Selling Season
Teach a Man to Fish: The Use of Autonomous Aid in Eliciting Donations
Stacie Waites et al.
Journal of Marketing Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Nonprofit organizations often position their charitable efforts as fulfilling the immediate needs of those who are disadvantaged (termed immediate aid appeals). This manuscript explores an alternative positioning strategy focused on the use of autonomous aid appeals, which promote the use of donated funds to facilitate the eventual self-sufficiency of those in need. Seven studies show that individuals are more likely to donate to a charity that uses autonomous aid appeals over immediate aid appeals. This effect is generalized to various contexts and examined with actual donation behavior. Additionally, managerially relevant boundary conditions are explored and found to support a serial mediation model first through perceptions of impact followed by feelings of hope for the recipient's future. The proposed framework is supported through mediation analyses and two process-by-moderation studies. Practical implications for charities and their promotional messaging are provided.
The Effect of Auditory and Visual Recommendations on Choice
Shwetha Mariadassou, Christopher Bechler & Jonathan Levav
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
We explore the effect of recommendation modality on recommendation adherence. Results from five experiments run on various online platforms (N = 6,103 adults from TurkPrime and Prolific) show that people are more likely to adhere to recommendations that they hear (auditory) than recommendations that they read (visual). This effect persists regardless of whether the auditory recommendation is spoken by a human voice or an automated voice and holds for hypothetical and consequential choices. We show that the effect is in part driven by the relative need for closure - manifested in a sense of urgency - that is evoked by the ephemerality of auditory messages. This work suggests that differences in the physical properties of auditory and visual modalities can lead to meaningful psychological and behavioral consequences.
Ask for Reviews at the Right Time: Evidence from Two Field Experiments
Miyeon Jung et al.
Journal of Marketing, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examines how the timing of review reminders affects the likelihood and quality of product review postings. The authors postulate that review reminders have two distinct effects, depending on the delivery timing. On the one hand, reminders of review posting given immediately or shortly after a product experience may threaten a consumer's freedom and prompt an adverse reaction. On the other hand, as time after the product experience passes, it may be advantageous to revive memories of review posting using delayed review reminders. To evaluate the effect of review reminders, they conducted two randomized field experiments. The findings show that immediate reminders reduce the chance of review postings relative to a randomized immediate control group who did not receive a reminder, consistent with the notion that the reactance induced by the violation of freedom due to instant review reminders outweighs the benefit of memory recall. Conversely, delayed reminders significantly increase the likelihood of review posting compared to a randomized delayed control, suggesting that the memory recall benefit surpasses reactance. However, the timing of review reminders has little effect on review content. The study contributes to the literature on the temporal effects of marketing activities and provides practical advice for online marketplaces to collect more product reviews.
What are the odds? Underdog brands are consumer favorites
Richard Borghesi, Andy Naranjo & Michael Ryngaert
Economics Letters, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine the association between product endorser quality, performance expectations, and abnormal stock returns of corporate sponsors and identify a pronounced underdog effect - marginal excess returns to sponsors of the biggest underdogs are roughly double those of the biggest favorites. Results indicate that consumers are more excited about and more motivated to support brands having an underdog narrative.
Marketing by Design: The Influence of Perceptual Structure on Brand Performance
Felipe Affonso & Chris Janiszewski
Journal of Marketing, forthcoming
Abstract:
Visual marketing communications consist of two components: (1) semantic content (e.g., headings, images, copy) that communicates a brand's positioning, benefits, and personality and (2) visual design (e.g., font selection, image size, the organization of the content) that encourages inferences about brand claims. We investigate how visual design can be used to encourage inferences that support brand claims and improve brand performance. We find that brands with a utilitarian positioning perform better when the visual design of their marketing communications encourages structured perceptions, whereas brands with a hedonic positioning perform better when the visual design of their marketing communications encourages unstructured perceptions. In both cases, (un)structured perceptions encourage inferences that reinforce brand claims and, consequently, improve brand performance. This research offers actionable insights into how marketing communication specialists can coordinate logo design, product design, package design, visual merchandising, and retail environments to reinforce brand claims.
Motivating Creativity
Danil Dmitriev
University of California Working Paper, November 2022
Abstract:
How should one incentivize creativity when being creative is costly? We analyze a model of delegated bandit experimentation where the principal desires the agent to constantly switch to new arms to maximize the chance of success. The agent faces a fixed cost of switching. We show that the principal's optimal reward scheme is maximally uncertain -- the agent receives transfers for success, but their distribution has an extreme variance. Despite being stationary, the optimal reward scheme achieves the principal's first-best outcome provided that the agent's outside option is sufficiently valuable. Our results shed light on the non-transparent incentives used by online platforms, such as YouTube, and guide how to design incentives for creativity in such applications.
Complaint De-Escalation Strategies on Social Media
Dennis Herhausen et al.
Journal of Marketing, forthcoming
Abstract:
To date, the literature offers multiple suggestions for how to recover from service failures, albeit without explicitly addressing customers' negative, high-arousal states evoked by the failure. The few studies that do address ways to improve negative emotions after failures focus on face-to-face interactions only. Because many customers today prefer to complain on social media, firms must learn how to effectively de-escalate negative, high-arousal emotions through text-based exchanges to achieve successful service recoveries. With three field studies using natural language processing tools and three preregistered controlled experiments, the current research identifies ways to mitigate negative arousal in text-based social media complaining, specifically, active listening and empathy. In detail, increasing active listening and empathy in the firm response evokes gratitude among customers in high-arousal states, even if the actual failure is not (yet) recovered. These findings provide a new theoretical perspective on the role of customer arousal in service failures and recoveries as well as managerially relevant implications for dealing with public social media complaints.