2010- Reprints: Marketing
Factors influencing product involvement among young consumers, Journal of Consumer Marketing, 27(6), 499-506, 2010.
T. Te'eni-Harari and J. Hornik
(Reprint No. 121)
Purpose – In light of the core role of product involvement as a variable in consumer behavior, the current study seeks to examine which variables influence product involvement among young people. This paper aims to explore five variables: age, subjective product knowledge, influence of parents, influence of peers, and product category.
Design/methodology/approach – The research was founded on a quantitative field study, whose sample was comprised of 252 young people, ages 4-15.
Findings – The findings among the entire sample imply that young people's product involvement is explained by all of the variables that were examined. Interesting findings came to light for each one of the age groups: Young children's product-involvement level was influenced by parents and peers. The product-involvement level for children was influenced by peers and product category. Adolescents' product-involvement relies on subjective product knowledge and product category.
Originality/value – These findings expand the existing knowledge about young consumers' behavior patterns and show that the existing models provide a partial picture. In addition, the product-involvement variable must be seen as a basis for market segmentation of the younger populations. The recommendation is to carefully create segments that examine the different product-involvement levels among each age group.
Targeted advertising as a signal, Quantitative Marketing and Economics, 7(3), 237-266, 2009 (lead article).
B. Anand and R. Shachar
(Reprint No. 142)
This study presents a signaling model of advertising for horizontally differentiated products. The central ingredients of the model are two important characteristics of advertising—targeting, and noisy information content. The theory yields interesting results about the informational role of targeted advertising, and its consequences. First, targeting can itself serve as a signal on product attributes. Second, the effectiveness of targeting depends not only on firms knowing consumer preferences, but on consumers knowing that firms know this. This creates a distinction between strategies of targeting and personalization. Third, the effectiveness of targeting in equilibrium may (far) exceed the information contained directly in the targeted message. Fourth, information content is not, however, superfluous. Specifically, when ads contain no information, a targeting equilibrium does not exist. Together, these results reveal how advertising conveys information both through the content of the message and the firm’s choice of advertising medium. Furthermore, the model is robust to the various critiques of prior work on ads-as-signals: namely, that ad content is irrelevant, ad exposure is unnecessary, and the choice of ads as signals is inherently arbitrary.
The political participation puzzle and marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, 46(6), 798-815, 2009.
R. Shachar
(Reprint No. 143)
This study shows that one of the most intriguing findings on political participation—that the participation rate is higher in close elections—is due to the omission of variables, namely, the marketing activities. This relationship between closeness and participation is intriguing because (1) it implies that people participate in elections because their vote might be decisive, but (2) such an incentive to vote is unreasonable. This study presents a theoretical model that suggests that closeness does not affect the turnout rate directly but rather through the marketing activities of the parties. In other words, in equilibrium, close elections attract higher marketing spending, which in turn increases turnout. The author uses data on the 1996–2004 presidential elections in the United States to examine the model and its implications. Using structural (and nonstructural) estimation, the author finds that the data support the model and its implications. Furthermore, the effect of marketing on turnout is dramatic. For example, if the marketing activity were canceled in the 2004 elections, the number of voters would have decreased by 15 million.
When ignorance is not bliss: How feelings of discomfort promote the search for negative information, Journal of Economic Psychology, 29(5), 643-653, 2008.
Y. Shani, O. Tykocinski and M. Zeelenberg
(Reprint No. 144)
Recent decision-making research established that the experience of regret leads to post-decision information search [Shani, Y., & Zeelenberg, M. (2007). When and why do we want to know? How experienced regret promotes post-decision information search. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 20, 207–222]. It has been argued that people search for information in the hope of alleviating their negative feelings by excluding the possibility that an unfavorable decision was made. Paradoxically, by seeking information people expose themselves to information that may confirm their negative feelings. The willingness to seek out potentially painful information was examined in three studies. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the tendency to seek definite knowledge about the attractiveness of a forgone opportunity is mediated by the emotional discomfort associated with remaining ignorant, and influenced by the probability that the search will uncover aversive information. This finding was replicated in Experiment 2 in a lab setting. Experiment 3 demonstrated that definite knowledge is less aversive than uncertain ignorance, even when one finds out that one has missed a superior opportunity.
Using eye-tracker to examine behavioral biases in investment tasks: An experimental study, Journal of Behavioral Finance, 11(4), 185-194, 2010.T. Shavit, C. Giorgetta, Y. Shani and F. Ferlazzo
(Reprint No. 171)
Contrary to the premise of rational models, which suggests that investors’ aggregate portfolios are the appropriate informational asset for evaluating a file performance, we find, using an eye tracker, that investors spend more time looking at performances of an individual asset than at the performances of the overall aggregated portfolio and at the net value change more than the assets’ final value. We also find that investors look at the monetary value change longer than at change in percentages. Specifically, participants look longer at the value change of gaining assets than at the value change of losing assets. We propose the possibility that investors are not only engaged in judgment when evaluating their portfolio (leading to loss aversion and mental accounting) but may also be predisposed to looking for reassuring elements within it. Thus, it may be that humans use mental accounting by nature and not necessarily by judgment.
