Marketing group seminar series 2024-25

Seminar

Title & Abstract

Prof. Sharon Ng

(Nanyang Technological University)

Oct 2024

Title: Pragmatism as a novel cultural construct.

Abstract: Previous cross-cultural research has primarily used Hofstede’s five cultural dimensions (e.g. collectivism-individualism) to explain the behavioural differences observed in different countries. Although these dimensions have contributed much to knowledge about international marketing, they cannot explain many anomalies in global consumer patterns (e.g. a greater preference for STEM courses in Asia). This stream of research identifies idealism-pragmatism as a cultural dimension that is not captured by existing cultural values frameworks. The first part of the research aims to develop a scale to measure the pragmatism-idealism mindset. The second part of this research identifies cross-cultural differences in pragmatism and show that Asians’ higher pragmatism is partly due to a greater salience of resource scarcity, as the economic development of Asian countries is a relatively recent phenomenon compared to Western countries. Overall, our findings show that idealism and pragmatism represent a new cultural dimension that is relevant to international marketing.

Prof. Anirban Mukhopadhyay

(City University of London)

Nov 2024

Title: Beliefs, Behaviours, and Body Mass.

Abstract: This talk will cover an ongoing program of research into effects of laypeople’s beliefs about food. The first part of the talk will focus on beliefs about the causes of obesity. Medical research consensus is that a poor diet is a greater determinant of obesity than lack of exercise. However, we find that only about half of lay people believe that diet is the primary cause of obesity. People who mistakenly underestimate the role of a poor diet, and instead implicate insufficient exercise, have higher body mass indices (“BMI”) and are more likely to be overweight. Across four papers, we study these misperceptions and trace them to “leanwashing” by marketers of processed food and beverages, specifically, their lobbying, public relations, and CSR campaigns, and analyse possible corrective actions. The second part of the talk addresses a different lay belief, namely, that unhealthy foods are tasty (the “Unhealthy=Tasty Intuition” or “UTI”; Raghunathan et al., 2006). One paper demonstrates a positive effect of UTI on BMI across several countries, and a follow-up finds intergenerational effects of parents’ beliefs on their children’s BMI. Parents’ UTI positively influences their children’s BMI because extrinsic rewards are used to encourage healthy eating, ironically reducing children’s healthy food consumption.

Prof. Amitava Chattopadhyay

(INSEAD)

29 Jan 2025

WBS 3.007

Title: Timing Matters: The Impact of Post Sequencing on Consumer Perception and Engagement in Influencer Marketing

Abstract: Although influencers often promote products following posts about significant life events, such as weddings or precious moments with their children, this strategy may backfire. Across five experiments, we find that consumers perceive influencers’ behavior as more inappropriate when a promotion follows a high versus low significance life event. This perception leads to more negative judgments of the influencer and lower interest in the promoted product (e.g., reduced click-through rates). This negative judgment towards the influencer’s behavior and diminished interest in promotional content is mitigated when more time passes between the life event post and the promotion. On the other hand, these effects are amplified when the significant life event is negative rather than positive. This research sheds light on the importance of timing in influencer marketing, suggesting that influencers can enhance their promotional effectiveness by carefully sequencing their content.

Prof. Zachary Estes

(City University of London)

Feb-25

Title: Good sounds make good names for good products

Abstract: A word’s constituent sounds (i.e., its phonemes) may imply specific attributes of its referent (i.e., sound symbolism). For instance, the phonemes in brand names can affect perceptions and evaluations of products and services, such as their size and shape, their taste, and even their perceived gender. An important yet under-investigated sound-symbolic attribute is emotional valence (how negative or positive a stimulus is): Some phonemes occur more often in positive words, whereas others are more common in negative words. We therefore investigate effects of emotional sound symbolism on consumers’ evaluations of brands. Across more than 300 novel brand names, people were more willing to choose and buy brands with more positive-associated phonemes than those with negative-associated phonemes. This is because brands with positive phonemes sound like they refer to good things. For products with negative purposes or effects (e.g., weed killer), however, people prefer bad-sounding names. This research reveals a novel and fundamentally important form of sound symbolism in branding.

Dr. Nicolas Padilla

(London Business School)

Feb-25

Title: Your MMM is Broken: Identification of Nonlinear and Time-varying Effects in Marketing Mix Models

Abstract: Recent years have seen a resurgence in interest in marketing mix models (MMMs), which are aggregate-level models of marketing effectiveness. Often these models incorporate nonlinear effects, and either implicitly or explicitly assume that marketing effectiveness varies over time. In this paper, we show that such effects are often not separately identifiable while certain data patterns may be suggestive of nonlinear effects, such patterns may also emerge under simpler models with time-varying effects. Problematically, nonlinearities and dynamics suggest fundamentally different optimal marketing allocations. We examine this identification issue through theory and simulations, describing the conditions under which conflation between the two types of models is likely to occur. We show that conflating the two types of effects is especially likely in the presence of autocorrelated marketing variables, which are common in practice, especially given the widespread use of stock variables to capture long-run effects of advertising. We illustrate these ideas through numerous empirical applications to real-world marketing mix data, showing the prevalence of the conflation issue in practice. Finally, we show how marketers can avoid this conflation by designing experiments that strategically manipulate spending in ways that pin down model form.

Prof. Jennifer Argo

(University of Alberta)

Mar-25

Title: Understanding Possession Destruction: A Conceptual Framework

Abstract: Although the act of destroying a possession is irreversible (e.g., a burnt object remains ash) and it can lead to financial (e.g., a replacement needs to be purchased), functional (e.g., a task cannot be effectively completed without the use of the destroyed possession), and/or psychological (e.g., feelings of regret) costs, possession destruction is surprisingly common. In the present research, we provide a conceptual framework to understand when and why consumers destroy their possessions. A discussion of the implications of this behavior for consumer researchers is also presented.

Prof. Stephan Seiler

(Imperial College London)

April-25

Title: Causal Inference with Endogenous Price Response

Abstract: We study the estimation of causal treatment effects on demand when treatment is randomly assigned but prices adjust in response to treatment. We show that regressions of demand on treatment or on treatment and price lead to biased estimates of the direct treatment effect. The bias in both cases depends on the correlation of price with treatment and points in the same direction. In most cases including an endogenous price control reduces bias but does not remove it. We show how to test whether bias from an endogenous price response arises and how to recover an unbiased treatment effect (holding price constant) using a price instrument. We apply our approach to the estimation of the impact of feature advertising across several product categories using supermarket scanner data and show that the bias when not instrumenting for price can be substantial.

Dr. Ioannis Evangelidis

(ESADE)

June-05

Title*:Skimpflation outrage: Why decreases in product quality trigger stronger consumer reactions than decreases in size or increases in price

Abstract: Rising costs have led to the emergence of "skimpflation"—the practice of decreasing the quality of the product offering without adjusting prices. While skimpflation is becoming an increasingly prevalent practice in the marketplace, there’s limited understanding of consumer perceptions towards this practice. This research examines how consumers perceive skimpflation in comparison to other cost-management strategies, such as reducing product size or increasing prices. Multiple preregistered experiments reveal that significantly more consumers judge decreases in product quality as unfair compared to product size decreases or price increases. This “skimpflation outrage” stems from differences in the transparency of these changes and the importance of affected product dimensions. Skimpflation outrage is attenuated when changes are transparently communicated or involve less critical attributes. Further studies investigate additional moderators of these effects and explore their impact on purchase behavior. Skimpflation is shown to have a particularly negative effect on consumers’ willingness to buy. These findings have critical implications for firms aiming to manage rising costs, as well as for policymakers concerned with market fairness and transparency.

*Joint with DR@W

Prof. Eric Johnson

(Columbia University)

June-26

Title*: Exposing omitted moderators: Explaining why effect sizes differ
in the social sciences

Abstract: Some behavioral research aims to affect policy and management practice with quickly applied insights. To do this, research findings should generalize from the settings of the original study to applications. However, research results reflect both the manipulation of interest as well as a myriad of unobserved sources of heterogeneity. To generalize, we need to understand this heterogeneity. We re-analyze existing data and simulations to propose a toolbox to help researchers leverage heterogeneity in the service of generalization. The five tools that consumer researchers might use to increase the generalizability of their findings are: 1) Measure proximal moderators that describe respondents' interaction with the setting. 2) Exploit purposive variation to increase variation on relevant moderators and settings. 3) Measure manipulation intensity and measurement error. 4) Use survey para-data to estimate moderators. 5) Harness proximal moderators and purposive variation to generalize effect sizes. We suggest that our toolbox can help advance our field towards higher practical impact by moving beyond understanding what works, to understanding what works when, where and why.

*Joint with DR@W