Pub Date : 2023-07-26DOI: 10.1177/00222437231193343
C. Lembregts, J. Schepers, Arne De Keyser
Firms like Uber, Amazon, and TripAdvisor have popularized the rating of people, goods, and services. These entities receive scores (e.g., through online reviews) in a variety of presentation formats: incremental (a raw score per episode – e.g., 5–5–2), cumulative (updated average scores – e.g., 5–5–4) or their combination. This paper focuses on prevalent situations in which a score deviates from prior scores and examines how the presentation format of the scores impacts decision makers’ (e.g., consumers or managers) evaluations of the entity scored. Nine experiments document – across a wide variety of settings – that when a generally well-performing (poorly performing) entity suddenly receives a negative (positive) score, overall performance will be perceived as less negative (positive) when shown in a cumulative format compared to an incremental or combined format. This effect appears to be stronger when the deviating episode is more representative (e.g., due to higher recency or internal attribution). The authors also find evidence for their proposed explanation: A cumulative format distorts individuals’ perceptions of the underlying raw score of the deviating episode. These findings imply that presenting scores in alternative formats may affect marketing outcomes (e.g., customer churn, product choice, or user engagement on peer-to-peer platforms).
{"title":"EXPRESS: Is it as Bad as it Looks? Judgments of Quantitative Scores Depend on their Presentation Format","authors":"C. Lembregts, J. Schepers, Arne De Keyser","doi":"10.1177/00222437231193343","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437231193343","url":null,"abstract":"Firms like Uber, Amazon, and TripAdvisor have popularized the rating of people, goods, and services. These entities receive scores (e.g., through online reviews) in a variety of presentation formats: incremental (a raw score per episode – e.g., 5–5–2), cumulative (updated average scores – e.g., 5–5–4) or their combination. This paper focuses on prevalent situations in which a score deviates from prior scores and examines how the presentation format of the scores impacts decision makers’ (e.g., consumers or managers) evaluations of the entity scored. Nine experiments document – across a wide variety of settings – that when a generally well-performing (poorly performing) entity suddenly receives a negative (positive) score, overall performance will be perceived as less negative (positive) when shown in a cumulative format compared to an incremental or combined format. This effect appears to be stronger when the deviating episode is more representative (e.g., due to higher recency or internal attribution). The authors also find evidence for their proposed explanation: A cumulative format distorts individuals’ perceptions of the underlying raw score of the deviating episode. These findings imply that presenting scores in alternative formats may affect marketing outcomes (e.g., customer churn, product choice, or user engagement on peer-to-peer platforms).","PeriodicalId":48465,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2023-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42957944","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 : 2023-07-19DOI: 10.1177/00222437231191526
Ignacio Luri, H. Schau, Bikram P. Ghosh
Textual data requires an analytical tradeoff between breadth and depth. Automated approaches locate patterns across large swaths of data points but sacrifice qualitative insight because they are not well equipped to deal with context-determined ways to express meaning like figurative language. To strengthen the power of Automated Text Analysis (ATA), researchers seek hybrid methodologies where computer-augmented analysis is combined with sociocultural researcher insights based on qualitative textual interpretation. This article demonstrates a new method, that the authors term Metaphor-Enabled Marketplace Sentiment Analysis (MEMSA). Building on existing ATA methodologies linking word lists to sentiments, MEMSA adds metaphors which associate words or phrases across domains. Using MEMSA, researchers can leverage the sentiment potential of these located metaphors and scale insights to the level of big textual data by employing a dictionary approach enhanced by one unique useful linguistic property of metaphors: their predictable structure in text (something is something else). This article shows that metaphors add associative detail to sentiments revealing the targets and sources of sentiments that underlie the associations. Understanding nuanced market sentiments allows marketers to identify sentiment-based trends embedded in market discourse toward better formulating, targeting, positioning, and communicating value propositions for products and services.
{"title":"EXPRESS: Metaphor-Enabled Marketplace Sentiment Analysis","authors":"Ignacio Luri, H. Schau, Bikram P. Ghosh","doi":"10.1177/00222437231191526","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437231191526","url":null,"abstract":"Textual data requires an analytical tradeoff between breadth and depth. Automated approaches locate patterns across large swaths of data points but sacrifice qualitative insight because they are not well equipped to deal with context-determined ways to express meaning like figurative language. To strengthen the power of Automated Text Analysis (ATA), researchers seek hybrid methodologies where computer-augmented analysis is combined with sociocultural researcher insights based on qualitative textual interpretation. This article demonstrates a new method, that the authors term Metaphor-Enabled Marketplace Sentiment Analysis (MEMSA). Building on existing ATA methodologies linking word lists to sentiments, MEMSA adds metaphors which associate words or phrases across domains. Using MEMSA, researchers can leverage the sentiment potential of these located metaphors and scale insights to the level of big textual data by employing a dictionary approach enhanced by one unique useful linguistic property of metaphors: their predictable structure in text (something is something else). This article shows that metaphors add associative detail to sentiments revealing the targets and sources of sentiments that underlie the associations. Understanding nuanced market sentiments allows marketers to identify sentiment-based trends embedded in market discourse toward better formulating, targeting, positioning, and communicating value propositions for products and services.","PeriodicalId":48465,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2023-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42003898","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 : 2023-07-14DOI: 10.1177/00222437231190851
Adelle X. Yang, Oleg Urminsky
Intertemporal choices represent one of the most prevalent and fundamental tradeoffs in consumer decision-making. While prior research on intertemporal choices has focused on choices for oneself, intertemporal choices often involve one individual choosing on behalf of another. How do intertemporal choices made for another person differ from otherwise identical choices made for oneself? This research introduces a self-other decision model that distinguishes reaction utility (derived from interpersonal feedback) from vicarious utility (derived from imagining the recipient’s experience). We tested model-derived hypotheses in thirteen experiments ( N = 4,799) involving decisions between peers. Consistent with the proposed role of reaction utility in the model, we find that intertemporal choices made for others are typically more “impatient” than choices for oneself. Moreover, this “agent’s impatience” is attenuated when contextual and individual differences weaken the anticipation of interpersonal feedback. Together, our theoretical model and experimental results highlight the rewarding value of interpersonal feedback in self-other decision-making, shedding new light on interpersonal consumer choices.
{"title":"EXPRESS: The Agent’s Impatience: A Self-Other Decision Model of Intertemporal Choices","authors":"Adelle X. Yang, Oleg Urminsky","doi":"10.1177/00222437231190851","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437231190851","url":null,"abstract":"Intertemporal choices represent one of the most prevalent and fundamental tradeoffs in consumer decision-making. While prior research on intertemporal choices has focused on choices for oneself, intertemporal choices often involve one individual choosing on behalf of another. How do intertemporal choices made for another person differ from otherwise identical choices made for oneself? This research introduces a self-other decision model that distinguishes reaction utility (derived from interpersonal feedback) from vicarious utility (derived from imagining the recipient’s experience). We tested model-derived hypotheses in thirteen experiments ( N = 4,799) involving decisions between peers. Consistent with the proposed role of reaction utility in the model, we find that intertemporal choices made for others are typically more “impatient” than choices for oneself. Moreover, this “agent’s impatience” is attenuated when contextual and individual differences weaken the anticipation of interpersonal feedback. Together, our theoretical model and experimental results highlight the rewarding value of interpersonal feedback in self-other decision-making, shedding new light on interpersonal consumer choices.","PeriodicalId":48465,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2023-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46557086","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 : 2023-07-14DOI: 10.1177/00222437231190874
Márton Varga, Paulo Albuquerque
Despite evidence indicating the significant influence of online reviews on purchase decisions, even after taking into account a product's average rating (Vana and Lam-brecht 2021), the underlying factors responsible for this effect and the broader impact of reviews on consumer decision-making remain uncertain. This study uses click-stream data from a major online retailer to explore how negative reviews affect consumer search and purchase decisions. Leveraging exogenous variation created by the display of online reviews sorted by recency, the authors find that negative reviews significantly reduce a product's purchase probability because they (1) contrast with the often-high average product rating, (2) decrease the probability that consumers continue browsing for information about the focal product, (3) increase the probability of visiting the page of substitute products, and (4) increase the probability of viewing reviews about substitute products. Importantly, these effects apply to utilitarian products but not hedonic products and when reviews pertain to product functionality or customer service but not to taste-related factors. The authors estimate a product's vulnerability to negative reviews along two dimensions—purchase and search probability for substitutes and display these effects on a two-dimensional map.
{"title":"EXPRESS: The Impact of Negative Reviews on Online Search and Purchase Decisions","authors":"Márton Varga, Paulo Albuquerque","doi":"10.1177/00222437231190874","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437231190874","url":null,"abstract":"Despite evidence indicating the significant influence of online reviews on purchase decisions, even after taking into account a product's average rating (Vana and Lam-brecht 2021), the underlying factors responsible for this effect and the broader impact of reviews on consumer decision-making remain uncertain. This study uses click-stream data from a major online retailer to explore how negative reviews affect consumer search and purchase decisions. Leveraging exogenous variation created by the display of online reviews sorted by recency, the authors find that negative reviews significantly reduce a product's purchase probability because they (1) contrast with the often-high average product rating, (2) decrease the probability that consumers continue browsing for information about the focal product, (3) increase the probability of visiting the page of substitute products, and (4) increase the probability of viewing reviews about substitute products. Importantly, these effects apply to utilitarian products but not hedonic products and when reviews pertain to product functionality or customer service but not to taste-related factors. The authors estimate a product's vulnerability to negative reviews along two dimensions—purchase and search probability for substitutes and display these effects on a two-dimensional map.","PeriodicalId":48465,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2023-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45886099","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 : 2023-07-06DOI: 10.1177/00222437231189185
Ryan Dew, Eva Ascarza, O. Netzer, N. Sicherman
Routines shape many aspects of day-to-day consumption. While prior work has established the importance of habits in consumer behavior, little work has been done to understand the implications of routines—which we define as repeated behaviors with recurring, temporal structures—for customer management. One reason for this dearth is the difficulty of measuring routines from transaction data, particularly when routines vary substantially across customers. We propose a new approach for doing so, which we apply in the context of ridesharing. We model customer-level routines with Bayesian nonparametric Gaussian processes (GPs), leveraging a novel kernel that allows for flexible yet precise estimation of routines. These GPs are nested in inhomogeneous Poisson processes of usage, allowing us to estimate customers’ routines, and decompose their usage into routine and non-routine parts. We show the value of detecting routines for customer relationship management (CRM) in the context of ridesharing, where we find that routines are associated with higher future usage and activity rates, and more resilience to service failures. Moreover, we show how these outcomes vary by the types of routines customers have, and by whether trips are part of the customer’s routine, suggesting a role for routines in segmentation and targeting.
{"title":"EXPRESS: Detecting Routines: Applications to Ridesharing CRM","authors":"Ryan Dew, Eva Ascarza, O. Netzer, N. Sicherman","doi":"10.1177/00222437231189185","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437231189185","url":null,"abstract":"Routines shape many aspects of day-to-day consumption. While prior work has established the importance of habits in consumer behavior, little work has been done to understand the implications of routines—which we define as repeated behaviors with recurring, temporal structures—for customer management. One reason for this dearth is the difficulty of measuring routines from transaction data, particularly when routines vary substantially across customers. We propose a new approach for doing so, which we apply in the context of ridesharing. We model customer-level routines with Bayesian nonparametric Gaussian processes (GPs), leveraging a novel kernel that allows for flexible yet precise estimation of routines. These GPs are nested in inhomogeneous Poisson processes of usage, allowing us to estimate customers’ routines, and decompose their usage into routine and non-routine parts. We show the value of detecting routines for customer relationship management (CRM) in the context of ridesharing, where we find that routines are associated with higher future usage and activity rates, and more resilience to service failures. Moreover, we show how these outcomes vary by the types of routines customers have, and by whether trips are part of the customer’s routine, suggesting a role for routines in segmentation and targeting.","PeriodicalId":48465,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2023-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47958621","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 : 2023-06-29DOI: 10.1177/00222437231187630
Hui Jiang, Paul R. Messinger, Yifei Liu, Zhi-yang Lu, Shuiqing Yang, Gang Li
Creative ads are applied widely in new product marketing. The present research explores the impact of creative ads (divergent vs. relevant ads) on purchase intention for really new products (RNPs) and incrementally new products (INPs). A series of studies conclude that (a) divergent ads are more effective for promoting INPs; (b) relevant ads are more effective for promoting RNPs; (c) self-referencing mediates the joint effect of creative ads and product newness on purchase intention; and (d) there is an inverted-U-shaped relationship between self-referencing and purchase intention for new products. Theoretically, we argue that a moderate amount of self-referencing is particularly desirable – a “Goldilocks region” that produces an optimal level of persuasion. Managerially, we provide guidance to creative ad managers to help reach the “Goldilocks region” when advertising new products.
{"title":"EXPRESS: Divergent versus Relevant Ads? How Creative Ads Affect Purchase Intention for New Products","authors":"Hui Jiang, Paul R. Messinger, Yifei Liu, Zhi-yang Lu, Shuiqing Yang, Gang Li","doi":"10.1177/00222437231187630","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437231187630","url":null,"abstract":"Creative ads are applied widely in new product marketing. The present research explores the impact of creative ads (divergent vs. relevant ads) on purchase intention for really new products (RNPs) and incrementally new products (INPs). A series of studies conclude that (a) divergent ads are more effective for promoting INPs; (b) relevant ads are more effective for promoting RNPs; (c) self-referencing mediates the joint effect of creative ads and product newness on purchase intention; and (d) there is an inverted-U-shaped relationship between self-referencing and purchase intention for new products. Theoretically, we argue that a moderate amount of self-referencing is particularly desirable – a “Goldilocks region” that produces an optimal level of persuasion. Managerially, we provide guidance to creative ad managers to help reach the “Goldilocks region” when advertising new products.","PeriodicalId":48465,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41663427","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 : 2023-06-20DOI: 10.1177/00222437231169711
Gizem Ceylan, Kristin Diehl, Davide Proserpio
Are reviews with photos more helpful? If so, do consumers find reviews more helpful when photos and text convey similar or different information? This article examines the effect of content similarity between photos and text on review helpfulness and its underlying mechanism. Using a data set of 7.4 million reviews associated with 3.5 million photos from Yelp, and applying machine learning algorithms, the authors quantify the similarity of the content between text and photos. They find that, overall, photos increase the helpfulness of a review. More importantly, though, greater similarity between photos and text heightens review helpfulness more. The authors then validate algorithm-based similarity assessments with similarity perceptions of human judges. Using real-world reviews from Yelp and carefully designed stimuli, they replicate the core findings in five laboratory experiments. Further, testing the underlying mechanism, they find that greater similarity facilitates the ease with which consumers can process the review, which, in turn, increases that review's helpfulness to consumers. Finally, they show that factors that impede the ease of processing (e.g., language difficulty or poor image quality) can reduce the effect of similarity on helpfulness. These findings provide novel insights into the value of user-generated content that includes text and photos and its underlying mechanism.
{"title":"Words Meet Photos: When and Why Photos Increase Review Helpfulness","authors":"Gizem Ceylan, Kristin Diehl, Davide Proserpio","doi":"10.1177/00222437231169711","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437231169711","url":null,"abstract":"Are reviews with photos more helpful? If so, do consumers find reviews more helpful when photos and text convey similar or different information? This article examines the effect of content similarity between photos and text on review helpfulness and its underlying mechanism. Using a data set of 7.4 million reviews associated with 3.5 million photos from Yelp, and applying machine learning algorithms, the authors quantify the similarity of the content between text and photos. They find that, overall, photos increase the helpfulness of a review. More importantly, though, greater similarity between photos and text heightens review helpfulness more. The authors then validate algorithm-based similarity assessments with similarity perceptions of human judges. Using real-world reviews from Yelp and carefully designed stimuli, they replicate the core findings in five laboratory experiments. Further, testing the underlying mechanism, they find that greater similarity facilitates the ease with which consumers can process the review, which, in turn, increases that review's helpfulness to consumers. Finally, they show that factors that impede the ease of processing (e.g., language difficulty or poor image quality) can reduce the effect of similarity on helpfulness. These findings provide novel insights into the value of user-generated content that includes text and photos and its underlying mechanism.","PeriodicalId":48465,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing Research","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135091050","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 : 2023-06-13DOI: 10.1177/00222437231184830
Kelley Gullo Wight, Peggy J. Liu, Lingrui Zhou, G. Fitzsimons
Many consumers are caregivers and, as part of caregiving, frequently make food choices for their dependents. This research examines how food choices made for children influence the healthiness of parents’ subsequent self-choices. While prior work focuses on choices for the self (others) as based on self-needs (others-needs), the authors theorize regarding when and why self-choices involve consideration of other-needs. Five studies, including a nursery school field study, test the effect of choosing healthy food for a child on the healthiness of parents’ self-choices, focusing on the role of anticipating potentially sharing self-choices with one’s child. Potential sharing increased parents’ likelihood of making an unhealthy subsequent self-choice if they first made a healthy choice for their child. This effect was driven by parents’ present-focused parenting concerns about whether one’s child would eat and enjoy healthy options chosen for them. This effect was mitigated when parents instead had future-focused parenting concerns. Additionally, this effect was mitigated after making an initial choice for the child that was (a) unhealthy or (b) healthy but relatively liked by the child. This research contributes to understanding how choices for others shape choices for the self and offers important marketing and policy implications.
{"title":"EXPRESS: Sharing Food Can Backfire: When Healthy Choices for Children Lead Parents to Make Unhealthy Choices for Themselves","authors":"Kelley Gullo Wight, Peggy J. Liu, Lingrui Zhou, G. Fitzsimons","doi":"10.1177/00222437231184830","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437231184830","url":null,"abstract":"Many consumers are caregivers and, as part of caregiving, frequently make food choices for their dependents. This research examines how food choices made for children influence the healthiness of parents’ subsequent self-choices. While prior work focuses on choices for the self (others) as based on self-needs (others-needs), the authors theorize regarding when and why self-choices involve consideration of other-needs. Five studies, including a nursery school field study, test the effect of choosing healthy food for a child on the healthiness of parents’ self-choices, focusing on the role of anticipating potentially sharing self-choices with one’s child. Potential sharing increased parents’ likelihood of making an unhealthy subsequent self-choice if they first made a healthy choice for their child. This effect was driven by parents’ present-focused parenting concerns about whether one’s child would eat and enjoy healthy options chosen for them. This effect was mitigated when parents instead had future-focused parenting concerns. Additionally, this effect was mitigated after making an initial choice for the child that was (a) unhealthy or (b) healthy but relatively liked by the child. This research contributes to understanding how choices for others shape choices for the self and offers important marketing and policy implications.","PeriodicalId":48465,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46181672","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 : 2023-06-12DOI: 10.1177/00222437231184429
C. Moorman, Alina Sorescu, N. Tavassoli
The primary focus of brand equity research has been on how brand knowledge creates value for firms through customer behavior in product markets. Using archival data and five experiments, this article tests a framework that outlines the unique role brands play in the labor market. The framework distinguishes between vertical and horizontal differentiation and shows that vertical brand differentiation is associated with lower pay, whereas horizontal brand differentiation is associated with higher pay. Employees are also vertically and horizontally differentiated and firms high in horizontal brand differentiation pay more for employees who match their brands’ differentiating characteristics (i.e., brand-relevant complementarities). Results show that these brand-pay relationships have important downstream effects on employee behavior and, consequently, on firm profits. Specifically, leveraging vertical brand differentiation to lower pay represents a false economy because profits are attenuated by negative effects on employee productivity and retention. In contrast, when managers at firms high on horizontal brand differentiation pay more, profits increase via the same mediating employee behaviors. Six firm strategies and investments that influence firm bargaining power in the employee-brand matching process are found to moderate the brand-pay relationship and downstream effects on profits.
{"title":"EXPRESS: Brands in the Labor Market: How Vertical and Horizontal Brand Differentiation Impact Pay and Profits Through Employee-Brand Matching","authors":"C. Moorman, Alina Sorescu, N. Tavassoli","doi":"10.1177/00222437231184429","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437231184429","url":null,"abstract":"The primary focus of brand equity research has been on how brand knowledge creates value for firms through customer behavior in product markets. Using archival data and five experiments, this article tests a framework that outlines the unique role brands play in the labor market. The framework distinguishes between vertical and horizontal differentiation and shows that vertical brand differentiation is associated with lower pay, whereas horizontal brand differentiation is associated with higher pay. Employees are also vertically and horizontally differentiated and firms high in horizontal brand differentiation pay more for employees who match their brands’ differentiating characteristics (i.e., brand-relevant complementarities). Results show that these brand-pay relationships have important downstream effects on employee behavior and, consequently, on firm profits. Specifically, leveraging vertical brand differentiation to lower pay represents a false economy because profits are attenuated by negative effects on employee productivity and retention. In contrast, when managers at firms high on horizontal brand differentiation pay more, profits increase via the same mediating employee behaviors. Six firm strategies and investments that influence firm bargaining power in the employee-brand matching process are found to moderate the brand-pay relationship and downstream effects on profits.","PeriodicalId":48465,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45136463","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}
The erosion of high-end fashion brands by fast-fashion copycats (e.g., Zara, H&M) has stirred controversies and unceasing legal attempts to copyright fashion designs. Despite the purported negative impact of copycats, the effect of fashion copycats on high-end brands remains empirically unclear. Research on this topic has been impeded by the absence of a modeling framework to quantify fashion and by the lack of consumer-level data on fashion choices. The authors collect data on the posting behaviors of consumers on a fashion-specific social media platform and develop a dynamic structural model with deep learning image analytics to characterize consumers’ choices of brands and styles. Results suggest that fast-fashion copycats can both harm high-end brands (a cannibalization effect) and help them (a market expansion effect). The authors also identify both static and dynamic mechanisms that contribute to the market expansion effect: The affordability of mixing copycats with high-end brands boosts the number of high-end items featured in posts by financially constrained consumers (a static mechanism). In addition, good styles from copycats enable users to build their popularity on social media over time, which may increase the users' valuation of high-end brands and reduce the users' future costs via sponsorship opportunities (dynamic mechanisms). The results could inform policy makers about the potential consequences of prohibiting fashion copycats.
{"title":"How Do Fast-Fashion Copycats Affect the Popularity of Premium Brands? Evidence from Social Media","authors":"Zijun (June) Shi, Xiao Liu, Dokyun Lee, Kannan Srinivasan","doi":"10.1177/00222437231164403","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437231164403","url":null,"abstract":"The erosion of high-end fashion brands by fast-fashion copycats (e.g., Zara, H&M) has stirred controversies and unceasing legal attempts to copyright fashion designs. Despite the purported negative impact of copycats, the effect of fashion copycats on high-end brands remains empirically unclear. Research on this topic has been impeded by the absence of a modeling framework to quantify fashion and by the lack of consumer-level data on fashion choices. The authors collect data on the posting behaviors of consumers on a fashion-specific social media platform and develop a dynamic structural model with deep learning image analytics to characterize consumers’ choices of brands and styles. Results suggest that fast-fashion copycats can both harm high-end brands (a cannibalization effect) and help them (a market expansion effect). The authors also identify both static and dynamic mechanisms that contribute to the market expansion effect: The affordability of mixing copycats with high-end brands boosts the number of high-end items featured in posts by financially constrained consumers (a static mechanism). In addition, good styles from copycats enable users to build their popularity on social media over time, which may increase the users' valuation of high-end brands and reduce the users' future costs via sponsorship opportunities (dynamic mechanisms). The results could inform policy makers about the potential consequences of prohibiting fashion copycats.","PeriodicalId":48465,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing Research","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136230818","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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