• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.68-79
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• 2009

The interplay between hedonic and utilitarian attributes has assumed special significance in recent years; it has been proposed that consumption offerings should be viewed as experiences that stimulate both cognitions and feelings rather than as mere products or services. This research builds on previous work on hedonic versus utilitarian benefits, regulatory focus theory, customer satisfaction to address two question: (1) Is the shopping goal at the point of purchase different from the shopping value? and (2) Is the customer loyalty after the use different from the shopping value and shopping goal? We surveyed 345 peoples those who have bought the electronic-goods within 6 months. This research dealt with the shopping value which is consisted of 2 types, hedonic and utilitarian. Those who pursue the hedonic shopping value may prefer the pleasure of purchasing experience to the product itself. They tend to prefer atmosphere, arousal of the shopping experience. Consistent with previous research, we use the term "hedonic" to refer to their aesthetic, experiential and enjoyment-related value. On the contrary, Those who pursue the utilitarian shopping value may prefer the reasonable buying. It may be more functional. Consistent with previous research, we use the term "utilitarian" to refer to the functional, instrumental, and practical value of consumption offerings. Holbrook(1999) notes that consumer value is an experience that results from the consumption of such benefits. In the context of cell phones for example, the phone's battery life and sound volume are utilitarian benefits, whereas aesthetic appeal from its shape and color are hedonic benefits. Likewise, in the case of a car, fuel economics and safety are utilitarian benefits whereas the sunroof and the luxurious interior are hedonic benefits. The shopping goals are consisted of the promotion focus goal and the prevention focus goal, based on the self-regulatory focus theory. The promotion focus is characterized into focusing ideal self because they are oriented to wishes and vision. The promotion focused individuals are tend to be more risk taking. They are more sensitive to hope and achievement. On the contrary, the prevention focused individuals are characterized into focusing the responsibilities because they are oriented to safety. The prevention focused individuals are tend to be more risk avoiding. We wanted to test the relation among the shopping value, shopping goal and customer loyalty. Customers show the positive or negative feelings comparing with the expectation level which customers have at the point of the purchase. If the result were bigger than the expectation, customers may feel positive feeling such as delight or satisfaction and they would want to share their feelings with other people. And they want to buy those products again in the future time. There is converging evidence that the types of goals consumers expect to be fulfilled by the utilitarian dimension of a product are different from those they seek from the hedonic dimension (Chernev 2004). Specifically, whereas consumers expect the fulfillment of product prevention goals on the utilitarian dimension, they expect the fulfillment of promotion goals on the hedonic dimension (Chernev 2004; Chitturi, Raghunathan, and Majahan 2007; Higgins 1997, 2001) According to the regulatory focus theory, prevention goals are those that ought to be met. Fulfillment of prevention goals in the context of product consumption eliminates or significantly reduces the probability of a painful experience, thus making consumers experience emotions that result from fulfillment of prevention goals such as confidence and securities. On the contrary, fulfillment of promotion goals are those that a person aspires to meet, such as "looking cool" or "being sophisticated." Fulfillment of promotion goals in the context of product consumption significantly increases the probability of a pleasurable experience, thus enabling consumers to experience emotions that result from the fulfillment of promotion goals. The proposed conceptual framework captures that the relationships among hedonic versus utilitarian shopping values and promotion versus prevention shopping goals respectively. An analysis of the consequence of the fulfillment and frustration of utilitarian and hedonic value is theoretically worthwhile. It is also substantively relevant because it helps predict post-consumption behavior such as the promotion versus prevention shopping goals orientation. Because our primary goal is to understand how the post consumption feelings influence the variable customer loyalty: word of mouth (Jacoby and Chestnut 1978). This research result is that the utilitarian shopping value gives the positive influence to both of the promotion and prevention goal. However the influence to the prevention goal is stronger. On the contrary, hedonic shopping value gives influence to the promotion focus goal only. Additionally, both of the promotion and prevention goal show the positive relation with customer loyalty. However, the positive relation with promotion goal and customer loyalty is much stronger. The promotion focus goal gives the influence to the customer loyalty. On the contrary, the prevention focus goal relates at the low level of relation with customer loyalty than that of the promotion goal. It could be explained that it is apt to get framed the compliment of people into 'gain-non gain' situation. As the result, for those who have the promotion focus are motivated to deliver their own feeling to other people eagerly. Conversely the prevention focused individual are more sensitive to the 'loss-non loss' situation. The research result is consistent with pre-existent researches. There is a conceptual parallel between necessities-needs-utilitarian benefits and luxuries-wants-hedonic benefits (Chernev 2004; Chitturi, Raghunathan and Majaha 2007; Higginns 1997; Kivetz and Simonson 2002b). In addition, Maslow's hierarchy of needs and the precedence principle contends luxuries-wants-hedonic benefits higher than necessities-needs-utilitarian benefits. Chitturi, Raghunathan and Majaha (2007) show that consumers are focused more on the utilitarian benefits than on the hedonic benefits of a product until their minimum expectation of fulfilling prevention goals are met. Furthermore, a utilitarian benefit is a promise of a certain level of functionality by the manufacturer or the retailer. When the promise is not fulfilled, customers blame the retailer and/or the manufacturer. When negative feelings are attributable to an entity, customers feel angry. However in the case of hedonic benefit, the customer, not the manufacturer, determines at the time of purchase whether the product is stylish and attractive. Under such circumstances, customers are more likely to blame themselves than the manufacturer if their friends do not find the product stylish and attractive. Therefore, not meeting minimum utilitarian expectations of functionality generates a much more intense negative feelings, such as anger than a less intense feeling such as disappointment or dissatisfactions. The additional multi group analysis of this research shows the same result. Those who are unsatisfactory customers who have the prevention focused goal shows higher relation with WOM, comparing with satisfactory customers. The research findings in this article could have significant implication for the personal selling fields to increase the effectiveness and the efficiency of the sales such that they can develop the sales presentation strategy for the customers. For those who are the hedonic customers may be apt to show more interest to the promotion goal. Therefore it may work to strengthen the design, style or new technology of the products to the hedonic customers. On the contrary for the utilitarian customers, it may work to strengthen the price competitiveness. On the basis of the result from our studies, we demonstrated a correspondence among hedonic versus utilitarian and promotion versus prevention goal, WOM. Similarly, we also found evidence of the moderator effects of satisfaction after use, between the prevention goal and WOM. Even though the prevention goal has the low level of relation to WOM, those who are not satisfied show higher relation to WOM. The relation between the prevention goal and WOM is significantly different according to the satisfaction versus unsatisfaction. In addition, improving the promotion emotions of cheerfulness and excitement and the prevention emotion of confidence and security will further improve customer loyalty. A related potential further research could be to examine whether hedonic versus utilitarian, promotion versus prevention goals improve customer loyalty for services as well. Under the budget and time constraints, designers and managers are often compelling to choose among various attributes. If there is no budget or time constraints, perhaps the best solution is to maximize both hedonic and utilitarian dimension of benefits. However, they have to make trad-off process between various attributes. For the designers and managers have to keep in mind that without hedonic benefit satisfaction of the product it may hard to lead the customers to the customer loyalty.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.199-209
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• 2019

With the rapid development of mobile communication tools, customers are using SNS as a major information tool. SNS can provide information to a small number of customers as well as people around them, with information about a product or service that a small number of customers know through experience. With these characteristics, dessert cafes are being used as a major marketing tool for online websites and mobile phones using SNS. Therefore, in this study, theoretical considerations about e-WOM quality, perceived value, and visit intention were performed. The effect of e-WOM quality of dessert cafe on perceived value was analyzed and the effect of perceived value on visit intention was analyzed. Based on these results, I would like to suggest theoretical implications and practical implications for online marketing of dessert cafes. This study was conducted to survey the customers who have visited dessert cafe through oral communication within the last 6 months. The survey was conducted from September 4, 2018 to September 18, 2018, and was used for the analysis of 317 additional items. The research hypotheses between the e-WOM quality of the dessert cafe and the utilitarian value, hedonic value, and visiting intention were used the structural equation model(SEM). First, neutrality and interactivity have a significant effect on utilitarian value, but consensus and vividness have not significant effect. Second, It was found that the consensus, vividness, and neutrality had a significant effect on the hedonic value but interactivity was not found to have a significant effect. Third, hedonic value has a significant effect on visit intention, but utilitarian value has not significant effect. As a result, online e-WOM quality management is important.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.99-130
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• 2011

In recent years, a new way of differentiating product design has emerged -better known as 'masterpiece marketing,' this is a strategy where famous art pieces are borrowed on to product designs. Because the recent trends of well-being and LOHAS have encouraged the consumers' desires to enjoy culture and live a more opulent lifestyle, famous and notable paintings have grown to be more of "approachable masterpieces" to the public. As a strategy intended to develop a new consumerism, while still prioritizing customers' values and their satisfaction, companies have been drawn to this new type of marketing. The current consumption society has converted renowned art pieces from simply works of 'high culture' to a further way of marketing, aimed to differentiate products and dominate the market. Though many products have had masterpieces applied to their designs and have been noticed for their marketability, there has been less systematic research done on the scientific background behind this marketing approach. This research focused on the art pieces' fundamental nature of inducing emotions in the viewer, and hypothesized about how the evaluation of a product may be influenced by the affect provoked by the art piece used. To be more specific, if art pieces with different levels of pleasure and arousal -the two axis of emotion suggested by existing research on emotion -were used on each product, the goal was to see how the different levels influenced the consumer's assessment of the products, focusing on product's type as well as the evaluation of their attributes. First, a pretest was done to verify the relationship between the emotion provoked by the art piece and the consumer's preference. There were two types of surveys, each with five drawings from the ten that were assumed to differ in levels of the two axis of emotion. The survey was composed of questions asking for positive emotion, negative emotion, level of arousal, and preference. The correlation between the measurements of positive and negative emotions was -0.792, so an integrated entry was used in the analysis by subtracting the measurement of negative emotions from that of positive emotions. The first hypothesis that paintings that provoke positive emotions will be more preferred than paintings that bring out negative emotions was supported; and through this research, paintings that were to be used for the products were selected. The second pretest was conducted to settle on an item that would be used in the research. Items meant to measure utilitarian and hedonic attributes of milk and chocolate, the two products to be used in the research, were extracted. Because milk is a utilitarian product with strong practical attributes while chocolate is a hedonic product with strong hedonic attributes, these two were selected to be used in this research. The first study was executed to see if there is a difference in attitude about products that have different painting on their designs, which either induces positive or negative emotions. It was also to verify whether this difference in attitude was mediated by the viewer's preference for the art piece. This study showed that when positive emotion inducing painting was used, the product was better evaluated compared to the product with a painting that provokes a negative emotion, thus supporting the second hypothesis. It was also supported that the effect of affect on product evaluation was mediated by preference for the art piece. The second study was done to see the influence of the level of arousal on the evaluation of the product's attributes. Art pieces that differ in the level of arousal were selected through the pretest, and later it verified the hypothesis that the level of arousal has an effect on the assessment of the attributes of the product. In the case of milk, a utilitarian product, the fourth hypothesis that a high-arousal painting will better evaluated for its hedonic attributes was supported, as well as the fifth, which hypothesized that a low-arousal painting will receive a higher assessment for its utilitarian attributes. However, for chocolate, a hedonic product, both fourth and fifth hypotheses were not supported. This study is significant for the following basis: first, it verified the importance of the emotion induced by the painting on the evaluation of the product's attributes, by applying a systematic and scientific method. Second, it expanded from the existing research on positive/negative emotions to confirm the additional influence of the state of arousal on product evaluation.

• International Journal of Quality Innovation
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.38-55
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• 2005

Consumption has generally become more fragmented, hedonic and individual specific, satisfying not only functional but also emotional needs. In parallel, customer satisfaction is now thought to be both a cognitive and affective response, and the closely related concept of job satisfaction is commonly seen as an emotional reaction. The reasoning within quality management does, however, still lean heavily toward cognitive judgements (i.e. performance ratings), the emotional component clearly being under explored. Further, performance variables have shown not to be significant in predicting satisfaction for certain 'experience products', the effect fully mediated by emotions. As a consequence a cognitive judgement based quality concept has lost its ability to predict satisfaction, which clearly contradicts with the modem quality definition, stressing quality as the ability to satisfy the customer. Emotions have however entered the quality discourse and it has been proposed that having customers that are merely feeling satisfied will not suffice. Instead, there has been a plethora of executive exhortations in the trade press calling on business to 'delight the customer'. Strategies for doing so have however usually been imprecise and unclear, and the different drivers of delight and satisfaction are not well explored. This paper aims to complement the previous cognitive dominance by exploring the multiple emotional responses involved in customer satisfaction. A conclusion being that we currently are measuring something, in terms of satisfied, that is more or less independent of what we aim for, in terms of delight. It is also most likely that - depending on the situation, product, and person - other positive and negative emotions are more important outcomes of purchase and usage than merely satisfaction. It is questioned whether a single, summary response such as satisfaction is feasible or even desirable.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.457-465
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• 2016

Around the world, a lot of people are migrating to the urban areas, and new cities are continuously being constructed. Currently about 54 percent of the world's population live in the urban areas, and by 2050, it is expected to increase to 66 percent; thus, managing the urban areas is one of the most important challenges of sustainable development in the 21st century. The key to successful urban management is to preserve the urban green spaces, which provide aesthetic, psychological and health benefits to the urban citizens. However, the benefits of the urban green spaces are not fully appreciated within the societies due to the difficulty of economic valuation of the urban green spaces. This study examined whether the view of the Songdo Central Park has a positive influence on the prices of the surrounding apartments, using the hedonic pricing method. The results showed that a positive relation exists between the view of the Songdo Central Park and the price of apartment. The price of an apartment with the view of the Songdo Central Park was 5 percent higher than that of an apartment without the view. In addition, it was estimated that the proximity to the Songdo Central Park has an influence on the housing price as well.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.27-57
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• 2008

Many consumers enjoy the challenge of purchasing a brand that matches well with their own values and personalities (for example, Ko et al., 2008; Ko et al., 2006). Therefore, the personalities of consumers can impact on the final selection of a brand and its brand personality in two ways: first, the consumers may incline to purchase a brand or a product that reflects their own personalities; second, consumers tend to choose a company that has similar brand personalities to those brands that are being promoted. Therefore, the objectives of this study are following: 1. Is there any empirical relationship between a consumer's personality and the personality of a brand that he or she chooses? 2. Can a corporate brand be differentiated by the brand personality? In short, consumers are more likely to hold favorable attitudes towards those brands that match their own personality and will most probably purchase those brands matching well with their personality. For example, Matzler et al. (2006) found that extraversion and openness were positively related to hedonic product value; and that the personality traits directly (openness) and indirectly (extraversion, via hedonic value) influenced brand effects, which in turn droved attitudinal and purchase loyalty. Based on the above discussion, the following hypotheses are proposed: Hypothesis 1: the personality of a consumer is related to the brand personality of a product/corporate that he/she purchases. Kuksov (2007) and Wernerfelt (1990) argued that brands as a symbolic language allowed consumers to communicate their types to each other and postulated that consumers had a certain value of communicating their types to each other. Therefore, how brand meanings are established, and how a firm communicate with consumers about the meanings of the brand are interesting topics for research (for example, Escalas and Bettman, 2005; McCracken, 1989; Moon, 2007). Hence, the following hypothesis is proposed: Hypothesis 2: A corporate brand identity is differentiated by the brand personality. And there are significant differences among companies. A questionnaire was developed for collecting empirical measures of the Big-Five personality traits and brand personality variables. A survey was conducted to the online access panel members through the Internet during December 2007 in Korea. In total, 500 respondents completed the questionnaire, and considered as useable. Personality constructs were measured using the Five-factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) scale and a total of 30 items were actually utilized. Brand personality was measured using the five-dimension scale developed by Aaker (1997). A total of 17 items were actually utilized. The seven-point Likert-type scale was the format of responses, for example, from 1 indicating strongly disagreed to 7 for strongly agreed. The Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) was used for an empirical testing of the model, and the Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) was applied to estimate numerical values for the components in the model. To diagnose the presence of distribution problems in the data and to gauge their effects on the parameter estimates, bootstapping method was used. The results of the hypothesis-1 test empirically show that there exit certain causality relationship between a consumer's personality and the brand personality of the consumer's choice. Thus, the consumer's personality has an impact on consumer's final selection of a brand that has a brand personality matches well with their own personalities. In other words, the consumers are inclined to purchase a brand that reflects their own personalities and tend to choose a company that has similar brand personalities to those of the brand being promoted. The results of this study further suggest that certain dimensions of the brand personality cause consumers to have preference to certain (corporate) brands. For example, the conscientiousness, neuroticism, and extraversion of the consumer personality have positively related to a selection of "ruggedness" characteristics of the brand personality. Consumers who possess that personality dimension seek for matching with certain brand personality dimensions. Results of the hypothesis-2 test show that the average "ruggedness" attributes of the brand personality differ significantly among Korean automobile manufacturers. However, the result of ANOVA also indicates that there are no significant differences in the mean values among manufacturers for the "sophistication," "excitement," "competence" and "sincerity" attributes of the corporate brand personality. The tight link between what a firm is and its corporate brand means that there is far less room for marketing communications than there is with products and brands. Consequently, successful corporate brand strategies must position the organization within the boundaries of what is acceptable, while at the same time differentiating the organization from its competitors.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.69-102
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• 2012

Owing to increased number of luxury brand users, both genuine and counterfeit luxury product consumption continues to increase every year. Luxury brand is defined as use or display of a particular branded products which brings the ownership prestige apart from its functional utility(Grossmand and Shapiro 1988). Some luxury brands have imitations sold in marketplace due to their popularity. These imitations or counterfeits have been jumping on the bandwagon of the upturn in sales of their originals. The purpose of our study is to understand consumer's underlying motives to consume luxury brands, genuine and or counterfeits. To do this, we propose functional theories of attitudes, decision-making styles, and life attitudes to form the determining causes for different consumption choices of luxury brands: genuine brands, counterfeit brands, both genuine and counterfeit brands, and no consumption on luxury brands types. In proposed causal pathways, we examine moderated effects of socio-psychological factors to further investigate if consumer profiles would exert influences in causal relationships. From the existing theories of functional attitudes: value-expressive and social-adjustive attitudes, we developed and introduced a new measure of rationality-consumptive attitude. From the existing eight decision-making characteristics of consumer styles inventory(CSI), three measures of high-quality, hedonic-shopping, and price-shopping styles were primarily applied in the study along with newly introduced measure of 'high-price' being added, which makes four total. Seven life attitude measures of life purpose, life control, will to meaning, goal seeking, future mean to fulfill, life satisfaction, and religiosity were applied. Finally, such socio-psychological measures as age, gender, marital status, income, and age-gap between couples were assumed to function as moderators. With 430 valid study samples, ages from 20s to 50s, with more females(316) than males(114), with average personal possessions of 5 genuine and 9 counterfeit luxury brands, we conducted questionnaire survey. Results indicated that social-adjustive function is totally disappeared in the relationship due to current social trend of widespread consumptions on both genuine and counterfeit brands which in turn, make consumers feel less special on wearing or carrying them unlike in the past. Self-expressive function and rationality-consumptive functions act as strong catalysts for genuine brand consumption and counterfeit brand consumption, respectively. On consumers' decision-making styles, high-price sublation is the most powerful indicator anticipating counterfeit consumption, even more powerful than personal incomes. In life attitude, the overall model fit was not validated, and only life control and life satisfaction are proven to be significant on both genuine and counterfeit product consumptions. Employment of socio-psychological factors in the model improved understanding of users further. Young consumers tend to go for genuine products over counterfeits. Consumers in different income groups; low, medium and high, all significantly consume genuine products for reasons of different decision-making styles. The results indicated that consumers whose personal disposition is predisposed to consume products in the form of reflection of his or her personality, go only for genuine brands for quality reason, while consumers who rationally consume products for its function or usability, go only for counterfeits for high-price sublation reason. Meanwhile, both product users support for high-price orientation who are not well off.