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1 – 10 of 380Considering the growth of the at-home smart technology industry and the increasing power of social media influencers, this study aims to examine how influencer endorsements affect…
Abstract
Purpose
Considering the growth of the at-home smart technology industry and the increasing power of social media influencers, this study aims to examine how influencer endorsements affect individuals’ attitudes and trial intentions toward smart technology products.
Design/methodology/approach
An online experiment was conducted to investigate the impact of follower number and expertise domain of influencers and the trust propensity of individuals on their attitudinal and behavioral responses to influencer endorsements of smart technology products. The moderated mediation effect of perceived credibility was further examined.
Findings
The results demonstrated that individuals with lower trust propensity responded more positively to a microinfluencer with fewer followers and a specific area of expertise, which led to favorable attitudes and increased intention to try a smart technology product. However, the expertise domain was not a significant factor for the megainfluencer condition with a more extensive follower base. Interestingly, the interaction effects were not observed for individuals with higher trust propensity.
Practical implications
The results of this research provide practical implications for marketers who look for effective strategies for influencer marketing by demonstrating the significant impact of source-related cues, including follower number and expertise domain.
Originality/value
Based on the modality, agency, interactivity and navigability; source credibility; and persuasion knowledge models, this research explains how source-related cues of influencers affect credibility judgment, attitude formation and trial intentions for new technology products and how trust propensity as a personal dispositional factor varies the relationship.
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The purpose of this study is to conceptually integrate business to consumer (B2C) into business to business (B2B), with a holistic consumer-centric, technology-reinforced…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to conceptually integrate business to consumer (B2C) into business to business (B2B), with a holistic consumer-centric, technology-reinforced, long-term vision for tourism industries and companies to survive and succeed in the era of new technologies 4.0. The research suggests that the tourism-marketing-new technologies decision-making involves customers as the center of the design and decision process.
Design/methodology/approach
The research design includes a qualitative study with 94 in-depth interviews, a literature analysis and a conceptual proposition. The qualitative study follows the tourism consumer desire data analysis, from categorization to integration. The literature analysis applies a systematic literature review approach based on the 29 most up-to-date new-tech papers from peer-reviewed journals. The analysis compares qualitative research findings and literature analysis results and matches the new technology applications with consumer desire understanding. The conceptual framework of tourism marketing/advertising is proposed based on qualitative research and literature analysis.
Findings
The qualitative research deciphers that consumers, based on their imagination and memorization, desire therapy and sceneries and connect such desires to the empathetic and resonating advertising messages. The literature analysis synthesizes the new tech applications in tourism and matches the qualitative research findings with the deciphered desires in tourism. The conceptual model proposes that B2C should be integrated into B2B to provide value for both consumers and businesses and opens avenues of research on this topic.
Research limitations/implications
This research has made the following theoretical contributions: it offers an in-depth understanding of consumer desire, often hidden or subconscious, in the field of tourism. Consumer desires regarding tourism are mostly subconscious and exist long before consumers are exposed to advertising messages. These desires reflect the search for therapy and sceneries and become “embodied” – they exist on multisensorial levels and become part of the body and life and will lead consumers into positive perceptions when marketing communications/advertisements resonate with them. In the latter case, they will subjectively judge advertising as “good,” regardless of the advertising design quality. The research also connects consumer research with a new technologies research review and proposes a conceptual framework to integrate business to consumer (B2C) with business to business (B2B). As such, the research makes theoretical contributions to the integration or the “boundary blurring” between B2C and B2B research and practical suggestions that involved industries and consumers may all benefit from such integration. Conceptually, there is a lack of discussions of the pitfalls of new technologies, a dearth of empirical verification of the applications of new technologies in the proposed fields and a shortage of discussions about ethical issues. Qualitative methods, offering an efficient tool for understanding consumer desires in the tourism industry, have their own limits, as discussed in previous research. The sample is limited to the state of New York population and may be influenced by geographic, demographic and psychological characteristics related to the region.
Practical implications
This research provides advertising practitioners, new technology innovators and tourism industries with a framework to face the combined challenges of understanding hidden consumer desires and applying adequate technologies that resonate with consumer desires to tackle relevant issues. The conceptual proposition of this research fills the gap between qualitative consumer research without concrete practical resolution and new technologies applications without in-depth consumer understanding. Through the conceptual framework, the author provides insights into how industries may benefit from consumer understanding. The business relationships among the industries of marketing, tourism and new technologies should be centered around consumers. Thus, B2C and B2B should be naturally integrated into business practices.
Social implications
Social implications of this research include three major points: first, the understanding of consumer desire for therapeutic power in tourism, which invites more attention to tourism as part of social well-being design instead of a purely for-profit business. Second, a profound comprehension of what consumers need and desire, without which the applications of new technologies may cause severe societal problems. Third, a way to tailor to consumers’ individuality and desires for advertising/marketing that may be considered abusive, stressful and socially destructive if applied in a nonpersonal manner.
Originality/value
Conceptually, this research adds consumer desire, an originally B2C concept, to the B2B context regarding the new technology applications in tourism marketing/advertising. It contributes to the B2B literature by proposing a strong consumer-centric approach, especially the consumer desire understanding, that is not yet investigated in the B2B literature; and a combination of empirical study and literature analysis and the matching of the two for better practice of advertising/marketing, tourism and new technologies applications.
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Mollika Ghosh and ABM Shahidul Islam
The purpose of this study is to examine how “homefluencers” sponsored posts on millennial consumers' purchase intention in the international marketing sphere can be impacted in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine how “homefluencers” sponsored posts on millennial consumers' purchase intention in the international marketing sphere can be impacted in the new normal by drawing on source credibility, parasocial interaction (PSI) and persuasion knowledge model (PKM) theory.
Design/methodology/approach
This research applies structural equation modeling (SEM) and mediation analysis as the data analysis method using non-probability purposive sampling of a total of 217 local millennial Instagram and Facebook users, who have followed homefluencers sponsored posts in fashion-beauty, yoga-fitness and food sectors.
Findings
Based on hypothesis testing, advertising recognition strongly mediates purchase intention with the indirect effects of expertise and trustworthiness than attractiveness.
Research limitations/implications
This research extends the international marketing literature on source credibility, PSI, PKM and purchase intention theory in the new normal by proposing “Homefluencer's Endorsement Model for Purchase Intention” (HEMPI). Specifically, the mediating role of ad recognition of homefluencers sponsorship disclosure (#paidad, #sponsored), positively affects “change-of-persuasion meaning” on Instagram and Facebook, where research is rare.
Practical implications
This research provides valuable suggestions for global brand owners, consumers and authorities of Instagram and Facebook to consider post-COVID consumer behavior highlighting homefluencers sponsored collaboration.
Originality/value
The authors have contributed to the use of the source credibility model and PSI to identify the antecedents in determining how the homefluencer's effective sponsorship disclosure can positively activate ad recognition on millennial consumers' purchase intention in a crisis period from an international standpoint with the practical implications in post-COVID.
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This paper illuminates the mechanisms through which marketing practice and institutions produced, normalized and institutionalized systemic racism in support of imperialism…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper illuminates the mechanisms through which marketing practice and institutions produced, normalized and institutionalized systemic racism in support of imperialism, colonization and slavery to provide impetus for transformational change. Critical race research is drawn on to propose paths toward decolonial and anti-racist research agenda and practice.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper integrates multidisciplinary literature on race, racism, imperialism, colonialism and slavery, connecting these broad themes to the roles marketing practices and institutions played in creating and sustaining racism. Critical race theory, afro pessimism, postcolonial theories, anti-racism and decoloniality provide conceptual foundations for a proposed transformative research agenda.
Findings
Marketing practices and institutions played active and leading roles in producing, mass mobilizing and honing racist ideology and the imagery to support imperialism, colonial expansion and slavery. Racist inequalities in market systems were produced globally through active collusion by marketing actors and institutions in these historical forces creating White advantage and Black dispossession that persist; indicating an urgent need for transformative anti-racists and decolonial research agendas.
Research limitations/implications
Covering these significant historical forces inevitably leaves much room for further inquiry. The paper by necessity “Mango picked” the most relevant research, but a full coverage of these topics was beyond the scope of this paper.
Practical implications
Marketing practitioners found themselves at the epicenter of a crisis during the Black Lives Matter protests. This paper aims to foster anti-racist ad decolonial research to guide practice.
Social implications
This paper addresses systemic and institutional racism, and marketplace inequalities – urgent societal challenges.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the paper is the first in marketing to integrate multidisciplinary literature on historical forces of imperialism, colonization and slavery to illuminate marketing’s influential role in producing marketplace racism while advancing an anti-racist and de-colonial research agenda.
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Mian Yan, Alex Pak Ki Kwok, Alan Hoi Shou Chan, Yu Sheng Zhuang, Kang Wen and Kai Chao Zhang
E-commerce live streaming is a new influencer advertising method that allows influencers to interact directly with consumers on e-commerce platforms. Although evidence suggests…
Abstract
Purpose
E-commerce live streaming is a new influencer advertising method that allows influencers to interact directly with consumers on e-commerce platforms. Although evidence suggests that influencer live-streaming advertisements (ads) on social media can increase consumers’ buying impulses, little research examined how this similar but new advertising method on e-commerce platforms may influence consumers’ urge to buy impulsively. This study explores the role of influencer credibility, celebrity effect, perceived entertainment, trust and perceived usefulness on consumers’ attitudes toward influencer ads and their urge to buy impulsively.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire containing seven constructs was developed and distributed to participants using a convenient sample and snowball sampling approach. The constructs were measured based on validated measurement items from the literature and adjusted according to this study’s focus. A total of 236 valid responses were obtained from the survey and used for data analysis. A partial least squares structural equation modeling approach was employed for parameter estimation and model testing.
Findings
The empirical results show that all constructs influenced consumers’ urge to buy impulsively via attitude toward influencer ads. The proposed research model explains 61.7% of the variance in attitude toward influencer ads and 19.4% of the urge to buy impulsively.
Originality/value
This is an early study investigating the relationship between influencer advertising and impulse buying. The results provide valuable insights into improving the design of influencer ads and marketing strategies.
Highlights
I-eIB model tests the mechanism of influencer ads on consumers’ buying impulse.
Consumers’ attitude towards influencer ads affects their urge to buy impulsively.
Influencer credibility affects consumer attitude via celebrity effect as a mediator.
Trust affects consumer attitude via perceived usefulness as a mediator.
Entertaining ads help develop favorable consumer attitude.
I-eIB model tests the mechanism of influencer ads on consumers’ buying impulse.
Consumers’ attitude towards influencer ads affects their urge to buy impulsively.
Influencer credibility affects consumer attitude via celebrity effect as a mediator.
Trust affects consumer attitude via perceived usefulness as a mediator.
Entertaining ads help develop favorable consumer attitude.
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By studying marketing strategies of the global Weider Nutrition International Group, this study aims to analyse how the industry surrounding fitness equipment and dietary…
Abstract
Purpose
By studying marketing strategies of the global Weider Nutrition International Group, this study aims to analyse how the industry surrounding fitness equipment and dietary supplements interacted with fitness culture through marketing, advertising and consumption in 1950s Scandinavia. The emphasis is on how the Weider Group established their position as a world leader in sports nutrition through mail order partnerships and advertising using bodies and body ideals in their campaigns.
Design/methodology/approach
The Weider Group’s marketing campaigns are studied through close reading of text and images in Scandinavian weightlifting and bodybuilding magazines in the 1950s, guided by a theoretical understanding of the body as a constant and ongoing project.
Findings
This study deepens the historical knowledge of market-driven aspects of sport and exercise. The market for nutrition and fitness products was internationalised in the 1950s. The study shows that cooperation between commercial and civic organisations played a major role in the enterprise of selling fitness and nutrition products.
Originality/value
This paper shows that in marketing the products, the advertisements – which appealed to both men and women – not only struck a tone of intimacy and desire but also cultivated a sense of insecurity and inadequacy, as well as individuals’ responsibility for maintaining their own bodies. The latter was reflected in young men’s letters to magazines in which Weider’s products and training programmes were praised. For women, this opened up a previously male-dominated gym environment.
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This study aims to explore the impact of women empowerment and gender-stereotypical advertising exposure on consumers’ attitudes and purchase intents.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the impact of women empowerment and gender-stereotypical advertising exposure on consumers’ attitudes and purchase intents.
Design/methodology/approach
The quantitative research approach was used to assess the women-empowerment and gender-stereotypical advertising on consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions, explicating the most effective approach in marketing communication in the Arab context, specifically Egypt. Administrated questionnaires were distributed online cross-gender through the use of convenience sampling. The targeted average sample size sought was minimum of 370. Once the data was acquired, partial least square path modelling of structural equation modelling was conducted to test the hypotheses.
Findings
Results show that male consumers and female consumers react to a certain extent differently to women-empowerment and gender-stereotypical advertisings. For instance, gender-stereotypical advertisings effect attitude for both genders; it effects male consumers’ purchase intentions, but not female consumers. Women empowerment advertising is insignificant on brand attitude and purchase intention among male consumers; among female consumers, it has significant impact on brand attitude, but not purchase intention. Nevertheless, both categories of advertising contribute to male consumers’ and female consumers’ perception and attitude towards gender role portrayal.
Originality/value
This study provides noteworthy insights and perspectives on women-empowerment (Femvertising) and gender-stereotypical advertising effects on cross-gender consumers in the Arab region (a region of strong masculine culture values). The emerged conclusions aid as a reference and guide for scholars and practitioners to develop effective advertising that create prospect depictions and build inspired female customer base.
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Haseeb Shabbir, Michael R. Hyman and Alena Kostyk
This special issue explores how marketing thought and practice have contributed to systemic racism but could alleviate racially insensitive and biased practices. An introductory…
Abstract
Purpose
This special issue explores how marketing thought and practice have contributed to systemic racism but could alleviate racially insensitive and biased practices. An introductory historical overview briefly discusses coloniality, capitalism, eugenics, modernism, transhumanism, neo-liberalism, and liquid racism. Then, the special issue articles on colonial-based commodity racism, racial beauty imagery, implicit racial bias, linguistic racism and racial imagery in ads are introduced.
Design/methodology/approach
The historical introduction is grounded in a review of relevant literature.
Findings
Anti-racism efforts must tackle the intersection between neo-liberalism and racial injustice, the “raceless state” myth should be re-addressed, and cultural pedagogy’s role in normalizing racism should be investigated.
Practical implications
To stop perpetuating raced markets, educators should mainstream anti-racism and marketing. Commodity racism provides a historical and contemporary window into university-taught marketing skills.
Social implications
Anti-racism efforts must recognize neo-liberalism’s pervasive role in normalizing raced markets and reject conventional wisdom about a raceless cultural pedagogy, especially with the emergence of platform economies.
Originality/value
Little previous research has tackled the history of commodity racism, white privilege, white ideology, and instituting teaching practices sensitive to minority group experiences.
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Mark Yi-Cheon Yim, Eunice (Eun-Sil) Kim and Hongmin Ahn
In keeping with recent body image social trends, consumer demand for the adoption of plus-size models is increasing, although the use of thin models remains prevalent. The current…
Abstract
Purpose
In keeping with recent body image social trends, consumer demand for the adoption of plus-size models is increasing, although the use of thin models remains prevalent. The current study explores how consumers process information about fashion products displayed on different sizes of models in advertisements, focusing on model and consumer body sizes and both genders. As an underlying mechanism explaining how the relationship between model and consumer body sizes shapes consumer purchase intention, this study explores the role of guilt, shame and mental imagery.
Design/methodology/approach
The current study uses a text analytics technique to identify female consumers' general opinions of thin models in advertising. Employing a 3 (consumer body size: normal, overweight, obese) × 2 (model body size: thin, plus-size) × 2 (gender: male, female) between-subjects online experiment (n = 718), the main study comparatively analyzes the influences of plus-size and thin models on consumer responses.
Findings
The results reveal that, despite body positivity movements, thin models still generate negative emotions among female consumers. For obese female consumers, advertisements featuring plus-size models produce fewer negative emotions but not more mental imagery than advertisements featuring thin models. Conversely, for obese male consumers, advertisements featuring plus-size models generate more mental imagery but not more negative emotions than advertisements featuring thin models. The results also reveal that the relationship between consumer body size and guilt is moderated by perceived model size, which is also moderated by gender in generating mental imagery. While guilt plays a mediating role in enhancing mental imagery, resulting in purchase intention, shame does not take on this role.
Originality/value
This study is the first to present an integrated model that elucidates how consumers with varying body sizes respond to different sizes of models in advertising and how these responses impact purchase intentions.
Research limitations/implications
Our findings only apply to contexts where consumers purchase fashion clothing in response to advertisements featuring thin versus plus-size models.
Practical implications
Exposing normal-size consumers to plus-size models generates less mental imagery, and thus, practitioners should seek to match the body sizes of the models featured in advertising to the body sizes of their target audience or ad campaigns that include both plus-size and thin models may help improve message persuasiveness in fashion advertising. Moreover, guilt-appeal advertising campaigns using thin models would appeal more to thin consumers of both genders than shame-appeal advertising.
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Sherbaz Khan, Aamir Rashid, Rizwana Rasheed and Noor Aina Amirah
The purpose of this study is to present a complete framework that defines the link between choices and decision criteria based on existing research on digital influencers (DIs…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to present a complete framework that defines the link between choices and decision criteria based on existing research on digital influencers (DIs) connected to consumer purchase intentions. The primary goal of this article is to assess the effect of DIs on customer purchase intentions via the creation of an integrated knowledge-based system (KBS).
Design/methodology/approach
The suggested KBS is based on the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP), which creates a link between DI elements and their overall effect on consumer purchase intentions.
Findings
With the help of a KBS, the performance of DIs may be evaluated. It demonstrates the link between choices connected to factors and decision criteria of various variables, demonstrating the beneficial effect of DIs in molding customer purchase intentions in the organic skincare industry.
Practical implications
The proposed KBS would aid marketing managers and decision makers in assessing the effect of DIs on customer purchase intentions. This research would also give decision makers with extensive information on influencer marketing and crucial elements that have a significant effect on customer purchase intentions.
Originality/value
This is the first research to employ the fuzzy AHP methodology and KBS in relation to influencers' effect. No prior research has targeted the organic skincare industry to assess the effect of Internet influencers on consumer purchase intentions. Furthermore, the KBS offers a holistic and complete way to studying influencers' effect on cost per impression (CPI) by establishing a linkage between choices and decision criteria.
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