• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.55-78
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• 2011

Recently strategic alliance between business firms has become prevalent to overcome increasing competitive threats and to supplement resource limitation of individual firms. As one of allianced sales promotion activities, a new type of discount program, so called "Alliance Card Discount", is introduced with the partnership of credit cards and loyalty cards. The program mainly pursues short-term sales growth by larger discount scheme while spends less through cost share among alliance partners. Thus this program can be regarded as cost efficient discount promotion. But because there is no solid evidence that it can really deliver profitable sales growth, an empirical study for its effects on sales and profit should be conducted. This study has two basic research questions concerning the effects of allianced discount program ; 1)the possibility of sales increase 2) the profitability of the discount driven sales. In F&B industry, sales increase mainly comes from increased guest count. Especially in family restaurants, to increase the number of guests we need to enlarge the size of visitor group (number of visitors for one group) because customers visit by group in a special occasion. And because they pay the bill by group(table), the increase of sales per table is a key measure for sales improvement. The past researches for price & discount sensitivity and reference discount rate explain that price sensitive consumers have narrow reference discount zone and make rational purchase decision. Differently from all time discount scheme of regular sales promotions, the alliance card discount program only provides the right to get discount like discount coupon. And because it is usually once a month opportunity given by the past month usage level, customers tend to perceive alliance card discount as a rare chance to get. So that we can expect customers try to maximize the discount effect when they use the limited discount opportunity. Considering group visiting practice and low visit frequency of family restaurants, the way to maximize discount effect should be the increase the size of visit group. And their sensitivity to discount and rational consumption behavior defer the additional spending for ordering high price menu, even though they get considerable amount of savings from the discount. From the analysis of sales data paid by alliance discount cards for four months, we found the below. 1) The relation between discount rate and number of guest per table is positive : 25% discount results one additional guest 2) The relation between discount rate and the spending per guest is negative. 3) However, total profit amount per table is increased when discount rate is increased. 4) Reward point accumulation & redemption did not show any significant relationship with the increase of number of guests. These results suggest that the allianced discount program substantially contributes to sales increase and profit improvement by increasing the number of guests per table. Though the spending per guest is decreased by discount rate increase, the total amount of profit per table is improved. It seems the incremental profit by increased guest count offsets the profit decrease. Additional intriguing finding is the point reward system does not have any significant impact on the increase of number of guest, even if the point accumulation & redemption of loyalty program are usually regarded as another saving offers by customers. In sum, because it is proved that allianced discount program with credit cards and loyalty cards is effective to both sales drive and profit increase, the alliance card program could be recommended as strategically buyable program.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.155-175
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• 2010

Most of the service industries including finance and telecommunications have become matured and saturated. The competitions have become severe while the differences among brands become smaller. Therefore maintaining good relationships with customers has been critical for the service providers. In case of credit card and debit card, the similar patterns are shown. It is important for them to maintain good relationships with customers, and therefore, they have used marketing program which provides customized services to customers and utilizes the membership programs. Not only do they build and maintain good relationships, but also highlight their brands from the emotional aspects. For example, KB Card or Hyundai Card uses well-known designers' works for their credit card design. As well, they differentiate the designs of credit cards to stress on their brand personalities. BC Card introduced the credit card with perfume that a customer would like. Even though the credit card is small and not shown to public easily, it becomes more important for those companies to touch the customers' feelings with the brand personalities and their images. This is partly because of changes in consumers' lifestyles. Y-generations becomes highly likely to express themselves in many different ways and more emotional than X-generations. For the Y-generations, therefore, even credit cards in the wallet should be personalized and well-designed. In line with it, credit cards with good design can be seen as an example of brand identity, where different design for each customer can be used to recognize the membership groups that customers want to belong. On the other hand, these credit card companies offer the special treatment benefits for those customers who are heavy users for the cards. For example, those customers who love sports will receive some special discounts when they use their credit cards for sports related products. Therefore this study attempted to explore the relationships between relational benefits, brand identification and loyalty. It has been well known that relational benefits and brand identification lead to loyalty independently from many other studies, but there has been few study to review all the three variables all together in a research model. Furthermore, as reviewed above, in the card industry, many companies attempt to associate the brand image with their products to fit their customers' lifestyles while relational benefits are still playing an important role for their business. Therefore in our research model, relational benefits, brand identification, and loyalty are all included. We focus on the mediating effect of brand identification. From the relational benefits perspective, only special treatment benefit and confidence benefit are included. Social benefit is not applicable for this credit card industry because not many cases of face-to-face interaction can be found. From the brand identification perspective, personal brand identity and social brand identity are reviewed and included in the model. Overall, the research model emphasizes that the relationships between relational benefits and loyalty will be mediated by the effect of brand identification. The effects of relational benefits which are confidence benefit and special treatment benefits on loyalty will be realized when they fit to the personal brand identity and social brand identity. In the research model, therefore, the relationships between confidence benefit and social brand identity, and between confidence benefit and personal identity are hypothesized while the effects of special treatment benefit on social brand identity and personal brand identity are hypothesized. Loyalty, then, is hypothesized to have positive relationships with personal brand identity and social brand identity. In addition, confidence benefit among the relational benefits is expected to have a direct, positive relationship with loyalty because confidence benefit has been recognized as a critical factor for good relationships and satisfaction. Data were collected from college students who have been using either credit cards or debit cards. College students were regarded good subjects because they are in Y-generation cohorts and have tendency to express themselves more. Total sample size was two hundred three at the beginning, but after deleting those data with many missing values, one hundred ninety-seven data points were remained and used for the model testing. Measurement items were brought from the previous literatures and modified for this research. To test the reliability, using SPSS 14, chronbach's α was examined and all the values were from .874 to .928 exceeding over .7. Using AMOS 7.0, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to investigate the measurement model. The measurement model was found good fit with χ²(67)=188.388 (p= .000), GFI=.886, AGFI=.821, CFI=.941, RMSEA=.096. Using AMOS 7.0, structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the research model. Overall, the research model fit were χ²(68)=188.670 (p= .000), GFI=.886, AGFI=,824 CFI=.942, RMSEA=.095 indicating good fit. In details, all the paths hypothesized in the research model were found significant except for the path from social brand identity to loyalty. Personal brand identity leads to loyalty while both confidence benefit and special treatment benefit have a positive relationships with personal and social identities. As well, confidence benefit has a direct positive effect on loyalty. The results indicates the followings. First, personal brand identity plays an important role for credit/debit card usage. Therefore even for the products which are not shown to public easy, design and emotional aspect can be important to fit the customers' lifestyles. Second, confidence benefit and special treatment benefit have a positive effects on personal brand identity. Therefore it will be needed for marketers to associate the special treatment and trust and confidence benefits with personal image, personality and personal identity. Third, this study found again the importance of confidence and trust. However interestingly enough, social brand identity was not found to be significantly related to loyalty. It can be explained that the main sample of this study consists of college students. Those strategies to facilitate social brand identity are focused on high social status groups while college students have not been established their status yet.

• Journal of Service Research and Studies
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.53-64
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• 2017

Recently meet the growing needs of customers and has increased, the need for training of customer contact staff in order to improve and increase customer satisfaction. These service training is because it improves the service capabilities of contact for customer-facing employees to respond to customers as well as to improve customer satisfaction. This study is placed in the field after the service training aimed at Customer contact staff joined in 2013~2016 in the first half of these new recruits training education working in the Seoul Metro customers respond to customers in customer contact and practical services it will proceed to the empirical study of how this affects the satisfaction and loyalty to the organization for the job than to find a better improvement in the educational program.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.756-765
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• 2014

Customer-company (C-C) identification is the perceived fit between the identities of a consumer and an organization. If a consumer identifies with a company that places a high priority on being socially responsible, a consumer who also values social responsibility may support and patronize that business because of the link between something that is important to both them and the company. Because C-C identification may explain the success of cause-related marketing (CRM) in the fashion industry, we investigated the effect of an image resulting from CRM on ratings of brand attributes (e.g., distinctiveness, credibility, attractiveness), identification with the brand, attitude toward the brand, and customer loyalty. Participants also responded to open-ended questions reflecting their rationale for their ratings of brand attributes. Data were collected from a convenience sample of undergraduates (n = 228) enrolled at Midwestern University in the U.S. Structural equation modeling revealed that as ratings of the social responsibility of the cause-related marketing effort increased so did perceptions of the brand's distinctiveness, credibility, and attractiveness. Participants identified with a brand when they rated the brand as attractive. Participants' identification with a brand had a significant impact on attitudes toward the brand and customer loyalty (e.g., purchase intention, willingness to spread positive word-of-mouth). Content analyses of open-ended responses supported the idea that brand images stemming from CRM exert an important influence on consumer's ratings of brand attributes. Fashion marketers interested in cause-related marketing will find success with efforts that increase customer identification.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.16-29
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• 2017

This study examines the effects of body image and the hedonic shopping orientation of female consumers on using fashion information to purchase skinny jeans. For this purpose, an online survey was carried out during the recent year targeting female consumers who had purchased skinny jeans. A total of 464 responses were analyzed in this study. The SPSS 22.0 program was used to perform frequency analysis, factor analysis, reliability analysis, and multiple regression analysis. The results are as follows. First, interest in appearance and apparel had a significant influence on every factor of the hedonic shopping orientation, except for the relational shopping orientation, and interest in body weight had a significant effect on the enjoying, relational, and impulsive shopping orientations. Additionally, body satisfaction, except for the impulsive shopping orientation, had a significant influence on the enjoying, brand, loyalty, and relational shopping orientations; body dissatisfaction affected the brand, loyalty, relational, and impulsive shopping orientations. Second, the enjoying shopping orientation significantly influenced every factor of fashion information, and the brand shopping orientation had a positive effect on mass media information, but a negative effect on street information. Furthermore, the loyalty shopping orientation had a significant influence only on store information, the relational shopping orientation had a significant effect on both mass media and verbal information, and the impulsive shopping orientation did not exert any influence on any factors of fashion information.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.202-216
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• 2020

In this study, we studied the utility and value of the mileage program as a strategy to strengthen the relationship with customers in the surrogate operation industry. To this end, we conducted a survey of 1,000 customers who used the service more than once, mainly from D company, which has operated the agency operation business for more than 20 years, and analyzed 309 sincerely respondents. Five characteristics of mileage use (emotional benefits, ease of use, economic usefulness, effort to acquire, variety of benefits). Two parameters (brand attitude, brand loyalty) were set, and the dependent variable was set for reuse. As a result of hypothesis test, emotional benefit, convenience of use, and economic usefulness were significant in terms of brand attitude and brand loyalty, and acquisition effort and benefit diversity did not show significant results. The results of this study showed that the surrogate operation industry should strive to strengthen the emotional benefits, convenience of use, and economic usefulness to customers in order to strengthen the relationship with the customers.

• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.807-816
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• 2009

This day's research analyzed the difference between brand personality, self - image congruity, job satisfaction and their influences towards employees of family restaurants in order to suggest a plan which would induce researcher's interest as well as influencing diversification of management strategies toward dining-out business. The purpose of this research is to analyse the difference between brand personality, self - image congruity, job satisfaction and their influences towards employees of family restaurants. The survey questionnaires were distributed to 300 employees of family restaurants in Seoul from August 1th until August 30th 2009, and 257 of them were used for analysis. The top seven company's were chosen by base on data from 2009 Annual Dinner of the Korea. Statistics handling of this research used SPSS WIN 17.0 statistics package program, which performed frequency analysis, factor analysis, regrssion anlysis. The research result shows, first of all, the relationship between company's brand personality and personal self - image congruity, it shows that the company's brand personality has higher on 'ability/capability, loyalty/fidelity, and strong' the personal self - image congruity appeared higher. The relationship between company's brand personality and social self-image congruity, it shows that the company's brand personality has higher on 'ability/capability and loyalty/fidelity' the social self-image congruity appeared higher. Second of all, in a relation between the self-image congruity and job satisfaction, the personal self-image congruity has shown positive impact on job satisfaction. Third of all, in a relationship between the company's brand personality and job satisfaction, if 'interest or loyalty/fidelity' shows higher on brand personality, than job satisfaction has shown higher.

• Journal of Information Management
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.151-168
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• 2012

A viral marketing has been an effective marketing tool in various fields. In this study, we applied a viral marketing strategy for managing the Internet community website of scientists and engineers, KOSEN(www.kosen21.org). We developed a function that enables members to send promotional e-mails to their acquaintances, and we also designed a reward system for the members who participated in KOSEN viral marketing. With these strategies, KOSEN members reacted positively on the rewards (i.e., mileage points, gift card) and also the loyalty members took part in the viral marketing program more actively than other members. Furthermore, an attractive event was very effective for the prompt reaction of the viral marketing. Managing loyalty members is necessary for the continuous effects. The viral marketing strategies and analysis results of this research could be used for the management of an Internet service.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.159-180
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• 2012

The objectives of this study are to identify significant antecedents of trust and satisfaction and to examine the relationship between trust and satisfaction and interrelationship between trust, satisfaction, loyalty, relationship retention and intention of words of mouth based on buyers of Chinese internet shopping mall. The questionnaire was collected by personal interview. A total of 448 completed questionnaires were collected. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to test the validity of the measurement model, and the structural model also was analyzed to examine the associations hypothesized in the research model. This study uses AMOS program to investigate the research model. Results in this paper indicate that the antecedents of trust and satisfaction have three dimensions, namely communicational, traditional and relational factors. All these three functions are positively related to trust and satisfaction. Also the results show that trust and satisfaction are positively related to loyalty, relationship retention and intention of words of mouth. Finally, this study suggests the implications of these findings and offers directions for future research.

• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.209-236
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• 2015

This study focuses on the network externality effect related to the platform supplementary services. This study designs the network externality of platform and suggests a supplementary service adoption model. Additionally, this study examines the moderating effect of demand forecasting for the platform. Using AMOS program, a structural equation modeling has been used to analyze the research model. The findings can be summarized as follows : First, we find out the structural relationship among the factors (usefulness, perceived value, purchase intention) affecting adoption of the supplementary services. Second, positive perception of platform flow can promote the platform interaction. Third, positive perception of present users based on platform can arouse friendly evaluation in the platform interaction. Fourth, loyalty to the platform brand can improve the perceived usefulness of supplementary services, but cannot lessen the resistance to supplementary service cost. In addition, the moderating effects of demand forecasting for the platform in the path leading from platform factors to supplementary service factors were identified. In conclusion, traditional brand strategy may be effective in platform marketing activities but the extent of performance in the strategy can appear to be quite different. Therefore, taking the relationship with network externality into consideration should be involved in the marketing strategy in platform.