Richard C. Hanna

Stage of adoption of the human papillomavirus vaccine among college women.

BACKGROUND Certain types of human papillomavirus (HPV) can cause cervical and other cancers. A vaccine that protects against HPV types responsible for 70% of cervical cancers is available to females ages 9-26. OBJECTIVE To examine correlates of stage of vaccine adoption among women ages 18-22. METHODS In 2007, female students (n=4774) at a New England University in the U.S. were invited to complete an on-line survey that assessed knowledge of HPV, perceived susceptibility, severity, vaccine benefits/barriers, social and subjective norms, and stage of vaccine adoption RESULTS 1897 women (40%) responded; complete data were available for 1401. About half (53%) were planning to be vaccinated, 12% had received the vaccine, 15% were undecided, and 7% had decided against vaccination. HPV knowledge was low (mean 58%). In multivariate analyses, social norms was the strongest correlate of stage; each standard deviation increase in social norms score was associated with more than four times the odds of intending to be vaccinated within the next 30 days, compared with those who had decided against vaccination (OR=4.15; 95% CI 2.17-6.36). CONCLUSIONS Acceptance of the vaccine was high, although misconceptions about viral transmission, availability of treatment, and the role of Pap tests were common. Perceived norms were strongly associated with intentions. Interventions on college campuses should stress vaccination as a normative behavior, provide information about viral transmission, and stress the role of continued Pap screening.

A Social Learning Perspective on Sales Technology Usage: Preliminary Evidence from an Emerging Economy

Drawing on social learning theory, we examine how the perceived technological savvy of a salesperson’s manager, coworkers, and competitors affects sales technology usage behavior. Data were drawn from a major retail bank in Nigeria, Africa. Analyses of data from relationship managers confirm predictions that while perceived coworker savvy directly influences technology usage, the influence of managers’ and competitors’ perceived savvy is mediated. Perceived manager savvy influences usage by increasing feelings of monitoring and the level of perceived coworker savvy. Similarly, perceived competitor savvy influences usage by increasing perceived manager and coworker savvy. We also confirm that usage of sales technology has a positive influence on salesperson performance.

Optimizing time limits in retail promotions: an email application

Most marketing managers know intuitively that once a customer delays a purchase decision, the potential is high that the purchase may be put off indefinitely. In response, marketing managers usually set ‘deadlines’ or time limits for how long an offer is available. However, research has shown that, while time limits can help motivate customers to buy now rather than later (or not at all), time limits that are over/under restrictive may actually hurt response more than help. We consider two opposing forces of time, namely awareness and urgency. Longer time limits allow for greater awareness of an offer, which, everything else being equal, should lead to a larger response. At the same time, longer time limits also reduce the urgency of an offer leading consumers to delay their purchase (perhaps) indefinitely and thus, everything else being equal, lead to a lower response. Using decision calculus, we model the optimal time limit for promotional offers and demonstrate its use in an email marketing application. Email marketing has emerged as a profitable tool for companies like Amazon and JCrew who regularly use email to communicate promotional offers to their customers because of its low cost to implement and its relatively high response rates. This research contributes to the field by providing marketing managers a methodology for determining superior choices for time limit in promotional offers.

Social Learning Theory: A Multicultural Study of Influences on Ethical Behavior.

We propose Social Learning Theory as a theoretical foundation for understanding the ethical standards of future business leaders. Using data drawn from students from 115 four-year undergraduate institutions in 36 different countries, the relationships among role models, capitalism, and laws were examined. The data suggest that future business leaders educated in environments espousing all moral philosophies except virtue ethics are influenced by their role models. However, differences in unethical behavior are found as related to the social influences of capitalism and laws.

Consumer Responses to Promotional Games in Social Media

Increasingly, companies are using social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter to distribute promotions. A particularly popular tactic involves merging promotional distributions, such as coupon giveaways, with social games. This use of game play mechanics in non-game applications has been used in a variety of situations including promotions, training programs, goal achievement programs, and others. While consumer responses to these games are generally positive, little is known about how the characteristics of games influence redemption, entertainment value, attitudes toward the firm, and future repurchase. In this research, we examine consumer responses to two types of games: games of chance (e.g., scratch tickets) and games of skill (e.g., treasure hunts). We first present results from data collected from a website that runs promotional games tied to social media. We then explore alternative explanations for these findings using a laboratory setting.

Connecting Social Media and Traditional Media: Best & Worst Practices

Companies today seeking to establish closer customer relationships face a daunting task: how to develop and manage their social media marketing platforms and align them with traditional media. However, there is little agreement on what performance metrics should be used to evaluate social media campaigns. Furthermore, questions remain regarding the role social media plays in the firm’s overall marketing campaign. While consumers are adopting increasingly active roles in co-creating marketing content along with companies and their respective brands, many firms still are less comfortable relinquishing control of their brand message within the unstructured social media environment. The challenge facing companies is that, although they recognize the need to be active in social media, they don’t truly understand how to do it effectively, what performance indicators they should be measuring, and how they should be measured. In this paper, we examine different approaches by firms to use social media in conjunction with their traditional media. We apply different performance metrics to these campaigns and measure consumer reaction. We highlight best practices across several firms’ efforts to leverage social media in order to reach the important youth audience, and we conclude with insights and lessons related to the strategic integration of social media into firms’ existing marketing communications strategies.

Excellence in Marketing Education and Innovative Teaching Track - Special Session Creating Value in Marketing Courses

This session features three different approaches to teaching marketing research and one approach to teaching sports marketing. All four approaches illustrate how we can bring more realism and business practice into the classroom and merge these experiences with process and theory. Marketing research is a large and growing component of the marketing enterprise. Yet, extracting consumer insights from data can be difficult. Indeed, in a recent survey of over 1,500 American Marketing Association members, 45.7% of respondents singled out data analysis as either their biggest or second biggest challenge (Arnold 2005). More generally, “analytics” is increasingly perceived as a source of competitive advantage (Davenport 2006). Despite the growing importance of marketing research in the real world, most business students do not look forward to taking a course marketing research (Bridges 1999). Research has shown that students don’t look forward to marketing research because they typically do not understand what marketing research is or who does marketing research, they fear either “research” or the use of statistics, they presume the course is difficult, or do not know how it applies in the real world. These same issues can be mitigated by the use of activities that bring the real world into the classroom such as hands-on-experience, guest speakers, connections to real data and problems in an environment that allows the students to express themselves and learn not only from the instructor, but from their peers in a team based environment. As such, the three papers in this session represent three different strategies to achieve these goals.

Social Media Game Design: Unintended Effects on Consumer Choice

Social media is an important topic in business today as many firms struggle to find how to use it as part of their overall marketing strategy (Hanna, Rohm, and Crittenden, 2011). More and more, companies are using social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter to distribute promotional coupons and offer loyalty programs. In an effort to leverage the fact the people play various games alone and with friends on these social media sites, many companies have attempted to merge promotional distributions, such as coupon giveaways, with social games. The games used for these giveaways range from simple games of chance (e.g., lottery, scratch ticket, etc.) to games that require significant effort (e.g., treasure hunts, quizzes, etc.). This use of game play mechanics in non-game applications, also known as gamification, has been used in a variety of situations including promotions, training programs, goal achievement programs, and others. While consumer responses to these games are generally positive, it is less clear under what conditions consumers are most likely to ultimately redeem earned rewards.