31 research outputs found
Customerâs Acceptance of Humanoid Robots in Services: The Moderating Role of Risk Aversion
The emerging introduction of humanoid robots in service encounters is becoming a reality in the present and the short-term. Owing to this unstoppable advance, there is a need to better understand customersâ perceptions and reactions toward humanoid agents in service encounters. To shed some light on this underexplored phenomenon, this research investigates how the interaction between robot and customerâs features may contribute to a successful introduction of this disruptive innovation. Results of an empirical study with a sample of 168 US customers reveal that customerâs perceptions of robotâs human-likeness increase the intentions to use humanoid service robots. Interestingly, customersâ risk aversion moderates this relationship. Specifically, the study found that highly risk-averse customers tend to avoid using humanoids when they are perceived as highly mechanical-like. The discussion highlights the main contributions of the research, which combine previous knowledge on humanârobot interaction and risk aversion from a marketing approach. Managerial implications derived from the research findings and the avenues opened for further research are described at the end
Promoting dental care to children using traditional and interactive media following threat appeals
In recent years, computer games have become an important part of childrenâs lives. Gaming is not only one of their favorite pastime activities, but games are also increasingly used by marketers in an attempt to influence childrenâs purchase behavior. Today, almost every food and beverage brand targeting children has an advergame on its website. Advergames are âcomputer games specifically created to function as advertisements to promote brandsâ, containing brand identifiers such as logos and brand characters (Kretchmer, 2005: 7). Games can also be powerful learning tools. Several authors (e.g., Gee, 2003; Prensky, 2001) argue that computer games can be more enjoyable, more interesting and thus more effective than traditional learning modes to increase childrenâs knowledge. Empirical studies that evaluated the impact of the use of games within disciplines such as mathematics, science, language, geography and computer science show positive outcomes in terms of learning effectiveness in relation to curricular objectives (e.g., Papastergiou, 2009; Rosas et al., 2003). However, these authors mainly focus on the learning ability of games rather than their persuasive impact for social marketing purposes. In the area of health education, playing computer games has often been seen with skepticism (e.g., Bale, 1994; Funk and Buchman, 1995)
Co-designing Cards on Social Issues for Creating Educational Games
This paper presents a participatory methodology to design cards on social issues with the purpose to democratise knowledge among co-designers on the learning content of educational games. Situated on the topic of everyday sexism, the methodology has been developed through an iterative process involving two collaborative workshops, two iterations of card design and a feedback survey. Extracting findings from the workshops and the feedback gathered on the co- designed cards, this paper presents insights that could be used to inform similar studies using cards to inspire and foster reflection on social issues
Implications of stealing thunder for the impact of expressing emotions in organizational crisis communication
This study examines if and when spokespersons of an organization in crisis can express their genuine emotions as opposed to appearing rational. The impact of emotional (sadness) versus rational message framing on perceptions of an organization in crisis is studied by means of a 2 (crisis timing strategy: ex-antecrisis timing strategy vs. ex-postcrisis timing strategy)Ă2 (message framing: rational vs. emotional) between-subjects factorial experimental design with 168 participants. The findings first show that organizations can restore their reputation in times of crisis better by means of an ex-antecrisis timing strategy than by means of an ex-postcrisis timing strategy. In addition, the study illustrates that an ex-antecrisis timing strategy leads to more effective use of organizational message framing. In the case of an organizational self-disclosure, expressing sadness as a discrete negative emotion results in a better postcrisis reputation than rational message framing, whereas no impact of message framing is found for an ex-postcrisis timing strategy. Finally, the results indicate that organizations can benefit from allowing their spokespersons to express sadness because consumers will consider them more sincere. © 2013 National Communication Association.status: publishe
Context Effects of TV Programme-Induced Interactivity and Telepresence on Advertising Responses
demography prediction, demographic targeting, web advertising, Random Forests, web user profiling, clickstream analysis