• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.157-176
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• 2012

Brand switching data frequently used in market structure analysis is adequate to analyze non- durable goods, because it can capture competition between specific two brands. But brand switching data sometimes can not be used to analyze goods like automobiles having long term duration because one of main assumptions that consumer preference toward brand attributes is not changed against time can be violated. Therefore a new type of data which can precisely capture competition among durable goods is needed. Another problem of using brand switching data collected from actual purchase behavior is short of explanation why consumers consider different set of brands. Considering above problems, main purpose of this study is to analyze market structure for durable goods with consideration set. The author uses exploratory approach and latent class clustering to identify market structure based on heterogeneous consideration set among consumers. Then the relationship between some factors and consideration set formation is analyzed. Some benefits and two demographic variables - age and income - are selected as factors based on consumer behavior theory. The author analyzed USA automotive market with top 11 brands using exploratory approach and latent class clustering. 2,500 respondents are randomly selected from the total sample and used for analysis. Six models concerning market structure are established to test. Model 1 means non-structured market and model 6 means market structure composed of six sub-markets. It is exploratory approach because any hypothetical market structure is not defined. The result showed that model 1 is insufficient to fit data. It implies that USA automotive market is a structured market. Model 3 with three market structures is significant and identified as the optimal market structure in USA automotive market. Three sub markets are named as USA brands, Asian Brands, and European Brands. And it implies that country of origin effect may exist in USA automotive market. Comparison between modal classification by derived market structures and probabilistic classification by research model was conducted to test how model 3 can correctly classify respondents. The model classify 97% of respondents exactly. The result of this study is different from those of previous research. Previous research used confirmatory approach. Car type and price were chosen as criteria for market structuring and car type-price structure was revealed as the optimal structure for USA automotive market. But this research used exploratory approach without hypothetical market structures. It is not concluded yet which approach is superior. For confirmatory approach, hypothetical market structures should be established exhaustively, because the optimal market structure is selected among hypothetical structures. On the other hand, exploratory approach has a potential problem that validity for derived optimal market structure is somewhat difficult to verify. There also exist market boundary difference between this research and previous research. While previous research analyzed seven car brands, this research analyzed eleven car brands. Both researches seemed to represent entire car market, because cumulative market shares for analyzed brands exceeds 50%. But market boundary difference might affect the different results. Though both researches showed different results, it is obvious that country of origin effect among brands should be considered as important criteria to analyze USA automotive market structure. This research tried to explain heterogeneity of consideration sets among consumers using benefits and two demographic factors, sex and income. Benefit works as a key variable for consumer decision process, and also works as an important criterion in market segmentation. Three factors - trust/safety, image/fun to drive, and economy - are identified among nine benefit related measure. Then the relationship between market structures and independent variables is analyzed using multinomial regression. Independent variables are three benefit factors and two demographic factors. The result showed that all independent variables can be used to explain why there exist different market structures in USA automotive market. For example, a male consumer who perceives all benefits important and has lower income tends to consider domestic brands more than European brands. And the result also showed benefits, sex, and income have an effect to consideration set formation. Though it is generally perceived that a consumer who has higher income is likely to purchase a high priced car, it is notable that American consumers perceived benefits of domestic brands much positive regardless of income. Male consumers especially showed higher loyalty for domestic brands. Managerial implications of this research are as follow. Though implication may be confined to the USA automotive market, the effect of sex on automotive buying behavior should be analyzed. The automotive market is traditionally conceived as male consumers oriented market. But the proportion of female consumers has grown over the years in the automotive market. It is natural outcome that Volvo and Hyundai motors recently developed new cars which are targeted for women market. Secondly, the model used in this research can be applied easier than that of previous researches. Exploratory approach has many advantages except difficulty to apply for practice, because it tends to accompany with complicated model and to require various types of data. The data needed for the model in this research are a few items such as purchased brands, consideration set, some benefits, and some demographic factors and easy to collect from consumers.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.49-56
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• 2010

At the initial stage of Internet advertising, banner advertising came into fashion. As the Internet developed into a central part of daily lives and the competition in the on-line advertising market was getting fierce, there was not enough space for banner advertising, which rushed to portal sites only. All these factors was responsible for an upsurge in advertising prices. Consequently, the high-cost and low-efficiency problems with banner advertising were raised, which led to an emergence of keyword advertising as a new type of Internet advertising to replace its predecessor. In the beginning of 2000s, when Internet advertising came to be activated, display advertisement including banner advertising dominated the Net. However, display advertising showed signs of gradual decline, and registered minus growth in the year 2009, whereas keyword advertising showed rapid growth and started to outdo display advertising as of the year 2005. Keyword advertising refers to the advertising technique that exposes relevant advertisements on the top of research sites when one searches for a keyword. Instead of exposing advertisements to unspecified individuals like banner advertising, keyword advertising, or targeted advertising technique, shows advertisements only when customers search for a desired keyword so that only highly prospective customers are given a chance to see them. In this context, it is also referred to as search advertising. It is regarded as more aggressive advertising with a high hit rate than previous advertising in that, instead of the seller discovering customers and running an advertisement for them like TV, radios or banner advertising, it exposes advertisements to visiting customers. Keyword advertising makes it possible for a company to seek publicity on line simply by making use of a single word and to achieve a maximum of efficiency at a minimum cost. The strong point of keyword advertising is that customers are allowed to directly contact the products in question through its more efficient advertising when compared to the advertisements of mass media such as TV and radio, etc. The weak point of keyword advertising is that a company should have its advertisement registered on each and every portal site and finds it hard to exercise substantial supervision over its advertisement, there being a possibility of its advertising expenses exceeding its profits. Keyword advertising severs as the most appropriate methods of advertising for the sales and publicity of small and medium enterprises which are in need of a maximum of advertising effect at a low advertising cost. At present, keyword advertising is divided into CPC advertising and CPM advertising. The former is known as the most efficient technique, which is also referred to as advertising based on the meter rate system; A company is supposed to pay for the number of clicks on a searched keyword which users have searched. This is representatively adopted by Overture, Google's Adwords, Naver's Clickchoice, and Daum's Clicks, etc. CPM advertising is dependent upon the flat rate payment system, making a company pay for its advertisement on the basis of the number of exposure, not on the basis of the number of clicks. This method fixes a price for advertisement on the basis of 1,000-time exposure, and is mainly adopted by Naver's Timechoice, Daum's Speciallink, and Nate's Speedup, etc, At present, the CPC method is most frequently adopted. The weak point of the CPC method is that advertising cost can rise through constant clicks from the same IP. If a company makes good use of strategies for maximizing the strong points of keyword advertising and complementing its weak points, it is highly likely to turn its visitors into prospective customers. Accordingly, an advertiser should make an analysis of customers' behavior and approach them in a variety of ways, trying hard to find out what they want. With this in mind, her or she has to put multiple keywords into use when running for ads. When he or she first runs an ad, he or she should first give priority to which keyword to select. The advertiser should consider how many individuals using a search engine will click the keyword in question and how much money he or she has to pay for the advertisement. As the popular keywords that the users of search engines are frequently using are expensive in terms of a unit cost per click, the advertisers without much money for advertising at the initial phrase should pay attention to detailed keywords suitable to their budget. Detailed keywords are also referred to as peripheral keywords or extension keywords, which can be called a combination of major keywords. Most keywords are in the form of texts. The biggest strong point of text-based advertising is that it looks like search results, causing little antipathy to it. But it fails to attract much attention because of the fact that most keyword advertising is in the form of texts. Image-embedded advertising is easy to notice due to images, but it is exposed on the lower part of a web page and regarded as an advertisement, which leads to a low click through rate. However, its strong point is that its prices are lower than those of text-based advertising. If a company owns a logo or a product that is easy enough for people to recognize, the company is well advised to make good use of image-embedded advertising so as to attract Internet users' attention. Advertisers should make an analysis of their logos and examine customers' responses based on the events of sites in question and the composition of products as a vehicle for monitoring their behavior in detail. Besides, keyword advertising allows them to analyze the advertising effects of exposed keywords through the analysis of logos. The logo analysis refers to a close analysis of the current situation of a site by making an analysis of information about visitors on the basis of the analysis of the number of visitors and page view, and that of cookie values. It is in the log files generated through each Web server that a user's IP, used pages, the time when he or she uses it, and cookie values are stored. The log files contain a huge amount of data. As it is almost impossible to make a direct analysis of these log files, one is supposed to make an analysis of them by using solutions for a log analysis. The generic information that can be extracted from tools for each logo analysis includes the number of viewing the total pages, the number of average page view per day, the number of basic page view, the number of page view per visit, the total number of hits, the number of average hits per day, the number of hits per visit, the number of visits, the number of average visits per day, the net number of visitors, average visitors per day, one-time visitors, visitors who have come more than twice, and average using hours, etc. These sites are deemed to be useful for utilizing data for the analysis of the situation and current status of rival companies as well as benchmarking. As keyword advertising exposes advertisements exclusively on search-result pages, competition among advertisers attempting to preoccupy popular keywords is very fierce. Some portal sites keep on giving priority to the existing advertisers, whereas others provide chances to purchase keywords in question to all the advertisers after the advertising contract is over. If an advertiser tries to rely on keywords sensitive to seasons and timeliness in case of sites providing priority to the established advertisers, he or she may as well make a purchase of a vacant place for advertising lest he or she should miss appropriate timing for advertising. However, Naver doesn't provide priority to the existing advertisers as far as all the keyword advertisements are concerned. In this case, one can preoccupy keywords if he or she enters into a contract after confirming the contract period for advertising. This study is designed to take a look at marketing for keyword advertising and to present effective strategies for keyword advertising marketing. At present, the Korean CPC advertising market is virtually monopolized by Overture. Its strong points are that Overture is based on the CPC charging model and that advertisements are registered on the top of the most representative portal sites in Korea. These advantages serve as the most appropriate medium for small and medium enterprises to use. However, the CPC method of Overture has its weak points, too. That is, the CPC method is not the only perfect advertising model among the search advertisements in the on-line market. So it is absolutely necessary that small and medium enterprises including independent shopping malls should complement the weaknesses of the CPC method and make good use of strategies for maximizing its strengths so as to increase their sales and to create a point of contact with customers.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.119-155
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• 2008

Customer Relationship Management(CRM) has been a sustainable competitive edge of many companies. CRM analyzes customer data for designing and executing targeted marketing analysing customer behavior in order to make decisions relating to products and services including management information system. It is critical for companies to get and maintain profitable customers. How to manage relationships with customers effectively has become an important issue for both academicians and practitioners in recent years. However, the existing academic literature and the practical applications of customer relationship management(CRM) strategies have been focused on the technical process and organizational structure about the implementation of CRM. These limited focus on CRM lead to the result of numerous reports of failed implementations of various types of CRM projects. Many of these failures are also related to the absence of marketing approach. Identifying successful factors and outcomes focused on marketing concept before introducing a CRM project are a pre-implementation requirements. Many researchers have attempted to find the factors that contribute to the success of CRM. However, these research have some limitations in terms of marketing approach without explaining how the marketing based factors contribute to the CRM success. An understanding of how to manage relationship with crucial customers effectively based marketing approach has become an important topic for both academicians and practitioners. However, the existing papers did not provide a clear antecedent and outcomes factors focused on marketing approach. This paper attempt to validate whether or not such various marketing factors would impact on relational quality and CRM performance in terms of marketing oriented perceptivity. More specifically, marketing oriented factors involving market orientation, customer orientation, customer information orientation, and core customer orientation can influence relationship quality(satisfaction and trust) and CRM outcome(customer retention and customer share). Another major goals of this research are to identify the effect of relationship quality on CRM outcomes consisted of customer retention and share to show the relationship strength between two factors. Based on meta analysis for conventional studies, I can construct the following research model. An empirical study was undertaken to test the hypotheses with data from various companies. Multiple regression analysis and t-test were employed to test the hypotheses. The reliability and validity of our measurements were tested by using Cronbach's alpha coefficient and principal factor analysis respectively, and seven hypotheses were tested through performing correlation test and multiple regression analysis. The first key outcome is a theoretically and empirically sound CRM factors(marketing orientation, customer orientation, customer information orientation, and core customer orientation.) in the perceptive of marketing. The intensification of ${\beta}$coefficient among antecedents factors in terms of marketing was not same. In particular, The effects on customer trust of marketing based CRM antecedents were significantly confirmed excluding core customer orientation. It was notable that the direct effects of core customer orientation on customer trust were not exist. This means that customer trust which is firmly formed by long term tasks will not be directly linked to the core customer orientation. the enduring management concerned with this interactions is probably more important for the successful implementation of CRM. The second key result is that the implementation and operation of successful CRM process in terms of marketing approach have a strong positive association with both relationship quality(customer trust/customer satisfaction) and CRM performance(customer retention and customer possession). The final key fact that relationship quality has a strong positive effect on customer retention and customer share confirms that improvements in customer satisfaction and trust improve accessibility to customers, provide more consistent service and ensure value-for-money within the front office which result in growth of customer retention and customer share. Particularly, customer satisfaction and trust which is main components of relationship quality are found to be positively related to the customer retention and customer share. Interactive managements of these main variables play key roles in connecting the successful antecedent of CRM with final outcome involving customer retention and share. Based on research results, This paper suggest managerial implications concerned with constructions and executions of CRM focusing on the marketing perceptivity. I can conclude in general the CRM can be achieved by the recognition of antecedents and outcomes based on marketing concept. The implementation of marketing concept oriented CRM will be connected with finding out about customers' purchasing habits, opinions and preferences profiling individuals and groups to market more effectively and increase sales changing the way you operate to improve customer service and marketing. Benefiting from CRM is not just a question of investing the right software, but adapt CRM users to the concept of marketing including marketing orientation, customer orientation, and customer information orientation. No one deny that CRM is a process or methodology used to develop stronger relationships being composed of many technological components, but thinking about CRM in primarily technological terms is a big mistake. We can infer from this paper that the more useful way to think and implement about CRM is as a process that will help bring together lots of pieces of marketing concept about customers, marketing effectiveness, and market trends. Finally, a real situation we conducted our research may enable academics and practitioners to understand the antecedents and outcomes in the perceptive of marketing more clearly.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.115-139
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• 2008

Since financial crisis of IMF resulted in intensive competitiveness and adverse management environment, many hotel industries have responded it with restructuring. Since this restructuring is accompanied by reduction of employees, hence comes the recognition of justice in the procedure of restructuring. When the surviving employees in the restructuring process recognize unfairness in the procedure and practical operations, organization effectiveness can not be maintained due to losing trust of their employers. In this paper I will examine the relationship between validity of restructuring and compensatory programs for layoffs and surviving employees' trust of the employers. Also I will find out the relationship between remaining employees' trust of the employers and their job satisfaction and organization commitment. Through this relationship, we can prepare an alternative to reduce negative effect of restructuring. The hypotheses of this study are proposed as follows: H1: The higher surviving employees' recognition of procedural justice in restructuring process is, the higher their trust with a manager of the company is. H2: The higher surviving employees' recognition of distributive justice in restructuring process is, the higher their trust with a manager of the company is. H3: The higher surviving employees' recognition of procedural justice in restructuring process is, the higher their job satisfaction is. H4: The higher surviving employees' recognition of distributive justice in restructuring process is, the higher their job satisfaction is. H5: The higher surviving employees' recognition of procedural justice in restructuring process is, the higher their organization commitment is. H6: The higher surviving employees' recognition of distributive justice in restructuring process is, the higher their organization commitment is. H7: The higher surviving employees' trust with a manager of the company in restructuring process is, the higher their job satisfaction is. H8: The higher surviving employees' trust with a manager of the company in restructuring process is, the higher their organization commitment is. For the purposes of this study, employees working in luxury hotels located in Seoul were targeted. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to those who consented with the investigation after explaining the purpose of the survey. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed and 450 questionnaire were returned to the researcher for analysis. 430 of the returned questionnaires were used for analysis. As for the education for this survey, 250 junior college graduates or under (58.1%), 143 college graduates (33.3%) and 37 graduate school graduates (8.6%). As for the marital status, 315 persons (73.3%) are single and 115 are married (26.7%). As for the monthly income, 49 people (11.48%) are less than 2 million won, 148 (34.4%) are between 2 million and less than 2.5 million won, 153 (35.6%) are between 2.5 million to less than 3 million won, 80 (18.6%) are more than 3 million won. As for the workplace, 293 people (68.1%) work for the F&B department, 73 (17.0%) for rooms department, 41 (9.5%) for operation/ marketing department, 23 (5.3%) for account/ general affair department. As for the period of employment, 85 people (19.8%) are less than 5 years, 150 (34.9%) are between 6 to 9 years, 143 (33.3%) are between 10 to 14 years. and 52 (3.%) are more than 15 years. An exploratory factor analysis was used to survey validity and reliability of calculating tool on perceived values. This study used correlation between individual items and whole items and Cronbach's alpha value of multiple-item scale which is usually used to assess scale and reliability. Reliability of conceptual sub-dimension was assessed by basing on repeated procedure of correlation between individual items and whole items and factor loading. 1. Verification of correlation between validity of restructuring and trust This research showed that procedural and distributive justice of restructuring affects trust positively. The path coefficient between procedural justice of restructuring and trust is 0.719(t=10.135, p=0.000), and thereby the higher procedural justice results in higher trust. The path coefficient between distributive justice of restructuring and trust is 0.160(t=3.291, p=0.001), and thereby the higher distributive justice results in higher trust. Hence H1 and H2 are accepted. 2. Verification of correlation between validity of restructuring and job satisfaction The path coefficient between procedural justice of restructuring and job satisfaction is 0.179(t=2.202, p=0.028), and thereby the higher procedural justice results in higher job satisfaction. The path coefficient between distributive justice of restructuring and job satisfaction is 0.074(t=1.620, p=0.105), and thereby distributive justice of restructuring has no relationship with job satisfaction. Hence H3 is accepted, but H4 is removed. 3. Verification of correlation between validity of restructuring and organization commitment The path coefficient between procedural justice of restructuring and organization commitment is 0.188(t=2.466, p=0.014), and thereby the higher procedural justice results in higher organization commitment. The path coefficient between distributive justice of restructuring and organization commitment is 0.118(t=2.720, p=0.007), and thereby the higher distributive justice results in higher organization commitment. Hence H5 and H6 are accepted. 4. Verification of correlation between trust and job satisfaction The path coefficient between trust and job satisfaction is 0.610(t=6.736, p=0.000), and thereby the correlation has a meaningful result. Since the higher trust of the employer results in higher job satisfaction, H7 is accepted. 5. Verification of correlation between trust and organization commitment The path coefficient between procedural justice of restructuring and job satisfaction is 0.446(t=5.547 p=0.000), and thereby the higher trust of the employer results in higher organization commitment. Hence H8 is accepted. This research aimed to help the employers of hotel industries by analyzing the effects of validity of restructuring on employees' trust, job satisfaction and organization commitment. The research found that employer's validity of restructuring has significant affects on the degree of employee's trust with a manager, thereby reducing the negative effects of restructuring and enhancing organization commitment and job satisfaction. The principal purpose of this research is to confirm the correlation between employees' perceived validity of restructuring and their trust with a manager. Also whether this correlation results in competitive edge of the company is also investigated. It is also pointed out that employees had to participated the procedure of restructuring, sharing the philosophy and reason of restructuring. This participation and furthermore compensatory methods can reduce employees' anxiety of organization operations. Variable of trust appeared to have impact on intermediation effect between perceived variable of validity and job satisfaction, organization commitment, so that increase of trust with a manager plays an crucial role in increasing organization effectiveness. Since this research did not cover whole hotel industries which underwent restructuring, it showed a limit. Unlike previous studies which dealt with validity and trust of superior bosses, this research focussed on employers. Also the organization citizenship which is not considered in this study will be dealt with in the future study.