Michael J. Barone

THE INFLUENCE OF CAUSE-RELATED MARKETING ON CONSUMER CHOICE: DOES ONE GOOD TURN DESERVE ANOTHER?

Are consumers more likely to select brands offered by companies that engage in cause-related marketing (CRM)? Somewhat surprisingly, little evidence exists that directly addresses this issue. Accordingly, the present examination investigates whether and when CRM efforts influence consumer choice. The results from several studies indicate that information regarding a company’s support of social causes can affect choice. However, CRM’s influence on choice is found to depend on the perceived motivation underlying the company’s CRM efforts as well as whether consumers must trade off company sponsorship of causes for lower performance or higher price. The results also indicate that CRM cues affect choice primarily through compensatory strategies involving trade-offs rather than through noncompensatory strategies. Implications of the current findings for existing theory are discussed along with directions for future research.

The Facilitating Influence of Consumer Knowledge on the Effectiveness of Daily Value Reference Information

As a means of enhancing consumer understanding of nutritional information, the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 requires the provision of percentage daily values (%DVs) on food labels. Findings from existing research, however, vary in their support for the assumption that including %DVs will assist consumers in their efforts to comprehend nutritional information. To shed further light on this issue, the present study examines the moderating role of consumer knowledge about how to use %DVs in evaluating a product’s healthiness. The results indicate that the usefulness of providing %DVs on a nutritional label depends strongly on this form of knowledge. Implications for public policy and directions for future research efforts are presented.

Advertising Signaling Effects for New Brands: The Moderating Role of Perceived Brand Differences

This research considers whether new, unknown brands may be able to signal high quality to consumers via an advertising spending signal. Signaling theory suggests that heavy advertising spending for an unknown brand may be ineffective in signaling quality because the brand has no reputation at stake. More recent theorizing, however, holds that advertising spending may itself serve as a bond and, therefore, influence quality judgments even for unknown brands. The results of a laboratory experiment are consistent with the latter position as we observe strong signaling effects on perceived quality for a new, unknown brand. Interestingly, though, this effect is moderated by subjects’ prior perceptions of brand differentiation, such that a negative effect of very high ad spending occurs when differences between brands in a product category are perceived as small. The results suggest that new brands, as well as established reputable brands, may be able to successfully signal quality by strong spending on advertising. However, the results also indicate the potential for a backlash effect of high ad spending on new brand evaluations when the brand competes in a category where competitive offerings are perceived by consumers to be relatively undifferentiated.

Consumer Response to Retailers’ Use of Partially Comparative Pricing

Consumers sometimes encounter a combination of comparative and noncomparative prices in the marketplace. For example, a grocer may employ signage that provides favorable price comparisons with those of a competitor for a portion of its products, a practice that the authors refer to as “partially comparative pricing.” The authors examine the effects of partially comparative pricing on consumer response and find that it has both desirable and undesirable effects. On the one hand, such pricing enhances consumers’ beliefs about the relative prices of comparatively priced products and about the retailers relative prices in general. On the other hand, such pricing also reduces consumers’ relative price beliefs about noncomparatively priced products and their intentions to purchase such products. The authors further show that the adverse influence of partially comparative pricing stems from consumers’ suspicions about why price comparisons exist for some, but not all, products. They also document how these effects depend on store patronage. They discuss implications of their research and provide suggestions for future empirical efforts.

Brand usage and gender as moderators of the potential deception associated with partial comparative advertising

Previous research (Barone and Miniard 1999) has demonstrated that brand usage can moderate the extent to which comparative ad information has the potential to deceive consumers. The current study extends that research by considering how gender interacts with brand usage to moderate the susceptibility of consumers to copy × copy interactions, a potentially deceptive effect associated with partial comparative advertising. Results from the present investigation indicate that, for comparison brand users, males were more susceptible than females. In contrast, for nonusers of the comparison brand, females exhibited greater evidence of this effect than did male nonusers. Implications of these findings for public policy and directions for future research are discussed.

The Influence of Consumer Suspicion, Mood and the Salesperson’s Presentation on Purchase Intentions

A critical issue facing salespeople is how to manage consumer perceptions that ultimately impact the persuasive impact of sales presentations. From a sales productivity perspective, achieving a favorable consumer perception represents an inherent aspect of sales success and, ultimately, gaining a competitive advantage that enhances the possibility for long-term relationship development (e.g., Dwyer, Schurr & Oh, 1987). Previous work (Campbell & Kirmani, 2000; DeCarlo, 2005; Friestad & Wright, 1994; Kirmani & Campbell, 2004), however, suggests that consumer suspicion of a salesperson’s motives could adversely influence salesperson relationship-building efforts by negatively affecting salesperson evaluations. However, a recent study by DeCarlo (2005) demonstrates that the negative impact of consumer suspicion on salesperson perceptions may be contingent on the sales presentation. In particular, evidence provided by DeCarlo (2005) indicates that salesperson actions (namely, the strength of their sales presentation) can moderate the negative effects of suspicion on consumer perceptions of a salesperson.