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ISSN : 1229-8778
The outbreak of COVID-19 that started in January 2020 has continued last two years. Yet, the situation is not optimistic in 2022 due to the spread of Omicron and its sub-mutations. Accordingly, the importance of personal quarantine, such as social distancing, hand washing, and wearing a mask, is highly expected for the time being. Companies are also emphasizing the importance of personal quarantine through advertisements to participate in the efforts of the entire society to overcome COVID-19. Given the situation, this study tested the possibility that mask-wearing of endorsers appearing in video ads can be considered as a socially responsible activity as there is no restriction on mask-wearing of the endorsers unlike the real-world situations. Mask-wearing of the endorsers may even lower the completeness of the ads. It is likely, therefore, that consumers seeing an ad in which endorsers wear masks attribute the company’s motive of making the ad to the pursuit to contribute to the society, that is, ‘value-oriented’. Further, the consumers are expected to attribute the company’s motive of participating in other socially responsible activities to being ‘value-oriented’. According to previous studies, the way consumers attribute a company’s participation in socially responsible activities affects the consumers’ perception of the company’s ‘social responsibility.’ Further, the perception affects their various responses (e.g., attitudes toward the ad, attitudes toward the product, purchase intention, brand loyalty, etc.). Of the responses, this study examined how customers’ brand loyalty is affected when seeing a video ad in which endorsers wear masks. This is because companies are increasingly interested in maintaining and managing existing customers as well as gaining new customers. From the experiment conducted to test the hypotheses, it was found as expected that the way existing customers attributed a company’s motive of participating in socially responsible activities affected the customers’ perception of the company’s social responsibility, and ultimately their brand loyalty. Contrary to the expectation, however, mask-wearing of endorsers appearing in the video ad tested had no impact on the way the customers attributed the company’s motive of participating in socially responsible activities. Consequently, neither the customers’ perception of the company’s social responsibility nor their brand loyalty were affected. Theoretical and practical implications of the result were presented.
Empathy is no longer the preserve of humans. As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes ubiquitous in consumers’ daily lives, they tend to favor AI that can read, understand, and resonate with their emotions. To broaden the understanding of how consumers perceive AI, this research explores the relationship between emotional valence and the perception of AI’s empathy, specifically in the context of music streaming services. The results of three experiments demonstrate two important findings. First, consumers believe that an AI music curator is less able to empathize with listeners’ negative emotions than positive ones. Second, due to this biased belief, they prefer AI-curated playlists made for negative mood less than those made for positive mood. These results provide insights into how to design and complement empathetic AI, particularly in the domains where sensitivity to users’ emotions is vital.
The first purpose of this study is to compare the effectiveness of pride (ego-focused emotion) vs. empathy (other-focused emotion) appeals in blood donation advertising for each of audience groups segmented by their negative perception of blood donation. The second goal of the study is to suggest effective differentiated marketing strategies of pride and/or empathy appeals in blood donation advertising for each of the audience groups. To obtain the goals, an online experiment using pride and empathy appeals in blood donation advertising was conducted with 583 males and females aged 19-69 years. The experiment offered the following results. First, on the basis of the negative perception of blood donation (distrust of and fear for blood donation), audience was divided into low distrust/low fear group, high distrust/high fear group and low distrust/high fear group. Second, for low distrust/low fear group holding stronger collectivistic cultural orientation than individualistic cultural orientation, empathy appeal in blood donation advertisement enhanced their attitude toward blood donation and their intention to donate blood more strongly than pride appeal in blood donation advertisement. However, for high distrust/high fear group and low distrust/high fear group whose individualistic cultural orientation was similar to collectivistic cultural orientation, there were no difference in their attitude toward and intention for blood donation between pride and empathy appeals in blood donation advertisements. Lastly, after selecting low distrust/low fear group as target audience group on the basis of the effectiveness of pride vs. empathy appeals in blood donation advertisements, the differentiated marketing strategies of blood donation advertising that matched the characteristics of the group (high proportion of males, high frequency to use interactive communication media and e-commerce media) was developed.
Today, people form and maintain relationships by interacting with others online, especially through social media platforms which encompass the risk of permanent exposure to unspecified audiences. Contrary to these persistent social media, however, Instagram Stories are unique in that its posts are sef-deleted within 24 hours. This ‘ephemerality’ of social media is well known for promoting one’s self-disclosure online. Based on this notion, this study examined the mechanism of perceived ephemerality on self-disclosure through the privacy calculus model. In particular, we examined the influence of social presence, perceived enjoyment and control as the benefit as well as the privacy concern and impression management concern as the risk of self-disclosure. Results show that the effect of perceived ephemerality on social presence was not significant and therefore the modified model was tested by eliminating the path. As a result, perceived ephemerality had a positive influence on perceived pleasure, which in turn showed a positive correlation with self-disclosure intention. In addition, perceived ephemerality showed a positive relationship with perceived control which had a negative effect on privacy concerns and impression management concerns respectively. However, contrary to our expectation, privacy concern and impression management concern had a positive influence on self-disclosure, therefore confirming the privacy paradox and strategic impression management. This study provides academic and managerial implications by examining the relationship between ephemerality of Instagram story and meaningful variables in social media self-disclosure.
The Effect of social type metaverse characteristics on fun experience and continuous use intention: Mediation effect of presence and achievement
As consumer’s lifestyle culture changes and the home meal replacement market grows, various types of home meal replacement that are distinguished by the cooking process are emerging. Therefore, this study confirmed consumer decision making through the comparison of home meal replacement packages. This study examines the effect of product photography of packages that activate different mental simulations according to the type of home meal replacement on consumers. In addition, we tried to verify the psychological mechanism by confirming the mediating effect of the process-enjoyment through the process of making the effect of process simulation on purchase intention in the complex process of home meal replacement. In this study, The experiment was conducted using 2(Home Meal Replacement Types: Mealkit vs. Retort) x 3(Mental Simulation Types: Process vs. Result vs. Control) between participants design. As a result of the study, in mealkit, purchase intention was higher than the other two conditions in the process simulation condition, and in retort, purchase intention was higher than the other two conditions in the control condition, indicating an interaction between home meal replacement type and mental simulation. In addition, the process simulation conditions significantly influenced the purchase intention by moderated mediating the process-enjoyment, which only appeared in mealkit and not in retort, confirming the moderated mediating effect. Accordingly, This study is expected to be meaningful to researchers and marketing practitioners in that it is necessary to use product photos that can activate different mental simulations in packages. Furthermore the psychological mechanism of process-enjoyment felt by consumers in the imagination.