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AI influencers - does it matter to consumers that their favourite influencer doesn't actually exist?
(2021)
In order to contribute to our planet’s sustainability, a sustainable diet is inevitable. It turns out to be a challenge for consumers to identify the food products’ degree of sustainability. In this regard, quality labels can be a help. However, the latter contributes, inter alia, to consumer confusion. The latter occurs when the cognitive processing of product information is being disrupted, which can lead to postponing or abandoning the purchase decision. The present work determines the most relevant aspects of sustainability in the food context on the German market from a consumer’s perspective. Furthermore, it is being figured out, which requirements a quality label needs to meet when aiming to reduce consumer confusion.
Purpose This study aims at examining the benefit of using poetry in a brand context. Hence, it strives at extending the art infusion effect, which had been found in previous research and demonstrated that art could enhance product and brand perceptions. Instead of focusing on visual art, this study aims at testing whether the effect is also perceivable for non-visual art, concretely, for poetry. It proposes that next to the art infusion effect, also a poetry infusion effect exists. In order to ascertain this assumption, it intends to measure specifically, whether the inclusion of poetry in advertising has a positive impact on product and brand perception.
Design/methodology/approach Next to a desk research, this study uses an experimental study to test the poetry infusion effect. By presenting advertising spots with and without poetry to different experimental groups, it is examined, whether people evaluate a brand and its products more positively, when having heard a poem before. Concretely the participants’ luxury and modernity perception of the brand, as well as their product evaluation are measured.
Findings The results of this study show that there is a direct effect between the presence of poetry and a positive product evaluation. Furthermore, it demonstrates that also the luxury and modernity perception is enhanced through poetry, and that both of these aspects have an impact on a more positive product evaluation.
Research limitations/implications On a managerial level this study implies, that it can be beneficial for brands to use poems in their advertising campaigns, or even cooperate with poets.
Originality/value Up to this point literature looking at the connection between brands and art has focused on visual art. This research extends this field of study, by examining the effect of a literary form of art, namely poetry, which constitutes a promising field of study in a marketing context, because poetry has always played an important role in the history of brand management and advertising.
Digital fatigue – Analysis and evaluation of factors influencing the interaction with digital media
(2021)
Ever since Mark Zuckerberg announced his metaverse mission at Connect – the annual developer conference of Meta – on October 28, 2021, it has become a hype. If it was up to Zuckerberg, large parts of our social life would soon take place in the metaverse. Analysts foresee an annual revenue potential of several trillion dol- lars.
This thesis presents insights into how fashion brands can successfully leverage the opportunities of the metaverse. The methodological framework is based on a mixed-method approach, consisting of a literature review and an empirical part that includes a netnographic investigation and expert interviews.
The results show that virtual worlds can be used as an extension of the brand expe- rience to enable new interaction possibilities with customers and to reach a partic- ularly young target group. In addition, the NFT technology enables companies to identify and reward their most loyal fans in the digital space and build a relationship with them through a new channel.
Over the past decades, consumers changed their purchasing behaviour. Instead of relying on their renowned sources, people nowadays are enabled to draw on information provided on online platforms. The existence of electronic word of mouth has changed consumer purchasing behaviour significantly. This phenomenon, however, also harbours various threats for companies as consumers are more likely to voice their grievances about a service or product. Especially in the service industry purchasing behaviour, word of mouth as well as complaint behaviour can have a formidable impact on a company.
The service offers a variety of activities with the aim of meeting a consumer’s individual needs. Yet, this uniqueness also comes with several drawbacks as consistent quality cannot be entirely promised. Thus, the fact that service failures occur should not be taken lightly as customer dissatisfaction may be the result and ramifications may be severe for businesses. To minimise displeased customers, companies can strive for compensating for initial inconveniences in the wake of a well-functioning service recovery approach.
The empirical study targets to give in-depth insights into consumers’ complaint behaviour as well as service recovery expectations in the German market. The results reveal that good service recoveries should not be underestimated as they may have beneficial impacts on businesses as well as the customers themselves. Furthermore, it is obligatory to act not only via offline channels but also through online channels. Thanks to the delivered insights, companies might be able to better adjust their approach of implementing a good service recovery strategy and to place greater value in their consumers’ opinions and concerns. This paper intends to provide a thorough explanation of how dissatisfied consumers can be beneficial to a business in the long-run and why they should not be ignored.
This thesis looks at the potential role of the IG Metall, the biggest German trade union, in the Green Transition of the German automobile sector. The IG Metall’s power and influence in the political, social and economic sphere will be analysed based on the Power Resource Approach by Dörre and Schmalz (2014). The analysis will show that there are two tendencies within the union: a conservative and a progressive approach, differentiated by their goals. Consequently, both wings have different ways to approach the transition and are each relying and focusing on certain power resources. The result is a tightrope walk of the IG Metall, balancing both tendencies within one union in an environment that is as torn as the union itself.
Mobile retention has recently become a focused issue for app-based companies due to its importance and contribution in achieving revenue goals. A crucial aspect of mobile retention is to monitor and control the churn rate of app users. This thesis therefore investigates how churn analysis can enable the improvement of mobile retention campaigns and give recommendations for better integration of churn analysis in planning retention activities. Six expert interviews conducted at app-based companies in multiple industries have provided precious insights, especially the usage of churn analysis in practical business situations. The findings were interesting: at most companies, churn analysis is not a new concept, yet has not been implemented properly due to lack of resources and customer data. However, it is believed by experts that the planning of mobile retention strategy should follow the suggestions from churn analysis since certain positive effects have been recorded. With these solid findings, a framework was presented to help improve the performance of mobile retention with churn analysis.
Inhibitors and facilitators of marketing automation in small, medium and large-sized enterprises
(2019)
Piest, Laura, Marketing with Pride - A Study on the Success Factors of Marketing to the LGBT Community; Master of Arts (International Marketing Management), October 2020, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Berlin, Germany.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the success factors of companies tar- geting the LGBT community to provide relevant recommendations to B2C compa- nies on how to approach pride marketing while avoiding rainbow-washing accusa- tions. Specifically, the thesis was concerned with the attitudes, opinions, and ex- pectations of millennial LGBT individuals. This is an important topic for marketers as the LGBT community is no longer a niche market, but a consumer group that is growing in size and importance and therefore, it is key for companies to understand this segment.
To answer the research question, first, secondary research was conducted to inform the directions of the following primary research. Two methods of qualitative research, expert interviews and focus groups, were used as research instruments. Three professionals with experience in LGBT or cause-related marketing were in- terviewed and a total of 12 members of the LGBT community ranging from ages 22 to 35 were the research subjects in three focus groups. While the expert inter- views aim was to work out the success factors of marketing to the LGBT commu- nity from a professionals point of view to give a broader perspective and to uncover overall tendencies, the focus groups goal was to offer insights from the customers’ point of view and to allow a better understanding of the actions of the target group.
The study showed that there are two main success factors for pride market- ing targeted at the researched group, perceived brand authenticity and innovativeness, which will be discussed and elaborated upon in the recommendations section of the paper.
Today’s labour market is exposed to rapidly changing influences. Digitalization and globalization play a major role in this development. Since, generation Y and Z grew up with these changes, they are used to live in fast-moving times and are mostly able to adapt and learn quickly. According to demographic changes both generations are becoming more and more important for organizations as employers. To ensure the future success of a business, employer branding and recruitment need to consider the upcoming generation’s needs to gain valuable talents. This paper examines generation Y and Z and the job and workplace conditions they prefer. The study identified trends of both generations as well as some discrepancies between them. The results give insights about the attraction, engagement, and retention of employees from generation Y and Z.
Digital Voice Assistant is an interesting topic and a growing consumer trend recently. The combination between Digital Voice Assistants and their commercial applications in E-Commerce practices has brought the interest for further research, especially on customers' opinions and their buying behavior towards this trend. Various opinions from earlier studies have supported the benefits of Digital Voice Assistants on the customer buying journey and decision-making process, which show a promising utilization of such AI intervention on the human buying experience. They are believed to resolve several existing missing expectations from the customers in the occurring E-Commerce platforms.
On one side, the empirical study shows a different reflection on the perceived acknowledgment of the customers in this trend. The study research also remarks that the preferences to the changes in current E-Commerce platforms are not direct to the later willingness to use Digital Voice Assistants in E-Commerce. Although the awareness and experience of this topic are new, the knowledge and recommendation from this study will help understand better the customers' mindset and explore the new perspectives in this complex trend. Additionally, this is a study recommendation for case platform HelloMary, but not limited to other E-Commerce platforms which tend to use Digital Voice Assistants as the new on-platform experience for the customer buying experience.
In a globalized context, the changing demographic trends towards food, health and wellbeing are evolving at an accelerated pace. The emergence of fast food businesses around the world, especially in Berlin (Germany) is creating a potential market gap where cuisines and fine-dining are no longer limited to certain or few income, ethnic, and age groups. With its multicultural environment and being the capital of an economic powerhouse, Berlin offers several entrepreneurial opportunities to the huge number of expatriates that it attracts. Amongst the several types of businesses contributing to the domestic economy of the city, the fast food business is one of the most popular with a significant growth and increase in sales revenue. These circumstances create an ideal situation for expatriates to avail the opportunity and to enter the fast food industry and penetrate the market with customer centric strategies. This report identifies, examines and proposes the planning, successful implementation and tracking of the most suitable marketing strategies. The tracking process concentrates on measuring the impact of the marketing strategies on business performance. A lack of available literature on the matter paved the way to fill in the gaps in an effort to create marketing strategy guidelines for expatriates that are running fast food businesses in Berlin or are potential new entrants. Evaluation of the marketing strategies suggested that a combination of direct and digital marketing campaigns, with a strong emphasis on the P’s (Product, Place, Price, Promotion & Processes) of the marketing mix aimed towards achieving customer satisfaction and customer equity is the key towards achieving a positive impact on business performance. The most popular and successful fast food chains in the city are that offer specialties (products) from the country of origin of the expatriate suggesting that cus-tomers in Berlin are experimenters and are willing to explore new tastes instead of showing brand loyalty to international fast food chains. A commercial evaluation suggests that with a growing trend and shift towards greener and healthier products, in order to sustain and survive, the fast food industry needs to adapt and offer products and services (packaging) that align under the ethical umbrella of corporate social responsibility.
The impact of digital fitness influencers on attitudes and purchase intentions of Instagram users
(2018)
Influencer marketing became an increasingly important topic in recent years. Whereas it is common sense that the advertised brand and the digital influencer have to be congruent for advertising effectiveness, there is no empirical evidence, yet. This master thesis empirically assesses the impact of the fit between digital fitness influencers and promoted brands on attitudes and purchase intentions of Instagram users. The study identifies attitudes toward source – source credibility and source trustworthiness, attitudes toward ad and attitudes toward brand as im-portant constructs to measure advertising impact on attitudes.
Based on a review of the existing literature regarding digital influencers and the concept 'fit' an experiment with two conditions was conducted via independent online surveys. They were carried out to members of online fitness forums and communities and fitness groups on social network sites. Data collected from 109 respondents in survey A and 110 in survey B was analyzed and tested using un-paired 2-sided t-tests.
The empirical study reveals the relevance of influencer-/brand fit. The results con-firm that the impact on all tested constructs is significantly more positive for the test group exposed to the survey including a post of a digital fitness influencer with a high perceived influencer-/brand.
The findings require further confirmation in other settings and industry sectors before they can be generalized, but offer helpful new insights to better allocate efforts and resources to effectively manage the collaboration with digital influenc-ers. A high influencer-/brand fit serves as a key driver for advertising effective-ness of influencer marketing. Research and managerial implications of the find-ings were derived.
This research aims at contributing to the growing scholarly interest in exploring and describing the journey towards data-driven marketing. As part of this, especially the establishment of a data culture seems to play an important role. Therefore, the study focuses on this aspect during the conduction of empirical research. The objective is to provide an overview of success factors for data- driven marketing, which might help change management teams or marketing leaders to transform the marketing approach into a data-driven one. Previous to the field research, a theoretical framework is developed on the basis of a structured review of relevant literature streams and expert opinions. At first, the literature on data-driven marketing and change management is consolidated and afterwards three consultants are interviewed to confirm the relevancy of the literature findings. An existing framework on managing change is adjusted according to the results and serves as guideline for the subsequent data collection and analysis. Eight expert interviews are conducted with marketing or data analytics managers from companies who find themselves in the middle of a transformation process. With the objective to gather practical information on how to establish a data culture, a thorough, qualitative content analysis of the interview transcripts is conducted. The results reveal that data analytics is a people business and if data-driven marketing is the objective, the change management team and the leadership have to consider the human factor during the transformation. This includes the establishment of a data culture by changing mindsets, behaviours, structures and processes as well as performance measurements. The leadership’s attitude, behaviour and decisions are critical factors in this context. The author recommends further exploration of this topic and a resumption of the interviews in the future, so that the success factors can be reviewed from a backward-looking perspective.
This paper aims to investigate if and to which extent the brand fit between brand and art might influence the products of art business collaborations by taking the consumer involvement into account. This investigation focuses on solely fine art and its implementation in product design. An experiment (N = 180) was conducted to examine the effect of different brand fits on the product evaluation. The research indicates that the brand fit between brand and art has a significantly positive influence on the product evaluation, which is internally replicated across durable and non-durable products. However, this leveraging effect does not occur for all product categories since not all products fit with art to a high degree. An influence within consumer involvement is not confirmed. Although no negative effect could be exposed, a more conscious use of art regarding to the brand fit is recommended.
The role of branding in a marketing strategy against counterfeiting for high-fashion companies
(2019)
Purpose – This thesis aims to investigate the impact of security, inquiry response time, type of bank, access and product diversity attributes on customer preference for internet banking services. It intends to understand the underlying logic behind how customers make their preferences.
Design/methodology/approach – Conjoint analysis was employed to investigate the attributes used in this study. Current attributes were selected after a comprehen- sive literature review on factors affecting internet banking services. Using different combinations of the respective levels of the attributes, 16 profiles were created through orthogonal design and respondents were asked to evaluate each profile. Data from a sample of 196 respondents were analyzed to reach findings.
Findings – Security was found to be the most important attribute affecting internet banking preference. Even though it might be less convenient, respondents tend to prefer higher security levels. Security attribute was followed by type of bank, ac- cess, inquiry response time and diversity of products respectively. The relative im- portance of each attribute and utility of attribute levels are presented in the results.
Practical implications – Internet banking is a major channel in the distribution of banking services. A successful digital strategy is of utmost importance to gain a competitive advantage and for long-term survival. Banks can understand how peo- ple value different attributes and findings can be used to design internet banking services. Designing aspect comes from the availability of different levels an attrib- ute can be offered. Apart from knowing the importance of an attribute, banks can use the utility values to create strategies and allocate their resources accordingly.
Originality/value – Unlike many other studies examining dimensions of internet banking services through factor analysis, the originality of this paper lies in the fact that it applies conjoint analysis to internet banking services. Respondents are pre- sented with a more realistic scenario where they have to make trade-offs. Further- more, the current study also focuses on customers’ perception of trust towards bricks-and-clicks banks and internet-only banks, providing a detailed comparison.