Marketing Seminars 2020-2021

We study the effects of a regulation passed in Israel that required supermarket chains to make the prices of all items sold in their brick-and-mortar stores publicly available online. Using a differences-in-differences research design and multiple complementary control groups, we show that prices have declined by 4% to 5% after the regulation. Price dispersion has also dropped as chains began setting identical prices across their stores. To uncover the underlying mechanisms, we test several predictions from Robert and Stahl (1993). Consistent with their model, in the post-transparency period: (1) Hard-discount chains extensively use ads that celebrate their low prices; 2) To improve the informativeness of these ads, hard-discount chains refer to price-comparison surveys conducted by the media; (3) Few consumers visit the price-comparison websites. Our findings highlight the importance of the media in facilitating informative advertising, and the pro-competitive role of advertising.

Smartphones have made sharing images of branded experiences on social media nearly effortless. Tracking and understanding how brands appear online is relevant to brands both as an indicator of social media brand interest, and to incentivize consumers to create and share certain brand images. This research investigates consumer-generated brand images. Aside from packshots (i.e., standalone product images), the authors identify two different types of brand-related selfie images: consumer selfies, i.e., images featuring both brand logos and consumers’ faces, and brand selfies, i.e., invisible consumers holding a branded product. Classifying nearly half a million Twitter brand images across 185 different brands and 6,926 Instagram images prompted by a Starbucks campaign using deep convolutional neural networks and text mining tools to measure consumers’ engagement with brands, the authors demonstrate that the three brand image types generate different engagement levels among receivers. Specifically, the authors find that an emerging phenomenon, which they term brand selfies, leads to high levels of brand engagement from consumers. A controlled lab experiment replicates these findings and provides indications on the psychological mechanism.

I will review what my (and others’) research has taught me about goals and motivation. Specifically, I will summarize findings around 4 areas of motivated action: 1. Setting a goal. 2. Monitoring progress toward a goal. 3. Addressing multiple goals. 4. The role of social support.

As the quantity and value of data increase, so do the severity of data breaches and customer privacy invasions. While firms typically publicize their post-breach protective actions, little is known about the social, behavioral, and economic aftereffects of major breaches. Specifically, do individual customers alter their interactions with the firm, or do they continue with “business as usual”? We address this general issue via data stemming from a matchmaking website, one for those seeking an extramarital affair, that was breached. The data include de-identified profiles of paying male users from the United States, and their activities on the website since joining, and up to 3 weeks after, the disclosure of the data breach. A challenge in making causal inference(s) in the setting of a massive and highly publicized data breach is that all users were informed of the breach at the same time. In such cases of “information shock”, there is no obvious control group. To resolve this problem, we propose Temporal Causal Inference: for each group of users who joined in a specific time period, we create an appropriate control group from all users who had joined prior to it. This procedure helps control for, among other elements, potential trends in both individual and temporal site usage that broadly fall under the rubric of “normal” usage trajectories. Following construction of suitable control groups, we apply and extend several causal inference approaches. In particular, we adapt Athey, Tibshirani and Wager’s (2019) Causal Forests (among other forest-based methods) into Temporal Causal Forests, to better align ‘temporal’ inference settings. The combination of Temporal Causal Inference and Temporal Causal Forests methods allows us to extract insights regarding the homogenous (average) treatment effect, along with nontrivial heterogeneity in responses to the data breach. Our analyses reveal that there is a decrease in the probability of being active in searching or messaging on the website, and a notable increase in the probability of deleting photos, ostensibly to avoid personal identification. We investigate several potential sources of heterogeneity in response to the breach announcement, and conclude with a discussion of both managerial consequences and policy considerations

Perspective taking is widely presumed to increase interpersonal understanding, but very few experiments have actually tested this hypothesis. Those that do yield inconsistent results, or they confound accuracy with egocentrism. I will first present the findings from around 30 experiments we conducted to test whether being instructed to adopt another person’s perspective increases interpersonal insight. These experiments included a wide range of accuracy tests such as predicting another person’s emotions from facial expressions and body postures, predicting a spouse’s activity preferences and consumer attitudes, and predicting an ideological opponent's attitudes. Although a large majority of participants believed that perspective taking would systematically increase accuracy on these tasks, we failed to find any consistent evidence that it actually did so. If anything, perspective taking tended to decrease accuracy. I will then present a series of experiments that confirm that getting another person’s perspective directly, through conversation, increases accuracy. These results imply that increasing understanding requires gaining new information rather than utilizing existing knowledge differently. However, I will show that although perspective getting leads to better accuracy than perspective taking, its benefit is not fully recognized.

In a seminal qualitative paper, Challagalla et al. (2014; CMJ), identified marketing doctrine (MD) as having potential importance within the marketing literature. CMJ (2014) defined MD as “a firm’s unique principles, distilled from its experiences, which provide firm-wide guidance on market-facing choices” (p. 7). Several core arguments have been placed forward concerning MD’s benefits: MD provides a shared, firm-wide approach to decision making; MD is likely to affect firm’s performance as it guides managers toward the firm’s tested and desired choices and MD guides international ventures by equipping management with a framework to enhance consistency while still allowing flexibility. Given these circumstances, then, firms would do well to look to increase their use of MD. However, these assumptions were not empirically supported as performance benefits of an MD for firms have yet to be demonstrated. In a new IMR paper, Asseraf et al. (2020) investigate empirically, whether and how MD's core processes are related to the success of international firms. Drawing on the knowledge-based view, they developed a model of how MD is used and provide the first quantitative test of its relationship with international performance. The authors advance the understanding of MD by providing a mixed-methods paper. In Study 1, a survey-based quantitative study was used. The final sample comprised 349 internationally active SBUs of Israeli firms. Data were analysed using AMOS. Study 2 provides insights into the use of MD based on 20 in-depth interviews. Cross-sectional evidence shows that there tends to be more MD Use in higher-performing firms. Specifically, the important roles of MD Clarity and MD Knowledgeability as crucial mobilising processes of MD Use are demonstrated. Marketing managers are advised to supplement MD to their portfolio of management tools. Yoel Asseraf (PhD 2014, University of Haifa, Israel) is a senior lecturer and Head of Marketing and International Business at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ruppin Academic Center. Additionally, he serves as a Research Fellow in the Center for the Study of Organizations at the School of Business Administration, University of Haifa. His research interests focus on the intersection of strategy and international marketing. Much of his work has been published in high impact academic journals such as: International Marketing Review, International Busines Review, European Journal of Marketing and Journal of Destination Marketing and Management. Prior to his current appointments, Dr. Asseraf served as CEO, VP Marketing, and as professional musician.

We argue that moral disgust towards counterfeiting can degrade both the efficacy of products perceived to be counterfeits and that of genuine products resembling them. Perceiving a product as a counterfeit made disgust more mentally accessible, and led participants to disinfect the item more and reduce how long they remained in physical contact with it (Study 1). Participants who perceived a computer mouse as a counterfeit, performed less well in a computer game using the mouse and expressed greater moral disgust, which mediated lowered performance (Study 2). We also demonstrate the infectious nature of counterfeiting: Exposure to a supposedly counterfeit fountain pen in one task, infected participants’ performance in an unrelated task using a genuine ballpoint pen resembling the ‘counterfeit;’ individual differences in moral attitudes moderated the effect (Study 3). Exposure to a supposedly counterfeit mouse, infected performance with a genuine mouse of the same brand; moral disgust mediated this effect (Study 4). Finally, moral disgust mediated lowered efficacy of a supposed counterfeit and that of a genuine item resembling the ‘counterfeit’ (Study 5).

According to the dual-process perspective in social judgment, even people who endorse egalitarian beliefs about social justice might still show discriminating behavior or prejudiced judgment as a result of unconscious or unintentional learning and judgment processes. While gaining recognition in the general public, in social judgment research, dual-process models have faced conceptual and empirical challenges. Conceptually, dual-process models lack precision because they lump together different constructs such as intention, awareness, efficiency, and controllability. Empirically, recent research doubts previous evidence in support of prominent dual-process models. I will share findings from my lab that demonstrate these challenges but also provide some support for key hypotheses of the dual-process models.

Time is one of the most cherished and challenging resources at one' disposal. On the one hand, most of life’s most important outcomes, arguably, are those suffused with time. On the other hand, deciding whether, when, and how to spend one’s time are increasingly important concerns. Indeed, a recent Gallup Poll found that nearly half (44%) of Americans experience “time famine”—having too much to do and not enough time to do it. Thus, understanding how consumers make decisions about allocating and consuming their time is paramount. To that end, I will be talking about series of projects that tackle this issue. Taken together, these projects show that (1) consumers lack, but also waste the time they have and (2) viewing time as a resource to be maximized might have unexpected consequences – especially on the choice and enjoyment of leisurely activities.  

 

The present research introduces and conceptualizes the paradoxical phenomenon of “pseudo-secrets” in marketing and examines its appeal and impact on real consumer behavior in the marketplace. Restaurants ranging from gourmet Michelin-starred to mainstream fast-food chains offer secret menu items, and hidden stores and “speakeasy” bars feature camouflaged entrances and secret passcodes. Paradoxically, many of these hidden places and products are famous for being a secret. We demonstrate that pseudo-secrets increase word-of-mouth about the brand, and this effect is mediated by consumers’ feelings of social centrality – the subjective experience of feeling connected and focal in one’s network. We further demonstrate the appeal of pseudo-secrets is impacted by the manner in which information about the secret is obtained, and is attenuated when the symbolic value of the secret is diminished. This investigation of the pseudo-secrets phenomenon enhances our understanding of how consumers resolve an inherent tension between exclusivity and social inclusion. Our multi-method approach, combining field experiments, company proprietary data, lab studies, qualitative interviews and content analysis, further demonstrates how marketers can effectively apply these insights in various product categories, populations, and consumption contexts.

 

 

Emotional consumption—a form of emotion regulation—is prevalent worldwide. It often occurs when people experience negative emotions, hoping that the consumption experience will be pleasant and reduce their negative emotions. This research aims to examine how different negative emotions affect such behavior, and the role that culture plays in these effects. While all people strive to experience emotions that fit their goals, these goals are shaped, to a large extent, by culture; people with an individualist-independent cultural orientation, which is prevalent in Western cultural contexts, focus on fulfilling personal goals, while people with a collectivist-interdependent cultural orientation, which is more prevalent in non-Western cultural contexts, focus on social goals, e.g., maintaining good relationships. Therefore, we propose that people with different cultural orientations will be motivated to pursue emotions that are instrumental to their specific cultural goals and avoid emotions that are tangential to these goals. With regard to the regulation of negative emotions, we assert that individualist-independent people will tend to reduce ego-focused negative emotions, i.e., emotions that threaten their personal goals (e.g., frustration), whereas collectivist-interdependent people will tend to reduce other-focused negative emotions, i.e., emotions that threaten their social goals (e.g., guilt).

One way to regulate one's emotions is by mood-repairing consumption. In two studies, we manipulated participants’ cultural self-construal and emotions and measured their tendencies to engage in mood-repairing consumption (e.g., eating candy or partying). Individualist-independents were more likely to engage in such consumption when frustrated than when guilty, whereas collectivist-interdependents were more likely to do so when feeling guilty than when feeling frustrated. In a third study we explore the mechanisms that might underlies these effects.

Potential contribution to the emotion-regulation and cross-cultural literatures will be discussed along with implications to developing interventions that may assist consumers in controlling unwanted behaviors. Future research directions will be discussed as well.