Decoding the consumer’s brain: Neural representations of consumer experience

Understanding consumer experience – what consumers think about brands, how they feel about services, whether they like certain products – is crucial to marketing practitioners. ‘Neuromarketing’, as the application of neuroscience in marketing research is called, has generated excitement with the promise of understanding consumers’ minds by probing their brains directly. Recent advances in neuroimaging analysis leverage machine learning and pattern classification techniques to uncover patterns from neuroimaging data that can be associated with thoughts and feelings. In this dissertation, I measure brain responses of consumers by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in order to ‘decode’ their mind. In three different studies, I have demonstrated how different aspects of consumer experience can be studied with fMRI recordings. First, I study how consumers think about brand image by comparing their brain responses during passive viewing of visual templates (photos depicting various social scenarios) to those during active visualizing of a brand’s image. Second, I use brain responses during viewing of affective pictures to decode emotional responses during watching of movie-trailers. Lastly, I examine whether marketing videos that evoke s

Digital geographies of transnational spaces: a mixed-method study of Mexico-US migration

textThe central objective of this thesis is to explore how sophisticated information and communication technologies (ICTs) impact Mexico-US migration. In particular, it attends to those ICTs that enable Mexican immigrants in the United States to stay “in touch” with their loved ones in Mexico. Rather than pursue the impacts of these technologies through a singular methodology or theoretical framework, this study employs an array of approaches in order to examine the geography transnational communication across multiple scales. At the level of the individual, I examine how Mexican immigrants living in Austin, TX, incorporate communication technologies into their daily lives. Informed by a series of semi-structured and in-depth interviews, I argue that cellular phone calls, text messaging, and social media platforms enable a passive, routinized transnationalism that allows migrants to maintain a degree of presence both “here” and “there.” I subsequently scale up my analysis in order to trace the emergence of digital social media—Facebook, in particular—as a communication tool for dispersed Mexican immigrant communities, and I interrogate the ways in which digital social media engender transnational social networks. Using place as a guiding conceptual theme, I demonstrate how senses of and attachments to place form the basis of communal social interactions online, and I identify the many different places, both in the US and Mexico, that are involved in particular transnational social networks and migration flows. This study concludes by drawing on recent critical GIS scholarship and volunteered geographic information (VGI) in order to visualize the digital, place-to-place connections between Mexican migrants living in United States and their friends and family members living in Mexico and elsewhere.Geography and the Environmen

Online Social Communities Through the Lens of Polyvore

Traditionally, people used the Internet for simple interaction within the communication sphere.With the introduction of social media platforms the online world has become more interesting as consumers are using them to create, share, and discuss over the Internet. The growing popularity of the social online communities is bridging the gap between consumers and brands by providing them with a platform to communicate with each other. This study visually analyzes Polyvore, a social shopping online community. It sheds light upon how members use Polyvore in different ways, the hedonic motivations associated with shopping online, and the way in which an online community with a growing aspect of offline meetups is used by its members to make social connections

User-generated content about brands : understanding its creators and consumers

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of the following article: Sue Vaux Halliday, ‘User-generated content about brands: Understanding its creators and consumers’, Journal of business Research, Vol. 69 (1): 137-144, January 2016, made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License CC BY NC-ND 4.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ) The final, definitive Version of Record is available online via DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.07.027This consumer research study investigates the meanings behind creating and consuming user-generated content (UGC) about brands. It touches on the broader issues of the lives of persons, rather than consumers. We discuss relevant theoretical underpinnings to our empirical two-stage study that we then describe in detail. From our findings we contribute a person-centric trope of the journey that individuals can be understood as participating in as they interact with brands on the Internet for personal formation and even transformation. We conclude that for the young adult population this activity is the interactive ongoing construction of identities, as persons rather than narrowly as consumers. These actions creating and consuming UGC also underpin potential for personal transformation, as proposed in the movie “Leaving Pleasantville”. Our contribution is both insight and a metaphor to explain a key driver of UGC creation in 21st century postmodern life.Peer reviewe

How can Cre.eight : an online t-shirt brand : increase brand awareness and sales, in Portuguese market, through its main social media networking sites : Facebook and Instagram?

Cre.eight is an online t-shirt brand founded by Pedro Ferraz in 2015. This dissertation has the objective of studying Cre.eight and understanding the importance of Facebook and Instagram as means of increasing brand awareness and sales. The relevance of social media networking sites for the millennial generation was evaluated, along with the tools that these platforms posses for up-rising brands. An outlined analysis of Facebook and Instagram and their power as communication channels allows the reader to understand how Cre.eight is able to work with an array of tools to attain the desired level of recognition. The case study presented occurs in 2015, marked by the launch of the first collection, serves to understand the brand, assess every process of the business, evaluation of past mistakes and generated results. An analysis on what strategies to be implemented on Facebook and Instagram, and the key factors for such strategies to be effectively implemented was constructed, based on: (1) an online survey to study the perception on online shopping, (2) benchmarking the social media accounts of two leading Portuguese entrepreneur brands, and (3) taking into consideration the elements explored in the Literature Review. The dissertation conclusively draws particular relevance to the following key points: the correct exploitation of advertising tools, on Facebook through effective segmentation and strong management of generated insights, Instagram with the correct usage of social media mavens and exclusive and captivating visuals, along with the consistency and diversity of generated content to maintain consumers and engagement towards the brand.A Cre.eight é uma marca online de t-shirts, criada por Pedro Ferraz em 2015. Esta dissertação tem como objetivo estudar a Cre.eight e perceber a importância do Facebook e Instagram como meios de aumentar a notoriedade da marca e vendas. A relevância dos sites de redes sociais foi avaliada, juntamente com as ferramentas que estas possuem para marcas em crescimento. Uma análise detalhada do Facebook e Instagram e as capacidades dos mesmos como meios de comunicação permite ao leitor perceber como a Cre.eight consegue trabalhar com uma gama de ferramentas para atingir o nível desejado de reconhecimento. O caso apresentado ocorre em 2015, tem como objetivo dar a conhecer a marca, avaliar os processos do negócio, reconhecimento dos erros, e os resultados obtidos na primeira coleção. Uma análise sobre quais as estratégias a serem implementadas no Facebook e Instagram, e os fatores para que tais estratégias sejam implementadas com sucesso foi construído com base em: (1) um questionário para estudar a perceção sobre compras on-line, (2) avaliação comparativa das redes socias de marcas empreendedoras portuguesas, (3) considerando os elementos explorados na Revisão de Literatura. Em conclusão, a dissertação realça a importância dos seguintes pontos: a correta exploração de instrumentos de publicidade, no Facebook através de uma segmentação eficaz e forte gestão dos “insights” gerados, e no Instagram com a correta utilização dos “social media mavens” e a criação de material visual exclusivo, juntamente com a consistência e diversidade de conteúdo para manter os consumidores e envolvimento com a marca

PRECIOUS OBJECTS: Manufactured Stories, Strata Serving Set

My Capstone work explores the way an object can capture the essences of the people and events that it experiences, thereby creating sentimental value for the user. The project is composed of a research phase and a design phase; these two phases cumulated in a research document and a product design. My research phase began by exploring the value created in the relationship between users and their precious objects. At the core of this relationship is the importance of an object’s provenance. Substances can be duplicated but history cannot. We will always value and desire to be in contact with the essence of an original. We preserve the essences and memories of others and ourselves in the objects that we touch. The recorded provenance of an object reveals the story of its owner. From my research, I found that are three main themes in the stories that users tell about their precious objects: the object has contacted an individual who is significant to the user, it has touched the user in some way, or it has experienced an important event. This conclusion informed the brief for the product design, which was to create a product that physically changes to record the stories of the people, places, and events that it has experienced. My design is a response to they way we currently record memories by digitally capturing and recording our experiences as they occur. Shared online, these digital photographs, videos, and play lists no longer have a physical reference. The Strata serving set stores these digital memories, allowing the physical object to tell its own story. The set is composed of a cheese board, a cracker bowl, and a cheese knife. Each object is a separate study on how this system can be mechanically applied; this potential applications of this system is not limited to these three objects. Each object is physically altered by the addition of ‘jewels,’ which are glass, wood, or acrylic attachments. These jewels are digital storing devices that receive and store digital media wirelessly from smart recording devices such as cameras, phones, and computers. The buildup of these layers of jewels and stories create a strata of memories and stories. The traditional and natural materials gain a patina from a lifetime of use; it is designed to become a family heirloom. The Strata cheese set is designed to gain sentimental value in the eyes of the user by storing his/her stories and memories. By creating stronger bonds to our objects, I believe we will have a more fulfilling relationship with our physical environment and with others. http://vimeo.com/4103811