements of online short videos (informative content, user interactivity, perceived usefulness, trust, entertainment and invasiveness) as predictors of parents’ attitudes toward, consideration of and intention to choose a nursery school. Using a sample of 178 participants, a conclusive research design applying structural equation modelling was employed to assess the effect of the aforementioned short videos’ key characteristics on attitude, intention and consideration. According to the results, short videos with informative and trusted content tend to enhance parents’ attitudes, consideration and behavioural intentions regarding the provider being promoted. Attitude is also affected by entertainment, while perceived usefulness, interactive features and lack of invasiveness increase scores pertaining to inclusion of alternatives in parents’ consideration choice sets and expression of intentions to ultimately select them. Managers in childcare operators should find a delicate balance among the aforementioned elements in order to include the appropriate ones into their videos depending on the promotional goals or indented outcomes and the targeted audience. Managerial implications and suggestions for future research are thoroughly discussed.

Taking It a Step Further: When do Followers Adopt Influencers’ Own Brands?

In this study, we investigate the factors affecting consumers’ purchase intention toward influencers’ personal owned brands. By using the theoretical lens of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) we explore consumers’ purchase intentions towards influencers own brands and discuss the importance of previously held attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control. We further develop TPB by adding two further constructs, that of price and self-identity. The reported moderator role of self-identity in the relationship between price and purchase intention under the context of influencers’ personal owned brands suggests that the ‘fan’ status of followers makes them more tolerant to price increases. We discuss theoretical implications and offer suggestions for marketers and consumers alike.

Complementarity of Information Products

In “Marketing Information: A Competitive Analysis,” Sarvary, M., and P. M. Parker. 1997. “Marketing Information: A Competitive Analysis.” Marketing Science 16 (1): 24–38 (S&P) argue that in part of the parameter space that they considered, a reduction in the price of one information product can lead to an increase in demand for another information product, i.e. information products can be gross complements. This result is surprising and has potentially important marketing implications. We show that S&P obtain this complementarity result by implicitly making the following internally inconsistent assumptions: (i) after purchasing information products, consumers update their beliefs using a Bayesian updating rule that assumes they have a diffuse initial prior (i.e. their initial prior variance is ∞ before receiving any information); (ii) if consumers choose not to purchase any information product, it is assumed that their initial prior variance is 1 (implied by the utility function specification). This internal inconsistency leads to the possibility that when information products are uncorrelated and their variances are close to 1, marginal utility is increasing in the number of products purchased, and hence information products can be complements in their model. We show that if we remove this internal inconsistency, in the parameter space considered by S&P, information products cannot be complements because the marginal utility of information products will be diminishing. We also show that, in parts of the parameter space not considered by S&P, it is possible that information products are complements; this space of parameters requires consumer’s initial prior to be relatively precise and information products to be highly correlated (either positively or negatively).

The Effects of Country-Image and Animosity on Asian Consumers’ Responses to Foreign Brands

This study investigates the effects of country image and animosity on brand quality evaluation and purchasing intention among Asian consumers. Data was collected from Chinese (n = 540) and South Korean (n = 360) consumers. Two brands Sony and Dell, originating from countries-target of animosity, respectively Japan and the US, were designated as foreign brands. The model was empirically tested with structural equation modeling. The results highlight the key role of the country image-brand quality association to leverage the purchase intention, in a context of animosity. Although the country image of both US and Japan is negatively affected by Chinese and South Korean animosities, it would still impact positively the evaluation of the quality of their respective brands, which would, in turn, increase the purchase intention. In particular, the results show that Japan’s country image would have an indirect (i.e. through the brand quality path) and direct effects on the purchase intention, however, “the US country image has only an indirect effect on the purchase intention”. Herein, Chinese and South Korean consumers would not buy US brands per se unless the country’s image relates to the argument of brand quality.

Choosing Among Alternative Brands: Revisiting the Way Involvement Drives Consumer Selectivity

This study provides original theoretical and practical insights on the role of involvement in consumer decision making by demonstrating its negative effect on the relative size of the consideration set. Two experimental studies were conducted to test the relations between these constructs. The moderating effect of the nature of a product category and of the decision-making context was also examined. The results suggest that high involvement makes consumers more selective when evaluating the brands, they consider for purchase. This points towards different marketing practices in order to enhance brand attitudes or strengthen brand awareness accordingly.

Interdependences of Products in Market Baskets: Comparing the Conditional Restricted Boltzmann Machine to the Multivariate Logit Model

We analyze market baskets of individual households in two consumer durables categories (music, computer related products) by the multivariate logit (MVL) model, its finite mixture extension (FM-MVL) and the conditional restricted Boltzmann machine (CRBM). The CRBM attains a vastly better out-of-sample performance than MVL and FM-MVL models. Based on simulation-based likelihood ratio tests we prefer the CRBM to the FM-MVL model. To interpret hidden variables of conditional Boltzmann machines we look at their average probability differences between purchase and non-purchases of any sub-category across all baskets. To measure interdependences we compute cross effects between sub-categories for the best performing FM-MVL model and CRBM. In both product categories the CRBM indicates more or higher positive cross effects than the FM-MVL model. Finally, we suggest appropriate future research based on larger and more detailed data sets.

The Examination of Cultural Values and Social Media Usages in China

Both social media usage statistics and recent studies outlined the importance for marketers to tap into China’s massive market with rapid growth rate. However, there is limited research focusing on investigating and explaining how the underlying values contribute to the social media usage behavior change. This research is aimed to fill the gap by examining the effect of cultural values on social media usage (e.g., shopping, interaction and information sharing) in China. It also explores the mediating effect of materialism on the relationship between cultural values and social media usage, along the male and female gender categories. While the size and scale of China’s social media market is astonishing, its market composition varies considerably from the rest of the world due to the Chinese government’s Internet censorship. As the study of major Chinese social media sites remains largely unexplored in the literature, this study studied the usage on different social media platforms in China. The survey were conducted online in China in 2018, and a total of 600 usable samples (n = 300 for males; n = 300 for females) were obtained. A principal components factor analysis with quartimax rotation was conducted in this study for a scale reduction purpose. Five cultural dimensions, namely power distance, collectivism/individualism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity/femininity, and long-term/short-term orientation, were obtained. Then, regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses on main and mediating effects for both male and female social media users. The hypotheses were partially supported. The following summarizes major findings: 1) a significant and substantial effect of materialism on social media usages, as well a significant and moderate effect of cultural values on materialism were observed in this study; 2) the results showed that higher levels of collectivism predict higher levels of social media usage for the purpose of shopping, interaction and sharing information; 3) this study found, only for female users, a positive effect of long-term orientation on social media usage for the purpose of shopping, interaction and sharing information; 4) this study only identified one negative relationship, which is the relationship between power distance and using social media for the purpose of interaction for male users; 5) This study found users in China mainly use social media for information sharing and shopping, but not interaction purpose. Meipai (The Flickr of China), Zhihub(The Quora of China), and Tudou Youku (Youtube of China) were the top three social media sites used to share information such as photos, videos, and knowledges. On the other hand, Baidu Tieba (A Search Engine Forum), Tencent QQ (Popular Instant Messaging App) and Sina Weibo (Twitter of China) were the top 3 platforms people used to research and find product information or shop directly.

Sales – Response Model in Marketing Revisited in the Times of Uncertainty and Global Turmoil

The marketing performance models, regardless of their nature and applications, should ultimately lead to creation of cash flows efficiently. This common objective emphasizes on a basic proposition: the output (dependent) variable must be intrinsically correlated to the financial behavior of the firm at the micro level. The four criteria for marketing performance and evaluation are Financial relevance, Actionable, Stable behavior, and Reliable long-term guidance respectively. By using those four criteria as the cornerstone, the Core Sales – Response Model was formulated under the Process perspective (the marketing procedure which helps to generate cash flows along with other antecedents of financial performance). This research paper is aimed at restructuring the fundamental Sales – Response model with the dependent variable Sales and three independent variables, namely, Marketing Support, Firm – controlled factors, and Uncontrolled factors in view of uncertainties related to global turmoil and widespread economic recession into a three – dimensional model by dropping ‘Marketing Support’ to fit the foundation of mathematical chaos theory and try to test its impact in the real world scenario by two ways: first, whether it can accurately define the current nature of functioning of a business firm under chaotic business environment, and second, given the condition of chaos; if the firm fails to prove its stability, what actions should be taken to stabilize its position in the feasible space. In order to serve the purposes, the manufacturing giant Apple, Inc. ® has been considered as the sample firm for the time – series study of 10 years (2009–2018).

Persuasive Advertising in a Vertically Differentiated Competitive Marketplace

Despite the widely acknowledged existence in practice, the theoretical literature on persuasive advertising is generally vague about exactly how such advertising could affect consumer preferences, except for the general assumption that persuasive advertising affects consumer willingness to pay or simply “shifts demand.” This paper proposes a theoretical framework for characterizing different ways that persuasive advertising may affect consumer utility in a vertically differentiated marketplace. Firstly, persuasive advertising could simply raise consumers’ reservation price for the product category. Secondly, persuasive advertising could enhance consumers’ perception about the product quality offered by the advertising firm. Thirdly, persuasive advertising could increase consumers’ willingness to pay for quality increment. Preliminary evidences from lab studies are presented to support the existences of the proposed effects. Using a game-theoretic approach, we study two firms’ decision in the adoption of persuasive advertising of a particular effect and the associated price competition. Findings from the theoretical model analyses indicate that factors influencing a firm’s decision in persuasive advertising include consumer heterogeneity, degree of product differentiation, the effectiveness and the cost of such advertising. In a vertically differentiated competitive marketplace, persuasive adverting is a more desirable strategic tool for firms of higher-quality products to further establish a competitive advantage.