Investigating the Drivers, Measures and Consequences of Customer Online Social Experience

This research plays a pioneering role in investigating the social aspect of online customer experience. Guided by the social presence and social response theory, and using a mixed methods approach, the research introduces customer online social experience (COSE) in the extant literature by defining the concept, identifying its dimensions, drivers and developing its measures. It also develops a scale for measuring omni-channel management (OCM) and reveals that OCM drives COSE, which eventually influences customer behaviour

An investigation into viewers’ trust in and response towards disclosed paid-for endorsements by YouTube lifestyle Vloggers.

This study investigates viewers’ trust in and response towards disclosed paid-for endorsements by YouTube lifestyle vloggers. With the law now enforcing disclosure of sponsorship within vlogger endorsements, this research is topical. This study explored the credibility of lifestyle vloggers, viewers’ attitudes towards paid-for endorsements and disclosure, and viewers’ responses towards endorsements. The research employed a qualitative method and found that lifestyle vloggers are considered by their viewers as highly credible and influential individuals. Disclosure was seen to increase vlogger credibility, improving the acceptance of the endorsement message. This was however only seen where the viewer had a positive pre-existing relationship with the vlogger. Where the viewer did not have a positive pre-existing relationship with the vlogger, a perception of opportunistic behavior commonly arose in association with the paid-for endorsement. Thus, the research found the disclosed sponsorship can still be effective where the recipient is an avid viewer

AI-based voice assistants for digital marketing: preparing for voice marketing and commerce

Artificial intelligence-based voice assistants (VAs) may alter the decision-making process throughout the entire consumer journey. With the distinction between humans and machines becoming increasingly blurred, VAs introduce biases and heuristics in consumer behaviour with consequences for digital marketing and e-commerce practices. The authors explain ‘why’ and ‘how’ marketing managers need to explore the challenges and opportunities posed by voice technologies and prepare to employ a combination of marketing and commerce initiatives. This chapter defines voice marketing and voice commerce practices through relevant cases while collocating voice-based activities within the broader communication mix strategy. Furthermore, a conceptual framework shed light on the disruptive impact of AI-based VAs across product categories

The role of brand authenticity on social media for Fashion e-Tailers

Brands increasingly use social media to interact with prospects and customers and communicate their distinctive attributes, in order to adequately position themselves in the marketplace. Meanwhile, consumers increasingly look for authenticity in products and brands, resorting to brand-related cues in marketing communications to make authenticity assessments. This dissertation investigated whether and how fashion e-tailers use brand authenticity cues in social media and their potential impact on audience response. To this end, a survey with 105 respondents was conducted to identify the level of perceived brand authenticity of four fashion e-tailers with significant brand activity on Facebook – Farfetch, mytheresa, MATCHESFASHION.COM, and Zalando – measured by Morhart et al.'s (2014) perceived brand authenticity scale. Based on survey results, two brands were selected – Farfetch and Zalando –, as they were perceived to be the most and the least authentic, respectively. Data was collected (n=201) about their use of authenticity cues on Facebook posts and corresponding consumer response from September to November 2018. The use of authenticity cues was measured using Morhart et al.'s (2014) listed cues and response was measured by the number of reactions, comments, and shares of each post. Results show that when controlling for brand and audience size, existential cues trigger users to comment on Facebook posts. Brands wanting to be perceived as authentic may emphasize and incorporate human attributes in their social media communications.As marcas crescentemente usam redes sociais para interagir com clientes prospetivos e comunicar os seus atributos diferenciadores, para adequadamente se posicionarem no mercado. Simultaneamente, os consumidores progressivamente procuram autenticidade em produtos e marcas, recorrendo a pistas relacionadas com a marca para fazerem avaliações de autenticidade, em comunicações de marketing da marca. A presente dissertação investigou se e como os e-retalhistas de moda usam pistas de autenticidade de marca nas redes sociais e o seu potencial impacto na resposta do público. Com este propósito, um questionário com 105 inquiridos foi implementado para identificar o nível de autenticidade de marca de quatro e-retalhistas de moda com atividade significativa no Facebook – Farfetch, mytheresa, MATCHESFASHION.COM, Zalando – medido pela escala de autenticidade de marca de Morhart et al. (2014). Com base nos resultados do estudo, duas marcas foram selecionadas – Farfetch e Zalando –, sendo consideradas as marcas mais e menos autênticas, respetivamente. Dados foram recolhidos (n=201) sobre o uso de pistas de autenticidade nas publicações de Facebook e na respetiva resposta dos utilizadores, entre Setembro e Novembro (2018). O uso de pistas de autenticidade foi medido usando as pistas de autenticidade discriminadas por Morhart et al. (2014) e a resposta foi medida pelo número de reações, comentários e partilhas que cada publicação continha. Resultados mostram que, controlando o tamanho da marca e da audiência, as pistas existenciais estimulam os utilizadores a comentarem em publicações do Facebook. Marcas que queiram ser percecionadas como autênticas, deverão enfatizar e incorporar atributos humanos nas suas comunicações em redes sociais

The role of trust within the sharing economy and how it can be increased

Trust is seen as a prerequisite for any relationship, so it plays a crucial role in the sharing economy. Technology has made it possible for peers which have never met before to now trust each other. However, trust is still seen as a major barrier to participate in the sharing economy. Sharing economy platforms try to overcome this obstacle by so called trust-increasing measures such as ratings, reviews etc. The effectiveness of such measures has yet not fully been researched. Most studies were conducted in the United States and focused on specific measures in the context of specific sharing platforms. Furthermore, only limited research about new tools is available. These major gaps in existing research call for additional studies providing a larger picture on the effectiveness of trust-increasing measures. Therefore, this thesis examines the effectiveness of several already established, but also new tools that P2P sharing economy platforms can use in order to increase trust. The analysis focused on the trust building relation from a consumer perspective towards the private offeror of a product/service. The thesis provides information to startups and already existing sharing platforms about the importance of trust and how it can be increased. The analysis has shown that the importance of trust is perceived at a higher level if peers take the role of the offeror of the product/service rather than being on the consumer side. Furthermore, it plays a crucial role if the shared product or service touches the private sphere or not. The study also revealed that trust-increasing measures can be highly effective. This can be observed by the fact that people can trust a host from a sharing economy platform more than their neighbor or colleague. It became apparent during the study that conventional trust-increasing measures such as verification of the identity, the offeror’s certificates (i.e. trusted host), ratings, reviews etc., had a strong positive effect on trust. Links to social media accounts of the offeror had the smallest effect on trust. Additionally, the study made clear that the effectiveness of trust-increasing measures also depends on various other characteristics and features

Investigating Visitors’ Behavioural Response to Virtual Reality (VR) Retail Environments

This thesis aimed to explore the influence of Virtual Reality (VR) retail environment cues on visitors’ behavioural intentions in the context of urban shopping destinations. The Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) theory (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974) were employed as a theoretical foundation given that many researchers have provided substantial evidence on its suitability as a theoretical framework to investigate the effects of various physical and virtual (online/mobile) retail environment cues on human behaviour through the mediating variables of affective and cognitive states. The first step to achieving the aim was to determine the current state of knowledge surrounding this topic. Therefore, relevant literature over four key topic areas was critically reviewed including 1) urban place marketing, particularly within the broader context of urban tourism, 2) retail store environment literature extending to electronic and mobile commerce research, 3) immersive technology, and 4) technology adoption (Objective 1). Then, primary data were collected in two research phases. Research Phase 1 entailed two sets of semi-structured interviews. First, a contrasting case-based approach was employed, and interviews were conducted with seven urban place marketers from three urban place marketing organisations in four urban shopping destinations in the UK (Objective 2). The findings provided initial insights into urban place marketers’ views on the perceived barriers, benefits, internal organisational capability and external pressures associated with immersive technology (VR and Augmented Reality) implementation and their overall intention to adopt these innovative technologies for city marketing. This data was analysed using thematic analysis and four themes and eleven sub-themes emerged including three new context-specific sub-themes (technology access, organisational readiness and industry readiness). Based on these findings, twelve semi-structured interviews with visitors to Manchester City Centre were gathered and aimed to draw out context-specific themes and sub-themes. This data was also analysed using thematic analysis and overall, three themes and thirteen sub-themes emerged including four new sub-themes (virtual aesthetics, virtual atmospherics, social presence and layout design) under the main theme of VR retail environment cues. Accordingly, ten hypotheses were proposed and informed the development of a qualitative VR Visitor Behaviour Model based on S-O-R theory. The aim of Research Phase 2 was to validate the proposed model (Objective 3). To achieve this, survey data were gathered from 150 potential visitors to urban shopping destinations and the data were analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) (Objective 3). From these findings, a final VR Visitor Behaviour S-O-R Model was proposed, which is the main contribution of this study (Objective 4). The thesis concludes by outlining the theoretical contributions of this research and providing guidance to urban place marketers and VR developers and designers. Finally, avenues for further research based on the identified study limitations are offered

The Impact of Sensory Marketing: Analysis of its Attributes Towards Online Perfum Users’ Behavior

Purpose: The tendency of consumers to purchase online today is enormous and requires the role of sensory marketing in providing a positive and memorable experience to all. In addition, since sensory marketing whether in online or offline settings can unconsciously govern shoppers’ judgement and purchase behavior, this paper aims to understand how multi-sensory information processing in the online environment is diverted from offline in the cosmetic perfume industry by leveraging previous research to analyze its effect on offline stores and emphasizing the present study on online retail stores.   Theoretical framework: The research study conducted by Petit et al. (2019) attempts to explore more about digital sensory marketing and multisensory technologies. However, offline and online settings would have different effects and since perfume products require the use of our senses, there would be obstacles that prevent us from using our senses when sold online. This requires us to understand sensory marketing in the online shopping environment.   Design/Methodology/Approach: This paper uses an exploratory study approach to gain in-depth understanding of the topic. The qualitative study is essentially built on primary data sources, through naturalistic observation and semi-structured interviews with 9 Generation Z individuals who are Indonesian citizens and have undertaken frequent perfume purchases online. A snowball sampling method was used in finding respondents for this study while interview results were analyzed using thematic analysis.   Findings: The paper highlights the significant impact of sensory marketing through the use of sensorial cues, sensorial attributes, and individual differences in sensory perception. Ethical considerations when utilizing sensory marketing are also being emphasized throughout this study.   Research, Practical & Social implications: Results of this study can encourage future research to help bring benefits for website/internet site designers, content managers, online perfume retailers, as well as academicians in general.   Originality/Value: This paper draws attention to the growing use of online channels by cosmetic perfume industry actors and sheds light on the importance of sensory marketing practices in affecting online user behavior by answering what and how questions using exploratory studies.

A Trust-Based Crowdfunding Campaign Marketing Framework: Theoretical Underpinnings and Big-Data Analytics Practice

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