John T. Gironda

Understanding consumers’ social networking site usage

Abstract The purpose of this research is to examine consumer motivations to use social networking sites (SNSs) for three distinct activities: (1) general SNS usage, (2) the joining of a business’s SNS page and (3) clicking on an advertisement on a SNS. To assist with this exploration we draw upon the decomposed theory of planned behaviour as a theoretical lens and conduct a mixed-method study that utilises both an empirical investigation as well as qualitative focus group interviews in order to delve deeper into specific reasons why individuals engage in SNS activities. Results show that a number of antecedents such as attitude, compatibility, relative advantage, complexity, normative influences and self-efficacy come into play when determining SNS usage activities. However, specific antecedents may vary according to the explicit activity under investigation. This study’s main contribution involves advancing our understanding of consumer behaviour as it relates to SNS activities by examining not only antecedents to intention but also attitude, subjective norms and behavioural control. Other contributions include additional development of the SNS literature, integrating SNSs into a classical theoretical framework and providing valuable insights and implications for both practitioners and researchers alike.

Viral Advertising: A Field Experiment on Viral Intentions and Purchase Intentions

This study conducts an investigation of viral advertising by developing and testing a model to integrate the influence of three types of video ad appeals (humor, sex, or information), ad sources (known or unknown), attitude toward the ad, attitude toward the brand, and demographics on intentions to forward an ad and purchase a brand. The model is tested by collecting data from a sample of national online consumers. The findings demonstrate the importance of ad appeals for both attitude toward the ad and viral intentions. Attitude toward the ad is also found to be a significant influencer of viral intentions, and mediator of the relationship between ad appeals and viral intentions. The study also found support for a positive relationship between viral intentions and purchase intentions.

A DYADIC EXAMINATION OF INSPIRATIONAL FACTORS DRIVING B2B SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCE

This study demonstrates how digital content, engagement strategies, and influence tactics inspire social media communities to embrace B2B marketers seeking their advocacy. Using grounded theory in the context of transformational and charismatic leadership, a model is proposed for examining a marketer’s capacity to inspire. Along with its proposed antecedents and outcomes, inspirational motivation was tested on a dyad of 171 influencer/content evaluators. Results confirmed that inspirational motivation drives social media influence. Inspirational motivation, in turn, is directly influenced by humor, visionary insights, and engagement. Results also showed support for the mediating influence humor has on visual storytelling and inspirational motivation.

Prosumer motivations for electronic word-of-mouth communication behaviors

Purpose “Prosumers” (combining “producer” and “consumers”) describes consumers’ ability to openly share their product/service experiences and thereby drive sales and digital marketing. Understanding what motivates active prosumers to engage in electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and share or review their hotel experiences online can help organizations empathize with consumers and use their messages to co-create value. Identifying prosumers’ motivators can enable companies to properly target them as resources for review or consumer feedback studies. This paper aims to investigate the influence of motivators (intrinsic and extrinsic), service quality and age on consumers’ eWOM communication behaviors. Design/methodology/approach A panel of 204 travelers was surveyed regarding their hotel travel experiences, propensity to write online reviews, preferred review-writing platform, motivations for writing reviews and impressions of service quality. To test the hypotheses, a multivariate regression analysis was performed with eWOM as the dependent variable. Differences in eWOM as a function of preferred review platform were also tested using ANOVA, with a multiple comparison analysis that underlines the differences between prosumers who prefer different types of review platforms and their eWOM behaviors. Findings Both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, as well as service reliability, had a significant influence on eWOM behavior, while service tangibility had a negative relationship. Additionally, prosumers’ engagement in eWOM about their hospitality experience differed according to their preferred review platform. Research limitations/implications The findings of the analysis underline the importance of consumer motivations and of satisfaction with service quality in the context of digital review behavior. For marketing and hospitality research, this shows the benefits of including not only individual characteristics and demographics when analyzing review behavior but also elements such as perceptions of service quality. Given the differences in how the dimensions of service quality affect consumers’ engagement in online review behavior, this represents a very important topic for research and can be included in future studies that analyze the consumer review behavior model. Practical implications Regarding the implications for practitioners, this study highlights the important role played by consumer satisfaction with service in the hospitality industry and its effect on their involvement in online reviews. Managers should be focused constantly on offering great service to their guests, while, at the same time, offering them motivations to engage in posting positive reviews about their vacation. Moreover, as the results of this study imply that various dimensions of service quality have a different impact, managers should focus especially on the aspects that consumers consider important and constantly include in their reviews, such as the tangibles dimension. The results of this study also have the potential to provide to businesses more information to improve the social aspects of vacationing, which can not only improve perceptions about service quality but can also have a positive influence on consumers’ motivations. Originality/value This paper develops a better understanding of what motivates people to engage in the eWOM communication behavior of writing online hotel reviews, by showing the effect of consumer motivations and service quality variables on prosumers’ engagement in online review behavior.

Online Piracy vs. Public Policy and Cultural Influencers

Online piracy is one of the most challenging problems faced by the software and entertainment industries today. Tens of billions of dollars of copyrighted commercial material is exchanged illegally annually due to peer-to-peer networking sites and other downloadable methods, while it is also estimated that digital theft of copyrighted content makes up over 20% of the Internet traffic worldwide (Envisional, 2011; RIAA, 2014). The objective of this study is the analysis of the key country level factors that influence the national piracy rate, which can help practitioners, academics and policy makers. We use a mixed-method approach, with a qualitative study to identify the key online piracy legal issues and macro level antecedents in online consumer discussions. Further, we use the Hunt-Vitell General Theory of Marketing Ethics as a theoretical basis and empirically analyze the importance of cultural, legal and policy variables that are part of different national institutions and systems. Overall, the significance found for our model underlines the fact that numerous factors that are related to a country’s cultural values, ethical system and legal system can contribute or deter individuals from illegally sharing and downloading copyrighted electronic content and information.

Online piracy in the context of routine activities and subjective norms

ABSTRACT Why do mainstream consumers who would not typically engage in illegal behaviour routinely resort to online piracy of copyrighted software? This paper provides answers to this research query by applying routine activity theory and the theory of reasoned action. The paper’s study analyses consumers’ role as possible offenders that can have the opportunity to engage in online software piracy as part of their routine online activities. Although it is problematic to measure the exact magnitude of the negative impact on the US economy, as stated by the Government Accountability Office it is sizeable. After analysing the conceptual model using a US national consumer sample of over 700 consumers, results show the influence of proximity to motivated offenders, target suitability, and capable guardianship on consumers’ attitudes and perceived subjective norms towards online software piracy, as well as their intentions to engage in this illegal behaviour on the Internet. By integrating routine activity theory, a criminology theory with the theory of reasoned action from psychology and analysing a widespread online software piracy phenomenon, several academic and practical contributions are made.

Ispy? Tailored Versus Invasive Ads and Consumers’ Perceptions of Personalized Advertising

Abstract This research examines consumers’ perceptions of personalized advertising (PA), a new and emerging trend in online advertising, within the context of social networking sites. The practice holds great promise but has been associated with a number of privacy issues, and thus needs further investigation. Utilized as a theoretical lens by which to conduct our investigation, privacy calculus theory is used and extended via its integration with constructs from other streams of literature. Both antecedents and outcomes regarding consumer privacy concerns toward PA are empirically investigated, in order to help uncover the factors that determine whether the practice is perceived favorably or invasively by consumers. We also assess what effects those perceptions have on consumers’ behavioral intentions toward PA. The results show that a number of factors, such as invasiveness, privacy control, perceived usefulness, and consumer innovativeness influence consumers’ behavioral intentions concerning PA. Implications of these results for managers, researchers, and consumers are discussed.

Piracy, Price, and Word of Mouth: An Equity Theory Examination of Consumer Digital Piracy Rates—An Abstract

Online piracy of digital content including that of music, movies, software, games, and other products continues to be a huge issue for businesses and public policy makers for a number of reasons. First, online piracy takes up significant amounts of Internet bandwidth—24 % globally, and 17.5 % in the USA. Additionally, a study from the Institute for Policy Innovation concluded that global music piracy causes

Dynamic Pricing and Brand Image

12.5 billion of economic losses every year, 71,060 lost American jobs, and a loss of

Personalized Advertising, Invasiveness, and Consumers’ Attitudes: A Structured Abstract

422 million in tax revenues (RIAA 2014). Given the economic and social impact of digital piracy, it is important to study what factors influence the piracy rate and especially whether key marketing mix elements, such as price, affect consumers’ decisions to engage in online piracy. This study uses equity theory as a framework in order to analyze the impact of price-, product-, and purchase-related experiences, as well as word of mouth, on digital piracy rates. Equity theory was created and popularized by Adams (1963) and is especially used in social exchange within organizations. We use equity theory in order to analyze how perceived inputs, such as price and information search, as well as outputs, including product quality and popularity, affect the rate of piracy for copyrighted products. This represents a different perspective compared to studies that focus only on the ethical side of consumers’ decisions and brings attention to product-related factors such as price and product quality. In order to measure the piracy rate for digital content, we downloaded the number of “leechers” (users downloading pirated content at a certain time) for the top 120 most downloaded games from Pirate Bay during a 10-day period. In order to test our model, we also downloaded data regarding the price for each game from Amazon, as well as the quality rating assigned in its reviews from Metacritic. We measured consumer interest in the digital product by using Google Insights and the search index provided for the exact name of the product. We performed a multiple regression procedure using SPSS, with piracy rate on a proxy showing the content from Pirate Bay as the dependent variable, with product price, review rating, search rating, and popularity index as independent variables.