The impact of COVID-19 on hedonic and utilitarian decision-making

A Chinese virus has managed to bring the whole world to a standstill. This circumstance has forced people to adapt their usual lifestyle. COVID-19 has brought changes in different areas of life, including consumer behavior. For many, the pandemic was a reminder of what is important and needed in life: security, trust and health instead of excessive spending on items that focus on delivering solely satisfaction. The current situation results in even more emotions that are involved during the process of decision-making, leading to it becoming increasingly complex and harder to prepare for. With the presence of the virus, people experience emotions that steer their buying attention increasingly towards utilitarian products. With purchasing hedonic items on the other hand, comes along the risk for justification to oneself or to others. Additionally, the reminder of the virus leads to less expected satisfaction from hedonic products, proving that the negative emotions resulting from said reminder overshadow the outcome. The categorization of several utilitarian and hedonic attributes and products has proven to be influenced by the manipulation, indicating great relevance for the industry. From a marketing perspective, it is crucial to understand these changes and prepare for them accordingly. Strategies regarding the marketing mix, a clear positioning of products and an understanding of the process a customer goes through prior, during and post a purchasing decision are significant, especially in unpredictable times like these.Um vírus chinês conseguiu paralisar o mundo inteiro. Esta circunstância forçou as pessoas a adaptarem o seu estilo de vida. A COVID-19 trouxe mudanças em diferentes áreas da vida, incluindo o comportamento dos consumidores. Para muitos, a pandemia foi um alerta do que é importante e necessário na vida: segurança, confiança e saúde, em vez de gastos excessivos em produtos que se concentram em proporcionar apenas satisfação. A situação atual resulta em ainda mais emoções que estão envolvidas durante o processo de tomada de decisões, levando a que se torne cada vez mais complexo e mais difícil de preparar. Com a presença do vírus, as pessoas experimentam emoções que orientam cada vez mais a sua atenção de compra para produtos utilitários. Por outro lado, com a compra de artigos hedónicos, surge o risco de justificação para si próprio ou para os outros. Além disso, a recordação do vírus leva a uma satisfação menos esperada dos produtos hedónicos, provando que as emoções negativas resultantes do referido alerta ofuscam o resultado. A categorização de uma série de atributos e produtos utilitários e hedónicos provou ser influenciada pela manipulação, indicando grande relevância para a indústria. De uma perspetiva de marketing, é crucial compreender estas mudanças e preparar-se para elas em conformidade. As estratégias em relação ao marketing mix, um posicionamento claro dos produtos e uma compreensão do processo pelo qual um cliente passa antes, durante e após uma decisão de compra são significativas, especialmente em tempos imprevisíveis como estes

Social media and journalism: how twitter impacts news coverage in Kenya

Twitter had been extensively adopted by the public, journalists, and news organizations as a new digital tool for disseminating information. Therefore, if Twitter is considered a new and effective way of gathering information that makes up news content, an investigation on how it impacts news coverage, journalists, and newsroom practices is significant. The present study conducted said investigation and came up with findings that significantly contributed to the available information about the relationship between Twitter and news dissemination. It particularly investigated how Twitter impacts news content and coverage, journalistic routines, and newsroom practices in Kenya. This study draws its data from a review of journalists from four major media organizations in Kenya. The results suggest that Twitter has had a significant impact on both news content and coverage and journalistic routine. However, the platform was found to not have a significant impact on newsroom practices. Further explanation of the results is provided in the document

Audiovisual preservation strategies, data models and value-chains

This is a report on preservation strategies, models and value-chains for digital file-based audiovisual content. The report includes: (a)current and emerging value-chains and business-models for audiovisual preservation;(b) a comparison of preservation strategies for audiovisual content including their strengths and weaknesses, and(c) a review of current preservation metadata models, and requirements for extension to support audiovisual files

Argumentative zoning information extraction from scientific text

Let me tell you, writing a thesis is not always a barrel of laughs—and strange things can happen, too. For example, at the height of my thesis paranoia, I had a re-current dream in which my cat Amy gave me detailed advice on how to restructure the thesis chapters, which was awfully nice of her. But I also had a lot of human help throughout this time, whether things were going fine or beserk. Most of all, I want to thank Marc Moens: I could not have had a better or more knowledgable supervisor. He always took time for me, however busy he might have been, reading chapters thoroughly in two days. He both had the calmness of mind to give me lots of freedom in research, and the right judgement to guide me away, tactfully but determinedly, from the occasional catastrophe or other waiting along the way. He was great fun to work with and also became a good friend. My work has profitted from the interdisciplinary, interactive and enlightened atmosphere at the Human Communication Centre and the Centre for Cognitive Science (which is now called something else). The Language Technology Group was a great place to work in, as my research was grounded in practical applications develope

CHORUS Deliverable 2.1: State of the Art on Multimedia Search Engines

Based on the information provided by European projects and national initiatives related to multimedia search as well as domains experts that participated in the CHORUS Think-thanks and workshops, this document reports on the state of the art related to multimedia content search from, a technical, and socio-economic perspective. The technical perspective includes an up to date view on content based indexing and retrieval technologies, multimedia search in the context of mobile devices and peer-to-peer networks, and an overview of current evaluation and benchmark inititiatives to measure the performance of multimedia search engines. From a socio-economic perspective we inventorize the impact and legal consequences of these technical advances and point out future directions of research

Marketingová analýza SEO hotelového vyhledávače

Import 05/08/2014The goal of the thesis was to analyze the current state that has been achieved in the SEO area of the web travel portal HolidayCzech.cz. Apart from the definition of keywords from the Internet marketing and SEO field, internal data of the HolidayCheck company and online services especially from the Google company were applied in order to get necessary information. It was settled that some pages of the website have not been processed from the SEO point of view appropriately, and they do not provide to a visitor a comfortable use of the website either. Gained results were transformed into suggestions and recommendations, which could be convenient for the platform in order to eliminate deficiencies and enjoy more traffic.Cílem práce byla analýza současného stavu v oblasti SEO, kterého bylo dosaženo u cestovatelského portálu HolidayCheck.cz. Pro získání nezbytných informací bylo kromě vymezení klíčových pojmů z oblasti internetového marketingu a SEO využito také interních dat od společnosti HolidayCheck a online služeb převážně od společnosti Google. Bylo zjištěno, že některé stránky nebyly vhodně zpracovány z hlediska SEO a rovněž neposkytují návštěvníkovi jejich pohodlné užívání. Získané poznatky byly transformovány do návrhů a doporučení, které by mohly být pro platformu přínosné v rámci eliminování nedostatků a získání vyšší návštěvnosti.116 - Katedra marketingu a obchoduvýborn

Emotional appeals in UK banks’ print advertisement

“A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy”The unprecedented turbulence and uncertainty experienced in global economic and financial markets because of the ―credit crunch‖ has had a damaging impact on consumer confidence. Trust and credibility have been eroded as many customers feel let down by the banks suggesting the need for banks to rebuild constructive dialogue and long-term, meaningful relationships with their customers again. Though financial service, in this case, is considered a utilitarian service, based on the fact that money is needed to support people‘s daily activities, the present state of financial service has suggested the need for banks to appeal to consumers‘ emotions with the aim of improving their reputation. Also, the competition within the industry also could suggest the need to adopt an emotionally appealing advertisement strategy as emotions are known to play an influential role in building robust brand preference. This study builds on the communication theory, meaning transfer theory and consumer involvement theory, to understand the messages the banks are sending out and to elicit consumers‘ emotional reaction. One thousand, two hundred and seventy-four UK bank advertisements in nine national newspapers were content-analysed to identify the emotional appeals presented by the banks. The perception of these appeals and their associated meanings were sought through semi-structured interviews with 33 participants in London and Luton. The results of the analysis indicated that UK Banks are utilising emotional appeal in their advertisements to reach out to the consumers to convince them to upgrade their account, to open an additional account or switch their account. The most predominantly used appeals were relief and relaxation followed by excitement and happiness or satisfaction with the bank, and finally, security and adventure. However, variations were found in different financial products that employed emotional appeals. It was found that high-involvement products such as mortgages and loans used fewer emotional appeals. Both bank groups - high street banks, including the big four (Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and RBS) and non-high street banks, such as the new entrants, supermarket brands, and online banks were using emotional appeals. However, it is acknowledged that the communication strategies between these banks could be different as the non-high street banks are more likely to repeat and publish the same messages across many newspapers, instead of publishing different emotionally appealing advertisements. Though consumers acknowledged these emotional appeals in the advertisements, they were more concerned about their relationship with the banks as they don‘t rely on advertisements to make a financial decision. Rather, recommendations from families, friends and associates and also branch location are more important when deciding on which bank to choose. The lack of congruency between financial services and emotional appeals in advertisements is also observed as customers are more likely to be persuaded by rational appeals however this study has not completely ruled out emotional appeals in bank advertisements as the use of both types of appeals is recommended. The study provides important theoretical and managerial contributions to understanding how the consumers understand meaning-embedded advertisements produced by the banks. Managers will be able to consider the implications of advertisements in enhancing their brand equity and building relationships with customers in anticipation that, by word of the mouth and established relationship, their bank‘s reputation will be enhanced. Limitations of the study and opportunities for future research are identified