The author systematically examines one of the important issues of information — establishing the market price. He introduces the concept of «search» — where a buyer wanting to get a better price, is forced to question sellers. The article deals with various aspects of finding the necessary information.

Economics of Information

Because extant literature on the service logic of marketing is dominated by a metaphorical view of value co-creation, the roles of both service providers and customers remain analytically unspecified, without a theoretically sound foundation for value creation or co-creation. This article analyzes value creation and co-creation in service by analytically defining the roles of the customer and the firm, as well as the scope, locus, and nature of value and value creation. Value creation refers to customers’ creation of value-in-use; co-creation is a function of interaction. Both the firm’s and the customer’s actions can be categorized by spheres (provider, joint, customer), and their interactions are either direct or indirect, leading to different forms of value creation and co-creation. This conceptualization of value creation spheres extends knowledge about how value-in-use emerges and how value creation can be managed; it also emphasizes the pivotal role of direct interactions for value co-creation opportunities.

Critical service logic: making sense of value creation and co-creation

The authors argue that what consumers learn from the experience of using products is not a simple matter of discovering objective truth. They frame the problem of learning from experience as a four...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1251410.pdf

Managing What Consumers Learn from Experience

The application of neuroimaging methods to product marketing - neuromarketing - has recently gained considerable popularity. We propose that there are two main reasons for this trend. First, the possibility that neuroimaging will become cheaper and faster than other marketing methods; and second, the hope that neuroimaging will provide marketers with information that is not obtainable through conventional marketing methods. Although neuroimaging is unlikely to be cheaper than other tools in the near future, there is growing evidence that it may provide hidden information about the consumer experience. The most promising application of neuroimaging methods to marketing may come before a product is even released - when it is just an idea being developed.

Neuromarketing: the hope and hype of neuroimaging in business

This research conceptualizes and develops a scale to measure individual differences in the centrality of visual product aesthetics (CVPA), defined as the level of significance that visual aesthetics hold for a particular consumer in his/her relationship with products. Three related dimensions of product aesthetics centrality emerged from the research: value, acumen, and response intensity. A series of eight studies provided evidence that the CVPA measure possesses satisfactory reliability and validity. Additionally, this research illuminates important differences between high and low CVPA consumers in product-design-related evaluations and behaviors and provides suggestions for future research employing the scale.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/346250

Individual Differences in the Centrality of Visual Product Aesthetics: Concept and Measurement

A role-theoretic approach to product symbolism: Mapping a consumption constellation

Comparative Versus Noncomparative Advertising: The Moderating Impact of Prepurchase Attribute Verifiability

For purposes of product testing, several tasks have been used to measure subjects’ discrimination ability (i.e., their ability to distinguish between two slightly different product formulations). T...

Measurement of Discrimination Ability in Taste Tests: An Empirical Investigation

A stochastic model of list falloff with implications for repeat mailings

Researchers often test consumers' abilities to discriminate between two product formulations. Such tests are used in new product development, quality control, and competitive assessment. This paper investigates three paired comparison taste tests, each requiring a different judgment. These are: preference "Which of these two do you prefer?", identification "Which one of these two is Brand X?" and detection "Are these two products the same or different?". Each task has biases that may influence the level of measured discrimination ability. To our knowledge, this is the first empirical study to compare subject discrimination ability as measured by all three tasks. Additionally, we test two scales of subject confidence ratings and discuss implications for product testing.

Bruce Buchanan

Papers

A role-theoretic approach to product symbolism: Mapping a consumption constellation

Comparative Versus Noncomparative Advertising: The Moderating Impact of Prepurchase Attribute Verifiability

Measurement of Discrimination Ability in Taste Tests: An Empirical Investigation

A stochastic model of list falloff with implications for repeat mailings

Assessing the Bias of Preference, Detection, and Identification Measures of Discrimination Ability in Product Design