• Title/Summary/Keyword: Consumption Needs

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An historical analysis on the carbon lock-in of Korean electricity industry (한국 전력산업의 탄소고착에 대한 역사적 분석)

  • Chae, Yeoungjin;Roh, Keonki;Park, Jung-Gu
    • Journal of Energy Engineering
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    • v.23 no.2
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    • pp.125-148
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    • 2014
  • This paper performs a historical analysis on the various factors contributing to the current carbon lock-in of Korean electricity industry by using techo-institutional complex. The possibilities of the industry's carbon lock-out toward more sustainable development are also investigated. It turns out that market, firm, consumer, and government factors are all responsible for the development of the carbon lock-in of Korean power industry; the Korean government consistently favoring large power plants based on the economy of scale; below-cost electricity tariff; inflation policy to suppress increases in power price; rapid demand growth in summer and winter seasons; rigidities of electricity tariff; and expansion of gas-fired and imported coal-fired large power plants. On the other hand, except for nuclear power generation and smart grid, environment laws and new and renewable energy laws are the other remaining factors contributing to the carbon lock-out. Considering three key points that Korea is an export-oriented economy, the generation mix is the most critical factor to decide the amounts of carbon emission in the power industry, and the share of industry and commercial power consumption is over 85%, it is unlikely that Korea will achieve the carbon lock-out of power industry in the near future. Therefore, there are needs for more integrated approaches from market, firm, consumer, and government all together in order to achieve the carbon lock-out in the electricity industry. Firstly, from the market perspective, it is necessary to persue more active new and renewable energy penetration and to guarantee consumer choices by mitigating the incumbent's monopoly power as in the OECD countries. Secondly, from the firm perspective, the promotion of distributed energy system is urgent, which includes new and renewable resources and demand resources. Thirdly, from the consumer perspective, more green choices in the power tariff and customer awareness on the carbon lock-out are needed. Lastly, the government shall urgently improve power planning frameworks to include the various externalities that were not properly reflected in the past such as environmental and social conflict costs.

A Study on the Application of Bushings Fire Prevent Structure to Prevent Fire Spread of Transformer (변압기의 화재확산 방지를 위한 부싱 방화구조체 적용에 관한 연구)

  • Kim, Do-Hyun;Cho, Nam-Wook;Yoon, Choung-Ho;Park, Pil-Yong;Park, Keun-Sung
    • Fire Science and Engineering
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    • v.31 no.5
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    • pp.53-62
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    • 2017
  • Electric power which is the energy source of economy and industries requires long distance transportation due to regional difference between its production and consumption, and it is supplied through the multi-loop transmission and distribution system. Prior to its actual use, electric power flows through several transformations by voltage transformers in substations depending on the characteristics of each usage, and a transformer has the structure consisting of the main body, winding wire, insulating oil and bushings. A transformer fire that breaks out in substations entails the primary damage that interrupts the power supply to houses and commercial facilities and causes various safety accidents as well as the secondary economic losses. It is considered that causes of such fire include the leak of insulating oil resulting from the destruction of bottom part of bushings, and the chain reaction of fire due to insulating oil that reaches its ignition point within 1 second. The smoke detector and automatic fire extinguishing system are established in order to minimize fire damage, but a difficulty in securing golden time for extinguishing fire due to delay in the operation of detector and release of gas from the extinguishing system has become a problem. Accordingly, this study was carried out according to needs of active mechanism to prevent the spread of fire and block the leak of insulating oil, in accordance with the importance of securing golden time in extinguishing a fire in its early stage. A bushings fireproof structure was developed by applying the high temperature shape retention materials, which are expanded by flame, and mechanical flame cutoff devices. The bushings fireproof structure was installed on the transformer model produced by applying the actual standards of bushings and flange, and the full scale fire test was carried out. It was confirmed that the bushings fireproof structure operated at accurate position and height within 3 seconds from the flame initiation. It is considered that it could block the spread of flame effectively in the event of actual transformer fire.

Time Change in Spatial Distributions of Light Interception and Photosynthetic Rate of Paprika Estimated by Ray-tracing Simulation (광 추적 시뮬레이션에 의한 시간 별 파프리카의 수광 및 광합성 속도 분포 예측)

  • Kang, Woo Hyun;Hwang, Inha;Jung, Dae Ho;Kim, Dongpil;Kim, Jaewoo;Kim, Jin Hyun;Park, Kyoung Sub;Son, Jung Eek
    • Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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    • v.28 no.4
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    • pp.279-285
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    • 2019
  • To estimate daily canopy photosynthesis, accurate estimation of canopy light interception according to a daily solar position is needed. However, this process needs a lot of cost, time, manpower, and difficulty when measuring manually. Various modeling approaches have been applied so far, but it was difficult to accurately estimate light interception by conventional methods. The objective of this study is to estimate the spatial distributions of light interception and photosynthetic rate of paprika with time by using 3D-scanned plant models and optical simulation. Structural models of greenhouse paprika were constructed with a portable 3D scanner. To investigate the change in canopy light interception by surrounding plants, the 3D paprika models were arranged at $1{\times}1$ and $9{\times}9$ isotropic forms with a distance of 60 cm between plants. The light interception was obtained by optical simulation, and the photosynthetic rate was calculated by a rectangular hyperbola model. The spatial distributions of canopy light interception of the 3D paprika model showed different patterns with solar altitude at 9:00, 12:00, and 15:00. The total canopy light interception decreased with an increase of surrounding plants like an arrangement of $9{\times}9$, and the decreasing rate was lowest at 12:00. The canopy photosynthetic rate showed a similar tendency with the canopy light interception, but its decreasing rate was lower than that of the light interception due to the saturation of photosynthetic rate of upper leaves of the plants. In this study, by using the 3D-scanned plant model and optical simulation, it was possible to analyze the light interception and photosynthesis of plant canopy under various conditions, and it can be an effective way to estimate accurate light interception and photosynthesis of plants.

National brand development research strategy using traditional Korean patterns (한국 전통 문양을 활용한 국가 브랜드 연구 개발 전략 - 금문(錦紋)을 중심으로 -)

  • KIM, Mihye
    • Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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    • v.54 no.4
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    • pp.232-245
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    • 2021
  • The present study is about a brand development strategy that utilizes Korean traditional patterns. The global culturenomics phenomenon confirms the value of the cultural aspects of design when a national brand is established. People succeed with their unique aesthetic sense and reinterpret it in a modern view, and this design acts as today's national brands. In this way, people used traditional patterns and original designs, along with regional characteristics and formative style, in developing their designs. However, due to recent changes in the global environment, modern people live in an "untact" world, and consumption culture shifted toward online marketing. In this environment, where one is isolated from social activities, there needs to be a strong image that can dramatically change the mood of one's home. I would like to re-examine the Dan-Chung pattern, whose painting depends on the aesthetic characteristics of architecture to protect the wooden members of the framework in traditional architecture. The pattern and color of Dan-Chung, coated in traditional architecture, differs by the type of construction used, which includes a palace, a Buddhist temple, and a Confucianism Dan Chung. The Geummoon pattern contains aesthetic factors to add solemnity to the Main Buddhist Halls, which contain Buddha. This is a new medium that continues the current traditions instead of remaining in the past. Among different Dan Chung patterns, Geummoon has magnificent decoration consisting of the highest grade materials and unique composition; therefore, it is suitable to be reinterpreted in modern terms. The same pattern can be interpreted in different ways with different colors, so there is a great aesthetic impression in the Geummoon pattern. The value of preservation for exploration and theoretical study of the traditional pattern is important, but recreating the pattern into modern formative art can present a new angle of view and national brand, bearing pride in our cultural assets. The study used multidimensional molding methods for realistic presentation after going through the two-dimensional design process. The significant value of Korean molding beauty which hangs onto the past will play a crucial role in establishing our national brand.

A Case Study on the Community-based Elderly Care Services Provided by the Social Economy Network in Gwangjin-Gu, Seoul (사회적경제 조직의 지역사회 돌봄 네트워킹 가능성에 대한 비판적 고찰: 서울시 광진구 노인돌봄 클러스터 사례연구)

  • Kim, HyoungYong;Han, EunYoung
    • 한국노년학
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    • v.38 no.4
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    • pp.1057-1081
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    • 2018
  • This study analyzed the case of elderly care cluster in Gwangjin-gu to explore the possibilities of social economy as a provider of community-based social services. Community-based means the approach by which community organizations build a voluntary and collaborative network to enhance collective problem-solving abilities. Therefore, it is very likely that the social economy that emphasizes people, labor, community, and democratic principles can contribute to community-based social services. This study analyzed social economic network by using four characteristics of social economy suggested by OECD community economy and employment program as an analysis framework. The results of this study are as follows: First, it is found that social economy would hardly supply community-based social services through network cooperation because of a large variation in community identity, investment to new product, and labor protection. Second, community users are not the consumers of the social economy and the products of the social economy stay in market products only for the organizations in social economy. In order to create good services that meet the needs of residents, community development approaches are required at the same time. The importance of community space where local residents and social economy meet is derived. Third, public support such as purchasing support has weakened the ecosystem of social economy by making the distinction between public economy and social economy more obscure. On the other hand, public investment in community infrastructure is an indirect aid to social economy to communicate with residents and to promote good supply and consumption. In the end, community-based social services need a platform where the social economy and the people meet. This type of public investment can create the ecosystem of the social economy.

An Experimental Study on Radiation/Convection Hybrid Air-Conditioner (복사-대류 겸용 하이브리드 냉방기에 대한 실험 연구)

  • Kim, Nae-Hyun
    • Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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    • v.20 no.6
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    • pp.288-296
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    • 2019
  • Radiation cooling has used ceilings or floors as cooling surfaces. In such cases, to avoid moisture condensation on the surface, the surface temperature needs be higher than the dew point temperature or an additional dehumidifier is added. In this study, with a goal for residential application, intentional moisture condensation on the cooling surface was attempted, which increased the cooling capacity and improved the indoor comfortness. This method included two separate refrigeration cycles - convection-type dehumidifying cycle and the panel cooling cycle. Test results on the panel cooling cycle showed that, at the standard outdoor ($35^{\circ}C/24^{\circ}C$) and indoor ($27^{\circ}C/19.5^{\circ}C$) condition, the refrigerant flow rate was 8.8 kg/h, condensation temperature was $51^{\circ}C$, evaporation temperature was $8.8^{\circ}C$, cooling capacity was 376 W and COP was 1.75. Furthermore, the panel temperature was uniform within $1^{\circ}C$ (between $13^{\circ}C$ and $14^{\circ}C$). As the relative humidity decreased, the cooling capacity decreased. However, the power consumption remained approximately constant. In the convection-type dehumidification cycle, the refrigerant flow rate was 21.1 kg/h, condensation temperature was $61^{\circ}C$, evaporation temperature was $5.0^{\circ}C$, cooling capacity was 949 W and COP was 2.11 at the standard air condition. When both the radiation panel cooling and the dehumidification cycle operated simultaneously, the cooling capacity of the radiation panel cycle was 333 W and that of the dehumidification cycle was 894 W, and the COP was 1.89. As the fan flow rate decreased, both the cooling capacity of the radiation panel and the dehumidification cycle decreased, with that of the dehumidification cycle decreasing at a higher rate. Finally, a possible control logic depending on the change of the cooling load was proposed based on the results of the present study.

The Impact of Community on Family Relations Satisfaction : Focusing on the Family Happiness Composite Index in Korea (지역사회가 가족관계만족에 미치는 영향 : 한국 가족행복종합지수를 중심으로)

  • Oh, Youngeun;Choo, Joohee;ko, kawangyee
    • 지역과문화
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    • v.7 no.2
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    • pp.173-202
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    • 2020
  • This study aims to enhance the family-friendliness of the region by examining the relationship between family relations and the community environment, and objectively comparing the local environment surrounding the family. To this end, we reviewed the areas of socio-cultural and economic sectors that affect the family relationship satisfaction, and in particular, analyzed the trend of changes in regional index by utilizing the Korean Family Happiness Composite Index (KFHCI) developed as a community indicators. This index utilizes community indicators published in the National Statistical Portal's "e-Region indicators," and these variables are related to family relationship satisfaction. Therefore, this study compared the seven areas of the Family Happiness Composite Index (Population Family, Health Culture, Education, Income Consumption, Employment Labor, Housing Transportation, Environment and Social Integration) by region, and examined the trends for 10 years. According to the study, the average score of KFHCI's entire region was rising from 2008 to 2018. Overall, the community environment that affects family relationship satisfaction is also improving. The regions belonging to the upper level were Jeonnam, Gangwon, Chungnam, Jeonbuk, and Gyeongbuk. Areas belonging to the lower level are Seoul, Busan, Daegu, Incheon, and Gwangju. In almost sectors, the lower-level regions did not have sufficient physical infrastructure compared to population density and over-density, and improved little by little, but not enough to reflect the needs of local people and improve the quality of life. In the future, we should develop more regular and complementary indicators to develop customized policies for each region that can improve the quality of family relationships. It will also be necessary to study the impact of each index field when a socioeconomic crisis occurs due to social disasters, and try to change indicators

The Influence of Store Environment on Service Brand Personality and Repurchase Intention (점포의 물리적 환경이 서비스 브랜드 개성과 재구매의도에 미치는 영향)

  • Kim, Hyoung-Gil;Kim, Jung-Hee;Kim, Youn-Jeong
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.17 no.4
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    • pp.141-173
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    • 2007
  • The study examines how the environmental factors of store influence service brand personality and repurchase intention in the service environment. The service industry has been experiencing the intensified competition with the industry's continuous growth and the influence from rapid technological advancement. Under the circumstances, it has become ever more important for the brand competitiveness to be distinctively recognized against competition. A brand needs to be distinguished and differentiated from competing companies because they are all engaged in the similar environment of the service industry. The differentiation of brand achievement has become increasingly important to highlight certain brand functions to include emotional, self-expressive, and symbolic functions since the importance of such functions has been further emphasized in promoting consumption activities. That is the recent role of brand personality that has been emphasized in the service industry. In other words, customers now freely and actively express their personalities or egos in consumption activities, taking an important role in construction of a brand asset. Hence, the study suggests that it is necessary to disperse the recognition and acknowledgement that the maintenance of the existing customers contributes more to boost repurchase intention when it is compared to the efforts to create new customers, particularly in the service industry. Meanwhile, the store itself can offer a unique environment that may influence the consumer's purchase decision. Consumers interact with store environments in the process of,virtually, all household purchase they make (Sarel 1981). Thus, store environments may encourage customers to purchase. The roles that store environments play are to provide informational cues to customers about the store and goods and communicate messages to stimulate consumers' emotions. The store environments differentiate the store from competing stores and build a unique service brand personality. However, the existing studies related to brand in the service industry mostly concentrated on the relationship between the quality of service and customer satisfaction, and they are mostly generalized while the connective studies focused on brand personality. Such approaches show limitations and are insufficient to investigate on the relationship between store environment and brand personality in the service industry. Accordingly, the study intends to identify the level of contribution to the establishment of brand personality made by the store's physical environments that influence on the specific brand characteristics depending on the type of service. The study also intends to identify what kind of relationships with brand personality exists with brand personality while being influenced by store environments. In addition, the study intends to make meaningful suggestions to better direct marketing efforts by identifying whether a brand personality makes a positive influence to induce an intention for repurchase. For this study, the service industry is classified into four categories based on to the characteristics of service: experimental-emotional service, emotional -credible service, credible-functional service, and functional-experimental service. The type of business with the most frequent customer contact is determined for each service type and the enterprise with the highest brand value in each service sector based on the report made by the Korea Management Association. They are designated as the representative of each category. The selected representatives are a fast-food store (experimental-emotional service), a cinema house (emotional-credible service), a bank (credible-functional service), and discount store (functional-experimental service). The survey was conducted for the four selected brands to represent each service category among consumers who are experienced users of the designated stores in Seoul Metropolitan City and Gyeonggi province via written questionnaires in order to verify the suggested assumptions in the study. In particular, the survey adopted 15 scales, which represent each characteristic factor, among the 42 unique characteristics developed by Jennifer Aaker(1997) to assess the brand personality of each service brand. SPSS for Windows Release 12.0 and LISREL were used in the analysis of data verification. The methodology of the structural equation model was used for the study and the pivotal findings are as follows. 1) The environmental factors ware classified as design factors, ambient factors, and social factors. Therefore, the validity of measurement scale of Baker et al. (1994) was proved. 2) The service brand personalities were subdivided as sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness, which makes the use of the brand personality scales by Jennifer Aaker(1997) appropriate in the service industry as well. 3) One-way ANOVA analysis on the scales of store environment and service brand personality showed that there exist statistically significant differences in each service category. For example, the social factors were highest in discount stores, while the ambient factors and design factors were highest in fast-food stores. The discount stores were highest in the sincerity and excitement, while the highest point for banks was in the competence and ruggedness, and the highest point for fast-food stores was in the sophistication, The consumers will make a different respond to the physical environment of stores and service brand personality that are inherent to the corresponding service interface. Hence, the customers will make a different decision-making when dealing with different service categories. In this aspect, the relationships of variables in the proposed hypothesis appear to work in a different way depending on the exposed service category. 4) The store environment factors influenced on service brand personalities differently by category of service. The factors of store's physical environment are transferred to a brand and were verified to strengthen service brand personalities. In particular, the level of influence on the service brand personality by physical environment differs depending on service category or dimension, which indicates that there is a need to apply a different style of management to a different service category or dimension. It signifies that there needs to be a brand strategy established in order to positively influence the relationship with consumers by utilizing an appropriate brand personality factor depending on different characteristics by service category or dimension. 5) The service brand personalities influenced on the repurchase intention. Especially, the largest influence was made in the sophistication dimension of service brand personality scale; the unique and characteristically appropriate arrangement of physical environment will make customers stay in the service environment for a long time and will lead to give a positive influence on the repurchase intention. 6) The store environment factors influenced on the repurchase intention. Particularly, the largest influence was made on the social factors of store environment. The most intriguing finding is that the service factor among all other environment factors gives the biggest influence to the repurchase intention in most of all service types except fast-food stores. Such result indicates that the customers pay attention to how much the employees try to provide a quality service when they make an evaluation on the service brand. At the same time, it also indicates that the personal factor is directly transmitted to the construction of brand personality. The employees' attitude and behavior are the determinants to establish a service brand personality in the process of enhancing service interface. Hence, there should be a reinforced search for a method to efficiently manage the service staff who has a direct contact with customers in order to make an affirmative improvement of the customers' brand evaluation at the service interface. The findings suggest several managerial implications. 1) Results from the empirical study indicated that store environment factors have a strong positive impact on a service brand personality. To increase customers' repurchase intention of a service brand, the management is required to effectively manage store environment factors and create a friendly brand personality based on the corresponding service environment. 2) Mangers and researchers must understand and recognize that the store environment elements are important marketing tools, and that brand personality influences on consumers' repurchase intention. Based on such result of the study, a service brand could be utilized as an efficient measure to achieve a differentiation by enforcing the elements that are most influential among all other store environments for each service category. Therefore, brand personality established involving various store environments will further reinforce the relationship with customers through the elevated brand identification of which utilization to induce repurchase decision can be used as an entry barrier. 3) The study identified the store environment as a component of service brand personality for the store's effective communication with consumers. For this, all communication channels should be maintained with consistency and an integrated marketing communication should be executed to efficiently approach to a larger number of customers. Mangers and researchers must find strategies for aligning decisions about store environment elements with the retailers' marketing and store personality objectives. All ambient, design, and social factors need to be orchestrated so that consumers can take an appropriate store personality. In this study, the induced results from the previous studies were extended to the service industry so as to identify the customers' decision making process that leads to repurchase intention and a result similar to those of the previous studies. The findings suggested several theoretical and managerial implications. However, the situation that only one service brand served as the subject of analysis for each service category, and the situation that correlations among store environment elements were not identified, as well as the problem of representation in selection of samples should be considered and supplemented in the future when further studies are conducted. In addition, various antecedents and consequences of brand personality must be looked at in the aspect of the service environment for further research.

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If This Brand Were a Person, or Anthropomorphism of Brands Through Packaging Stories (가설품패시인(假设品牌是人), 혹통과고사포장장품패의인화(或通过故事包装将品牌拟人化))

  • Kniazeva, Maria;Belk, Russell W.
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.20 no.3
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    • pp.231-238
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    • 2010
  • The anthropomorphism of brands, defined as seeing human beings in brands (Puzakova, Kwak, and Rosereto, 2008) is the focus of this study. Specifically, the research objective is to understand the ways in which brands are rendered humanlike. By analyzing consumer readings of stories found on food product packages we intend to show how marketers and consumers humanize a spectrum of brands and create meanings. Our research question considers the possibility that a single brand may host multiple or single meanings, associations, and personalities for different consumers. We start by highlighting the theoretical and practical significance of our research, explain why we turn our attention to packages as vehicles of brand meaning transfer, then describe our qualitative methodology, discuss findings, and conclude with a discussion of managerial implications and directions for future studies. The study was designed to directly expose consumers to potential vehicles of brand meaning transfer and then engage these consumers in free verbal reflections on their perceived meanings. Specifically, we asked participants to read non-nutritional stories on selected branded food packages, in order to elicit data about received meanings. Packaging has yet to receive due attention in consumer research (Hine, 1995). Until now, attention has focused solely on its utilitarian function and has generated a body of research that has explored the impact of nutritional information and claims on consumer perceptions of products (e.g., Loureiro, McCluskey and Mittelhammer, 2002; Mazis and Raymond, 1997; Nayga, Lipinski and Savur, 1998; Wansik, 2003). An exception is a recent study that turns its attention to non-nutritional packaging narratives and treats them as cultural productions and vehicles for mythologizing the brand (Kniazeva and Belk, 2007). The next step in this stream of research is to explore how such mythologizing activity affects brand personality perception and how these perceptions relate to consumers. These are the questions that our study aimed to address. We used in-depth interviews to help overcome the limitations of quantitative studies. Our convenience sample was formed with the objective of providing demographic and psychographic diversity in order to elicit variations in consumer reflections to food packaging stories. Our informants represent middle-class residents of the US and do not exhibit extreme alternative lifestyles described by Thompson as "cultural creatives" (2004). Nine people were individually interviewed on their food consumption preferences and behavior. Participants were asked to have a look at the twelve displayed food product packages and read all the textual information on the package, after which we continued with questions that focused on the consumer interpretations of the reading material (Scott and Batra, 2003). On average, each participant reflected on 4-5 packages. Our in-depth interviews lasted one to one and a half hours each. The interviews were tape recorded and transcribed, providing 140 pages of text. The products came from local grocery stores on the West Coast of the US and represented a basic range of food product categories, including snacks, canned foods, cereals, baby foods, and tea. The data were analyzed using procedures for developing grounded theory delineated by Strauss and Corbin (1998). As a result, our study does not support the notion of one brand/one personality as assumed by prior work. Thus, we reveal multiple brand personalities peacefully cohabiting in the same brand as seen by different consumers, despite marketer attempts to create more singular brand personalities. We extend Fournier's (1998) proposition, that one's life projects shape the intensity and nature of brand relationships. We find that these life projects also affect perceived brand personifications and meanings. While Fournier provides a conceptual framework that links together consumers’ life themes (Mick and Buhl, 1992) and relational roles assigned to anthropomorphized brands, we find that consumer life projects mold both the ways in which brands are rendered humanlike and the ways in which brands connect to consumers' existential concerns. We find two modes through which brands are anthropomorphized by our participants. First, brand personalities are created by seeing them through perceived demographic, psychographic, and social characteristics that are to some degree shared by consumers. Second, brands in our study further relate to consumers' existential concerns by either being blended with consumer personalities in order to connect to them (the brand as a friend, a family member, a next door neighbor) or by distancing themselves from the brand personalities and estranging them (the brand as a used car salesman, a "bunch of executives.") By focusing on food product packages, we illuminate a very specific, widely-used, but little-researched vehicle of marketing communication: brand storytelling. Recent work that has approached packages as mythmakers, finds it increasingly challenging for marketers to produce textual stories that link the personalities of products to the personalities of those consuming them, and suggests that "a multiplicity of building material for creating desired consumer myths is what a postmodern consumer arguably needs" (Kniazeva and Belk, 2007). Used as vehicles for storytelling, food packages can exploit both rational and emotional approaches, offering consumers either a "lecture" or "drama" (Randazzo, 2006), myths (Kniazeva and Belk, 2007; Holt, 2004; Thompson, 2004), or meanings (McCracken, 2005) as necessary building blocks for anthropomorphizing their brands. The craft of giving birth to brand personalities is in the hands of writers/marketers and in the minds of readers/consumers who individually and sometimes idiosyncratically put a meaningful human face on a brand.

Understanding User Motivations and Behavioral Process in Creating Video UGC: Focus on Theory of Implementation Intentions (Video UGC 제작 동기와 행위 과정에 관한 이해: 구현의도이론 (Theory of Implementation Intentions)의 적용을 중심으로)

  • Kim, Hyung-Jin;Song, Se-Min;Lee, Ho-Geun
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.19 no.4
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    • pp.125-148
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    • 2009
  • UGC(User Generated Contents) is emerging as the center of e-business in the web 2.0 era. The trend reflects changing roles of users in production and consumption of contents on websites and helps us to understand new strategies of websites such as web portals and social network websites. Nowadays, we consume contents created by other non-professional users for both utilitarian (e.g., knowledge) and hedonic values (e.g., fun). Also, contents produced by ourselves (e.g., photo, video) are posted on websites so that our friends, family, and even the public can consume those contents. This means that non-professionals, who used to be passive audience in the past, are now creating contents and share their UGCs with others in the Web. Accessible media, tools, and applications have also reduced difficulty and complexity in the process of creating contents. Realizing that users create plenty of materials which are very interesting to other people, media companies (i.e., web portals and social networking websites) are adjusting their strategies and business models accordingly. Increased demand of UGC may lead to website visits which are the source of benefits from advertising. Therefore, they put more efforts into making their websites open platforms where UGCs can be created and shared among users without technical and methodological difficulties. Many websites have increasingly adopted new technologies such as RSS and openAPI. Some have even changed the structure of web pages so that UGC can be seen several times to more visitors. This mainstream of UGCs on websites indicates that acquiring more UGCs and supporting participating users have become important things to media companies. Although those companies need to understand why general users have shown increasing interest in creating and posting contents and what is important to them in the process of productions, few research results exist in this area to address these issues. Also, behavioral process in creating video UGCs has not been explored enough for the public to fully understand it. With a solid theoretical background (i.e., theory of implementation intentions), parts of our proposed research model mirror the process of user behaviors in creating video contents, which consist of intention to upload, intention to edit, edit, and upload. In addition, in order to explain how those behavioral intentions are developed, we investigated influences of antecedents from three motivational perspectives (i.e., intrinsic, editing software-oriented, and website's network effect-oriented). First, from the intrinsic motivation perspective, we studied the roles of self-expression, enjoyment, and social attention in forming intention to edit with preferred editing software or in forming intention to upload video contents to preferred websites. Second, we explored the roles of editing software for non-professionals to edit video contents, in terms of how it makes production process easier and how it is useful in the process. Finally, from the website characteristic-oriented perspective, we investigated the role of a website's network externality as an antecedent of users' intention to upload to preferred websites. The rationale is that posting UGCs on websites are basically social-oriented behaviors; thus, users prefer a website with the high level of network externality for contents uploading. This study adopted a longitudinal research design; we emailed recipients twice with different questionnaires. Guided by invitation email including a link to web survey page, respondents answered most of questions except edit and upload at the first survey. They were asked to provide information about UGC editing software they mainly used and preferred website to upload edited contents, and then asked to answer related questions. For example, before answering questions regarding network externality, they individually had to declare the name of the website to which they would be willing to upload. At the end of the first survey, we asked if they agreed to participate in the corresponding survey in a month. During twenty days, 333 complete responses were gathered in the first survey. One month later, we emailed those recipients to ask for participation in the second survey. 185 of the 333 recipients (about 56 percentages) answered in the second survey. Personalized questionnaires were provided for them to remind the names of editing software and website that they reported in the first survey. They answered the degree of editing with the software and the degree of uploading video contents to the website for the past one month. To all recipients of the two surveys, exchange tickets for books (about 5,000~10,000 Korean Won) were provided according to the frequency of participations. PLS analysis shows that user behaviors in creating video contents are well explained by the theory of implementation intentions. In fact, intention to upload significantly influences intention to edit in the process of accomplishing the goal behavior, upload. These relationships show the behavioral process that has been unclear in users' creating video contents for uploading and also highlight important roles of editing in the process. Regarding the intrinsic motivations, the results illustrated that users are likely to edit their own video contents in order to express their own intrinsic traits such as thoughts and feelings. Also, their intention to upload contents in preferred website is formed because they want to attract much attention from others through contents reflecting themselves. This result well corresponds to the roles of the website characteristic, namely, network externality. Based on the PLS results, the network effect of a website has significant influence on users' intention to upload to the preferred website. This indicates that users with social attention motivations are likely to upload their video UGCs to a website whose network size is big enough to realize their motivations easily. Finally, regarding editing software characteristic-oriented motivations, making exclusively-provided editing software more user-friendly (i.e., easy of use, usefulness) plays an important role in leading to users' intention to edit. Our research contributes to both academic scholars and professionals. For researchers, our results show that the theory of implementation intentions is well applied to the video UGC context and very useful to explain the relationship between implementation intentions and goal behaviors. With the theory, this study theoretically and empirically confirmed that editing is a different and important behavior from uploading behavior, and we tested the behavioral process of ordinary users in creating video UGCs, focusing on significant motivational factors in each step. In addition, parts of our research model are also rooted in the solid theoretical background such as the technology acceptance model and the theory of network externality to explain the effects of UGC-related motivations. For practitioners, our results suggest that media companies need to restructure their websites so that users' needs for social interaction through UGC (e.g., self-expression, social attention) are well met. Also, we emphasize strategic importance of the network size of websites in leading non-professionals to upload video contents to the websites. Those websites need to find a way to utilize the network effects for acquiring more UGCs. Finally, we suggest that some ways to improve editing software be considered as a way to increase edit behavior which is a very important process leading to UGC uploading.