Patronage patterns of the pharmacy consumers: A segmentation study in Greece

Pharmacy retailing is still being the only legal distribution channel for medicines in Greece however there is evidence that the deregulation of the distribution is imminent to happen and therefore knowledge on the how the consumers that use pharmacies are choosing among the already vastly congested competition. The density of the pharmacies in Greece is among the highest in the EU (Theodorakis, 2013) and this comes to an agreement with the reputation Greeks have to be very reliant to the healthcare providers. Never the less, the per capita expenditure on healthcare from 2009 to 2013 has decreased by a total of 21% (OECD, 2015) and this is reflected on the sales of pharmacies that declined that much that pharmacists struggle to keep them open (Karagiorgos, 2015). This paper considers what are the market segments in the market and what are the differences between the loyal and the random pharmacy consumers

Service quality, visitor satisfaction and future behavior in the museum sector

The present study investigates the factors that affect visitors’ satisfaction and their future behavior. A survey based on the dimensions of SERVPERF among 632 visitors in two distinct in terms of atmosphere, exhibits and activities museums, the Archaeological Museum and the Museum for Science and Technology in Thessaloniki (Greece) provides the empirical evidence. The results indicate that the five dimensions of SERVPERF can successfully determine the degree of visitors’ satisfaction and predict future behavior. Future behavior is often subject to visitors’ place of residence. The type of museum is also a significant factor affecting satisfaction and future behavior. on and loyalty

Superiority Theory and Disparagement Humor: The Role of Gelotophobia, Gelotophilia, and Katagelasticism

Risky communication strategy though it is, disparagement humorous advertising has proliferated over the last decades (Gulas et al., 2010; Weinberger et al., 2015). Although humorous advertisements are generally known to have a positive effect on attitude toward the ad (Duncan and Nelson, 1985; Eisend, 2008; Venkatesh and Senthilkumar, 2015; Weinberger and Gulas, 1992), highly disparaging humorous advertisements may lead to adverse consumer reactions (Cho, 1995). Consumers seem to form a positive attitude toward the disparaging humorous advertisements only when the latter are perceived as very humorous (Brown et al., 2010; Newton et al., 2016; Yoon, 2016)

Face reading the emotions of gelotophobes toward disparaging humorous advertising

Prior research has indicated that gelotophobia, people’s fear of being laughed at, influences their emotions toward a disparaging humorous event. Based on two experiments with a sample of 50 Greek participants each, the present study employed face recognition software to explore the emotions of gelotophobes, when exposed to an advertisement. It further examined the moderating role of the type of advertisement (i.e. a disparaging humorous ad vs. a non-disparaging non-humorous ad) and identification with the victim of the joke, on gelotophobes' emotions. At higher levels of identification with the victim, gelotophobes indicated lower levels of joy, joyful (Duchenne) smile, and a positive emotional valence toward a disparaging-humorous advertisement as opposed to non-gelotophobes. Joy was also found to mediate the negative effects of gelotophobia on attitude toward the ad

How funny is it? Gelotophilia, Katagelasticism and Disparagement Humor

The superiority theory supports that the relationship between disparagement humor and perceived humorousness is positive only when identification with the disparaged advertising character is low. The present study elaborates on the superiority theory and tests the interaction effect between disparagement humor, character identification and gelotophilia on attitude toward the ad (Aad) and the brand (Ab). A laboratory experiment indicates that the higher the character identification and the higher (lower) gelotophilia, the more positive (negative) Aad and Ab become, when an advertisement includes disparagement humor compared to non-disparaging appeals. In the case of katagelasticism, a similar interaction effect between disparagement humor and character similarity (an early stage of identification) was found