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To App or Not to App: Engaging Consumers via Branded Mobile Apps
Abstract
With the rapid growth of smartphone and smartphone application users, mobile apps have attracted an increasing amount of attention as an engaging platform for marketing communication. A content analysis of 106 branded apps of global brands found that most global brands incorporate into their apps important engagement attributes that this study examines (i.e., vividness, novelty, motivation, control, customization, feedback, and multiplatforming) and frequently employ entertainment features. In addition, this study shows the extent to which branded apps employ transformational and informational message strategies. Last, branded apps feature a variety of brand-related content, including brand identifiers and virtual products. Practical implications of this study are discussed for mobile advertisers and branded app designers.
... This overwhelming adoption is 21 because of the availability of various useful applications and services which brings 22 convenience in the life of the smartphone user (Arif et al., 2016). A wide range of 23 different mobile applications or "mobile apps" have been introduced which 24 transformed the way the user perform daily activities and tasks, for example, finding 25 local businesses, chatting with peers, paying bills, getting directions for driving and 26 can do shopping (Kim et al., 2013;Kim et al., 2016). Mobile apps provide new 27 opportunities to marketers as it generates revenue because consumers not only buy the 28 mobile apps but also do shopping via using mobile apps (Taylor & Levin, 2014). ...
... The second 95 characteristic of mobile apps is personalization which means that these apps can 96 provide tailored content and knowledge to the individual according to the preference 97 and interest (Adomavicius & Tuzhilin, 2005). Third, informativeness which is related 98 to a functional experience like an online banking facility, particular information 99 related to any brand or services also can be utilitarian-based incentives, for example, 100 mobile coupons, promo codes (Kim et al., 2013;Tsang et al., 101 2004). Lastly, entertainment is considered an important factor while using any new 102 technology (Lee et al., 2002). ...
... The mobile apps ubiquitous features give benefits to users like spatial flexibility and 164 time savings. According to Kim et al., (2013) According to Kim et al., (2013), the informative feature of the mobile app provides 196 197 The personalization feature of the mobile apps also provides various benefits to the 198 consumer (Kim et al., 2016). Ho (2012) stated that the personalized service-based on-199 location feature directly influences usefulness and performance. ...
This study aims to identify the perception of users, regarding characteristics of retail mobile applications (apps) on perceived benefits and their impact on post-adoption behaviour. On 264 useful responses, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation model were applied via using SPSS 22 and Amos 22. The results showed that mobile app features, that is, perceived ubiquity, perceived informativeness, perceived personalization and perceived entertainment significantly impact mobile app usefulness and playful engagement. Only perceived informativeness has an insignificant impact on playful engagement. Both mobile app usefulness and playful engagement have a significant impact on mobile app stickiness, whereas they do not have any impact on mobile app word of mouth (WOM). Mobile stickiness also has a significant impact on mobile app WOM. This study highlights the post-adoption behaviour of the consumer towards retail mobile apps and expands practical knowledge of consumers’ behaviour towards using retail mobile apps.
... Much of the work to date focuses on the potential benefits of branded apps (a summary of relevant research into branded apps appears in Table 1). Scholarship so far has focused on information search for consumers (Mahatanankoon, Wen, & Lim, 2005), customization to user tastes (e.g., Liu, 2003;Liu & Shrum, 2002), and two-way communications between consumers and firms (Kim, Lin, & Sung, 2013), and particularly on the benefits to firms of these repeated interactions (e.g., Urban & Sultan, 2015;Xu, Forman, Kim, & Van Ittersum, 2014), including increased engagement in the B-to-B context (Gill et al., 2017) and increased recognition of brands following branded app use (Van Noort & Van Reijmersdal, 2019). Likewise, scholars have determined a number of design and usage features that increase demand for branded apps, and enhance user experience with those apps (e.g., Garg & Telang, 2013;Ghose & Han, 2014), including scholarship revealing that the extent to which the app is designed to be informational or experiential (e.g., advertising based around playing a game) can influence future purchase intentions (e.g., Bellman et al., 2011). ...
... Likewise, hedonic motivations have played a significant role in predicting consumers' adoption of new retailing technologies in prior scholarship. Moe (2003) found that consumers with hedonic motivations were more likely to make purchases when arriving at a retail website through clickstream, and Kim et al. (2013) found that apps offering hedonic enjoyment in the form of a game or other enjoyable user experience are commonly used by product-based companies to build brand affinity. Thus, while prior work supports that utilitarian and hedonic motivations are important drivers of branded app development and usage, the influence of these motivations upon value in use remains an open question. ...
... Apps that are more experiential, on the other hand, emphasize entertainment and enjoyment (Bellman et al., 2011). These can include in-app games, chat rooms in which users can interact with the brand with other users, and social media features such as sharing items or purchase information directly to popular social media platforms (Kim et al., 2013). As these features enhance the social value users derive from interacting with an application, we expect that consumers who utilize branded apps with social motivations will experience higher levels of value in use when those branded apps are more experiential in nature. ...
Mobile devices have become a dominant feature of modern life, and increasingly organizations are employing dedicated mobile phone applications to maintain communication with consumers. Despite the increasing adoption of these branded apps among firms, however, a comprehensive framework explaining how these branded apps create value for both consumers and firms has yet to emerge in the marketing literature. Drawing from motivational and service-dominant logic theories, this paper develops a model of the effects of motivational sources on value in use, which translates into higher brand equity. Analysis results from 323 branded app users show that five hypotheses capturing the main effects are supported. However, four hypotheses pertaining to moderation effects are not supported. Specifically, utilitarian motivation and hedonic motivation have an impact on value in use, which in turn leads to enhanced perceived quality, brand loyalty, and brand awareness and associations–the three components of brand equity.
... Existing studies on mobile apps have deliberated on attitude and purchase intention (Bellman et al., 2011), app adoption (Kim et al., 2013), app usage (Hew et al., 2015;Kim et al., 2014Kim et al., , 2017, factors influencing app installation (Harris et al., 2016) and continuous attachment to apps , frequency of app usage (McLean et al., 2018), consumer engagement (Tarute et al., 2017), stickiness with apps (Furner et al., 2014;Hsu and Lin, 2016;Kim et al., 2016b;Tarute et al., 2017), recommendation to others to use a particular app (Xu et al., 2015;Yan and Chen, 2011), and app adoption according to personality traits (Xu et al., 2016). Studies have also been undertaken on different categories of mobile apps, such as hotel (Fong et al., 2017;Morosan et al., 2016), banking (Alavi and Ahuja, 2016;Mathew et al., 2014), social (Hsiao et al., 2016;Naslund et al., 2016), gaming (Bowman et al., 2015;Christensen and Prax, 2012;Merikivi et al., 2017), and shopping apps (Chen et al., 2018;Dacko, 2016;Kim et al., 2017;Natarajan et al., 2017;Shankar et al., 2016;Wang et al., 2016). ...
... With the growing penetration of smartphones, marketers have realised the potential of mobile apps and their usage as effective communication tools. Contrary to the general information provided by web portals, the advantage of smartphone-based communication lies in its ability to offer real-time and personalised informational content to the app users (Kim et al., 2013). From the extensive review of the literature on mobile apps, it is observed that a majority of the studies have focused on post-adoption behaviour as a dependent variable. ...
... From the extensive review of the literature on mobile apps, it is observed that a majority of the studies have focused on post-adoption behaviour as a dependent variable. These include varied contexts like repetitive use of mobile apps , stickiness with a specific mobile app (Furner et al., 2014;Kim et al., 2016b), and engagement with mobile apps (Kim et al., 2013). However, most of these studies have been undertaken generically, without specific reference to any particular category of apps, which has created a void in the relevant literature. ...
... The purpose of the eye-tracking data is to identify where educators are looking to gather their information and whether they are attending to educational benchmarks over buzzwords. To identify where developers should be including relevant information, the present study aims to examine if educators are looking more to the images as prior app studies suggest (e.g., Kim et al., 2013) or if they are looking to textual descriptions to gather more information on educational apps. However, no prior studies have examined where educators look to gather information from app descriptions. ...
... Prior research suggested that icon appearance influences the download behavior of users (Wang & Li, 2017). Accordingly, many developers rely on vivid app aesthetics to attract users rather than relying on textual descriptions (Kim et al., 2013). The results from the present study suggest that educators show greater interest in text descriptions (Jacob & Karn, 2003;Sharafi et al., 2015b) and spend more time analyzing and interpreting the content of the text descriptions (Sharafi et al., 2015b) than that of images. ...
... show that text descriptions are viewed more frequently than images, which is contrary to previous research on app selection in which images are believed to drive decisions to engage users in the app selection process (Kim et al., 2013). However, images of educational benchmark apps are looked at longer and this could indicate that the presence of the educational benchmarks attracts educators' attention and raises their tendency to look at these areas. ...
The study examines if educators are valuing certain benchmarks of quality (i.e., scaffolding, feedback, curriculum, development team, learning theory) when they select educational apps from app stores and evaluates how they gather information during the selection process. Pre-service and working elementary educators viewed and evaluated app store pages for 10 simulated apps while gaze data (i.e., looking at either the written descriptions or app images) were collected using an eye-tracker. Participants' value-judgements were measured by their willingness to download the app, how much they would pay, their rating, and ranking, while gaze data examined participants' fixation count and fixation duration. Results from paired-samples t-tests, repeated-measures ANOVAs, and nonparametric tests indicate that educators value apps with educational benchmarks over buzzwords, while judging apps with development team, scaffolding, and curriculum higher than those with an integrated learning theory and feedback. Moreover, eye tracking results revealed that educators scrutinize app images more when they feature educational benchmarks. To improve educators' app selection, professional development should target educators’ views of learning theory and feedback as well as their use of app images as a source of information on app quality (cf., detailed text descriptions).
... Mobile apps, or apps in short, have been defined as the ultimate marketing vehicle (Watson, McCarthy and Rowley 2013) and a staple promotional tactic (Rohm, Gao, Sultan and Pagani 2012) to attract business 'on the go' (Fang 2019). They yield great potential for customer engagement due to specific characteristics (e.g., vividness, novelty and built-in features, see Kim, Lin and Sung 2013), supporting one-toone and one-to-many interactions (Watson et al. 2013) and facilitating exchanges without time or location-based restrictions (Alnawas and Aburub 2016). In essence, apps translate communication efforts into interactive customer experiences heightening cognitive, emotional and behavioral responses (Kim and Yu 2016). ...
... Moreover, this stage includes activities that signify adoption such as using the app (e.g., mobile shopping). The post-adoption stage involves all customer experiences following adoption and resulting from ongoing app usage such as stickiness-i.e., the intention to continue using the app and frequency of app usage (Racherla, Furner and Babb 2012); and engagement (e.g., Kim et al. 2013;Wu 2015;Fang 2017)-i.e., "a customer's voluntary resource contribution to a firm's marketing function, going beyond financial patronage" (Harmeling, Moffett, Arnold and Carlson 2017, p.312). This final stage also includes relevant outcomes for the app and for the brand behind the app such as brand loyalty and customer satisfaction. ...
... Combining these theories, it is possible to identify the following recurring drivers. First, we find studies highlighting the relevance of generic factors likely to influence consumer pre-dispositions at the early stages of any decision-making process, such as consumer involvement (Taylor and Levin 2014), inertia (Wang, Ou and Chen 2019), consumer experience (Lee and Kim 2019;Kim et al. 2013) and past behavior (Atkinson 2013;Ho 2012;Kang et al. 2015). We also find research highlighting the impact of behavioral control and self-efficacy (Kleijnen, de Ruyter and Wetzels 2007;Maity 2010;Sripalawat, Thongmak and Ngramyarn 2011;Wang, Lin and Luarn 2006), social norm (Hong and Tam 2006;Karaiskos et al. 2012;Lu et al. 2007Lu et al. , 2008 and motives (Bruner and Kumar 2005). ...
We present an integrative review of existing marketing research on mobile apps, clarifying and expanding what is known around how apps shape customer experiences and value across iterative customer journeys, leading to the attainment of competitive advantage, via apps (in instances of apps attached to an existing brand) and for apps (when the app is the brand). To synthetize relevant knowledge, we integrate different conceptual bases into a unified framework, which simplifies the results of an in-depth bibliographic analysis of 471 studies. The synthesis advances marketing research by combining customer experience, customer journey, value creation and co-creation, digital customer orientation, market orientation, and competitive advantage. This integration of knowledge also furthers scientific marketing research on apps, facilitating future developments on the topic and promoting expertise exchange between academia and industry.
... Information quality, system quality and virtual interface interactivity influence customer engagement while using the online communities of the brand . User interface attractiveness including visual and navigation designs are important characteristics that helps the consumers to utilize travel app properly (Kim, Lin, andSung 2013, Chang et al. 2016;Nah, Eschenbrenner, and DeWester 2011). There is significant influence of web functionality, web content, and information security on using the tourism services (Liao and Shi 2017). ...
... The mobile application attributes that are considered for the study are visual design (Kim, Lin, and Sung, 2013;Nah, Eschenbrenner and DeWester 2011;Cyr, Head, and Ivanov 2006), Informational Design (Peters et al. 2016;Hasan 2016;Yang 2010), Navigational Design (Chang et al. 2016;Hasan 2016), Collaboration (Kapoor and Vij 2018). In the case of travel mobile app, visual design includes colors, images, font, layout, etc. Informational design comprises information related to flights, hotels, holiday packages, contact details of the hotels/taxis, payment options etc. Navigational design includes the layout of the pages, easy use of filters, and seamless navigation through multiple pages. ...
Utilizing the stimulus-organism-response theory as the theoretical framework, the study examines the role of mobile app attributes in influencing consumer engagement with a special focus on travel mobile apps. The study further investigates the role of consumer engagement in determining consumers’ behavioral intentions to use the travel app. As part of qualitative research, focus group discussions were conducted which helped in identifying important mobile app attributes. Further, a quantitative study was carried out to test the conceptual model. A second-order construct was employed to measure consumer engagement. Hypotheses were tested by employing structural equation modeling. Analysis reveals that visual, information and collaboration design influence consumer engagement with the travel mobile app. Furthermore, the results point that consumer behavioral intentions to use travel mobile app is positively impacted by consumer engagement. The findings of this study may provide relevant managerial implications which the marketers may employ to leverage the attributes of travel mobile app to engage with consumers and build long term relationship.
... Although mobile applications have increased rapidly, experimental research on this subject is shallow (Kim, Lin & Sung, 2013;Kim, Wang & Malthouse, 2015). Branded mobile applications literature reveals many factors related to the concept, how these factors are applied, and the sample size (Tan et al., 2017). ...
... In addition to the brand image of the applications, it has been demonstrated that advertisements, quality, brand awareness, and loyalty positively affect general usage. Mobile applications are developed as a communication tool that turns all the information sought in a traditional web environment into a highly interactive and personalized modification in different user contexts (Kim, Lin & Sung, 2013). Therefore, the current study to gain insight into this communication tool; has examined consumers' usage status when interacting with branded mobile applications. ...
... Specifically, they find that consumers' previous app usage experience [11,24], location of customer at home, work, or on the move [7], and customer demographic characteristics and habit formation [8,9] have dramatic impacts on mobile app usage. Kim et al. [25] used mixed-methods to identify five factors that affect consumers' adoption of mobile apps. Lee et al. [26] reveal that social game app adoption has a positive spillover effect on the consumption of other apps because of literacy enhancement. ...
... Lee et al. [26] reveal that social game app adoption has a positive spillover effect on the consumption of other apps because of literacy enhancement. In addition, previous studies show that phone and app characteristics significantly influence app usage, such as app design elements including vividness, novelty, motivation, control, feedback, and multi-platforming [25]; and such characteristics also affect app customization [27]. Goyal et al. [28] use both quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the impact of two design decisions for the landing page of a native ad on the user experience and find that manipulating the design of presentation style and multimedia usage on ad landing pages can significantly influence the user experience. ...
This paper investigates heterogeneous mobile app usage patterns through customer segmentation and further examines how customer characteristics are correlated with these heterogeneous usage patterns. The research utilizes a unique individual-level mobile app usage dataset and employs a latent class model incorporating concomitant variables. The results uncover four mobile customer segments and show that: (1) customer mobility is most positively associated with the usage pattern of Social-Type Users, with the highest social app usage but the lowest entertainment app usage; (2) customer phone price is most positively correlated with the usage pattern of Entertainment-Type Users, with the highest entertainment and e-commerce app usage; and (3) customer’s number of app downloads is most positive for the usage pattern of Information-Type Users, with the highest information and travel app usage. This study contributes to the literatures on customer segmentation and mobile app usage. The findings offer important implications for app managers.
... Цель исследования -выявить заинтересованность потребителей в мобильных приложениях и факторы, влияющие на пользование брендированными мобильными приложениями. Гипотезы, выдвинутые в данном исследовании, были сформулированы на основе анализа результатов исследований [9,11,14,15,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24]: Н1: Отношение потребителей к мобильным приложениям положительно влияет на отношение потребителей к брендам Н2: Отношение потребителей к мобильным приложениям зависит от степени персонализации потребителя (бренды нацелены посылать персональные предложения потребителям, о продуктах, акциях и распродажах, основываясь на вкусах и поведении отдельных сегментов пользователей) Н3: Отношение потребителей к мобильным приложениям напрямую зависит от воспринимаемой легкости использования технологией Н4: Отношение потребителей к мобильным прило-жениям напрямую зависит от воспринимаемой полезности технологии Используемые в исследовании методы, методики и технологии. Для проверки выдвинутых гипотез мы разработали анкету, в которую включили конструкты (набор переменных, объединенных общим предметом исследования). ...
... The usability of mobile apps has been widely discussed in the literature using several different key criteria, for example: effectiveness [17,18], efficiency [19], satisfaction [19,20], learnability [21,22], memorability [20,23], and engagement [24,25]. Many of the smartphone apps that have been developed do not sufficiently emphasize certain aspects of design. ...
Heuristic Evaluation (HE) has proven to be important in the development of different computer systems but has not been incorporated in the development of eco-tourism smartphone applications. This results inusability issues that significantly affect user experience (UX) as discussed in literature. This study reports the HE in the design and development of Niranur Agro Farm (NAF) eco-tourism smartphone applications, which could improve UX. Eight experts participated in this study, utilizing the SMART mobile usability heuristic developed for mobile application and the severity rating scale to determine usability issues. The HE findings indicated that 22 usability issues were identified. One issue was rated 4 (catastrophe), four issues were rated 3 (major problem), twelve issues were rated 2 (minor problem) and five issues were rated 1 (cosmetics). Although there are issues rated as 4 and 3, the majority of the issues were considered to be minor (1 and 2 on the scale). Results indicated that it is crucial to incorporate HE into the design and development of the eco-tourism smartphone app to minimize the usability issues faced by users. It further validated that utilizing a specific heuristic for smartphone applications would ensure that all usability issues are correctly categorized and remedied.
... Recent advancement in information and communication technologies, and especially the rapid popularity of mobile phones around the world, has led to the emergence of new mobile-based applications (Lee et al., 2006). Contemporary mobiles are not limited to their traditional function as a tool for calling others, and they have been transformed into a multi-function device helping people to save their time and money (Islam et al., 2013;Kim et al., 2013). Besides, mobile apps have gradually found the way into e-commerce and trade (Natarajan et al., 2017;Pappas et al., 2014;Yoon, 2002). ...
Previous research investigated factors affecting the intention of international tourists to use smartphone apps in online buying under normal conditions. However, this intention has not yet been examined under different circumstances and in sanction-ridden and crisis-affected destinations. Moreover, previous studies have not examined the differences between different generations using multiple group analysis (MGA) on how the intention of tourists using Smartphone apps affects their buying behavior when the control variables change. This study attempts to fill this gap, through surveying 385 international tourists in Isfahan, Iran. This study has both theoretical and managerial implications and introduces directions for future research.
... Furthermore, they observed that information/user-centric apps demonstrate a stronger positive effect on purchase intention. Kim et al. (2013) research on branded apps revealed that apps' interactive features can increase engagement, postulating that the "anytime, anywhere" interactivity and ease of control of mobile devices allows them to be used more effortlessly than computer websites, thereby increases the perceived effectiveness. The differences in the types of value that branded apps provide (information versus entertainment) lead to different cognitive and affective responses (van Noort and van Reijmersdal, 2019). ...
Given the incredible ability to interact with consumers, branded apps have become a new important brand relationship building platform for marketers. However, despite the remarkable growth of app users, many brands are still struggling to attract continuous usage among user. Past research emphasized on the functional perspective of branded apps usage, yet emotional factors have received less attention. Therefore, to address the research gap, present research draws from the conceptual lens of pleasure-arousal-dominance (PAD) model from environmental psychology to examine the emotional factors of branded apps. The objective of this research is to investigate the drivers of branded app atmospherics in brand relationships. We recruited 408 users by an online survey. Results identify atmospherics cues that influence the experiential emotions of pleasure, arousal and dominance, which generates usage intention. This research contributes knowledge by extending PAD model to branded app context and provide an important ground where practitioners can design atmospherics cues that create emotional experience in branded app to foster brand relationship.
... Rapid advancements in mobile technology have not only influenced the way we communicate but also have influenced our lifestyle (Dholakia, Bagozzi and Pearo, 2004). Marketers are now forced to rethink the overall customer experience for maintaining long-lasting customer relationships (Kim, Lin and Sung, 2013;and Kumar and Reinartz, 2016). Updated technology and better software applications in mobile devices provide customers a variety of experiences compelling them to consistently engage with marketers leading to co-creation of value and satisfy action (Banu, Mohamed and Parayitam, 2019;and Higgins and Scholer, 2009). ...
... In the area of food, apps focusing on the support of sustainable and healthy eating are available (Franco, Fallaize, Lovegrove, & Hwang, 2016;Hedin et al., 2019;Mauch et al., 2018;Nghiem & Carrasco, 2016). Apps can provide consumers with control over information, feedback on their goal achievement, vividness through sensory-rich settings, motivation to proceed their behaviour, and customization of content (Kim, Lin, & Sung, 2013). They can be developed by food organisations or other service providers, but do not require their active involvement in the communication. ...
Background
Consumers' possibility of connecting to the surrounding world has rapidly increased the use of interactive communication technologies in their daily lives. This constitutes a major trend in the food sector, which is worth investigating in order to improve the understanding of the influence of the technologies on consumers' value creation, understood as consumers’ improved well-being, in relation to food.
Scope and approach
This paper focuses on consumers' value creation in the food domain. It defines value as a dynamic concept and develops a framework for categorising and discussing interactive communication technologies based on their potential to support consumers in their interaction with their surroundings. The aim is to provide an overview of how these technologies support consumers’ value creation as well as to provide some critical reflections.
Key findings and conclusions
Interactive communication technologies can facilitate consumer interaction with organisations, peers, and technical devices. Value creation potential can be related to two processes: 1) the product development process improving products and assortments responding to consumer needs, or 2) the product usage process supporting dietary management, access to information, entertainment, sensory experience, and finally, more flexible social relational aspects. Critical reflections on consumers’ use of these technologies, such as privacy concerns and the risk of misinformation influence, are provided. Finally, implications for the implementation of interactive communication technologies in the food domain as well as suggestions for future research are provided.
... Upon the scanning of existing literature, it has been observed that studies on mobile apps largely pertain to factors influencing the installation of mobile app (Harris, Brookshire & Goyal, 2016), app adoption (Bellman et al., 2011;Kim et al., 2013), usage of mobile app (Hew et al., 2015;Kim et al., 2016), factors influencing continuous attachment to app (Furner et al., 2014;Kim et al., 2016;Kim et al., 2015) and usage commendation (Xu et al., 2015;Yan & Chen, 2011), and relationship with personality traits (Xu et al., 2016). A study by Yang and Lin (2014) examined satisfaction with and purchase intention on apps. ...
With high speed internet, the retailers are continually engaged in upgrading mobile apps that facilitate shoppers in shopping anywhere-anytime and arousing their sudden urges to buy impulsively. The present study endeavors to decipher the antecedents of mobile app-based impulsive buying behavior and determining their relative significance in triggering impulsive urges. Using structural equation modeling, causal analysis was undertaken to identify the role of effort expectancy, price and discounts, atmosphere and layout of app, and user experience and satisfaction in creating impulsive buying intentions. It was observed that price and discounts and user experience didn't have any influence in stirring the consumer for impulsive buying. To determine the relative significance of remaining four, artificial neural network modeling was undertaken. Effort expectancy was noted to have highest influence in creating impulsive urges, followed by atmosphere and layout of an app. User satisfaction had minimum impact. The paper concludes with practical implications for m-commerce players.
... Thus, for example, mobile apps, with potentiated connectivity and interactivity, are increasingly encountering consumers' need for pleasure and fun (Caboni and Hagberg, 2019;Chong, 2013). Accordingly, shopping enjoyment has a key role in influencing consumers' shopping buying behaviour (Huang et al., 2007), as it has been proved that consumers with a positive mood show higher levels of shopping engagement (De Canio et al., 2019;Higgins 2006;Kim et al., 2013). Consequently, our next hypothesis follows: ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of several intrinsic motivations driving consumers' intention to buy using a mobile app, namely: shopping gamification, focussed attention, shopping enjoyment and socialness, through the mediating role of shopping engagement. The online shopping experience is investigated in its dual role as direct driver of the intention to buy using a mobile app and as moderator of the shopping engagement – intention to buy using a mobile app path.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical analysis was performed in China due to the extensive usage of mobile shopping apps amongst the Chinese population. A structural equation model was estimated on 893 valid and complete structured questionnaires collected amongst a sample of Chinese consumers.
Findings
Findings confirm that intrinsic motivations (i.e. shopping gamification, focussed attention, shopping enjoyment and socialness) indirectly influence the intention to buy using a mobile app channelled by shopping engagement. Most remarkably, results show that the online shopping experience positively moderates the shopping engagement – intention to buy using a mobile app path.
Originality/value
The novelty of the paper lies in the conceptual and empirical evidence provided on shopping gamification, within the retailing marketing domain. The study investigates other related intrinsic motivations that jointly with shopping gamification directly influence shopping engagement and indirectly impact mobile shopping intention. The paper provides insights into the moderating role of online shopping experience, a key aspect when the challenge concerning gamification is considered.
... A considerable number of studies have examined the positive effect of MM effects, and generally, the outcome is consistent over time. For example, Kim et al. (2013) contended that online marketers may effectively engage with users by providing them with unique purchase experiences. Kim et al. (2015) claimed that the provision of systematic selling strategies in retail app results in higher user satisfaction, thereby enhancing company performance. ...
Retail applications (or retail apps) have emerged as a game-changer to complement and enhance the consumer purchase experience. Responding to calls of prior research, this study used the Two-factor Theory to understand how hygiene (i.e., anthropomorphism presence-AP) and motivation factors (i.e., marketing mix- MM) influence consumers’ retail app continuance use intention. Consumer engagement (CE) was investigated as a mediator, while prevention focus and promotion focus were suggested as moderators. Data were collected from 456 Millennial mobile shoppers and analyzed using PLS-SEM. Result from the study’s structural model suggested that continuance use intention was dependent on retailers’ effectiveness on engaging with consumers and establishing attractive marketing elements. CE was found to mediate the path between AP and MM on continuance use intention. In addition, Millennial consumers with a high prevention focus was found to emphasize MM components in the engagement process. Some implications and suggestions for further research were discussed.
... Setyani et al. (2019) posited that the modern digital world offers personalized advertising that influences users' perception and motivates them to behave hedonically, which in turn affects their impulsive urges. Kim, Lin and Sung (2013) noted that mobile app involves permission-based marketing with consumers making opt-in choices. Perceived personalization was noted to be a significant predictor of usefulness and playful engagement with mobile apps (Kim et al., 2016). ...
Building on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) theory, this study identifies and empirically tests the prominence of various technology-related, consumer characteristics, and situational variables (Stimuli) on fostering impulsive habits among mobile shoppers. We further examine the direct and indirect effects of consumer impulsiveness on the use of multiple shopping applications for online purchases. Data collected from 275 mobile shopping application (app) users through an online survey were analyzed using partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Results confirm the significant impact of mobility, personalization, product assortment, and hedonic motivation on impulsiveness, except the app's visual appeal. Impulsiveness was found to be strongly correlated with users' intention to install another shopping app, whereas consumers behavioral intention was a significant precursor of their multiple app usage behavior. The findings apprise managers of the role of impulsiveness in encouraging split loyalty among mobile shoppers and prescribe new strategies for sustained use of shopping platforms.
... According to Zhou (2012), consumer's inherent pleasure when they experience impressive features in mobile apps. Prior studies reveal that app attributes in the form of visual aesthetics and usefulness features can increase customer engagement and affect user experience (Kim et al., 2013;Kumar et al., 2018). Besides, customers often evaluate app attributes as the aesthetic features holistically rather than as separate entities of mobile apps (Verhoeven et al., 2009). ...
The purpose of this study is to examine the antecedents and outcomes of consumer experience (CX) with mobile banking (m-banking) apps. To understand the linkage of CX with other constructs, data collection was done using a structured questionnaire through an online survey. A sample of 473 respondents were analysed using structural equation modeling by testing the proposed hypotheses in AMOS (Analysis of Moment Structures) version 22.0. The findings revealed that convenience, trust, and social influence play a significant role in enhancing CX with the m-banking app use. Apps attributes was found to be relatively less important and no relationship was found between customer support and CX. Customer loyalty and customer intention to continue using the m-banking apps were observed as significant outcome variables. This study will contribute to the growing literature on CX and will guide managers in recognizing the importance of CX in designing appropriate strategies for the promotion of m-banking and engaging their customers in a developing country context.
... The design principles of visual aesthetics include the visual appearance of the interface which is defined as symmetry, balance, harmony, emphasis, proportion, rhythm and unity(Beardsely, 1982). In addition,Kim & Sung (2013) assessed the element of engagement over 100 branded apps. They found that 75% of the apps contained "vividness" aspects which were frequently expressed as images and graphics. ...
... Mobile applications have set up a scenario supported by the new media system and the emerging development of the technology industry [6] in which smartphones and their components: intelligent screens, cloud storage and portability [7] facilitate access to information and communication, interaction and participation among users, and approximation to knowledge [8]. Therefore, technological industry oriented to mobile applications has diversified to such an extent that both leisure and learning present special interest in the adaptation of their content to these platforms [9], generating multiple benefits in society, highlighting the teaching of foreign language [10], creating health patterns [11], generating fidelity to products and services [12], improving the nutrition of young people [13], promoting tourism [14], among others. ...
Mobile applications viewed as digital social change tools are focused on sustainable development, particularly in topics that address ecology and the environment. In this research, the aim is to systematize a review of the 10 most downloaded mobile applications in this context, but deepening on those that use game elements in their interface, organizing them according to components, mechanics and playful dynamics. Findings demonstrate the role of levels and achievements as more repeated dynamics, and challenges and feedback as more relevant elements in gameplay, and finally, emotions and narratives as components of the gamified experience. The incorporation of these elements in mobile games shows that digital gamification in the environmental context is organized from an alternative perspective, where argumentation, the succession of events, the progressive incorporation of difficulty and the interaction with the computerized system modify the traditional view that sees gamification as a superficial system of points.
... The technologies can be categorized by their location (Pantano et al., 2018), ownership and control by the store or consumer (Beck and Rygl, 2015;Bèzes, 2019), application (Pantano et al., 2017), cost and service (Roggeveen and Sethuraman, 2020). They facilitate both consumer experience and managerial processes through self-checkout (Fernandes and Pedroso, 2017;Lee, 2015) and retail apps (Kim et al., 2013;Perry et al., 2019), and provide more complex, immersive experiences through virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies (Rese et al., 2017;Watson et al., 2018). Interactive touch screens, digital signage, and self-service kiosks have extended the range of consumer-facing technologies to extend customers' experiences. ...
This paper explores changes in technology-enabled omnichannel customer experiences in stores over a five-year period (2014–2019). It contributes to the omnichannel-experience-management literature through customer technology-enabled touchpoints within fashion retail. Adopting an exploratory qualitative approach, primary data were obtained using semi-structured interviews with millennial consumers. The findings demonstrate the growing importance of implementing and integrating in-store technologies to improve customer experience. From these, two models are developed: “technology-induced customer experience in-store”; and “technology-enabled customer shopping journey in-store”.
... Further, it can improve an organization's telepresence, influencing consumer engagement (e.g., efficient cognitive processing, instrumental, and experiential value). Mobile apps' collaborative features allow retailers to offer unique user experience and increase customer engagement [76]. Therefore, the following hypothesis was proposed: ...
Due to the COVID-19 outbreak globally during 2020, the usage and virtues of food delivery apps (FDA) have increased immensely, facilitating the consumer to access the food and food providers to keep functioning. However, this study aims to investigate the enablers of online consumer engagement (OCE) and platform preference in the foodservice industry, keeping in view the moderating role of peer pressure by following uses and gratifications theory (UGT). The data were collected from 322 FDA's user in China during the COVID-19 lockdown and analyzed employing partial least-square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). PLS-SEM results revealed that consumer’s self-concept and platform interactivity affect OCE and platform preference. Further, OCE mediates the effect of the relationship between platform interactivity, self-concept, and platform preference. Furthermore, peer pressure significantly moderates the relationship between OCE and platform preference. This research contributes to the prevailing body of literature in a novel way by employing UGT on consumer behavior in the FDA. The study has value for online food businesses and implications for consumers, retailers, and practitioners to formulate and implement value-added strategies in a consumption-oriented emerging economy.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the IoT's technology practices and performance in retail sector. This internet information technology is vital part of the evolution of retail sector. This paper develops an analytical framework for the assessment of approaches for the measurement of IoT's technology practices and performance in the retail store operation. Methodology used as literature review and conceptual development of framework. Existing approaches also discussed in the improving retail inventory management operation.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine specific gratifications obtained from using mobile instant messaging (MIM) applications by applying the uses and gratifications theory. This study explores the relationships between motivational factors, customer engagement and loyalty for existing WhatsApp subscribers in South Africa, as well as the moderating effect of application usage.
Design/methodology/approach
A descripto-explanatory research design was used in this quantitative study and 282 responses from an online survey were analysed. Structural equation modelling was used to test the study’s hypotheses.
Findings
The study reveals that utilitarian and hedonic motivation impact customer engagement positively in using WhatsApp, which, in turn, impacts loyalty. Social motivation in using WhatsApp bore no relationship with customer engagement. Furthermore, medium application usage moderates the link between customer engagement and utilitarian and hedonic motivation.
Research limitations/implications
The study offers a greater understanding of customer engagement and motivational factors in the MIM environment. Future studies could consider more complex relationships with customer engagement in using MIM apps focussed on a younger generation.
Practical implications
MIM service providers should enhance customer engagement by tracking user activity and identifying customers who need to use an app more by targeting their utilitarian and hedonic needs through sophisticated marketing strategies.
Originality/value
This research enriches the understanding of key motivational factors impacting customers’ continued engagement towards using MIM, as opposed to the adoption thereof.
For both marketing professionals and researchers, what is shiny and new continues to captivate. The latest ‘it’ thing that marketers are gravitating towards is shoppable video where brands and retailers emphasize, entertain and engage consumers with mobile content that is directly ‘shoppable.’ In this new temporal and spatial interactive context, this study dissects the informative content of shoppable videos to develop an initial and comprehensive understanding of mobile shoppable videos. A content analysis of 200 shoppable videos utilizing emotional soft-sell type appeals, utilitarian hard-sell type appeals and humor appeals indicates that utilitarian-focused hard-sell shoppable videos dominate this new landscape thus creating a mobile shopping experience that relies on a hard-sell approach. Under an evolutionary perspective, the content of mobile shoppable videos or ‘digital direct-response ads’ was then compared to the content of direct-response infomercials to account for the modernization bias of digital marketing and explore how the informativeness of shoppable videos evolves and adapts over time. Findings suggest that mobile-designed creative executions adapt the hard-sell standard and feature significantly fewer mentions of price, special offers and guarantees, new ideas, and company research as they contextually adapt. It shows in the future-obsessed digital arena, old and dreary formats can conceptually and practically inform ‘next generation’ ‘revolutionary’ formats, which provides a foundation for future research into mobile shoppable video and updates marketing best practices.
Branded mobile applications (apps) serve as useful marketing tools to assist existing and potential customers and greatly motivate consumers to engage with brands. This paper aims to investigate how branded apps achieve consumer continuance intention from the perspective of consumer–brand engagement (CBE). Data are collected from 509 users of Chinese branded mobile applications and analyzed using a structural equation model. Results showed three dimensions of CBE that have unique interrelationships that promote continuance intention. Perceived informational usefulness serve as a utilitarian motivation, while perceived entertainment and social presence as hedonic motivations, all contributing to CBE in different ways.
Despite the rapid growth of the mobile game market worldwide, how intrinsic, and extrinsic, motivation factors affect user loyalty and in-game purchase intention across genders remains unknown. To address this research gap, this cross-sectional study examined the antecedents of loyalty and in-game purchase intention through the theoretical lens of the motivation theory and investigated the gender effects in the Chinese mobile game environment. Using a survey method, this study collected data from 605 experienced players of King of Glory in China. In addition, the proposed research model was examined by the partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). Our findings reveal that perceived playfulness, a competitive price, and virtual rewards, significantly affect user mobile game loyalty and in-game purchase intention. We confirmed the moderating effects of gender on the relationship between motivational factors and mobile game loyalty, offering a better understanding of how males and females vary in the development of mobile game loyalty. Our findings offer valuable insights for mobile game practitioners to develop more effective design and strategies for motivating user loyalty and in-game purchases.
This study investigated the mediating role of emotional responses and app engagement on the relationship between the perception of app features and brand loyalty. Participants were 417 Macao light festivalgoers (female = 53.2%; age range = 31–40 years old). Using a cross-sectional design, path analysis results indicated that the emotional responses to a branded app could lead to app engagement and increase festival app brand loyalty. The emotional responses also mediated the relationship between the usefulness, aesthetics, gamification features’ perception, and app engagement. The users’ emotional responses appeared to be an important factor influencing the experiential branded app engagement and brand loyalty.
After COVID-19, mobile application is getting attention because it can make up for losses from limited food service operations. Although several researchers have started to understand the food delivery industry, extant studies fail to empirically address the question of who customers respond to positively in food delivery application. Customers’ experience on forming patronized behaviour, the important emerging area of tourism industry is examined in this study. Customers’ perceived enjoyment and social presence are hypothesized to affect attitude, which patronized behaviour to delivery brand. In line with positive psychology and social facilitation theory, the impact of customers’ perceived cognitive enjoyment and social presence on favourable attitude is found using data collected from an online survey. Moreover, the causality between attitude and brand loyalty is discovered. Lastly, the mediating role of attitude in the relationship between food delivery application experience and loyalty is supported. Finally, how food delivery application influences their behaviour is enlightened and useful practical implications for service providers are provided in this study.
When brands communicate with consumers via interactive medium such as smartphone apps, how do they influence consumers' self‐concepts? This study investigates the effect of branded smartphone app usage on consumer self‐perceptions of personality traits. Our approach relies on a longitudinal experimental design in which self‐perceptions of personality traits are measured at the beginning and at the end of a 4‐week period. During the study period, in the treatment condition consumers use a branded app while in the control condition they used an unbranded app. Brand engagement in the self‐concept and lay theory beliefs (incremental vs. entity) are the measured mediator and moderator, respectively. Branded smartphone app usage alone is enough to lead consumers to update their personality self‐perceptions in line with the personality of the brand. The brand's highly salient and desirable personality trait rubs‐off entity theorists' self‐perceptions by strengthening personality signaling to the self. However, the brand's low saliency and undesirable personality trait fades away from incremental theorists' self‐perceptions without serving as a personality signal to the self. The findings have direct implications for marketers attempting to use branded smartphone apps to influence self‐brand relationships. This paper extends knowledge of how branded apps influence consumers' self‐perceptions of personality. It differentiates the mechanisms through which these effects occur for consumers who have different lay beliefs (i.e., incremental vs. entity) as well as for brands' personality traits with varying levels of saliency and desirability.
Personalization is prevalent in modern social media marketing strategies. However, the users of social media services may perceive that personalized content is intrusive. These two components may influence consumers’ purchase intention in social media personalization campaigns. Thus, this positivism empirical research proposes a theoretical framework named PI² using the personalization-intrusiveness-intention, as well as a success measurement based upon privacy calculus theory for effective social media personalization campaigns. Further, we investigated digital mnemonics’ potential influences with emotion as social information theory and different degrees of product involvement together with the model. Based upon the analysis of a total of 800 social media users, the results indicated that personalization positively affected but intrusiveness negatively affected the purchase intention. Furthermore, personalization significantly affected purchase intention through intrusiveness and the interaction of personalization with digital mnemonics negatively influenced consumers’ purchase intention on high involvement ads. In the post-hoc analysis, the moderating effect of users’ demographic variables was found to have some influence on the PI² framework. The findings of this research provide theoretical and managerial implications for researchers and field practitioners in social media personalization.
Marketers are increasingly adopting branded app because of their ability to deliver a distinct and gratifying consumer experience. While the user acquisition and adoption of the branded app is growing exponentially, the rate of app abandonment remains an area of concern. As many as 71 % of users remain inactive within a rolling period of three months; however, limited scholarly research has occurred to understand the causal explanation of this phenomenon. This study attempts to shed light on the reasons for such a high abandonment rate, the factors triggering such behaviors, and their causal relationship through the interpretive structural modelling (ISM) approach. An extensive literature review on the branded app, studies on consumer retention, and responses from 31 domain experts led to the identification of 19 factors and the presentation of a seven-layered interpretive structure to define the underlying causal relationship between these factors. The academic contribution of this paper lies, first, in identifying four new factors (onboarding experience, acquisition offer, value for time, and gestation period) and assimilating them into the extant consumer retention research. Second, this study conceptualizes a new model by integrating two existing theories of the Investment and Relationship Stability Model and the Commitment–Trust Theory. It also aspires to improve understanding of the branded app abandonment among practitioners and accordingly helps in prioritizing their marketing interventions.
Dijital dünyanın önemli bir temsilcisi olan mobil uygulamalar, müşterilerin çevrimiçi ortamda farklı alanlarda hizmet almak için kullandığı araçlardandır. Bu alanların açığa çıkardığı uygulamalardan biri mobil navigasyon uygulamalarıdır. Bu çalışmada, mobil navigasyon uygulamaları üzerine bir araştırma yürütülmüştür. Çalışmanın amacı, mobil uygulama kullanıcılarının ilgin davranma niyetlerini kalite, psikolojik ilginlik ve algılanan faydaların etkileri aracılığıyla navigasyon uygulamaları bağlamında incelemektir. Çalışmada çevrimiçi anket yöntemi kullanılmış ve elde edilen 403 anket yapısal eşitlik modeli aracılığıyla test edilmiştir. Araştırma bulgularına göre, kalite boyutlarından bilgi kalitesi ve sistem kalitesi psikolojik ilginliği pozitif yönde etkilemektedir. Psikolojik ilginlik mobil uygulamaların bilgi, hedonik, sosyal bütünleştirici ve kişisel bütünleştirici faydalarının her birini ve müşterilerin ilgin davranma niyetini pozitif yönde etkilemektedir. Algılanan faydalardan yalnızca sosyal bütünleştirici fayda müşterilerin ilgin davranma niyetini pozitif yönde etkilemektedir. Bulgular neticesinde araştırma kısıtları ve pazarlama araştırmacıları ve uygulayıcıları için öneriler sunulmuştur.
Motivated by the role that branded apps play in enhancing customer perceptions of brands, this paper is developed to provide a better understanding of the extent to which task-service fit associated with branded apps influences brand attitudes. The primary research objective is to determine how perceptions of task-service fit associated with branded apps enhances branded app experience and to explore brand co-creation and ultimately brand loyalty. Using data from 573 branded app users we were able to identify the following relationships: Perceptions of task-service fit and o-creation were found to influence brand loyalty. Also, task-service fit and randed app experience influenced co-creation. Finally, results also confirm that branded app experience and brand co-creation are mediators of the relationship between task-service fit and brand loyalty.
Purpose
Although brands have developed mobile applications (apps) to offer consumers new experiences, low app usage numbers indicate the need to develop a systematic, practical evaluation framework for branded app design that specifies concrete design features.
Design/methodology/approach
An expert review provides an overview of the design of current branded apps. On the basis of an extensive literature review, this article classifies state-of-the-art design features for branded apps according to a proposed evaluation framework that includes human–computer interaction (HCI)–related and marketing-related evaluation criteria. In an application of these evaluation criteria, the authors evaluate 73 branded apps issued by 11 top fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brands.
Findings
The expert review identifies strengths and weaknesses that are common to the design of current branded apps. These findings inform the set of design recommendations that this article offers, which includes 14 features common to all types of apps and 9 features specific to particular types of apps.
Practical implications
This research offers practical implications for app designers, who need to address design dimensions contained in the proposed framework including the HCI-related (mobile, social and user experience design features) and marketing-related (branding and customer relationship management design features) to create effective branded apps.
Originality/value
Design elements identified in prior literature remain abstract and do not prescribe a systematic or pragmatic approach to using them in practice. This study takes a multidisciplinary perspective (HCI, marketing and design science) to establish a practical evaluation framework for branded app designs.
Against the backdrop of increasing digitization, many retailers are trying to better reach their existing customers with the help of mobile apps. For the growth of an app and the satisfaction with it, the willingness to recommend this app by existing users is of great importance. This paper develops a structural equation model that relates the willingness to recommend a retailer’s mobile app to consumer perceptions of that retailer, including the role of push notifications as a mediator. The collected data show a significant relevance of the perception of the retailer on the willingness to recommend the app to others. It can be shown that this relationship is partially mediated by the perception of the retailer’s app push notifications. In this respect, all hypotheses stated can be confirmed. Further research questions are proposed and include in particular a validation of the model in other socio-demographic compositions as well as in the context of a field study and the expansion of the model.
Purpose
Shopping apps are a highly relevant channel and an increasingly important part of omni-channel retailing, as they strengthen the customer relationship. This study analyses the possibilities available to retailers to encourage consumers to download a shopping app and use it in the long-term.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses a scenario-based online experiment with a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects design and data from 332 participants. A second online experiment with a 2 × 3 between-subjects design and data from 200 participants supplements the main experiment. The data obtained from these experiments were analysed using M/ANCOVA and PROCESS.
Findings
Findings suggest that a rebate (monetary incentive) increases the download intention. Online and in-store app features (non-monetary incentives) do also have positive impacts on the use intention, though the in-store feature only works when it is offered in combination with the online feature. The relationships are mediated by the perceived usefulness of the shopping app. Moreover, the non-monetary features interact with the channel preference of the consumers, who react more positively towards features offered in a non-preferred channel. A supplementary study supports this finding.
Originality/value
This research is novel as it analyses the impact of monetary (rebate) and non-monetary (online and in-store features) incentives on both the download and use intention of a shopping app separately. Further, it contributes to research on the topic by examining which features consumers perceive as useful. Finally, the study considers the omni-channel environment regarding consumers’ channel preference.
The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of organizational innovation capabilities of hotel businesses on mobile applications. In line with this purpose, data were collected with a survey technique in March 2021 with 225 managers working in hotels with tourism operation licenses in the Cappadocia region. In the research, Pearson correlation analysis was used to determine the relationship between organizational innovation capabilities of hotel businesses and mobile applications use. Simple regression analysis was performed to determine the impact of organizational innovation on mobile applications. In this study conducted in the Cappadocia region, it was determined that the organizational innovation capabilities of hotel businesses affect the use of mobile applications. Therefore, these results show that the use of mobile applications by hotel businesses varies depending on their organizational innovation capabilities.
This study develops and investigates the mechanisms through which retail mobile-app cognitions—i.e., interactivity and vividness—are translated into spatial presence experience and subsequently result in customer engagement under the parasol of the hierarchy-of-effects model and the situated cognition theory. The contingency roles of need for cognition and domain-specific interest as individual intrinsic tendencies and issue-specific motivations, respectively, are also scrutinized. A dataset obtained from a survey of 558 customers is employed to estimate the proposed research model. The results indicate that interactivity and vividness significantly stimulate the spatial presence experience, i.e., feelings of “being there” in the mobile-app environment; in turn, this drives customers to become more engaged and contribute to retailers that provide such experiences. The moderating roles of the two motivations are also identified.
The study aims to explore the nature, drivers of BAE. In particular, how and why consumers engage with branded mobile apps. Since consumer engagement is a multi-dimensional and complex phenomenon, the authors took an interpretivist paradigm and used a grounded theory approach by interviewing 24 participants. The findings reveal that branded app engagement (BAE) is triggered by mainly three aspects, i.e., media characteristics (Privacy and security, customization, and convenience), brand-related aspects (brand image and product/service quality), and benefits sought (inherent and derived). More importantly, we uncover the underlying mechanism for each factor. Furthermore, the study explains the BAE process in its entirety from an app-centric perspective rather the brand powering the app. Thus, the study offers a fresh perspective and novel insights into the BAE process.
Wilcox and Cameron [2009:5] explained that people often define public relations by some of its visible techniques and tactics such as public in a newspaper, a television interview with an organization spokesman, or the appearance of a celebrity at a special event. What people fail to understand is that public relations is a process involving many subtle and far-reaching aspects. Public relations include research analysis, policy formation, programming communication, and feedback from numerous publics. Its practitioners operate on two distinct levels, as advisers to their clients or to an organization’s top management and as technicians who produce and disseminate messages in multiple media channels.
Mobile applications (apps) have attracted increasing attention as an unprecedented opportunity for retailers. This study aims to explore how a branded app supports customers’ shopping decision during the COVID-19 (coronavirus) crisis. Integrating person-environment fit theory and the theory of exploitation and exploration, this study links person-app fit and person-brand fit to explorative use and exploitative use of a branded app, which both contribute to customer decision performance. Perceived fluency toward cross-channel integration positively moderates the fit-use linkages. Data obtained from 835 app users verify all of the proposed hypotheses. Results indicate that customers with different fits (person-app fit and person-brand fit) hold different thoughts toward their exploitative use and explorative use, which add equal value to support their decision making. Useful theoretical and practical implications are also provided for researchers and marketers interested in this area.
This study aims to understand how features of an app can enhance smartphone app retention behavior among its users. Based on the literature review five features (relationship features, self-congruity, presentation style, novelty, and social connection) have been identified to influence the app self-connection, and app self-prominence, which in turn, eventually predict the affective commitment and behavioral attachment (i.e. word of mouth) of the app users. From a value orientation perspective, apps can be classified under three categories, namely, (i) Utilitarian apps, (ii) Hedonic apps, and (iii) Social network sites apps based on their usage and functionality. To enhance the generalizability of the study, data were collected from 750 active app users, i.e. 250 respondents from each category and a multi-group invariance analysis was performed to determine the significant effect of each category of apps on app retention behavior. The empirical results of the analysis highlighted the differential values exhibited by these five app features across three categories of smartphone apps. The findings escort the app-based marketers, and app developers to have a more sophisticated understanding of the respective category app features for desired business outcomes. The uniqueness of the present study is highlighted in its proposed integral framework that conceptualizes specific features of an app that the marketers can focus on to develop better-designed apps the users want.
eTourism is a phenomenon that has been closely linked to the growth of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and to understand the areas of tourism more than 30 years ago. The purpose of this study is to assess and examine theoretical framework of technology acceptance models to develop the eTourism Adoption Model (eTAM) in the context of Bangladesh. Mixed method research was applied for exploring the challenges and motivational factors for eTourism adoption. In order to propose the eTAM, this study investigated previous studies, theories of technology adoption and tourists’ expectations as the bases of literature review section to develop eTAM. The research then conducted in-depth interviews of the target respondents using a semi-structured questionnaire. Based on the literature review and in-depth interview outcomes, this study identified the factors of electronic Tourism Adoption Model (eTAM). eTAM provides a basic structure of tourists’ adoption of technologies to meet their demands and satisfaction. As believed, eTAM can support the concerned tourism agencies for policy making, demand and supply assessing, and guidelines for sustainable tourism development. Based on the outcome of this research, further study is recommended to measure the economic impacts of eTAM in Bangladesh and in the wider scenario of the South Asian countries.
This study investigated the effect of consumers’ motives for using a mobile phone on mobile phone affinity which, in turn, influences their intention to use location-based advertising (LBA) with plausible mediators such as perceived risk and trust. The results highlighted the pivotal role of media affinity, in that consumers’ affinity for mobile phones not only directly transfers to their intention to use LBA but also neutralizes the negative influence of perceived risk on LBA use intention. Additional findings also suggested the importance of earning mobile users’ trust for the success of an LBA campaign. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings have been discussed.
In recent years, there has been an upsurge in the number of mini-games on mobile commerce platforms. The emerging gamification phenomenon of e-commerce still requires theory and investigation in order to supplement its explanation. This study aims to explore the intention of users to play games on mobile commerce platforms, as well as the influence of gamification mechanisms on users' purchase intentions on these platforms. From the perspective of perceived value theory, data from 1586 mobile commerce shoppers in China were collected and analyzed using a structural equation model. The results of the study found that utilitarian value, hedonic value, and social value are positively correlated with game use intention, while spending less time/energy also positively affects game use intention. These games are more attractive to women. The usage rate of games and the average monthly spending amount on a mobile commerce platform are both positively correlated with users’ purchase intentions on the platform.
Augmented reality (AR) is regarded as a visually transformative technology that enables consumers to gain immersive and enjoyable information about experience products/services during the purchasing process. Based on the stimulus-organism-response (S–O-R) paradigm, this study investigates how experiential AR applications (apps) influence customers' experiential value, in turn enhancing continued usage intention. Furthermore, perceived customer support plays an even more important role in enhancing customers’ continued usage intention. This study obtained data through an online survey of 437 customers of the YouCam Makeup app in Taiwan. We used SmartPLS software to analyze the data and test the hypotheses. The findings suggest that the features of an experiential AR app have a greater positive impact on hedonic value than utilitarian value; in turn, only hedonic value has a positive impact on continued usage intention. The results further demonstrate that the effect of hedonic value on continued usage intention is positively moderated by perceived customer support.
RESUMEN El presente trabajo analiza el papel de los jóvenes consumidores en el contexto de los nuevos procesos comunicativos que surgen de tecnologías emergentes: el uso de las aplicaciones de marca en los dispositivos móviles. Estos incorporan funcionalidades socia-les y comunicativas cada vez más complejas y, entre ellas, las aplicaciones para teléfonos inteligentes que vinculan publicidad comercial y pagos, formando un campo novedoso pero de interés prioritario para distintos actores comunicativos, como son las marcas comerciales, los servicios bancarios y las propias compañías tecnológicas. En ese contexto la presente investigación describe y codifica cualitativamente cómo los usuarios entienden, perciben y utilizan, como prosumidores, las aplicaciones de marca corporativa y los pagos. Para ello se aplican técnicas de investigación en cuatro grupos focales, de edades comprendidas entre los 18 y 24 años, compuestos por jóvenes universitarios españoles estudiantes en Comunicación, como usuarios que muestran una predisposición y una adopción temprana de estas prácticas. Las respuestas de las reuniones del grupo de discusión permitieron una clasificación de las prácticas comunicativas. En conclusión, se constata una alta predisposición de estos consumidores activos por interactuar con contenidos comerciales, estableciendo redes sociales bajo el amparo de una cultura e imagen de marca, como forma de cohesión grupal. Otros usos se relacionan con el entretenimiento y la información, al tiempo que aún se muestran reti-centes al pago de productos o servicios mediante el dispositivo móvil. ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the role of young consumers in the context of new communication processes arising from emerging technologies. It examines the use of mobile device applications that activate new, more complex social and communicative uses of technology. The applications for smartphones which link to commercial advertising and enable online purchases are a recent priority for communicative actors such as trademarks, banking and technology companies. In this context, this paper describes and encodes qualitatively how young users as prosumers understand, perceive and use these corporate branding applications. Research techniques were applied to four focus groups of Spanish undergraduates of Communication Studies, as they are users that show a predisposition towards an early adoption of these practices. The coding and grouping of their responses enabled us to develop a qualitative analysis of usage and interaction with trademark applications. These focus group responses also allowed us to classify such communicative practices. In conclusion, active consumers interact with commercial content, establishing social networks with the backing of the brand culture and image as a form of group cohesion. Other uses are related to entertainment and enquiries for information, but users are still reluctant to pay for products or services through their mobile devices.
Campaigns increasingly implement advergames to engage consumers with a brand through interactive, entertaining media content. However, little research tests the effects of specific features of advergames on desired advertising outcomes. This article reports the results of an experiment designed to examine how variation in the thematic connection between the game associated with an advergame and the brand affects the relationship between attitude toward the game (equated with attitude toward the ad) and attitude toward the brand. The analysis reveals a stronger positive relationship between attitude toward the advergame and attitude toward the brand when participants play games with a high thematic connection to the brand’s product. Therefore, designing advergames that relate thematically to the product of the sponsoring brand should increase the likelihood of positive conditioning of brand attitudes evoked by playing an advergame.
The primary purpose of this study is to explore and explain the concept of the Web site as corporate advertisement. Three coders analyzed 160 corporate Web sites. Corporate Web sites are able to combine multiple functions such as providing information and image-building strategies for companies and their brands as well as direct and indirect selling functions. Corporate Web sites are also able to address multiple audiences from a single umbrella site. Message strategies were more likely to be informational than transformational - possibly reflecting the information-delivery potential of the Web. In general, high-revenue companies had more functions and addressed more audiences through their Web sites than low-revenue companies. High-revenue companies were also more likely than low-revenue companies to use transformational message strategies. However, no predicted relationships were found between overall message strategy and either number of functions at the Web site or number of audiences served. The study provides details on application of a relatively new message strategy model to a unique new form of corporate advertising - the World Wide Web.
Why talk about usability in a book about information design? Although there is not yet a consensus on a single definition of information design, one that I like is making "information accessible and usable to people" (Sless, 1992, p. 1). It is not enough to design well: We must also achieve information design that is usable. We therefore need to establish what "usable" means, so in this chapter I present five dimensions of usability, which can be used in several ways: • As a model, they provide a way to understand what kind of usability is needed in different contexts; • As a tool, they help guide the design process, suggesting both a general approach and specific choices; • For evaluation, they are both useful as a way of understanding why a design is failing, and suggest appropriate techniques to get the design right. This multifaceted view of usability allows designers of both complex and simpler products to understand user requirements and evaluate the success of the design. The work of an information designer shares elements with others including user experience designers, information architects, graphic artists, interaction designers, user interface designers, usability engi-neers, writers, content managers, indexers, and quite a few more.
This study analyzes important content, function, and design elements of brand sites along six dimensions: text information, multimedia information, interface design, loyalist support, promotion synergy, and interactivity. A total of 219 brand websites for a product category (i.e., drinks and candies) and a service category (i.e., accounting firms) are examined. Results indicate that accounting firms treat their brand sites as corporate-image building vehicles and virtual information sources while drinks and candies firms use entertaining design elements to build customer relationships through greater interaction. Companies may be underutilizing elements related to interactivity, cultivating loyal customers, and supporting cross-channel promotions.
In the last few decades product placement has matured and become more sophisticated. Branded products are no longer just 'placed'; they are woven into entertainment content making a stronger emotional connection with the consumer. The outcome is a concept the advertising industry is calling branded entertainment, a convergence of advertising and entertainment. This article considers whether or not branded entertainment is a new technique, or just another form of product placement. By tracking the evolution of product placement and from an analysis of the two concepts, it is suggested that branded entertainment is a new term to describe a more contemporary, sophisticated use of product placement. A conceptual framework for understanding the various forms of product placement is presented, and this highlights the key influences on the effectiveness of this fast-growing marketing phenomenon. The important management issues related to product placement are considered; issues related to measurement, control, and ethics. The article then concludes with recommendations for further research.
We discuss consumer engagement with a website, provide a systematic approach to examining the types of engagement produced by specific experiences, and show that engagement with the media context increases advertising effectiveness. Based on experiments using measurement scales involving eight different online experiences, we advance two types of engagement with online media — Personal and Social-Interactive Engagement. Our results show that both types are positively associated with advertising effectiveness. Moreover, Social-Interactive Engagement, which is more uniquely characteristic of the web as a medium, is shown to affect advertising after controlling for Personal Engagement. Our results offer online companies and advertisers new metrics and advertising strategies.
The construction of a framework of the multiple consumer benefits of a sales promotion is discussed. Through a series of measurement studies, the authors find that monetary and nonmonetary promotions provide consumers with different levels of 3 hedonic benefits (opportunities for value expression, entertainment and exploration) and 3 utilitarian benefits (savings, higher product quality, and improved shopping convenience). To address the second question, the researchers develop a benefit congruency framework, which argues that a sales promotion's effectiveness is determined by the utilitarian or hedonic nature of the benefits it delivers and the congruence these benefits have with the promoted product. Among other results, 2 choice experiments show that as predicted for high-equity brands monetary promotions are more effective for utilitarian products than for hedonic products.
This protocol analysis examines the content of virtual experience in e-commerce, as concurrently verbalized by a sample of 30 participants while interacting with four 3-D products. Thirteen different types of psychological activities were observed and classified into five characteristics of virtual experience: active process, presence, involvement, enjoyment, and affordances. As a result, virtual experience is vivid, involving, active, affective psychological states occurring in an individual interacting with 3-D computer simulations. The study anchors the position of virtual experience on the spectrum of consumer experience with design implications in e-commerce discussed. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc.
The purpose of the present study is to build a conceptual model of consumers' willingness to accept mobile advertising. First, the study investigates factors that influence the acceptance of mobile advertising from both industry's and consumers' point of view. Second, based on a review of previous studies in the field, the authors propose a conceptual model of consumers' willingness to accept mobile advertising. The model, based on four research hypotheses, indicates that consumers' willingness to receive mobile advertisements to handsets is mainly driven by four factors: 1 role of mobile medium in marketing mix 2 development of technology 3 one-to-one marketing medium 4 regulatory. The findings provide several conceptual and managerial insights into the role of mobile advertising today and in the near future.
Based on a computer mediated word of mouth approach, viral advertising represents the latest online advertising phenomenon. The current study provides one of the first empirical investigations of viral advertising. It uses Taylor’s six-segment message strategy wheel as a theoretical framework. A content analysis of 360 viral ads revealed that advertisers predominantly based their message strategies on an individual ego oriented appeals that were based on such themes as humor and sexuality.
Personalized information technology services have become a ubiquitous phenomenon. Companies worldwide are using the web to provide personalized offerings and unique experiences to their customers. While there is a lot of hype about delivering personalized services over the web, little is known about the effectiveness of web personalization and the link between the IT artifact (the personalization agent) and the effects it exerts on a user's information processing and decision making. To address the impact of personalized content, this article theoretically develops and empirically tests a model of web personalization. The model is grounded on social cognition and consumer research theories adapted to the peculiar features of web personalization. The influence of a personalization agent is mediated by two variables: content relevance and self reference. Hypotheses generated from the model are empirically tested in a laboratory experiment and a field study. The findings indicate that content relevance, self reference, and goal specificity affect the attention, cognitive processes, and decisions of web users in various ways. Also, users are found to be receptive to personalized content and find it useful as a decision aid. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.
Recognizing that value involves experiencing pleasure or pain is critical to understanding the psychology of value. But hedonic experience is not enough. I propose that it is also necessary to recognize that strength of engagement can contribute to experienced value through its contribution to the experience of motivational force--an experience of the intensity of the force of attraction to or repulsion from the value target. The subjective pleasure/pain properties of a value target influence strength of engagement, but factors separate from the hedonic properties of the value target also influence engagement strength and thus contribute to the experience of attraction or repulsion. These additional sources of engagement strength include opposition to interfering forces, overcoming personal resistance, using the right or proper means of goal pursuit, and regulatory fit between the orientation and manner of goal pursuit. Implications of the contribution of engagement strength to value are discussed for judgment and decision making, persuasion, and emotional experiences.
This article defines the integrated marketing process and shows how it can be used to improve advertising. It discusses how integrated marketing thinks about brands, the consumer experience with products or services, and contact points. The role of media in delivering messages is reconsidered and ways of measuring the engagement with a medium are discussed. Integrated marketing also addresses the relationship between brands and customized contact points.
This article gives a comprehensive overview of techniques for personalised hypermedia presentation. It describes the data about the computer user, the computer usage and the physical environment that can be taken into account when adapting hypermedia pages to the needs of the current user. Methods for acquiring these data, for representing them as models in formal systems and for making generalisations and predictions about the user based thereon are discussed. Different types of hypermedia adaptation to the individual user's needs are distinguished and recommendations for further research and applications given. While the focus of the article is on hypermedia adaptation for improving customer relationship management utilising the World Wide Web, many of the techniques and distinctions also apply to other types of personalised hypermedia applications within and outside the World Wide Web, like adaptive educational systems.
In response to the rising rate in childhood obesity and the increasing number of child-targeted interactive games employed by food marketers and health advocates, this study examined food-related advergaming content for for-profit and non-profit organizations' Web sites. The authors conducted a content analysis of 80 interactive games (40 for-profit and 40 non-profit). The results showed differences in the interactive-gaming genre types employed by non-profit and for-profit organizations. This research adds considerably to the literature about the ways in which children learn healthy food habits/behaviors. Managerial and practical implications are provided to address the need to advance socially responsible methods for organizations.
The differences between services and goods are generally well understood. These differences, however, suggest that advertising strategies for goods cannot be automatically applied to services. Yet services are the fastest-growing segment of the expanding global market, and to compete effectively across cultural boundaries, these businesses need to understand appropriate marketing and advertising strategies designed especially for services. This paper evaluates the existing literature on international services advertising (ISA) to provide an assessment of the current state of the research on the topic, with a goal of determining specific areas of research inquiry. A comprehensive review of the international services advertising literature from 1970 to 2002 is provided, and directions for future research are offered.
Internet Presence Sites (IPS) are becoming important mechanisms for marketing communication. Therefore it is vital to understand what affects the attractiveness of a firm's IPS. In this research, we focus on the multidimensional factor of interactivity. We use statistical models such as Logit to evaluate the effects of interactivity on IPS appeal. We find that the greater the degree of interactivity, the more likely it is for the IPS to be considered as a top site. Additionally we find that the "customer support" component of interactivity has a significant positive impact on the likelihood of an IPS being included in a list of high-quality Web sites. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for design of corporate Web sites.
Mobile phone applications (“apps”) have generated substantial interest among marketers, primarily because of their high level of user engagement and the positive impact this presumably has on a user's attitude toward the sponsoring brand. This study utilized a pre-test/post-test experimental design to determine whether using popular mobile phone apps affects brand attitude and brand purchase intention. The results show that using these apps has a positive persuasive impact, increasing interest in the brand and also the brand's product category. The relevance of the product category makes no difference, but apps with an informational/user-centered style were more effective at shifting purchase intention, most likely because this style focuses attention on the user, and therefore encourages making personal connections with the brand. Experiential game-like apps were less successful, because they focus attention on the phone. These results suggest that understanding how to maximize the impact of mobile phone apps will be a key topic for future research.
This article uses a case history from MTV to examine the role that engagement with programming plays in the performance of embedded advertising. A standard technique for measuring emotional engagement with TV commercials, the Ameritest Picture Sorts, was used in an online study of 600 respondents to study audience engagement with the two-hour-long MTV Video Music Award show. Utilizing this simple nonverbal metric, along with conventional verbal metrics of advertising performance and brand perceptions, the authors show that programming has a "magnifier effect" on some advertising metrics, such as likeability and motivation-but not others, such as recall. Importantly, the strongest advertisements benefit more from the magnifier effect than weaker ones-reaffirming the central importance of creativity in advertising effectiveness.
This study examines consumer choice of Rating Web Sites as online, interactive, decision aids. A series of studies, including qualitative research and a laboratory experiment, investigate factors that infiuence consumer choice of Rating Web Sites. The context for the quantitative research is information search on laptop computers. Based on in-depth interviews, importance ratings, and binomial logistic regression analysis, the final results show that credibility of the Rating Web Site is the most important attribute, followed by the opportunity for customization of information. In contrast, having information on many alternatives is not as important; instead, reducing risk and saving search effort appear to be the ultimate underlying motives for using Rating Web Sites.
This paper provides an outline conceptual framework that may be helpful for those involved in the emerging area of ‘affective design’. Historically, the shift from cognitive approaches that eschewed emotions towards a more encompassing conceptual approach that includes affective or emotive processes is understandable. A basic understanding of concepts such as affect and emotion are required in order to address many questions such as how to design to evoke affect and how to predict user emotions? We utilize concepts from Activity Theory in order to understand the world of ‘feelings’. The latter involves several different levels and classes, principally those of affect, emotion and sentiment. Feelings involve important psychological processes, although they have received minimal attention within the mainstream cognitive frame until very recently. The intent of this paper is to provide a coherent conceptual frame for the discussions within the interaction design and HCI communities concerning such terms as emotional interfaces, hedonic design and affective design.
Engagement in media by consumers has emerged as an important area of interest for media providers, advertising agencies, and advertisers. This article empirically investigates a set of dimensions of engagement for three media channels: television, magazines, and the internet. In addition, this study explores the relationship of media engagement to likelihood of purchase as well as the more general construct of advertising receptivity. The results reveal that there is evidence of a strong relationship between engagement in media and purchase intent and ultimately advertising receptivity.
Engagement plays a contingent role in the effectiveness of advertising processing that corresponds to the message effects created during the process. Such message effects are advertising recall, message involvement, message believability, attitude toward the message (Am), and attitude toward the advertisement (AAD). This study's objective is to examine whether higher engagement initiated by contextual relevance increases advertising recall, message involvement, message believability, Am, and AAD. The results have revealed that higher engagement increases advertising recall, message involvement, message believability, Am, and AAD- Moreover, message involvement mediates the engagement effect on message believability, whereas Am mediates message believability on AAD. Implications based on the findings demonstrate the importance of engagement as a driver of message involvement and a metric for advertising effectiveness.
In this study, we examined the degree to which integrated marketing communication (IMC) might be manifested in services advertising. Using one of Lovelock’s typologies of services as a framework for classifying different services with respect to their tangibility, we examined ads in each of four service product categories to assess advertisers’ efforts to address the tangibility of service offerings via IMC. We found few differences with regard to incorporation of IMC across four service types, with the exception that services advertisements that reflected tangible acts (lawn care, hairstyling) were more highly integrated than services ads for intangible acts (education, retailing, banking). Results are discussed in terms of the implications for developing better services advertising.
Purpose
– The object of this paper is to help to understand what it is all about in question when talking about personalization.
Design/methodology/approach
– A conceptual framework of personalization is presented, based on the literature.
Findings
– Marketers are looking increasingly at personalization to help them improve the performance of their efforts. However, personalization seems to be hard to apply. Some of these problems are caused by the fact that personalization means something different to each business and to the different actors in the value chain. This lack of agreement regarding the meaning of personalization limits successful communication between the different actors who produce or buy services and products that are connection with personalized marketing. This hinders co‐operation between service providers and marketers who are willing to apply personalization.
Originality/value
– It is hoped that the framework is useful when discussing and developing the idea of personalization further.
This article revisits the literature bases used to build message strategy models and develops a model that is more comprehensive than previous ones. Tests of the model's ability to capture consumer decision-making and to generate alternative strategies are presented. Other applications include plotting competitive strategies, generating product ideas, and comparing message strategies across cultures. ADVERTISING MANAGERS generally accept that there is not one single way in which advertising works. Rather it depends on the advertising situation: the type of product, the nature of the target audience, the purchase motivation, and the importance of the decision to the consumer (Rossiter, Percy, and Donovan, 1991). Kotler (1965) was among the first academicians to suggest that different approaches were needed for different buying situations. Kotler's pioneering work formed part of the conceptual basis for the FCB Grid (Vaughn, 1980), which has been a popu-lar approach for determining creative strategy de-cisions during the past two decades. Any management strategy model is likely to have weaknesses because including some dimensions in a model means excluding others. For example, a weakness of the FCB Grid is its inability to capture and account for the influence of social factors in the buying process (Ratchford, 1987). In addition, as models are tested empirically they are revised to account for research findings (Vaughn, 1986). One way to remedy some of the weaknesses of a model is to return to its original literature base and determine if knowledge gained through empirical testing or recent theoretical thought can shed light on the problem areas. The purpose of this paper is to revisit the literature bases used in developing the FCB Grid in light of revealed weaknesses and to review other models and typologies of creative strategy with the aim of building a message strat-egy model that is more comprehensive than those currently available. This paper presents a new, more comprehensive model called the Six-Segment Message Strategy Model, discusses its ap-plications and limitations, and suggests where fur-ther testing is needed to refine the model.
This paper applies the limited capacity model of motivated mediated messages (LC4MP) to the problem of creating effective messages about cancer. A general descrip-tion of the model is presented and then applied specifically to the task of creating effec-tive cancer communication messages by asking the following questions about cancer communication: (a) What is the goal of the message? (b) Who is in the target market? (c) What medium will carry the message? and (d) What is the motivational and personal relevance of the main information in the message for the majority of people in the tar-get market? The paper concludes that cancer is a motivationally relevant topic that will elicit aversive activation. Target markets for various types of cancer-related messages (e.g., smokers or people of a certain age) will process mediated messages in predictably different ways making certain design decisions better for certain target markets. Both structural and content elements of messages interact with the limited capacity informa-tion processing system to impact resource allocation, which in turn determines how well messages are encoded, stored, and retrieved at a decision point. Individual differences in peoples' motivational activation influence both their tendencies to engage in risky behaviors that increase the probabilities of getting cancer and their processing of health-related messages. Future research from this perspective should be done to opti-mize cancer messages for specific target audiences using specific media. Why do we study health communication specifically? Is health communication different from other types of communication? Is health communication about can-cer different from health communication about other topics? Obviously, we study health communication because we want to be able to deliver effective messages about health-related information and behaviors to people who would benefit from those messages.
This article gives a comprehensive overview of techniques for personalised hypermedia presentation. It describes the data about the computer user, the computer usage and the physical environment that can be taken into account when adapting hypermedia pages to the needs of the current user. Methods for acquiring these data, for representing them as models in formal systems and for making generalisations and predictions about the user based thereon are discussed. Different types of hypermedia adaptation to the individual user's needs are distinguished and recommendations for further research and applications given. While the focus of the article is on hypermedia adaptation for improving customer relationship management utilising the World Wide Web, many of the techniques and distinctions also apply to other types of personalised hypermedia applications within and outside the World Wide Web, like adaptive educational systems.
This study examines how food marketers use advergames, custom-built and branded online games, to promote food products to children and provides the nutritional content of the food products featured in the advergames. The results reveal that food marketers use advergames heavily, with candy and gum or food products high in sugar most frequently appearing in the analyzed games. Children are often invited to “play with” the foods integrated as active game components. Finally, despite the educational benefits of interactive games, fewer than 3% of the games analyzed in this study appear to educate children about nutritional and health issues.
Internet technology has made possible the widespread dissemination of individualized media messages, but we know very little about their psychological import. A between-subjects experiment (N =60) with three levels of customization (low, medium, high) was designed to examine whether greater levels of personalized content engender more positive attitudes. The results not only confirm this hypothesis but also reveal the mediating role played by users’ perceptions of relevance, involvement, interactivity, and novelty of portal content. In addition, customization has behavioral effects in that it affects users’ browsing activity.
This paper attempts to systematize current theoretical perspectives and empirical research on entertainment. Based on the notion that entertainment is a multidimensional construct that primarily describes the pleasant experiences of users while spending time with the media, less pleasant aspects of this sort of media usage are also taken into consideration. The proposition to reconstruct entertainment as a form of play is made. This perspective regards entertainment as a form of coping with reality and thereby encompasses the different functions, such as compensations, gratifications, and self-realization.
The purpose of this paper is to describe theory and research from several disciplines, not generally understood by web developers, which the author believes are applicable to creating engaging and immersive ecommerce environments. These disciplines include aesthetic experience (AE), Flow, landscape assessment, and a proposed aesthetic framework. The link between these different areas is aesthetics, specifically aesthetic experience. Developing ecommerce sites based on models related to aesthetics can provide an organized means of designing engaging and immersive sites which are more likely to lead to positive user experience. IT personnel commonly understand the psychological aspects of human-computer interaction (HCI). Similarly, the toolbox of every web designer and Internet system architect should include knowledge of the concepts related to engaging and immersive environments.
Engagement in training and educational presentations facilitates learning. This paper describes engagement and proposes that it is conceptually similar to the state of playfulness, a construct increasingly applied to studies of human-computer interactions. It then describes how multimedia technologies can influence listeners' engagement during presentations. Results from pilot and main studies suggest that students' engagement in multimedia presentations can be increased by developing presentations that provide more challenge, feedback, presenter control, and variety. The paper concludes by discussing implications for research and practice.
The purpose of this article is to critically deconstruct the term engagement as it applies to peoples' experiences with technology. Through an extensive, critical multidisciplinary literature review and exploratory study of users of Web searching, online shopping, Webcasting, and gaming applications, we conceptually and operationally defined engagement. Building on past research, we conducted semistructured interviews with the users of four applications to explore their perception of being engaged with the technology. Results indicate that engagement is a process comprised of four distinct stages: point of engagement, period of sustained engagement, disengagement, and reengagement. Furthermore, the process is characterized by attributes of engagement that pertain to the user, the system, and user-system interaction. We also found evidence of the factors that contribute to nonengagement. Emerging from this research is a definition of engagement—a term not defined consistently in past work—as a quality of user experience characterized by attributes of challenge, positive affect, endurability, aesthetic and sensory appeal, attention, feedback, variety/novelty, interactivity, and perceived user control. This exploratory work provides the foundation for future work to test the conceptual model in various application areas, and to develop methods to measure engaging user experiences.
Two studies examined user engagement in two types of multimedia
training systems-a more passive medium, videotape, and a less passive
medium, interactive software. Each study compared engagement in three
formats: the text format contained text and still images, the audio
format contained audio and still images, and the video format contained
audio and video images. In both studies, engagement was lower in the
text condition than in the video condition. However, there were no
differences in engagement between text and audio in the videotape-based
training and no differences between audio and video in the
computer-based training
Virtual reality (VR) is typically defined in terms of technological hardware. This paper attempts to cast a new, variable-based definition of virtual reality that can be used to classify virtual reality in relation to other media. The defintion of virtual reality is based on concepts of "presence" and "telepresence," which refer to the sense of being in an environment, generated by natural or mediated means, respectively. Two technological dimensions that contribute to telepresence, vividness and interactivity, are discussed. A variety of media are classified according to these dimensions. Suggestions are made for the application of the new definition of virtual reality within the field of communication research. s t ) - r technologies social responses to communication c SRCT Paper #104 Page 3 Jonathan Steuer Defining VR: Dimensions Determining Telepresence Defining Virtual Reality: Dimensions Determining Telepresence Virtual reality (VR) has typically been portrayed as a medium, l...
Android Overtakes Apple with 44% Worldwide Share of Mobile App Downloads
ABI Research (2011a), " Android Overtakes Apple with 44% Worldwide
Share of Mobile App Downloads, " October 24, http://www.abiresearch.
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44 Billion Mobile App Downloads by 2016
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In-App Purchases to Outpace Pay-Per-Download Revenues in 2012
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AdMob Survey Research: AdMob iPhone Network On- Device User Survey Mobile Metrics Report
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Contagious Special Reports: Mobile Apps
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Branded Apps and FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods)
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The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users
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