Speaker:

Pennie Frow, University of Sydney

Speaker:

Yoshihisa Kashima, Associate Professor, Melbourne University

Title:

Culture and Narrative: Towards a Social Psychology of Cultural Dynamics

Abstract:

Culture is often regarded as a static entity that determines people's cognitions, attitudes, and behaviors. Although cross-cultural research tends to assume this type of conception, culture can be conceptualized as dynamic configurations that are formed, maintained, and transformed as unintended consequences of everyday activities. Adopting a broadly neo-diffusionist approach to cultural processes, I will focus on narrative as a cultural form which is ideally suited to contribute to the process of cultural dynamics. In this talk, I will discuss factors that facilitate and inhibit the circulation of information through social networks, and psychological mechanisms underlying these processes with special attention to the functional and situated nature of cultural transmission processes.

About the speaker:

Associate Professor Kashima's research interests include Quantitative Psychology and Social & Organisational Psychology. He has published in various journals including; Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Psychological Review, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology and Social Cognition. He is currently involved in ARC grants investigating the Cultural Dynamics of Narratives and Narrative Social Influence.

Speaker:

Sylvie Rolland

Title:

Perceived quality in a multi-channel environment: Impact of website visits on perceived in-store quality

Abstract:

A whole slew of companies have chosen to adopt multi-channel distribution strategies wherein a given customer induced to visit several channels simultaneously to derive the specific advantages that each channel offers at a different stage of the decision-making process. The present article examines the way in which visits to a retail chain's website affects actors' evaluations of perceived in-store quality; and variations in the relative importance of quality's different components. Empirical analysis of a convenience sample of 635 consumers, all customers of one specialist retail chain, reveals that whereas perceived quality levels are not affected by channels' visitor profile, visits to the chain's website do alter the significance attributed to the various components constituting an in-store service's perceived quality.

About the speaker:

Sylvie Rolland is Associate Professor at the University of La Rochelle and Associate Researcher at Paris-Dauphine University, considered as the best marketing research centre in France. Her research interests include technology in service delivery, internet marketing, service quality and customer satisfaction, and customer relationships. She is currently a visiting scholar at the Newcastle Graduate School of Business.

Speaker:

Brian Gibbs, Associate Professor of Marketing and Behavioural Science Melbourne Business School University of Melbourne

Title:

Incentive Effects on Utility: The Bidirectional Nature of Decision Making and the Self-Regulation of Tastes

Abstract:

This research explores incentive effects on utility, and specifically, the ability of decision makers to respond to incentives by self-regulating their tastes. If tastes can be self-regulated, then decision making has a bidirectional quality: decisions makers can act not only outwardly, to make their circumstances better suit their tastes, but also inwardly, to make their tastes better suit their circumstances. Direction theory posits that, like outward action, inward action occurs in response to incentives, and the theory predicts that decision makers will self-regulate their tastes when both the costs of outward action and the payoffs from inward action are high. Using these incentive conditions, a series of five experiments produced taste self-regulation effects, some of which involved the alteration of even hardwired, gustatory tastes. That tastes are self-regulable implies a fundamentally different way of viewing consumption, as being not only about acquisition,trying to get what one likes,but also about accommodation, trying to like what one gets.

Speaker:

Peter Danaher, Professor, University of Auckland

Title:

The Effect of Competitive Advertising Interference on Sales for Packaged Goods

Abstract:

Competitive advertising interference can occur when viewers of advertising for a focal brand are also exposed to advertising messages for competing brands within a short time period, say one week for TV advertising. Although competitive advertising interference has been shown to reduce advertising recall and recognition and brand evaluation measures, no studies have examined the impact on brand sales. In this research we use a market response model of sales for two grocery categories for a large grocery chain in the Chicago area to study the extent to which sales are influenced by competitive advertising interference. The model enables us to capture the 'pure' own-brand advertising elasticities that would arise if there were no competitive interference. The results show that competitive interference effects on sales are strong. When one or more competing brands advertise in the same week as the focal brand, the advertising elasticity diminishes for the focal brand. The decrease depends on the number of competing brands advertising in a particular week and their total advertising volume. We find that having one more competitor advertise is generally more harmful to a focal brand's advertising effectiveness than if the present number of advertising brands increase their total advertising volume.

About the speaker:

Professor Peter Danaher joined Melbourne Business School in 2007, after a 14 year period as Professor and Chair, Marketing Department, University of Auckland, New Zealand. During that time he also held visiting positions at London Business School, The Wharton School and twice at MIT. He began his professional career with a market research firm, and has continued to maintain a balance between high quality research and market-place usefulness. He has consulted extensively with Telecom, Australia Post, Optus Communications, Unilever, ACNielsen, and other market research companies. He has also been the survey auditor for the television ratings services in New Zealand, Australia and Ireland, and the print readership service in New Zealand. Peter serves on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science and the Journal of Service Research. He is also an Area Editor for the International Journal of Research in Marketing. His primary research interests are media exposure distributions, advertising effectiveness, television audience measurement and behaviour, internet usage behaviour, customer satisfaction measurement, forecasting and sample surveys, resulting in many publications in journals such as the Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Journal of Retailing, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics and the American Statistician.

Speaker:

Ellen Garbarino, Assistant Professor, Case Western Reserve University

Title:

Then and Now: Reality and Perceptions in the Evolution of Online and Offline Retail Pricing

Abstract:

This paper examines the evolution of online retail through objective prices and consumers' price perceptions. Objective data from 2000-2006 are generally consistent with price penetration and offer only weak support for transactions cost effects, with online prices being lower than offline prices but the gap narrowing substantially over time. Repeated consumer perceptions show online prices are thought to be lower than offline prices, but not as much lower as they actually are, and that perceptions have become more accurate as the market matured.

About the Speaker:

Ellen Garbarino is an Assistant Professor in the Marketing and Policy Studies department at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland Ohio. Her areas of expertise include consumer decision making, consumer relationship management, psychological responses to price, and Internet retailing. Recent research projects include the role of body attitudes in online shopping, how social norms influence responses to novel pricing practices and the evolution of online prices as Internet retailing has matured. Her articles have been published in leading academic journals such Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Business Research, and Psychology & Marketing. She serves on the editorial review board of Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Psychology & Marketing and the Journal of Product and Brand Management. She will present are current paper entitled 'Then and Now: Reality and Perceptions in the Evolution of Online and Offline Retail Pricing'.

Speaker:

Michael Polonsky, Professor, Victoria University of Technology

Title:

Identity Transition of People with HIV: The role of illness ownership and external support mechanisms

Abstract:

This paper examines the transition of identity for people who have been diagnosed with a chronic illness (HIV). Data was collected using 14 depth interviews with HIV-positive people and was analyzed using the hermeneutic research process findings. It is identified that illness ownership and interactions with social support mechanisms affects how people redefine their self. The more control people take for their health (i.e. ownership), the more positive their identity outcomes. This is affected by the interactions with support mechanisms, which can have positive self affirming, or negative isolating impacts on the respondents' journey to their new self. The findings demonstrate that marketing can play a vital role in facilitating more effective identify transition, by working with and through support mechanisms to ensure that those with HIV while being seen as unwell, are not seen as unwelcome within society.

About the Speaker:

Michael Polonsky, PhD, is the Melbourne Airport Chair in Marketing at Victoria University, Melbourne. His research interests include; non-profit, environmental marketing and application of stakeholder theory in marketing. He has published in various journals including; Journal of Macromarketing, European Journal of Marketing and Journal of Business Research. Additionally, he has written several book chapters on green marketing.

Speaker 1:

Harald van Heerde

Title 1:

A Cross-Continent Study of Consumers' Willingness to Pay a Price Premium for National Brands over Private Labels>

Abstract:

The authors conduct a cross-country, cross-category study into the drivers of consumers' willingness to pay a price premium for national brands over private labels. They specify an economic model that expresses the price premium that consumers are willing to pay as a function of the perceived quality gap between national brands and private labels, sensitivity to quality, sensitivity to price, perceived uncertainty about the utility provided by national brands, perceived uncertainty about the utility provided by private labels, and risk aversion. Hypotheses on the impact of category, consumer, and country characteristics on the model parameters are tested using Bayesian methods on a survey from 22,623 consumers from 23 countries on four continents. The authors then discuss strategies national brand managers can use to maintain or increase consumers' willingness to pay a price premium for their brands.

About the Speaker:

Harald van Heerde is Professor of Marketing at the Waikato Management School, New Zealand. He was previously appointed as a professor at the Tilburg University, the Netherlands. His research deals with building econometric models in domains such as sales promotions, pricing and loyalty programs, and is branching out into new areas such as building brand equity, private labels, assortment optimization and price wars. Harald's work has appeared in a.o. Journal of Marketing Research (JMR) and Marketing Science, and he has received JMR's best paper award. He is an editorial board member of JMR and an Area Editor of the International Journal of Research in Marketing.

Speaker 2:

Dr. Valentyna Melnyk

Title 2:

Gender Differences in Consumer Loyalty

Abstract:

Consumer loyalty has been the object of intense interest in both the business and academic worlds. Academic research has discovered important differences in cognitive processes and behavior of male and female consumers Despite the importance of consumer loyalty on the one hand, and gender differences on the other hand, little is known about the existence and nature of gender differences in consumer loyalty. This is surprising because if male and female consumer loyalties differ, male and female consumers might have different levels of customer value, and may respond differently to loyalty programs and other actions that purport to enhance consumer loyalty. Based on theories about the self-construal of males and females we formulate and test different predictions about gender differences in consumer loyalty. Across five studies we find that females tend to be relatively more loyal than males to individuals, such as individual service employees, and the effect is mediated by Relational interdependence. Males expressed relatively more loyalty than females to groups and group-like entities such as companies, and the effect is mediated by Collective interdependence. We discuss implications for the theory of gender differences and managerial implications.

Speaker:

John Lynch, Duke University

Title:

As Time Goes By: Do Cold Feet Follow Warm Intentions for Really-New vs. Incrementally-New Products?

Abstract:

Combining prior theory about really-new products with temporal construal theory, the authors show in four field studies that consumers follow-through less often on positive purchase intentions to buy really-new products relative to intentions to buy incrementally-new products, with the decrement growing with time. Compared to consumers of incrementally-new products, consumers of really-new products are less likely to think concretely about the circumstances of buying and using the products and are more poorly calibrated in their expectations of initial product use. The authors discuss implications for marketing of really-new products and market research on really-new products.

About the speaker:

John G. Lynch, Jr. is the Roy J. Bostock Professor of Marketing at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. Lynch is past president of the Association for Consumer Research, past associate editor for the Journal of Consumer Research and past associate editor and co-editor for the Journal of Consumer Psychology. He has published many articles in academic journals on consumer behavior and marketing research methods. His current research focuses on consumer decision making. He is the 2003 recipient of the Society for Consumer Psychology's Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award and the 2004 recipient of the American Marketing Association's Paul D. Converse Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Science of Marketing. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and Fellow of the Society for Consumer Psychology. Four of his papers have been honored as outstanding article of the year, twice by the Journal of Consumer Research, once by the Journal of Marketing Research and once by the Journal of Marketing. His 1997 paper on Internet shopping is the 2nd most cited paper to appear in any marketing journal from 1997 to the present, and his 2000 paper on price sensitivity on the Internet is the 2nd most cited paper to appear in any marketing journal from 2000 to the present. He is a member of the editorial boards of Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of Marketing.

Speaker:

Prof. Cristel Russell, Auckland University of Technology

Title:

Advertainment Meets Edutainment: Implications for Research on Television Influences

Abstract:

Serial television programs are often viewed as a learning source for social behaviors and they contain many messages about consumption, including some designed to promote products and brands (advertainment), but also some meant to educate audiences about the risks associated with certain behaviors (edutainment). One domain where both types of messages often co-exist is that of alcohol. The presentation will discuss findings from a research program on the impact on consumers of alcohol messages embedded in television series. The research integrates findings from the growing body of research on the processing and persuasive impact of product placements as well as research on the moderating role of audience connectedness. Implications for public policy will be discussed.

About the speaker:

Cristel Antonia Russell is Professor of Marketing at Auckland University of Technology, in New Zealand, where she started in 2007. A consumer researcher, she focuses on the blurring lines between entertainment and marketing, especially the practice of product placement. She studies how people consume entertainment programs and process messages about brands integrated within the content of these programs. A central component of her research is the concept of television audience connectedness: connectedness influences how television programs affect viewers'processing of consumption information, the development of consumption constellations around television referent others and ultimately consumers'own aspirations and identity. Her research is published in journals such as the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Advertising and the Journal of Advertising Research. She serves on the Editorial Review Boards of the Journal of Consumer Research and the Journal of Advertisingg. She has received funding and recognition for her research through the Procter & Gamble Marketing Innovation Award, the Marketing Science Institute and the United States National Institute of Health. She started her academic career at San Diego State University and has also taught at HEC, in France, the Helsinki School of Economics and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Speaker:

Professor Jonathan Schroeder, University of Exeter

Title:

Image in Brand Culture

Abstract:

Brands occupy an increasingly prominent place in the managerial mind as well as the cultural landscape. Recent research has shown that brands are interpreted or read in multiple ways, prompting an important and illuminating reconsideration of how branding works, and shifting attention from brand producers toward consumer response to understand how brands create meaning. Cultural codes, ideological discourse, consumer's background knowledge, and rhetorical processes have been cited as influences in branding and consumer's relationships to advertising, brands and mass media. Consumers are seen to construct and perform identities and self-concepts, trying out new roles and creating their identity within and in collaboration with, brand culture. Largely missing from these insights, however, is an awareness of basic cultural processes that affect contemporary brands, including historical context, ethical concerns, and representational conventions. In other words, neither managers nor consumers completely control branding processes - cultural codes constrain how brands work to produce meaning. This talk reveals how branding has opened up to include cultural, sociological, and theoretical enquiry, that both complements and complicates economic and managerial analysis of brand culture.

About the speaker:

Jonathan Schroeder is Professor of Marketing at the School of Business and Economics, University of Exeter. He is also a Visiting Professor in Marketing Semiotics at Bocconi University in Milan, and has been a Visiting Professor at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad and Gothenburg University, Sweden. His Ph.D. is in Social Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. Schroeder's research focuses on three main questions: 1) How does visual communication create value? 2) How can we understand the cultural aspects of brands, consumption, and communication? 3) What is the relationship between image and identity? He is the author of Visual Consumption (Routledge, 2002) and co-editor of Brand Culture (Routledge, 2006). He is an editor of Consumption Markets & Culture, and serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Business Research, European Journal of Marketing, Marketing Theory, Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, International Journal of Indian Culture and Business Management, and Advertising and Society Review. He will be a Visiting Fellow at the Centre of Digital Enterprise, University of Auckland in 2007. Further information can be found at the Information Society Network website.

Professor John Roberts, AGSM and London Business school

Title:

Measuring the Impact of Marketing Science

Abstract:

While marketing is an applied discipline, there is relatively little work to calibrate the impact of marketing science on the decisions that managers make. In this paper we develop a conceptual model by which marketing science advances diffuse into management practice, both directly and through uptake by marketing intermediaries.Using a series of surveys with academics, intermediaries and practising managers we identify the 20 most influential marketing science articles and examine the degree to which they have infleunced quantitative tools developed for market sensing. We then examine the direct effect of these articles on practice, as well as their indirect effect through methodological advances.

The use of three groups enables us to examine differences in perspective between academics and pratitioners, while a survey of the authors of the 20 articles gives us some feel for what makes an impactful paper.

About the Speaker:

John Roberts is a Scientia Professor at the Univesrity of New South Wales. He also holds a joint appointment as Professor of Marketing at the LondonBusinessSchool. He has won the American Marekting Asssociation's John A. Howard Award for the top marketing doctorate, its William O'Dell Award for the most influential paper published five years previously, and its Advanced Research Techniques Forum Best Paper Award. He has been runner up in the John Little Award for the top marketing science paper three times. John Is a Fellow of the Ausstralian Marketing Institute, the Australian Institute of Management and the Australian Marketing and Social Research Society.