Post-pandemic marketing: when the peripheral becomes the core

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to articulate the impact of COVID-19 on marketing. It will shift from “physical first” to “digital first,” and from “selling to serving” the customers. This will impact all 4 Ps of marketing, as well as branding and innovation.Design/methodology/approachIt is a conceptual paper based on literature review. The underlying construct used is transaction cost economics (TCE).FindingsUsing TCE, the paper finds that both consumers and marketers are very willing to shift to e-commerce and digital platforms which are both convenient, as well as cost-effective. Also, customer support organization will become a strategic advantage in interactive marketing.Originality/valueThis is an original paper written specifically for the special issue on the post-pandemic shock.

How social media's cause-related marketing activity enhances consumer citizenship behavior: the mediating role of community identification

PurposeLimited research has explored why and how cause-related marketing on social media influences consumers' responses. Drawing upon balance theory and consistency theory, this study aims to identify the mechanism of cause-related marketing on social media.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from a sample of 360 users of cause-related marketing campaigns on social media and analyzed using structural equation modeling in Mplus 8.0.FindingsThe three types of congruence – self-image congruence, brand-image congruence and value congruence – can serve as sub-dimensions of perceived fit between a consumer, brand and cause of a cause-related marketing campaign on social media. Importantly, these perceived fit sub-dimensions positively influence community identification and, therefore, influence consumer citizenship behaviors.Practical implicationsThe findings provide theoretical and practical contributions for a brand to undertake cause-related marketing on social media.Originality/valueThis study clarifies the myth of the perceived fit of cause-related marketing on social media and examines the perceived fit sub-dimensions’ mechanism of consumers' responses through community identification.

I am feeling so good! Motivations for interacting in online brand communities

PurposeThis paper focuses on customer engagement in online brand communities (OBCs). Drawing upon self-determination theory (SDT), the research proposes a conceptual model portraying the effect of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations on hedonic and utilitarian rewards, which the authors posit will affect subjective well-being (SWB) and brand advocacy.Design/methodology/approachData collected through a questionnaire completed by 367 members of OBC were employed to test the structural theory using partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).FindingsThe empirical results reveal that intrinsic motivations significantly and positively affect hedonic and utilitarian rewards, but the same does not apply to extrinsic motivations. The results also confirm that hedonic and utilitarian rewards are significantly related to brand advocacy and SWB, although with different strengths.Originality/valueThis study provides new insights to the emerging research on customer engagement in OBC, including its motivations and rewards for contributing to these communities, from an SDT perspective. In addition, this paper offers a novel approach, by introducing brand advocacy and SWB as consequences of customer engagement in OBCs.

Goal specificity or ambiguity? Effects of self-quantification on persistence intentions

PurposeThe current study implies self-quantification to consumer behavior and investigates how self-quantification influences consumers' persistence intentions, then indicates the underlying mechanism and examines the role of sharing in social media context.Design/methodology/approachThe hypotheses are tested by three experimental studies. In study 1, the authors test the main effect of self-quantification on persistence intentions and demonstrate goal specificity as the mediator. In study 2 and 3, the authors explore sharing and sharing audience as the moderators.FindingsThe current research demonstrates that quantifying personal performance increases consumers' persistence intentions because self-quantification makes the focal goal more specific. However, sharing self-quantification performance with others has a negative effect on the relationship between self-quantification and persistence intentions. Building on goal conflict theory, sharing diverts consumers' focus away from the goal itself and toward others' evaluation and judgment, which makes the focal goal more ambiguous. Moreover, the negative effect depends on who is the sharing audience. When consumers share with close others who hold a similar goal with them, the negative effect of sharing is dramatically reversed.Practical implicationsThe present research offers guidelines to managers about how to design self-tracking system to increase user's engagement and how to establish social community on social media platform to motivate users' goal pursuit.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the research of self-quantification from consumer behavior perspective. It also enriches interactive marketing literature by broadening self-quantification relevant research from social interaction dimension.

Augmented reality interactive technology and interfaces: a construal-level theory perspective

PurposeIn modern e-commerce and omnichannel management, consumers can utilize visual information delivered by augmented reality interactive technology (ARIT) to relate to products and view them worn on themselves. Accordingly, ARIT is increasingly common in online retail environments because this dynamicproduct imagery decreases the gap between online and offline shopping. On the basis of construal-level theory (CLT), this study not only examines the system characteristics that impact the perceived ease of use and usefulness of ARIT but also explores how these system characteristics can successfully affect online consumers to adopt ARIT in retail settings.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, ARIT is applied mainly in an online clothes fitting context. By conducting a task-based laboratory study, 344 valid samples were collected. Structure equation modeling (SEM) was employed for further analysis.FindingsNavigation structure, graphic style and information content were identified as the three system characteristics that affect perceived ease of use and usefulness of ARIT. Of the three characteristics, information content has the greatest impact on perceived ease of use and usefulness of ARIT. The study also found that navigation structure, graphic style and information content all shape ARIT system characteristics, and this explains and predicts the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use effect better than any original single system characteristic.Originality/valueInteractive marketing research indicates that the influence of immediately visualizing consumer–product matching effects creates excitement, arouses emotions and triggers curiosity to explore additional product purchase experiences. This study contributes to the present body of knowledge of the concept of ARIT systems. This is a pioneer research that uses CLT to act as a crucial psychological mechanism that dominates online fitting and apparel appraisal for consumers using ARIT. This study serves as a reference for designing and employing multisensory ARIT applications in interactive marketing to drive online sales.

How consumer opinions are affected by marketers: an empirical examination by deep learning approach

PurposeThe natural language processing (NLP) technique enables machines to understand human language. This paper seeks to harness its power to recognise the interaction between marketers and consumers. Hence, this study aims to enhance the conceptual and future development of deep learning in interactive marketing.Design/methodology/approachThis study measures cognitive responses by using actual user postings. Following a typical NLP analysis pipeline with tailored neural network (NN) models, it presents a stylised quantitative method to manifest the underlying relation.FindingsBased on consumer-generated content (CGC) and marketer-generated content (MGC) in the tourism industry, the results reveal that marketers and consumers interact in a subtle way. This study explores beyond simple positive and negative framing, and reveals that they do not resemble each other, not even in abstract form: CGC may complement MGC, but they are incongruent. It validates and supplements preceding findings in the framing effect literature and underpins some marketing wisdom in practice.Research limitations/implicationsThis research inherits a fundamental limitation of NN model that result interpretability is low. Also, the study may capture the partial phenomenon exhibited by active reviewers; lurker-consumers may behave differently.Originality/valueThis research is among the first to explore the interactive aspect of the framing effect with state-of-the-art deep learning language model. It reveals research opportunities by using NLP-extracted latent features to assess textual opinions. It also demonstrates the accessibility of deep learning tools. Practitioners could use the described blueprint to foster their marketing initiatives.

How can autonomy improve consumer experience when interacting with smart products?

PurposeThis paper analyzes the direct and indirect effects of the autonomy of smart home speakers on consumer experience, weighing its benefits and costs in the following areas: usefulness, interactivity, coolness, service failure severity and intrusiveness. Experience value is examined as an antecedent of repurchase intention.Design/methodology/approachStructural equation modeling is applied to data collected from 607 users of smart home speakers. Mediating effects are examined between autonomy and experience value.FindingsAutonomy has no direct effect on experience value, since the positive effect is fully mediated by interactivity, intrusiveness, perceived usefulness and coolness. Failure severity has no mediating effect and has no influence on experience value. Usefulness, coolness and interactivity show positive mediating effects between autonomy and experience value, while intrusiveness has a negative mediating effect. The better the consumer's experience response, the greater the repurchase intention.Practical implicationsCompanies should highlight the benefits (interactivity, usefulness and coolness) and attempt to reduce the costs (intrusiveness) associated with smart device autonomy. Firms can use these aspects to increase the rate of smart-device adoption.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the interactive research literature by empirically examining the mediating effect of interactivity and coolness. Additionally, this research offers evidence of the full mediation effect of usefulness, interactivity, coolness and intrusiveness. Finally, this research shows that failure severity is not always important and that it can be context specific.

Conversions on the rise – modernizing e-mail marketing practices by utilizing volunteered data

PurposeThe purpose of the study is to examine how utilizing volunteered data influences the response and unsubscribe rates of e-mail marketing to consumers.Design/methodology/approachIn three longitudinal field experiments conducted among 1,864 applicants of a higher education institution, the study compares customized marketing e-mails based on volunteered consumer data to e-mails that are personalized based on observed consumer data and to control e-mails that are not tailored by the marketer at all.FindingsThe results indicate that marketers should make consumers active participants in the communication process, as response rates are higher in those e-mails where volunteered data are utilized. However, the unsubscribe rate is the highest in customized e-mails.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors demonstrate that e-mails displaying empowering aspects influence consumers' behaviors and lead to outcomes that mostly outperform non-empowered e-mails.Practical implicationsCompared to other forms of interactive marketing, e-mail has lagged behind in both popularity and customer-friendly implementation. However, it has the potential to succeed if marketers pay more attention to consumer empowerment. As over 306 billion e-mails are sent worldwide daily and 75% of marketers use e-mail when contacting customers, the increase in response rates can have a significant influence on their returns.Originality/valueUnlike prior research the focus was on the process of tailoring, this perspective supports customer advocacy and emphasizes consumers' important role in creating engaging, empowering e-mail marketing communication.

Let's play with emojis! How to make emojis more effective in social media advertising using promocodes and temporal orientation

PurposeThe authors aim to examine how the construal level, either as an individual temporal orientation or temporal distance of promotion, moderates the effects of emojis' emotional intensity on consumers' purchase intentions in social media advertising.Design/methodology/approachTwo experiments are used to test four hypotheses.FindingsThe results of two experimental studies show that present-oriented participants reveal greater purchase intentions when low (vs high) emotionally intense emojis are embedded in a social media ad; but future-oriented consumers showed no difference when viewing ads with the two different emojis. In Study 2, participants indicate greater purchase intentions when a social media ad includes a distant-future promocode and high (vs low) emotionally intense emojis and an ad with a near-future promocode and low (vs high) emotionally intense emojis.Originality/valueThe current study advances our understanding how emojis with different emotional intensities can be effectively used in social media ads. This study also provides theoretical implications to construal level theory (CLT) by examining how emojis interact with construal level, either as a chronic tendency or simulated by psychological distance, can influence consumer response.

The role of brand interactivity and involvement in driving social media consumer brand engagement and brand loyalty: the mediating effect of brand trust

PurposeThis study explores central questions related to the connections between brand interactivity and involvement on brand-related outcomes (brand trust and loyalty) through understanding the role played by customer brand engagement (CBE) through social media platforms.Design/methodology/approachUsing an online survey, the data for this study were collected from 353 participants who follow Royal Jordanian Airlines on their Facebook page. A cross-sectional research approach was implemented using a partial least squares path modeling approach.FindingsThe study finds that perceived brand interactivity and involvement are positively associated with social media CBE. The authors also find that social media CBE is positively related to brand trust and that brand trust is positively associated with brand loyalty. Consequently, the authors observe that social media CBE is positively related to brand loyalty.Originality/valueThis study investigates the impact of perceived brand interactivity and involvement on social media CBE while accounting for the mediating role of brand trust through which social media CBE influences brand loyalty of airline brands in the Jordanian context. Finally, the findings have noteworthy theoretical and managerial implications.