Editorial

Citation

Leventhal, R.C. (2014), "Editorial", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 31 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCM-10-2013-0758

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Consumer Marketing, Volume 31, Issue 1

Needless to say, the changing external environment that envelops all consumers globally has a definite impact upon how consumers react in the marketplace. The global marketplace is literally borderless, which means that marketers have to ascertain thoroughly information that is pertinent for each market that is entered. There is a definite need not only to collect data, but to analyze said data thoroughly so as to create a marketing strategy that is both cost-efficient and managerially effective in terms of its implementation and long-term success.

Patino, Kaltcheva, Pitta, Sriram and Winsor explore the different views consumers have on socially responsible marketing. Their research employed both latent class analysis and correspondence analysis in order to segment the market and better understand how consumers with different demographic variables (gender, race and income perceive these socially responsible marketing practices. An important implication of the author’s research is that if marketers want to use their socially responsible actions as a market differentiator, their messaging has to be very carefully crafted to the specific demographic segment(s) to which they are appealing. This is clearly a situation where a "one size fits all" approach is not likely to be successful.

Gabisch and Milne call attention to the importance of understanding how the exchange of personal information for benefits on the internet may affect consumers’ expectations for future privacy protection (i.e. data ownership and privacy control). In addition to being an important tool for encouraging self-disclosure, this research demonstrates the ability of financial incentives to permit marketers usage of personal data without violating consumer privacy. As businesses greatly rely on the ability to access and use consumer information for marketing purposes they will want to ensure they develop clear data ownership policies and sufficient compensation programs in order to avoid privacy violations that may damage their firm’s reputation and relationship with consumers.

Chikweche and Fletcher investigate the factors that influence the growing African middle class (referred to as the middle of the pyramid, or MOP) consumer’s purchase decision making and impact on consumer-firm interactions. The findings from the author’s study provide practical insights for marketing managers who intend to serve this market, the key of which are branding, use of social networks, online distribution and maximizing technology.

Wood, Hopkins, Raymond and Siemens investigate how individual perception and reallocation of resources due to a life transition uniquely affect their responses to marketing activities. The findings reveal that consumer appraisal of a transition event is a key predictor of response to marketing activities. Because appraisal is not generally captured by market research, companies may be able to estimate appraisal by combining resource availability information with existing demographic data. Because resources are found to be a significant predictor of appraisal by anticipating resource levels, a firm may be able to estimate appraisal and thus be able to forecast advertising effectiveness.

Jiang, Balasubramanian and Lambert posit that most marketers do not know the amount of value that is directly attributable to their e-customization strategies. This study offers an in-depth investigation of consumers’ value perception of e-customization and their relationship with perceived sufficiency of information and cog native cost. The context effects on value perception in e-customization are studied together with antecedent constructs. By testing the proposed structural model simultaneously with two experimental factors and information framing, this study addresses the question of context effects on value creation in an area of increasing substantive importance.

Zolfagharian, Saldivar and Sun examine how the country-of-origin and consumer ethnocentrism pertain to first generation immigrants, who often identify with two or more countries. For both ethnocentric and non-ethnocentric immigrants, the product that benefits from both effects is most preferred, and the product that benefits from neither of the two effects is least preferred.

In this issue you will also find our Book Review section for your information.

Richard C. Leventhal