{"title":"EXPRESS: Retailer Differentiation in Social Media: an Investigation of Firm-Generated Content on Twitter","authors":"Mikhail Lysyakov, P.K. Kannan, Siva Viswanathan, Kunpeng Zhang","doi":"10.1177/00222429241298654","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429241298654","url":null,"abstract":"Social media platforms have been used by firms for a variety of purposes - for building firms’ brand image, increasing customer engagement, providing customer service, among others. However, there is very little research on content strategies adopted by traditional rival firms competing on online social media platforms. This paper seeks to fill this gap by examining whether retailers, traditionally identified as close competitors, mirror this rivalry in their social media content strategies on Twitter. To this end, this study introduces a new metric for assessing competition on online social media, based on content similarity. The authors find that retailers competing closely in traditional context show greater divergence in their content strategies on social media, and firms whose social media content strategies are less similar to content strategies of their close traditional rivals benefit from higher engagement and acquire new followers faster. In examining the mechanism of the effect, the authors find that these divergent firms’ improved performance is attributable to their superior ability to leverage the higher-level affordances of Twitter as compared to their rivals. The results of this study offer valuable insights for firms seeking to distinguish their social media content from that of their competitors.","PeriodicalId":16152,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing","volume":"75 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.9,"publicationDate":"2024-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142536448","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}
Lauren I. Labrecque, Stefanie Sohn, Barbara Seegebarth, Christy Ashley
{"title":"EXPRESS: Color Me Effective: the Impact of Color Saturation on Perceptions of Potency and Product Efficacy","authors":"Lauren I. Labrecque, Stefanie Sohn, Barbara Seegebarth, Christy Ashley","doi":"10.1177/00222429241296392","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429241296392","url":null,"abstract":"Consumers use observable cues, like color, to help them evaluate products. This research establishes that consumers infer greater product efficacy from higher color saturation across seven lab experiments (n = 2,745), a web scraping study, and a field experiment. The studies provide evidence that this belief stems from learned associations between color saturation and potency and is applied to both consumable and durable products. Moreover, consumers overgeneralize this intuition beyond a product’s actual color to a product’s packaging color and the background color used in its advertisements. Two studies support the proposed process with evidence via moderation, while another study identifies consumption goal as a boundary condition, such that high saturation decreases perceived efficacy and purchase intent when consumers search for a gentle (vs. strong) product. The effect is not limited to pre-purchase perceptions but also influences perceptions after actual product use. The effect is established across six hues while holding color lightness constant and has multiple downstream consequences, including purchase intent and consumption amount. The findings have implications for marketers who make product design choices like color choices for products, their packaging, and advertisements, and in instances where consumers may be harmed from underuse or overuse.","PeriodicalId":16152,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing","volume":"210 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.9,"publicationDate":"2024-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142487021","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}
Bernardo Andretti, Yan Vieites, Larissa Elmor, Eduardo B. Andrade
{"title":"EXPRESS: How Socioeconomic Status Shapes Food Preferences and Perceptions","authors":"Bernardo Andretti, Yan Vieites, Larissa Elmor, Eduardo B. Andrade","doi":"10.1177/00222429241296048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429241296048","url":null,"abstract":"This paper assesses the extent to which consumers from the opposite poles of the socioeconomic distribution weigh three critical food attributes–healthiness, fillingness, and taste–, how they perceive the associations among them, and how differences in weights and associations influence food preferences. The results of a series of eight pre-registered studies in a highly unequal socioeconomic environment (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) show that low (vs. high) socioeconomic status consumers are more likely to (a) choose unhealthy items even when supply-side factors (e.g., affordability and accessibility) are controlled by design, (b) trade healthiness for fillingness (but not taste), and (c) display stronger negative associations between the attributes (healthy = less filling; healthy = less tasty). These findings highlight the importance of a deeper understanding of the psychological differences in food preferences and perceptions and the use of such insights to design interventions aimed at mitigating nutritional inequality. In line with this rationale, the final set of studies shows that, albeit not being a trivial task, it is possible to increase healthy food choices among the disadvantaged by enhancing the fillingness of the healthy options available. Managerial and policy implications are discussed.","PeriodicalId":16152,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.9,"publicationDate":"2024-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142452061","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}
{"title":"Commentary on “Intersectionality in Marketing: A Paradigm for Understanding Understudied Consumers”","authors":"Giana M. Eckhardt, Praveen K. Kopalle","doi":"10.1177/00222429241270738","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429241270738","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":16152,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing","volume":"80 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.9,"publicationDate":"2024-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142449432","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}
Greg Nyilasy, Shangwen Yi, Dennis Herhausen, Stephan Ludwig, Darren W. Dahl
{"title":"EXPRESS: Business-to-Investor (B2I) Marketing: The Interplay of Costly and Costless Signals","authors":"Greg Nyilasy, Shangwen Yi, Dennis Herhausen, Stephan Ludwig, Darren W. Dahl","doi":"10.1177/00222429241288464","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429241288464","url":null,"abstract":"Marketing to investors – especially when seeking funding for start-ups – is unique, with investors facing extreme uncertainty. This study uses foundational work in marketing, economics, management, finance, and psychology, as well as theories-in-use development with angel and VC investors to build a Business-to-Investor (B2I) Marketing theory. The theory proposes that investors rely on marketing signals from start-ups’ whether they are costly (financial, social, human, and intellectual resource endowments) or costless (verbal passion and concreteness). Results of a large quantitative field study of 5,334 written proposals from start-ups show that costly and costless signals have interactive effects on investor acceptance. The natural entrepreneurial tendency to compensate for a lack of costly signals with the use of passionate language backfires, reducing investor acceptance. Only when there is a number of costly signals communicated does a greater use of passion increase investor acceptance. Further, written proposals should be moderately concrete when they lack costly signals and should be formulated abstractly when plenty of costly signals can be offered. These contingencies provide insights into costly-costless signal interdependence in B2I marketing and suggest how start-ups can optimize their written proposals for investor acceptance.","PeriodicalId":16152,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142328997","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}
Caterina D’Assergio, Puneet Manchanda, Elisa Montaguti, Sara Valentini
{"title":"EXPRESS: The Race for Data: Utilizing Informative or Persuasive Cues to Gain Opt-in?","authors":"Caterina D’Assergio, Puneet Manchanda, Elisa Montaguti, Sara Valentini","doi":"10.1177/00222429241288456","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429241288456","url":null,"abstract":"The EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) mandates explicit user opt-in consent for data access. It recommends transparency in opt-in requests about data collection, storage, and use, without specifying the format of these requests. Consequently, the GDPR gives firms flexibility in designing opt-in messages. This research uses theory, multiple datasets, and methods to investigate firms’ communication formats for opt-in requests, addressing three questions: 1) how do firms design their opt-in requests? 2) does the chosen format affect consumer response? 3) what drives firms' choices of formats? The analysis of 1,506 re-permission emails from 1,396 firms post-GDPR shows that 26% use only persuasive cues to request data, while 24% blend persuasive and informative cues. Notably, businesses with an offline presence use more persuasive cues compared to purely digital entities. A field experiment rationalizes this behavior showing that informative cues alone did not improve opt-in; a mix of persuasive and informative cues proved more successful. Additionally, firms dependent on personal data utilize persuasive cues more often than firms concerned with reputational risks of GDPR non-compliance. This study offers pivotal insights for regulators, firms, and consumers, revealing variations in how different firms acquire consent and the impact of their strategies on user behavior.","PeriodicalId":16152,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142329039","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}
{"title":"EXPRESS: The Minority Ownership Awareness Effect: When Promoting Minority Ownership Increases Brand Evaluations","authors":"Esther Uduehi, Aaron J. Barnes","doi":"10.1177/00222429241283811","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429241283811","url":null,"abstract":"Recent social movements, such as Black Lives Matter, have prompted brands and retailers to increase the use of minority ownership labels (e.g., Black-owned or woman-owned). The current research examines when and why minority ownership awareness influences consumer behavior, particularly for brand failures. When a brand failure occurs, minority ownership awareness can result in higher brand evaluations and greater willingness to pay, a phenomenon referred to as the minority ownership awareness effect. This effect and its boundary conditions are demonstrated through five experiments and analyses of over 27,000 Google reviews for Black-owned restaurants. The authors propose that minority ownership awareness invokes a type of underdog effect which is pronounced in situations involving product (vs. moral) failures, among people with low (vs. high) social dominance orientation, and among those people with a high (vs. low) internal motivation to respond without prejudice.","PeriodicalId":16152,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142166087","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}
{"title":"EXPRESS: Buy Now Pay Later: Impact of Installment Payments on Customer Purchases","authors":"Stijn Maesen, Dionysius Ang","doi":"10.1177/00222429241282414","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429241282414","url":null,"abstract":"Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) installment payments allow customers to pay for purchases in a series of interest-free installments over a short period of time. This research provides novel insights into how customer adoption of BNPL installment payments impacts spending. The authors leverage customer-level transaction data before and after the introduction of a BNPL installment payment service at a large US retailer. A difference-in-difference analysis indicates that the adoption of BNPL installment payments is associated with (1) an increase in purchase incidence, and (2) larger purchase amounts. These effects are statistically and economically significant over time. Moreover, this increase in spending is greater for smaller (vs. larger) basket shoppers, and for shoppers who relied more heavily on credit (vs. debit) cards before adoption. Three pre-registered experiments show that BNPL installment (vs. lump sum) payments increase spending by reducing perceived financial constraints. Specifically, BNPL installments alleviate perceived financial constraints by reducing perceived costs and facilitating budget control. These findings highlight the substantive role of BNPL installment payments in shaping purchase behavior and provide important implications for the management of BNPL payment schemes.","PeriodicalId":16152,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142118021","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}
{"title":"EXPRESS: The Impact of Air Pollution on Consumer Spending","authors":"Sanghwa Kim, Michael Trusov","doi":"10.1177/00222429241282998","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429241282998","url":null,"abstract":"Air pollution is a growing concern to economies and societies worldwide. Despite common knowledge that air pollution impairs our emotions and cognition and hence behavioral outcomes, the impact of air pollution on consumer spending remains an open question. Analyzing air quality readings and individual-level credit card transactions in South Korea, this paper shows that consumers spend more money when air quality is poorer. This correlation is more prominent in hedonic categories, such as entertainment or leisure activities, where the nature of consumption is characterized by greater emotional benefits. The authors consider potential explanations, and the leading hypothesis is that consumers treat spending as a mood-regulating resource. The results survive an array of robustness checks and are supported in a controlled experiment, reinforcing a causal inference behind the main findings. The authors provide implications for stakeholders to develop a sustainable marketing program that not only pursues managerial interests but also concerns consumer welfare in the face of environmental change.","PeriodicalId":16152,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142118022","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}
{"title":"EXPRESS: Timing Legitimacy: Identifying the Optimal Moment to Launch Technology in the Market","authors":"Thomas Derek Robinson, Ela Veresiu","doi":"10.1177/00222429241280405","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429241280405","url":null,"abstract":"How do managers time the launch of new technologies? Without actionable frameworks to ensure consumers and other stakeholders are ready, innovation releases remain a risky endeavor. Previous work on legitimacy has focused on stages following a product launch. However, launch timing concerns shared expectations of when actions should occur prior to launch. This conceptual article evaluates the alignment between firm and stakeholder expectations regarding launch timing. It proposes that the market timing of new technology launches is structured by two dimensions: firm-led coordination and stakeholders’ willingness to change. Combining these dimensions, the authors map four types of market timing situations managers can encounter: antagonistic, synergistic, flexible, and inflexible timing. Temporal legitimacy is achieved when a firm and its key stakeholders share timing norms about the ideal moments when activities should occur in a market process. The authors conceptualize proto-markets as prefacing the well-known market legitimacy stages. This article concludes with a detailed managerial decision tree on how to create the optimal technology product launch moment and avenues of future research on market timing beyond technology launches.","PeriodicalId":16152,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Marketing","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":12.9,"publicationDate":"2024-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142084713","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}