Pub Date : 2024-07-31DOI: 10.1177/00222437241272180
Peter Ebbes, Frank Germann, Rajdeep Grewal
Although the power held by the marketing department can determine key organizational outcomes, including firm performance, this power seemingly has been decreasing. To address this apparent disconnect, the authors propose that the board of directors is a critical but overlooked antecedent of marketing department power (MDP). In particular, the authors demonstrate that directors’ exposure through board service at other firms (i.e., board interlocks) affects MDP in the firms on whose boards they also serve (i.e., focal firms). A sample of 6,008 firms, spanning 2007–2021, reveals that MDP in board-interlocked firms has a positive effect on MDP in focal firms. Despite evidence that board interlock effects have diminished or even disappeared, the findings suggest the board interlock effect remains a potent antecedent of MDP—and this effect did not decrease during the observation period. Adapting the 3R (reach–richness–receptivity) framework, the authors also find that the board interlock effect increases with greater reach and richness of a focal firm’s board interlock network and its executives’ receptivity to information. The marketing department’s decreasing power is concerning for the discipline; the robust results of this study suggest that firms need to get the board “on board” to stem this diminishing trend.
{"title":"EXPRESS: Getting the Board on Board: Marketing Department Power and Board Interlocks","authors":"Peter Ebbes, Frank Germann, Rajdeep Grewal","doi":"10.1177/00222437241272180","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437241272180","url":null,"abstract":"Although the power held by the marketing department can determine key organizational outcomes, including firm performance, this power seemingly has been decreasing. To address this apparent disconnect, the authors propose that the board of directors is a critical but overlooked antecedent of marketing department power (MDP). In particular, the authors demonstrate that directors’ exposure through board service at other firms (i.e., board interlocks) affects MDP in the firms on whose boards they also serve (i.e., focal firms). A sample of 6,008 firms, spanning 2007–2021, reveals that MDP in board-interlocked firms has a positive effect on MDP in focal firms. Despite evidence that board interlock effects have diminished or even disappeared, the findings suggest the board interlock effect remains a potent antecedent of MDP—and this effect did not decrease during the observation period. Adapting the 3R (reach–richness–receptivity) framework, the authors also find that the board interlock effect increases with greater reach and richness of a focal firm’s board interlock network and its executives’ receptivity to information. The marketing department’s decreasing power is concerning for the discipline; the robust results of this study suggest that firms need to get the board “on board” to stem this diminishing trend.","PeriodicalId":48465,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing Research","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141866311","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-05-29DOI: 10.1177/00222437241256710
Sachin Gupta, Peter Danaher, Vikas Mittal, Maureen Morrin
{"title":"Mitigation in Marketing: Concept, Definition, and Scope","authors":"Sachin Gupta, Peter Danaher, Vikas Mittal, Maureen Morrin","doi":"10.1177/00222437241256710","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437241256710","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48465,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing Research","volume":"39 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141191638","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-05-12DOI: 10.1177/00222437241256900
Andrey Simonov, Tommaso Valletti, Andre Veiga
The authors investigate the impact of online news content on the effectiveness of display advertising. In a randomized online experiment, participants read news articles randomly paired with brand advertisements. Leveraging non-intrusive eye-tracking technology, the authors measure individual attention to both articles and ads. The authors then measure ad recall, and participants make choices between cash and brand-specific vouchers. Heightened attention to articles results in “spillover” attention to ads on the same page which, in turn, increases both brand recall and purchase probability. The authors also consider the effect of news content type, differentiating between “hard” and “soft” news. They find that advertising next to hard news is at least as effective as advertising next to soft news. This provides evidence against the blunt implementation of “block lists” for sensitive news topics by advertisers. The authors discuss the implications of attention spillovers for firms contemplating investments in engaging news content within the digital advertising landscape.
{"title":"EXPRESS: Attention Spillovers from News to Ads: Evidence from an Eye-Tracking Experiment","authors":"Andrey Simonov, Tommaso Valletti, Andre Veiga","doi":"10.1177/00222437241256900","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437241256900","url":null,"abstract":"The authors investigate the impact of online news content on the effectiveness of display advertising. In a randomized online experiment, participants read news articles randomly paired with brand advertisements. Leveraging non-intrusive eye-tracking technology, the authors measure individual attention to both articles and ads. The authors then measure ad recall, and participants make choices between cash and brand-specific vouchers. Heightened attention to articles results in “spillover” attention to ads on the same page which, in turn, increases both brand recall and purchase probability. The authors also consider the effect of news content type, differentiating between “hard” and “soft” news. They find that advertising next to hard news is at least as effective as advertising next to soft news. This provides evidence against the blunt implementation of “block lists” for sensitive news topics by advertisers. The authors discuss the implications of attention spillovers for firms contemplating investments in engaging news content within the digital advertising landscape.","PeriodicalId":48465,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing Research","volume":"146 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140925381","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-05-07DOI: 10.1177/00222437241255650
So Yeon Chun, Rebecca W. Hamilton
Although research examining loyalty point redemption has focused almost exclusively on fixed exchange rates between points and money (e.g., 100 points = $1), we frequently observe variable exchange rates in practice (e.g., 100 points might equate to more or less than $1, depending on the monetary price and the required points for a flight redemption within the continental U.S.). Such variable rates are particularly common in loyalty programs in the hospitality industry. In this research, we show that the stability of the exchange rate – whether the exchange rate is fixed or variable across offers – systematically influences point redemption. Consumers are less likely to redeem loyalty points and instead spend money when they observe a variable exchange rate between money and points than when they observe a fixed exchange rate, even when the average value of points is the same. We demonstrate this effect in a series of studies across contexts, including an incentive compatible retail loyalty program and a hotel loyalty program. We show that a variable point exchange rate induces more optimism than a fixed exchange rate, reducing point redemption. This effect is moderated by individual differences in optimism and by point expiration date. We conclude by discussing the implications for managers of loyalty programs and consumers.
{"title":"EXPRESS: Paying with Money or Paying with Points: How Variable vs. Fixed Exchange Rates Influence Loyalty Point Redemption","authors":"So Yeon Chun, Rebecca W. Hamilton","doi":"10.1177/00222437241255650","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437241255650","url":null,"abstract":"Although research examining loyalty point redemption has focused almost exclusively on fixed exchange rates between points and money (e.g., 100 points = $1), we frequently observe variable exchange rates in practice (e.g., 100 points might equate to more or less than $1, depending on the monetary price and the required points for a flight redemption within the continental U.S.). Such variable rates are particularly common in loyalty programs in the hospitality industry. In this research, we show that the stability of the exchange rate – whether the exchange rate is fixed or variable across offers – systematically influences point redemption. Consumers are less likely to redeem loyalty points and instead spend money when they observe a variable exchange rate between money and points than when they observe a fixed exchange rate, even when the average value of points is the same. We demonstrate this effect in a series of studies across contexts, including an incentive compatible retail loyalty program and a hotel loyalty program. We show that a variable point exchange rate induces more optimism than a fixed exchange rate, reducing point redemption. This effect is moderated by individual differences in optimism and by point expiration date. We conclude by discussing the implications for managers of loyalty programs and consumers.","PeriodicalId":48465,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing Research","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140925129","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-05-07DOI: 10.1177/00222437241256372
Jieteng Chen, Yuetao Gao, T. Tony Ke
Regulators across the globe have imposed penalties on consumers for digital piracy consumption. Contrary to expectations, however, digital piracy consumption has continued to grow. We develop a simple model of competition between a copyright holder and a pirate firm to offer a plausible account for this observation as well as actionable guidelines for optimal regulation design. The core of our idea is to endogenize the pirate firm’s strategic investment in anti-tracking technologies that help consumers evade a regulator’s penalty. We find that as the penalty rises, piracy consumption can surprisingly increase after decreasing first; relatedly, the copyright holder and the society may suffer from tighter regulation. Depending on the cost of anti-tracking technologies of the pirate firm, the regulator optimally sets the penalty to operate in two different regimes. When the technology is available at a low cost, the regulator can achieve the goals of maximizing social welfare and minimizing piracy consumption simultaneously by setting a moderate penalty that maximizes consumers’ expected penalty and tolerates some level of piracy consumption. In contrast, when the technology is costly, the regulator should set a relatively high penalty to completely impede piracy supply. Additionally, we show that supply-side regulation does not substitute away demand-side regulation, and educating consumers about copyright protection may unintentionally lead to an increase in piracy consumption. Lastly, we identify complex non-monotonic long-run effects of piracy consumption regulation on the copyright holder’s incentives for content creation and copyright protection.
{"title":"EXPRESS: Regulating Digital Piracy Consumption","authors":"Jieteng Chen, Yuetao Gao, T. Tony Ke","doi":"10.1177/00222437241256372","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437241256372","url":null,"abstract":"Regulators across the globe have imposed penalties on consumers for digital piracy consumption. Contrary to expectations, however, digital piracy consumption has continued to grow. We develop a simple model of competition between a copyright holder and a pirate firm to offer a plausible account for this observation as well as actionable guidelines for optimal regulation design. The core of our idea is to endogenize the pirate firm’s strategic investment in anti-tracking technologies that help consumers evade a regulator’s penalty. We find that as the penalty rises, piracy consumption can surprisingly increase after decreasing first; relatedly, the copyright holder and the society may suffer from tighter regulation. Depending on the cost of anti-tracking technologies of the pirate firm, the regulator optimally sets the penalty to operate in two different regimes. When the technology is available at a low cost, the regulator can achieve the goals of maximizing social welfare and minimizing piracy consumption simultaneously by setting a moderate penalty that maximizes consumers’ expected penalty and tolerates some level of piracy consumption. In contrast, when the technology is costly, the regulator should set a relatively high penalty to completely impede piracy supply. Additionally, we show that supply-side regulation does not substitute away demand-side regulation, and educating consumers about copyright protection may unintentionally lead to an increase in piracy consumption. Lastly, we identify complex non-monotonic long-run effects of piracy consumption regulation on the copyright holder’s incentives for content creation and copyright protection.","PeriodicalId":48465,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing Research","volume":"124 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140925371","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-05-03DOI: 10.1177/00222437241255307
Michael Braun
This article is temporarily under embargo.
本文暂时禁止发表。
{"title":"EXPRESS: Revisiting Scalable Targeted Marketing with Distributed Markov Chain Monte Carlo","authors":"Michael Braun","doi":"10.1177/00222437241255307","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437241255307","url":null,"abstract":"This article is temporarily under embargo.","PeriodicalId":48465,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing Research","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140829431","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-05-03DOI: 10.1177/00222437241255057
Ludovic Stourm, Paulo Albuquerque
This paper empirically analyzes the spatiotemporal diffusion of a car-sharing platform that connects consumers with individual car owners. We develop a model of adoption by both consumers and providers that accommodates network effects across locations, as consumers travel to pick up cars, and information asymmetry, as only the providers’ locations are shown on a map. We apply it to data at the earliest stage of the platform and find that proximity and consumer mobility play a significant role in the spatial network effects of existing providers on consumers across locations. Consequently, the impact of additional supply at a destination on consumer adoptions at an origin varies by origin-destination pair and is asymmetric, as certain destinations draw more visitors than others and given differences in local characteristics. In contrast, existing consumers have a limited impact on provider adoptions. Through seeding experiments, we investigate how the geographic distribution of initial participants impacts the platform diffusion and find that targeting the supply side in big cities leads to the highest platform growth. We also use our parameter estimates to measure the long-term impact of a local promotional campaign and show that it is mostly local despite spatial network effects.
{"title":"EXPRESS: Flowers and Bees: Spatial Network Effects in the Adoption of a Sharing-Economy Platform","authors":"Ludovic Stourm, Paulo Albuquerque","doi":"10.1177/00222437241255057","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437241255057","url":null,"abstract":"This paper empirically analyzes the spatiotemporal diffusion of a car-sharing platform that connects consumers with individual car owners. We develop a model of adoption by both consumers and providers that accommodates network effects across locations, as consumers travel to pick up cars, and information asymmetry, as only the providers’ locations are shown on a map. We apply it to data at the earliest stage of the platform and find that proximity and consumer mobility play a significant role in the spatial network effects of existing providers on consumers across locations. Consequently, the impact of additional supply at a destination on consumer adoptions at an origin varies by origin-destination pair and is asymmetric, as certain destinations draw more visitors than others and given differences in local characteristics. In contrast, existing consumers have a limited impact on provider adoptions. Through seeding experiments, we investigate how the geographic distribution of initial participants impacts the platform diffusion and find that targeting the supply side in big cities leads to the highest platform growth. We also use our parameter estimates to measure the long-term impact of a local promotional campaign and show that it is mostly local despite spatial network effects.","PeriodicalId":48465,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing Research","volume":"2012 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140842037","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-08DOI: 10.1177/00222437241248414
Johannes Berendt, Sebastian Uhrich, Abhishek Borah, Gavin J. Kilduff
Brands often make references to competitors in their public communications. Yet not all competitors are equal—over time, certain pairs of brands may develop special rivalry relationships. This research examines whether these relationships can alter the effects of interbrand communications. Drawing on rivalry theory (Kilduff, Elfenbein and Staw 2010), the authors distinguish between brand rivalry, a special competitive relationship between brands based in a shared history, and competition, a situation where brands merely have currently opposing goals. A series of studies using complementary methods (two archival studies using large-scale Twitter data and three pre-registered experiments) provide evidence for the “rivalry reference effect”, across multiple brands and product categories. That is, referencing a rival (vs. a non-rival) competitor in a public brand message increases consumer engagement. The effect is mediated by increased story embeddedness, defined as the perception that the reference is embedded within an ongoing story. The authors also show positive downstream effects on purchase intentions, and test two moderators: brand preference (loyal vs. neutral consumers) and message valence (negative vs. positive). This research highlights the potential appeal of brand rivalry to consumers, illustrating how and under what conditions brands can use their rivalries to their advantage.
{"title":"EXPRESS: The Rivalry Reference Effect: Referencing Rival (vs. Non-Rival) Competitors in Public Brand Messages Increases Consumer Engagement","authors":"Johannes Berendt, Sebastian Uhrich, Abhishek Borah, Gavin J. Kilduff","doi":"10.1177/00222437241248414","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437241248414","url":null,"abstract":"Brands often make references to competitors in their public communications. Yet not all competitors are equal—over time, certain pairs of brands may develop special rivalry relationships. This research examines whether these relationships can alter the effects of interbrand communications. Drawing on rivalry theory (Kilduff, Elfenbein and Staw 2010), the authors distinguish between brand rivalry, a special competitive relationship between brands based in a shared history, and competition, a situation where brands merely have currently opposing goals. A series of studies using complementary methods (two archival studies using large-scale Twitter data and three pre-registered experiments) provide evidence for the “rivalry reference effect”, across multiple brands and product categories. That is, referencing a rival (vs. a non-rival) competitor in a public brand message increases consumer engagement. The effect is mediated by increased story embeddedness, defined as the perception that the reference is embedded within an ongoing story. The authors also show positive downstream effects on purchase intentions, and test two moderators: brand preference (loyal vs. neutral consumers) and message valence (negative vs. positive). This research highlights the potential appeal of brand rivalry to consumers, illustrating how and under what conditions brands can use their rivalries to their advantage.","PeriodicalId":48465,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing Research","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140583618","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
How do consumers interpret changes in the rank of an entity? While ranked lists are ubiquitous, research on dynamic ranks has been limited. Across seven studies (including a study with web data and a Google AdWords field experiment), this research shows that psychological momentum associated with the rank change information explains why consumers reward a rise in rank and penalize a decline in rank. The effects are moderated by factors pertaining to the nature of the entity, consumers’ perception of the reason for the rank change, and the nature of the ranked list. The impact of changing rank is attenuated when the rank change is attributed to other entities on the list, when entities are considered non-malleable, or when the list is updated more frequently. The investigation identifies an important boundary condition for the effect by demonstrating a specific case in which consumers do not extrapolate the direction of a change in rank into the future. In addition to contributing to theory, this research provides actionable insights for managers and demonstrates practical ways in which managers can communicate dynamic ranks to enhance the benefit of an improvement in rank or attenuate the penalty from a decline.
{"title":"EXPRESS: Past Imperfect or Present Perfect? How Dynamic Ranks Influence Consumer Perceptions","authors":"Arpita Pandey, Sanjeev Tripathi, Shailendra Pratap Jain","doi":"10.1177/00222437241248660","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437241248660","url":null,"abstract":"How do consumers interpret changes in the rank of an entity? While ranked lists are ubiquitous, research on dynamic ranks has been limited. Across seven studies (including a study with web data and a Google AdWords field experiment), this research shows that psychological momentum associated with the rank change information explains why consumers reward a rise in rank and penalize a decline in rank. The effects are moderated by factors pertaining to the nature of the entity, consumers’ perception of the reason for the rank change, and the nature of the ranked list. The impact of changing rank is attenuated when the rank change is attributed to other entities on the list, when entities are considered non-malleable, or when the list is updated more frequently. The investigation identifies an important boundary condition for the effect by demonstrating a specific case in which consumers do not extrapolate the direction of a change in rank into the future. In addition to contributing to theory, this research provides actionable insights for managers and demonstrates practical ways in which managers can communicate dynamic ranks to enhance the benefit of an improvement in rank or attenuate the penalty from a decline.","PeriodicalId":48465,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing Research","volume":"94 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140583936","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-08DOI: 10.1177/00222437241248413
Nicholas Light, Philip M. Fernbach
Evoking simplicity in marketing communications has become popular among marketing practitioners, but little is known about its effects on consumers and firms. The current work focuses on consumers’ perceptions of the simplicity or complexity of brands and a previously overlooked consequence of those perceptions. Results from six experiments and analysis of a proprietary customer satisfaction dataset from Consumer Reports (N = 147,600) show that when consumers think brands are simple, they judge them to be less likely to experience product or service failures. Although these lower risk judgments could be positive for brands, they can also lead consumers to punish simpler brands more in the event of failures. Results also suggest that consumers’ simplicity/complexity perceptions reflect the dimensionality of their mental representations of brands, and the relationship between simplicity and lower risk is attenuated when additional brand dimensionality is framed in terms of redundancy. The findings cast doubt on the degree to which evoking simplicity is a uniformly positive marketing strategy and encourage practitioners to more thoughtfully consider simplicity’s implications for consumer and firm welfare.
{"title":"EXPRESS: Keep It Simple? Consumer Perceptions of Brand Simplicity and Risk","authors":"Nicholas Light, Philip M. Fernbach","doi":"10.1177/00222437241248413","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437241248413","url":null,"abstract":"Evoking simplicity in marketing communications has become popular among marketing practitioners, but little is known about its effects on consumers and firms. The current work focuses on consumers’ perceptions of the simplicity or complexity of brands and a previously overlooked consequence of those perceptions. Results from six experiments and analysis of a proprietary customer satisfaction dataset from Consumer Reports (N = 147,600) show that when consumers think brands are simple, they judge them to be less likely to experience product or service failures. Although these lower risk judgments could be positive for brands, they can also lead consumers to punish simpler brands more in the event of failures. Results also suggest that consumers’ simplicity/complexity perceptions reflect the dimensionality of their mental representations of brands, and the relationship between simplicity and lower risk is attenuated when additional brand dimensionality is framed in terms of redundancy. The findings cast doubt on the degree to which evoking simplicity is a uniformly positive marketing strategy and encourage practitioners to more thoughtfully consider simplicity’s implications for consumer and firm welfare.","PeriodicalId":48465,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing Research","volume":"121 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140583660","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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