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Consumers engage in online curation using branded items (e.g., product images) on social shopping websites (i.e., sites that combine commerce and social media) in ways that can have important implications for fashion brands. Beyond being passive recipients of a brand’s marketing message, consumers now actively participate in co-creating the brand by combining brands and presenting them to others, generating novel co-branding connections and revising brand categorization. We use behavioral data collected from two communities on a popular social shopping site (Polyvore.com) and employ a clustering technique to demonstrate that curating consumers are assembling different brands together, thus creating implicit brand associations. We additionally conduct an analysis of curated fashion displays to understand which features make a display more popular. Looking at consumer curation behavior on social shopping sites, fashion brand managers can better understand the ways in which their brands’ images are being co-created by consumers.

espanolProposito – Algunos consumidores se dedican a la “curacion” en linea, un tipo de contenido generado por el usuario (UGC), de manera que pueden ser impactantes para las marcas. Un ejemplo de “curacion” en linea incluye la organizacion de colecciones tematicas de imagenes de productos en Pinterest. El proposito de esta investigacion es presentar un marco sobre la “curacion” del consumidor en linea, introduciendo este tema en la literatura de marketing. Diseno/metodologia/enfoque – A traves de nuestro analisis de la literatura academica y empresarial, asi como del estudio cuidadoso de muchos ejemplos de “curacion” de los consumidores en linea, presentamos un marco para comprender la “curacion” de los consumidores en linea. Hallazgos – Las acciones realizadas por los “curadores” son similares a las de sus homologos en museos o galerias de arte: adquirir, seleccionar, organizar y mostrar contenido para una audiencia. Las motivaciones para que los consumidores participen en la “curacion” en linea incluyen construir/mostrar sus identidades y establecer conexiones sociales con su audiencia en linea. Un resultado posible para la audiencia que ve la “curacion” es obtener acceso a contenido cuidadosamente seleccionado y recomendado. Implicaciones teoricas – Como la “curacion” en linea es una nueva area de investigacion, sugerimos varias propuestas relevantes de marketing y marca que pueden abordarse en futuras investigaciones. Implicaciones practicas – Como los consumidores utilizan con frecuencia imagenes de productos y simbolos de marca en su “curacion” en linea, es importante que los academicos y profesionales de marketing comprendan sus acciones. Originalidad/valor – La investigacion presenta una introduccion exhaustiva a la idea de la “curacion” del consumidor en linea describiendo ejemplos relevantes, proporcionando un marco para comprender esta actividad y sus implicaciones para la gestion de la marca, y enumerando ideas para futuras investigaciones. EnglishPurpose – Some consumers are engaged in online curation, a type of user-generated content, in ways that can be impactful for brands. An example of online curation includes organizing themed collections of product images on Pinterest. The purpose of this paper is to present a framework of online consumer curation, introducing this topic to the marketing literature. Design/methodology/approach – Through the analysis of the business and academic literature, as well as a careful study of many examples of online consumer curation, the authors present a framework for understanding online consumer curation. Findings – The actions taken by online consumer curators are similar to those of museum or art gallery curators: acquiring, selecting, organizing and displaying content for an audience. The motivations for consumers to engage in online curation include building/displaying their identities and making social connections with their online audience. One outcome possible for the audience that views the curation is gaining access to carefully selected and recommended content. Research limitations/implications – As online consumer curation is a new area of research, the authors suggest several marketing- and brand-relevant propositions that can be addressed in future research. Practical implications – As consumers are frequently using product images and brand symbols in their online curation, it is important for marketing academics and practitioners to understand their actions. Originality/value – The aim of the paper is to present a thorough introduction to the idea of online consumer curation by outlining relevant examples, providing a framework for understanding this activity and its implications for brand management, and listing ideas for future research.

PurposeDrawing on the brand alliance, cause marketing and corporate social responsibility literatures, the authors introduce the notion of international cause alliances. The authors conceptualize international cause alliances as strategic partnerships between international causes and for-profit companies with the stated purpose of raising funds for the cause. Beyond signaling that companies are socially responsible, international cause alliances may also help companies increase brand awareness or expand into new markets. Because international cause alliances take many forms and differ in the extent to which the brands are integrated, they have very different strategic implications. The purpose of this paper is to discuss these implications in a framework as well as providing managerial direction for both for-profit companies and causes when forming such alliances.Design/methodology/approachUsing literature on brand alliances, cause marketing, and corporate social responsibility as a foundation, the authors introduce the notion of international cause alliances. The authors review literature to understand the many forms of alliances and investigate the extent to which brands are integrated. The authors then use these implications to develop a framework that can guide managerial decision-making for both for-profit companies and causes when forming such alliances.FindingsThe research suggests that to effectively develop international cause alliances, the organization involved must be aware of the challenges and potential benefits that these partnerships produce. For instance, while highly integrated alliances involve large resource commitments they also facilitate brand image spillover. As such, these alliances are a great way for companies to alter customers’ perceptions of their brands. Alternatively, low integration alliances require fewer resources and facilitate market expansion.Research limitations/implicationsThis research identifies strategies that companies and causes can use to either expand their markets or alter customers’ perceptions of their brands.Originality/valueThis paper presents a framework that companies and causes can use when forming international cause alliances.

Firms often promote integration between sales and marketing functions. However, research has mostly focused on improving the level of realized integration and ignored the integration gap, defined a...

The chief marketing officer (CMO) and chief information officer (CIO) often fight for recognition and impact on strategic decision-making within the top management team – if they are includ...

Survey research methodology is widely used in marketing, and it is important for both the field and individual researchers to follow stringent guidelines to ensure that meaningful insights are attained. To assess the extent to which marketing researchers are utilizing best practices in designing, administering, and analyzing surveys, we review the prevalence of published empirical survey work during the 2006–2015 period in three top marketing journals—Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS), Journal of Marketing (JM), and Journal of Marketing Research (JMR)—and then conduct an in-depth analysis of 202 survey-based studies published in JAMS. We focus on key issues in two broad areas of survey research (issues related to the choice of the object of measurement and selection of raters, and issues related to the measurement of the constructs of interest), and we describe conceptual considerations related to each specific issue, review how marketing researchers have attended to these issues in their published work, and identify appropriate best practices.

Past work has found that salespeople make very different attributions when describing successful versus unsuccessful sales. In this article, we explore the influence of elaboration on potential outcomes (EPO), a relatively new individual-specific personality construct that has not been previously examined in the sales context. We show that salespeople's predisposition to engage in predecision elaboration on the potential outcomes of their sales activities across the sales cycle has an important impact on their selling attributions and on their performance, even after accounting for the effects of self-efficacy and trait competitiveness, two other person-specific variables that have been heavily examined in past research. Juxtaposing survey responses with objective sales performance data from 301 salespeople drawn from two sales organizations, the results show that EPO and the more heavily examined variables help to systematically explain salespeople's attributions for success but are only weakly linked to...

Technology is rapidly changing the nature of service, customers’ service frontline experiences, and customers’ relationships with service providers. Based on the prediction that in the marketplace of 2025, technology (e.g., service-providing humanoid robots) will be melded into numerous service experiences, this article spotlights technology’s ability to engage customers on a social level as a critical advancement of technology infusions. Specifically, it introduces the novel concept of automated social presence (ASP; i.e., the extent to which technology makes customers feel the presence of another social entity) to the services literature. The authors develop a typology that highlights different combinations of automated and human social presence in organizational frontlines and indicates literature gaps, thereby emphasizing avenues for future research. Moreover, the article presents a conceptual framework that focuses on (a) how the relationship between ASP and several key service and customer outcomes is mediated by social cognition and perceptions of psychological ownership as well as (b) three customer-related factors that moderate the relationship between ASP and social cognition and psychological ownership (i.e., a customer’s relationship orientation, tendency to anthropomorphize, and technology readiness). Finally, propositions are presented that can be a catalyst for future work to enhance the understanding of how technology infusion, particularly service robots, influences customers’ frontline experiences in the future.

The Web is a constantly evolving, complex system, with important implications for both marketers and consumers. In this paper, we contend that over the next five to ten years society will see a shift in the nature of the Web, as consumers, firms and regulators become increasingly concerned about privacy. In particular, we predict that, as a result of this privacy-focus, various information sharing and protection practices currently found on the Dark Web will be increasingly adapted in the overall Web, and in the process, firms will lose much of their ability to fuel a modern marketing machinery that relies on abundant, rich, and timely consumer data. In this type of controlled information-sharing environment, we foresee the emersion of two distinct types of consumers: (1) those generally willing to share their information with marketers (Buffs), and (2) those who generally deny access to their personal information (Ghosts). We argue that one way marketers can navigate this new environment is by effectively designing and deploying conversational agents (CAs), often referred to as “chatbots.” In particular, we propose that CAs may be used to understand and engage both types of consumers, while providing personalization, and serving both as a form of differentiation and as an important strategic asset for the firm—one capable of eliciting self-disclosure of otherwise private consumer information.

Many retailers invest in ancillary services to provide shoppers with additional reasons to come to their stores. However, it is unclear whether these services insulate incumbents from new entrants. We address this question by examining how the size and uniqueness of an incumbent's service portfolio protects its sales after a new competitor enters. We study uniqueness by introducing the notion of “competitive service overlap” (CSO) that operationalizes service similarity, and show both that retailers are best served by offering many services and that particularly successful retailers have more unique service portfolios. Furthermore, the impact of uniqueness is most prominent when a grocery incumbent faces a discounter entrant (e.g., Kroger facing a Wal-Mart entry).

This research examines the influence of a firm’s focus on either products or brands in an acquisition announcement on investor reactions and value creation for the acquiring firm. We conduct an event study of product and brand acquisitions in multiple business-to-consumer industries over a 30-year period (1980–2012). We find that value creation from such acquisitions depends on target resource strength and resource fit (relatedness between the acquirer’s and target’s product offerings). Further, the acquirer’s marketing management capability and product line diversification affect the ability of the firm to engage in resource transfer following the acquisition.

Drawing on resource-based theory, the authors examine the extent to which firms redeploy three key marketing resources (brands, sales forces, and general marketing expertise) following horizontal acquisitions. Results from a survey of 253 acquisitions show that highly immobile resources are more likely than less immobile resources to be redeployed. Furthermore, resources tend to be redeployed from the acquirer to the target more often than in the reverse direction. Finally, the effects of redeployment on subsequent product costs, product quality, product line breadth, geographic market coverage, market share, and profitability are examined. Cost-based synergies were minimally affected, but revenue-based synergies and overall firm performance were significantly influenced.

Data collected from highly competitive markets in the Philippines were used to investigate how country-of-origin (CO) information influenced the prices set for a wide range of products. The data permitted direct comparisons between prices for the same product produced by the same company, but in different countries, and sold in adjacent markets. Imported products produced in more industrialized countries were found to command price premiums over the same product, produced by the same company in less industrialized countries. However, imports from all countries commanded significant price premiums over domestically produced products. Consistent with previous research, branding was found to moderate the effect of CO information on price. Finally, CO information had a stronger impact on price when product risk was high than when it was low.

The authors extend previous models for premarket forecasting of new durable consumer goods by including parameters that reflect consumers’ categorization and consideration processes. They propose a model and measurement methodology, which they apply to the premarket forecasting of a new automobile. They describe empirical data collection, parameter estimation, managerial implications, validation issues, and future research needs. The extended model generates new managerial insights into positioning and marketing planning effectiveness, can be used to simulate the effects of changes in positioning strategy on consideration and choice, and provides more detailed information about why consumers consider or reject a new brand. The relevance of the categorization extension for other new product models that condition choice on a consideration set is also explored.