E-word of mouth: building sustainable and trustworthy relationships with customers in a highly regulated on-line environment

With the increasing popularity of social media, consumers now turn to different online discussion forums, consumer review sites, weblogs, social network sites and so on to seek product information and share their own experiences (Cheung and Thadani, 2010; Davies, 2008). Consequently, companies today face an increasingly difficult challenge: how to communicate with consumers online in a way that encourages trust and engagement? What may make things even more complicated is that many companies are now operating in a highly regulated environment, with the healthcare industry a typical example of this (Choi and Lee, 2007; Huh and Langteau, 2007; Nielson, 2008; von Knoop et al., 2003). Thus, pharmaceutical marketers and brand managers must understand how to communicate effectively in a highly regulated online environment. This short report aims to help such companies to build a sustainable and trustworthy relationship with their customers online. To do so, the report considers the subject from the perspective of a pharmaceutical company. It will first discuss the current regulations around the healthcare industry, highlighting the constraints pharmaceutical marketers need to face. Then, it will review current literature discussing healthcare consumers’ online behaviour. In particular, it will focus on consumers’ negative comments and their possible impact on the business. Finally, the report concludes with some suggestions about how to cope with negative comments online and build a reliable relationship with customers

Revisiting the psychic distance paradox: international retailing in China in the long run (1840-2005

This paper uses original research on the roles played by two sets of foreign entrants into Chinese retailing since the 1850s - the overseas Chinese entrants and western entrants - to explore the psychic distance paradox over the long run. It explains how the advantages of psychic closeness in Chinese retailing have always been important in reducing entry barriers, but that the increasing costs of technology have increased the significance of firm proprietary strengths in some formats, notably supermarkets, so reducing the relative importance of psychic closeness. The paper therefore illustrates how taking the long-term perspective enables more sophisticated conclusions to emerge. A cross sectional analysis of one sector – Chinese supermarkets – would confirm the psychic distance paradox; overseas Chinese have been unable to translate psychic closeness into superior performance. By contrast their historic performance in department stores and more recently in fashion chains has been superior to the format leaders. This long term perspective therefore suggests that the understanding of the psychic distance paradox needs to be moderated by additional conceptualisation.Psychic Distance, China, International Retailing, Internationalisation Process

Regulatory Fit/Nonfit and In-Game Advertising Effectiveness on Children

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to see whether children’ regulatory fit/nonfit can moderate the implicit influence of in-game advertising.Design/methodology/approachAn experiment was done with 418 children (aged 7–11) from three primary schools in a middle-size city in China that voluntarily took part in the experiment. Children were randomly allocated to the following four conditions: playing a game without any brands (a control group), playing the same game and exposed to a subtle in-game advertising (a test control group), playing the same branded game with regulatory fit (regulatory fit group) and playing the same branded game with regulatory nonfit (regulatory nonfit group).FindingsThe results first suggest exposure to in-game advertising makes children more likely to choose it afterward, despite most of them are not aware being exposed to it. The results further suggest children’s regulatory fit does not further increase children’s choice of the focal brand, suggesting linking the focal brand to fun and engaging game experiences is sufficient to influence their brand choice. However, children’s regulatory nonfit attenuates the implicit influence of in-game advertising.Originality/valueBy focusing on children’s game strategy, this research complements the extant literature that only focuses on advertising features and/or game character to document the implicit influence of in-game advertising. In addition, by focusing on regulatory fit/nonfit, this paper provides initial evidence how contextual factors such as children’s game strategy may help them cope with advertising influence built on affect transfer.<br/

Children's conformity to social norms to eat healthy:A developmental perspective

Rationale: Previous studies suggest injunctive norms (prompts of what people ought to do) are stronger predictors of healthy eating intentions, whereas descriptive norms (prompts of what people are doing) are stronger predictors of healthy eating behaviors. However, previous research provides little insight into why different norms influence children's health intentions and behaviors differently. In addition, no research has explored developmental differences in children's conformity to, or rejection of, different types of social normative influence. Thus, this paper adopts a developmental perspective to understand why children conform differently to descriptive and injunctive norm messaging on healthy eating. Method: An experiment was done with 405 children in Germany aged 7 to 16. The research design was a 4 (social norms: descriptive vs. injunctive peer vs. injunctive authority vs. control) × 2 (developmental stage: middle childhood vs. adolescence) between-subject design. Children's healthy eating intentions and behaviors were collected as key dependent variables. Results: and conclusions: The experimental results suggest that children mainly use a descriptive norm as an information shortcut to behaving “appropriately”. This should have a stronger impact on younger children than older ones, although both young and old children consider it easier to understand than an injunctive norm. The experimental results further suggest that an injunctive norm mainly influences children via activation of a motive for maintaining a positive self-image in public, rather than one of affiliation. These results are very important for social research on health, because they can explain why different social norms influence health intentions and behaviors differently. In addition, our finding that injunctive norm conformity is mainly used for impression management purposes can reconcile existing contradictory results on the impact of social norms on children

The Impact of Dialectical Thinking on Androgynous Brand Equity across Cultures:The Moderating Role of Brand Positioning

Purpose: The authors’ research examines the impact of cross-cultural difference in dialectical thinking on consumers' responses to androgynous brands and its implication for brand equity. Their research also aims to see how consumers take both feminine and masculine attributes into consideration to form their judgments of androgynous brand equity and whether this process is moderated by brand positioning. Design/methodology/approach: The authors did two experiments with 400 Chinese consumers (high in dialectical thinking) and 528 British consumers (low in dialectical thinking) to test our framework. Findings: The authors’ experimental results suggest an androgynous brand has higher brand equity in China than in the UK. Furthermore, Chinese consumers rate higher feminine/masculine attributes of masculine/feminine brands. In addition, an androgynous brand's equity is mainly driven by its less dominant attributes. Finally, their results suggest that brand positioning moderates the mediating role of less dominant attributes, more evident when brand positioning matches (vs mismatches) an androgynous brand's more dominant attributes. Originality/value: By focusing on cross-cultural differences in dialectical thinking, the authors’ research offers a novel approach to reconcile existing inconclusive results on androgynous brand equity. Second, to their best knowledge, their research is the first to examine how feminine and masculine attributes jointly decide androgynous brand equity. Finally, by focusing on brand positioning, their research highlights the importance of an androgynous brand's less dominant attributes in driving its brand equity and provides a tool international marketing managers can use to strengthen such influence.</p

Corporate social (Ir)responsibility and corporate hypocrisy: Warmth, motive and the protective value of corporate social responsibility

This article examines how a firm’s prior record on corporate social responsibility (CSR) influences individual stakeholders’ perceptions of corporate hypocrisy in the wake of a corporate social irresponsibility (CSI) event. Our research extends extant corporate hypocrisy literature by highlighting the role of individual stakeholders’ inferences about a genuine CSR motive in their judgments of corporate hypocrisy. This can serve to differentiate perceived corporate hypocrisy from inconsistency that arises because of a lack of ability and/or resources. Our research further identifies a source for such perceptions: individual stakeholders’ perceptions of firm warmth generated by a firm’s prior record of CSR. In addition, we find that when CSR and CSI are in the same (vs. different) domains, it can strengthen perceptions of hypocrisy. This provides direct evidence to explain why markets react differently when CSR and CSI events occur in the same domain (vs. different ones)