• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.16 no.8
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• pp.640-650
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• 2016

This study analyzed the narratives of love of "delusional" characters in the works of Jungae Lee and Shijin Yoo, whose cartoon creations were prominent in the 1990s and the early 2000s. Their delusional characters can be characterized by excessive obsession with their objects of love, rejection of realistic logic, madness, and extreme selfishness. They make a type of characters whose traces have disappeared not only in the South Korean society of the 21st century, where love and dating are included in the discourse of self-development and dramatic pathos is regarded as the waste of feelings, but also in creative works. It is still, however, needed to pay attention to the selfishness and collapse of those delusional characters that reject the order of the world and focus only on their love because they make the audience betray the sentimentality of melodramas stimulated by the popular culture and reconsider the concept of "love" itself. While Jungae Lee displays the progress of delusional characters and their narratives of love toward collectivized compulsion with the Messiah motif of Christianity, Shijin Yoo presents a narrative of delusional characters with lost memories reacting to hysterical fantasies and eventually choosing their collapse. Their two narratives are significant in that they propose the archetype of personal desire eliminated by the narratives of love in melodramas.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.62-77
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• 2022

Seeded marketing campaign (SMC) is a newly created type of marketing activities with the widespread use of social media. Previous research has examined to find out the optimal seeding strategy that yields the best outcome from the campaign. This research explores the relationships between the characteristics of the seeded influencer and user engagement. The data consists of information from 1062 seeded Instagram posts posted in September 2020 in Korea and 778 seeded influencers who posted those contents. Analyzed by negative binomial regression, our quadratic model suggests that the relationship between user engagement and the number of followers of the seeded influencer draws an inverted U-shape, indicating influencers with greater number of followers may not always be the best choice for the marketers. Moreover, this research shows that the negative marginal impact coming from the huge number of followers can be attenuated when the influencer is an expert of the seeded product.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.21-47
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• 2019

This study empirically examines the synergy effect of a corporate-level loyalty program on customer equity (CE) known as the lifetime value of current and future customers (Blattberg et al. 2009). A corporate-level loyalty program refers to a company-wide integration loyalty program at the corporate-level in which subsidiaries (multi-divisions) participate as program members. It does not merely examine whether there is an integration effect of a corporate-level loyalty program from the CE perspective, but it provides practical implications for a firm's strategic focus by identifying which value creation channels (i.e., acquisition, retention, and cross-selling), brand characteristics (i.e., size of the customer base before integration, diversity of products, and sales channel type), and consumer characteristics (i.e., customer relationship stage, transaction amount before integration, transaction period, and number of purchased brands) are affected the most by the synergy effect.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.51-76
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• 2017

Although much attention has been paid to customer satisfaction (CS) as a leading indicator of firm performance, few studies have investigated the role of CS distribution across individual customers. With 10 years of National Customer Satisfaction Index (NCSI) data in Korea, we examine the relationship between the variance of CS and key corporate performance measures such as revenue, profit, Tobin's q, and stock return. There are three main findings. First, we confirm the findings of previous studies that the average CS for a firm is related to the firm's economic performance. Second, we find a moderating effect of CS variance such that the relationship between the level of CS and firm performance is attenuated by the variance of CS. Finally, the variance of CS is found to directly affect firm performance over and above the CS level effect. More specifically, the variance decreases sales and stock return.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.63-82
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• 2014

The main objective of this research is to investigate whether the RFM (recency-frequency-monetary value) information of a customer's redemption behavior of loyalty points can improve the prediction of future value of the customer. The conventional measurement of customer value has been primarily based on purchase transactions behavior although a customer's future behavior can be also influenced by other interactions between the customer and the firm such as redemption of rewards in a loyalty program. We theorize why a customer's redemption behavior can influence her future purchases and thereby the customer's total value based on operant learning theory, goal gradient hypothesis, and lock-in effect. Using a dataset from a major book store in Korea spanning three years between 2008 and 2010, we analyze both purchase transactions and redemption records of over 10,000 customers. The results show that the redemption-based RFM information does improve the prediction accuracy of the customer's future purchases. Based on this result, we also propose an improved estimate of customer lifetime value (CLV) by combining purchase transactions and loyalty points redemption data. Managerial implications will be also discussed for firms managing loyalty programs to maximize the total value customers.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.1-19
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• 2019

This paper reports a case study of SevenBräu, the first company to acquire a license for small and medium scale beer manufacturing in Korea. This study explores how SevenBräu analyzed its consumers, competition, and environment to set its target market and successfully positioned itself to explore new markets in Korea. The company accomplished this through a mixture of marketing strategies with differentiated products and consumer benefits. SevenBräu has been growing fast and establishing its image as a "high-quality craft beer locally produced in a traditional way" and a "beer with regional characteristics," with young consumers (aged 20 to 35) as the main target. Such remarkable growth of SevenBräu can be attributed to factors such as: (1) product differentiation to satisfy the needs of consumers for taste, flavor, diversity, and freshness, (2) developing brands with regional characteristics and actively communicating its strategy through earned and owned media, and (3) sustainable management, considering both social value creation and environmental performance. Lastly, this case study presents challenges in the areas of brand management, value delivery network, and communication that SevenBräu needs to address in the beer market that faces increasing competition.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.1-18
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• 2016

The purpose of this paper is to examine empirically how to balance advertising expenditure before and after launch with regard to the direction of word of mouth in the motion picture industry. The vector auto-regression model is applied to assess the dynamic impact of advertising and word of mouth on sales. Empirical data, including advertising, word of mouth, and sales (the number of entries) of 83 movies are used for analysis. The research results show that for a movie having more positive word of mouth in the pre- and post-launch periods, it is worthwhile to spend the advertising budget in the pre-launch period only and to spare it in post-launch period. However, it is worthwhile to spare the advertising budget in the pre-launch period for movies having less positive word of mouth before and after launch, and to concentrate spending in post-launch period instead. Mangers who handle products and services facing shortened lifecycles, such as games, eBooks, and digital music contents, need to check the quality of pre-launch word of mouth for their advertising budget decisions in the pre- and post-launch periods and spend more of the advertising budget in the post- (pre-) launch period if pre-launch word of mouth is negative (positive). For products and services with a shortened lifecycle, it is recommended to spend more of the advertising budget in the post- (pre-) launch period if pre-launch word of mouth is negative (positive).

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.169-184
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• 2012

All firms require new stimulus to spurt growth. Therefore it is necessary to successfully develop new products and to employ appropriate marketing practices for the new products to enter and settle in the market. Binggrae, a Korean company that specializes in dairy and processed dairy products, introduced a ready-to-drink (RTD) coffee product, 'a Café la' to expand its business into the coffee market in 2008. Binggrae was a latecomer in the RTD coffee market but a Café la has shown an impressive average sales growth rate of 115% as of 2011 since the launch. Moreover, it is a steady bestselling coffee brand among the Polyethylene terephthalate (PET)bottle category. Binggrae found potential and opportunity in the growing coffee market and made efforts to develop a new product that can be differentiated from the existing products. The result was PET bottle coffee, which was more portable and convenient to drink than coffee products offered in cups or cans. PET bottle coffee is produced through the patented Aseptic Filing System, thus the original coffee flavor stays fresh when combined with milk and has a longer shelf life than coffee products in cups. Moreover, as the taste of coffee consumers has become more sophisticated, Binggrae developed a premium product by differentiating the product processing method and by using higher-quality Arabica beans. After launching the new product, the company also employed a well-designed communication strategy. First, Binggrae was able to confirm the level of market demand and market potential for the product by employing BTL (Below the Line) marketing strategies through the consumers' word-of-mouth. Afterwards, the company invested its resources for a full-scale ATL (Above the Line) marketing campaign. Later a Café la's TV commercial effectively portrayed the product's characteristics, and succeeded in raising consumer awareness of the product. As a result, a Café la has become the bestselling brand in the PET bottle coffee market. The successful new product marketing strategy of Binggrae'sa Café la offers many valuable implications for companies planning to launch new products in the future.

• Journal of Service Research and Studies
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.204-226
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• 2023

One of the most important types of Customer Empowerment Strategy (CES) is select empowerment, where firms allow customers to vote on a product to be marketed. However, there is limited research on the advantages and disadvantages of select empowerment. In particular, there are few studies on the composition of a voting system. This study analyzes customer participation behavior, such as willingness to vote and strategic voting (i.e., voting for candidates not based on utility orders), under the different voting systems: 1) the number of votes per customer (single or multiple), and 2) the number of final choices (single or multiple). Uncertainty is proposed as a mediator that links the voting system difference and customer participation. Two research hypotheses are tested using multiple linear regression analysis and a natural effects model based on data from two online experiments. As a result, the multiple voting system (i.e., multiple winners are selected by customer votes) shows a direct positive effect on willingness to vote and strategic voting behavior. In addition, the result shows that uncertainty insignificantly mediates the relationship between the voting system and customer participation. Academic and managerial contributions are discussed with several future research directions.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.233-248
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• 2011

This case illustrates a story of passionate and innovative new market development by Pulmuone, a fresh food provider in Korea. The company has been successfully developing a new market by introducing a (non-frying) fresh ramen, 'Jayeonun Masitda - The Nature Is Tasty' in the packaged ramen market dominated by fried ones. In this case, a detailed new market development process by Pulmuone will be investigated including; company overview, a new product development process, marketing strategy formulation, marketing mix implementation, market performance, and future directions. Pulmuone has been making efforts to create a new product category by marketing non-frying ramens since 1995, but with a modest success. In 2011, Pulmuone finally succeeded to develop an innovative product, 'Jayeonun Masitda' that brought more health and nutrition conscious consumers' attention in the ramen market. The company intended to change the current competitive structure in the ramen market, i.e., from the strength of taste and the amount of ingredient to fried/non-fried and the freshness of ingredient. By this new positioning, Pulmuone aimed to reshaping the ramen market into competition between healthy and unhealthy ramens. Pulmuone has been successful in developing a new market. Sales revenue of 'Jayeonun Masitda' has been continuously increasing, and customers are found to be highly satisfied with the product resulting in a high repeat purchase rate. The company's successful new market development can be attributed to a faithful new product development process, innovative technology, an appropriate positioning strategy, and consistent marketing communication. In addition, Pulmuone's eco-friendly corporate image and the organization's passion to grow are also important factors for success of this new market development.