Influence Consumer Evaluations Research Articles

Pension Freedom Day in the United Kingdom: Early evaluation of consumer response

AbstractUnderstanding decumulation decisions in retirement is an important component of public policy that influences pension regulations in aging societies. This research examined a recent, substantial change to pension regulation in the United Kingdom: the newly established flexibility to obtain a lump‐sum payout from personal or occupational pension savings. Conducting an online survey of individual’s eligible to take advantage of the Pension Freedom regulation, we find that almost half of study participants plan to obtain a lump‐sum payout, on average £33,741, intending it for an average of three different investments or purchases. The decision to obtain a lump‐sum withdrawal was related to better knowledge of the new regulation. It was also more likely among older respondents and those not worried about a decline in standard of living during retirement. Dispositional measures did not affect the lump‐sum decision. Close to one‐third of study participants still planned to invest retirement savings into an annuity, especially those who retire at a later age, have concerns about care costs and worry about decline in standard of living in retirement. Comments about the changes to pension regulation were slightly more positive than negative. From our analysis of the effect of the Pension Freedom regulation on savings decumulation decisions, we conclude that the new Pension Freedom regulations do meet consumer demands, and demonstrate that pension knowledge and retirement expectations, in particular, influence consumer evaluations. We further conclude that annuity investments continue to play a role for older adults in the United Kingdom, especially for those concerned about meeting financial needs during retirement.

"Seeing What's Left": The Effect of Position of Transparent Windows on Product Evaluation.

The position of design elements on product packaging has been shown to exert a measurable impact on consumer perception across a number of different studies and product categories. Design elements previously found to influence the consumer through their positioning on the front of pack include product imagery, brand logos, text-based claims, and basic shapes. However, as yet, no empirical research has focused specifically on the relative position of transparent windows; despite the latter being an increasingly prevalent element of many modern packaging designs. This exploratory online study details an experimental investigation of how manipulating the position of a transparent window on a range of visually-presented, novel packaging designs influences consumer evaluations and judgements of the product seen within. Specifically, 110 participants rated 24 different packaging designs (across four product categories: granola, boxed chocolates, pasta, and lemon mousse; each with six window positions: in one of the four quadrants, the top half, or the bottom half) in a within-participants experimental design. Analyses were conducted using Friedman’s tests and Hochberg procedure-adjusted Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Tests. Window position was found to be a non-trivial element of design, with a general preference for windows on the right-hand side being evidenced. Significantly higher scores for expected product tastiness and design attractiveness were consistently identified across all product categories when windows were positioned on the right- vs. left-hand side of the packaging. Effects on the perception of powerfulness, overall liking, quality, and willingness to purchase were identified, but were inconsistent across the different product categories. Very few effects of window verticality were identified, with expected weight of the product not being significantly influenced by window position. The implications of these findings for academics, designers, and brand managers are discussed, with future research directions highlighted.

The 101 calorie mini pack: the interaction between numerical and verbal marketing cues

Research has yet to adequately explore how numerical (e.g., calorie information) and verbal (e.g., size descriptors) food portion cues on product packaging interact to influence consumer evaluations. Thus, this research examines such cues in three studies. Study 1 showed that distinctive numerical cues (99 or 101 rather than 100) were more positively evaluated. Study 2 examined interactions between numerical and verbal cues (bite vs. king size) to show that matching magnitude cues (100 with bite size or 101 with king size) led to higher product evaluations. Study 3 examined the moderating effect of health interest and revealed that inclusion of a verbal cue (vs. none) only mattered when presented in conjunction with a non-distinctive numeric cue (100 calorie) for high health interest consumers. These findings provide insight for marketers and policy makers because, currently, caloric amounts above 50 calories are required to be rounded to the nearest 10 caloric unit (e.g., 100 calorie), but allowing caloric amounts to be exact (99 or 101 calorie) may influence healthier consumption outcomes.

How do pricing and the representation of price affect consumer evaluation of nursery products? A conjoint analysis

This study investigates how pricing and the representation of price (location of price sign, area of price number on price sign, extrinsic cue on price sign) influence consumer evaluation of nursery products. An incomplete orthogonal set of levels for each factor was used in a 35 factorial conjoint analysis. A web-based survey was conducted in March 2015. The results show the four factors account for 50.24% of the variance in plant preference, the other factor (plant type) accounts for the remaining 49.76%. Relative importance decreases from price level (16.15%) to cue (12.27%) to area (11.04%) and location (10.79%). Consumer’s purchase intention varies by demographics. The price level-purchase intention relationship also depends on cue. Benefit cue is more likely to offset the adverse effect of a price increase on purchase intention than feature cue, and the price level-purchase intention relationship for plants with feature/benefit cue appears to be inverted U shape.

Verticality in product labels and shelves as a metaphorical cue to quality

This study investigates how subtle visual cues related to the design of a product's package (i.e., label position) and the context (i.e., shelf orientation) influence consumer evaluation and behavioral intention. Extending research on metaphorical cues, Study 1 shows that consumers perceive a product as more powerful when the label on the package is placed in a higher (vs. lower) vertical position. Extending the focus from package design to the display context of packages, Study 2 shows that consumer perception of a product's power is similarly enhanced when the package is placed on a shelf that is vertically (vs. horizontally) orientated. Across both studies effects of enhanced power perception extend to positively influence product quality inferences and behavioral intentions. These findings add to current knowledge on metaphorical cues in package design and the package's presentation context and offer insights into the underlying mechanism.

Integrative Responses to Culture Mixing in Brand Name Translations

The present research demonstrates that integrative responses to culture mixing, in the context of Western brand names translated into Chinese, can influence consumer evaluations of the products. Specifically, we examine young, educated Chinese consumers’ evaluations of three types of brand name translation: phonosemantic (culturally mixed), semantic (monocultural), and phonetic (monocultural). Results from two studies show that young, educated Chinese consumers who are highly biculturated (i.e., knowledgeable about Western and Chinese cultures) tend to integrate the autonomy values associated with a phonosemantic brand translation, which in turn lead them to evaluate more favorably culturally mixed phonosemantic (vs. monocultural semantic or phonetic) brand translations. At the individual level, favorable attitudes toward culture mixing are more likely to emerge among individuals with a higher (vs. lower) endorsement of autonomy values. At the product level, favorable attitudes toward culture mixing are fostered when consumers encounter products that are higher (vs. lower) in value expressiveness.

PROEMINÊNCIA DA MARCA, AUTOMONITORAMENTO E TEORIA DA FUNÇÃO DE ATITUDE: UMA ANÁLISE SOBRE AVALIAÇÃO DOS ANÚNCIOS

RESUMO Objetivo: Sugerimos uma interação entre a teoria da função de atitude (ajuste social ou expressão de valores), a teoria de automonitoramento e a proeminência da marca (baixa ou alta) para explicar a avaliação de anúncios por meio dos consumidores. Originalidade/lacuna/relevância/implicações: Não evidenciamos estudos que relacionassem os efeitos comportamentais da função de atitude, automonitoramento e proeminência da marca ao comportamento do consumidor, embora a literatura estrangeira nos proporcionasse poucos estudos relacionando função de atitude ou automonitoramento à visibilidade da marca, no entanto sem trazer essa relação tripla utilizada. Principais aspectos metodológicos: Lançamos três hipóteses em dois experimentos fatoriais tipo 2 × 2 × 2 entre grupos elaborados com anúncios de produtos de luxo. Síntese dos principais resultados: Os achados mostraram um efeito interativo entre a teoria da função de atitude e a proeminência da marca, e isso significa que a marca influencia as avaliações dos consumidores sobre a lealdade e a intenção de compra em anúncios com uma atitude fundamentada na expressão de valores. Os resultados indicaram uma interação entre automonitoramento e proeminência da marca. Há maiores níveis de lealdade e atitude para os anúncios sem a proeminência da marca e com baixos níveis de automonitoramento e uma interação entre função de atitude e automonitoramento para explicar o valor percebido. Principais considerações/conclusões: O campo do marketing pode fazer uso dos resultados via comunicação, anunciando produtos de alta proeminência da marca com foco na expressão de valores e para indivíduos com menor automonitoramento, objetivando maior influência da intenção.

Integration and consistency between web and mobile services

Purpose – Attracted by tremendous market opportunities of mobile business, many web services providers have started to expand their web services from traditional PC-based environment into the mobile-based environment. However, success in the web services cannot guarantee the success in the mobile services. The purpose of this paper is to identify factors that influence consumer evaluation and use of mobile shopping services in a web-mobile service extension context. Design/methodology/approach – Based on categorization theory, this paper focusses on the role of integration and consistency between web and mobile services. A research model was created and empirically tested on data collected from 298 mobile shopping users in China. Findings – The structural equation modeling analysis indicates that evaluation of source (web service quality) positively affect evaluation of target (perceived mobile service quality and flow in mobile services). The study also found that the relationships between source and target (perceived integration and perceived consistency) play an important role in determining evaluation of the target, which in turn shapes intention to use mobile services. Research limitations/implications – The survey is based on mobile shopping consumers. Caution is required in any effort to generalize the findings to other research contexts. Factors influencing a consumer's extension or adoption decisions in regard to different mobile services may not be the same, or the degree of influence may differ. Continued studies can test and compare our findings in different mobile services contexts. Practical implications – The results of the findings provide specific methods for managing the process of web-mobile service extension. The results also indicate the importance of perceived consistency in shaping consumers’ evaluation of the extended mobile services in practical environments. Originality/value – The present study extends the categorization theory to a multi-channel context and examines mobile services adoption from a cross-environment perspective. It considers evaluation of source, evaluation of target, and the relationships between source and target, which enriches the innovation adoption literature by providing a holistic insight into the evaluation and use of mobile services.

Anxiety, Sadness, and Emotion Specificity: The Role of Music in Consumer Emotion and Advertisement Evaluation

Although music could diversely influence consumer judgment process and behavior, it is still unclear whether music can evoke discrete emotions on consumers and influence consumer evaluation toward certain advertisements. This research proposes that music could evoke sad and anxious emotion on consumers; subsequently, consumers would regulate their negative emotions in accordance to their emotion orientations: Consumers who feel sad would show high evaluation toward happy-themed advertisement, while consumers who feel anxious would show high evaluation toward calm-themed advertisement. This paper concludes with the discussion of theoretical and practical implications and conclusion of this study.  K eywords : emotion, affect regulation, music psychology, advertising

Let There be Light! An Initial Exploratory Study of Whether Lighting Influences Consumer Evaluations of Packaged Food Products

AbstractThis study investigates how lighting influences consumer evaluations of packaged food products. Fifty‐eight participants evaluated two identical packaged meals (alternated between subjects) in a laboratory setting. The products were stored in a freezer with cold light (blue light‐emitting diode [LED]) on one side and warm light (yellow LED) on the other side. A three‐way mixed multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) revealed that, independent of package color and gender, food products were evaluated more negatively in the cold light than in the warm light in terms of quality, attractiveness and inferred taste. Therefore, lighting may influence consumers' overall evaluations of packaged meals. This finding also highlights the managerial problem whereby the lighting standards that exist at print agencies in order to eliminate ambiguities when making decisions about package design are rare for in‐store lighting. Consequently, products that look attractive at the print agency may look unappealing in a store. The results are discussed in terms of processing fluency and cross‐modal correspondences.Practical ApplicationsThe results of this study are fruitful for sensory scientists interested in how cold versus warm lighting influences the perceived taste, attractiveness and quality of packaged food products. The findings also shed light on the managerial problem caused by packaged products potentially being evaluated in different lights at print agencies (when choosing package colors and design) and in the store. These findings should be relevant for retailers, print agencies and brand owners of packaged products. Given that the lighting in most retail stores is cold, and the present study indicates that cold light has negative effects on overall packaging evaluations, these findings warrant further consideration.

How source cues impact consumer evaluations of direct and indirect persuasion attempts

AbstractThis research demonstrates how the directness of a persuasion attempt by a sales agent, in this case flattery, changes how source cues influence consumers’ evaluation of the shopping experience. When the persuasion attempt is direct, source cues do not influence consumer evaluations. However, when an indirect persuasion attempt is used, it is only effective when positive source cues are present. In particular, when the persuasion attempt is indirect, evaluations are more effective when the sales agent is attractive to or shares similar opinions with the consumer. Copyright © 2013 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Does cause congruence affect how different corporate associations influence consumer responses to cause-related marketing?

This paper investigates how different corporate associations may influence consumer evaluations and purchase intention in response to cause-related marketing (CRM) and whether this impact is contingent on congruence between the cause and the company. Our experimental study, based on 660 participants, reveals that both corporate ability association and corporate social responsibility association may enhance product evaluation; this effect is mediated through company and CRM campaign evaluations. The study also reveals how these evaluations relate to purchase intention. Furthermore, by identifying the interplay between corporate associations and cause congruence, the study’s results suggest that incongruent causes are preferable for companies more strongly associated with corporate ability, whereas congruent causes are preferable for companies more strongly associated with social responsibility.

The Mediated Influence of a Traceability Label on Consumer’s Willingness to Buy the Labelled Product

This paper investigates the effectiveness of a new traceability label on consumer willingness to buy the labelled product and whether the effect is mediated by moral affective evaluations of the product. A between-subjects factorial design was used to test (a) the effect of a new traceability label on willingness to buy a chocolate bar, while controlling for different product features (health disclaimer, product quality) and (b) whether this effect was mediated through the consumer’s moral affective evaluations of the product. A broad sample of 1,064 ordinary Danish consumers was recruited for the study from the panel of an online sample provider (667 women, 397 men), age range 18–80 (M = 46.39, SD = 13.17). We found that the traceability label has a significant impact on consumer willingness to buy a chocolate bar. This impact is mediated by moral affective evaluations of the chocolate bar. Based on the dual process models of persuasion (HSM and ELM), we conclude that consumers mainly process the traceability label in a heuristic way, through a peripheral route, making a fast and frugal, affect-based judgment, rather than one based on elaborate reasoning. Being one of the first empirical studies on the impact of a traceability label on consumer willingness to buy a product, it provides valuable insights for businesses on the effects of a traceability label on consumer behaviour. In addition, it provides new insights on the process through which an ethical label influences consumer evaluations and purchase behaviour. This study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to show that an ethical label influences consumer decision-making through activating a holistic moral affective evaluation of the offering, rather than through strengthening the consumer’s knowledge base for a more qualified reasoning process.

Effects of cognitive age, dispositional time perceptions, and time view manipulations on product attribute evaluations

Researchers manipulate time perceptions in experiments, but the efficacy of such manipulations demands further scrutiny. Two studies test the effects of dispositional time views and time view manipulations on product attribute evaluations, as well as the interaction between cognitive age and manipulated time perceptions and that between dispositional and manipulated time perceptions. The results suggest that time manipulation drives and predicts consumer product evaluations. In addition, cognitive age interacts with time manipulation as a meaningful moderator/predictor, and dispositional time view interacts with time manipulation to influence consumer evaluations. An incongruency effect (i.e., a time manipulation condition that differs from consumers' time perceptions) occurs for hedonic attribute evaluations but not for utilitarian attribute evaluations. The research offers several managerial implications of these findings.

An Exploration of Social Stimuli Influencing the Student Sightseeing Tour Experience

The social aspect of group touring is of critical importance to tour members and travel providers, even within limited duration group travel such as sightseeing tours. However, scant attention has been paid to individual and contextual elements that influence positive social interactions between group travelers. To address this knowledge gap, this study explores group traveler motives, characteristics, and situational factors which can contribute to forming more socially oriented travel experiences, and investigates how these elements influence consumer evaluations within the student sightseeing tour context. Utilizing focus groups, interviews and surveys, this research investigates the role of eight social stimuli on key marketing outcomes, including satisfaction, word of mouth, and repeat intention. Four stimuli—mood, perceived similar interests, cultural motives, and extroversion—were found to significantly influence respondent evaluations and intentions. Based on these findings, recommendations for tour companies and guides are given and future research directions are suggested.

Research Opportunities Related to Consumer Response to Product Design*

This essay identifies five research opportunities that concern consumer response to product design. The first opportunity involves the need for more research on the interaction between form and function in consumer product evaluations. To this end, more knowledge about how product appearance characteristics influence consumer evaluation of both product form and function, and how this differs between countries and in time, is needed. The second research opportunity concerns the influence of consumer input in the front end of new product development on product success. Although the positive effect of market information use on product success is known, more actionable insight into which consumer information or input is beneficial in which circumstances is largely missing. The third opportunity for research concerns how to include subjective product attributes in concept testing. Getting valid feedback from consumers, which includes functional as well as emotional and experiential aspects, can improve proficiency in the early stages of product development. In this essay, several ways of approaching this research endeavor are highlighted. Next to enhancing market receipt and the assessment of product design, two topics that concern consumer response to product design from a more managerial viewpoint are identified. The first of these is strategic management of product styling. The importance and opportunities of visual design for brand management has gained more attention in the literature; different strategies and the cases in which they are beneficial are issues for further research. And finally, the design of product service systems (PSSs) provides opportunities for future research. Here, engendering perceptual unity between products and services and an explicit managing of meanings and feelings that PSSs should communicate are issues at play.

Consumer culture brand positioning strategies: an experimental investigation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of global consumer culture positioning (GCCP) in comparison to local consumer culture positioning (LCCP) strategies on consumer evaluations of a new unknown brand.Design/methodology/approachUsing an experimental method in the USA and India, the paper examines if the use of such positioning strategies in a print advertisement stimuli influence consumer evaluations of a fictitious brand.FindingsThe results support the effectiveness of such strategies as demonstrated by overall improvement in subjects' attitudinal evaluations of the fictitious brand when GCCP is used relative to the use of LCCP. Furthermore, our results show a moderation effect for subjects' level of belief in global citizenship on the effectiveness of the GCCP strategy. These results were observed across the two samples.Research limitations/implicationsThis study provides valuable managerial insights into the potential value of GCCP strategy and offers specific strategic positioning guides to brand managers competing in the global marketplace.Originality/valueWith the emergence of global market segments, it is important to assist brand managers seeking to strengthen their brand's equity in a competitive global marketplace. This paper contributes to the literature on international brand positioning by empirically investigating the usefulness of GCCP as a strategic positioning guide for global marketing managers.

How do consumers react to physically larger models? Effects of model body size, weight control beliefs and product type on evaluations and body perceptions

The purpose of this article is to examine how a consumer's weight control beliefs (WCB), a female advertising model's body size (slim or large) and product type influence consumer evaluations and consumer body perceptions. The study uses an experiment of 371 consumers. The design of the experiment was a 2 (weight control belief: internal, external) X 2 (model size: larger sized, slim) X 2 (product type: weight controlling, non-weight controlling) between-participants factorial design. Results reveal two key contributions. First, larger sized models result in consumers feeling less pressure from society to be thin, viewing their actual shape as slimmer relative to viewing a slim model and wanting a thinner ideal body shape. Slim models result in the opposite effects. Second this research reveals a boundary condition for the extent to which endorser–product congruency theory can be generalized to endorsers of a larger body size. Results indicate that consumer WCB may be a useful variable to consider when marketers consider the use of larger models in advertising.

Does the Country of Origin (COO) of Food Products Influence Consumer Evaluations? An Empirical Examination of Ham and Cheese

The present study attempts to assess the impact of the COO effect on the evaluation of specific food products by Greek consumers. This issue has been examined exhaustively in the international literature, albeit there are very few studies concerning food products. A particular effort is geared toward measuring consumers' ethnocentric tendency as antecedent to the appearance of the COO effect and examining the level at which the latter is activated (product or attribute-specific). In this respect, consumer attitude (dis)similarities toward product types are analysed with exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Data were collected though personal interviews with a sample of 274 respondents, which compared two food products of Greek origin (ham and yellow cheese) to their counterparts from Italy and the Netherlands. Results indicate that respondents exhibit a marginally ethnocentric tendency. Overall, a more thorough analysis justified only minor differences between the competing products at the attribute level, although the study reveals the existence of COO effect activated at the product-level.

Consumer responses to brand elimination: An attributional perspective

While research on innovation and new product development abounds in the literature, studies on firms deleting brands from their portfolio are virtually non-existent. This paper provides a pioneering examination of how brand elimination might influence consumer evaluations of the firm. As compared to a widely-held belief that brand elimination would adversely affect firm image, we propose that in situations where brand elimination can be viewed as the firm's effort to improve performance, consumers will rate this action favorably, with concomitant outcomes relating to firm evaluation. These ideas are supported in three studies. Study 1 finds that elimination targeting a weak (vs. strong) brand is more likely to be associated with eliminate-to-improve attributions, and consequently, more favorable evaluations. Study 2 shows that explanations provided by the firm (as against explanations generated internally by the consumers) help consumers make positive attributions for elimination targeting a strong brand, but lower evaluations when a weak brand is being eliminated. Study 3 establishes that loyal consumers are more likely to assess the applicability of an ‘eliminate-to-improve’ attribution and give favorable evaluations only when the eliminated brand is weak. Non-loyal consumers in general respond favorably to the elimination, regardless of brand strength. Future directions for brand elimination research are discussed.