1,721,063 research outputs found
Guest editorial: Artificial intelligence application and future research directions in interactive marketing
No full textReconceptualizing eWOM communication: an interactive perspective
No full textThis chapter reconceptualizes eWOM communication through the theoretical lens of interactive marketing. Focusing on the interactivity of eWOM, this chapter develops a new typology of eWOM media based on their functionality, information types, and interactivity. Beyond the customer-to-customer communication in eWOM, this chapters take a managerial perspective to categorize and evaluate proactive and reactive eWOM strategies. This chapter develops a future research agenda that has implications for potential research and the practices of interactive eWOM
Artificial intelligence-enabled personalization in interactive marketing: a customer journey perspective
No full textPurpose: Artificial intelligence (AI) technology has revolutionized customers' interactive marketing experience. Although there have been a substantial number of studies exploring the application of AI in interactive marketing, personalization as an important concept remains underexplored in AI marketing research and practices. This study aims to introduce the concept of AI-enabled personalization (AIP), understand the applications of AIP throughout the customer journey and draw up a future research agenda for AIP. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing upon Lemon and Verhoef's customer journey, the authors explore relevant literature and industry observations on AIP applications in interactive marketing. The authors identify the dilemmas of AIP practices in different stages of customer journeys and make important managerial recommendations in response to such dilemmas. Findings: AIP manifests itself as personalized profiling, navigation, nudges and retention in the five stages of the customer journey. In response to the dilemmas throughout the customer journey, the authors developed a series of managerial recommendations. The paper is concluded by highlighting the future research directions of AIP, from the perspectives of conceptualization, contextualization, application, implication and consumer interactions. Research limitations/implications: New conceptual ideas are presented in respect of how to harness AIP in the interactive marketing field. This study highlights the tensions in personalization research in the digital age and sets future research agenda. Practical implications: This paper reveals the dilemmas in the practices of personalization marketing and proposes managerial implications to address such dilemmas from both the managerial and technological perspectives. Originality/value: This is one of the first research papers dedicated to the application of AI in interactive marketing through the lenses of personalization. This paper pushes the boundaries of AI research in the marketing field. Drawing upon AIP research and managerial issues, the authors specify the AI–customer interactions along the touch points in the customer journey in order to inform and inspire future AIP research and practices.</p
Excessive information on social media and Generation Z’s long-term COVID-19 vaccine advocacy: a post-pandemic perspective
No full textPurpose: social media played an irreplaceable role in young people’s online social life and information consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research focuses on the impact of excessive information on social media about COVID-19 vaccines on Generation Z’s (Gen Z) associated psychological states and long-term vaccine advocacy.Design/methodology/approach: the research conducted structural equation modeling analysis with online survey data from 409 Gen Z citizens in the UK.Findings: the findings suggest that excessive information increased Gen Z social media users’ ambivalence and conspiracy beliefs around COVID-19 vaccines, which, in turn, reduced their long-term vaccine advocacy in terms of vaccine acceptance, vaccination intention, and vaccine promotion. Importantly, Gen Z’s confidence in government and in the healthcare systems during COVID-19 were effective in helping them overcome the detrimental effects of conspiracy beliefs and ambivalence about long-term vaccine advocacy, respectively.Originality/value: this research reveals the ‘dark side’ of social media use in the post-pandemic period and highlights the significant roles played by social institutions in mitigating the detrimental effects of Gen Z’s support in social decisions. Beyond the context of COVID-19, this research has important implications for facilitating the civic engagement of Gen Z and boosting their confidence in social institutions in terms of social cohesion.<br/
Strengthening consumer-brand relationships through avatars
No full textPurpose: Avatars have become increasingly prevalent on brand websites, yet their impact on consumers’ use of these sites remains underexplored. The current study focuses on avatars, which are three-dimensional animated graphical web interfaces that verbally aid the brand stakeholders (e.g., customers, employees, and suppliers). Avatars provide administrative and technical information through the brand website. Drawing upon the stimuli-organism-response (S-O-R) paradigm, this research examines the impact of avatars as an information provision and interacting tool (vs. a traditional format) on consumers’ perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors toward a brand. It also investigates the roles of familiarity with avatar use and the language used by an avatar in shaping consumers’ responses.Design/methodology/approach: Across two laboratory experiments, the authors examined and confirmed causal relationships between the use of avatars (vs. a traditional format) on a website and attitudinal and behavioral constructs.Findings: We show that avatars (vs. written information) had a significant effect on controlling information. The users in our experiments had greater control over the information provided when it was presented as text on a website compared to the case of avatars “telling” the information. Different languages and familiarity with avatar use also affected the consumers’ hedonism in terms of website use.Originality: We advance understanding of avatar use in website design, particularly avatars’ verbal interaction, in shaping consumers’ cognitive, affective, attitudinal, and behavioral response and add important empirical evidence to the growing body of research and practices involving using avatars in interactive marketing. <br/
The More the Better vs. Less is More: Strategic Alliances, Bricolage and Social Performance in Social Enterprises
Full text linkSocial enterprises (SEs) seek effective resource mobilization strategies that can translate resources into improved performance, thereby achieving their social missions. Strategic alliances offer SEs access to various resources, and bricolage helps SEs mobilize the assets at hand by ‘making do with everything available’. However, the dynamics between the two strategies and their impact on the SEs’ performance remain underexplored. Drawing upon a resource-based view through an input-process-output lens and integrating resource dependence theory, this study explores the mechanism of strategic alliances, bricolage, and social impact scaling and investigates the role of entrepreneurial orientation within it. Using evidence drawn from a survey of 278 Chinese social firms, this research views strategic alliances and bricolage as an effective ‘strategic bundle’ for improving SEs’ social performance and sheds new light on the bricolage-mediated resource management mechanism within SEs. We suggest that social entrepreneurs practice alliance-specific bricolage strategies to convert resources into superior social performance
COVID-19 information overload and generation Z’s social media discontinuance intention during the pandemic lockdown
No full textWhile previous research highlights the benefits of social media in times of a pandemic, this research focuses on the potential dark side of social media use among Generation Z (Gen Z) in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown between March and May 2020. The study reveals that COVID-19 information overload through social media had a negative impact on Gen Z social media users’ psychological well-being. Moreover, perceived information overload heightened both social media fatigue and fear of COVID-19, which, in turn, increased users’ social media discontinuance intention. In addition, considering that social media is the predominant method of maintaining connectivity with others for Gen Z users during the lockdown, the fear of missing out (FoMO) buffered the impact of social media fatigue and fear of COVID-19 on Gen Z users’ social media discontinuance intention. Our research adds a hitherto underexplored perspective to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on young people’s mental health. We offer a series of practical suggestions for social media users, social media platform providers, and health officials, institutions, and organizations in the effective and sustainable use of social media during the global COVID-19 pandemic and in the post-pandemic time
“If Only…”: Customer Counterfactual Thinking in Failed Recovery
No full textPurpose - Our goal is to examine counterfactual thinking as a key mediator of effects of failed recovery (vs. failed delivery) on negative electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). We further investigate the effectiveness of using recovery co-creation in minimizing customers’ counterfactual thinking. Design/methodology/approach - This research includes textual analysis of online reviews (Study 1) and three scenario-based experiments (Studies 2, 3a, and 3b). In addition to using item-response scales, we analyze negative online reviews and participants’ open-ended responses to capture their counterfactual thinking.Findings - Failed recovery (vs. failed delivery) increases counterfactual thinking, which in turn increases negative eWOM. These mediating effects of counterfactual thinking are consistent across textual analyses and experimental studies, as well as across different measures of counterfactual thinking. Counterfactual thinking also impacts customer anger in experiments; however, anger alone does not explain the effects of failed recovery on negative eWOM. Counterfactual thinking can be minimized by co-created recovery, especially when it is used proactively. Practical implications - Our findings demonstrate the detrimental effects of counterfactual thinking and offer managerial insights into co-creation as a strategy to minimize customers’ counterfactual thinking. We also highlight the importance and ways of tracking counterfactual thinking in digital outlets.Originality/value - We contribute to counterfactual thinking and service recovery research by demonstrating the effects of failed recovery on counterfactual thinking that in turn impacts negative eWOM and offering a novel way to measure its expression in online narratives. We provide guidance on how to utilize co-creation in the service recovery process to minimize counterfactual thinking. <br/
Influencer marketing within business-to-business organisations
Full text linkThis study explores the dynamics of influencer marketing in the B2B sector by drawing on employee advocacy, customer reference marketing and organisational endorsement theories, explicating the strategic application of influencer marketing in the B2B context, and revealing the challenges in influencer marketing faced by B2B organisations. We conducted twenty-two in-depth semi-structured interviews with senior management marketing professionals across different sectors. Our analysis of these narratives shows that B2B marketers advocate the concept of ‘influential marketing’ by differentiating it from the concept of influencer marketing in the B2C market. B2B influential marketing connotes trustworthiness, expertise, professionalism, and exchange of know-how, all of which are rooted in long-term and industry-specific relationships and business networks. This research contributes to the theorisation of B2B influential marketing by developing an integrated framework that deciphers the process of its strategic implementation. The vital managerial contributions in our study highlight the specific considerations for influential marketing in B2B organisations
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