• Journal of Nutrition and Health
• /
• v.44 no.3
• /
• pp.243-254
• /
• 2011

The purpose of this study was to investigate the general characteristics, body shape, and perceptions of weight control in individuals consuming functional health foods and weight-control foods. The survey was conducted between April 15 and June 17, 2010 among 199 (57 males and 142 females; age range, 25-45 years) in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do, who experienced eating functional health foods or weight control foods during the past year (June 2009 to June 2010). The subjects were divided into a weight-control food group (89 adults) and a functional health food group (110 adults). The subjects were comprised of a high proportion of aged (average age, $34.2{\pm}5.9$ years), graduates (71.9%), and married (65.8%) individuals. In the weight control food group, gender, age, and educational background were similar and the ratios of service/technical employees, college students, and normal-weight individuals [body mass index (BMI), < 23] were high. BMI was significantly different by gender (p < 0.001), age (p < 0.01), marital status (p < 0.001), and job type (p < 0.001). Self-perceived health status showed a higher response for "in good health" in the 35-44 year old group than that in the 25-34 year old group (p < 0.05). Male group satisfaction for body shape was significantly higher than that in the female group. The main reason for going on a diet was significantly different by gender (p < 0.05) and BMI (p < 0.01). The main motives for dieting were "because I am not at an ideal weight" and "because of the social atmosphere and the attention of others " in men, but "can't wear the clothes I want" in women (p < 0.01). The most preferable product type related to the two groups was significantly different by job (p < 0.001) and BMI (p < 0.05). However, no significant differences were observed for questions about body shape perception and weight control. Consumers who had different general characteristics and used diet products perceived body shape and weight control differently. Additionally, no meaningful differences were observed when the results were categorized by product type, except job and BMI, but the distribution of consumer characteristics showed different tendencies. These results can be utilized as basic data for developing new diet products to help people control their weight more scientifically and appropriately in the future.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
• /
• v.2 no.1
• /
• pp.133-150
• /
• 1996

This study is to clarify the market cycle of travelling merchants and the spatial behavior of consumer's commodity purchasing. its reasons and purchasing region of each commodity in Chongsan of Chongsan Myun(village) periodic markets, that is one of the lowest central places in Okchon county. The data used are the results of interviews with 58 travelling merchants on June 22 and July 17, 1994, and questionaire survey taken to parents of students of Chongsan middle school of Chongsan Myun in Okchon county. Study area is typical agricultural regions taking the role of central places to provide rural service and is comparatively important periodic markets. Some of findings are summarized as follows: (1) Until 1980's. appearance of closed periodic markets is caused by the population decrease in rural region, income increase, and rising of living level according to the Five Years Planning of Economic Development, appearance of chain stores of agricultural co-coperative and of supermarkets,. changes in distribution mechanisim by increasing consignment volume of agricultural products through agricultural co-coperative, and the development of transportation in Okchon county. These, too, became the reasons for the decline of the Chongsan periodic markets in Okchon county. (2) Most of the travelling merchants visiting the Chongsan periodic markets are in their 50's of age, and they sell the miscellaneous commodities and agricultural products. And about one-fourths of travelling merchants reside in regions with periodic markets and in Okchon of higher order central places. (3) Travelling routes visting periodic markets can be simplified to five types. Major types of travelling routes are Chongsan periodic market$\rightarrow$Wonnam$\rightarrow$Boun, and Chongsan periodic market$\rightarrow$Yungdong$\rightarrow$Yongsan. The patterns of travelling merchants visiting periodic markets are classified into the type of everyday visiting of periodic markets over three days of five days from merchant's residence to market, and the type of merchants or consumers visiting one day's of five days. On days that travelling merchants don't visit periodic markets they purchase the commodities in Seoul, Taejon and Chongju. (4) Consumers who use periodic markets are from thirties to fifties years of age and most of them are employed in agriculture. Consumers visit periodic markets on foot or by bus, and visit two or three times in a month, and mainly purchase the commodities for one or two hours from about ten o'clock in the morning. (5) Consumers purchase the necessaries of life in periodic markets, and other commodities are purchased in Taejon city, Youngdong, and Boun Eup(town). But consumers purchase the goods(convenience goods, shopping goods, and specialied goods) largerly in Chongsan, because additional expense and disadvantage after service with poor transportation service for purchased goods in others regions. Therefore, the hierarchies of central places by the consumer's purchasing behaviour can not be seem in dewellers in Chongsan and Chongseong Myun.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
• /
• v.17 no.1
• /
• pp.39-52
• /
• 2014

Use of vision and audition for video reality has made much advancement. However use of olfaction, which is effective in inducing emotion, has not yet been realized due to technical limitations and lack of basic research. In particular it is difficult to fabricate many odors required for each different video. One way to resolve this is to discover clusters of odors of similar smell and to use representative odor for each cluster. This research explored clusters of odors based on pairwise similarity ratings. 300 diverse odors were first collected and sorted them into 11 categories. We selected 152 odors based on their frequency, preference, and concreteness. Participants rated similarity on 1,018 pairs of odors from selected odors and the results were analyzed using multi-dimensional scaling (MDS). Based on the idea that low odor concreteness would support valid use of representative odor, the MDS results are presented from low to high smell concreteness. First, flowers, plants, fruits, and vegetables was classified under the easy categories to use representative odor due to their low smell concreteness (Figure 1). Second, chemicals, personal cares, physiological odors, and ordinary places was classified under the careful categories of using it due to their intermediate concreteness (Figure 2). Finally, food ingredients, beverages, and foods was classified under the difficult categories to use it because of their high concreteness (Figure 3). The results of this research will contribute to reduction of cost and time in odor production and provision of realistic media service to customers at reasonable price.

• Asia Marketing Journal
• /
• v.14 no.2
• /
• pp.65-96
• /
• 2012

Brand has received much attention from considerable marketing research. When consumers consume product or services, they are exposed to a lot of brand related stimuli. These contain brand personality, brand experience, brand identity, brand communications and so on. A special kind of new crisis occasionally confronting companies' brand management today is the brand related rumor. An important influence on consumers' purchase decision making is the word-of-mouth spread by other consumers and most decisions are influenced by other's recommendations. In light of this influence, firms have reasonable reason to study and understand consumer-to-consumer communication such as brand rumor. The importance of brand rumor to marketers is increasing as the number of internet user and SNS(social network service) site grows. Due to the development of internet technology, people can spread rumors without the limitation of time, space and place. However relatively few studies have been published in marketing journals and little is known about brand rumors in the marketplace. The study of rumor has a long history in all major social science. But very few studies have dealt with the antecedents and consequences of any kind of brand rumor. Rumor has been generally described as a story or statement in general circulation without proper confirmation or certainty as to fact. And it also can be defined as an unconfirmed proposition, passed along from people to people. Rosnow(1991) claimed that rumors were transmitted because people needed to explain ambiguous and uncertain events and talking about them reduced associated anxiety. Especially negative rumors are believed to have the potential to devastate a company's reputation and relations with customers. From the perspective of marketer, negative rumors are considered harmful and extremely difficult to control in general. It is becoming a threat to a company's sustainability and sometimes leads to negative brand image and loss of customers. Thus there is a growing concern that these negative rumors can damage brands' reputations and lead them to financial disaster too. In this study we aimed to distinguish antecedents of brand rumor transmission and investigate the effects of brand rumor characteristics on rumor spread intention. We also found key components in personal acceptance of brand rumor. In contextualist perspective, we tried to unify the traditional psychological and sociological views. In this unified research approach we defined brand rumor's characteristics based on five major variables that had been found to influence the process of rumor spread intention. The five factors of usefulness, source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness, encompass multi level elements of brand rumor. We also selected product involvement as a control variable. To perform the empirical research, imaginary Korean 'Kimch' brand and related contamination rumor was created and proposed. Questionnaires were collected from 178 Korean samples. Data were collected from college students who have been experienced the focal product. College students were regarded as good subjects because they have a tendency to express their opinions in detail. PLS(partial least square) method was adopted to analyze the relations between variables in the equation model. The most widely adopted causal modeling method is LISREL. However it is poorly suited to deal with relatively small data samples and can yield not proper solutions in some cases. PLS has been developed to avoid some of these limitations and provide more reliable results. To test the reliability using SPSS 16 s/w, Cronbach alpha was examined and all the values were appropriate showing alpha values between .802 and .953. Subsequently, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted successfully. And structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the research model using smartPLS(ver. 2.0) s/w. Overall, R² of adoption of rumor is .476 and R² of intention of rumor transmission is .218. The overall model showed a satisfactory fit. The empirical results can be summarized as follows. According to the results, the variables of brand rumor characteristic such as source credibility, message credibility, worry, and vividness affect argument strength of rumor. And argument strength of rumor also affects rumor intention. On the other hand, the relationship between perceived usefulness and argument strength of rumor is not significant. The moderating effect of product involvement on the relations between argument strength of rumor and rumor W.O.M intention is not supported neither. Consequently this study suggests some managerial and academic implications. We consider some implications for corporate crisis management planning, PR and brand management. This results show marketers that rumor is a critical factor for managing strong brand assets. Also for researchers, brand rumor should become an important thesis of their interests to understand the relationship between consumer and brand. Recently many brand managers and marketers have focused on the short-term view. They just focused on strengthen the positive brand image. According to this study we suggested that effective brand management requires managing negative brand rumors with a long-term view of marketing decisions.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
• /
• v.30 no.1
• /
• pp.35-56
• /
• 1995

During the last two decades, Korea has achieved remarkable economic growth. In this process the nation has become urbanized and industrialized. But we have also encountered widening regional disparity, housing shortage of larger cities, transportation congestion, environmental pollution and many other problems. Rapid increasing urbanization and continuous migration toward Seoul since the late 1960s have been one of the major concerns of government. Government has sought ways to moderate the population increase in Seoul. The regulation which include new town development near Seoul and dispersion strategies of higher education and other administration and living facilities outside of Seoul havemade a great expansion of the spatial influence of Seoul city. Seoul metropolitan reaion has evolved as the most powerful center of political and economical spaces. Generally within a metropolitan region, there exists a growing mutual interdependence economically, as well as socially between a central city and its surrounding area. Seoul metropolitan region manifests itself not only as a coherent system of urbanized regions, but also as an integral part of the daily urban system. The surrounding Gyunggi province and Seoul city become closely linked both economically and functionally, constituting true functlonai urban system. This study is primarily undertaken with the purpose of delineation of the sphere of influence of Seoul city in 1990. At the time of 1985, Seoul metropolitan region was delineated according to the result of the study which was performed by Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements. Afterward, the rapid speed of metropolitanization process with dramatic increase in mobility through the provision of wider transportation system across the Capital region have evolved, resulting in the great expansion of the spatial influence of Seoul city. So this study examines the expanded area of Seoul metropolitan regin during the period of 1985-90. In order to delineate Seoul metropolitan region, the indices of urbanization and functional linkage are selected. Variables included in the measurement of the urbanization level are agricultural structure, population characteristics, manufacturing and service industries, and cultural aspects such as newspaper circulation, the ratio of car ownership and piped water supply. Variables included in the measurement of functional linkage are commuting, shopping pattern, centralized service such as medical facilities and trade of agricultural products. The standardization method and factor analysis are employed in making the delineation of Seoul metropolitan region. According to the result of this study, 2 cities, 8 Eups and 46 Myuns are included Seoul metropolitan region in 1990. If we compare this delineated area in 1990 to that of 1985, we can find the distinctive pattern of expanded axes according to the main transportation routes such as Seoul-Suweon, Seoul-Gwangju, Seoul-Incheon. In 199O, all the Gyunggi province, except a few Myuns located at the north and northwest part of Gyunggi province, are included in Seoul metropolitan region. Furthermore, this study attempts to the analysis of regional structure of Seoul metropolitan region according to the functional characteristics of each city and Gun. Variables included in this analysis are the new residential function, manufacturing function, service function, education and infermation function, public facility function and agricultural function. Factor analysis and cluster analysis are employed in making regionalization. Seoul metropolitan reaion is subdivided into four subregions which reflect different functional specialization. The first group is the specialized region of newly formed residential function. The second group is the specialized reaion of manufacturing function. The third group is the specialized region of service function. And the fourth group has little specialized in terms of manufacturing, service, and residential function. But this region has some potentiality of development when Seoul metropolitan region grow continuously. Seoul metropolitan region accounted for 43% of national population, despite 11.8% of national land size in 1990. Although Seoul metropolitan region enjoys important agglomeration economies, it also has huge social cost in the form of transportation congestion, housing shortage, rapid increase of land value, environment pollution, and etc. Efficient metropolitan plan making is a vital element in promoting Seoul's economic development and providing high quality living environment at low cost. In the light of the result of this study, the outer ring of Seoul metropolitan region, especially northeastern part, are underdeveloped compared to overdeveloped southwestern area. It is needed to develop the guidelines for the implement of the growth control and management plan, inducing more balanced development for whole Seoul metropolitan reaion.