Market Segmentation of Online Reviews: A Network Analysis Approach

With the popularity of online reviews, brand managers have opportunities to segment their markets according to the reviews of their products or services by customers. Nonetheless, it has been suggested that traditional market segmentation methods are ineffective at analyzing online review data due to the complex features and large amount of this type of data; specifically, traditional methods fail to take into account the networked nature of interactive relationships among reviewers and brands across online review websites. Accordingly, this study proposes a network analysis approach for the market segmentation of online reviews. Collecting samples from Yelp via web scraping, this study demonstrates how network analysis techniques can be utilized to segment online reviewers through a four-step process. The results reveal the core and peripheral market segments, as well as the bridge segment in the core. The study contributes to offering marketing researchers and managers a new network structure analysis approach for the market segmentation of online reviews.

A Cross-Cultural Study on the Effects of Envy-Evoking Ads

Ads often feature celebrities or others similar to the target viewer and thereby evoke envy. Envy occurs when people make an upward social comparison, and evoked envy can be either benign or malicious. The authors propose that people with different self-construals feel different degrees of benign and malicious envy depending on who is being envied: a celebrity or a similar other. Three studies were conducted comparing Americans to Koreans (Study 1), Americans to the Chinese (Study 2), and Koreans with different self-construals (Study 3). The results showed that people with high independence showed less benign envy toward the celebrity ad than toward the similar others ad, while people with low independence showed the opposite pattern. People with high interdependence showed less malicious envy toward the celebrity ad than toward the similar others ad, while people with low interdependence showed the opposite pattern.

Comparative Analysis of Attributions From Customer Experiences and Journeys

This study developed a Comparative Analysis of Attributions method to explore sensemaking after customer experiences and journeys. Its foundation rests on the constructs of attribution theory by which actors make sense of the causes of events. Customer experiences and journeys involve both consumers and the firm’s employees interacting at touchpoints in a value co-creation attempt; each actor then makes attributions about the exchange experience. The qualitative inquiry compared attributions across actors after value co-creation (co-destruction) in a banking services context during the financial crisis. This showed how misunderstandings of one’s own and others’ sensemaking attributions can affect value co-creation during the customer experience and journey. The analysis thus offered managerially actionable information. Marketers may then improve internal and external messaging, touchpoints, and operations for better customer journeys. Academic researchers may use this method to map the continuum of attributional biases, errors, and styles across actors, industries, and contexts.

A Meta-Analysis of How Country-Level Factors Affect Web Survey Response Rates

A major challenge in web-based cross-cultural data collection is varying response rates, which can result in low data quality and non-response bias. Country-specific factors such as the political and demographic, economic, and technological factors as well as the socio-cultural environment may have an effect on the response rates to web surveys. This study evaluates web survey response rates using meta-analytical methods based on 110 experimental studies from seven countries. Three dependent variables, so-called effect sizes, are used: the web response rate, the response rate to the comparison survey mode, and the difference between the two response rates. The meta-analysis indicates that four country-specific factors (political and demographic, economic, technological, and socio-cultural) impact the magnitude of web survey response rates. Specifically, web surveys achieve high response rates in countries with high population growth, high internet coverage, and a high survey participation propensity. On the other hand, web surveys are at a disadvantage in countries with a high population age and high cell phone coverage. This study concludes that web surveys can be a reliable alternative to other survey modes due to their consistent response rates and are expected to be used more frequently in national and international settings.

Segmenting the Bottom of the Pyramid Consumers: Theoretical Approach

The Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) market deserves further attention from researchers. The purpose of the paper is to profile the psychographic and behavioral heterogeneity within the BOP market in India employing a theoretical approach. We use constructs of the Theory of planned behavior (TPB) to identify distinct BOP segments. It segments the BOP market in the context of durable goods, non-durable goods, and services. The findings demonstrate the presence of three consumer segments, each of the durable and non-durable goods. In the context of services, the findings show the existence of four segments of BOP consumers. This study offers insights into application of behavioral theories for segmentation, which could help with behavioral change of BOP consumers to use high-quality products and services. Further, it is significant because the BOP market has witnessed a progressive decline in size as a large segment of the BOP market is being transformed into the middle class. Comprehension of the cognitive and behavioral tendencies of each consumer segment would strategically help in retaining the brand loyal BOP customers when they upgrade to the middle class.

Using examples to increase recall in self-administered questionnaires

Self-administered questionnaires often use examples or lists of examples to aid respondent recall. We report on the results of a field experiment examining how such examples in survey questions affect the episodic recall of events. Building on part-set cuing theory, the authors propose that examples increase recall when they cue low-accessibility subcategories of events, but may decrease recall when they cue high-accessibility subcategories. Further, cuing with examples rather than subcategory names may in some situations clarify questions and reduce non-useable open-ended responses. Findings from a survey of 2137 adult Medicaid recipients are generally consistent with these predictions.

Data Quality Assurance Begins Before Data Collection and Never Ends: What Marketing Researchers Absolutely Need to Remember

Data quality has become an area of increasing concern in marketing research. Methods of collecting data, types of data analyzed, and data analytics techniques have changed substantially in recent years. It is important, therefore, to examine the current state of marketing research, and particularly self-administered questionnaires. This paper provides researchers important advice and rules of thumb for crafting high quality research in light of the contemporary changes occuring in modern marketing data collection practices. This is accomplished by a proposed six-step research design process that ensures data quality, and ultimately research integrity, are established and maintained throughout the research process—from the earliest conceptualization and design phases, through data collection, and ultimately the reporting of results. This paper provides a framework, which if followed, will result in reduced headaches for researchers and more robust results for decision makers.

Online Grocery Sales after the Pandemic

In this paper, the increase in online grocery ordering in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic is examined, and a prediction is made that is opposed to the balance of opinion expressed online. In their online comments, most practitioners claim that the increased use of the Internet for ordering groceries for home delivery will be sustained and will continue to grow after the risk of disease has subsided. Given the pattern of consumer behaviour in another field, discount purchasing, it seems more likely that online grocery ordering will fall back and then continue to grow at a modest pace, as it did before the pandemic.

Enhancing Self-Administered Questionnaire Response Quality Using Code of Conduct Reminders

A key challenge for self-administered questionnaires (SaQ) is ensuring quality responses in the absence of a marketing professional providing direct guidance on issues as they arise for respondents. While numerous approaches to improving SaQ response quality have been investigated including validity checks, interactive design, and instructional manipulation checks, these are primarily targeted at situations where expected responses are of a factual nature or stated preferences. These interventions have not been evaluated in scenarios that require higher levels of engagement and judgment from respondents. While professional marketers are guided by codes of conduct, there is no equivalent code of conduct for SaQ respondents. This is particularly salient for SaQ that require higher levels of reflection and judgment, since in the absence of professional guidance, respondents rely more on their individual ethical ideologies and experience, leaving SaQ responses potentially devoid of the standards that normally set the expectations around data quality for marketing professionals. As marketing professionals are unable to provide guidance directly in a SaQ context, the approach used in this study is to offer varying levels of professional marketing guidance indirectly through specific codes of conduct reminders that are easily consumable by SaQ participants. We demonstrate that reminders and ethical ideologies moderate the relationship between the participant’s experience with SaQ and compliance with a code of conduct. Specifically, SaQ respondents produce fewer code of conduct infractions when receiving reminders than the control group, and this improves even more when the reminders coincide with the SaQ task. The paper concludes with implications for theory and practice.

The cultural influences of narrative content on consumers’ perceptions of helpfulness

The rapid development of text analytics enables marketers to obtain the information extracted from the narrative content in user-generated content (UGC). Recent studies have also demonstrated that people with different cultural backgrounds may express their opinions about their purchase in diverse manners. This study focuses on the impact of the narrative content of consumers’ perception of helpfulness. It first identifies four contextual dimensions to propose a theoretical model, demonstrating that perceptions of helpfulness may differ in respect to the consumers’ varied cultural backgrounds (e.g., individualism vs. collectivism). By using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC), the study empirically tests the hypotheses by analyzing 111,857 movie reviews collected for 167 American movies released both in the United States and in China from 2013 to 2016. The results reveal that individualist consumers perceive an online review that contains more self-description and future-focus content as helpful, whereas collectivist consumers rely more on online reviews containing social description and past-focus content.