The Issues Troubling Consumers, and Their Search for Answers

For a fifth year in a row, consumers worldwide are living in an era that can be closely described as very busy, oftentimes turbulent, and full of challenges. It is an unstable era. The events or developments of this era, explicitly or through their consequences, touch on multiple areas: health-oriented, economic, political, socio-cultural, and technological.… Read More

Directions for the Future of Research on Consumer Behaviour

There are so many changes and developments that have taken place since the start of the 21st century to talk about — social, technological, and environmental; the social dimension includes both socio-economic and socio-political changes. Consumers are affected by the shifts that surround them, modifying and adapting their behaviours of shopping, purchase and consumption. In… Read More

Listening to Managers and Consumers When Building Marketing Theory

Academic articles in marketing can be very instructive, occasionally eye-opening, on various issues and topics; one can learn from them about theory, research methodology and models, and the findings and conclusions reached from their analyses. Yet, it would not be presumptuous to say that managers do not rush to search for, read and consult with… Read More

A Spotlight on the Gap Between Purchase Intention and Actual Behaviour

Rick, who is unhappy with the increased frequency of repairs that his current car requires, intends to buy a new car to replace it within the next six months. Sandy, on the other hand, has her mind set on buying a bicycle in the coming month to help her move around more freely within the… Read More

From Research Findings to Business Decisions: Reporting or Telling a Story?

It is a challenge that follows marketing and consumer research for many years: How to get not only the interest of business decision-makers in the findings from research but also their readiness to implement their lessons from the research? More than being intrigued and interested in the details of analytic findings, business decision-makers (e.g., owners,… Read More

Conjoint and MaxDiff: Choice-Based Methods for Measuring Consumer Preferences

Choice-Based Conjoint and MaxDiff (i.e., Maximum Difference, also known as Best-Worst scaling) are advanced methods for measuring and estimating consumer preferences by means of choice experiments and discrete choice models. Conjoint Analysis is a veteran methodology, initiated in the early 1970s, for measuring multi-attribute consumer preferences, based on ranking order or rating evaluations of product… Read More

Let Segmentation Go Deeper

Consumers may differ in their demographics, lifestyles and personality, tastes and preferences, attitudes and behaviour. Consequently, a couple of consumers who differ on any of these characteristics may experience differently the same event or activity, service episode or product usage (e.g., by the thoughts and conclusions, feelings and emotions the experience evokes in each consumer).… Read More

Marketing-Driven Financial Valuation of Brands

Assessments of the monetary value of brands has long interested and motivated the management of firms, and their investors. From a business perspective, the financial value is a preferred measure of brand equity or return-on-investment in brands. But a brand is a marketing-driven and consumer-based entity, and hence one cannot detach the financial value of… Read More

Shopping in Social Media Platforms

Next to socialising activities in online social media networks for leisure or work, in business or politics, users also engage in shopping activities on these platforms. In particular, consumers search and check information there on their prospective purchases. Moreover, consumers tend to spend more time in social media websites, especially the younger ones (i.e., Generations… Read More

Understanding Consumer Approach to Transformational Vehicle Technologies

Two important technological developments with transformational power in vehicles are taking place side-by-side: electric vehicles (EV) and autonomous vehicles (AV). They have the power of transforming consumers’ experiences of driving their cars, or travelling as passengers, and maintaining them, possibly changing the way consumers perceive passenger vehicles in whole. The purposes and functionalities of the… Read More