Digital marketing plan for Woo's Pure Feelings

The goal of this master’s thesis is to define a new digital marketing strategy for a small mediumsized jewellery business in Portugal. This in-company project was conducted with Woo’s Pure Feelings. Woo’s is a jewellery brand that was created in 2006 in Lisbon, Portugal and its goal is to differentiate by transmitting feelings through its products. Currently, there is an increasing need for brands to have a strong digital presence and the use of social platforms is already a requirement to be successful. The use of influencers on social media is the new trend in this new wave of marketing and a need in order to stay relevant in the digital world. In the present time, there is an identified need for improvement in the area of its digital communication for Woo’s Pure Feelings brand and that will be the focus of this project. The plan of this project was built based on; research work such as external situation analysis to evaluate the condition of the industry such as competitors and consumers, an internal analysis to identify the current struggles of the company and define its objectives for the new plan, as well as an online survey to determine the consumer's digital behaviours and preferences, and also interviews with the brand owners and professionals on the industry.O objectivo desta tese de mestrado é definir uma nova estratégia de marketing digital para uma pequena e média empresa de joalharia em Portugal. Este projeto de empresa foi relaziado com a Woo’s Pure Feelings. A Woo’s é uma empresa de joalharia, criada em 2006 em Lisboa, Portugal e o seu objectivo é diferenciar-se por transmitir sentimentos através das suas peças de joalharia. Atualmente, existe uma necessidade crescente para as marcas terem uma forte presença online e o uso de plataformas sociais já é um requerimento para ser bem sucedido. O uso de influencers nas redes sociais é a nova tendência nesta nova onda de marketing e é uma necessidade para ser relevante no mundo digital. No presente, existe uma necessidade identificada para melhoria na área da comunicação digital da marca Woo’s e esse vai ser o foco para este projeto. O plano para este projeto foi construído tendo em base; trabalho de pesquisa, assim como uma avaliação externa da situação de modo a avaliar a condição da indústria, como os competitores e consumidores, uma avaliação interna para identificar as dificuldades atuais da empresa e definir os seus objectivos para o novo plano, assim como um questionário online para determinar o comportamento e preferências digitals dos utilizadores, como também entrevistas com os donos da marca e profissionais da indústria

Can Upward Brand Extensions be an Opportunity for Marketing Managers During the Covid-19 Pandemic and Beyond?

Early COVID-19 research has guided current managerial practice by introducing more products across different product categories as consumers tried to avoid perceived health risks from food shortages, i.e. horizontal brand extensions. For example, Leon, a fast-food restaurant in the UK, introduced a new range of ready meal products. However, when the food supply stabilised, availability may no longer be a concern for consumers. Instead, job losses could be a driver of higher perceived financial risks. Meanwhile, it remains unknown whether the perceived health or financial risks play a more significant role on consumers’ consumptions. Our preliminary survey shows perceived health risks outperform perceived financial risks to positively influence purchase intention during COVID-19. We suggest such a result indicates an opportunity for marketers to consider introducing premium priced products, i.e. upward brand extensions. The risk-as�feelings and signalling theories were used to explain consumer choice under risk may adopt affective heuristic processing, using minimal cognitive efforts to evaluate products. Based on this, consumers are likely to be affected by the salient high-quality and reliable product cue of upward extension signalled by its premium price level, which may attract consumers to purchase when they have high perceived health risks associated with COVID-19. Addressing this, a series of experimental studies confirm that upward brand extensions (versus normal new product introductions) can positively moderate the positive effect between perceived health risks associated with COVID-19 and purchase intention. Such an effect can be mediated by affective heuristic information processing. The results contribute to emergent COVID-19 literature and managerial practice during the pandemic but could also inform post-pandemic thinking around vertical brand extensions

Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) Applications in Economics and Finance

This book includes the 14 articles accepted and published in the Special Issue “Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM): Applications in Economics and Finance” of the MDPI journal Mathematics, which encompasses a wide range of topics connected with the theory and applications of PLS-SEM methodology. These topics involve, among others, prediction of stock market investment intention, institutional quality and international competitiveness, governance paradigms and public innovation, information and communication technologies in the supply chain, influence of the ability to absorb information from the environment and proactivity on the company's results, quality management, effects of the corporate social responsibility on financial performance, resource management for the improvement of the healthcare system, and the application of maximum entropy bootstrapping to time series. It is expected that the book will prove worthwhile and helpful for those working in the area of PLS-SEM, regardless of the field of application (economics, finance, marketing, education or other). Applications of higher order constructs, mediating variables, multigroup analysis and the latest advances in applied methodology can all be found in this book

The Role of Self-congruity in Consumer Preferences: Perspectives from Transaction Records

Personalised marketing is more persuasive than traditional techniques aimed at the masses, however marketers do not always have access to consumers’ private attributes in order to apply these insights. The effect of personalisation is based on an established theory in consumer psychology – self-congruity theory – which posits that individuals prefer products, brands and advertisements that embody characteristics that match with their self-concepts. Self-congruence not only enhances marketing effectiveness, it can also be used to improve consumer well-being. While it has been established that consumers who spend in a way that is more congruent with their personality are happier, clarifications around the types of individuals who are more or less likely to engage in self-congruent spending, as well as the moderating effects on the benefit in happiness from such consumption could inform policy for improving happiness at a collective level. This thesis contributes to a growing body of research which attempts to understand how consumption patterns are related to consumers’ characteristics, its applications in advertising, as well as consumer well-being. By using a dataset containing more than 1 million transactions recorded over a period of 12-months, the thesis demonstrates the value of the digital footprint in the form of bank transactions for enriching our understanding of key questions in consumer research, underpinned by the theory of self-congruity. This thesis combines methods from computational social science with personality psychology to test research questions on consumer preferences. Two components of the thesis focused on the predictive utility of transaction records in inferring consumer attributes with which to personalise advertising, as well as the use of transaction records in examining self-congruence in overall consumption patterns and its relationship with happiness. Through five empirical studies, this work suggests that consumer attributes such as age and financial distress can be reliably inferred from consumption patterns reflected in transaction records (Chapter 3 and 5). The inferred age can be used to personalise advertisements in order to increase their appeal (Chapter 4). Using an objective measure of self-congruence in overall consumption pattern computed from transaction records and panel ratings, the thesis shows that individuals differ in their tendency to spend in a way that is congruent with their personality based on their levels of materialism and financial distress (Chapter 6). As the most important predictor of self-congruent spending, financial distress moderates the relationship between self-congruent spending and happiness (Chapter 7). These findings contribute insights into how consumption patterns are related to consumer attributes and usefulness for personalisation in marketing, as well as policy recommendations for improving well-being by targeting consumption patterns in financially distressed individuals. In addition, this thesis also showcases the value of machine learning and large-scale behavioural field data in the study of consumer psychology. Privacy and ethical concerns surrounding automated profiling and microtargeting are also cautioned

Gaming and luxury fashion: exploring factors driving gamers’ luxury virtual in - game fashion

This study investigates the factors driving gamers’ intention to purchase virtual luxury fashion in online games. The study’s conceptual framework is grounded in the social identity and social capital theory. A total of 468 responses were collected using an online survey from Fortnite players and analyzed using covariance-based structural equation modelling (CB-SEM). The results reveal that avatar identification was positively associated with perceived value, social presence, and intention to purchase virtual luxury fashion. Perceived value and social presence were positively associated with intending to purchase virtual luxury fashion. Brand love strengthened the positive association between the perceived value and social presence on the intention to purchase virtual luxury fashion. This study contributes to the marketing and information systems literature by offering the first insights into virtual luxury fashion in online games. The findings would assist game developers and marketers in better understanding gamer behaviour to capitalize on virtual luxury fashion

Reward - based advertisement in online games: a win for advertisers, developers, and gamers

This study examines factors affecting gamers’ attitude towards reward-based advertisements (RBA) in online games. A conceptual model is developed based on the Ducoffe’s web advertising model and tested using a quantitative design through data collected from 532 online gamers in Fiji. Covariance-based structural equation modelling (CB-SEM) was employed to perform the analysis. Results reveal that informativeness, credibility, entertainment, and incentive positively influence advertisement value. Advertisement value was found to positively influences attitude towards RBA. The moderating factors of perceived competitiveness and gamer envy were found to strengthen the positive association between perceived advertisement value and attitude towards RBA. This study is novel is it is the first exploration of RBA in online gaming. In so doing, this study contributes to both marketing and gaming literature and provides valuable insight for marketers and game developers to influence customers to be more receptive to advertisements in online games