Digital Marketing Seeks To:

We develop and describe a framework for research in digital marketing that highlights the touchpoints in the marketing process as well as in the marketing strategy process where digital technologies are having and will have a significant impact. Using the framework we organize the developments and extant research around the elements and touchpoints comprising the framework and review the research literature in the broadly defined digital marketing space. We outline the evolving issues in and around the touchpoints and associated questions for future research. Finally, we integrate these identified questions and set a research agenda for future research in digital marketing to examine the issues from the perspective of the firm.

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... As social media proliferates, the roles of influencers are becoming increasingly diverse because digital technologies have increased the complexity of the customer environment. To match this complexity, companies must consider not only existing criteria (i.e., sales, profits, growth rate, customer satisfaction, and loyalty) but also new marketing strategies and value propositions for customers (e.g., value, brand, relationship equity; Kannan and Li, 2017). To address this situation, a new definition of social media marketing that considers the strategic level has been proposed. ...

... Moreover, there is no accurate way to ascertain the degree to which motivations for social media use depend on users' cultural backgrounds (Chiu and Huang, 2015;Shen et al., 2010). In addition, the characteristics of diversified social media platforms have not been adequately examined in terms of marketing effectiveness (Kannan and Li, 2017;Kapoor et al., 2018). ...

... The decline of traditional communication channels and societal reliance on brick-and-mortar operations require businesses to seek best practices using digital and social media marketing strategies to retain and increase market share (Schultz and Peltier, 2012;Naylor et al., 2013). Companies need to consider not only existing marketing strategies (i.e., sales, profits, growth rate, customer satisfaction, and loyalty) but also new marketing strategies and value propositions for customers (e.g., value, brand, and relationship equity; Kannan and Li, 2017). To adapt to these circumstances, a new definition of social media marketing has been proposed, according to which it is considered an interdisciplinary and cross-functional process that uses social media (often in combination with other communication channels) to achieve organizational goals by creating value for stakeholders (Felix et al., 2017). ...

Social media influencer marketing has recently received significant attention. Many studies have explored the parasocial relationship (PSR) formation between influencers and followers. PSR has not often been weighted against other widely used relationship marketing constructs, despite the multitude of PSR studies. This study developed a research model based on the theory of persuasion, which was constructed to investigate the relative weight of the PSR. The study considered three personal attributes (attitude homophily, physical attractiveness, and social attractiveness) and three characterizations (trustworthiness, perceived expertise, and PSR) as antecedents of purchase intention. Data were collected through a survey of respondents who bought products/services after watching YouTube advertisements made by influencers. The study found that PSR had a significantly positive impact on purchase intentions relative to other characterizations and that PSR was significantly related to the three personal attributes. In addition, PSR formation was significantly influenced by consumers' perceived influencer types. The survey showed that social media influencer marketing strategies need to be fine-tuned based on personal attributes, characterizations, and influencer types. This paper discusses the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

... In the original definition, products mean physical goods or services. According to Kannan and Li (2017), digital technologies changed the products in three ways. First, they combine actual products with digital services. ...

... Placewise, the purchase is no longer connected to a physical place as shopping is possible 24/7 in online stores (Heikkinen, 2018). Promotion focuses more on the effectiveness of such new media and its incremental contribution over traditional media in building brands and affecting outcome variables of interest, not only online and mobile but also sub-channels within each of these environments such as social channels, search engines, and e-mail (Kannan & Li, 2017). ...

... The FGD (Focus Group Discussion) compiled a combination of marketing mix elements (product, promotion, price, and place) with independent variables (attitude towards behavior and subjective norm) that significantly influence the intention of online financing, as shown in the following matrix (Table 5). Kannan and Li (2017) discussed how the Internet provides multiple new ways to reach customers and promote products. Unfortunately, most micro-merchants are reluctant to read information or advertising on digital financial services. ...

... However, while the vast majority of the prior eWOM studies focused on the impact of online reviews on consumers' purchasing behaviors and the relevant boundary conditions, fewer studies have examined its review generation process after the purchase. In particular, understanding the distinctive generation process of online reviews is critical to fully account for the impact on consumers' purchase behaviors due to the reproductive process of the online review system [17,35,36]. Consumers are influenced by online reviews when they make a purchase decision; however, after a purchase, they become review generators. ...

... As mentioned above, the motivation of consumers to write longer reviews is on various factors, such as psychological factors, personal characteristics, and situational factors [10,11,15,35,41,42,44,48]. Additionally, Gvili and Levy found that consumers' engagement with online reviews can be strongly tied to the social capital and credibility of eWOM channels and consumers' fundamental attitude toward generating online reviews. ...

In this paper, we study the online consumer review generation process by analyzing 37.12 million online reviews across nineteen product categories obtained from Amazon.com. This study revealed that the discrepancy between ratings by others and consumers' post‐purchasing evaluations significantly influenced both the valence and quantity of the reviews that consumers generated. Specifically, a negative discrepancy ('worse than what I read') significantly accelerates consumers to write negative reviews (19/19 categories supported), while a positive discrepancy ('better than what I read') accelerates consumers to write positive reviews (16/19 categories supported). This implies that others' ratings play an important role in influencing the review generation process by consumers. More interestingly, we found that this discrepancy significantly influences consumers' neutral review generation, which is known to amplify the effect of positive or negative reviews by affecting consumers' search behavior or the credibility of the information. However, this effect is asymmetric. While negative discrepancies lead consumers to write more neutral reviews, positive discrepancies help reduce neutral review generation. Furthermore, our findings provide important implications for marketers who tend to generate fake reviews or selectively generate reviews favorable to their products to increase sales. Doing so may backfire on firms because negative discrepancies can accelerate the generation of objective or negative reviews.

... Tüketici odaklı yaklaşımlar, tüketiciye yönelik bilgi akışının sağlanması, depolama ve analiz alanında geliştirilen tüm teknolojik alt yapı sistemlerinin kullanımı pazarlama ile bilgi teknolojilerinin entegrasyonunun sağlamak üzere dijital araçlara ihtiyaç duymaktadır. İhtiyaç duyulan dijital araç ve teknikler (sosyal medya kullanımı, tablet ve cep telefonu üzerinden iletişim, bilgisayar, web siteleri, yapay zeka uygulamaları vb.) pazarlama alanının dijitalleşmesini sağlamaktadır (Kannan, 2017). Sağlık hizmetlerinde de yoğun olarak kullanılan bilgi teknolojileri, sağlık hizmetleri pazarlamasının kısıtlamalara rağmen dijitalleşme sürecini hızlandırmaktadır. ...

... Bu durum dijital pazarlamayı ve tüketimi doğurmuştur. Dijital pazarlama, temelde, dijital kanallarla müşteri edinmek ve müşteri tercihleri oluşturmak, markaları tanıtmak, satışları artırmak, mevcut müşterileri elde tutmak ve yeni müşterileri elde etmek için dijital teknolojileri kullanma sürecini tanımlayan kapsamlı bir kavramdır (Kannan, 2017). Günümüz dijital tüketicileri, artık alışveriş yaparken ilgi çekici, keyifli ve farklı deneyimler bekleyebilmektedir. ...

Cansu Tor-Kadioglu

Tüketicilerin ve firmaların artık reel hayatta değil, dijital ortamlarda varlıklarını sürdürdüğüne hep birlikte şahit oluyoruz. Artık sadece alışveriş değil; eğitim, sağlık, genel kültür ve iletişim dijital ortamlarda yürütülüyor. Günümüzde en çok uygulanan pazarlama yöntemlerinden olan dijital pazarlama; şirketlerin minimum kaynak ayırarak, çok sayıda tüketiciye, daha kısa sürede ulaşmasını sağlıyor. Tabletler, akıllı telefonlar, artırılmış gerçeklik uygulamaları, sanal kataloglar, akıllı etiketler vb. teknolojilerin yayılması ile birlikte tüketicilerin beklentileri de değişiyor. Bu kitapta; dijital pazarlamanın farklı alanlarında yaşanan gelişmelere değinen bölümler, 8 farklı üniversiteden bir araya gelen 11 kıymetli akademisyenin kaleminden çıkıp, siz değerli okuyucular ile buluşuyor. Dijital pazarlama konusunun; alışveriş çeşitliliği, yapay zekâ, sosyal medya, hastane hizmetleri, tüketici beklentileri, insan kaynaklarında bilgi sistemleri, dijital kültür adaptasyonu ve sigortacılık gibi çeşitli alanlarda kullanımının anlatıldığı 9 bölümden oluşan bu eser, birçok bakış açısını içerisinde barındırıyor.

... So, what can brands expect in return, knowing that their major goal is to translate those interactions in social media into real-life relationships (Kumar and Nayak 2018)? Brands stress on transforming virtual interactions into effective consumer-brand relationships and virtual visitors into effective customers of their products (Kannan and Li 2017). Envisaging brand outcomes, this study explores the impact of consumer engagement in social media brand communities of FMCG on brand trust and loyalty. ...

... Consumers desire for community connection, or even selfexpression may not involve talking with the brand, but to the other members of the community. In this case, brands should adopt a low profile in the community and let the conversation flow among members (Kannan and Li 2017). On the contrary, some others need the brand to help their self-expression and to feel that they belong to something important. ...

Consumer-brand identification and consumer engagement in social media brand communities (SMBC) are two of the concepts most highlighted in recent studies, as brand benefit facilitators. This study addresses the importance of these two concepts and their interaction effect on brand loyalty in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) category. The results of the quantitative study show that in FMCG, consumer engagement in SMBC is driven by information searching, brand passion, feelings of community connection, and self-expression in the community. Consumer engagement and consumer-brand identification have positive impacts on brand trust and loyalty. The moderating effect of consumer–brand identification on the relationship between consumer engagement in SMBC and brand loyalty is negative, revealing that consumer engagement in social media brand communities has a stronger impact on brand loyalty when consumer-brand identification is low. This study showed the role of SMBC as a powerful communication medium, where brands and consumers can meet, and reach a mutual understanding of common needs and aspirations.

... This all leads to customers requiring online presence of companies. Kannan and Li (2017) proposed a framework for research in digital marketing, stating that digital technology influences the environment (consumer behaviour), company (marketing mix) and outcomes. Digital technologies are providing customers with information, change the funnel, expectations, how companies need to communicate etc. ...

Purpose. The research study aims to evaluate the precision of the measurement system using Gauge R&R. Methodology. An experimental research design adopting a positivist empirical approach with deductive strategy was followed to assess the effectiveness of Crossed Gauge R&R technique for validating a measurement system using destructive testing. Results. Crossed Gauge R&R technique in Minitab was found to be highly effective in quantifying different components of measurement variation relative to process variation. The theoretical contribution. Clue generation from the Crossed Gauge R&R study combined with manufacturing and measurement process know-how helped in identifying and eliminating the root causes for measurement variation. Practical implications. Overall Crossed Gauge R&R proved successful in validating the burst strength test equipment. However, it should be noted that manufacturing and test equipment played an equally important part in developing and executing the gauge R&R study and accurately analysing the results. So, Crossed Gauge R&R should be used as an aid rather than the solution for measurement system validation.

... Over the decades, the business landscape has been dramatically influenced by technologies which have developed at a fast and frenetic pace. Such technological change has given way to different online forms of marketing (e.g., Lamberton and Stephen, 2016;Kannan and Li, 2017). The accelerated technology trends therefore raise an important question as to the extent to which and how marketing capabilities may contribute to digital transformation in small firms. ...

Utilising the lens of dynamic capabilities, this paper adopts a case study approach to help understand how small firms reconfigure existing marketing capabilities with the use of digital technology to achieve organisational transformation digitally within a crisis environment. Qualitative methods employed included triangulation of data sources (interviews and analyses of social media and websites), involving seven small firms on the island of Ireland, over a period of twelve months, from 2020 to date. The preliminary insights gained from the research indicate an unprecedented digital shift evident within these businesses during a crisis situation. The results show that marketing capabilities may have a direct impact on the extent to which digital transformation occurs. Many companies have experienced a degree of shifting to or extending the business online during the COVID-19 pandemic. But from surviving to thriving, in spite of continued uncertainty in the marketplace, the results suggest that small firm owner-managers need to think strategically how to realign existing marketing skills and knowledge and resources into a strategic plan for digital success. This paper adds to the literature on the impact of marketing capabilities on digital transformation within the context of small firms. The study has highlighted that 'sensing' capability enabled by market information is the first driver for organisational change digitally. The findings support that small firms rely on word-of-mouth marketing while 'seizing' opportunities.

... So, all companies should establish their online portals or an electronic source of interaction with their customers. Facebook, Uber, YouTube, Alibaba, eBay, Amazon, and Google have turned into an extensive hub for information exchange of all kinds (Kannan, 2017). The International Telecommunication Union showed a graph in 2018 in which they affirmed that 51.2% population of the world (approximately 3.9 billion) is using the internet. ...

Adnan Arshad
Rizwan Qaiser Danish
Muhammad Hasnain
Sania Saeed

Purpose of the study: This research is conducted on the digital marketing industry flourished by digitalized corporations, based on their websites and different social media channels. In this study, we tried to determine the behavior of digitalized corporations in the context of price fairness and customer perceived quality. We also examined the trust of the digitalized corporations, satisfaction, and loyalty with the online portals. Methodology: This study uses cross-sectional data of CEOs and other authorities of digitalized corporations. SPSS version 22 and AMOS version 21 are used for data analysis. Data is collected by distributing 400 questionnaires for this quantitative study. The convenience sampling technique is used for data collection. Main Findings: After analyzing the collected data, we found that price fairness is a more favorable factor than customer perceived quality. Trust and customer satisfaction are also important factors to generate loyalty. If online portals make their policies friendly for the digitalized corporations in pricing, they can get many customers on their platform. Hence, they can get a high volume of business opportunities. Novelty/Originality of the study: The previous research regarding social media is generally based on consumers' behavior in favor of digitalized corporations, while we examined digitalized corporations' behavior regarding digital marketing techniques in the Pakistani context. The relationship between online portals and digitalized corporations was investigated. Applications of the study: This study is significant for the digitalized corporations in observing the fair dealing of online portals in the context of perceived quality and fair pricing. Then digitalized corporations develop trust with these portals and finally become loyal. This study recommends online portals focus on their pricing policies to enhance customer satisfaction.

... Dijital pazarlama kavramı, dijital kanallar aracılığıyla ürün ve hizmetlerin pazarlanmasını ifade eden bir kavramdan, müşteri kazanmak, müşteri tercihlerini oluşturmak, markaları tanıtmak, müşterileri elde tutmak ve satışları arttırmak amacıyla dijital teknolojilerin kullanılmasını açıklayan bir kavrama devrilmiştir. Kapsayıcı bir yaklaşım ile dijital pazarlama "tüm paydaşlar için değer yaratma, sunma, iletişim kurma ve sürdürme amacı ile müşteriler ve paydaşlarla iş birliği yapan, uyarlanabilir, teknolojiye dayalı bir süreç" olarak tanımlanabilmektedir (Kannan ve Li, 2017). ...

Burcin Kaplan

Gelişen teknoloji ve sürekli yenilenen dünyanın en önemli gelişmesi olan internet, işletmelerde hızla etki alanını artırmaya devam etmektedir. Dijital dönüşüm ve değişim işletmelerin finans, operasyon ve pazarlama fonksiyonlarına hızla entegre olmuştur. Dijital pazarlamanın gelişmesiyle birlikte, geleneksel pazarlamada temel taşlardan biri olan marka konusu da fiziksel versiyonundan çok uzaklaşmadan, temel stratejileri koruyarak internette markalaşmaya evrilmiştir. Bu çalışmada, dijital veya diğer söylemleriyle internette, çevrim içi, elektronik ya da çevrim içi marka ve markalaşma sürecinin akademik yazındaki işlenişi, kavramsal gelişim bağlamında incelenmiştir. Markalaşma kavramı ister fiziksel ister çevrim içi olarak incelensin; hem pazarlama hem de işletme kitaplarında son derece sık değinilen önemli bir kavramdır. Dijital markalaşma özellikle uygulama alanları dikkate alındığında son derece geniş bir konudur. Alanın genişliği kısıtına bağlı olarak, bu çalışmada konu, farklı uygulama alanlarından örnekler ve açıklamalarla son yirmi yılda dijital platformlarda markalaşma gelişim sürecini inceleyen bir örgü içinde kurgulanmıştır.

... Stuermer (2017) ise farklı bir boyut e-devlet uygulamalarını da dahil ederek, dijital sürdürülebilirlik konusunu mevcut literatür çerçevesinde ele almakta, çalışmasının sonucunda dijital olarak sürdürülebilir ürünlerin nasıl tanımlanacağına ilişkin altı özellik (nesiller arası adalet, yenileyici kapasite, kaynakların ekonomik kullanımı, risk azaltma, özümseme kapasitesi, ekolojik ve ekonomik katma değer) sunmaktadır. Kannan ve Li (2017) ise çalışmasında müşteri odağından hareket ile akıllı dijital pazarlamayı, müşteri tercihleri oluşturma, marka tanıtma, müşterileri daha fazla elde tutma ve müşterilerle iyi ilişki sürdürmek adına kullanılan dijital teknoloji işlevleri ile açıklamaktadır. Benzer şekilde Royle ve Laing (2014) mevcut müşterileri elde tutmak, güçlü bir bağ oluşturarak, ilişkileri sürdürmek, ölçülebilir iletişim sağlamak noktasında bir kanal olarak akıllı dijital teknolojilerin ve sürdürülebilir dijital pazarlamanın önemine dikkat çekmektedir. ...

... Despite the existence of a sufficient body of literature on digital platforms in B2B context (Kannan & Li, 2017), there is no comprehensive review available in the literature. Therefore, this study provides an integrated and synthesized overview of the current state of knowledge in the domain of digital platform research in the B2B context. ...

The evolution of digital platforms has transformed the way businesses operate. Digital platforms have become popular and common in Business-to-Business (B2B) markets, thereby leading to increased interest of researchers. Even with the increasing interest, the field suffers from the lack of a comprehensive approach towards plugging the gaps left behind. This review presents a synthesis of the last ten years of research on digital platforms in B2B markets. Based on Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) and Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) frameworks for adoption of innovation, the current study identifies the technological, organizational, and environmental context-based factors that play a major role in adoption of digital platforms in B2B markets. We also present a detailed overview of the research in terms of publication timeline, geographical distribution, industrial context, theory used, and methodology employed. In addition, we identify some significant gaps and set a future research agenda.

... Customers can now obtain information more easily through social media. Through online reviews, social media allows businesses to learn more about their consumers' likes and preferences (Kannan, 2017). Digital transformation has totally transformed the value creation process (Reinartz et al., 2019). ...

Surajit Bag
Gautam Srivastava
Md Mamoon Al Bashir
Abdul Hannan Chowdhury

Purpose The first research objective is to understand the role of digital [artificial intelligence (AI)] technologies on user engagement and conversion that has resulted in high online activities and increased online sales in current times in India. In addition, combined with changes such as social distancing and lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, digital disruption has largely impacted the old ways of communication both at the individual and organizational levels, ultimately resulting in prominent social change. While interacting in the virtual world, this change is more noticeable. Therefore, the second research objective is to examine if a satisfying experience during online shopping leads to repurchase intention. Design/methodology/approach Using primary data collected from consumers in a developing economy (India), we tested the theoretical model to further extend the theoretical debate in consumer research. Findings This study empirically tests and further establishes that deploying AI technologies have a positive relationship with user engagement and conversion. Further, conversion leads to satisfying user experience. Finally, the relationship between satisfying user experience and repurchase intention is also found to be significant. Originality/value The uniqueness of this study is that it tests few key relationships related to user engagement during this uncertain period (COVID-19 pandemic) and examines the underlying mechanism which leads to increase in online sales.

... With mobile devices becoming more important to a customer's path to purchase, the use of mobile applications (apps) represents another opportunity to influence consumers' buying decisions (Kannan & Li, 2017). Mobile apps that help consumers to find sustainable and healthy products are increasingly popular among eco-and health-conscious consumers (e.g., CodeCheck or Giki Badges; CodeCheck, 2021;WWF, 2018). ...

Anja Weber

Consumers often struggle to assess food's environmental impact. A product ranking based on a standardized scoring approach (aggregating multiple indicators) that is easily accessible, for instance, via a mobile app, could serve as a simple decision aid for consumers. However, to avoid information overload, research is needed in which format such information should be presented. This paper examines how different information levels of an eco-score ranking influence decision uncertainty and sustainable food choice. In an online experiment (n = 332, representative by age and gender), we compared a basic eco-ranking and an extended eco-ranking (eco-rank plus additional indicators: transportation distance and eco-certifications) against a control group (no eco-ranking) in three different food categories: milk, juice, and eggs. The basic eco-ranking successfully lowered decision uncertainty compared to the two other groups. In contrast, the extended eco-ranking did not reduce consumers' decision uncertainty level. Further, the basic (extended) eco-ranking increased the likelihood of choosing a sustainable product by 26 (17) percentage points compared to the control group. Thus, providing access to a simple eco-ranking can help avoid information overload and increase sustainable consumption.

Doğancan Çavmak

1.Giriş Küreselleşme ve teknolojik gelişmelerin etkisi ile pazarlama yöntem ve yakla-şımları dünyada farklı seviyelere ulaşmıştır. Toplum, müşteriler ve paydaşlar için değer yaratan ürün, hizmet ve fikirlerin geliştirilmesi, tanıtılması, fiyatlandırılma-sı ve dağıtılmasını sağlayan pazarlama yaklaşımı, süreçlerin ve fiziksel olanak-ların geliştirilmesini de içeren bir süreç olarak tanımlanmaktadır (AMA, 2013). Çünkü işletmeler, varlığını devam ettirmek ve tüketicisinin ihtiyaçlarını karşıla-mak için ürün veya hizmet üretmektedir (Tengilimoğlu, 2016). Üretilen ürün veya hizmetlerin doğru yerde ve doğru zamanda tüketiciye ulaştırılması için araştırma ve geliştirme faaliyetleri ile başlayan pazarlama süreci, ürün ya da hizmetin satışı sonrasındaki geri dönütlerle devam etmektedir (Özmen, 2013). Geleneksel yak-laşımlardan modern yaklaşımlara yol alan pazarlamanın temel yapısında dijital-leşme faaliyetleri yer almaktadır. Pazarlama profesyonelleri tarafından internet tabanlı gelişmeler ve bilgi teknolojilerindeki ilerlemelerin pazarlama anlayışını kökten değiştireceği düşünülmektedir. Dijital teknolojilerin gelişmesi ile birlikte değişen tüketici satın alma alışkanlıkları, bu değişimin ve görüşün temel sebebidir (Kotler vd. 2016). Geçtiğimiz yüzyılın sonlarında başlayan dijital dönüşüm süreci, diğer sektör-lerin olduğu gibi sağlık sektörünün de pazarlama anlayışını değiştirmektedir. Kü-reselleşme etkisi ile rekabetin hızla artış gösterdiği ve işletmelerin yeni yöntem ve usullere ihtiyaç duyduğu dijital dönüşüm sürecinde sektörler, dijital pazarlama alanında gelişim göstermek zorunda kalmaktadır. Pazarlama kavramı genel olarak ürün veya hizmetlerin tüketiciler ile buluşmasını, satış öncesi ve sonrası etkili 1 Tarsus Üniversitesi, Sağlık Hizmetleri Meslek Yüksekokulu, dogancavmak@tarsus.edu.tr

... Furthermore, scholars have studied how the analysis of consumer behavior can benefit from big data analytics (Hofacker et al., 2016;Kannan, 2017). Predictive analytics should be useful for developing insights into both consumers ' and users' behavior (van Rijmenam et al., 2018;Lu and Weng, 2018). ...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze, from a dynamic capabilities perspective, the role of big data analytics in supporting firms' innovation processes. Design/methodology/approach Relevant literature is reviewed and critically assessed. An interpretive methodology is used to analyze empirical data from interviews of big data analytics experts at firms within digitally related sectors. Findings This study shows how firms leverage big data to gain "richer" and "deeper" data at the inter-sections between the digital and physical worlds. The authors provide evidence for the importance of counterintuitive strategies aimed at developing innovative products, services or solutions with characteristics that may initially diverge, even significantly, from established customer/user needs. Practical implications The authors' findings offer insights to help practitioners manage innovation processes in the physical world while taking investments in big data analytics into account. Originality/value The authors provide insights into the evolution of scholarly research on innovation directed toward opportunities to create a competitive advantage by offering new products, services or solutions diverging, even significantly, from established customer demand.

... New technologies arrive on the market continuously and are integrated into every aspect of private and business lives. Digital technologies cause changes in consumer behaviour (Kannan and Li, 2017;Verhoef et al., 2021), forcing organisations to adapt their way of doing things. Organisations are altering their business models, leading to changes in their strategy, information technology (IT), marketing and supply chains by integrating increasingly digital technologies (Verhoef et al., 2021). ...

Purpose This paper aims to investigate how the internal audit function (IAF) modifies its activities and practices in relation to the digitalisation the organisation. This paper specifically examines the use of data analytics and the performance of consulting activities by internal auditors. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on a survey conducted with 82 chief audit executives based in the USA and members of the institute of internal auditors. Findings Results indicate a positive relation between the organisation's level of digitalisation and the use of data analytics by internal auditors during their missions. Results also indicate that the organisation's level of digitalisation has an indirect effect on the proportion of the internal audit planning dedicated to consulting activities. Specifically, the use of data analytics mediates the relationship between the organisation's level of digitalisation and the proportion of the internal audit planning dedicated to consulting activities. Research limitations/implications This research was conducted amongst internal auditors based in the US Future research could investigate the insights of other internal audit stakeholders and investigate different legal contexts. Practical implications Results show that digitalisation increases the use of data analytics by internal auditors and the performance of consulting activities. The results, therefore, highlight the importance of these two aspects for the IAF to continue to bring value to organisations. Originality/value This research provides more insights on internal audit working practices. The digitalisation of the organisation leads the IAF to use more data analytics and perform more consulting activities.

Sanjeev P. Sahni

... According to the results of the journal citation network, the most cited journal on digital marketing is "Digital Marketing" (52 citations). Out of 469 published studies on digital marketing, Kannan and Li's (2017) article is centrally located in the publication citation network with 260 citations. According to the digital marketing topic cluster analysis, the top three clusters of topics are "young adult interest," "developing big data," and "consumers purchasing behavior" clusters. ...

... Data mining processes integrate several fields, such as data statistics, software design, and database technology. Heterogeneous data are used for realizing relational data, structured data, hierarchical and detailed multifaceted data mining, and knowledge discovery using various mining techniques, such as inference and mathematical methods [6]. It is also customary to classify data mining based on its functions, which include types of association analysis, cluster analysis, and analysis and prediction [7][8][9][10][11][12]. ...

Lin Zhang

With the rapid development of the Internet information age, social networks, mobile Internet, and e-commerce have expanded the scope of Internet applications. The "big data" era is a challenge and chance for companies and has a great impact on social economy, politics, culture, and people's lives. An accurate marketing system is developed based on J2EE, and the architecture is selected from the user layer, business logic layer, and data layer and the B/S3 layer application (three-tier application), including three layers of crip-dm and semma. And, other process methods are used. Data-mining-based marketing system information solutions consist of several parts, such as requirement analysis, design, implementation, and testing. This paper introduces data mining technology to the marketing business based on the practical use and design IT solutions for precision marketing, attribute selection tools, attribute analysis tools, modeling prediction tools, and others. This paper introduces a precision marketing system based on data mining technology. The system passes the actual test and the deployment and the operation of this system are confirmed. The system, which can improve marketing activity, is tested, and the development and operation of this system markedly increase the company's earnings.

... Previous studies have mainly focused on the antecedents and consequences of sWOM [36,37] on CR. ey paid particular attention to three points: social media content [38], corporate social responsibility (CSR) [39], and user perceptions [40] and user-generated content [41]. However, there has been little research on the CR propagation process by social word of mouth (sWOM). ...

Yufeng Wang
Xu Yang
Yanyou Chai
Qi Tian

This study analyzes the process of corporate reputation (CR) propagation. We consider that different positions play different roles via social word of mouth (sWOM). In essence, our interest lies in the following question: how does sWOM affect the process of CR propagation? As a benchmark, we develop a dynamic model to reflect the factors and laws influencing corporate reputation propagation. We find that the stability of the system is not what corporations want to see in the propagation of positive CR after analyzing two basic reproduction numbers and conducting a numerical simulation. Another important finding is that stability is what corporations expect in the propagation of negative CR. This study makes the logical analysis of the relationship between CR and consumer loyalty more complete and helps us to clearly understand the overall process of CR propagation. The study provides a new way to analyze the law of CR propagation and can provide a reference for decision-making for corporations.

... Digital marketing is an adaptive, technology-enabled process by which firms collaborate with customers and partners to jointly create, communicate, deliver, and sustain value for all stakeholders (Kannan & Alice, 2017). There are many digital marketing strategies which are search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), email marketing, content marketing, influencer marketing, campaign marketing, content automation, social media optimization and social media marketing. ...

... マーケティング成果，マーケティング戦略に関する要素に整理される (Kannan & Li, 2017 ...

Hidehiko Nishikawa

In a nutshell, digital marketing is marketing that utilizes digital technology. Digital marketing began about 30 years ago and has spread throughout society with the increased use of smartphones and new digital technologies, to the point where all marketing is now related to digital marketing. In response to these developments, there has been a great deal of research on digital marketing. The framework for understanding this research is based on digital technology and is organized into elements related to the digital environment, market research, marketing actions, marketing outcomes, and marketing strategy. This special issue includes five recent studies that focus on different areas of expertise in this research framework, but are all closely related to each other. Therefore, the results of these diverse studies assist with understanding of many different issues and will help both researchers and practitioners to broaden their horizons, beyond the marketing field. Furthermore, the rate of change of digital technology is causing many companies to use this technology in practice without full verification, and interactions between practitioners and researchers are needed to deepen knowledge in this area. Findings from the academy can promote these deeper interactions.

... The interactive nature of social media has given consumers opportunities to communicate with firms and with one another, creating UGC (Arora and Sanni, 2019). In computer-mediated environments, consumers share opinions, knowledge and personal experiences by posting reviews of products, services and brands on social networking sites (SNSs), third-party review sites or firms' own websites (Kannan and Li, 2017). Before purchasing, consumers evaluate products by checking online reviews as a trustworthy information source (Filieri et al., 2018). ...

Purpose This research investigates consumer intention to follow online community advice. Applying the technology acceptance model (TAM) to the context of online restaurant communities, the study empirically examines the effects of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude and trust on the intention to follow online advice. Design/methodology/approach The data were collected from 360 members of online restaurant communities on Facebook and analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). Findings The findings revealed that trust, perceived usefulness and attitude are key predictors of the intention to follow online restaurant community advice. Originality/value Extant research on the influence of online reviews on consumer behavior in the restaurant industry has largely focused on the characteristics of the review, reviewers or readers. Moreover, other studies have investigated consumers' motivations to write online restaurant reviews. This study, however, takes a different approach and examines what drives consumers to follow the advice from online restaurant communities.

... Customers, collaborators, competitors, context, and company (firm) are five C's creating major impact in digitization of business. These five C's are interface among themselves [2].So, they require an opinion study to quickly reach the people specifically young adults whose population is comparatively high in India. This paper helps the online service providers to know the opinion of young adults. ...

Ramesh Babu
R Arthy

Todays' consumers are widely using digital environment to get their required things like, cosmetics, electronic gadgets, entertainment, etc. Recently consumers started to order foods through online. This induces various service providers to move towards digital environment. There are plenty of service providers who provide services for online food ordering system and it is highly preferred by young adults whose population in India is more than other groups. So, the researcher tries to find out the preference of young adults towards online food ordering applications. The researcher identified 301 young adults in Madurai market by using convenience sampling method and structured questionnaire are used to gather data from the young adults. The gathered data are analysed by using various analysing tools like, bar chart, perceptual mapping, chi-square and regression. The finding shows that young adults are giving importance to website design and security while ordering food through online. The researcher also concludes that majority of the young adults in Madurai prefer Swiggy app to order their food.

Manit Mishra

The ubiquity of social media platforms facilitates free flow of online chatter related to customer experience. Twitter is a prominent social media platform for sharing experiences, and e-retail firms are rapidly emerging as the preferred shopping destination. This study explores customers' online shopping experience tweets. Customers tweet about their online shopping experience based on moments of truth shaped by encounters across different touchpoints. We aggregate 25,173 such tweets related to six e-retailers tweeted over a 5-year period. Grounded on agency theory, we extract the topics underlying these customer experience tweets using unsupervised latent Dirichlet allocation. The output reveals five topics which manifest into customer experience tweets related to online shopping—ordering, customer service interaction, entertainment, service outcome failure, and service process failure. Topics extracted are validated through inter-rater agreement with human experts. The study, thus, derives topics from tweets about e-retail customer experience and thereby facilitates prioritization of decision-making pertaining to critical service encounter touchpoints.

Desmond Onyemechi Okocha
Aliyu Sani

Wilcox and Cameron [2009:5] explained that people often define public relations by some of its visible techniques and tactics such as public in a newspaper, a television interview with an organization spokesman, or the appearance of a celebrity at a special event. What people fail to understand is that public relations is a process involving many subtle and far-reaching aspects. Public relations include research analysis, policy formation, programming communication, and feedback from numerous publics. Its practitioners operate on two distinct levels, as advisers to their clients or to an organization's top management and as technicians who produce and disseminate messages in multiple media channels.

The marketing mix (MM) is an integral part of a firm's marketing strategy sitting at the nexus between a company and the marketplace. As such, it evolves together with the marketplace and its stakeholders. Over the past decade, three fundamental global drivers have emerged—advancements in technology, socioeconomic and geopolitical shifts, and environmental changes—that have caused major ongoing and intensifying evolutions in the marketplace, its stakeholders, and, in turn, the MM. We describe the resulting evolutions in the MM along four central questions: who is involved in the MM, what constitutes the MM, how is it implemented, and where is it deployed. We identify a blurring of roles and responsibilities relating to the MM (who), an extension and integration of the MM instruments (what), an increase in customization and fragmentation of its actions (how), and a growing recognition of emerging-market idiosyncrasies (where). Taking a look into the future, we observe that along each of the four dimensions, the MM has arrived at a crossroad, with opposing scenarios for its future: (i) more inter-firm collaboration versus marketing-mix protectionism, (ii) added complexity versus increased simplicity, (iii) further automation versus an increased recognition of the human touch, and (iv) local adaptation versus global uniformity in the marketing mix. Applying a contingency approach, we derive relevant moderators for these forthcoming evolutions and provide an extensive set of future research questions.

Peter Konhäusner
Robert Seidentopf

In the marketing mix, promotion is mentioned as using the communication channels available to present and market the product or service at hand. In recent years, social media has risen as an influential marketing communication channel in digital space. Apart from end-to-end direct messengers and video communication in times of the COVID-19 pandemic, the social media channel Clubhouse offers an audio-only experience. The current research lacks analysis of the potential influence of the hyped social network. Due to the novelty of the channel and the absence of text messages as well as visual stimuli, questions regarding the impact that usage of this social media channel might have on crowdfunding, a means of rising popularity in alternative financing, have arisen. The study builds upon the media richness theory of Daft and Lengel as well as the channel expansion theory of Carlson and Zmud. Besides literature research, explorative expert interview analyses were applied to answer the research question at hand. The main findings include different approaches to foster the opportunities of Clubhouse for marketing crowdfunding campaigns in line with insights about the user group of Clubhouse as well as development options for the platform.

Yuchen Jiang

This dissertation focuses on optimizing inventory and pricing decisions in the online retail industry. Motivated by the importance of great customer service quality in the online retail marketplace, we investigate service-level-constrained inventory control problems in both static and dynamic settings. The first essay studies multi-period production planning problems (with or without pricing options) under stochastic demand. A joint service-level constraint is enforced to restrict the joint probability of having backorders in any period. We use the Sample Average Approximation (SAA) approach to reformulate both chance-constrained models as mixed-integer linear programs (MILPs). Via computations of diverse instances, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the SAA approach, analyze the solution feasibility and objective bounds, and conduct sensitivity analysis. The approaches can be generalized to a wide variety of production planning problems. The second essay investigates the dynamic versions of the service-level-constrained inventory control problems, in which retailers have the flexibility to adjust their inventory policies in each period. We formulate two periodic-review stochastic inventory models (backlogging model and remanufacturing model) via Dynamic Programs (DP), and establish the optimality of generalized base-stock policies. We also propose 2-approximation algorithms for both models, which is computationally more efficient than the brute-force DP. The core concept developed in our algorithms is called the delayed marginal cost, which is proven effective in dealing with service-level-constrained inventory systems. The third essay is motivated by the exploding use of sales rank information in today's internet-based e-commerce marketplace. The sales rank affects consumers' shopping preference and therefore, is critical for retailers to utilize when making pricing decisions. We study periodic-review dynamic pricing problems in presence of sales rank, in which customers' demand is a function of both prices and sales rank. We propose rank-based pricing models and characterize the structure and monotonicity of optimal pricing policies. Our numerical experiments illustrate the potential of revenue increases when strategic cyclic policy is used.

Lee Yih Hwai
Catherine Yeung

This research examines how incentives for learning can be designed to promote lasting learning motivation. The authors examined this research question in the context of continuing education, in which adult learners were given the opportunity to take educational courses for free. The authors contrasted two approaches commonly used when offering free courses—a tuition waiver versus a tuition refund. Although both arrangements were priced at zero, refunds outperformed waivers in promoting long-term learning, due to the monetary cost incurred in the former instance (even if it was refundable). In the first study, an e-learning activity was offered to the participants for free; those who were offered a fee refund (vs. waiver) were less likely to drop out, spent more time reading the learning materials, and were more likely to return to the learning activity during the post-experimental phase. Two further studies showed that when the participants evaluated an incentivized learning opportunity, the waiver drew more attention to the incentive and reduced attention to the learning benefits, but the refund preserved the latter considerations. The last study demonstrated the possibility of directing attention to the learning benefits by introducing a non-monetary cost into the signup procedure for a free course. These findings are consistent with the mental accounting explanation, which suggests that people are motivated to track and seek out learning benefits after they have incurred a cost.

Rajan Varadarajan
Roman B. Welden
S. Arunachalam
Shaphali Gupta

During the past quarter-century, digital technologies-based innovations for creating, communicating, and delivering products of value to customers have significantly risen in importance to the competitiveness of firms. Digital technologies-based innovations have been transformational in numerous ways, such as the impact on firms' marketing behaviors, consumers' search and buying behaviors, and the structural characteristics of markets and industries. Against this backdrop, this article provides a perspective on the evolution of research and practice in digital product innovations and digital marketing innovations. Specifically, this article focuses on (a) innovations for the greater good in the domain of the former and (b) direct and mediated communications through social media platforms and omnichannel marketing in the domain of the latter. Regarding each of the above, this article also provides an overview of the evolution and current state of the field, highlights certain current issues and the trajectory of the field, and proposes directions for future research.

Lucia Varra

The digitalisation of fashion companies has a significant impact on required staff skills and competences. This chapter aims to investigate, through the analysis of literature and business practices, how the development of Industry 4.0 affects organisational processes and staff competences, redefining the content of traditional jobs and creating new key roles in the fashion industry. After reviewing the characteristics of Industry 4.0 and, in particular, of the digital fashion factory, this chapter conducts a literature review to identify the set of skills and competences that the research has revealed to be necessary, distinguishing between technical competences and behavioural competences. Some traditional roles of fashion firms (seller, designer, buyer, etc.) are then examined alongside the related new skills and competences that have arisen due to the impact of technology on business processes; necessary skills are defined for new roles with reference to technology, sourcing, manufacturing, and retail, with particular reflections on the role of the digital marketing expert. These technology-related changes impact everything from human resource management processes, which must adapt to new levels of a company's professionalism, to the need for new tools to support people management activities and new ways of carrying out work that emphasise the need for leadership skills in management roles. Finally, this chapter reflects on the challenges that technological changes pose to companies in terms of organisational culture and the education and training system that must exist to support this new world of work.

Sabita Mahapatra
Abhishek Mishra

Compared to traditional purchases, the temporal gap between the purchase, the delivery and the consumption of products for online purchases is a challenge for e-sellers. A mismatch of expectations and consumption experiences causes a stronger post-consumption dissonance for online purchases, the outcomes of which, in form of emotions and coping responses, are under-researched. For this work, data was collected from 895 randomly selected respondents and the model was validated through structural equation modelling. The findings support that cognitive and affective components of post-consumption dissonance have a positive influence on negative emotions, a combination of anger, regret, and guilt. Such emotions are found to trigger coping responses of mental disengagement and seeking social support, but not product return. Additionally, the evoked negative emotions are found to be lower for the elderly and female consumers. Finally, it is found that individuals with maximization focus seek social support more than those with satisficing focus for coping. The study provides a unique model connecting post-consumption dissonance with coping responses and offers insights to e-sellers about effective ways to manage such dissonance.

José Ramón Saura
Domingo Ribeiro-Soriano
Daniel Palacios-Marqués

The new business challenges in the B2B sector are determined by connected ecosystems, where data-driven decision making is crucial for successful strategies. At the same time, the use of digital marketing as a communication and sales channel has led to the need and use of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems to correctly manage company information. The understanding of B2B traditional Marketing strategies that use CRMs that work with Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been studied, however, research focused on the understanding and application of these technologies in B2B digital marketing is scarce. To cover this gap in the literature, this study develops a literature review on the main academic contributions in this area. To visualize the outcomes of the literature review, the results are then analyzed using a statistical approach known as Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) under the homogeneity analysis of variance by means of alternating least squares (HOMALS) framework programmed in the R language. The research results classify the types of CRMs and their typologies and explore the main techniques and uses of AI-based CRMs in B2B digital marketing. In addition, a discussion, directions and propositions for future research are presented.

Tyler Milfeld
Eric Haley

Marketers and advertising agencies must navigate an increasingly complex and ambiguous digital media environment. Advertising agencies have responded by adding new roles and removing barriers to integrating digital media into marketing campaigns. Despite these changes aiming to address clients' needs, the agency-client relationship has reached an all-time low. The current study seeks to close the knowledge gap by examining how brand managers make sense of the digital media environment. Through phenomenological interviews with 18 North American brand managers at large organizations, this research uncovers three cognitive frames: expertise, efficiency, and consistency. These frames support three capabilities—advertising campaign evaluation, digital expertise, and creative development—that marketing organizations are insourcing from advertising agencies. These insourcing trends have significant ramifications for the advertising agency landscape. This research answers the call to gain deeper insight into the marketing organization, applies sensemaking to the digital media environment, and outlines future research opportunities based on three insourcing trends emerging from brand manager interviews.

Florence Jacob
Virginie Pez
Pierre Volle

The purpose of this article is to present the principles, application methods, contributions, and limitations of the design science research methodology (DSRM), a research strategy based on design science research (DSR). After presenting the principles of DSRM, we show how to use this method by applying it to the problem of customer journey management. We make practical recommendations for applying the method, and discuss its contributions and limitations. By presenting a method that meets the requirements of both rigor and relevance, this article contributes to the renewal of research methods used in our discipline.

Digital Marketing strategies are sets of controllable e-marketing variables that organizations combine to achieve marketing goals and to meet customers' needs. These strategies are the most important factors that electronic-marketing managers pay attention to the best strategy in order to achieve sales and profitability. This study aims to investigate the effect of these strategies on the buying behavior of customers in online shopping stores in Tehran. For this purpose, five best-selling online stores in Tehran are selected and 79 samples are taken from each of them. For data collection, a 2-tuple fuzzy linguistic representation model is used in order to no lose the linguistic information obtained from customers. For data analyzing and extracting proper rules, two approaches of the rough set theory are used. Based on the results provided by Rosetta software, five rules governing customer behavior are identified as the most important factors affecting buying behavior in online shopping. To evaluate the result, a comparison is carried out between the extracted rules using the proposed rough set technique and the tree diagram of the data obtained by Rapidminer software. Almost all provided rules are confirmed through this comparison along with the opinions of experts. Some of key results according to the obtained rules indicate that the most important digital marketing strategy is the search engine optimization. Moreover, the social media marketing and recommender engine play as second important issue of the marketing management.

Burcin Kaplan

Bilimin odak noktası evreni, doğayı ve hepsinin özünde insanı anlamaya ve tanımaya çalışmaktır. Dünyanın dört bir yanında şirketler ve bilim insanları doğrudan veya dolaylı olarak ürün veya hizmet sundukları kişilerin davranışlarını anlamak, bir sonraki davranışlarını tahmin etmek üzere çaba göstermektedirler. Yürütülegelen çalışmalara son 20 yıl gibi yakın bir geçmişte eklenen nörobilim alanının pazarlama ile buluştuğu –nöropazarlama-, zihin hakkında daha fazla bilgi edinip, sinirbilimdeki son gelişmeleri kullanarak insanın duygu değişimlerine dayalı davranış değişimlerinin şifrelerini çözmeye, daha etkili stratejilerin tasarlanabilmesine olanak sağlamaya çalışmaktadır. Başlangıçta yalnızca tüketicinin zihnini çözerek reklam geliştirmeye çalışan uygulamalar, gelişen teknoloji ve yaygın kullanımla çok daha farklı alanlara adapte edilebilmiştir. Günümüzde hastalıklarda örneğin obezite, kanser gibi hastalıkların tedavi süreç yönetimi ve önlenmesi çabalarında, kronik hastaların uzaktan takibi için ürün geliştirme ve pazarlanmasında; koruyucu sağlık uygulamalarında örneğin günlük spor alışkanlıklarının kazanılması, anne-bebek sağlığı, tüketim alışkanlıklarının incelenmesi, psikolojik ve sosyal duygu değişikliklerinin tüketime yansımasının takibi gibi pazarlama ve sağlığın ortak çalışarak fayda sağlayabileceği noktalarda umut verici bir alana dönüşmüştür. Bu çalışmada nöropazarlama kavramı, gelişim süreci içinde açıklanmış; nöropazarlamanın sağlık sektöründe mevcut ve potansiyel kullanım olanakları hakkında akademik ve uygulamalı yazından örnekler sunulmuştur. Alanın en önemli sorunsallarından olan etik konusu ayrı bir başlık altında incelenerek, konuyla alakalı yapılan çalışmalara örnekler verilmiştir.

Xingting Ju
Raquel Chocarro
Oscar Martín Martín

Purpose The purpose of this study is to provide a systematic review of the current state of research regarding mobile social media use for value creation by firms and customers and an agenda for future research. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted a systematic review following three main steps: keyword search, study selection and data extraction. A total of 53 articles were identified using academic databases and manual cross-referencing. By means of a thematic analysis method, the study addresses issues related to theory, methods, context, findings and gaps. Findings The study reviews and illustrates 14 value aspects of the mobile social media and value creation literature. The findings indicate that mobile social media are effective tools for firms to create and capture value from customers and for customers to co-create value. Originality/value The study contributes to the marketing and social media literature by proposing a conceptual framework that integrates the core components of value creation by firms and customers in the mobile social media context and by proposing an agenda for future research.

The demand for, and investment in digital virtual reality (VR) games, both by companies and consumers, are increasing day by day. Accordingly, understanding the experiences created by VR within the scope of phygital marketing is important in terms of contributing to virtual experiential marketing, marketing communication, recreation and similar fields. The concept of phygital, expresses the integral wholeness of the digital and physical. And 'Phygitally Yours' refers to individuals who can live in their own phygital worlds in today's technologies. The aim of this study was to examine the experiences created by digital games involving sports and recreational content within the scope of phygital marketing. Eight individuals who did not have any prior VR experience played digital games with sports (Grand Turismo Sport) and recreational (VR Worlds) content using VR glasses. Subsequently, in-depth interviews were conducted. The data were analysed using the content analysis method, and thematic codes and concepts were revealed and interpreted. As a result of the research, it was determined that the participants' first VR experience of digital games involved the dimensions of sense, interaction, pleasure and flow, with the following codes emerging: perfect holistic effect, showroom feeling, understandable, competition, magic, gorgeous, dilemma, and place independent behaviour.

Onie Dian Sanitha
L.M.F. Purwanto

Sebagai bidang ilmu seni terapan, Teori Arsitektur berkembang tidak hanya kepada desain perancangan bangunan saja melainkan isu lingkungan sosial yang berkolaborasi dengan disiplin ilmu Manajemen yakni brand dan konsep "branding". Tuntutan pasar Global menjadikan Arsitektur sebagai sebuah kebutuhan karena kemampuannya dalam menuangkan gagasan ke dalam sebuah bentuk serta perkembangannya di bidang Digital. Hal ini membuat arsitektur mampu membaur dengan disiplin ilmu Manajemen dalam konteks Brand. Namun muncul pertanyaan, apakah konsep perancangan Arsitektur mampu mewadahi sebuah Brand tanpa kehilangan esensi dasar dalam mendesain? Artikel ini menjadi tahap awal dalam melihat keterkaitan antara Arsitektur, kemajuan Teknologi Digital dan konsep Brand. Studi Kepustakaan diperlukan untuk mengawali proses identifikasi agar dapat menguraikan masing-masing bagian sehingga ditemukan aspek-aspek penting yang diperlukan dalam perancangan yang diduga saling berkaitan dan dapat menjadi konsep perancangan yang mendukung proses branding.

P.K. Kannan
Gauri Kulkarni

Purpose The Covid-19 pandemic and the related closures and lockdowns have changed how consumers shop for products and how they consume them. In this paper, the authors focus on how customers' journeys from the awareness stage down to purchase and loyalty stages have been impacted by the pandemic across different product categories and markets and how they affect the same post-pandemic. The authors propose directions for future research based on our analysis. Design/methodology/approach Analyzing the components of customer utility, the authors provide the basis for the rapid shift towards online and digital touchpoints and the nature of emerging interactions between firms and consumers. The authors highlight those areas where changes could be permanent. Findings The authors show why some of the changes due to the Covid-19 pandemic could be permanent and irrevocable and what this implies for firms' strategies to acquire, retain, and grow their business with their customers. Originality/value The authors highlight why omnichannel strategies are the way for firms to thrive in the post-pandemic marketplace, and outline areas for future research that will allow researchers to examine how customer journeys will evolve post-pandemic.

The diversification of devices used by consumers has drawn attention to the influence of devices on consumer behavior. This study examines the impact of device types, such as smartphones and personal computers, on consumers' construal levels and the congruence between the device types and construal levels on consumer behavior. For this purpose, we conducted four studies: three online experiments and one field study. Study 1 showed that consumers perceive the target closer when they view it on a smartphone (vs. a PC). In Study 2, we found that consumers' construal level becomes lower when using a smartphone (vs. a PC). In Study 3, we confirmed that the use of smartphones (vs. PCs) positively influences the evaluation of advertisements corresponding to lower construal levels. Finally, in Study 4, we examined the applicability of the findings from Studies 1 to 3 to the field of business by analyzing actual purchase data.

Drmohamed Mousa

تمثل الھدف الرئیس للبحث في دراسة وتحلیل انعكاسات تطبیق آلیات التحول الرقمي بأبعاده المختلفة على تطبیقات الحكومة الإلكترونیة التي تتجلى في جودة الخدمات المقدمة بالمؤسسات الإداریة للمواطنین ، مع التركیز على متطلبات حوكمة المعاییر لإجراءات التحول الرقمي ، وإشكالیات التطبیق بالمجتمعات العربیة بوجھ عام ومصر على وجھ التحدید ، وطبیعة وماھیة قواعد المحاسبة والمساءلة التي تضمن نجاحھ . وقد خلص الباحث إلى العدید من النتائج أھمھا : یرتكز نجاح التحول الرقمي كأحد ابتكارات تكنولوجیѧا المعلومѧات علѧى أربعѧة أبعѧاد أساسѧیة ( اسѧتخدام التقنیѧات لتحقیѧق الѧدور الاسѧتراتیجي للمؤسسات الحكومیة ودعم رؤیتھا المستقبلیة ، والتغییرات في خلق القیمة ، والتغییرات الھیكلیة ، وتوافر الجوانب المالیة ) . كما أكدت نتائج البحث على ضرورة تغییر نظم التعلیم والتعلم لتوفیر مھارات جدیدة وكوادر بشریة مستقبلیة قادرة على تحقیق التمیز في العمل الرقمي ، وإنشاء وصیانة ً البنیة التحتیة للاتصالات الرقمیة وضمان إدارتھا وإمكانیة الوصول السریع إلیھا ، فضلا عن أن تفعیل آلیات التحول الرقمي تؤثر على تعزیز أبعاد الشمول المالي لتخفیض التكلفة المالیة لمقدمي المنتجات والخدمات المالیة وغیر المالیة، وتوفیر خدمات مالیة سریعة وآمنة ، وتحسین جودة الخدمات المقدمة ً للعملاء والمواطنین، ولاسیما تحسین الناتج المحلي الإجمالي . وأخیرا ضرورة حوكمة المعاییر والإجراءات الخاصة بآلیات التحول الرقمي لضمان حمایة البیانات الرقمیة وتحسین مستوى الإفصاح والشفافیة، وبناء جسور من الثقة بین مقدمي الخدمات والجمھور .

Purpose Hotels are immersed in a very competitive environment and hoteliers have to plan and redesign their strategies to stay in the hospitality industry while faced with a steady rise in competition. Hoteliers can employ horizontal differentiation strategies and pricing decisions to gain a competitive advantage over their competitors. The goal of our work is to analyse the effect of pricing and horizontal differentiation strategy of a hotel on its online reputation and to analyse if the hotel location and agglomeration of competitors moderates their relationship with online reputation. Design/methodology/approach With a sample of 264 hotels from Paris, an empirical study is developed that aims to analyse, using regression techniques, the impact of price, differentiation, location and competitive environment on online ratings given by consumers in the hospitality context. Findings The paper provides empirical evidence of how a good location improves the online reputation of a company and how pricing strategies should take into account the location and number of competitors since a good location allows premium prices to be valued positively by consumers while an inappropriate location can produce the opposite effect. Depending on location, the number of competitors can intensify or reduce the effect of price on online reputation. Finally, online reputation only benefits from horizontal differentiation strategies when the degree of agglomeration is low. Originality/value This work provides insights about how hotels can strengthen their online reputation through pricing and differentiation strategies, incorporating elements of their environment such as location and competition in this decision-making process.

Résumé La digitalisation a entraîné de profonds changements dans le paysage de la distribution qui ont fait l'objet de recherches approfondies. La plupart des recherches ont considéré ce phénomène uniquement comme une source d'avantages pour les chalands. Cependant, quelques chercheurs ont récemment souligné l'écart entre cet optimisme technologique et les problèmes auxquels sont confrontés les distributeurs lorsque les technologies qu'ils proposent sont fréquemment ignorées ou rapidement abandonnées par les chalands. Pour combler cette lacune, notre recherche étudie la manière dont les chalands réagissent face à la digitalisation de la distribution à travers le prisme de l'ambivalence. Une revue systématique de la littérature a permis d'identifier un ensemble de 108 articles publiés dans des revues majeures entre 2005 et 2020. Notre analyse critique a révélé des réactions positives et négatives des chalands à l'égard de la digitalisation. En regroupant ces derniers par paires de deux opposés, nous proposons une conceptualisation initiale de l'ambivalence des acheteurs divisée en huit composantes distinctes. De plus, nous mettons en évidence les composantes de l'ambivalence des acheteurs qui nécessitent une plus grande attention des chercheurs et proposons un agenda de recherche en conséquence. Enfin, notre conceptualisation peut aider les managers à mieux comprendre le sens des réactions hétérogènes des chalands confrontés aux technologies qu'ils proposent.

Recently, marketing of content (such as books, video and music), digital products and services (such as mobile games, and software), or cloud-based services has been increasingly stimulated by the provision of free samples of content or free games or limited-version of the software or service. While the motivation for providing free samples or a free limited-version of the digital service in any form is to increase revenue, the specific design of the sample through which the increased revenue is realized is an under-researched topic. In this paper, we develop a framework to understand how the design of free samples or service can influence revenues. Our research is motivated by the marketing decisions faced by a book publisher that provides free content samples for the books it sells. We develop an analytical model that determines the conditions under which it is optimal for content providers to provide free samples, and how the quality and other design parameters of the samples impact the sales of content. We test the normative implications of the model using empirical data obtained from a field experiment where we vary the design parameters of the free sample and based on the demand estimates provide recommendations for the firm on the optimal design of the sample. Our research finds that, rather than being substitutes, free samples of entire content, as in freemium, can be very effective in increasing revenues. Furthermore, we find that higher-quality samples have a greater impact on the sales of popular content.

The authors examine how country characteristics systematicaliy moderate the effects of individual-level drivers of the perceived vaiue that consumers derive from visiting a brand manufacturer's Web site. They test hypotheses on data coiiected from 8886 consumers from 23 countries on three continents, involving 30 Web sites of the world's largest consumer packaged goods companies. They find that the effect of privacy/security protection on perceived vaiue is stronger for people from countries with a weak rule of law, whereas people from countries that are high on national identity give more weight to whether there is cultural congruity between the site and themseives. People who iive in more individualistic countries give more weight to pleasure, to privacy/security protection, and to customization in their perceived vaiue judgments than people from collectivistic countries. The authors discuss implications for Web site design strategies.

To optimally set marketing communication ('marcom') budgets, reliable estimates of short-term elasticities and carryover effects are required. 'Empirical generalizations' (EGs) from meta-analyses of prior field studies can help guide these decisions. The last such meta-analysis of marcom carryover effects was performed on 'Koyck' model-based estimates collected before 1984, and confined to mass media advertising. The authors update and extend extant EGs via two meta-analyses of carryover estimates compiled from studies encompassing personal selling, targeted advertising and mass media advertising, using diverse model forms, until 2015. The first is focused on and utilizes 918 estimates of the carryover proportion of the total effect, termed long-term share of the total effect (LSTE), while the second focuses on 863 derivable estimates of 90% implied duration intervals (IDIs). The authors find the mean LSTE for personal selling (0.687) and targeted advertising (0.650) are distinctly larger than that for mass media advertising (0.523) while the corresponding median 90% IDIs are 12.6, 2 and 3.4 months respectively. Differences by model type and the implications for marcom budget-setting and analyses are discussed.

Marketing departments are under increased pressure to demonstrate their economic value to the firm. This challenge is exacerbated by the fact that marketing uses attitudinal (e.g., brand awareness), behavioral (e.g., brand loyalty), and financial (e.g., sales revenue) performancemetrics, which do not correlate highly with each other. Thus, onemetric could view marketing initiatives as successful, whereas another could interpret them as a waste of resources. The resulting ambiguity has several consequences for marketing practice. Among these are that the scope and objectives of marketing differ widely across organizations. There is confusion about the difference between marketing effectiveness and efficiency.Hard and softmetrics and offline and onlinemetrics are typically not integrated. The two dominant tools for marketing impact assessment, response models and experiments, are rarely combined. Risk inmarketing planning and execution receives little consideration, and analytic insights are not communicated effectively to drive decisions. The authors first examine how these factors affect both research and practice. They then discuss how the use of marketing analytics can improve marketing decision making at different levels of the organization. The authors identify gaps in marketing's knowledge base that set the stage for further research and enhanced practice in demonstratingmarketing's value.

Firms collect an increasing amount of consumer feedback in the form of unstructured consumer reviews. These reviews contain text about consumer experiences with products and services that are different from surveys that query consumers for specific information. A challenge in analyzing unstructured consumer reviews is in making sense of the topics that are expressed in the words used to describe these experiences. We propose a new model for text analysis that makes use of the sentence structure contained in the reviews and show that it leads to improved inference and prediction of consumer ratings relative to existing models using data from www.expedia.com and www.we8there.com. Sentence-based topics are found to be more distinguished and coherent than those identified from a word-based analysis.

Rajeev Batra
Kevin Lane Keller

With the challenges presented by new media, shifting media patterns, and divided consumer attention, the optimal integration of marketing communications takes on increasing importance. Drawing on a review of relevant academic research and guided by managerial priorities, the authors offer insights and advice as to how traditional and new media such as search, display, mobile, TV, and social media interact to affect consumer decision making. With an enhanced understanding of the consumer decision journey and how consumers process communications, the authors outline a comprehensive framework featuring two models designed to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of integrated marketing communication programs: a "bottom-up" communications matching model and a "top-down" communications optimizationmodel. The authors conclude by suggesting important future research priorities.

Media content distribution has changed extensively in the past decade. Content that was once distributed through traditional formats such as television, radio, and print is now available through contemporary digital formats such as smartphone and tablet apps, with many possible versions (e.g., presence or absence of ads). Consequently, many media firms that face heterogeneous markets of consumers with varying content consumption preferences are now offering "menus" of multiformat and multiversion subscription bundles for their customers to choose from. Yet, little systematic model-based guidance exists for configuring and pricing menu options.Moreover,mostmedia firms are audience-building platforms that serve at least two distinct customer groups (content consumers and advertisers) with interrelated demands. Therefore, constructing a menu of content subscription bundles that maximizes total profit from both consumers and advertisers is a formidable challenge. This research proposes a theory-driven implementable model-based approach that can aid media platforms in addressing this challenge. The proposed approach is then demonstrated for a U.S. newspaper, and insights into profit-maximizingmenus under various businessmodel and format strategies are provided.

Social media sites have created a reverberating "echoverse" for brand communication, forming complex feedback loops ("echoes") between the "universe" of corporate communications, news media, and user-generated social media. To understand these feedback loops, the authors process longitudinal, unstructured data using computational linguistics techniques and analyze them using econometric methods. By assembling one of the most comprehensive data sets in the brand communications literature with corporate communications, news stories, social media, and business outcomes, the authors document the echoverse (i.e., feedback loops between all of these sources). Furthermore, the echoverse has changed as online word of mouth has become prevalent. Over time, online word of mouth has fallen into a negativity spiral, with negative messages leading to greater volume, and firms are adjusting their communications strategies in response. The nature of brand communications has been transformed by online technology as corporate communications move increasingly from one to many (e.g., advertising) to one to one (e.g., Twitter) while consumer word of mouth moves from one to one (e.g., conversations) to one to many (e.g., social media). The results indicate that companies benefit from using social media (e.g., Twitter) for personalized customer responses, although there is still a role for traditional brand communications (e.g., press releases, advertising). The evolving echoverse requires managers to rethink brand communication strategies, with online communications becoming increasingly central.

Firms use different attribution strategies such as last-click or first-click attribution to assign conversion credits to search keywords that appear in their consumers' paths to purchase. These attributed credits impact a firm's future bidding and budget allocations among keywords and, in turn, determine the overall return-on-investment of search campaigns. In this paper, we model the relationship among the advertiser's bidding decision for keywords, the search engine's ranking decision for these keywords, and the consumer's click-through rate and conversion rate on each keyword, and analyze the impact of the attribution strategy on the overall return-on-investment of paid search advertising. We estimate our simultaneous equations model using a six-month panel data of several hundred keywords from an online jewelry retailer. The data comprises a quasi-experiment as the firm changed attribution strategy from last-click to first-click attribution halfway through the data window. Our results show that returns for keyword investments vary significantly under the different attribution strategies. For the focal firm, first-click attribution leads to lower revenue returns and a more pronounced decrease for more specific keywords. Our policy simulation exercise shows how the firm can increase its overall returns by better attributing the real contribution of keywords. We discuss how an appropriate attribution strategy can help firms to better target customers and lower acquisition costs in the context of paid search advertising.

The current marketing environment is characterized by a surge in multichannel shopping and increasing choice of advertising channels. This situation requires firms to understand how advertising in one channel (e.g., online) influences sales in another channel (e.g., offline). This article studies the presence, magnitude, and carryover of these cross-channel effects for online advertising (display and search) and traditional media. The analysis considers how these advertising expenditures translate directly into sales, as well as indirectly through intermediate search advertising metrics-namely, impressions and clickthrough rate. For a high-end clothing and apparel retailer, the authors find that cross effects exist and are important and that cross-effect elasticities are almost as high as own-effect elasticities. Online display and, in particular, search advertising is more effective than traditional advertising. This result is primarily due to strong cross effects on the offline channel. Return-on-investment calculations suggest that by ignoring these cross effects, firms substantially miscalculate the effectiveness of online advertising. Notably, the authors find that traditional advertising decreases paid search click-through rates, thus reducing the net cross effect of traditional advertising.

This paper investigates the economic value of online reviews for consumers and restaurants. We use a data set from Dianping.com, a leading Chinese website providing user-generated reviews, to study how consumers learn, from reading online reviews, the quality and cost of restaurant dining. We propose a learning model with three novel features: (1) different reviews offer different informational value to different types of consumers; (2) consumers learn their own preferences, and not the distribution of preferences among the entire population, for multiple product attributes; and (3) consumers update not only the expectation but also the variance of their preferences. Based on estimation results, we conduct a series of counterfactual experiments and find that the value from Dianping is about 7 CNY for each user, and about 8.6 CNY from each user for the reviewed restaurants in this study. The majority of the value comes from reviews on restaurant quality, and contextual comments are more valuable than numerical ratings in reviews.

Platform companies such as Alibaba.com increasingly rely on search advertising as a revenue source. This study examines (1) the direct effect of new and existing buyers and sellers on platform advertising revenue, (2) their indirect effect through two intermediary performance variables (buyer's click rate and seller's click price), and (3) how the effects differ between launch and mature stages of the search advertising service. Unique data collected from a leading transactional business-to-business electronic platform suggest that new buyers click on more search advertisements than existing buyers, especially after the firm's buyers and sellers have learned and adapted to the service (mature stage). New sellers tend to outbid existing sellers in the mature stage, but the opposite is true when the service is newly introduced (launch stage). Because existing sellers can more effectively send quality signals in the launch stage, attracting existing, rather than new, sellers has a greater effect on click rate in the launch stage; however, the opposite is true in the mature stage. Attracting new buyers also has a greater effect on click rate and price, especially in the mature stage. Finally, using cost data from the platform, this article examines the economic returns of attracting new and existing buyers and sellers with respect to advertising revenue.

The increasing amount of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) has significantly affected the way consumers make purchase decisions. Empirical studies have established an effect of eWOM on sales but disagree on which online platforms, products, and eWOM metrics moderate this effect. The authors conduct a meta-analysis of 1,532 effect sizes across 96 studies covering 40 platforms and 26 product categories. On average, eWOM is positively correlated with sales (.091), but its effectiveness differs across platform, product, and metric factors. For example, the effectiveness of eWOM on social media platforms is stronger when eWOM receivers can assess their own similarity to eWOM senders, whereas these homophily details do not influence the effectiveness of eWOM for e-commerce platforms. In addition, whereas eWOM has a stronger effect on sales for tangible goods new to the market, the product life cycle does not moderate the eWOM effectiveness for services. With respect to the eWOM metrics, eWOM volume has a stronger impact on sales than eWOM valence. In addition, negative eWOM does not always jeopardize sales, but high variability does.

Technology enables a firm to produce a granular record of every touchpoint consumers make in their online purchase journey before they convert at the firm's website. However, firms still depend on aggregate measures to guide their marketing investments in multiple online channels (e.g., display, paid search, referral, e-mail). This article introduces a methodology to attribute the incremental value of each marketing channel in an online environment using individual-level data of customers' touches. The authors propose a measurement model to analyze customers' (1) consideration of online channels, (2) visits through these channels over time, and (3) subsequent purchases at the website to estimate the carryover and spillover effects of prior touches at both the visit and purchase stages. The authors use the estimated carryover and spillover effects to attribute the conversion credit to different channels and find that these channels' relative contributions are significantly different from those found by other currently used metrics. A field study validates the proposed model's ability to estimate the incremental impact of a channel on conversions. In targeting customers with different patterns of touches in their purchase funnel, these estimates help identify cases in which retargeting strategies may actually decrease conversion probabilities.

We review research on revenue models used by online firms who offer digital goods. Such goods are non-rival, have near zero marginal cost of production and distribution, low marginal cost of consumer search, and low transaction costs. Additionally, firms can easily observe and measure consumer behavior. We start by asking what consumers can offer in exchange for digital goods. We suggest that consumers can offer their money, personal information, or time. Firms, in turn, can generate revenue by selling digital content, brokering consumer information, or showing advertising. We discuss the firm's trade-off in choosing between the different revenue streams, such as offering paid content or free content while relying on advertising revenues. We then turn to specific challenges firms face when choosing a revenue model based on either content, information, or advertising. Additionally, we discuss nascent revenue models that combine different revenue streams such as crowdfunding (content and information) or blogs (information and advertising). We conclude with a discussion of opportunities for future research including implications for firms' revenue models from the increasing importance of the mobile Internet.

The authors explore how firms can enhance consumer performance in online idea generation platforms. Most, if not all, online idea generation platforms offer all consumers identical tasks in which (1) participants are granted access to ideas from other participants and (2) ideas are classified into categories, but consumers can navigate freely across idea categories. The former is linked to stimulus ideas, and the latter may be viewed as a first step toward problem decomposition. The authors propose that the effects of both stimulus ideas and problem decomposition are moderated by consumers' domain-specific knowledge. In particular, concrete cues such as stimulus ideas are more beneficial to low-knowledge consumers, and high-knowledge consumers are better served with abstract cues such as the ones offered by problem decomposition. The authors' hypotheses are supported by an extensive empirical investigation involving more than 6,000 participants. The findings suggest that online idea generation platforms should use problem decomposition more explicitly and that firms should not immediately show other participants' ideas to high-knowledge consumers when they access the platform. In other words, online idea generation platforms should customize the task structure on the basis of each participant's domain-specific knowledge.

Deal-of-the-day (DoD) promotions are nowadays very popular. As a special form of a price promotion, they allow firms to offer products at substantial price discounts, usually at or above 50%, for a very limited period of time, usually between one and seven days. Conventional wisdom suggests that both characteristics, high discount levels and tight time constraints, should make DoDs an effective form of a price promotion. However, the two characteristics do not necessarily combine to increase DoD effectiveness. In particular, the authors propose that depending on the type of promoted product (utilitarian vs. hedonic), the attention consumers pay to the discount level relative to the time constraint varies, which leads to differences in promotional effectiveness. Two studies, a lab experiment and a field study using data from the DoD platform Groupon, mostly confirm these hypotheses: the time constraint increases promotional effectiveness more for hedonic than for utilitarian products, whereas the discount level increases promotional effectiveness for utilitarian more than for hedonic products. In the Groupon data, very high discount levels actually decrease promotional effectiveness for hedonic products. The results suggest that designers of DoD promotions should consider the type of promoted product when choosing appropriate time constraints and discount levels.

The authors address the role of marketing in hypermedia computer-mediated environments (CMEs). Their approach considers hypermedia CMEs to be large-scale (i.e., national or global) networked environments, of which the World Wide Web on the Internet is the first and current global implementation. They introduce marketers to this revolutionary new medium, propose a structural model of consumer navigation behavior in a CME that incorporates the notion of flow, and examine a series of research issues and marketing implications that follow from the model.

Anindya Ghose
David Goldfarb
Sang Pil Han

We explore how Internet browsing behavior varies between mobile phones and personal computers. Smaller screen sizes on mobile phones increase the cost to the user of browsing for information. In addition, a wider range of offline locations for mobile Internet usage suggests that local activities are particularly important. Using data on user behavior at a (Twitter-like) microblogging service, we exploit exogenous variation in the ranking mechanism of posts to identify the ranking effects. We show that (1) ranking effects are higher on mobile phones suggesting higher search costs: links that appear at the top of the screen are especially likely to be clicked on mobile phones and (2) the benefit of browsing for geographically close matches is higher on mobile phones: stores located in close proximity to a user's home are much more likely to be clicked on mobile phones. Thus, the mobile Internet is somewhat less "Internet-like": search costs are higher and distance matters more. We speculate on how these changes may affect the future direction of Internet commerce.

Since the commercialization of the Internet began over twenty years ago, we have been fascinated with the opportunities that computer-mediated environments present for human interaction. As a result, we have spent the last few decades researching the marketing and consumer behavior impact of consumers' interactions in digital environments.Now, as the consumer Internet of Things emerges, we find ourselves with renewed excitement as we consider the opportunities for consumer interaction in physical environments with objects that have brought the Internet with them into the real world. Just as the Internet was revolutionary because it enabled many-to-many communication through connected digital networks at unprecedented scale, the IoT is a revolutionary advance that brings the digital into the physical realm. Now, interaction is distributed not just virtually "on the Internet," but also everywhere in the real world where people actually live, work and play.What awaits us as we are able to interact with smart objects in our everyday lives, and these objects are able to interact with each other, often autonomously? What are the implications for human interaction and for consumer experience? Will new marketing approaches be required? In the course of thinking about these kinds of questions over the past few years, we realized we needed a new framework to help our thinking jell. We found that framework in assemblage theory. The smart home assemblage serves as the context for our theorizing, but we believe our approach generalizes to any consumer IoT assemblage.In the monograph linked above, we present an assemblage-theory based conceptual framework and its implications for consumer experience in the smart home. In 8 sections, we discuss the evolution of the Internet and the emergence of the consumer IoT, offer a lay version of assemblage theory, develop our framework and discuss the implications of our framework for research in UX, consumer experience, and marketing strategy. The last two sections offer some early practical insights derived from our theory and some perspective on where things might be going.

Anindya Ghose
Vilma Todri

The increasing availability of individual-level data has raised the standards for measurability and accountability in digital advertising. Using a massive individual-level data set, our paper captures the effectiveness of display advertising across a wide range of consumer behaviors. Two unique features of our data set that distinguish this paper from prior work are: (i) the information on the actual viewability of impressions and (ii) the duration of exposure to the display advertisements, both at the individual-user level. Employing a quasi-experiment enabled by our setting, we use difference-in-differences and corresponding matching methods as well as instrumental variable techniques to control for unobservable and observable confounders. We empirically demonstrate that mere exposure to display advertising increases users' propensity to search for the brand and the corresponding product; consumers engage both in active search exerting effort to gather information, and in passive search using information sources that arrive exogenously. We also find statistically and economically significant effect of display advertising on increasing consumers' propensity to make a purchase. Furthermore, our findings reveal that the longer the duration of exposure to display advertising, the more likely the consumers are to engage in direct search behaviors (e.g., direct visits) rather than indirect ones (e.g., search engine inquiries). We also study the effects of various types of display advertising (e.g., prospecting, retargeting, affiliate targeting, video advertising, etc.) and the different goals they achieve. Our framework for evaluating display advertising effectiveness constitutes a stepping stone towards causally addressing the digital attribution problem.

We describe online consumers' search behavior for differentiated durable goods using a data set that captures a detailed level of consumer search and attribute information for digital cameras. Consumers search extensively, engaging in 14 searches on average prior to purchase. Individual level search is confined to a small part of the attribute space. Early search is highly predictive of the characteristics of the camera eventually purchased. Search paths through the attribute space are state dependent and display "lock-in" as the search unfolds. Finally, the first-time discovery of the chosen alternative usually takes place toward the end of the search sequence. We discuss these and other findings in the context of optimal search strategies and discuss the prospects for consumer learning during search.Data, as supplemental material, are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2016.0977 .

Firms make significant marketing investments in online, mobile and offline media and channels such as search engines, social media, e-mail, display advertising, print, TV, etc., to draw in customers to their websites, mobile apps, and stores to effect conversions and spur sales. As customers go through a series of touch points across media, channels and devices on their paths to purchase, attributing the appropriate credit for each touch point has emerged as an important problem. By focusing on estimating the incremental value of a touch point and spillover effects across channels, attribution models can provide insights for optimally allocating marketing investments across channels and targeting customers across channels and devices. In this paper, we provide a survey of the state-of-the-art in attribution modeling and analytics. As part of the survey, we also introduce the articles in this special section and position them in our classification framework. Finally, we propose a research agenda to guide future work in the area.

Cait Lamberton
Andrew T. Stephen

Over the past 15 years, digital media platforms have revolutionized marketing, offering new ways to reach, inform, engage, sell to, learn about, and provide service to customers. As a means of taking stock of academic work's ability to contribute to this revolution, this article tracks the changes in scholarly researchers' perspectives on three major digital, social media, and mobile (DSMM) marketing themes from 2000 to 2015. The authors first use keyword counts from the premier general marketing journals to gain a macro-level view of the shifting importance of various DSMM topics since 2000. They then identify key themes emerging in five-year time frames during this period: (1) DSMM as a facilitator of individual expression, (2) DSMM as decision support tool, and (3) DSMM as a market intelligence source. In both academic research to date and corresponding practitioner discussion, there is much to appreciate. However, there are also several shortcomings of extant research that have limited its rel...

One of the most important tasks in marketing is to create and communicate value to customers to drive their satisfaction, loyalty, and profitability. In this study, the authors assume that customer value is a dual concept. First, in order to be successful, firms (and the marketing function) have to create perceived value for customers. Toward that end,marketers have to measure customer perceived value and have to provide customer perceptions of value through marketing-mix elements. Second, customers in return give value through multiple forms of engagement (customer lifetime value, in the widest sense) for the organization. Therefore, marketers need to measure and manage this value of the customer(s) to the firm and have to incorporate this aspect into real-time marketing decisions. The authors integrate and synthesize existing findings, show the best practices of implementation, and highlight future research avenues.

Katherine N. Lemon
Peter C. Verhoef

Understanding customer experience and the customer journey over time is critical for firms. Customers now interact with firms through myriad touch points in multiple channels and media, and customer experiences are more social in nature. These changes require firms to integrate multiple business functions, and even external partners, in creating and delivering positive customer experiences. In this article, the authors aim to develop a stronger understanding of customer experience and the customer journey in this era of increasingly complex customer behavior. To achieve this goal, they examine existing definitions and conceptualizations of customer experience as a construct and provide a historical perspective of the roots of customer experience within marketing. Next, they attempt to bring together what is currently known about customer experience, customer journeys, and customer experience management. Finally, they identify critical areas for future research on this important topic.

The authors provide a critical examination of marketing analytics methods by tracing their historical development, examining their applications to structured and unstructured data generated within or external to a firm, and reviewing their potential to support marketing decisions. The authors identify directions for new analytical research methods, addressing (1) analytics for optimizingmarketing-mix spending in a data-rich environment, (2) analytics for personalization, and (3) analytics in the context of customers' privacy and data security. They review the implications for organizations that intend to implement big data analytics. Finally, turning to the future, the authors identify trends that will shape marketing analytics as a discipline as well as marketing analytics education.

The introduction of tablets in online retailing has created an additional touchpoint through which e-commerce firms can interact with consumers. In this paper,we seek to understand and measure the causal impact of tablets on e-commerce sales. In doing so, we examine the complementary and substitution impact of the tablet channel on the smartphone and PC channels. We rely on a unique data set from Alibaba, the largest e-commerce firm in the world, and exploit a natural experiment via the iPad app introduction to empirically identify our results. The results show that users' adoption of tablets enhanced the overall growth of Alibaba's e-commerce market, with an annual increase of approximately US$923.5 million. Our results demonstrate that the tablet channel acts as a substitute for the PC channel while it acts as a complement for the smartphone channel. Furthermore, the use of tablets spurs casual browsing, which leads to the purchase of more impulse products and a wider diversity of products. Cross-device browsing behavior is found to enhance sales outcomes, and the degree of interrelationships between devices varies across the course of the day. We provide insights for retailers about how they can increase their sales volume and revenue in the emerging tablet economy.

Xiao Liu
Param Vir Singh
Kannan Srinivasan

Accurate forecasting of sales/consumption is particularly important for marketing because this information can be used to adjust marketing budget allocations and overall marketing strategies. Recently, online social platforms have produced an unparalleled amount of data on consumer behavior. However, two challenges have limited the use of these data in obtaining meaningful business marketing insights. First, the data are typically in an unstructured format, such as texts, images, audio, and video. Second, the sheer volume of the data makes standard analysis procedures computationally unworkable. In this study, we combine methods from cloud computing, machine learning, and text mining to illustrate how online platform content, such as Twitter, can be effectively used for forecasting. We conduct our analysis on a significant volume of nearly two billion Tweets and 400 billion Wikipedia pages. Our main findings emphasize that, by contrast to basic surface-level measures such as the volume of or sentiments in Tweets, the information content of Tweets and their timeliness significantly improve forecasting accuracy. Our method endogenously summarizes the information in Tweets. The advantage of our method is that the classification of the Tweets is based on what is in the Tweets rather than preconceived topics that may not be relevant. We also find that, by contrast to Twitter, other online data (e.g., Google Trends, Wikipedia views, IMDB reviews, and Huffington Post news) are very weak predictors of TV show demand because users tweet about TV shows before, during, and after a TV show, whereas Google searches, Wikipedia views, IMDB reviews, and news posts typically lag behind the show.

Kanishka Misra
Anja Lambrecht

Many online content providers aim to compensate for a loss in advertising revenues by charging consumers for access to content. However, such a choice is not straightforward because subscription fees typically deter customers, and a resulting decline in viewership further reduces advertising revenues. This research examines whether firms that offer both free and paid content can benefit from adjusting the amount of content offered for free. We find that firms should offer more free-and not paid-content in periods of high demand.We motivate theoretically that this policy, which we term "countercyclical offering," may be optimal for firms when consumers are heterogeneous in their valuation of online content and this heterogeneity varies over time. Using unique data from an online content provider, we then provide empirical evidence that firms indeed engage in countercyclical offering and increase the share of free content in periods of high demand.

Savannah Wei Shi
Michel Wedel
F. G. M. (Rik) Pieters

We propose a model of eye-tracking data to understand information acquisition patterns on attribute-byproduct matrices, which are common in online choice environments such as comparison websites. The objective is to investigate how consumers gather product and attribute information from moment to moment. We propose a hierarchical hidden Markov model that consists of three connected layers: a lower layer that describes the eye movements, a middle layer that identifies information acquisition processes, and an upper layer that captures strategy switching. The proposed model accounts for the data better than several alternative models. The results show that consumers switch frequently between acquisition strategies, and they obtain information on only two or three attributes or products in a particular acquisition strategy before switching. Horizontal and contiguous eye movements play an important role in information acquisition. Furthermore, our results shed new light on the phenomenon of gaze cascades during choice. We discuss the implications for Web design, online retailing, and new directions for research on online choice.

Given the unprecedented reach of social media, firms are increasingly relying on it as a channel for marketing communication. The objective of this study is to examine the effect of firm-generated content (FGC) in social media on three key customer metrics: spending, cross-buying, and customer profitability. The authors further investigate the synergistic effects of FGC with television advertising and e-mail communication. To accomplish their objectives, the authors assemble a novel data set comprising customers' social media participation data, transaction data, and attitudinal data obtained through surveys. The results indicate that after the authors account for the effects of television advertising and e-mail marketing, FGC has a positive and significant effect on customers' behavior. The authors show that FGC works synergistically with both television advertising and e-mail marketing and also find that the effect of FGC is greater for more experienced, tech-savvy, and social media-prone customers. They propose and examine the effect of three characteristics of FGC: valence, receptivity, and customer susceptibility. The authors find that whereas all three components of FGC have a positive impact, the effect of FGC receptivity is the largest. The study offers critical managerial insights regarding how to leverage social media for better returns.

This paper studies two types of threshold-induced effects: a surge of new sign-ups around the time when the thresholds of group-buying deals are reached, and a stronger positive relation between the number of new sign-ups and the cumulative number of sign-ups before the thresholds are reached than afterward. This empirical study uses a data set that records the intertemporal cumulative number of sign-ups for group-buying deals in 86 city markets covered by Groupon, during a period of 71 days when Groupon predominantly used "a deal a day" format for each local market and posted the number of sign-ups in real time. We find that the first type of threshold effect is significant in all product categories and in all markets. The second type of threshold effect varies across product categories and markets. Our results underscore the importance of considering product and market characteristics in threshold design decisions for online group buying.

Johanna S. Ilfeld
Russell S. Winer

In this paper, we attempt to empirically determine the factors that drive traffic and brand equity in the internet space. Even in 2002 with the internet bubble burst, many companies are still turning to the web to interact with current customers and reach new markets. These companies need to know if the traditional theories linking advertising, store visits, and sales are still supported as they move online, using the technology-based internet as a primary marketplace.

David Godes
Jose C. Silva

We investigate the evolution of online ratings over time and sequence. We first establish that there exist two distinct dynamic processes, one as a function of the amount of time a book has been available for review and another as a function of the sequence of reviews themselves. We find that, once we control for calendar date, the residual average temporal pattern is increasing. This is counter to existing findings that suggest that without this calendar-date control, the pattern is decreasing. With respect to sequential dynamics, we find that ratings decrease: the nth rating is, on average, lower than the n.1th when controlling for time, reviewer effects, and book effects. We test and find some support for existing theories for this decline based on motivation. We then offer two additional explanations for this "order effect." We find support for the idea that one's ability to assess the diagnosticity of previous reviews decreases: when previous reviewers are very different, more reviews may thus lead to more purchase errors and lower ratings.

Chunhua Wu

Our main objective in this paper is to measure the value of customers acquired from Google search adver- tising accounting for two factors that have been overlooked in the conventional method widely adopted in the industry: (1) the spillover effect of search advertising on customer acquisition and sales in off-line channels and (2) the lifetime value of acquired customers. By merging Web traffic and sales data from a small-sized U.S. firm, we create an individual customer-level panel that tracks all repeated purchases, both online and off-line, and tracks whether or not these purchases were referred from Google search advertising. To estimate the customer lifetime value, we apply the methodology in the customer relationship management literature by developing an integrated model of customer lifetime, transaction rate, and gross profit margin, allowing for individual heterogeneity and a full correlation of the three processes. Results show that customers acquired through Google search advertising in our data have a higher transaction rate than customers acquired from other channels. After accounting for future purchases and spillover to off-line channels, the calculated value of new customers using our approach is much higher than the value obtained using conventional method. The approach used in our study provides a practical framework for firms to evaluate the long-term profit impact of their search advertising investment in a multichannel setting.

Barry Bayus

Several organizations have developed ongoing crowdsourcing communities that repeatedly collect ideas for new products and services from a large, dispersed "crowd" of nonexperts (consumers) over time. Despite its promises, little is known about the nature of an individual's ideation efforts in such an online community. Studying Dell's IdeaStorm community, serial ideators are found to be more likely than consumers with only one idea to generate an idea the organization finds valuable enough to implement, but they are unlikely to repeat their early success once their ideas are implemented. As ideators with past success attempt to again come up with ideas that will excite the organization, they instead end up proposing ideas similar to their ideas that were already implemented (i.e., they generate less diverse ideas). The negative effects of past success are somewhat mitigated for ideators with diverse commenting activity on others' ideas. These findings highlight some of the challenges in maintaining an ongoing supply of quality ideas from the crowd over time.

Internet-based business-to-business platforms involve a buyer side transacting with a seller side, both of which are customers of an intermediary platform firm. Dyadic viewpoints implicit in conventional theories of customer orientation thus must be modified to apply to a triadic relationship system (seller-platform-buyer) in platform settings. The authors propose that customer orientation of platform firms consists of total customer orientation (customer orientation toward both the buyer and seller sides) and customer orientation asymmetry (customer orientation in favor of the seller relative to the buyer side) and examine the antecedents and consequences of these orientations. Data from 109 business-to-business electronic platforms reveal that buyer-(seller-) side concentration increases total customer orientation and customer orientation asymmetry toward sellers (buyers). These positive effects are weaker when buyers and sellers interact directly (two-sided matching) versus indirectly (one-sided matching) and are stronger when the offering prices vary (dynamic price discovery) versus remain stable (static price discovery) during negotiations. Finally, total customer orientation increases platform performance by itself and in interaction with customer concentration, but orientation asymmetry increases performance only in conjunction with customer concentration.

Michelle Andrews
Anindya Ghose
Xueming Luo
Zheng Fang

This research examines the effects of hyper-contextual targeting with physical crowdedness on consumer responses to mobile ads. It relies on rich field data from one of the world's largest telecom providers who can gauge physical crowdedness in real-time in terms of the number of active mobile users in subway trains. The telecom provider randomly sent targeted mobile ads to individual users, measured purchase rates, and surveyed purchasers and nonpurchasers. Based on a sample of 14,972 mobile phone users, the results suggest that, counterintuitively, commuters in crowded subway trains are about twice as likely to respond to a mobile offer by making a purchase vis-à-vis those in noncrowded trains. On average, the purchase rates measured 2.1% with fewer than two people per square meter, and increased to 4.3% with five people per square meter, after controlling for peak and off-peak times, weekdays and weekends, mobile use behaviors, and randomly sending mobile ads to users. The effects are robust to exploiting sudden variations in crowdedness induced by unanticipated train delays underground and street closures aboveground. Follow-up surveys provide insights into the causal mechanism driving this result. A plausible explanation is mobile immersion: As increased crowding invades one's physical space, people adaptively turn inwards and become more susceptible to mobile ads. Because crowding is often associated with negative emotions such as anxiety and risk-avoidance, the findings reveal an intriguing, positive aspect of crowding: Mobile ads can be a welcome relief in a crowded subway environment. The findings have economic significance because people living in cities commute 48 minutes each way on average, and global mobile ad spending is projected to exceed $100 billion. Marketers may consider the crowdedness of a consumer's environment as a new way to boost the effectiveness of hyper-contextual mobile advertising.

John C. Liechty
Venkatram Ramaswamy
Steven H. Cohen

Customers are now active collaborators in creating value. Companies are increasingly engaging in mass customization and offering consumers a "choiceboard" (or a menu of choices) of various features and options for configuring their own products and services. The authors discuss the use of experimental choice menus for assessing customers' preferences and price sensitivities for the variety of features and options that might be offered by a firm in its choiceboard. The proposed approach directly analyzes customers' portfolio of choices from each of several experimental menus by estimating the utility for each menu item as a function of its characteristics, its price, and other specific attributes such as multifeature discounts. The authors accommodate customer heterogeneity in the utilities, allow for correlation of the utilities across items, and incorporate constraints in menu choices. Various technical issues and methodological contributions are discussed. The authors illustrate the approach in a commercial application of a customized Web-based information service, which is typical of offerings in the information economy. To assess predictive performance, the authors compare the proposed approach with alternative traditional approaches. The authors conclude with a discussion of the types of insights that can be obtained from this approach to menu choices and the managerial implications of these findings.

Sridhar Narayanan
Kirthi Kalyanam

We investigate the causal effect of position in search engine advertising listings on outcomes such as clickthrough rates and sales orders. Because positions are determined through an auction, there are significant selection issues in measuring position effects. A simple mean comparison of outcomes at two positions is likely to be biased due to these selection issues. Additionally, experimentation is rendered difficult in this situation by competitors' bidding behavior, which induces selection biases that cannot be eliminated by randomizing the bids for the focal advertiser. Econometric approaches to address the selection are rendered infeasible due to the difficulty of finding suitable instruments in this context. We show that a regression discontinuity (RD) approach is feasible to measure causal effects in this important context. We apply the approach to a large and unique data set of daily observations containing information on a focal advertiser as well as its major competitors. Our RD estimates demonstrate that there are significant selection biases in the more naive estimates. While a mean comparison of outcomes across positions would indicate very large position effects, we find that our RD estimates of these effects are much smaller, and exist only in some of the positions. We further investigate moderators of these effects. Position effects are stronger when the advertiser is smaller, and when the consumer has low prior experience with the keyword for the advertiser. They are weaker when the keyword phrase has specific brand or product information, when the ad copy is more specific as in exact matching options, and on weekends compared to weekdays.

The use of coupons delivered by mobile phone, so-called "m-coupons," is growing rapidly. In this study, the authors analyze consumer response to m-coupons for a two-year trial at a large shopping mall. Approximately 8,500 people were recruited to a panel and received three text-message m-coupons whenever they "swiped" their mobile phone at the mall entrances, with downstream redemption recorded. Almost 144,000 m-coupons were delivered during the trial, representing 38 stores that supplied 134 different coupons. The authors find that an important feature of m-coupons is where and when they are delivered, with location and time of delivery significantly influencing redemption. How long the m-coupons are valid (expiry length) is also important because redemption times for m-coupons are much shorter than for traditional coupons. This finding suggests that their expiration length should be shortened to help signal time urgency. Nevertheless, traditional coupon features, such as face value, still dominate m-coupon effectiveness, as does the product type, with snack food coupons being particularly effective.

Paul R. Hoban
Randolph E. Bucklin

This study examines the effects of Internet display advertising using cookie-level data from a field experiment at a financial tools provider. The experiment randomized assignment of cookies to treatment (firm ads) and control conditions (charity ads), enabling the authors to handle different sources of selection bias, including targeting algorithms and browsing behavior. They analyze display ad effects for users at different stages of the company's purchase funnel (i.e., nonvisitor, visitor, authenticated user, and converted customer) and find that display advertising positively affects visitation to the firm's website for users in most stages of the purchase funnel, but not for those who previously visited the site without creating an account. Using a binary logit model, the authors calculate marginal effects and elasticities by funnel stage and analyze the potential value of reallocating display ad impressions across users at different stages. Expected visits increase almost 10% when display ad impressions are partially reallocated from nonvisitors and visitors to authenticated users. The authors also show that results from the controlled experiment data differ significantly from those computed using standard correlational approaches.

Nathan M. Fong
Zheng Fang
Xueming Luo

As consumers spend more time on their mobile devices, a focal retailer's natural approach is to target potential customers in close proximity to its own location. Yet focal (own) location targeting may cannibalize profits on inframarginal sales. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of competitive locational targeting, the practice of promoting to consumers near a competitor's location. The analysis is based on a randomized field experiment in which mobile promotions were sent to customers at three similar shopping areas (competitive, focal, and benchmark locations). The results show that competitive locational targeting can take advantage of heightened demand that a focal retailer would not otherwise capture. Competitive locational targeting produced increasing returns to promotional discount depth, whereas targeting the focal location produced decreasing returns to deep discounts, indicating saturation effects and profit cannibalization. These findings are important for marketers, who can use competitive locational targeting to generate incremental sales without cannibalizing profits. Although the experiment focuses on the effects of unilateral promotions, it represents an initial step in understanding the competitive implications of mobile marketing technologies.