Anca Cristina Micu

Measurable Emotions: How Television Ads Really Work

ABSTRACT Emotional responses are complex and should be measured against a variety of metrics. Five advertising research companies spanning three physiological (GSR, HRT, and facial EMG), one symbolic (ZMET), and three self-report (verbal, visual, and moment-to-moment) measures tested the effectiveness of the same four television commercials. This study compared and contrasted the physiological, symbolic, and self-report measure results and found they should be used in combination, depending on the information needed. Traces from the physiological measures indicate the peaks of lower-order emotions. Self-report measures capture conscious emotional reactions using preset labels. Symbolic measures provide a mental map of the brand. The authors suggest brand managers could use different criteria in setting the advertising objectives and reorient the creative briefing process. Emotional experiences are co-created, and advertising planning should link the “brand story” with a consumers “life story.”

Leveraging News and Advertising to Introduce New Brands on the Web

ABSTRACT Previous studies using the integrated marketing communications framework have examined the increased effectiveness of combining either multiple media or different tactics when promoting a brand. This study considers integrating advertising and publicity to promote an unknown brand on the Internet. Experiment results indicate that when exposure to advertising combines with exposure to objective news about a new brand, effectiveness increases in terms of both brand attitudes and behavioral intentions. For sequencing exposures for technical brands, the news-then-advertising condition offers more effectiveness than the reverse sequence. When introducing non-technical brands on the Web though, using advertising first is more effective in terms of brand attitudes.

The Shape of Marketing Research in 2021

It’s humbling when I think back 10 years: no broadband, no social media, no smartphones, no 50-inch LED TVs, no DVRs, no e-readers, no iPods, and Google hadn’t had its IPO. The term “co-creation” barely was taking off—now my company is into “crowdsourcing” [Howe, 2006; Whitla, 2009]. In the last decade, many industries went through what Andy Grove labeled “strategic-inflection points”— those moments when the balance of forces shifted from the old structure and the old ways of doing business and competing, to new ones [Grove, 1996]: the music business, the book business, the publishing business, even the original Internet leader, AOL. Will my business be next? What will be the “normal” 10 years from now? What will be the “next big things?” I do know that “digitization of everything” will be the mantra. I am certain the rate of change will keep accelerating—after all, Facebook went from nothing to 500 million users in just 6 years. And we finally realized that we marketers are not in control anymore. I know that Internet access anywhere will be a given; that geo-marketing will be pervasive; that retail environments will be transformed by digital technologies; that smartphone capabilities will be far more advanced; that RFID will have a big impact (even though I can’t tell how big); that privacy will be even more of an issue. And none of this even touches changes that won’t be driven by technology: the global economic balance of power will shift substantially in the next decade, driven by the BRIC economies and led by China. I also know that all of this is only the tip of the iceberg—I just can’t see the eight-ninths beneath the surface yet. The basics of marketing don’t change: I still need to identify, develop, and market products and services that satisfy customer needs even as they keep me ahead of the competition. I must do a better job in several ways. I need to be better at anticipating the future, at sensing consumer and customer needs, at being faster to market, at communicating and interacting with consumers and customers, at understanding and delivering against consumer needs around the world, and at recognizing potential inflexion points that could either bring great potential or destroy my business. I wonder what the “new normal” will be...

Examining search as opposed to experience goods when investigating synergies of internet news articles and banner ads

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the applicability of the economics of information-driven product categorization – search vs experience products – when investigating online brand advertising and news synergies. Design/methodology/approach – Randomized controlled post-test experiment with over 400 participants in three treatment groups involving exposures to paid advertising (banner ad-plus-banner ad) and publicity (news article-plus-banner ad and banner ad-plus-news article) for four products. Questionnaire upon web site exit tested differences in brand attitudes among treatment groups and product categories. Findings – Findings indicate that including news about the brand in the online brand communication mix – either before or after ads – generates higher brand attitude scores for experience products. For search products sequence matters and brand attitudes are more positive when consumers are exposed to news articles first followed by advertisements. Research limitations/implications –...

Exploring Social Media Engagement Behaviors in the Context of Luxury Brands

Content analysis of in-person interviews with luxury shoppers in Paris identified 11 discrete social media engagement behaviors. Findings indicate that consumer engagement behaviors (CEBs) have different potential for luxury brand cocreation depending on their intended audience, degree of applied effort and creativity, complexity of motivations, and dominant content creation style, but not on choice of social media platform. Luxury marketers can preserve their unique positioning in social media by offering top-quality visual content reinforcing the desired brand associations to (a) generate active and creative behaviors by influentials and (b) promote low-effort, high-virality behaviors by consumers motivated by less complex needs.

The Passive Shopping Stage: Keeping in Mind Brand Encounters

In marketing practice, brand managers have to split their budgets between brand advertising efforts and sales promotions. This is a tough decision and is based on several factors including the type of product and the preferences of the target consumer. In this study, the consumer purchase decision making process is conceptualized as a continuum from a passive shopping stage to an active one. Advertising messages work during the passive stage while promotion messages work during the active one. Utilizing panel data obtained from respondents in five European countries, multiple product categories were examined to identify whether pre-purchase brand attitudes determine consumer purchase decision reliance on either passive or active stage brand messages. The author investigated whether patterns hold across countries and product categories. The study also examined to what extent reliance on passive stage messages in a product category is affected by either the aggregate satisfaction or loyalty with the brands available on the market in that category.