Alexander Muk

Driving Consumers to Become Fans of Brand Pages: A Theoretical Framework

The purpose of this study is to examine factors that affect consumers’ intentions to join brand pages. The findings suggest that utilitarian and hedonic values of advertising on social networks enhance users’ positive attitudes toward brand pages. Belongingness has a positive effect on subjective norm. Both the attitudes toward brand pages and subjective norm variables are significant predictors of consumers’ intentions to join brand pages. However, subjective norm affects intentions to join brand pages more than attitudes toward brand pages do. The conceptual framework underlying the theoretical model provides a useful basis for explaining consumers’ intentions to become fans of brand pages.

A Cross-National Study of the Influence of Individualism and Collectivism on Liking Brand Pages

ABSTRACT. The purpose of this study is to examine cultural differences between young American (individualist) and Korean (collectivist) consumers’ intentions to become brand page fans. The theory of planned behavior serves as the theoretical underpinning to investigate the relationships between consumers’ attitudes, perceived behavioral control, social influence, intentions to join, and intentions to purchase. The findings reveal that intracultural effects influence young consumers’ intentions to join brand pages in both countries. The interdependent self has a stronger impact on attitudes, social influence, and perceived behavioral control than the independent self. The findings provide marketers with ideas for implementing social media marketing communications programs in the global marketplace.

The Effects of Individualism and Collectivism on Brand Page Fans: A Study of Young US and Chinese Consumers—An Abstract

Social networking sites (SNS) have become the primary source of information. American marketers set up brand pages on SNS to interact and communicate with their customers. However, SNS studies focused mainly on Western consumers’ behaviors, and very little research focuses on Chinese consumers’ brand page perceptions. By examining young American and Chinese consumers to join brand pages on SNS, this study may provide a better understanding of brand page effects on brand-consumer relationships in a cross-cultural context.

Online Shoppers’ Social Media Usage and Shopping Behavior

Social media includes various contact methods such as social networking, user-sponsored blogs, multimedia sites, company-sponsored websites, collaborative websites, podcasts, etc. Most online shoppers indicate that they visit e- retail websites on a social networking site and that website visiting affects consumer purchase intention. The purpose of this study is to examine how attitudes toward product messages on social media sites affect impulsive shopping behavior and hedonic shopping value.

A Cross-National Study of Consumer Beliefs, Attitudes and Behaviors Toward Liking Brand Page

Since the advent of social networking sites (SNS), marketers have tried to find out how to best use them to communicate their marketing messages to consumers. Brand pages on social networking sites are a form of brand community that allows advertisers to foster relationships and interact with consumers. The participatory culture in the SNS context also makes consumers more willingly to connect with their favorite brands on SNS. However, in a cross-cultural context, consumers’ perceptions of SNS advertising may differ in various aspects like cultures, beliefs and values. The way American consumers perceive brand pages may be different from the perceptions among Asian consumers. This study focuses on examining attitudes and social influence that may affect consumers to like brand pages on social networking sites and has selected to investigate the differences between U.S. and South Korean consumers. A theoretical framework is developed to investigate hedonic and utilitarian values as antecedents that drive consumers’ attitudes toward brand pages and examine the relationships between electronic-word-of-mouth communication (eWOM), consumers’ belongingness and social influence. The findings reveal that both the attitude and social influence variables are significant predictors of the American and Korean consumers’ intentions to become fans of brand pages. Their positive attitudes toward brand pages are strongly related to the utilitarian values derived from accessing SNS advertising. To the Korean consumers both the informational (utilitarian) and pleasurable (hedonic) aspects of accessing SNS advertising enhance their positive attitudes toward brand pages. On the other hand, utilitarian values have a much stronger effect on motivating American consumers to follow brands on social networks. The positive attitude-intention relationship suggests that the more consumers like to access SNS advertising, the higher the likelihood they will become fans of brand pages on social networking sites. The findings also suggest that American and Korean consumers’ intentions to join brand pages are positively related to the social influence exerted on them by their important referents. The eWOM effects on social influence are stronger than the belonging effects in both countries. The strong effects of eWOM appear to be significantly related to the pass along behaviors in communication. Korean respondents’ attitudes towards brand pages are significantly different from those of the U.S. respondents. The results imply that young American perceptions toward the brand pages seem more positive than their Korean counterparts.

The Effectiveness of Comparative Advertising: Examining Consumers’ Perspectives in Different Cultures

Comparative advertising can effectively encourage consumers to engage in relative judgments that generate either an association or differentiation effect (Chang 2007). US rationalize that explicit comparative ads provide consumers more information and lead to more effective decision-making in the consumption process (Barry 1993). However, Europe and Asia witness less comparative ads for regulation and cultural reasons (Choi and Miracle 2004). This study examines the factors affect purchase intention and compares the differences between US and Taiwanese consumers in comparative advertising conditions.