Search results

This article analyses the role of information in the marketing processes associated with a digital world. The distinctions between information products and goods and services are explored. The unique characteristics of information products may demand a new approach to marketing, defined as information marketing. An analysis of the different levels of product demonstrates that information is often used to augment services or goods, and that it may be difficult to delineate the category “information products”. In marketing communications, digital information can be a rich resource for organisations, consumers and communities. The multi‐faceted role of information in the virtual world has consequences for information producers, consumers and marketers. These groups need to understand the unique features of information marketing.

Information products are analysed in terms of their linguistic, artistic, technological, pragmatic and contextual components and characteristics, and illustrated with examples of how the components are combined in real‐life information products. The conclusion is that the malleability and versatility of the components, and the technological possibilities of combining them provide seemingly unlimited scope for designing and marketing value‐added information products in our increasingly competitive and information technology‐based societies.

In this paper, an interesting paradox is demonstrated – when consumers pay a great deal of attention to product and price information in an advertisement, they are likely to find themselves lacking the cognitive resources required to use that information in making a discerning assessment of the value of the product offering. Using three studies, it is shown that paying close attention to product‐ and price‐related information details causes cognitive busyness, which can cause consumers to engage in a greater degree of heuristic processing than those who are cognitively less busy. It is demonstrated that, when consumers are cognitively busy, they are less likely to accurately assess the value of price discount offers. Such cognitively busy consumers generally disregard the magnitude of the discount and the actual savings offered in forming their assessments of value for the offer. Non‐busy consumers, on the other hand, perceive differences in value as magnitude of discounts, price, or quality of product features being altered. Implications for managers and consumers are discussed.

This paper aims to analyze the effects of web communities vs company websites in providing tactile information considering different types of product in terms of touch diagnosticity (low- vs. high-touch products).

Three experimental studies were conducted to examine the effect of online information sources (i.e. web communities vs. company websites) in providing tactile information on consumer responses, considering the moderation role of product type in terms of touch diagnosticity (low- vs. high-touch products, Study 1), the moderating role of type of information (tactile vs. generic, Study 2a); and the moderating role of need for touch (NFT) (Study 2a and 2b).

While previous research converges on the idea that the provision of a written description of tactile properties deriving from the product usage is particularly effective for products for which tactile information is diagnostic and for individuals high in NFT, the results demonstrated that the presence (vs. the absence) of the description of the tactile properties provided by web communities (vs. company websites) matters for those products for which touch is not diagnostic and for individuals low in NFT.

The findings have particular relevance for emerging brands intending to commercialize their products in the digital environment. These companies should be present in web communities to describe a product’s tactile characteristics, especially if not diagnostic.

This paper significantly contributes to a better understanding of a little studied area, namely, consumer responses toward haptic compensational strategies providing haptic cues (e.g. written description of tactile information along with pictures of products) aiming at compensating for the absence of touch, underlining the differential influence of online sources of tactile information on consumer responses across different types of products.

This study developed a new interpretation of the attitude contagion theory, with the information adoption model (IAM) as the theoretical basis. A review of electronic word-of-mouth studies was conducted by using informational and individual determinants to develop an integrated empirical model that identified the antecedents and consequences of consumer attitude toward online reviews.

This study recruited 750 members of Facebook beauty fan pages in Taiwan and used the structural equation model to test research hypotheses.

Results revealed that perceived “ electronic word-of mouth (eWOM) credibility of online reviews” and “product involvement” could be used to explain the effects of attitude toward online reviews. Regarding the attitude contagion effect, the effect of “attitude toward online review” on both “attitude toward a product” and “attitude toward a brand” is stronger than that on “eWOM adoption.”

This paper provides valuable insights into the antecedents, consequences and mediating mechanisms that determine consumer attitude toward online reviews.

The chapter focused on quality assurance and marketing of library services and products at the Midlands State University (MSU). The chapter's main objective was to identify the quality assurance mechanisms at the MSU Library. The major findings of the research were; the MSU library was practising quality assurance, staff was trained on the latest trends in the profession, the collection was multidisciplinary and in different forms, and that there were Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) used in enhancing service provision. The researcher recommended that the library needed to continuously train librarians on issues to do with quality, improve the infrastructure, introduce Research Data Management to enhance the Research Support Services and improve on the Information Literacy Skills training programmes. The author identified some areas for further research and the major one was that there is need for clarification on the concept of the 4th Industrial Revolution.

Existing research on product design has found that a design’s complexity is an important antecedent of consumers’ aesthetic and behavioural responses. This paper aims to shed new light on the relationship between design complexity and perceptions of design quality by taking the effects of consumers’ naïve theories into account.

The hypotheses of this paper are tested in a series of three experiments.

The findings from three studies show that the extent to which consumers prefer more complex product designs to simpler ones depends on the extent to which they believe that the complexity of a design is indicative of the effort or of the talent of the designers involved in the design process. These competing naïve theories, in turn, are triggered by contextual information that consumers have at their disposal, such as the professional background of a designer or the brand that is associated with a particular design.

This research was limited to a design's complexity as the central design element and to the effects of two naïve theories. Future research may also take other design factors and consumer heuristics into account.

This research reveals that the extent to which managers may successfully introduce both complex and simple designs may depend on the reputation of a company’s designers and the prestige of a brand.

This research examines design complexity from a novel theoretical perspective and shows that the effect of design complexity on perceptions of design quality is contingent on two specific naïve theories of consumers.

This study aims to examine the relationship between family business identity disclosure by firms and consumer product evaluations and the moderating impact, if any, of firm size on this relationship. Toward this end, the study seeks to develop a theoretical explanation for how consumers process family business identity information.

A qualitative pre-study was conducted to obtain preliminary evidence that consumers’ perceptions of family businesses originate from both family- and business-based category beliefs. A product evaluation experiment, involving young adult subjects, was used to test the research hypotheses, and the experiment data were analyzed using MANOVA.

The key finding was that the effect of family business identity disclosure on consumer product evaluations is moderated by firm size.

This research has implications for businesses seeking to promote their family business identity in branding communications.

This research provides a theoretical account of why consumers might hold different perceptions of family business brands. The interactive effect of firm size and family business identity information disclosure on consumer product evaluations contributes new insight to family business branding.

This article investigated the relationship between loneliness and anthropomorphic products.

The authors conducted three studies to examine their hypotheses.

The authors confirmed that highly lonely people would like to seek for social relationship. What's more, they may try to compensate by creating a sense of connection with nonhuman products so they will prefer anthropomorphic products. Further, the authors demonstrated that information framework can moderate this effect. Highly lonely consumers would increase their preference to anthropomorphic product under promotion-focus information, whereas they would decrease their preference to anthropomorphic product under prevention-focus information. These effects do not exist in lowly lonely consumers. At the same time, the authors demonstrate that the effect is mediated by perceived social connection.

This article contributes to loneliness literature in the consumer behavior field and proves the moderation effect of the information framework, which can deepen our understanding of the relationship between loneliness and anthropomorphic products.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of consumers' shopping orientation on their satisfaction level with the product search and purchase behavior using multi‐channels.

A total of 181 students in a large US mid‐western university provided usable responses to the survey. Exploratory factor analysis and multiple regression analyses were employed to examine the research questions.

The results showed that more than three quarters of the respondents shopped via the internet and catalogs, and about 95 percent shopped at non‐local retailers. About 60 percent reported that they never shopped from TV shopping channels. Confident/fashion‐conscious shopping orientation and catalog/internet shopping orientation were found to be key predictors of customer satisfaction level with information search via multi‐channels. Both confident/fashion‐conscious consumers and mall shopping‐oriented shoppers were more satisfied with store‐based retail channels for apparel purchases, whereas non‐local store‐oriented shoppers and catalog/internet‐oriented shoppers were more satisfied with non‐store‐based retail channels for their apparel purchases.

The sample of this study was biased by gender and age. For the apparel retail industry, this paper offers practical knowledge about the relationships between shopping orientation and consumer search and purchase behavior in a multi‐channel retailing context.

No study has utilized the shopping orientation framework to explain consumer behavior in a multi‐channel environment. This study provides understanding of consumer product information search behavior on four dimensions (price, promotion, style/trends, and merchandise availability) via multi‐channels.