Business Commons^™

Paid Advertising: Understanding How Ad Format And Visuals Impact Ad Link Clicks And Conversions, Samantha Ensinger

Honors Projects

Limited research exists that effectively describes what format of ads (photos, videos, graphics, or GIFs), receive the most link clicks, the most adds-to-cart, and the most conversions. There is even less research available that describes the extent to which the visual structure of advertisements, such as chosen colors, imagery, text, and duration impacts ad performance. This study sets out to address and help close this research gap by creating and testing multiple advertisements on Facebook and Instagram.

Amplifying Southern Charm: A Case Study On Visit Music City’S Digital Media Practices, Susanna Cleary Honggui Hoffman

Experience Industry Management

Digital marketing has become a vital player for companies, especially destination marketing organizations (DMOs), by helping them grow and expand their brand image. Digital marketing includes email, social media, and search-engine marketing. The purpose of this study was to examine Visit Music City’s (Nashville’s DMO) digital media marketing tactics. Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp (NCVC) is the company that is behind the brand Visit Music City. The research was conducted utilizing information from NCVC’s website and social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, TripAdvisor, and YouTube). Visit Music City sends a weekly newsletter called Amplify, they have a strong social …

Examining The Relationship Between Different Retail Mediums And Consumer Spending Habits, Melinda Vigh

University Honors Program Senior Projects

Understanding customer behavior and preferences is the first step towards developing optimal strategies for businesses and driving the highest revenues possible. Consumer behavior spending habits are everchanging due to the evolving nature of customers’ needs and preferences. This thesis fills the gap of a quantitative analysis between the in-person and online retail medium reflected onto levels of customer spending. This research provides further information about shoppers’ decision-making processes accounting for correlative relationships between demographic (age, gender, education level, income, etc.) and environmental variables (physical store atmospheres, online retail websites, social media advertisement). The research was based on primary data collected …

Marketing And The Church, Parker Panetti

Marketing Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper attempts to take an in-depth look at the current state of the Church in America and how marketing has and will continue to play a key role in its position in society.

The word marketing comes from the concept of the merchant buying and selling a product - in the market. From a Christian perspective, marketing tells the story of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ - who bought and redeemed mankind for a price, saved from sin, and set apart for service to the Lord. Churches have this story, the greatest story to tell, but people are …

The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Online Food Delivery Apps, Lauren Morell

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The restaurant industry continues to change as Online Food Delivery apps (OFD) continue to gain more popularity because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The food delivery market has grown over 52% since the start of the pandemic. Online food delivery app platforms like DoorDash, UberEats, and Postmates began to offer delivery over the past decade, rapidly growing with the help of ghost kitchens. Consumer behavior factors and intention to use OFDs have changed as more advanced app technology becomes available, and as the restaurant industry navigates the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. Many consumers favor mobile delivery apps overall convenience and perceived usefulness. …

Salesperson-Customer Dyads In The Casino Gaming Industry: How Sales Competencies And Relationship Lifecycles Influence Customer Satisfaction And Account Profitability, Alicia Lechtenberger

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Developing extraordinary relationships between sales personnel and customers is essential to corporate success. To meet the increasing demands of customers within the hospitality industry, corporations must ensure they pair customers with salespeople who are highly competent, possessing refined and adaptable skill sets that directly increase customer satisfaction and account profitability. Corporations spend billions of dollars annually on hiring and training salespeople; yet, salespeople often quit or miss their quota targets. Considering this industry-wide business problem, the purpose of this dissertation study was to determine how sales competencies influence customer satisfaction and account profitability while taking into consideration the duration of …

The Effect Of Csr Campaigns On The Consumer Behaviour Of Gen Zers, Aijalyn Gonzales

Honors Program Theses and Research Projects

As consumers become increasingly attuned to the practices of companies and their impact on society and the environment at large, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has gradually become a major consideration for marketers. While it is believed that a demographic cohort growing in purchasing power and prominence, Generation Z, is the most sensitive to the perceived-CSR of a brand, some data suggests that their pragmatism and economic considerations may ultimately outweigh their sustainability concerns in a purchase decision.

This research aims to clarify much of the conflicting information about Gen Z’s primary considerations when shopping for products, specifically those in image-related …

Rebranding My Cosmetics Business, Liaonn Martin

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

The project is focused on rebranding my business by changing the name, creating a working website, as well as creating and selling different products I am passionate about. As part of the project I worked on making my Instagram page more appealing to bring in customers from all over the world, and using Instagram to promote my products. I also researched different ways to utilize platforms such as Tik Tok and Facebook to help my business become more popular. I created extra gifts such as thank you notes, complimentary lip scrubs, and a thank you note for all of my …

Negative Customer Reviews And The Online Decision-Making Process: The Role Of Construal Fit, Minji Kim

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Consumers seek out online reviews to aid their decision-making, particularly when purchasing products and services online. Given their power to influence consumer behavior, online reviews have been extensively studied in various settings. While much research has focused on what determines the performance of online reviews, limited research has focused on why a particular review receives more or less attention from consumers. This study aims to fill this knowledge gap by exploring how consumers with different mindsets respond to online reviews framed at different levels of construal. Applying the construal fit principle, this research predicts that consumers more fluently process online …

An Evaluation Of Product Descriptions And Brand Trust As Influencers Of Purchase Intent In A Luxury Second Hand Ecommerce Shopping Environment, Nyiesha Jones

Research Psychology Theses

In a world where fashion is a one-and-done look for an Instagram photo, represents 4% of global waste, and is growing at a rate of 11 times faster than traditional retail, there is a growing interest to reduce the carbon footprint of fashion by offering outlets for consumers to circulate their wardrobe through consignment opposed to throwing it away (Bird, 2018). Research has been done to evaluate the importance of information on e-commerce websites, with little focus on secondhand e-commerce. Previous research on secondhand shopping focuses mostly on shopping motivations, but once a customer has decided to shop secondhand what …

The Role Of Data (Deletion) Permission Frames, Data Sensitivity, Audiences, And Defaults On Consumers’ Willingness To Share Personal Information, Smriti Kumar

Doctoral Dissertations

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumers’ Protect Act (CCPA) provide a set of provisions to regulate marketers’ processing of consumers’ personal data. One of these provisions is to offer consumers the ‘right to erasure' or ‘right to be forgotten.’ These regulations recommend that firms enable consumers to delete some or all of their personal information from the firm’s databases permanently if desired (Palmer 2019). Firms are struggling to figure out how to give consumers options to delete their data. Moreover, managers are not sure to what extent will consumers delete their data, if given an option to delete. …

Baseball Eclipsed: No Longer America’S Pastime, Travis Shumate

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

This paper will discuss the reasons for the decline in Major League Baseball (MLB) attendance levels and what might be done to stop this decline. It will also introduce an idea that the decline in attendance might not be as much of an issue as fans might perceive it to be. Along with being a super fan of a team, marketing and promotion play a big role in game-to-game attendance. Various ways that marketing is used and might be used better to gain interest for baseball are talked about in this paper. The argument made is that baseball has lost …

Baseball Eclipsed: No Longer America’S Pastime, Travis Shumate

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

This paper will discuss the reasons for the decline in Major League Baseball (MLB) attendance levels and what might be done to stop this decline. It will also introduce an idea that the decline in attendance might not be as much of an issue as fans might perceive it to be. Along with being a super fan of a team, marketing and promotion play a big role in game-to-game attendance. Various ways that marketing is used and might be used better to gain interest for baseball are talked about in this paper. The argument made is that baseball has lost …

The Value Of Nfts, Angelina Tham

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Non-fungible token stories have flooded the media since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. NFTs have changed the public’s views on art, finances, and the self. The emergence of Web 3 redefined ways of self expression with the help of NFTs. What are NFTs, how are they valuable, and how will they shape the future of digital art? The data visualization for this project indicates that the most popular type of crypto art is in the style of a profile picture. The discussion suggests that NFTs are in their infancy and there will be more to come from digital art, …

Lost In Digitization: Physical Products Are Vessels For Social Meaning, Oden H. Groth

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The explosion in digitization means that consumers increasingly have the opportunity to choose between digital and physical versions of products — for example, between an eBook and a paperback book. However, despite the popularity of digital objects, many people nonetheless prefer physical equivalents. This dissertation explores one reason why this may be the case; namely, that physical versions of objects and products are better vessels for social meaning. In chapter 1, explore the specialness of physical objects, and posit that materiality is critical for holding and embodying significance. In chapter 2, I investigate the effects of product format on perceptions …

Developing Marketing Strategies To Enhance Students’ Perception Of Service Within The Thompson Scholarship Program, Emileigh Kleps

Honors Projects

Understanding the perceptions of Thompson Family Scholars to suggest improvements of marketing strategies within the Thompson Scholarship Program for the benefit of current and future Thompson Family Scholars.

The Impact Of E-Service Quality On The Customer Satisfaction Of Electronic And Small Appliances Online Shoppers In Saudi Arabia, Majed A. Almobarak

Theses & Dissertations

The objective of this quantitative study, which utilized a non-experimental, correlational predictive design, was to evaluate the association between perceptions of e-service quality by Saudi Arabian adult residents and their overall satisfaction with the online retailer from which they buy their electronics and small appliances products. The study also sought to determine to what extent e-service quality factors, as a group and independently, predict the customer satisfaction of the participants of this study. The participants of this study were limited to adults (18 years of age or older), male and female, who live in any region of Saudi Arabia, and …

The Effects Of Consumer Loan Application Formats And Advertised Terms On Consumer Borrowing Decisions, Alicia M. Johnson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Consumers continue to demonstrate a willingness to accrue more debt. They are also more accepting of increased repayment risk via the acceptance of longer loan terms. Extant research on consumer borrowing consists primarily of experiments designed to assess consumer choices and understand how consumers evaluate loan attributes in relation to one another within consumer borrowing contexts (Kamleitner, Hoelzl, and Kirchler 2012; Ranyard et al., 2006). Thus, prior research examines consumer responses to loan information rather than the generation of loan parameters at the time of financing. With important implications for consumers, marketers of financial products, academic researchers, and federal regulators, …

Two Essays On The Role Of Empathy In Consumer Response To User-Generated Content, Mohammadali Koorank Beheshti

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Empathy is known to be the basis of all human interactions and an essential component of human psychology. Empathy includes a cognitive component (perspective-taking) and an affective component (e.g., emotional contagion). The two essays of my dissertation investigate how each of these components of empathy affect consumer responses to user-generated content.

Essay 1: Although both price and online review ratings are important cues in consumers’ product quality judgment, most previous studies have treated price and review ratings as separate inputs into consumer decision-making. The current research shows that the two cues are intertwined, such that consumers’ perception of the same …

Playing The Game: Video Games And Video Game Streaming Platforms As Marketing Communication Channels, Roman Welden

Doctoral Dissertations

While video games are generally viewed as a form of entertainment for a small subset of people, in reality they provide a channel for nearly 3.2 billion people to interact with others and offer multiple pathways for marketers to interact with consumers. Pair this alongside 140 million unique consumers who consumer nearly 24 billion hours of content on video game streaming platforms (VGSPs), such as Twitch, and there is a deep need for marketers to understand how to engage consumers in these environments. This dissertation provides a conceptualization of the video game ecosystem as well as the types of influencers …

The Impact Of Line (Brand) Extension Strategies On Competition And In-Store Operational Performance In The China E-Commerce Environment, Er-Yung Stephen Chu

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Line (brand) extension activity in the western markets may have tempered during the last decade, and most of the academic research that has been done is based on traditional brick and mortar stores. With the rise of e-commerce, line extension became a growth tool for brands. The study starts with the classification of line extension strategic types, which gives different tiers of Chinese e-commerce firms a good reference, especially in the rapidly changing e-commerce environment. It also seeks to give guidance for different aspects of launching new line extensions. Using this guidance, future brands can make better estimations of brand …

Financial Literacy And Consumer Well-Being: Examining The Role Of Gender Role Ideology, Lorena Garcia Ramon

Theses and Dissertations

Financial literacy, or the ability to process economic information and make informed decisions about financial planning, wealth accumulation, debt, and pensions, has been linked to beneficial financial behaviors that support financial well-being. Despite these benefits, consumers tend to underperform in financial literacy tests with women generally faring worse than men. This dissertation draws from gender roles literature and Expectancy-Value Theory to examine how, why, and when traditional attitudes regarding societal gender roles (i.e., gender role ideology) hinder women’s financial literacy and willingness to acquire financial knowledge. Moreover, it examines how financial literacy and willingness to …

Conspicuous Asceticism: Collapsing Consumers' Hungry Ghosts, Ash Zareian

Theses and Dissertations

The author investigates an emerging construct called conspicuous asceticism expositioned from a narcissism-centric view. The understanding of this construct is approached by drawing an idiomatic semantic parallel in opposition to conspicuous consumption and by utilizing its current theoretical framework of narcissism. Moreover, this paper seeks to extend conspicuous consumption’s theoretical framework as synonymous with the construct of compulsive consumption. Furthermore, I illustrate that consumers must transcend narcissism through engaging in treatment modalities requisite to operationalize a pioneering effort in which consumers can engage in marketing campaign efforts to advertise conspicuous ascetic contexts. This dissertation gleans from extant literature in sociology, …

The Unexplored Impacts Of Communication Elements In Marketing, Can Trinh

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation includes two essays that examine how the use of different marketing communication approaches influences consumers. In the first essay, I propose that the use of human silhouettes, when compared to images of attractive human models, enhances marketing communication effectiveness by reducing the extent to which consumers experience self-threat when viewing an ad. In addition, I predict this effect holds for appearance-related products only and strengthens as consumers’ level of appearance-related self-esteem decreases. Five studies reported in this essay provide converging evidence in support of these expectations.

In the second essay, I investigate into how the use of puns …

The Buzz Behind Alcohol Advertising: A Study Of How Alcohol Advertisements On Social Media Impact Behavior, Alexis Morgan Campbell

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Alcohol advertisements are known to be appealing and memorable, and several researchers have investigated what makes these advertisements so attractive. Several trends have emerged regarding the content within alcohol advertisements: themes of parties, celebration, and social success within television, magazines, and social media since the 1970s. Recently, several studies found that new themes in alcohol ads have been found to be popular, especially in social media advertisements (Campbell & Chung, 2022). The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) provides insight into why a person’s attitude could be more susceptible or why their behavior could be more easily influenced by certain types of …

Monetizing Attention And Branding Strategy: Assessing The Effects Of Personal Branding On Amateur Athletic Compensation, Abby Christiansen

University Honors Theses

What role does branding play in the compensation issues faced by amateur athletes? How has the rise of influential online social personas legally impacted their case? This thesis explores the long-standing compensation issues that many amateur athletes have faced while under the control of the NCAA. It connects the social impact of online personal branding to some of the legal victories won by student athletes as they gain more freedom over their NIL (name, image, likeness) by detailing the importance of branding and its evolution into personal branding in a 21^st century economy. Many of the rules and regulations …

Self-Service Technologies That Appear Human Interacting With Customers: Effects On Third-Party Observers, Ross Paul Murray

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the effects of viewing and hearing service failure and recovery interactions between self-service technologies (SSTs) and customers on third-party observers. Third-party observers are those that observe the actions of other customers as they interact with a firm in some way. These observations could occur in the present (face-to-face) or past (watching a video or listening to an audio recording). Third-party observers provide a unique perspective as they can provide a more neutral perspective of a failed service transaction and recovery as compared to the involved customer and firm.

This dissertation contributes to the SST literature and to …

The Examination Of Psychophysiological Effects Of Multisensory Imagery Marketing Strategy. A Triangulation In 3 Studies, Sasawan Heingraj

Theses and Dissertations

Multisensory imagery marketing strategy has been extensively suggested to be one of the advertising strategies that can generate long-term brand awareness, brand image, and authentic experience in a highly competitive market condition. This dissertation explored the psychophysiological effects of multisensory imagery marketing strategy on consumers' attitudes. Results from study 1 suggested that consumers’ masculine-feminine self-concept played an important role when evaluating multisensory imagery marketing messages. Specifically, consumers who exhibited a lower degree of masculine self-concept and those with feminine self-concept were likely to evaluate multisensory imagery marketing messages more positively than their higher masculine self-concept counterparts. We also found that …

Spillover Effects In Product Customization, Samuel Babu Sekar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Product customization is increasingly being offered as consumers interact with businesses online. When consumers customize a product, they often choose from among multiple, inter-related categories. Thus, the choices made in a prior category could influence choices in later categories (spillover effect). Currently, marketers attempt to nudge consumers to choose more expensive/profitable options by preselecting these options (explicit reference). In this dissertation, I explore whether implicit references can be employed to generate a spillover effect. Implicit references are generated by arranging the options within a category in either descending or ascending price order, with descending price order favoring the selection of …

Converting Horizontal Media For Vertical Platforms, Eric A. Hernandez

Graphic Communication

Today, most media is viewed on mobile phones and seen on a vertical screen. There are very few methods for converting horizontal media into vertical media for vertical platforms. This manual shows new ways to redesign horizontal content so that it looks better on vertical displays; I imagine watching things like the Super Bowl or the The Grammys on TikTok or Instagram with a new broadcast design that is more attractive.