Karen Robson

Making sense of online consumer reviews : a methodology

Online consumer reviews have become an increasingly important source of information for both consumers (i.e. about whether to buy) and marketers (i.e. about product strengths and weaknesses). However, online consumer reviews are unstructured and unsystematic in nature, making interpretation of these reviews an enormous challenge. The current paper sheds light on a particular methodology that can be used to investigate what consumers say about companies, brands or products. Consumer reviews of the four best-selling games available on Apples App Store were compiled. Leximancer, a content analysis package, was used to compare comments from users who provided games with a five-star rating versus a one-star rating. Results from the Leximancer analysis reveal the most common themes and concepts that consumers use to describe their experience with these games. Specifically, five-star reviewers describe games as fun, awesome, amazing and addictive; one-star reviewers describe games as boring, easy and stupid. Additionally, negative reviews include themes regarding the presence of ads, technological difficulties and value. Future research should explore how consumers and marketers use this information.

Creative consumers in impoverished situations

This conceptual paper illustrates the presence of creative consumers in impoverished situations. This paper argues that consumers in the base of the pyramid are creative in their consumption and presents a series of propositions related to this phenomenon. Through the use of over 30 real-world examples, this paper aims to provide insight into creative consumption in the base of the pyramid. Understanding creative consumption in subsistence situations is interesting from an academic perspective, given the current dearth of literature on the topic, as well as from a managerial perspective. For organisations, understanding the role the creativity can and does play in the lives of consumers can lead to improved design of valuable solutions to this under-served market. This paper is intended to inform an audience including academics and practitioners interested in creative consumers and the base of the pyramid.

Using Cartoons to Teach Corporate Social Responsibility: A Class Exercise.

Changing curriculum content requirements, based on shifting global perspectives on corporate behavior and capitalism as well as business school accreditation requirements, mean that many marketing instructors have attempted to introduce discussions of organizational ethics, corporate social responsibility, and corporate governance into their classes. How these issues are addressed will, of course, depend on the instructor, the course, the level of the students, and the time available during the course to discuss the issues. Whether ethical issues in marketing are introduced as part of an existing class discussion, as a separate weekly subject topic, or as an entirely dedicated course, we recognize that it can be difficult to get students actively engaged and involved. In this paper, we present an alternative and interactive in-class exercise using group analysis and discussion of imagery and symbolism—understood as a reflection of public sentiment—in political cartoons. We introduce theories of cartoon analysis as social commentary, describe the exercise and methods, and then illustrate an example of the exercise as conducted with our own students. We conclude by noting the method’s limitations and considering alternative pedagogical applications of the analytical framework.

The Theory and Practice of Advertising: Counting the Cost to the Customer

The authors offer opinions on advertising, It is argued that consumers are taking an increasingly hostile attitude towards advertising in all media because the cost effectiveness of Internet advertising and marketing has allowed its use to become so prevalent that it generates significant costs to the consumer in terms of the time it costs them.

Wearable Technology: Trends and Opportunities for Organizations

This special session intends to explore the use of wearable technology in greater detail. Current perspectives identify a number of fundamental questions regarding wearable technology. Wearable technology is emerging as one of the key areas companies are investing in. In March 2014, Facebook announced that it had plans to acquire Oculus VR, a firm that produces virtual reality headsets. In May 2014, Apple announced its

Experiences with Gamification: The MDE Framework

3.2 billion purchase of Beats Electronics. Within the next 3 years, wearable technology is predicted to be worth

Navigating the Peer-Review Process: Reviewers' Suggestions for a Manuscript: Factors Considered before a Paper Is Accepted or Rejected for the Journal of Advertising Research

10 billion, with 170 million wearable technological devices in general use.

Introduction to Wearable Technology and the Internet of Everything Minitrack

There has been much interest by academics and practitioners in the concept of gamification: the use of game design principles to change people’s behavior in non-game situations. However, there is also much confusion as to what gamification is and is not, and how it can be used by organizations to deliver benefits. In this article we present a framework for understanding how to apply gamification to better engage with and change the behaviors of two key types of people: employees and customers. The framework is based on three interrelated gamification principles, namely mechanics, dynamics, and emotions, which we explain and illustrate using four examples of engagement. To this end, we conclude by presenting five important lessons that serve as heuristics for managers who wish to utilize gamification for engaging employees and customers.

An Alternative Conceptualization of the Self-Reference Criterion: An Abstract

Despite its well-known limitations (Holbrook, 1986; Frey, 2003), the peer-review process remains the bedrock of most top scholarly journals, whatever the field of study. Nevertheless, this doubleblind process is somewhat opaque: Reviewers may guess (but rarely know) who the authors or the other reviewers are, and vice versa for authors. This study sets out to shed light on the primary motivations of reviewers’ advice to editors with the examination of reviews for a single journal: the Journal of Advertising Research (JAR). First published in 1960 under the leadership of the late Charles K. Ramond, the JAR is one of the oldest of all the marketing journals (Precourt, 2014). It has encouraged a dialogue between practitioners and academics to expand the scientific body of knowledge about all facets of marketing and advertising research in particular. Essentially, the JAR provides a place where contemplative advertising practitioners and academics produce rigorous works that inform practice and advance advertising knowledge. Its editors generally give preference to articles that report field or laboratory research or offer models and analyses of substantive or widely recognized data sets with some news value. In the double-blind review process, manuscripts are distributed to teams of three to four reviewers consisting of academics and normally at least one marketing-research practitioner. Contributors then await reviewers’ feedback and use that insight to prepare a final draft for the approval of the executive editor(s) and the editor-in-chief. This study explores the nature of those comments on articles submitted to JAR that passed through an initial desk-reject stage into the formal double-blind review. The research question is straightforward: Navigating the Peer-Review Process: Reviewers’ Suggestions for a Manuscript Factors Considered before a Paper Is Accepted or Rejected for the Journal of Advertising Research

Accepted, Rejected, or Withdrawn: A Content Analysis of Reviewer Feedback and Some Advice for Marketing Educators

For this minitrack, we seek research papers that explore social, technological and organizational perspectives of emerging types of “Internets”, including: • The Internet of Things (IoT), as a computing concept that allows everyday physical objects to be connected to the “traditional” Internet, so that these are able to identify themselves to other devices and engage in seamless and automatic data exchange. • The Internet of People (IoP) emerges when more and more embedded and wearable technologies (like Google Glass and Fitbit) extend people’s roles from being mere users and observers of the Internet to becoming part of the Internet. • The Internet of Everything (IoE) materializes when IoT and IoP converge, bringing together people, processes, data and things (objects) for a new, networked world of ever-expanding data streams. We welcome empirical and theoretical submissions that address issues related to these Internets (particularly to IoP and the emerging IoE) in a variety of contexts, including but not necessarily limited to the following themes: • Analysis and speculation of the successes, failures, winners, and losers • Technologies, applications, security and organizational issues related to IoP and IoE • Big data management (e.g., storing, accessing, analyzing, and reacting to IoP / IoE data) • Opportunities and challenges related to consumer behavior (e.g., privacy concerns) with respect to wearable and embedded technologies • Key issues for innovators, developers, IT firms, and technology vendors Proceedings of the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences | 2019