Showing papers in "Marketing Theory in 2007"
TL;DR: A systematic review of the extensive research that has been conducted on the conceptualization of perceived value is presented in this paper, where the major conclusions of the present review are summarized in Table 1.
Abstract: The purpose of this article is to present a systematic review of the extensive research that has been conducted on the conceptualization of perceived value. The major conclusions of the present stu...
1,009 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a conceptual model of markets as constituted by practice is presented, which highlights the need to take seriously the role of ideas in the making of markets and argues that marketing as an academic discipline is a particularly apt partner in expanding this endeavour.
Abstract: This article presents a conceptual model of markets as constituted by practice. Drawing on recent sociological research on the performativity of market theories, the article stresses the need to take seriously the role of ideas in the making of markets. Since extant studies of performativity focus on the role of economics in shaping markets, it is argued that marketing as an academic discipline is a particularly apt partner in expanding this endeavour. The conceptual model presents markets as the ongoing results of three interlinked types of practices: normalizing practices serving to establish normative objectives; representational practices serving to depict markets and/or how they work; and exchange practices serving to realize individual economic exchanges. The links between these practices, which are conceived as translations, are elaborated upon using a number of empirical studies. Finally, the model is used to illustrate differences in how markets are being continuously realized. This highlights th...
402 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that marketing practices have a performative role in helping to create the phenomena they purportedly describe, rather than regarding marketing practices as operating within pre-defined markets, and argue that they have important implications for marketing theory in terms of a shift from exchange as events to markets as institutions.
Abstract: Recent debates in economic sociology have moved away from a critique to homo economicus to a focus on how market exchange is formalized and abstracted from social relations. Rather than dwell on the disparities between the formalism and the practice of market exchange, the work of Michel Callon and associates focuses on the calculating agencies that enable the creation and operation of markets. This article provides a critical examination of these ideas and argues that they have important implications for marketing theory, namely in terms of a shift from exchange as events to markets as institutions. Rather than regarding marketing practices as operating within pre-defined markets, we argue that marketing practices have a performative role in helping to create the phenomena they purportedly describe.
328 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show that consumers can neglect most product information and yet make good choices, so long as either there is no conflict among the product attributes or the attributes are unequally important.
Abstract: In the age of the Internet and easy access to almost infinite information, the problem of information overload among consumers is bound to become of great importance to marketers. By means of simulations we show that this ‘tyranny of choice’ is avoidable. Consumers can neglect most product information and yet make good choices, so long as either there is no conflict among the product attributes or the attributes are unequally important. In these conditions, only one attribute is enough to select a good option - one within ten percent of the highest value possible. We conclude with marketing implications of these findings.
146 citations
TL;DR: The authors empirically explored the relationship between the general attitude towards advertising and the attitude toward advertising in specific media: television and print, and found a negative relationship between ATV and APRINT, a significantly positive reciprocal relationship between TV advertising and AG, and a non-significant relationship between APRINT and AG.
Abstract: This article empirically explores the relationship between the general attitude towards advertising and the attitude towards advertising in specific media: television and print. Our results support the proposition that attitude towards advertising in general (AG) is an abstract level construct while attitude towards television advertising (ATV) and attitude towards print advertising (APRINT) are experience-based constructs in the consumer's structure of attitudes towards advertising. We found a significantly negative reciprocal relationship between ATV and APRINT, a significantly positive reciprocal relationship between ATV and AG, and a non-significant relationship between APRINT and AG. Macro level belief factors like `good for the economy' and `materialism' are related positively and negatively to AG, respectively. The personal experience belief factor of `product information' is positively related to APRINT while personal experience belief factors like `hedonic' and `falsity/no sense' are related posi...
91 citations
TL;DR: The SDL concept car as mentioned in this paper is the conceptual vehicle of choice of the Service-Dominant Logic of Marketing (SDL) and has been widely recognized as the state-of-the-art in the field of marketing.
Abstract: Every year, hundreds of gleaming marketing models roll off the academic production lines. Bright and shiny and new, most are slightly improved, better equipped, luxuriously uxorious editions of existing models, upmarket makeovers of popular marketing marques. Pimped and polished and premium priced, they sit in the scholarly forecourts of our leading learned journals, attract a smattering of theoretical tire-kickers, find one or two eager purchasers, and finally wend their way onto the gridlocked ring-roads and roundabouts of Cerebral City, while adding their intellectual emissions to our already overheated academic atmosphere. Once or twice per decade, a radically new concept car makes an unheralded appearance. Souped-up, fully-loaded and kitted out, inevitably, with a paradigm shift as standard, this go-faster model is universally lauded as the next big scholarly thing and, for a short time at least, becomes marketing’s conceptual vehicle of choice, the car that’ll carry our discipline to its final destination, the fabled city of Scienceopolis. In the 1950s, our pedal-to-the-metal principle was the notion of customer orientation. In the 1960s, our 4x4Ps of choice comprised the managerial and quantitative revolutions. In the 1970s, our off-road, all-terrain offer was the ‘broadened’ marketing concept. In the 1980s, the philosophical hotrods of positivism and relativism staged a head-to-head road race. And in the 1990s, environmentally-friendly, catalytically-converted, proto-Prius hybrid principles – predicated on networks, relationships and Saturnalian customer-hugging – were showcased in the showrooms of our pre-eminent academic outlets. The naughties’ contribution to marketing’s conceptual concours d’élégance is the so-called Service-Dominant Logic of Marketing (Vargo and Lusch, 2004, hereafter SDL and V&L respectively). Since its electrifying unveiling in JM, the Detroit Motor Show of our field (where it was aptly draped in comments by academic supermodels), SDL has turned heads, started quarrels, carried off a clutch of richly-deserved awards (Maynard included) and spawned an impressive range of
82 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors carried out an empirical investigation that took a critical look at the marketing discipline to see how nonresponse error was being addressed in three of the top five marketing journals.
Abstract: Nonresponse error is a topic that draws little attention but can dramatically affect the ability to generalize results of a research study. The authors carried out an empirical investigation that took a critical look at the marketing discipline to see how nonresponse error was being addressed in three of the top five marketing journals. The data for this study consisted of a content analysis of all articles from the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Marketing Research, and the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science from 1999 through 2003 to determine if and how nonresponse error was being addressed in academic marketing research. This article details the findings of this content analysis, i.e., what measures are being used to assess nonresponse error along with the literature cited in support of these measures. The article concludes with an overall analysis of how well this topic is being addressed along with further suggestions for assessing nonresponse in the field of marketing research.
75 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a discourse-analytical understanding of the phenomenon of marketing work is presented, with the aim of subjecting it to a social-phenomenological gaze, in order to de-reify it.
Abstract: This article seeks to problematize and de-reify the phenomenon of marketing work by means of subjecting it to a social-phenomenological gaze. Drawing upon a discourse-analytical understanding of th...
70 citations
TL;DR: From the viewpoint of marketing theory and the potential blurring of the distinction between production and consumption in the sphere of arts, entertainment, and culture, this article explored the lived tragedy and mythology of Chet Baker as an epiphenomenon of the market's thirst for self-destructing artists that has plagued jazz for much of the past century.
Abstract: From the viewpoint of marketing theory and the potential blurring of the distinction between production and consumption in the sphere of arts, entertainment, and culture, we explore the lived tragedy and mythology of Chet Baker as an epiphenomenon of the market's thirst for self-destructing artists that has plagued jazz for much of the past century. Historically grounding the iconic self-destructing artist as an inheritance from Romanticism, we consider the competing career orientations arising from the contradictory demands for musicians to produce aesthetic experiences for an audience of experts, cognoscenti, or devoted fans while also facing the need to earn cash in the mass market constituted by non-experts. This conceptualization gives rise to a framing of the ideal bohemian musician as self-producer and self-consumer. In marketing terms, pure bohemia entails both the production and consumption of one's own artistic genius and aesthetic experience. But unfortunately — pushing the artist past the need...
50 citations
TL;DR: This article identified two primary deep metaphors for hair: (1) a living organism requiring nourishment and hydration; (2) a malleable structure that may be subjected to design and utilized as apparel, accessory, or protection.
Abstract: This inquiry uses an anthropological construal of metaphor to argue for the multi-vocal presence of symbolic meanings in the marketplace. Metaphoric imagery is described as it emanates from marketers, popular culture media and consumers with respect to the product area of hair care. We identify two primary deep metaphors for hair: (1) a living organism requiring nourishment and hydration; and (2) a malleable structure that may be subjected to design and utilized as apparel, accessory, or protection. This theoretical approach is compared to two others currently `in play' in marketing: the Brands-as-Icons model of Holt (2004) and the Meaning Management Model of McCracken (2005).
48 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyzed purchase decision-making for products and services that are acquired and used by consumers, but chosen by professional service providers, by comparing the distinct characteristics of purchase decision making in the contexts of professional consumer services and organizational and consumer buying.
Abstract: This article analyses purchase decision-making for products and services that are acquired and used by consumers, but chosen by professional service providers. This is done by comparing the distinct characteristics of purchase decision-making in the contexts of professional consumer services and organizational and consumer buying. Three aspects are elaborated on: the actors involved, the purchase-decision task, and the nature of the decision-making process. It is concluded that professional consumer services represents a unique setting for purchase decision-making and cannot be considered equivalent to the organizational or consumer setting. The article proposes a theoretical framework incorporating the typical characteristics of professional services as a decision-making context, specified in a set of propositions regarding the relative influence of the parties on the purchase decision. Practical and research implications are also presented.
TL;DR: The authors summarizes extant research on context effects and choice theories in a straightforward fashion, and uses context effects as benchmarks to compare six choice theories to compare the context effects of different choice theories.
Abstract: The article summarizes extant research on context effects and choice theories in a straightforward fashion. The context effects are used as benchmarks to compare six choice theories. The context ef...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors provide a review of protection motivation theory with a focus on the interaction effects and combinatorial rules, in order to resolve conflicting findings in the literature and suggest that perceived cost is the main driver of persuasion.
Abstract: In this article we provide a review of Protection Motivation Theory with a focus on the interaction effects and combinatorial rules, in order to resolve conflicting findings in the literature. Our review suggests that perceived cost is the main driver of persuasion. We propose that consumers use a combination of decision-making strategies, with an initial use of the elimination by aspects rule followed by the weighted additive rule. In the proposed model, consumers rank the variables and set minimum cut-offs. A weighted additive relationship takes place only when and if the minimum cut-off levels for variables are met. This analysis helps explain inconsistent findings from the literature and adds insight into the decision-making process involved when consumers consider whether or not to follow a particular recommended health behavior.
TL;DR: The phenomenon that a consumer is able to protest against worker exploitation in the third world outside a Nike outlet and a day later walk in and buy a pair of shoes from the same retailer as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: How can one explain the phenomenon that a consumer is able to protest against worker exploitation in the third world outside a Nike outlet and a day later walk in and buy a pair of shoes from the s...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe the marketing implications of what economists and psychologists have learned about how consumers make these choices, focusing on how consumers will often put disproportionate weight on immediate utility, thereby over-consuming goods offering small early benefits at a larger, later cost (vices), and under-consuming those offering large delayed benefits at smaller, sooner cost (virtues).
Abstract: Consumers are often confronted with choices between options that vary in their short and long term benefit, or what we call immediate and delayed utility. This paper describes the marketing implications of what economists and psychologists have learned about how consumers make these choices. The focus is on how consumers will often put disproportionate weight on immediate utility, thereby over-consuming goods offering small early benefits at a larger, later cost (vices), and under-consuming those offering large delayed benefits at a smaller, sooner cost (virtues). The various manifestations of this tendency in consumer choice are described, followed by a consideration of the sometimes subtle strategic issues surrounding the marketing of vices and virtues to consumers whose preferences change as a function of time to consumption. Special attention is paid to the ‘market for willpower,’ which is the market for goods that enable sophisticated consumers to overcome their difficult-to-control drive for short-term gratification. We conclude by asking what consumers ‘really’ want, and considering how marketers can and should respond to these desires.
TL;DR: The article explores the features of a transvection and the role of sorting in each of the two channel contexts, and concludes that theTransvection concept is particularly well-suited for understanding the characteristics and effects of the evolving distribution arrangements.
Abstract: Technical developments in manufacturing and increasingly efficient systems for physical distribution and information exchange have made new distribution configurations available. The main feature of the new configurations is the opportunity to provide end users with customized solutions. The aim of this article is to analyse the characteristics and implications of the evolving distribution arrangements by comparing the features of these arrangements with those of `traditional channels'. For this analysis we use two concepts developed by Wroe Alderson half a century ago: sorting and transvection. The article explores the features of a transvection and the role of sorting in each of the two channel contexts. We conclude that the transvection concept is particularly well-suited for understanding the characteristics and effects of the evolving distribution arrangements. We also explain how sorting is fundamental to both types of channels, although its role is different in the two settings.
TL;DR: Systematic review methods were applied for the first time to a marketing problem — the effects of food promotion to children, demonstrating that SR methods can transfer from clinical research to marketing.
Abstract: Contentious commodities such as tobacco, alcohol and fatty foods are bringing marketing under scrutiny from consumers and policymakers. Yet there is little agreement on whether marketing is harmful to society. Systematic review (SR), a methodology derived from clinical medicine, offers marketers a tool for providing resolution and allowing policymakers to proceed with greater confidence. This article describes how SR methods were applied for the first time to a marketing problem — the effects of food promotion to children. The review withstood scrutiny and its findings were formally ratified by government bodies and policymakers, demonstrating that SR methods can transfer from clinical research to marketing.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue for the application of first-order and second-order cybernetic principles to the construction of a more multidimensional and realistic model that is able to address welldocumented tensions and problems in the advertising system and provide a fresh perspective on issues connected with interactive advertising and the creative component in advertising communication.
Abstract: Taking as its starting point Barbara B. Stern's (1994) `A Revised Communication Model for Advertising', the article argues for the application of first-order and second-order cybernetic principles to the construction of a more multidimensional and realistic model that is able to address well-documented tensions and problems in the advertising system and provide a fresh perspective on issues connected with interactive advertising and the creative component in advertising communication. The article culminates in a radical second-order cybernetic model of advertising communication that is founded upon the relationship between various observing frames and the stabilized eigenforms (constructions of the self and others produced by an observer) that are generated in the communication process.
TL;DR: In this paper, preference reversals using consumer products were found to occur when consumers are unsure of how to translate their preference into a specific dollar amount and substitute the product's market price for their own preference.
Abstract: Two studies demonstrated preference reversals using consumer products. Some subjects made a choice between a pair of food or hygiene products while others assigned minimum selling prices to each product. Product pairs were selected such that one item had a high market price but was undesirable (e.g. eggplant roulettes) while the other item had a low market price but was desirable (e.g. a can of soda). As predicted, most subjects choose the low market price/desirable item, but the high market price/undesirable item was assigned a higher minimum selling price. Experiment 1 used a hypothetical questionnaire, while in Experiment 2 responses had real consequences. The results suggest a market value heuristic such that when decision makers are unsure of how to translate their preference into a specific dollar amount they substitute the product's market price for their own preference. The implication of this heuristic is that if merchants consistently set the retail price of a particular product at a certain lev...
TL;DR: In this paper, the best theoretical foundations on which promoting health can be built are identified and discussed. But, there has been insufficient attention to determining the optimal theoretical foundations for promoting health.
Abstract: Important decisions in the area of health are made by consumers every day. However, there has been insufficient attention to determining the best theoretical foundations on which promoting health s...
TL;DR: The most recent contributions of judgment and decision making (JDM) researchers to the practice and theory of marketing can be found in this article, where a number of articles from active researchers in the JDM field demonstrate novel applica- tions of their work to the area of marketing and consumer behavior.
Abstract: Research in judgment and decision making (JDM) endeavors to account for the way individuals make complex decisions, such as those consumers make in the marketplace. This complexity is created by the number of options available, the numerous attributes on which options can be evaluated, and the difficulty of making tradeoffs between these attributes. This article addresses some of the strategies, both functional and dysfunctional, that people adopt to cope with this complexity. It goes on to describe the most recent contributions of JDM researchers to the practice and theory of marketing. Key Wordsconsumer choicedecision complexity • judgment and decision-makingtrade-off difficulty Judgment and decision making (JDM) research has a great capacity to influence marketing theory and practice, and interest in the reciprocal relationship between the two fields is growing. Indeed, Simonson et al. (2001) identify the rise of behav- ioral decision theory in consumer research as one of the major developments in this field in recent decades. In this special issue, we bring together a number of articles from active researchers in the JDM field that demonstrate novel applica- tions of their work to the area of marketing and consumer behavior. We hope to support cross-fertilization of ideas, stimulate theory development and encourage a continuing dialogue between researchers and practitioners in the two domains. Historically, studies of JDM in marketing have reflected the way science in general develops: first, phenomena are observed and documented, and then theo- retical explanations are sought to account for them. A common theme for early research was the way consumers violated principles of rational choice such as invariance (the choices people make should not change when the alternatives are described differently), exponential discounting (the rate at which outcomes are discounted with increasing delay should not change as the delay increases) and