2014 - Reprints: Marketing
Not so personal: The benefits of social identity ad appeals with activation in advertising, Social Influence, 9(3), 224-241, 2014; DOI: 10.1080/15534510.2013.822825
D. Perez and Y. Steinhart
(Reprint No. 286)
Selecting the most effective advertising appeals is a major challenge for marketers and advertisers. This research addresses this challenge by examining the moderating effect of activation, an advertising technique that invites individuals to engage in a motor activity in order to reveal the ad message, on ad appeal type (name, social identity, and general appeals) in leveraging ad evaluations. The results of three studies show that ad appeals referring to individuals’ social identity, especially in the presence of activation, enhance product evaluations and actual product choices. The findings also suggest that privacy concerns play a mediating role in determining these effects.
Effects of product type and contextual cues on eliciting naive theories of popularity and exclusivity, Journal of Consumer Psychology, 24(4), 472-483, 2014.
Y. Steinhart , M. Kamins, D. Mazursky and A. Noy
(Reprint No. 295)
This research shows in a series of studies that exposing consumers to functional products evokes the naive theory of popularity, whereas exposing them to self-expressive products induces belief in the naive theory of exclusivity. The research further demonstrates that when the naive theory elicited by product type is matched by the appropriate contextual purchasing cues regarding the interest of others, it results in greater purchase intentions than when those cues are mismatched. The research specifies that the matching effect for functional products is mediated by consumers' perceptions of product quality, whereas mediation for self-expressive products occurs through consumers' self-perceptions regarding the extent to which the product conveys uniqueness. Finally, the research illustrates that an explicit signal of product quality (e.g., a favorable rating in Consumer Reports) attenuates the effect associated with the contextual cues regarding the interest of others.
Overriding “doing wrong” and “not doing right”: Validation of the dispositional self-control scale (DSC), Journal of Personality Assessment, 96(6), 640-653, Nov/Dec 2014
D. Ein-Gar and L. Sagiv
(Reprint No. 296)
We present the Dispositional Self-Control (DSC) Scale, which reflects individuals’ tendency to override 2 types of temptations, termed doing wrong and not doing right.We report a series of 5 studies designed to test the reliability and validity of the scale. As hypothesized, high DSC predicts distant future orientation and low DSC predicts deviant behaviors such as aggression, alcohol misuse, and aberrant driving. DSC also predicts task performance among resource-depleted participants. Taken together, these findings suggest that the DSC Scale could be a useful tool toward further understanding the role of personality in overcoming self-control challenges.
Time preference before and after a risky activity – A field experiment, Journal of Economic Psychology, 43, 30-36, August 2014
T. Shavit, M. Rosenboim and Y. Shani
(Reprint No. 297)
This paper examines how a risky activity (e.g., skydiving) affects an individual’s time preference related to financial decisions (i.e., wanting to get paid before or after the activity). We found that prior to a risky activity, inexperienced people were more present-oriented, than they were afterwards. Interestingly, the more experienced individuals were, the less likely they were to demonstrate a preference for the present. Our findings suggest that engaging in activities that individuals might find frightening or thrilling (e.g., skydiving; driving faster than the speed limit; going to a mall) could make less experienced actors shortsighted when processing information (considering the present rather than the future), and lead to shortsighted financial decisions. We suggest that the attempt to regulate concerns associated with activities individuals might find frightening affects unrelated, important daily decisions due to a shift in their time preference.
Boosting consumers’ self-efficacy by repositioning the self, European Journal of Marketing, 48(11/12), 1914-1938, 2014.
M. Ben-Ami, J. Hornik, D. Eden & O. Kaplan
(Reprint No. 301)
Purpose – This article aims to lend insight into the consumption situation wherein consumers are unmotivated to try new products or behaviors that they perceive as too difficult to adopt as a result of low self-efficacy.
Design/methodology/approach – Two experiments were introduced to test hypotheses. In Studies 1 and 2, we demonstrated that enhancing specific self-efficacy (SSE) by repositioning the self, through marketing messages, increased participants’ behavioral intentions toward difficult to adopt (DTA) products.
Findings – In this research, an important issue is elucidated in consumer behavior: a phenomenon wherein consumers lack the motivation, as a result of low self-efficacy (i.e. assessing the disparity between their current situation and some desired goals as too wide to bridge over), to try a product that would benefit them. Thus, the marketer’s role in this case is to convince the consumers that they are able to achieve these goals.
Research limitations/implications – This study focuses on health and fitness products and on the effectiveness of messages targeted at raising SSE among undergraduate students through verbal persuasion. For better generalizability, it is recommended that future research focus on other product categories (e.g. do-it-yourself products, technological products) aimed at other segments (e.g. elderly consumers) and use other means of boosting consumers’ self-efficacy.
Practical implications – The practical importance of the findings is especially relevant in DTA situations in which marketers aim to motivate consumers to engage in effortful consumption tasks.
Originality/value – The uniqueness of our approach is, in addition to introducing the theoretical concepts, to demonstrate that marketers can boost individuals’ self-efficacy by means of marketing messages that emphasize their ability to face challenges and, consequently, increase their preferences, behavioral intentions and financial commitments toward a DTA product.
Keywords Specific self-efficacy, General self-efficacy, External efficacy, Positive framing, Negative framing, Threat arousal, Fear appeals
Paper type Research paper
