Journal of Interactive Marketing

Cohort-level retention rates typically increase over time, and the beta-geometric (BG) distribution has proven to be a robust model for capturing and projecting these patterns into the future. According to this model, the phenomenon of increasing cohort-level retention rates is purely due to cross-sectional heterogeneity; an individual customer's propensity to churn does not change over time. In this paper we present the beta-discrete-Weibull (BdW) distribution as an extension to the BG model, which allows individual-level churn probabilities to increase or decrease over time. In addition to capturing the phenomenon of increasing cohort-level retention rates, this new model can also accommodate situations in which there is an initial dip in retention rates before they increase (i.e., a U-shaped cohort-level retention curve). A key finding is that even when aggregate retention rates are monotonically increasing, the individual-level churn probabilities are unlikely to be declining over time, as conventional wisdom would suggest. We carefully explore these connections between heterogeneity, duration dependence, and the shape of the retention curve, and draw some managerially relevant conclusions, e.g., that accounting for cross-sectional heterogeneity is more important than accounting for any individual-level dynamics in churn propensities.

Native advertising is a relatively new form of online advertising that matches the format of surrounding non-advertising content. The fact that native advertising blends into its context risks deceiving consumers who may be unaware the content they are viewing is actually advertising. Article-style native advertising, a native ad form that mimics the style of online news articles, is particularly concerning since consumers may not expect advertising to appear in such a format. Such concern is supported by research finding low efficacy of traditional disclosures on article-style native advertisements. We investigate a novel means of increasing ad recognition through the use of companion banner advertising. Across two experiments we demonstrate that inclusion of a companion banner boosts consumer recognition of the paid nature of article-style native advertising to the same degree as a traditional disclosure. In both cases we also find that the negative reactions caused by ad recognition are muted when a native ad is perceived as having higher sponsorship transparency. These effects occur for both familiar and unfamiliar brands. Taken together, results not only detail the efficacy of a new means of achieving adequate disclosure, but also develop greater understanding of how consumers respond to article-style native advertising.

Fans of a brand attack fans of rival brands on social media. Given the nature of such rival brand fan attacks, managers are unsure about how much control they should exercise on brand-negative comments on their owned social media touchpoints, and what brand actions drive these Attack, Defense and Across (ADA) posts. Multimethod analysis identifies ADA's impact across industries of technology, fast food, toothpaste, beverages, and sports apparel. Sentiment analysis identifies that fans posting in both communities stimulate both brand-negative and brand-positive comments. Despite their relatively low prevalence (1–6% of all posts), ADA posts induce broader social-media brand engagement as they substantially increase and prolong the effects of managerial control variables such as communication campaigns and new-product introductions. Brand managers, thus, have specific levers to stimulate the positive consequences of rival brand fan posting on their owned media.

Soliciting novel ideas from the crowd is a paradigm shift for innovation that gains increasing attention from researchers and practitioners. However, studies examining the relationship between the novelty of crowdsourced ideas and firms’ idea adoption decisions are surprisingly rare. This research adopts the path-of-least-resistance (POLR) theory as a new theoretical angle to examine the role of idea feasibility as a key heuristic cue mediating the effect of idea novelty on adoption decisions. We further explore factors that may amplify or mitigate this mediation. Using data collected from a laboratory experiment and a firm-sponsored crowdsourcing community, we reveal that firms tend to follow the POLR by using idea feasibility as meta-information to evaluate novel ideas in their idea adoption decisions. However, this tendency depends on external stimuli and constraints, such that the mediation of idea feasibility exists only when idea favorability from the crowd is low or when an ideator's prior ideation participation is high. Our supplementary study further offers preliminary insights on the extension of our proposed effects to the ultimate success of adopted ideas. These findings illuminate a better understanding of firms’ idea adoption decisions and suggest ways to manage idea crowdsourcing effectively for new product/service development and improvements.

The goal of this research is to explore the transformational power of a new consumption and production practice, the practice of blogging, to understand its impact on consumers’ identity transformations beyond their self-concept as consumers and on the blogosphere as an organizational field. Through an exploratory study of over 12,000 blog posts from five fashion bloggers, complemented by in-depth interviews, we trace the transformation of consumer bloggers. We identify and describe three identity phases, the individual consumer, collective blogger and blogger identity phase, and two important turning points. Our findings show that through a continuous process of identity negotiation, adaptation, and re-interpretation with multiple stakeholders, these bloggers transform into human brands. In turn, these individual transformation processes reciprocally influence the emergence of blogging as a professional practice and of the blogosphere as a new organizational field. These findings contribute to a theoretical understanding of consumer transformation processes in a new field, where consumers can leave their role as consumers through continuously engaging in identity negotiation, adaptation and re-interpretation, creating alternative points of reference and validation in a new field that in turn continues to influence their brand identity. Furthermore, our findings contribute to an understanding of human brands from a brand-as-process perspective, and have implications for brands wishing to collaborate with these influential actors.

As social media marketing becomes more pervasive, questions continue to emerge regarding utilizing the medium strategically to maximize positive brand-related outcomes. Marketers are increasingly seeking guidance for targeting consumers who will interact and behave in ways that are meaningful to the brand on social media. Understanding how individual differences among consumers can influence social media behaviors linked to valuable organizational outcomes is crucial for managers seeking to justify social media marketing expenditures. This research addresses that issue by applying Attachment Theory to social media. In Study 1, we examine the roles of two individual difference factors, attitude toward social media and attachment to social media (ASM), in predicting token and meaningful behaviors on social media. We find that while attitude toward social media and ASM are both related to token behaviors, only ASM predicts meaningful behaviors. In Study 2, we investigate attachment and attitude toward the brand and social media as predictors of offline and social media brand advocacy and demonstrate that individuals who are attached to or have a positive attitude toward the brand are more likely to engage in offline advocacy. Further, ASM adds incremental explanatory power, beyond attitude and attachment to the brand, in predicting advocacy via social media. In Study 3, we examine likelihood of advocating for a brand via social media as a moderator and find that even consumers who are not likely to be offline advocates are more likely to advocate for the brand on social media if they are strongly attached to social media. In sum, the results indicate that ASM is an important predictor of meaningful social media behaviors and is a new means by which marketers can identify consumers who are more likely to perform meaningful behaviors for brands via social media.

Gamification has recently become a popular topic in marketing practice. It is perceived as being a promising way to provide improved consumer experiences and to positively influence consumer behavior. An inherent characteristic of gamification is the gameful experience of consumers when using a gamified application. However, no existing measure captures the gameful experience consumers feel when they engage with gamified applications. Based on an extensive literature review and six consecutive studies, the authors develop and validate a new gameful experience scale [GAMEX] for measuring gameful experience in gamification. The results confirm that the GAMEX is a reliable and valid measure, which is useful for both, researchers and practitioners, and easy to apply in different gamification settings.

Through the proliferation of channels and ways to engage in these channels, customers today have an unprecedented range of options to individualize their customer journey. This study investigated the underlying and overt reasons for customers’ interaction choices using focus groups, expert interviews, and laddering interviews with motor insurance customers to make three central contributions. First, omnichannel customer journeys are inherently individualistic but driven by effects that apply to any single interaction, sequencing effects, and customer journey patterns. The latter pertain to sections of the journey that cover multiple interactions and include both research shopping and the novel impersonalization/interactivity reduction effects. Second, the analysis of customers’ underlying reasons for interaction choices provides novel explanations for these effects and indicates why customers’ search efforts regarding motor insurance are limited. Third, four types of value-in-use that customers seek in their interactions were found to be the ultimate underlying motives and are suggested to segment customers more effectively than the predominant efforts that rely on observable interaction behavior.

In the globalized industry of online travel agencies, it is well known that providing culturally customized reviews can attract more customers by sharing similarity-oriented experiences. Given the importance of culturally customized reviews, if national cultures lead to systematic differences in the review generating process, it is necessary to examine whether culturally customized information would be useful in customers’ decision-making processes and whether customers prefer online travel agencies providing such information. The objective of this research is to investigate whether (1) culturally customized review information based on nationality might have an influence on consumers’ intention to recommend an agency, and whether (2) cultural differences have differential impacts on review posting in terms of the valence and dispersion of review ratings and textual contents of reviews. We find that customers from Western societies, such as the U.K. and the U.S., tend to be positively predisposed and that the dispersion of their ratings is significantly less for hotels in Beijing where they stayed compared to that of Chinese customers. Furthermore, using two experimental surveys, we reveal that customers regard the average review rating from review posters with same cultural background as more useful than those from all reviewers in their decision-making process.

Dependable online payment systems (e-payments) are fundamental in promoting future online purchases. Yet little research has focused on either the differences between secure and risky e-payments or consumer reactions to the different systems. This study reverts to neuroscience (fMRI) to 1) identify the neural effects pertaining to risky and secure e-payments and 2) reveal the underlying brain mechanisms when confronted with two widespread systems: debit cards and Paypal. Thirty subjects participated in an experiment simulating a low-involvement online purchase. The analysis reveals that perceived risky e-payments activate brain areas linked to negative emotional processing, while areas involved with reward prediction are strongly triggered by secure e-payments. Furthermore, the study not only reveals a greater intention of use toward Paypal, but sees it as more secure, rewarding and affective. Debit card e-payments, by contrast, elicit brain activations associated with negative and risky events. Interestingly, the right cerebellum response (responsible for value encoding) covaried with more positive use intention toward Paypal. These results offer invaluable insight into the unconscious origin of the choice of payment systems among consumers.

Sharing experiences with peers through online reviews has amplified the impacts of individual articulations on the reputations of firms across many industries. With employee review sites, current and former employees share their positive and negative experiences with their company, which has become an increasingly important aspect for reputation management and for job seekers’ decision-making on where to apply. In the present study, the effects of discrepant reviews (i.e., reviews with a high variance in company evaluations) are examined in the context of employer review sites. In particular, we investigate how review discrepancy, persuasion knowledge activation, and constructive company responses affect job seekers’ trust in the company and the resulting application intentions. In our preliminary study, we analyzed a sample of 25,827 published company reviews on the German employee rating site Kununu.de. The results revealed that high levels of discrepant reviews for the same company exist, thus underlining the need for additional studies. In our main study, a 2 (review discrepancy) × 2 (persuasion knowledge activation) × 2 (company response) between-subject-design experiment was conducted with 311 respondents. We find that high levels of discrepancies lead to increased intentions to avoid submitting applications to the focal company and reduced intentions to pursue employment. This study complements the research concerning online reputation by highlighting the relevance of discrepant reviews for job seekers’ application intentions.