European Journal of Marketing最新文献

Purpose

Social impact research remains in its infancy. The purpose of the paper is to build on Keeling and Marshall’s (2022) “Call for impact” paper and develop a comprehensive social impact pathway (SIP) framework. The aim is to encourage marketing researchers, non-profits and corporations to pursue impactful work that is valued, planned, monitored and evaluated.

Design/methodology/approach

The conceptual paper explores the complexities of estimating social impact drawing from a range of illustrative cases.

Findings

The paper identifies a lack of clarity in the understanding and application of impact and presents a pathway aimed at increasing focus on social impact across future work to deliver the net-positive changes that are needed to reverse biodiversity decline, climate change and social and health inequalities that continue to be persist and be experienced by so many planet wide.

Research limitations/implications

This paper contributes a pathway forward to encourage and support increased utilisation of the framework in future marketing research.

Practical implications

Mapping and measuring SIPs are concerted efforts directing understanding towards identifying the activities that are contributing to the delivery of outputs that can achieve intended outcomes. The measurement of impact directs investment towards activities that ensure net-positive gains are achieved.

Social implications

Ever growing social inequities, health disparities, loss of biodiversity and environmental degradation occur when practices are left unchecked. A focus on impact avoids greenwashing practices, ensuring that an understanding of what has changed because of the work is transparently reported.

Originality/value

This paper aims to encourage marketing researchers to engage in social change projects, rather than solely disseminating academic findings. Emphasising the importance of an outside-in approach, this paper highlights the necessity of showcasing accumulated outcomes to demonstrate impact.

Purpose

Product color names related to a consumption setting are commonly used in advertising to persuade. This study aims to use consumption imagery fluency as an underlying mechanism for assessing how such a naming tactic impacts product evaluation.

Design/methodology/approach

Three between-subjects experiments examine how product evaluation, in response to the use of color names containing consumption situation information, varies as a function of their accessibility (Study 1), and also test the role of a naming explanation (Study 2). How readily a consumer takes in consumption imagery is evaluated as a mediator. The studies further check if color attribute serves as a moderator of such color naming effect and that the naming factor contributes to consumption imagery fluency directly or indirectly alters such through their impact on comprehension fluency (Study 3).

Findings

Marketing products with color names related to the consumption setting is more effective than using generic names. Consumption imagery fluency mediates the results. This positive outcome is reduced when color names are less accessible. Fortunately, including an explanation to facilitate reasoning for product color names is helpful to reverse this disadvantage. The same patterns are not evident for highly accessible names. In addition, the effectiveness of consumption situation-related color names is restricted to the circumstance of color attribute as secondary, as opposed to primary. Furthermore, naming factors influence the ease of consumption of imagery whether or not facilitated by comprehension fluency.

Research limitations/implications

This research provides evidence of consumers’ responses to product color naming that involves consumption situations and identifies consumption imagery fluency as a potential means for mediating the studied effect.

Practical implications

Naming a product color in consumption situation-related terms triggers consumption imagery, driving evaluation when color is the secondary attribute of a product.

Originality/value

This research contributes to understanding the influence of naming a product’s color in promotional communication and correlates to productive tactics for advertising messages.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to (1) characterize representational and nonrepresentational images; (2) review the literature on representational and nonrepresentational images; (3) introduce the theory of consumption values (TCV) framework vis-à-vis representational and nonrepresentational images; and (4) generate propositions and questions for future research based on that intersection.

Design/methodology/approach

Conceptual/literature review with propositions and future research directions.

Findings

The authors offer nine propositions and several associated example research questions to explore and document the important ways in which representational and nonrepresentational images can affect the five dimensions of value as outlined in the TCV.

Research limitations/implications

It is the hope that this work serves as a theoretical starting point – surely, there are other theories and frameworks beyond the TCV that may share ties with types of images, which scholars should be encouraged to explore, but if the authors had attempted to document every possible theory, the result would be a limitless document. As such, the authors have honed the efforts on a broad-reaching framework, the TCV, in the attempt to balance theoretical insights with parsimony. Through exploration of these and other avenues, the authors hope that scholars and practitioners alike will benefit from elucidation of theories and effects around representational and nonrepresentational images.

Practical implications

Several practical implications flow from the dimensions and propositions within this work.

Originality/value

Representational and nonrepresentational images have featured prominently throughout visual content and communications for centuries, yet the current body of literature remains scant and underdeveloped in its relationship to marketing. The present work addresses this gap by using the TCV as an overarching framework to generate propositions and future research questions.

Purpose

Trade-offs that involve secular values of money and sacred human values are often seen as taboo. This paper aims to examine how consumers avoid making taboo trade-offs with anthropomorphized products, by choosing options that ensure the well-being of the humanized products, even at a financial cost to themselves.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted five experiments, across different marketplace contexts (i.e. repairing, buying and selling), to test the broad generalizability of the extent to which consumers are willing to incur a financial cost due to concern for the well-being of anthropomorphized products.

Findings

The results reveal that consumers are willing to accept financially inferior options to protect the humanness endowed upon anthropomorphized products. The effect is mediated by consumers’ concern for the treatment of the anthropomorphized product. The effect is moderated by consumers’ trait empathy level, such that those low in empathy are willing to sacrifice human value for the sake of greater financial gain.

Research limitations/implications

Future research could examine, in the context of anthropomorphized products, if there are types of human values that are less inviolable, leading consumers to be more willing to trade them off for monetary gains.

Practical implications

The findings have direct implications for second-hand markets. For potential buyers of anthropomorphized products, they should signal concern for the product; for sellers, anthropomorphizing their products can reduce haggling behavior. From a sustainability perspective, consumers may be more motivated to repair or recycle their products if it is framed as “infusing new life” into their products.

Originality/value

This work highlights a novel effect of anthropomorphism: when marketplace decisions are involved, anthropomorphizing a product can introduce a tension between secular monetary values and sacred human values. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is the first to show that consumers are willing to incur a monetary loss to protect the humanness of anthropomorphized product, driven by their concern for the proper treatment of such humanized products.

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the impact of green marketing strategy (GMS) and firms’ decision to invest in or divest from green marketing activities during a crisis on business performance.

Design/methodology/approach

The study collected survey data from 245 Greek firms during the 2015 Eurozone crisis to investigate the impact of GMS and green marketing investments on firm resilience during crisis. Time-lagged, objective performance data for a subset of these firms helped examine the impact of GMS on postcrisis financial performance.

Findings

Pursuing a GMS builds resilience, especially for companies that decided not to reduce resources allocated to green marketing activities during a recession. Beyond resilience, firms investing in GMS during the crisis experienced improved financial performance in the long run. Finally, this research proposes a typology of GMS responses during a crisis.

Research limitations/implications

This study does not specify which types of green marketing activities lead to more investment or divestment during a crisis.

Practical implications

The study offers insights for allocating resources to green marketing during recessions. Supporting GMSs during unpredictable times is important to successfully navigate performance both during and after a crisis. Six crisis response profiles are offered: green-nonbelievers, dis-investors, reluctants and cautious-, opportunistic- and strategic-green investors.

Social implications

The study proposes a balanced approach to environmental sustainability, marketing strategy and firm performance during a crisis.

Originality/value

The study argues that GMSs enable firms to survive a crisis and recover from financial shocks.

Purpose

In response to the growing significance of diversity advertising, this study aims to investigate its impact on audience connectedness. This is an emerging metric crucial for gauging diversity advertising success. The study explores two paths via self-identification and belief congruence to understand how diversity advertisements resonate with individuals.

Design/methodology/approach

A quantitative study using partial least squares with survey data from 505 respondents was conducted.

Findings

Self-identification and belief congruence mediate the relationship between perceived diversity and audience connectedness. Belief congruence exhibits a stronger influence. Further, brand engagement reduces the relationship between belief congruence and connectedness. However, it strengthens the relationship between self-identity and connectedness.

Research limitations/implications

Future research should address why belief congruence holds more significance than self-identification. Additionally, research must explore the societal effects of diversity advertising, including strategies to engage those who feel disconnected.

Practical implications

The study underscores the positive social effects of diversity advertising for both marginalized and nonmarginalized audiences. It urges marketers to pursue audience connectedness. Strategies for achieving this include reflecting their target audience’s beliefs, perhaps highlighting real and lived experiences. Marketers should also consider self-identification through visual cues and customized messaging.

Originality/value

The study applies self-referencing theory to unravel the relationship between diversity advertising and audience connectedness. It reinforces the role of self-identification and expands the knowledge by demonstrating how connectedness can emerge through belief congruence. Additionally, the authors explore the subtle influence of brand engagement, a critical brand-related factor that shapes individuals’ responses to diversity advertising.

Purpose

Fueled by the soaring popularity of the digital medium, consumers are increasingly relying on dynamic images to inform their decisions. However, little is known about how changes in the presentation of movement impacts these decisions. The purpose of this paper is to document whether and how movement speed–a fundamental characteristic of dynamic images in the digital medium–influences consumers' risk judgments and subsequent decisions.

Design/methodology/approach

Three experimental studies investigate the impact of movement speed displayed in the digital medium, focusing on different risk-laden domains including health (pilot study), gambling (Study 1) and stock market decisions (Study 2).

Findings

The authors find that faster movement speed displayed in the digital medium elevates consumers’ feelings of risk and elicits cautionary actions in response. The authors reveal a mechanism for this effect, showing that faster movement reduces feelings of control over outcomes, which predicts greater feelings of risk.

Research limitations/implications

Future work could expand upon these findings by systematically examining whether certain individuals are more susceptible to movement speed effects in the digital medium. Research could also investigate whether different ways of experiencing movement speed (e.g. physical movement) similarly influence risk judgments and whether movement speed can have positive connotations outside of risky domains.

Practical implications

The authors offer important insights to marketing practitioners and public policymakers seeking to guide consumers’ judgments and decisions in risk-laden contexts through the digital medium.

Originality/value

By showing how movement speed alters judgments in risk-laden contexts, the authors contribute to literature on risk perception and the growing body of literature examining how moving images shape consumers’ behaviors.

Purpose

As consumer debt can substantially impair subjective well-being, it is crucial for research to gain insights into how consumers can be motivated to improve financial planning. This paper aims to investigate how frontline employees in financial services can help consumers regulate their financial planning behaviors and how financial service providers can effectively support their frontline employees in this effort through leadership and organizational climate.

Design/methodology/approach

We incorporate regulatory focus theory and conservation of resource theory to develop a conceptual model that we test in a triadic study with a unique dataset collected from consumers, frontline employees, and managers in the banking sector.

Findings

We find that frontline employees must pay attention to the details of consumers’ needs and customize the service to those needs to trigger consumer promotion focus and stimulate consumers’ financial planning behaviors. Moreover, our results emphasize that the organization must act as an integrated entity. Thus, a manager’s servant leadership and an organizational climate of customer stewardship are crucial for frontline employees to transform consumers’ financial planning behaviors.

Research limitations/implications

The study highlights frontline employees’ key role in motivating consumer financial planning behavior, offering a new perspective in transformative service research on enhancing financial well-being.

Practical implications

The findings provide financial service providers with actionable implications for enhancing consumers’ financial planning. This benefits both consumers and financial institutions, as customers with greater spending power can buy more financial products.

Originality/value

This study advances transformative service research on consumer financial planning behavior, which has largely focused on consumer-related or society-level variables, by exploring the role of frontline employees and organizational support in terms of leadership and climate.

Purpose

Prior research has investigated the benefit of companies that engage in cause-related marketing initiatives. However, this prior research has not adequately examined cause-related marketing situations when brands raise awareness for a cause without contribution of tangible resources to the cause (i.e. awareness marketing); thus, the purpose of this paper is to introduce and test awareness marketing as a new type of cause-related marketing.

Design/methodology/approach

Through four experimental studies with different sample sources, the authors introduce and examine a new type of cause-related marketing (awareness marketing) as well as identify mediating explanatory mechanisms.

Findings

Awareness marketing produces similarly heightened purchase intentions to other types of cause-related marketing (e.g. financial donation) when compared to situations where cause-related marketing is not used. Awareness marketing can also lead to higher brand authenticity and brand originality perceptions in some situations when compared to cause-related marketing incorporating a financial donation component or when no cause-related marketing is used. Brand perceptions and consumers’ perceived self-brand connection mediate the relationship from cause-related marketing to purchase intentions.

Research limitations/implications

This research is limited by conducting studies in only experimental conditions and in one culture. Theoretical implications are provided to the literature on brand authenticity and self-brand connection. In doing so, the authors explain why awareness marketing is evaluated differently than other types of cause-related marketing or marketing without any cause reference.

Practical implications

Marketers would benefit from using awareness marketing (i.e. raising awareness for a cause without direct contribution to the cause) as a lower investment alternative to traditional cause-related marketing efforts.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research to introduce awareness marketing as a new type of cause-related marketing and compare it to traditional types of cause-related marketing, thereby providing novel contributions as to how cause-related marketing can effectively increase purchase intentions without making a financial, product or other tangible contribution to a cause.