Kathryn A. LaTour

Blackjack in the Kitchen: Understanding Online versus Casino Gambling

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Framing the Game: Assessing the Impact of Cultural Representations on Consumer Perceptions of Legitimacy

10 billion a year is spent by consumers worldwide on online gambling, and that number continues to grow. We present a qualitative, image-based study of 30 Las Vegas online and casino gamblers. By examining online gambling as a consumption experience, we examine what happens to consumption meaning as gambling moves away from a regulated physical space to an unregulated online space, one accessed from home. We explore the meaning of online gambling consumption to consumers and flesh out the social welfare implications of our findings. (c) 2008 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

How Strong is the Pull of the Past? Measuring Personal Nostalgia Evoked by Advertising

The purpose of this article is to understand how media frames affect consumer judgments of legitimacy. Because frames exist on the sociocultural and individual level, our research takes a multimethod approach to this question. On the sociocultural level, we conduct a content analysis of operant media frames for discussing online gambling and perform an event analysis, finding that a shift in consumer judgments follows an abrupt shift in frame. Then, on the individual level, the causal mechanism for these shifts is investigated in an experimental setting using the Implicit Association Test (IAT). These experiments show that framing affects normative legitimacy judgments by changing implicit associations. Further, users and nonusers respond differently to frame elements, with users favoring an established frame and nonusers favoring a novel, legitimating frame. This suggests that media frames play a critical role in establishing legitimacy at the sociocultural level and that framing potentially bridges cognitive and normative legitimacy.

The Effects of Perceptual and Conceptual Training on Novice Wine Drinkers’ Development

ABSTRACT Marketers frequently evoke personal nostalgia in their advertising. To date, scales have been developed to measure the propensity to get nostalgic but not the actual dimensions of personal nostalgia. Results from four studies show that advertising-evoked personal nostalgia comprises four correlated but distinct dimensions: past imagery, positive emotions, negative emotions, and physiological reactions. This multidimensional scale showed a high level of validity and reliability. Moreover, due to careful choice of sampling frames, the study demonstrates a high level of external generalizability. Evaluating nostalgia-based advertising using the studys multidimensional scale may provide marketers with strategic insights for developing and fine-tuning advertising aimed at inducing nostalgia among consumers.

Sticktion Assessing Memory for the Customer Experience

Wine marketers and restaurateurs have a vested interest in helping novice wine drinkers to learn more about wine, with the goal of encouraging them to purchase more wine and higher quality wine (with its higher price tag). The question posed here is how best to conduct that educational effort, using a perceptual approach or a conceptual approach. Most wine promotions tend to be perceptual, in the form of tastings and printed tasting notes. However, the two experiments described in this article demonstrate the greater benefit of conceptual learning, which involves explaining how the wine is produced generally and discussions of wine varietals in particular. In the first experiment, three groups of participants (novices, intermediates, and experts) were served a sample of zinfandel and then asked to identify that exact wine from a group of five, four of which had been adulterated with sweetener. Some participants were allowed to write down a description of the wine, and all were subjected to a fictitious advertising campaign designed to sway their choice on the matching test. In general, novices relied more on the terms offered by the advertising, and intermediates who have more perceptual learning than conceptual learning were also swayed when they were not given an opportunity to activate their conceptual knowledge (but not swayed as much when conceptual knowledge was activated). Experts paid no attention to the advertising whatsoever. The second experiment compared the educational experience of novices only, with a similar testing procedure, except this time the test groups were given either conceptual or perceptual educational sessions. The conceptual training was a twenty-five-minute tutorial in wines, while the perceptual training involved sensory aspects of wine (i.e., color, smell, and taste). Once again, all groups saw a fictitious advertisement for the “X” zinfandel. Those with conceptual learning were more likely to match the original sample and were less swayed by the fictitious advertising than those who had perceptual training. These respondents were also likely to rate the wine as being higher quality and willing to pay a higher price for it. One conclusion for wine marketers is that perceptual learning (as in tastings) is just the beginning of the process of developing wine consumers. Conceptual learning, where people learn about the process and details of wine production, is also essential.

Fuzzy Trace Theory and “Smart” False Memories: Implications for Advertising

In the quest for better service design, hospitality and service firms have often been frustrated to find that service experiences that are based on what customers say they want are not always successful. A psychological analysis of this phenomenon suggests the following premises: (1) Customers’ memory of an experience fades quickly; (2) customers’ memory of an experience comprises many sub-experiences; (3) customers’ memories of experiences are multidimensional and unintuitive; and (4) consumers cannot accurately predict what they will learn or remember. The goal of an experience design is to create a series of sub-experiences that will “stick” with the customer. This “sticktion” analysis is applied to the practical challenge of redesigning the customer experience at Pizza Hut UK. This consumer research provides a test of the four premises and an application of the underlying sticktion principles. Surveys of Pizza Hut customers found that the existing experience had its bright spots but was generally forgettable. Not only could customers not predict what they would remember about the experience, but one week after visiting the restaurant, the customers also filled in memory gaps with details that did not appear on their initial description of the visit. Even more troublesome was the fact that the invented details tended to be negative. To fill these gaps, the researchers tested specific aspects of the experience that would “stick” and included those in the new restaurant concepts. Using this approach, the chain was able to roll out new concepts that met with initial favorable results.In the quest for better service design, hospitality and service firms have often been frustrated to find that service experiences that are based on what customers say they want are not always successful. A psychological analysis of this phenomenon suggests the following premises: (1) Customers’ memory of an experience fades quickly; (2) customers’ memory of an experience comprises many sub-experiences; (3) customers’ memories of experiences are multidimensional and unintuitive; and (4) consumers cannot accurately predict what they will learn or remember. The goal of an experience design is to create a series of sub-experiences that will “stick” with the customer. This “sticktion” analysis is applied to the practical challenge of redesigning the customer experience at Pizza Hut UK. This consumer research provides a test of the four premises and an application of the underlying sticktion principles. Surveys of Pizza Hut customers found that the existing experience had its bright spots but was generally forgettable. Not only could customers not predict what they would remember about the experience, but one week after visiting the restaurant, the customers also filled in memory gaps with details that did not appear on their initial description of the visit. Even more troublesome was the fact that the invented details tended to be negative. To fill these gaps, the researchers tested specific aspects of the experience that would “stick” and included those in the new restaurant concepts. Using this approach, the chain was able to roll out new concepts that met with initial favorable results.

The Impact of Supertasters On Taste Test and Marketing Outcomes: How an Innate Characteristic Shapes Taste, Preference, Experience, and Behavior

False memories are generally viewed as “dumb,” in the sense of being caused by deficient processing, but recent psychological research has shown that elaboration and inferences can result in “smart” false memories. These “smart” false memories are explained by fuzzy-trace theory (FTT), which assumes that they derive from comprehension of the meaning of experience. FTT predicts that “smart” false memories should be positively correlated with measured levels of Need for Cognition (NFC). In three experiments we find those higher in NFC are more likely to elaborate and infer information from advertising that causes them to create “smart” false memories.

The Use of Childhood Icons in Nostalgic Appeals for Charity.

ABSTRACT This article introduces advertisers to a new segmentation technique based on an individuals inherited taste sensitivity—that is, the “supertaster.” Three studies demonstrate that this inherited supertaster difference can explain blind taste-test anomalies, such as the Pepsi Challenge; heightened brand loyalty; and a reduced sensitivity to peripheral product cues, such as visual variations. These findings underscore a new vein of segmentation that has great promise for explaining variance in lab, expert, and crowd-sourced evaluations involving matters of taste.

Developing an Advertising Personal Nostalgia Intensity Scale

In the current inquiry we add to the emerging research (Ford and Merchant, 2010; Merchant, Ford and Rose, 2011; Zhou, Wildschut, Sedikides, Shi and Feng, 2011) on the influence of nostalgia on charitable donations, by examining the role of childhood icons. We contend that marketers can bank on the value of consumer memories but there are aspects, like icons, that they shouldn’t messed with when trying to appeal to the past, such as PBS’ move to promoting Cookie Monster as Veggie Monster.

IS A CIGAR JUST A CIGAR? A GLIMPSE AT THE NEW-AGE CIGAR CONSUMER

Personal nostalgia is a longing for a past that has been personally experienced (Baker and Kennedy 1994) along with the things, memories and people associated with that past (Goulding 2001). Personal nostalgia has been found to influence preferences for certain products and services (Braun-LaTour, LaTour and Zinkhan 2007), which has resulted in an increasing use of personal nostalgia in advertising for consumer goods and services like colas, cereals, beer, insurance and banking (Sullivan 2009). To date, however, the scales that have been developed have measured the propensity to get nostalgic, but they do not measure the actual dimensions of the nostalgic experience as evoked by marketing communications. This research employed two separate studies in establishing a scale to measure the intensity of the experiencing of personal nostalgia. The qualitative work utilizing focus groups along with the literature suggested a starting pool of 107 items, which was reduced through several steps to a final set of 34 items loading into four separate factors: cognitive, physiological, positive emotions and negative emotions. Suggestions for future research and potential managerial implications are provided.