Business Commons^™

To Share Or Not To Share: The Optimal Advertising Effort With Asymmetric Advertising Effectiveness, Qingying Li, Hao Ding, Tianqin Shi, Yanli Tang

Faculty Publications

In this paper, we study a two-stage model in which a manufacturer expands to a new market through a local retailer and has private information on the advertising effectiveness. The manufacturer chooses the information sharing format with the retailer, either no information sharing or mandatory information sharing. Under no information sharing format, the manufacturer and the retailer play a signaling game. We derive both separating and pooling equilibria and conduct equilibrium refinements for the signaling game. Under mandatory information sharing format, the manufacturer simply informs the retailer the advertising effectiveness. We also establish the stylized model and derive the optimal …

Distribution Channel Choice And Divisional Conflict In Remanufacturing Operations, Tianqin Shi, Dilip Chhajed, Zhixi Wan, Yunchuan Liu

Faculty Publications

We consider a firm consisting of two divisions, one responsible for designing and manufacturing new products and the other responsible for remanufacturing operations. The firm will sell these new and remanufactured products either directly to the consumer (direct selling) or through an independent retailer (indirect selling). Our study demonstrates that a firm’s organizational structure can affect its marketing decisions. Specifically, a decentralized firm with separate manufacturing and remanufacturing divisions can benefit from indirect selling with higher firm profit, supply chain profit, and total consumer demand than direct selling. Moreover, this structure also induces a remanufacturable product design. In contrast, a …

Appeals To Ownership Of Automobiles In Style Magazines Of The U.S. And U.K., 1930-2000, Steven D. Silver

Faculty Publications

We report an analysis of attribute and motive content of appeals to automobile ownership in print advertising of style magazines in the U.S. and U.K. Results of the analyses show significant country differences in appeals to technology, status and subcategories of motivation.

Consumer Brand Relationships Research: A Bibliometric Citation Meta-Analysis, Marc Fetscherin, Daniel Heinrich

Faculty Publications

This study examines how scholarly research on consumer brand relationships has evolved over the last decades by conducting a bibliometric citation meta-analysis. The bibliography was compiled using the ISI Web of Science database. The literature review includes 392 papers by 685 authors in 101 journals. The area of consumer brand relationships research is notably interdisciplinary, with articles mainly published in journals for business and management, but also applied psychology and communication. We show the impact of universities, authors, journals, and key articles and outline possible future research avenues. The study explores seven sub-research streams and visualizes how articles on consumer …

How Are Brand Names Of Chinese Companies Perceived By Americans?, Marc Fetscherin, Adamantios Diamantopoilos, Allan K.K. Chan, Rachael Abbott

Faculty Publications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper was to conduct an experimental design of Americans’ preferences for the English version of Chinese brand names by drawing from prior research in psychology, linguistics and marketing. The impact of string length and semantic relevance to English on meaningfulness, memorability and likeability of brand names from Chinese companies was assessed. Design/methodology/approach – A 2 × 2 experimental design was used, whereby brand names are categorized by string length (short vs long) and semantic relevance to English (with vs without). Respondents’ perception of the Chinese language in terms of pronounceability, language familiarity and language …

The Ceo Branding Mix, Marc Fetscherin

Faculty Publications

What do Donald Trump, Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah Winfrey, Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos have in common? They are not only CEOs and living icons of the brands they created but also brands themselves. There are many reasons why CEOs today get more attention than in the past. When the media are looking for a business story they often turn to CEOs or founders. Some companies are larger than countries in terms of number of citizens or employees or in revenue. For example, Walmart has about 2.2 million employees, comparable to the population of Qatar, Namibia, or Slovenia, and its revenues …

What Type Of Relationship Do We Have With Loved Brands?, Marc Fetscherin

Faculty Publications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a discussion, testing and comparing two different relationship theories and their underlying scales as applied to brand love. Current brand love studies neglect a detailed discussion and analysis of the appropriate relationship theory and underlying measurement scale to be used. Design/methodology/approach – We use a 2 × 2 experimental design where we compare two relationship theories (interpersonal versus parasocial) across two samples (USA and Japan). Model testing were conducted using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and multi-group structural equation modeling techniques assessing the type of relationship consumers have with …

The Effect Of Product Category On Consumer Brand Relationships, Marc Fetscherin, Michèle Boulanger, Gustavo Q. Souki, Cid Goncalves Filho

Faculty Publications

Purpose - This paper aims to investigate the effect of product category on consumer brand relationships. Design/methodology/approach - Based on a total of 800 consumers, respondents evaluated their relationship with their favorite brand in one of the four product categories studied (soft drink, mobile phone, shoes, cars). EFA, subsequent CFA, SEM and ANOVA were used to assess these relationships and the product category effect. Findings - The authors find that brand love positively influences brand loyalty and both, influence positively WOM and purchase intention. Looking at the directionality of these relationships, the results show no product category differences. However, the …

An Exploratory Study Of Student Satisfaction With University Web Page Design, David E. Gundersen, Joe K. Ballenger, Robert M. Crocker, Elton Scifres, Robert Strader

Faculty Publications

This exploratory study evaluates the satisfaction of students with a web-based information system at a medium-sized regional university. The analysis provides a process for simplifying data interpretation in captured student user feedback. Findings indicate that student classifications, as measured by demographic and other factors, determine satisfaction levels towards various web sources of information. Differences in satisfaction levels across student groups based on gender, age, minority status, employment, and current course load were found. Implications for university web designers and university administrators are considered and discussed.

A Study Of Visual Puffery In Fragrance Advertising: Is The Message Sent Stronger Than The Actual Scent?, Mark Toncar, Marc Fetscherin

Faculty Publications

Purpose - This paper investigates visual exaggerations of fragrance advertisements by comparing subjects’ expectations resulting from print ads to their subsequent product evaluations. It then considers whether the actual scents fall short, meet or exceed these expectations.

Design/methodology/approach - By means of a semiotic analysis we capture the corresponding literary attributes of the ads to develop adjective pairs describing the meaning of the ads. Interviews are conducted to assess the meaning that consumers draw from the fragrance ads and we supplement these findings by performing a blind olfactory product evaluation of the fragrances. Paired sample t-tests are used to compare …

Survey Responses: Mail Versus Email Solicitations, Rodger G. Holland, Aileen Smith, James R. Hasselback, Bryson Payne

Faculty Publications

Surveys, particularly electronic surveys, are becoming popular methods of eliciting consumer responses. For example, many businesses now have survey sites printed on the bottom of receipts with some future discount as an enticement to participate. Clearly, the intent of such incentives is to stimulate participation. Surveys have also become popular in academia, but rarely are incentives offered. Clearly, those in academia also prefer a high participation rate, but without financial incentives what can be done to encourage participation? This research attempts to address that question.

Branding In China: Alternative Brand Strategiesbranding In China: Global Product Strategy Alternatives, Ilan Alon, Romie F. Littrell, Allan K.K. Chan

Faculty Publications

This article reviews and discusses issues in translation of international brand names to Chinese, and provides a framework for international brand managers who want to expand into China. Linguistic differences between Chinese and English are wide and deep, making translation of brand names difficult. Cultural context, pronunciation, written vs. oral language, and meaning of characters are just a few examples of such difficulties. We discuss four global-product-naming strategic alternatives available to country/brand managers, along with their usage, and give examples of brands utilizing the different approaches. The four approaches we discuss include (1) dual extension, (2) brand meaning extension, (3) …

Understanding The Effectiveness Of Product Placement: The Roles Of Placement Congruency And Information Processing, Kavita Jayaraman, Jing Zhang

Faculty Publications

This project examined the influence of placement congruency and information processing on the effectiveness of product placement in a TV sitcom. In an experiment, we found that compared to an incongruently placed product, a congruently placed product elicited lower level of product recall, but more favorable product attitudes among respondents. Moreover, this attitudinal effect was more pronounced when the respondents engaged in incidental (vs. deliberate) information processing when they watched the TV program.