Search results

This research explores the existence of consideration sets as a marketing universal by evaluating consideration set sizes for a shopping good in a cross‐cultural context. Previous studies of marketing universals investigated consumers’ use of product quality signals for shopping goods. This study used two operational definitions of a consideration set and found that both the average number of brands considered and the number of brands tried on were statistically equal for two matched samples in different cultures, supporting the status of consideration sets as a marketing universal.

Departing from conflicting findings on the role of involvement in the formation of the consideration set, the authors of this study seek to shed light to the wine consumer behaviour and expand previous findings in the bring-your-own-bottle (BYOB) of wine restaurant industry. The authors seek to determine the contradictory effect of involvement on the consideration set size and variety.

Three empirical studies were conducted. In Study 1, the relationships were tested in a personal consumption situation and in Study 2 in a gift-giving context. Finally, in Study 3, inconsistencies in the intensity of the hypothesised relationships were explored by testing the triple interaction amongst the three variables (i.e. involvement, decision-making context and decision domain).

According to the authors' findings BYOB of wine consumers form larger considerations sets in memory-based decision contexts. Involvement's effect on wine consideration set size is stronger in memory-based decisions. BYOB restaurant patrons form smaller sets of alternatives for personal consumption. BYOB restaurant patrons form more heterogeneous sets of alternatives in wine gift-giving. BYOB of wine restaurants should facilitate consumers' wine-selection process.

The authors make an effort to explain and determine the up-to-date contradictory effect of restaurant patrons' involvement on the BYOB of wine consideration set size and the amount of variety contained therein. The study offers new insights, by unfolding the moderating effect of decision-making contexts (i.e. memory-based versus stimuli-based) and decision domains (i.e. personal consumption versus gift-giving) on this effect of involvement on the properties of consideration sets.

This research seeks to examine the influence of sponsorship on spectators' consideration sets by investigating, in a naturalistic setting, whether sport sponsorship adds a prominent brand to spectators' consideration sets, with and without the explicit memory that the brand is a sponsor.

A field study involved 1,084 visitors to a tennis tournament. For the control group (n=276), the interviews took place before the spectators entered the stadium; interviews with the exposed group (n=808) were conducted after they had attended at least one match. Three hypotheses related to consumer status and consideration set conditions were tested.

Sponsorship can influence the likelihood that a prominent brand becomes part of the consideration set in a naturalistic setting, even without an explicit memory that the brand is a sponsor. This implicit sponsorship effect was limited to the memory-based consideration set of non-consumers of the brand.

This study establishes an implicit sponsorship effect for prominent brands in naturalistic environments and contributes to a better understanding of moderating (boundary) conditions.

Develops and tests a general model for understanding the influence of query‐based decision aids (QBDA) on consumer decision making in the electronic commerce environment. The results show that the use of well‐designed query‐based decision aids leads to increased satisfaction with the decision process and increased confidence in judgements. The number of stages of phased narrowing of the consideration set was higher in the case of subjects who had access to the query‐based decision aids. The mediating variables through which this influence occurs are size of the consideration set, similarity among the alternatives in the consideration set, cognitive decision effort, and perceived cost savings. The size of the consideration set and the similarity among the alternatives in the consideration set were higher in the case of subjects who had access to the query‐based decision aid. Subjects who had access to the query‐based decision aid perceived an increased cost savings and a lower cognitive decision effort associated with the purchase decision. This research is done in the context of consumers searching for information on the World Wide Web prior to the purchase of cars.

This paper aims to investigate how consumers adjust their price expectations for brands in response to previously encountered prices. The effects of two distinct components of price history, focal and contextual, are examined. The focal component represents the role of a brand's own previous price(s) in determining future price expectations. In contrast, the contextual component represents the impact of the prices of previously considered competing brands.

A total of 60 subjects were enrolled to participate in a longitudinal, quantitative, survey‐based study that required them to provide information on brand perceptions, price expectations, brand consideration and choice.

Empirical comparison of several model formulations confirms that both components are crucial in explaining how consumers adjust their price expectations in response to the prices of considered brands. Consistent with a wide body of research, a brand's own previous price exerts the greatest influence on price expectations. However, the extent to which contextual prices are assimilated depends on the composition of consumers' consideration sets. Avenues for future research and implications for brand pricing and positioning are discussed.

The results offer several unique perspectives that stand out from (and build further on) previous research. First, although previous research has examined the effects of competing brands' current prices on brand choices, it has not incorporated the prices of competing brands that may have been observed on previous shopping occasions. Second, measures and assesses the perceived variability within the consumers' consideration sets influences the impact of the contextual component on a brand's current reference price.

Service branding research predominantly focuses on the purchase and postpurchase stages of the customer journey. This study aims to expand the lens of enquiry to the prepurchase stage, showing the role service brand awareness and service brand retrieval play before customer experiences and relationships can be established.

The research presents and empirically examines a new framework that links service brand awareness and service brand retrieval to key “battlegrounds” in the prepurchase stage of the customer journey: entry into the Awareness Set, Consideration Set and Repertoire Set. The empirical work draws on data from both services and goods markets from two UK-based consumer surveys (N = 771 and N = 270, respectively).

The findings indicate that, prepurchase, service brands compete most intensively to establish and reinforce a broad array of memory associations, rather than a specific corporate or brand image.

To improve the generalizability of the conclusions drawn, the findings of this study should be replicated in additional service categories and consumer samples.

The findings translate into novel, long-term strategies for the management of service brands at the prepurchase stage of the customer journey, especially opportunities for effective and creative marketing communications.

This study contributes to marketing research and practice by introducing the notion of service brand retrieval and highlighting its role, together with service brand awareness and prepurchase.

Course redesign is a creative process that involves the four sets of considerations set out by the DIME model. In this chapter, we highlight key considerations related to design, interaction, media, and evaluation and describe the interconnections of the decisions within the model that make the process iterative. In addition, we suggest supplementary matters for your consideration. Specifically, we explore matters related to career and course management. Career considerations are strategic level concerns related to course redesign that have potentially long-term implications. Course management considerations are tactical level suggestions aimed at making your course implementation a success. Issues and suggestions are grounded in experience.

This paper aims to demonstrate how consumer clickstream data from a leading hotel search engine can be used to validate two hidden information processing stages – first eliminate alternatives, then choose – proposed by the revered information processing theory of consumer choice.

This study models the two hidden information processing stages as hidden states in a hidden Markov model, estimated on consumer search behavior, product attributes and diversity of alternatives in the consideration set.

First, the stage of information processing can be statistically characterized in terms of consumer search covariates, including trip characteristics, use of search tools and the diversity of the consideration set, operationalized in terms of: number of brands, dispersion of price and dispersion of quality. Second, users are more sensitive to price and quality in the first rather than the second stage, which is closer to purchase.

The results suggest practical implications for how search engine managers can target consumers with appropriate marketing-mix actions, based on which information processing stage consumers might be in.

Most previous studies on validating the information processing theory of consumer choice have used laboratory experiments, subjects and information display boards comprising hypothetical product alternatives and attributes. Only a few studies use observational data. In contrast, this study uniquely uses point-of-purchase clickstream data on actual visitors at a leading hotel search engine and tests the theory based on real products, attributes and diversity of the consideration set.

Examines the relationship between consumer‐specific constructs and the size of consumer retail choice sets for four different types of retailers: convenience/quick‐stop stores, fast‐food outlets, health clubs and medical services. Includes in the analysis consumer experience, product class importance, brand‐decision importance, perceived risk, brand loyalty and demographics as predictors of the size of awareness, consideration/evoked and reconsideration set sizes. Finds that when comparing physical goods as opposed to service providers, the size of retail choice sets differs significantly and that consumer experience and reseller loyalty are important predictors of choice set size. Indicates that the size of a consumer’s choice set decreases as a retailer’s product offerings move along the continuum from pure physical goods to pure services. Identifies and discusses managerial and research implications of the results.

Semi‐structured focused interviews were used to analyse the supposedly extended decision process involved in the choice of video recorder. The results suggested that the proposed three‐stage model was a meaningful reflection of the decision‐making process. First the respondents clarified the problems and benefits of video recorders. Next they created consideration and choice sets excluding more extensive searching. Conjunctive decision rules (weirs) were used to simplify the final decision. The implications for manufacturers are discussed.