@misc{RennieCleophasSykulskietal., author = {Rennie, Nicola and Cleophas, Catherine and Sykulski, Adam and Dost, Florian}, title = {Detecting outlier demand in railway networks}, series = {5th AIRO Young Workshop at Universit{\`a} degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Italy}, volume = {5}, journal = {5th AIRO Young Workshop at Universit{\`a} degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Italy}, pages = {31}, abstract = {Transport service providers, such as airlines and railways, often use revenue manage-ment to control offers and demand in mobility networks. Such systems rely on accu-rate demand forecasts as input for the underlying optimisation models. When changes in the market place cause demand to deviate from the expected values, revenue man-agement controls no longer fit for the resulting outliers. Analysts can intervene if they deem the demand forecast to be inaccurate. However, existing research on judgemen-tal forecasting highlights fallibility and bias when human decision makers are not sys-tematically supported in such tasks. This motivates the need for automated alerts to highlight outliers and thereby support analysts. Network effects complicate the problem of detecting outlier demand in practice. Pas-sengers often book travel itineraries that stretch across multiple legs of a network. Thereby, they requests products that require multiple resources - seats on several legs. In the rail and long-distance coach industries, the large number of possible itiner-aries makes it likely for outlier demand to affect multiple legs. At the same time, outli-er demand from a single itinerary may be difficult to recognise as it mixes with regular demand on individual legs. To support outlier detection in transport networks, we pre-sent a method to aggregates outlier detection across highly correlated legs. We propose to use the results of this analysis to construct a ranked alert list that can support ana-lyst decision making. We show that by aggregating we are able to improve detection performance compared to considering each leg in isolation.}, language = {en} } @misc{Dost, author = {Dost, Florian}, title = {Bidirectional Links between Aggregate Advertising and Goods Consumption at the National Level}, series = {46th Eurasia Business and Economics Society Conference Book}, journal = {46th Eurasia Business and Economics Society Conference Book}, edition = {1}, publisher = {EBES}, address = {Istanbul - Turkey}, isbn = {978-605-71739-6-6}, pages = {99}, abstract = {A longstanding question in marketing and economics is whether all of advertising affects aggregate consumption. If it does not, the advertising-consumption system would be a zero-sum game; if it does, advertising can grow markets and represents an economic force of interest for marketing, economics, and public policy. Ashley, Granger, and Schmalensee (1980) test advertising's potential causal impact on aggregate goods consumption. Challenging prior empirical studies that suggested advertising drives aggregate consumption (Taylor \& Weiserbs, 1972), Ashley et al. show that advertising does not influence consumption; rather, consumption causes advertising in a landmark methodological study of the Granger causality test. Yet recent conceptualizations suggests this empirical result and especially the linear autoregression-based Granger method to be inconclusive. Wilkie and Moore (1999) propose a complex aggregate systems view to discussing macro impacts of marketing, and in such systems the Granger tests typically fails (Sugihara et al. 2012). The present research extends prior studies with a new more appropriate nonlinear method (convergence cross-mapping) to test the causal links between television or digital advertising and three types of aggregate consumption—durables, non-durables, and service consumption. The novel test, unlike the Granger causality test, confirms the existence of a bidirectional causal link between advertising and aggregate goods consumption. Specifically, and similar to the brand level, advertising effects on consumption are stronger for durable than for non-durable goods.}, language = {en} } @misc{UrbigDostGeiger, author = {Urbig, Diemo and Dost, Florian and Geiger, Ingmar}, title = {Entrepreneurs misdiagnosing their ventures' innovativeness: The roles of causation and effectuation}, series = {26th Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Entrepreneurship, Innovation and SMEs, 2023}, journal = {26th Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Entrepreneurship, Innovation and SMEs, 2023}, abstract = {This text discusses the concept of misdiagnosis in entrepreneurial ventures, where managers' unrealistic optimism can lead to misaligned strategies and late pivots. The study explores the connection between misdiagnosis and decision logics (effectuation and causation) through motivated reasoning and beliefs. The researchers conducted a study with 266 ventures from innovative industries and measured misdiagnosis by comparing managers' judgments with external experts' assessments of venture innovativeness. The results show that causation logic positively influences misdiagnosis, but this effect is reduced when coupled with flexibility. The study highlights the importance of objective performance measures and suggests that motivated reasoning and beliefs explain the link between causation logic and misdiagnosis. Additionally, older and larger ventures with a prevalence of causation logic may experience more misdiagnosis and potential delays in innovation efforts. Flexibility is crucial for older ventures to remain innovative.}, language = {en} } @misc{MaierDost, author = {Maier, Erik and Dost, Florian}, title = {Decomposing cross-channel advertising support of retailer price promotions}, series = {Journal of Retailing}, volume = {100}, journal = {Journal of Retailing}, number = {3}, doi = {10.1016/j.jretai.2024.05.002}, pages = {362 -- 381}, abstract = {Retailers' communication support for their price promotions is shifting from traditional flyers and circulars (so-called feature ads) to conventional media channels, especially digital ads. It is not clear, if and how supporting price promotion with advertising in digital media benefits sales of the promoted product above and beyond the price promotion itself. Further, retail managers require guidance on whether only the promoted product or also their overall business gains from ad support (e.g., from category or cross-period expansions) to negotiate trade promotion support with manufacturers of the promoted products. Using a field experiment with a grocery retailer, we decompose the effects of the advertising support of price discount promotions across digital and print marketing channels. We find that the effectiveness assessment of the advertising channels depends on the beneficiary: while digital channels most effectively support sales of the promoted product (35 \% uplift vs. non-promotion period) - especially for popular consumer-pull products (+85 \%), traditional print channels improve the performance for the retailer as a whole (+3 \% uplift of the total category sales), with a combination of ads having the largest effect (+5 \% uplift of the total category sales). This research offers guidance for retail and manufacturer managers tasked with designing price promotions and configuring the ad support across channels, and negotiating trade promotion budgets or manufacturer support for the advertisements.}, language = {en} } @misc{FlorianPeschke, author = {Florian, Dost and Peschke, Christiane}, title = {When Influencers Promote Their Own Products: Trust Perceptions Following Explicit Versus Implicit Promotion Styles}, series = {Proceedings International Marketing Trends Conference 2024, Venice}, journal = {Proceedings International Marketing Trends Conference 2024, Venice}, isbn = {978-2-490372-18-8}, pages = {1 -- 8}, abstract = {In recent years, influencer marketing has become a powerful tool for promoting products due to influencers' unique ability to captivate their followers' attention effectively. Moreover, influencers often enjoy a high level of trust among their followers, enhancing the persuasiveness of their product endorsements. However, a relatively unexplored question in the current literature is how trust perceptions are affected when influencers promote their own branded products. Our research investigates the impact of influencers' own brand promotions on trust, considering explicit endorsement versus subtle implicit integration into content. We find that trust increases when influencers implicitly integrate their branded products, akin to product placement. This is particularly noteworthy when influencers are endorsing their own, lesser- known products, as compared to national brand products. Nevertheless, the implicit promotion may reduce awareness of the promoted product. Mediation analyses reveal opposing effects of trust towards the influencer and product awareness on purchase intentions, nearly offsetting each other.}, language = {en} } @misc{ReichsteinDostGalle, author = {Reichstein, Thomas and Dost, Florian and Galle, Clara}, title = {May I have your attention, please! Social Media Engagement does not always reflect user attention}, abstract = {User engagement with social media content is the primary currency for social media marketers. An implicit assumption is that high engagement reflects high user attention to content. Surprisingly, this assumption has not been tested, and many users may only habitually engage with content without paying much attention to it. Using an eye-tracking experiment to examine subjects' gaze trajectories across 161 social media posts, we show that attention is indeed a strong predictor of engagement. However, the strength of the prediction is moderated by text length and emojis, with surprising results. Thus, the implicit assumption that engagement reflects attention is often misplaced.}, language = {en} } @misc{WernerDost, author = {Werner, Bastian and Dost, Florian}, title = {Range-based versus Point-based WTP/WTA Measures: New Findings for the Endowment Effect}, series = {Proceedings of the European Marketing Academy}, journal = {Proceedings of the European Marketing Academy}, number = {53}, abstract = {Previous research has examined the well-known endowment effect using point-based measures of willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to accept (WTA) values and found that this effect leads to market failure because sellers' WTA often exceeds buyers' WTP. This research examines the endowment effect using range-based measures of WTP and WTA, providing a more realistic perspective given bounded rationality and uncertainty conditions. To confirm the conceptual extensions and modifications of the endowment effect, we conceptually replicate a comprehensive point-based study on the endowment effect (Jefferson/Taplin, 2011) using range-based measures. Our results show an increased endowment effect but also less severe inefficiencies in a market, as there is significant overlap between WTP and WTA ranges, leading to a more efficient market than previously thought and more transactions taking place.}, language = {en} } @misc{MaierDost, author = {Maier, Erik and Dost, Florian}, title = {Preventing the Death of the High Street}, series = {Proceedings of the European Marketing Academy}, volume = {53}, journal = {Proceedings of the European Marketing Academy}, abstract = {Inner-city store closures, the so-called "death of the high street", are a phenomenon that affects retailers and municipalities across the globe. Extant research lacks an understanding of potential interventions that help mitigate this phenomenon. The present research uses unique observational panel data from 17,000 stores for the years 2015 and 2022 to test the effects of city-level government intervention (inner-city investment prize) on the propensity of local stores to fall empty or empty stores to see a store opening. Using a quasi-experiment (discontinuity of prize competition participants with or without prize money) and a Markov model, our results indicate that even modest government investment can help to reduce the probability of vacancies and increase the probability of store openings.}, language = {en} } @misc{ReichsteinBruschDostetal., author = {Reichstein, Thomas and Brusch, Ines and Dost, Florian and Brusch, Michael}, title = {How To Optimize Your Social Media Caption To Generate More Engagement :) \#Captionize \#SocialMedia}, series = {Proceedings of the European Marketing Academy, EMAC 2023 Annual, Odense, Denmark, May 24, 2023}, journal = {Proceedings of the European Marketing Academy, EMAC 2023 Annual, Odense, Denmark, May 24, 2023}, publisher = {European Marketing Academy}, abstract = {Maximizing engagement is an important issue for social media managers. Science has already provided guidance on how to make content more engaging. However, one easy-to-edit part of the social media post has received little attention: The caption. We show that the caption has an underestimated impact on engagement and we specifically address text length. The relationship between text length and engagement is not linear as described in previous literature but follows an inverted U-shape. Using field data, we estimate the optimal length of captions and provide surprising results. We show that captions are mostly too short instead of too long and that an optimal length can increase the engagement rate by up to 17\%.}, language = {en} } @misc{WernerDost, author = {Werner, Bastian and Dost, Florian}, title = {Behavioral Pricing and Innovative Pricing Mechanisms in Purchase Decisions- a Review and Recommandations for Future Research}, series = {Proceedings of the European Marketing Academy, EMAC 2023 Annual, Odense, Denmark, May 24, 2023}, journal = {Proceedings of the European Marketing Academy, EMAC 2023 Annual, Odense, Denmark, May 24, 2023}, language = {en} } @misc{RennieCleophasSykulskietal., author = {Rennie, Nicola and Cleophas, Catherine and Sykulski, Adam and Dost, Florian}, title = {Outlier detection in network revenue management}, series = {OR Spectrum}, journal = {OR Spectrum}, issn = {0171-6468}, doi = {10.1007/s00291-023-00714-2}, abstract = {This paper presents an automated approach for providing ranked lists of outliers in observed demand to support analysts in network revenue management. Such network revenue management, e.g. for railway itineraries, needs accurate demand forecasts. However, demand outliers across or in parts of a network complicate accurate demand forecasting, and the network structure makes such demand outliers hard to detect. We propose a two-step approach combining clustering with functional outlier detection to identify outlying demand from network bookings observed on the leg level. The first step clusters legs to appropriately partition and pools booking patterns. The second step identifies outliers within each cluster and uses a novel aggregation method across legs to create a ranked alert list of affected instances. Our method outperforms analyses that consider leg data without regard for network implications and offers a computationally efficient alternative to storing and analysing all data on the itinerary level, especially in highly-connected networks where most customers book multi-leg products. A simulation study demonstrates the robustness of the approach and quantifies the potential revenue benefits from adjusting demand forecasts for offer optimisation. Finally, we illustrate the applicability based on empirical data obtained from Deutsche Bahn.}, language = {en} }