THE EFFECT OF SOCIAL MEDIA UNIQUE RELEVANCE FEATURES (SMURF) ON BRAND PERCEPTION AND BEHAVIOR

Klaus-Peter Wiedmann,Sebastian Fritz,Sascha Langner,Steffen Schmidt 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2014 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2014 No.2

The main purpose of this study is to introduce and examine a multidimensional model of almost all relevant social media characteristics and their impact on brand perception and brand behavior. In order to incorporate social media’s high complexity we introduce our concept of SMURF and its related outcomes. Therefore we follow the original idea of Muniz and O’Guinn (2001) that define a brand community as a customer-customer-brand triad. Furthermore, we suggest an extension of their model that includes four dimensions covering all SMURF of a social media brand presence (SMBP), namely (1) customer-brand relation, (2) customer-customer relation, (3) customer-community relation and (4) customer-channel relation. For our defined core constituents of brand perception as well as for the essential elements of brand behavior already existing and tested reflective measures were used. Regarding the multidimensional construct of SMURF, the measurement instrument by Wiedmann, et al. (2013) was used. In detail, any SMURF core element was captured with one global item. Furthermore, any reflective and formative measures were specified to those brand and Facebook fan page which has been tracked most frequently by the respondent. The first contribution is to provide a multidimensional framework of value-based drivers of SMURF with special focus on an overall brand presence context. Second, the findings contribute to explain the consequences of social media attractiveness such as unique relevance features which provide a great brand appeal. In this study, customers who are strongly attracted to a brand fan page experience a high positive brand perception as well as a high positive brand behavior. Third, the empirical findings of the applied PLS-SEM approach indicate that customers have a specific motivation of being attracted and connected to a brand in a social media context.

THE GROWING CHALLENGE OF UNLEASHING THE POWER OF STRONG IDENTITIES VIA BRANDING AND BRAND COMMUNICATION – IS IT THE PRODUCT, THE DESIGNER, THE COMPANY, THE CITY OR COUNTRY BEHIND TO ACHIEVE AND SUSTAIN SUCCESS IN FASHION MARKETING?

Klaus-Peter Wiedmann,Carmen Rodriguez Santos,Gaetano Aiello,Raffaele Donvito,Bruno Godey,Daniele Pederzoli 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2015 Global Fashion Management Conference Vol.2015 No.06

Fashion brands are influenced by multiple identities. Even though, for example, the brand name might still be associated with one or more creative founders (Gucci, Prada, Chanel, Hermès, Adidas, Joop) the brand image, and moreover the overall brand reputation are influenced by many different identities. For instance, a specific product identity (e.g., Gucci’s Bamboo Bag), the identity of the city or country of origin (Florence, Italy), the identities of well-known key customers as brand ambassadors (Sophia Loren, Vanessa Redgrave, Lady Diana, Naomi Watts etc.). Of course, also fashion brands who are not directly associated with the name of creative founders are composed of the effects of several identities. In the case of e.g. Nike especially successful athletes (Steve Prefontaine, Michael Jordan etc.), specific sports and sport events, and product lines tailor-made for them did help to build a strong brand reputation. All in all, it seems to be expedient to understand fashion brands as more of less complex systems composed of several identities. To deal in more detail with such “brand systems” is becoming particularly important against the background of several strategic challenges – e.g., when fashion brands are growing older and the creative founders lose their specific gravitational power, when in the process of internationalization new countries gain more and more importance who’s citizens might not have a strong access to the existing brand reputation drivers, or simply when in the context of the growing global competition the fashion brand needs to be “refreshed”. Against the background of cultural differences, or even - as within countries - lifestyle differences between different groups of customers, it can also be quite possibly that very different reputation drivers account for the success of a brand. Thus, it is necessary to identify, in different contexts, the relevant reputation drivers, and to analyze which interplay of those drivers might be particularly promising. Is it the creative founder, the corporate heritage, the country and/or city of origin, a special designer, a specific corporate culture, an outstanding product design, attractive key customers etc.? Which combination of such identity factors leads to what kind of success (e.g., brand loyalty, brand trust, price premium)? Will, for instance, heritage especially lead to brand trust, whereas an outstanding product design and specifically attractive key customers create the readiness for a higher price premium? And, is it necessary to create sub-brands to especially highlight specific identities in the process of building a brand system (e.g., the sub-branding of a Michael Jordan product line in the case of Nike)? Or is sufficient to only communicate an alignment with the brand (e.g., ads showing Naomi Watts wearing a Gucci Bamboo Handbag)? In other words, which kind of brand system, and which kind of brand communications has to be designed to attract specific target groups and to sustain competitive advantages? The present contribution aims to present a conceptual framework for analyzing “brand systems” in the fashion industry. Concomitantly, an approach of measuring such brand systems will be presented. Furthermore, a concept for analyzing the impact of several sub-identities on the development of the overall brand reputation and brand success against the background of existing contingencies will be outlined. With the introduction and discussion of such a conceptual framework it especially is intended to initiate the launching of an international research project which attempts to find an answer basically to the following question: Which via an integrated branding and brand systems communication carefully crafted composition of sub-identities might be how successful under what kind of situational conditions?

CONCEPTUALIZING AN IDENTITY-ORIENTED BRAND MANAGEMENT APPROACH

Klaus-Peter Wiedmann 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2017 Global Fashion Management Conference Vol.2017 No.07

While there is broad agreement on the importance of an identity-oriented brand understanding and management, there is a high degree of disagreement as regards the definition of the brand identity construct. In the scientific discussion, a definition seems to prevail, in which the brand image that exists among the customers is contrasted with the brand identity which is either only associated with the within the brand company existing picture of the brand (self-image) or at least additionally with the brand’s meaning and goal. Falling back on very different research traditions in the field of the development of an identity theory, it is shown that the construct of brand identity should be understood in a much more comprehensive sense in order to fully unleash its heuristic power. In addition, it seems imperative to take into account that strong brands can become a kind of personality sui generis, the further development of which cannot only be determined by the company which once brought the brand onto the market. The specific brand identity is much more subject to many social influences involving a huge variety of social actors. Against this background the idea of brand management needs reform, and should be re-conceptualized more in the sense of an attempt to channel all relevant social influences in a targeted manner. In this contribution, a corresponding approach of identity-oriented brand management is presented and illustrated by examples from the fashion sector. This is mainly due to the fact that the identity development of fashion marks depends to a great extent on numerous social influences and influencers.

YOUR PAIN IS MY GAIN: CHARACTERISTICS AND BEHAVIOR OF CONSUMER PSYCHOPATHS

Klaus-Peter Wiedmann,Nadine Hennigs,Evmorfia Karampournioti 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2016 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2016 No.7

For decades, researchers and practitioners have focused on ethical and environmental consumerism that is regarded as a mainstream phenomenon in contemporary consumer culture (e.g., Doane, 2001; Low & Davenport, 2007). In this context, the ethical consumer is supposed to be concerned about a broad spectrum of issues ranging from the environment and animal welfare to societal concerns, including human rights. By “shopping for a better world” (Low & Davenport, 2007, p. 336), the ethical buyer demands products that meet his/her moral principles and boycotts companies involved in unethical practices (e.g., Muncy & Vitell, 1992; Barnett et al., 2005). Nevertheless, a critical perspective on the economic reality has led to the discussion if the ethical consumer is nothing more than a myth (e.g., Carrigan & Attalla, 2001; Devinney et al., 2010). A particular industry context where cruel production processes are widely discussed is the cosmetics industry. Therefore, from the multitude of ethical dilemmas related to consumption behavior and cruel business activities, the underlying study focuses on animal testing for cosmetic purposes. The main research focus of this study is built on the idea that anthropomorphic communication about cruel tactics in production processes has significant impacts on consumers’ perception and behavior. Besides the form of communication, the perception of anthropomorphic communication is largely determined by personal and individual characteristics of the recipient. In addition to the ability to emphasize – generally known as to encourage the perception of harmful conditions and foster the ability to experience and share another´s condition or state of mind and emotional context (Johnson, Cheeks & Smither, 1983; Cohen & Strayer, 1996) - there exists a “dark side” of consumer personality as well. The Dark Triad which is composed of Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. Hence, the study additionally examines the impact of bright and dark personality traits on the perception of anthropomorphized communication and highlights the importance for the identification of diverse consumer segments.

SHOW ME YOUR RESPONSIBILITY, I´LL TELL YOU WHO YOU ARE: EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT EFFECTS OF BRAND SUSTAINABILITY ON BRAND REPUTATION, PERCEIVED VALUE AND BRAND-RELATED INTENTIONS

Klaus-Peter Wiedmann,Evmorfia Karampournioti,Levke Louise Albertsen,Steffen Schmidt,Sascha Langner,Michael Schießl 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2018 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2018 No.07

During the last decades, consumers have become increasingly concerned about social and environmental issues (Cone, 2009; Kleanthous, 2011) and “want the brands they use to reflect their concerns and aspirations for a better world” (Bendell and Kleanthous, 2007, p. 5). Ethical and environmental consumerism has become a mainstream phenomenon in contemporary consumer culture (Doane, 2001; Low and Davenport, 2007) and consumers either reward or punish companies that stress or ignore the importance of social and environmental excellence (Grail Research, 2010). From a firm perspective, investing in activities promoting sustainable development is increasingly recognized as an important source of competitive advantage (Porter and Kramer, 2006) and demonstrates a differentiator in most of the industries. According to a study conducted by the United Nations Global Compact and Accenture nearly 97% of the participating CEOs see sustainability as important to their company’s future success (UN and Accenture, 2016). The main reason and motivation to take action in sustainability issues is not the potential for revenue growth and cost reduction but rather the enhanced performance of the brand, trust and reputation (Lacy et al., 2010). Hence, financial rewards seem not to be the prioritized key driver for sustainability-oriented actions, since most companies are not able to explicitly quantify the benefits of their activity (UN and Accenture, 2016). But even though ethical and environmental issues have become an essential component for the evaluation and selection of brands and potential consumers may care about ethical issues, they are unlikely to compromise on traditional product attributes, such as value, quality, price, and performance (Chen and Chang, 2012). Accordingly, examining the influence of a brands sustainability orientation - as perceived by consumers - on brand related factors such as brand reputation and perceived brand value is of special importance for marketing research and practice. For that reason, the present paper examines the effect of brand sustainability on brand reputation and customer perceived value of a brand. Therefore, a measurement instrument was developed, that considers implicit and explicit pathways of human information processing and thus combines conscious and unconscious evaluations of a brands sustainability. Finally, the transfer from a positive customer evaluation to brand performance in terms of brand-related perception and brand-related behavior is examined.

CONVERSATIONAL MARKETING: THE CHALLENGE OF AN AUTHENTIC DIALOGUE WITH CUSTOMERS AND OTHER STAKEHOLDERS – OUTLINE OF A RESEARCH FRAMEWORK

Klaus-Peter Wiedmann 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2023 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2023 No.07

With the buzzword conversational marketing, especially in the course of a further technological upgrade of marketing management via chatbots, messaging apps etc., the central idea of dialogue-oriented marketing, as has been required since the late 1970s/early 1980s, has received a significant upgrade. However, mostly with a quite narrow focus on the management of transactions and in the sense of a customer-centric and dialogue-driven approach for driving customer engagement, improving customer experience along a very narrowly interpreted customer journey, and growing revenue. There is no question that the consistent use of all available technological options to optimize the exchange processes with customers represents an important challenge. However, conversational marketing should not be interpreted too narrowly. On the one hand, it is important to expand this approach with reference to all stakeholders and not only to refer to 1:1 interactions, but also to explicitly include complex exchange processes within and between relevant stakeholder groups in the consideration. On the other hand, the focus should not be solely on the management of transactions. At the same time, targeted relationship and reputation management as well as consistent context management must be explicitly included in the consideration. This is not least because firstly Marketing measures always tend to have corresponding effects in all three areas, i.e. possible transaction, relationship and reputation as well as context effects must be taken into account and controlled in a targeted manner. Secondly, the developments in market and society are increasingly contributing to the fact that the demands on companies are constantly increasing. On the one hand, this affects the expectations of all stakeholders that companies make significant contributions to the sustainable development of society as a whole through not only the economically successful handling of all their business processes but also consistently pursuing ecological, social and cultural goals. In order to meet these demands, companies must also try to exert a targeted influence on the relevant framework conditions in the market and society and their further development. The range here is extraordinarily large and colorful: from the creation of infrastructural conditions for smart problem solutions (e.g. smart mobility) up to ensuring the sustainable development of social value systems. The latter found its expression, e.g. in various approaches of brand activism (black lives matter, everyone is awesome or the conveyance of a new self-understanding of men in the case of Gillette’s “we believe” campaign).

THE CORE ELEMENTS OF STORY: INTRODUCING THEORIES AND METHODS OF NARRATOLOGY AND LINGUISTIC FOR THE CONCEPT OF STORYTELLING IN MARKETING AND MANAGEMENT ON THE EXAMPLE OF CREATING VALUES

Klaus-Peter Wiedmann,Jan C. L. K?nig 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2014 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2014 No.7

Storytelling is a genuine field of interest of narratology and the philologies. While it becomes important to both managers and researchers, these origins in analysing and discussing seem to be underrated in contemporary approaches. This paper seeks to close this gap by introducing theories from the humanities regarding qualitative methods for a conceptual frame that covers the core elements of storytelling and the possibilities of transmitting certain issues on the purpose of specific effect. For values are a typical issue in brand management, we offer an example of a qualitative approach towards values in storytelling. Finally, we offer an outlook on a following consecutive research combining both qualitative and quantitative methods.

THE EFFECT OF SOCIAL MEDIA UNIQUE RELEVANCE FEATURES (SMURF) ON BRAND PERCEPTION AND BEHAVIOR

Klaus-Peter Wiedmann,Sebastian Fritz,Sascha Langner,Steffen Schmidt 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2014 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2014 No.7

The main purpose of this study is to introduce and examine a multidimensional model of almost all relevant social media characteristics and their impact on brand perception and brand behavior. In order to incorporate social media’s high complexity we introduce our concept of SMURF and its related outcomes. Therefore we follow the original idea of Muniz and O’Guinn (2001) that define a brand community as a customer-customer-brand triad. Furthermore, we suggest an extension of their model that includes four dimensions covering all SMURF of a social media brand presence (SMBP), namely (1) customer-brand relation, (2) customer-customer relation, (3) customer-community relation and (4) customer-channel relation. For our defined core constituents of brand perception as well as for the essential elements of brand behavior already existing and tested reflective measures were used. Regarding the multidimensional construct of SMURF, the measurement instrument by Wiedmann, et al. (2013) was used. In detail, any SMURF core element was captured with one global item. Furthermore, any reflective and formative measures were specified to those brand and Facebook fan page which has been tracked most frequently by the respondent. The first contribution is to provide a multidimensional framework of value-based drivers of SMURF with special focus on an overall brand presence context. Second, the findings contribute to explain the consequences of social media attractiveness such as unique relevance features which provide a great brand appeal. In this study, customers who are strongly attracted to a brand fan page experience a high positive brand perception as well as a high positive brand behavior. Third, the empirical findings of the applied PLS-SEM approach indicate that customers have a specific motivation of being attracted and connected to a brand in a social media context.

Spreading the Word of Fashion

Klaus-Peter Wiedmann,Nadine Hennigs,Sascha Langner 한국마케팅과학회 2010 Journal of Global Fashion Marketing Vol.1 No.3

Regarded as the most powerful force in the fashion marketplace, often more powerful and valuable than planned communication from marketing organizations, word-of-mouth (WOM) has been recognized in marketing research for many decades. Who are the main transmitters of WOM, and why are some of them more successful at diffusing new fashions and styles in social networks than others? How can social influencers be characterized? A comprehensive understanding and management of fashion-oriented referral behavior implies the in-depth analysis of its conditions and drivers, as well as the identification of those customers with the highest social influence potential and WOM value. The contribution of this paper is to give a theoretical and empirical overview of relevant factors characterizing social influencers in fashion marketing and their fashion-oriented referral behavior. In the course of the paper, ten different factors are described and empirically tested, characterizing three different clusters of social influencers: the fashion superspreaders, the narrative fashion experts and the helpful friends. A comprehensive understanding and better management of WOM referral behavior implies the in-depth analysis of its conditions and drivers as well as the identification of those customers with the highest social influence potential and value. According to Columbia voting studies, social influence is related to “who one is,” “what one knows” and “whom one knows”. “Who one is” and “what one knows” affect the individual capital that results from several demographic, psychographic, and personality variables. The importance of "whom one knows" was subdivided into the idea of accessibility – addressing an influencer’s central location in the networks in which he is embedded – and the idea that an "… individual may be influential not only because people within his group look to him for advice but also because of whom he knows outside his group". Thus, for the purposes of this paper, the WOM behavior and referral style of customers is to be related to the customer’s individual and social capital attributes: A customer’s individual capital includes a customer’s personality, knowledge, skills and abilities. Relating to a profound understanding of WOM communications, a customer’s social capital requires the existence of and the effects resulting from specific and sustained social relationships between consumers. In terms of a customer’s reference value, social capital addresses his social resources and is related to the effects of WOM referral behavior, such as the customer’s opportunity, motivation, and ability to disseminate WOM, as well as the scope, contents, and influence of the referral flows. To analyze the relevancy of different variables measuring individual and social capital to portray high social influence potential in a more aggregated sense, the dimensions of individual and social capital needed to be operationalized. Preparing the empirical test of our model, we used already existing and tested measures and generated further items resulting from exploratory inter-views resulting from exploratory interviews with marketing and fashion experts being asked what individual traits or social resources they associate with social influencers. The first version of our questionnaire was face validated twice using exploratory and expert interviews and pre-tested with 50 respondents to identify the most important and reduce the total number of items. The sample used in this study was defined as male or female German respondents, aged 18 years and older. A total of 480 interviews were conducted in the summer of 2007. Data were analyzed in three stages: First, the various dimensions underlying the individual and social capital of social influencers were uncovered by a factor analysis using the principal component method with varimax rotation.

THE UNKNOWN LEGACY EFFECT: ASSESSING THE EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT RELATION OF CORPORATE BRAND HERITAGE ON BRAND ATTACHMENT

Klaus-Peter Wiedmann,Steffen Schmidt,Sascha Langner,Levke Albertsen,Michael Schiessl,Frank Buckler 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2016 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2016 No.7

In both marketing research and business practice, the study of corporate brand heritage has gained growing interest. Although, the field of heritage is rather widely analysed, a closer investigation reveals that there is a lack of research that covers the deeply embedded associations toward a company or brand with a heritage, and their effects on the overall brand performance from a customer’s perspective. That said, previous quantitative studies regarding corporate brand heritage fall back on traditional and basic explicit self-reporting scales. However, an increasing number of neuroeconomic studies indicate that customers are not fully aware of their thoughts and opinions. In fact, most mental processes are of so-called implicit nature, taking place hidden in the unconscious and automatic mind. Yet, established models of corporate brand heritage are missing implicit processes completely. Against this backdrop, the aim of the current paper is to fill this research gap. For that reason, a holistic framework of dual information processing is derived with reference to corporate brand heritage. Furthermore, related explicit and implicit measures are developed and applied to capture the dual facets of corporate brand heritage. The empirical results provide evidence that both heritage facets, explicit corporate brand heritage, but in particular implicit corporate brand heritage have a crucial impact on the degree of attachment toward the corporate brand.