Frauke Mattison Thompson

Loyalty programs in emerging and developed markets: the impact of cultural values on loyalty program choice

Loyalty programs increase customers’ repeat purchase behavior and reward their continued patronage by enhancing the firms value proposition. Yet little is known about how cultural values affect loyalty program choice as firms expand abroad. This understanding is important because multinational corporations must decide whether to standardize or adapt their loyalty programs when internationalizing. The authors develop and test theory proposing that cultural values influence loyalty program choice. The results indicate that cultural differences matter. Consumers from countries high in power-distance values and low in individualism values prefer loyalty programs that offer related rewards, whereas consumers from countries low in masculinity values and low in uncertainty avoidance values prefer unrelated rewards. The analysis also indicates that consumers from countries high in masculinity values and high in uncertainty avoidance values shun loyalty programs altogether and prefer immediate promotional offers. This finding suggests that loyalty programs do not work equally well in all countries and that multinational corporations may need to adapt reward programs as they internationalize to ensure that their loyalty-building efforts are successful.

Understanding Why Consumers Don't Skip Pre-Roll Video Ads

Pre-roll advertising is a novel form of online video advertising that provides consumers with an option to skip after viewing a brief forced segment. Pre-roll ads are unique from other forms of online advertising because pre-roll ads play in exactly the space in which consumers are expecting to view their intended content. Such interruption and obstruction not only heightens consumer irritation but also causes attention-getting tactics, which are redundant in a highly attentive state, to backfire. For these reasons, existing ad avoidance literature may not adequately address this unique format. Employing a large industry data set of pre-roll ads representing multiple countries and product categories, we empirically examine skipping behavior using a broader range of ad characteristics than previous research. We propose that less complex affective ad characteristics increase skipping by failing to engage cognitive resources and therefore leaving cognitive resources available to experience irritation. We further posit that, in a pre-roll context, attention-getting ad characteristics are not only superfluous but actually increase the likelihood consumers recognize pre-roll content as advertising and skip. Our empirical findings support these assertions, identifying new factors driving ad avoidance, and calling into question the applicability of attention-getting advertising approaches in the novel pre-roll environment.

The effect of wine knowledge type on variety seeking behavior in wine purchasing

ABSTRACT Wine is a prolific, but complex and information-intensive product, so it is important for marketers to understand the behaviors and characteristics of different wine market segments, in order to better target their marketing strategies to these different segments’ needs. Yet little is known about how the characteristics of consumers’ subjective and objective knowledge of wine impact their variety seeking purchasing behavior. As variety seeking behavior affects customer retention and loyalty, a better understanding of this behavior is important to wine marketers. Results of a survey show that wine knowledge types are a significant predictor of variety seeking purchasing behavior of wine. Wine consumers who think they know a lot about wine, tend to engage in more variety seeking behavior in their wine purchasing. This suggests that marketers should adapt their segmentation, targeting and channel strategies to individual knowledge types to be more successful.

Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Privacy Services

To alleviate consumer privacy concerns, governments have introduced privacy regulations to manage excessive consumer privacy intrusion by organizations (Solove 2008; Bennett 2008). Yet research shows that these regulations are not sufficient in reducing consumer privacy fears as privacy concerns vary in magnitude from consumer to consumer (Mattison Thompson 2007) and the law can only protect against privacy intrusion on a uniform level. Despite the extensive body of research investigating the variance in consumer privacy concerns within the context of legislative boundaries (e.g., Milne et al. 2004; Milne et al. 2006; Shilton 2009; King and Raja 2012; King and Jessen 2010), little has been done to understand whether consumers would be willing to pay for additional privacy services offered by organizations to protect their privacy above and beyond the protection the law provides. Since consumers vary in their privacy needs, one solution that firms could adopt to reduce their customers’ privacy concern is to offer privacy as an individualized, personalized service or “Privacy Services” that cater to the higher privacy needs of some customers. Privacy services involve a customer paying an additional fee to receive privacy protection above what is offered to other customers, thus potentially mitigating the customers’ privacy concern for transactions they have with that firm.

The Effects of Objective and Subjective Knowledge on the Exploratory Acquisition of Wine

This chapter investigates the effect of objective and subjective knowledge on exploratory acquisition in consumers’ purchase of wine. The main research questions investigated are whether there is a link between a consumer’s objective knowledge of wine (what they really know) is linked to their subjective knowledge (what they think they know), and whether these impact on the extent to which the consumer engages in exploratory purchasing behavior (tries new brands, tries different wines, etc). The literature for the three constructs is reviewed, and hypotheses are developed. The study then investigated these questions among an online sample of consumers in the USA. Data is analyzed, results are provided, and the implications for management are discussed. Limitations are also noted and directions for future research are indicated.

The Customer Fishbowl: Strategic Approaches to Customer Privacy

Customers are living in a fish bowl, where they are open to regular personal information surveillance by firms that threatens their privacy. This customer surveillance includes the collection, usage, and storage of customers’ personal information, such as for example personal identification details, consumption habits, and financial data. Due to advances in digital technology (e.g., optical scanners, location-tracking devices, computerized databases, web crawlers), one or more firms are often tracking the consumption decisions and behaviour of customers. Firms face a struggle to maintain the delicate balance between customer personal information surveillance and protecting the customer-firm relationship. In the short term, a firm is compelled to seek personal information from its customers in order to construct more attractive market offerings that enable a competitive edge against competitors. However in the long-term the implications of a surveillance activity by a firm may bring a negative reputation among customers and thus may decrease the attractiveness of that firm’s goods. Therefore firms need to manage their customer surveillance activity in a way that protects customer privacy. This article seeks understanding of how firms view customer privacy and how it is currently managed using in-depth interviews with 25 key managers in a large financial services firm. In doing so, it proposes a typology of customer privacy strategies and offers implications for practice and further academic study.