• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.273-293
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• 2021

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the size of the e-commerce has been increased rapidly. This pandemic, which made contact-less communication culture in everyday life made the e-commerce market to be opened even to the consumers who would hesitate to purchase and pay by electronic device without any personal contacts and seeing or touching the real products. Consumers who have experienced the easy access and convenience of the online purchase would continue to take those advantages even after the pandemic. During this time of transformation, however, the size of information source for the consumers has become even shrunk into a flat screen and limited to visual only. To provide differentiated and competitive information on products, companies are adopting AR/VR and steaming technologies but the reviews from the honest users need to be recognized as important in that it is regarded as strong as the well refined product information provided by marketing professionals of the company and companies may obtain useful insight for product development, marketing and sales strategies. Then from the consumer's point of view, if the ratings of reviews are widely diverged how consumers would process the review information before purchase? Are non-converged ratings always unreliable and worthless? In this study, we analyzed how consumer's regulatory focus moderate the attitude to process the diverged information. This experiment was designed as a 2x2 factorial study to see how the variance of product review ratings (high vs. low) for cosmetics affects product attitudes by the consumers' regulatory focus (prevention focus vs. improvement focus). As a result of the study, it was found that prevention-focused consumers showed high product attitude when the review variance was low, whereas promotion-focused consumers showed high product attitude when the review variance was high. With such a study, this thesis can explain that even if a product with exactly the same average rating, the converged or diverged review can be interpreted differently by customer's regulatory focus. This paper has a theoretical contribution to elucidate the mechanism of consumer's information process when the information is not converged. In practice, as reviews and sales records of each product are accumulated, as an one of applied knowledge management types with big data, companies may develop and provide even reinforced customer experience by providing personalized and optimized products and review information.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.25-51
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• 2012

Researches about the relationship between SST(Self Service Technology) and TRI(Technology Readiness Index) have been carried out after TRI was developed by Parasuraman and his colleagues(2000). We hypothesize Consumer Readiness can also influence consumer's motivation, attitude, and intent to use SST. Currently, there has been no research on this subject. In this study, we investigated the relationship between TR, Consumer Readiness and SST Core Attitudinal Model which Dabholkar & Bagozzi(1994) proposed. The researchers also investigated moderating effects of consumer traits and situational factors to verify the acceptance of such forms of service delivery by all kinds of consumers and under different situational contexts. Self consciousness, the need for interaction with an employee, and the technology anxiety were used as consumer trait variables. Perceived waiting time and perceived crowding were used as situational variables. 380 questionnaires were distributed to a sample group of people in their 20's and 30's, and the data were analyzed with structural equation model using AMOS 18.0 program. All of Cronbach's alpha values representing reliabilities were satisfactory. The values of Composite Reliability(CR) and Average Variance Extracted(AVE) also showed the above criteria, thus providing evidence of convergent validity. To confirm discriminant validity among the constructs, confirmatory factor analysis and correlations among all the variables were examined. The results were satisfactory. The results of this study are summarized as follows. 1. Optimism and innovativeness of TR partially influenced the motivation to use SST. People who tend to be optimistic use SST because of ease of use and fun. The innovative however, usually use SST due to its performance. However, consumer readiness of role clarity, ability and self-efficacy influence all the components of motivation to use SST, ease of use, performance and fun. The relative effect of consumer readiness on the motivation to use SST was much stronger and more significant than that of TR. No other previous studies have examined the effects of Consumer Readiness on SST usage motivation, attitude and intention. It is academically meaningful that the researchers verified that Consumer Readiness is the important precedent construct influencing the self service technology core Attitudinal Model. Our findings suggest that marketers should consider fun and ease of use attributes to promote the use of self service technology. In addition, the SST usage frequency will rise rapidly when role clarity, ability, and self-efficacy which anybody can easily handle SST is assured. If the SST usage rate is increased, waiting times for customers could be decreased. Shorter waiting time could lead to higher customer satisfaction. It may also result in making a long-term profit owing to the reduced number of employees. Thus, presentation of using SST by employees or videos showing how to use it will promote the usage attitude and intent. 2. In SST core attitudinal model, performance and fun factors among SST usage motivation affected attitudes of using SST. The attitude of using SST highly influenced intent to use SST. This result is consistent with previous researches that dealt with the relationship between motivation, attitude and intention. Expectation of using SST could result in good performance just like the effect of ordering menu to service employees and to have fun since fun during its use could promote more SST usage rate. 3. In the relationship among motivation, attitude and intent in SST core attitudinal model, the moderating effect of consumer traits(self-consciousness, need for interaction with service employees and technology anxiety) and situational factors(perceived crowding and perceived waiting time) were tested. The results also supported the hypothesized moderating effects except perceived crowding. The highly self-conscious tended to form attitudes to use SST because of its fun compared to those who were less self-conscious because of its performance. People who had a high need for interaction with service employees tended to use SST for its performance. This result indicates that if ordering results are assured, SST is easily accessible to even consumers who have a high need for interaction with a service employee. When SST is easy to use, attitudes strengthen intent among people who had a high level of anxiety of technology. People who had low technology anxiety formed attitudes to use SST because of its performance. Service firms must ensure their self service technology is designed to be easy to use for those who have a high level of technology anxiety. Shorter perceived waiting times strengthened the attitude to use self service technology because of its fun. If the fun aspect is assured, people willing to use self service technology even perceive waiting time to be shorter than it actually is. Greater perceived waiting times form higher level of intent to use self service technology than those of shorter perceived waiting times. This implies that people view self service technology as a faster alternative to ordering service employees. The fun aspect of self service technology will attract a higher rate of usage for self service technology. 4. It has been proven that ease of use, performance and fun aspects are very important factors in motivation to form attitudes and intent to use self service technology regardless of the amount of perceived waiting time, self-consciousness, need for interaction with service employees, and technology anxiety. Service firms must consider these motivation aspects(ease of use, performance and fun)strongly in their promotion to use self service technology. Ease of use, assuring absolute performance compared to interaction with service employees', and adding a fun aspect will positively strengthen consumers' attitudes and intent to use self service technology. Summarizing the moderating effects, fun is the most valuable factor triggering SST usage attitude and intention. Therefore, designing self service technology to be fun will be the key to its success. This study focused on the touch screen self service technology in fast food restaurant. Although it has its limits due to the fact that it is hard to generalize the results to any other self service technology, the conceptual framework of this study can be applied to future research of any other service site.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.157-194
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• 2008

The popularity of communities on the internet has captured the attention of marketing scholars and practitioners. By adapting to the culture of the internet, however, and providing consumer with the ability to interact with one another in addition to the company, businesses can build new and deeper relationships with customers. The economic potential of online communities has been discussed with much hope in the many popular papers. In contrast to this enthusiastic prognostications, empirical and practical evidence regarding the economic potential of the online community has shown a little different conclusion. To date, even communities with high levels of membership and vibrant social arenas have failed to build financial viability. In this perspective, this study investigates the role of various kinds of influencing factors to online community loyalty and basically suggests the framework that explains the process of building purchase loyalty. Even though the importance of building loyalty in an online environment has been emphasized from the marketing theorists and practitioners, there is no sufficient research conclusion about what is the process of building purchase loyalty and the most powerful factors that influence to it. In this study, the process of building purchase loyalty is divided into three levels; characteristics of community site such as content superiority, site vividness, navigation easiness, and customerization, the mediating variables such as self congruency, consumer experience, and consumer to consumer interactivity, and finally various factors about online community loyalty such as visit loyalty, affect, trust, and purchase loyalty are those things. And the findings of this research are as follows. First, consumer-to-consumer interactivity is an important factor to online community purchase loyalty and other loyalty factors. This means, in order to interact with other people more actively, many participants in online community have the willingness to buy some kinds of products such as music, content, avatar, and etc. From this perspective, marketers of online community have to create some online environments in order that consumers can easily interact with other consumers and make some site environments in order that consumer can feel experience in this site is interesting and self congruency is higher than at other community sites. It has been argued that giving consumers a good experience is vital in cyber space, and websites create an active (rather than passive) customer by their nature. Some researchers have tried to pin down the positive experience, with limited success and less empirical support. Web sites can provide a cognitively stimulating experience for the user. We define the online community experience as playfulness based on the past studies. Playfulness is created by the excitement generated through a website's content and measured using three descriptors Marketers can promote using and visiting online communities, which deliver a superior web experience, to influence their customers' attitudes and actions, encouraging high involvement with those communities. Specially, we suggest that transcendent customer experiences(TCEs) which have aspects of flow and/or peak experience, can generate lasting shifts in beliefs and attitudes including subjective self-transformation and facilitate strong consumer's ties to a online community. And we find that website success is closely related to positive website experiences: consumers will spend more time on the site, interacting with other users. As we can see figure 2, visit loyalty and consumer affect toward the online community site didn't directly influence to purchase loyalty. This implies that there may be a little different situations here in online community site compared to online shopping mall studies that shows close relations between revisit intention and purchase intention. There are so many alternative sites on web, consumers do not want to spend money to buy content and etc. In this sense, marketers of community websites must know consumers' affect toward online community site is not a last goal and important factor to influnece consumers' purchase. Third, building good content environment can be a really important marketing tool to create a competitive advantage in cyberspace. For example, Cyworld, Korea's number one community site shows distinctive superiority in the consumer evaluations of content characteristics such as content superiority, site vividness, and customerization. Particularly, comsumer evaluation about customerization was remarkably higher than the other sites. In this point, we can conclude that providing comsumers with good, unique and highly customized content will be urgent and important task directly and indirectly impacting to self congruency, consumer experience, c-to-c interactivity, and various loyalty factors of online community. By creating enjoyable, useful, and unique online community environments, online community portals such as Daum, Naver, and Cyworld are able to build customer loyalty to a degree that many of today's online marketer can only dream of these loyalty, in turn, generates strong economic returns. Another way to build good online community site is to provide consumers with an interactive, fun, experience-oriented or experiential Web site. Elements that can make a dot.com's Web site experiential include graphics, 3-D images, animation, video and audio capabilities. In addition, chat rooms and real-time customer service applications (which link site visitors directly to other visitors, or with company support personnel, respectively) are also being used to make web sites more interactive. Researchers note that online communities are increasingly incorporating such applications in their Web sites, in order to make consumers' online shopping experience more similar to that of an offline store. That is, if consumers are able to experience sensory stimulation (e.g. via 3-D images and audio sound), interact with other consumers (e.g., via chat rooms), and interact with sales or support people (e.g. via a real-time chat interface or e-mail), then they are likely to have a more positive dot.com experience, and develop a more positive image toward the online company itself). Analysts caution, however, that, while high quality graphics, animation and the like may create a fun experience for consumers, when heavily used, they can slow site navigation, resulting in frustrated consumers, who may never return to a site. Consequently, some analysts suggest that, at least with current technology, the rule-of-thumb is that less is more. That is, while graphics etc. can draw consumers to a site, they should be kept to a minimum, so as not to impact negatively on consumers' overall site experience.

• Archives of design research
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• v.19 no.1 s.63
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• pp.215-224
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• 2006

As the competition becomes more severe, the importance of brand confidence is coming to the front mainly because there has been a tendency of the customer for choosing a product or service in conjunction with the confidence. The concept of brand personality has formed as a result of various efforts for establishing a differentiated and confident brand image. The brand personality is regarded a useful mean for meeting objectives of a corporation for establishing a distinctive brand identity as well as customers for expressing their self-image. In line with the growing importance of the brand personality, researchers have attempted to measure it by various methods. However, most of researches were based on verbal and quantitative methods which take a long period of time and lots of efforts to analyze their results. Such methods also have limitations for visualizing the results. In this vein, this study aims to develop a new visible brand personality measurement system by utilizing the purpose-designed avatar. Major findings of the study are as follows: Firstly, the avatar can be an effective mean for visualizing the brand personality. As the avatar can visualize the personalities of human-beings through facial expressions, clothing, attitudes and movements, a specially designed avatar can express the brand personality. Secondly, types of the brand personality can be segregated into distinctive seven classes and such classes are used as guidelines for developing specially designed brand personality avatars. Thirdly, the purpose-designed brand personality avatar can be an effective mean for measuring the brand personality as a result of various tests for the validity. In condusion, avatar can be a more powerful tool than language for measuring the brand personality.

• Culinary science and hospitality research
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.20-32
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to analyze customers' behavior in using word-of-mouth(WOM) information about Korean local food restaurants. The questionnaire developed for this study was distributed to 500 customers living in Jeonbuk area and a total of 455 copies (91.0%) were used for analysis. The statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS Win(12.0). The results were summarized as follows. The recommendation of people experienced'($M=3.57{\pm}1.24$) and 'word-of-mouth through people around'($M=3.52{\pm}1.20$) were major word-of-mouth information sources of Korean local foods; 'taste of food'($M=4.16{\pm}1.15$) and 'service quality'($M=3.79{\pm}1.11$) were important attributes in word-of-mouth information. In addition, to the question about the reasons for recommending the restaurant to the people around, the most people replied that 'flavor, nutrition and quality of local foods can be kept only in the specific location' ($3.53{\pm}1.08$), followed by 'to keep the memory of the visit to the areas in mind through local foods'($3.51{\pm}1.03$). These results showed that people usually recommend a restaurant based on the quality of the food itself or local characteristics. As a result, it is deemed that word-of-mouth effect is an important factor for the spread of Korean local foods.

• Journal of Korea Society of Industrial Information Systems
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.87-101
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• 2014

The theory of customer-based brand equity emphasizes the importance of brand awareness and brand image or associations in building a strong brand. Marketing scholars have recently begun to identify the two types of corporate associations, that is, corporate ability(CA) and corporate social responsibility(CSR) associations, which had long been conceptualized as a unidimensional construct of corporate image in the literature. In line with the new research stream, I'm developed a research model concerning how CA and CSR associations are related to credibility-based and benevolence-based trust, which in turn will affect emotional trust and consumer attitudes toward company. As for the hypothesized paths, the results confirm that all of the them are supported(H1-H6). First, CA associations have a significant positive relationship with credibility-based trust, and CSR associations are positively related to benevolence-based trust. Second, both dimensions of trust show strong and positive influences on emotional trust. In addition, credibility-based trust directly affect attitude toward firm in the foreign company. But credibility-based trust not affect attitude toward firm in the domestic company.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.12 no.10
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• pp.99-108
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• 2014

Purpose - The goals of this study are the following. First, this study focused on customer satisfaction of in-flight service. Specifically, in-flight duty free items were considered because of their potential value related with the differentiated strategy of airline companies. Second, this study analyzed feasible strategies that would fence off the aversive attitudes of consumers toward innovation regarding in-flight duty free items. Third, this study strived to discover implicit routes related with the reactions of of consumers to innovation. Fourth, the construal level theory was applied to the context of in-flight service. Psychological distance is expected to promote acceptance of innovation for duty free items. Research design, data, and methodology - This study consisted of three experiments. All data were collected through the participation of university students. First, the experiment employed a 2×2 between-subject design. The first independent variable was temporal distance (long vs. short of navigation time). The second independent variable was innovativeness (innovative duty free items vs. typical items). Further, experiment 2 involved a 2×2 between-subject design. The first independent variable was social distance (typical vs. atypical stewardess image). The second was innovativeness that was based on a pattern similar to that of the prior experiment. The third experiment involved a 2×2×2 design. The first and second independent variables were temporal distance and item innovation, respectively, based on the method of experiment 1. The third independent variable was cognitive depletion (depletion vs. control condition). Results - Experiment 1 demonstrated that the innovation of duty free items would need to consider the journey time of the airline. Specifically, innovative items were preferred in case of a long journey; typical items, however, were liked in a short journey. Further, experiment 2 demonstrated that, in spite of a short journey, innovative items would be preferred if an atypical stewardess was serving. An atypical stewardess was linked with social distance, and the psychological effects would activate a creative and flexible mindset that would fit with innovative duty free items. The final experiment was accomplished for the examination of cognitive processing of psychological distance on innovation-acceptance. Specifically, if the effects were related with systematic processing, then cognitive effort would be needed. In contrast, if they were related with heuristic processing, then such efforts would not be required. The same pattern appeared under both cognitive depletion and control condition; therefore, the effects of psychological distance were implied to be heuristic processing. Conclusions - Managers need to consider the navigation time, stewardess concepts, and depletion of consumers as important factors for innovative strategy regarding in-flight service. Longer journeys are more successful for innovative trials. Further, a more atypical stewardess image is more successful for atypical service. Long navigation and unfamiliar stewardesses may activate creative and flexible thinking. Further, cognitive depletion of consumers is not a dominant factor of psychological distance effects, because the effects are not related with systematic processing, but with heuristic processing.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.233-247
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• 2020

The video content platform, which is a social media, is used as a means of producing various contents with high immersion, ease of use, and low production conditions. However, existing social media-related studies were insufficient to examine differences in existing information attributes despite the differences in platform types. Therefore, this study intends to examine the relationship between existing media and social media information attributes. The research model was analyzed by surveying 213 video content users. As a result of the research model analysis, information playability, information timeliness, and information provider reliability had a significant effect on information usefulness. However, information vividness, information accuracy, information neutrality, and professionalism of information providers did not have a significant effect. Through this study, the difference between video content and existing media or social media was found, and it was found that a reliable information provider should provide pleasant content at the right time. In addition, through the understanding of the information processing process of video content, which is a key player in the growth of social media, we believe that it will be very helpful in producing quality content.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.79-91
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• 2015

Purpose - First, the study identifies and analyzes consumer preferences with regard to health foods and supplements. Second, it identifies and analyzes consumer preferences with regard to the properties of Vitamin C supplements. Third, in order to provide a basic data for the development of Vitamin C supplements and to measure how consumers value the properties of different Vitamin C products, a consumer survey was conducted through the choice-based conjoint model. Based on the results, the research estimates consumers' relative product-related priorities as well as price levels and willingness to pay (WTP) for different product types, and makes suggestions regarding consumer-oriented new product development and progressive directions for the successful launch of health foods and supplements. Research design, data, and methodology - This study aims to define the attributes of health foods and supplements based on several characteristics including their natural ingredients, product price, product originality, natural ingredient content, and additional functional ingredients, and makes suggestions regarding strategic market pricing and product development for health foods and supplements according to customer attitudes and characteristics. The research used choice-based conjoint analysis methodology based on the Multinomial Logic Model and collected 94 questionnaires filled out by users of Korean Vitamin C supplements. Results - Product price is the most influential factor among the five analyzed properties. When consumers buy Vitamin C products, the relative significance level of four of the examined properties is as follows: 40.9% for product price, 23.3% for product originality, 21.9% for natural ingredient content, and 13.9% for additional functional ingredients. Vitamin C content is excluded as it is not a statistically significant factor. It is interesting that supplement manufacturers and retailers consider Vitamin C content to be very important whereas consumers do not regard it as an important factor at the time of purchase. The results for the marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) for each property of Vitamin C supplements show that consumers are willing to pay an additional 11,146 Korean won for a 50% increase in the natural ingredient content. With regard to product originality, consumers are willing to pay an additional 11,301 Korean won for products manufactured in Europe than for products manufactured in China. Moreover, consumers show a greater preference for products manufactured in Korea than in Europe. However, consumers are not willing to pay more for additional Vitamin C or additional functional ingredients added to Vitamin C products. Conclusions - According to the results of consumer research on Vitamin C supplements, which represent a popular health food supplement in Korea, most Korean health food and supplement companies are not consumer- or market-oriented when developing new products. Companies gather information from either R&D specialists or sales managers and their opinions are highly reflected in new product development. The study's results will help companies recognize the importance of understanding consumers' unmet needs in advance to develop new products in the future.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.49-59
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• 2011

Although the South Korean organic food market is in the infancy compared to other industrialized countries, Korean consumers'interest in organic food and retail stores devoting space to organic products have been rapidly increasing. Despite the fact of organic food popularity, the term "organic" is interpreted differently by individuals. As opposed to the US, Japan and the EU where have operated an integrated organic food labelling system, Korea has adopted complex organic labelling systems regulated by several different government bodies. As a result, complicated food labelling standards make consumers confused when purchasing organic foods. Furthermore, in terms of country of origin (COO), it is argued by a lot of researchers that COO effects vary from product to product and from country to country; moreover, other informational cues such as brand and price can influence COO effects. In modern society, COO labelling has been complicated, due to the sourcing, manufacturing and market locations of merchandise spread over the world. Accordingly, the evaluation of COO effects has become complex. In order to examine these issues, a quantitative research was selected to classify the commonfeatures of organic food consumers and construct statistics such as the extent to which people are aware of organic food and COO labellingvia a questionnaire which took place in two cities in Korea with a cluster sample of 161 organic food purchasers. As for the data analysis, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), T-tests, bivariate crosstatulations with Cramer's V were conducted,depending on the characteristics of variables and the assumptions the research data need to fit. It has been concluded that in general, Korean organic consumers comprehend the term "organic"in a closer way to the general concept rather than technical term, thus people do not appreciate environmentally labels which include organic food labels, although marital status influence the degree of label awareness, regardless of gender, age, education level and so on. Regarding COO effects on organic food, home organic products were Korean consumers'first choice over those from industrialized countries and developing nations. Specifically, in processed organic product category, domestically cultivated and processed organic products were absolutely preferred to leading national brands produced with imported ingredients and international brands. However, due to a lack of checks of ingredients' COO, consumers tend to purchase a leading national organic food brand, believing that it is a pure organic food sourced domestically. As a consequence, this research has suggested some important managerial implications and future research directions. In order to prevent consumer confusion when buying organic foods, it should be noted that consumers do not comprehend the organic food certifications, due to complicated labelling systems for organic produce and processed organic foods. Therefore, government bodies related to organic food distribution have to know consumers' perception of organic food labels and the significance of customer-oriented labels and reestablish labelling standards. Similarly, public advertising should be followed to raise public awareness of the labelling to enable customers to have the correct information. In addition, not only international marketers but also domestic marketers need to understand COO images and also the influence COO of ingredients has on the image of an organic product.