Selling Themselves
Technology advancement is driving electric vehicle adoption
Connor Forsythe et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 6 June 2023
Abstract:
Electric vehicle sales have been growing rapidly in the United States and around the world. This study explores the drivers of demand for electric vehicles, examining whether this trend is primarily a result of technology improvements or changes in consumer preferences for the technology over time. We conduct a discrete choice experiment of new vehicle consumers in the United States, weighted to be representative of the population. Results suggest that improved technology has been the stronger force. Estimates of consumer willingness to pay for vehicle attributes show that when consumers compare a gasoline vehicle to its battery electric vehicle (BEV) counterpart, the improved operating cost, acceleration, and fast-charging capabilities of today's BEVs mostly or entirely compensate for their perceived disadvantages, particularly for longer-range BEVs. Moreover, forecasted improvements of BEV range and price suggest that consumer valuation of many BEVs is expected to equal or exceed their gasoline counterparts by 2030. A suggestive market-wide simulation extrapolation indicates that if every gasoline vehicle had a BEV option in 2030, the majority of new car and near-majority of new sport-utility vehicle choice shares could be electric in that year due to projected technology improvements alone.
Intel Inside: The Linguistic Properties of Effective Slogans
Brady Hodges, Zachary Estes & Caleb Warren
Journal of Consumer Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
How can marketers create slogans that consumers like and remember? We answer this question by analyzing how the lexical, semantic, and emotional properties of a slogan's individual words combine to influence slogan liking and slogan memory. Through a large correlational study with over 800 brand slogans, laboratory experiments, a biometric eye tracking experiment, and a field study, we unearth the word properties that make slogans effective. We predict and find that linguistic properties that make a slogan easier to process (i.e., more fluent) result in slogans that are more likable but less memorable, whereas linguistic properties that reduce processing fluency result in slogans that are less likable but more memorable. Across our multi-method investigation, participants indicated a more favorable attitude towards slogans that are shorter, omit the brand name, and use words that are linguistically frequent, perceptually distinct, and abstract. In contrast, participants were more likely to remember slogans that are longer, include the brand name, and use words that are linguistically infrequent, concrete, and less perceptually distinct. We conclude by offering marketers practical advice into optimal word-choice strategies, and delivering actionable guidance for creating slogans that are either likable or memorable.
Sellin' in the Rain: Weather, Climate, and Retail Sales
Brigitte Roth Tran
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
I apply a novel machine-learning based "weather index" method to daily store-level sales data for a national apparel and sporting goods brand to examine short-run responses to weather and long-run adaptation to climate. I find that even when considering potentially offsetting shifts of sales between outdoor and indoor stores, to the firm's website, or over time, weather has significant persistent effects on sales. This suggests that weather may increase sales volatility as more severe weather shocks become more frequent under climate change. Consistent with adaptation to climate, I find that sensitivity of sales to weather decreases with historical experience for precipitation, snow, and cold weather events, but -- surprisingly -- not for extreme heat events. This suggests that adaptation may moderate some but not all the adverse impacts of climate change on sales. Retailers can respond by adjusting their staffing, inventory, promotion events, compensation, and financial reporting.
The Influence of Shared Consumption on Product Efficacy Perceptions: The Detrimental Effect of Sharing with Strangers
Lama Lteif et al.
Journal of Marketing Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Opportunities for the shared consumption of publicly available products that once might have been considered personal-use only, such as hand sanitizers and shampoos, are proliferating in the consumer environment. This work explores shared product consumption in these under-researched, but now ubiquitous, contexts. We suggest and find, over a series of five studies and across a variety of product domains, that sharing a product with strangers (i.e., sharing-out) engenders a lower sense of identification with the product, which leads to lower perceived product efficacy. We further show that the dampening effect of sharing-out on efficacy perceptions is limited to consumers high in self-brand connection.
Ban Targeted Advertising? An Empirical Investigation of the Consequences for App Development
Tobias Kircher & Jens Foerderer
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
On many multisided app platforms, the supply-side monetizes their work with targeted advertising. The targeting of ads has raised concerns over user privacy and has led to calls for platform firms and regulators to bar this practice. Important for this debate is to understand the consequences that a ban on targeted advertising would have for app development. To inform, we exploit that Google, in 2019, banned targeted advertising in Android children's games. This setting represents an ideal real-world laboratory and permits a quasi-experimental research design. Our overall finding is that the ban on targeted advertising caused substantial app abandonment. The ban reduced the release of feature updates, particularly for games of young, undiversified, and advertisement-dependent firms. Only games of exceptionally high quality and demand showed an increase in development. Corroborating this picture, affected games were more likely to be delisted. Developers shifted their efforts toward their unaffected games and released fewer new games on average. Further tests substantiate that targeted advertising represented a crucial form of monetization for affected games and that the ban obliterated ad revenues used for app development. Our findings have several implications. To avoid a loss in app innovation, platform firms should consider implementing measures to reduce the burden on developers, especially by creating alternative monetization opportunities. Consumers and policymakers should be aware that targeted advertising plays a crucial role for app development and can use our estimates for designing policies. Thus, consumers' demand for privacy can conflict with platform firms' goal to foster app innovation.
TV Advertising and Online Sales: A Case Study of Intertemporal Substitution Effects for an Online Travel Platform
Anja Lambrecht, Catherine Tucker & Xu Zhang
Journal of Marketing Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Digital technologies lead consumers to engage with companies online after they see TV ads, and firms increasingly wish to coordinate TV advertising in real time with online marketing activities. As a result, firms are keen to measure how TV advertising affects consumers' online behavior, but a key question is over what window of time to measure this effect. The standard industry practice of using short attribution windows around an ad to measure a causal effect may miss the possibility that consumer behavior shifts over time due to, for example, intertemporal substitution. We collaborate with an online travel platform and evaluate the results of a field test where part of the country was exposed to TV ads while another part of the country formed a control group. Using the synthetic difference-in-differences approach, we find TV advertising leads to an instantaneous increase in online browsing and sales. However, we also document evidence for intertemporal substitution: consumers appear to move their online activities forward in time in response to TV advertising, leading to lower browsing and lower sales at times when no ad is airing. We further explore the effects of TV advertising on channel choices, device choices and promotion usage and discuss the implications for advertisers and the ad-measurement industry.
For Shame! Socially Unacceptable Brand Mentions on Social Media Motivate Consumer Disengagement
Daniel Villanova & Ted Matherly
Journal of Marketing, forthcoming
Abstract:
Brands invest tremendous resources into building engagement with their customers on social media. But considerably less focus is placed on addressing disengagement, when users actively choose to distance themselves from the brand, through reduced posting or even unfollowing. We find that the same self-brand connections that lead individuals to defensively protect the brand can also lead them to experience shame vicariously when others mention the brand in socially unacceptable ways. Experiencing vicarious shame motivates them to distance themselves from the brand, driving disengagement. In three mixed-method studies, we show that a socially unacceptable behavior - using profanity while mentioning the brand - leads highly connected consumers to experience vicarious shame, prompting disengagement motivations, and ultimately leading to real-world unfollowing behaviors on social media. We also show that proactive moderation behaviors by the brand can attenuate these responses. These results provide insight into the process by which self-brand connection interacts with socially unacceptable brand mentions and suggest a limitation to the insulating effects of strong self-brand connections.