OTT, 뉴스레터, 정기배송…. 너무 많은 것이 ‘구독’으로 통하는 시대. 지속적 결제에 피로를 느끼는 소비자들이 이제 ‘가끔 열리는 단 한 번’의 순간에 더 큰 가치를 둔다. 기다림과 희소성, 우연성을 앞세운 드롭 마케팅이 주목받는 이유다.
드롭(Drop)은 무언가를 어딘가에 떨어뜨린다는 동사이다. 드롭이 마케팅 기법으로 사용될 때는 한정판 제품을 시장에 떨어뜨린다는 것을 의미하며 이때 두 가지 기법이 추가로 적용돼 효과를 극대화한다. 첫째, 제품 수량을 제한하며, 둘째, 판매하는 시간과 장소를 제한한다. 결과적으로 드롭 마케팅이란 제한된 수량의 제품을 제한된 시간과 매장에서 집중적으로 판매하고 끝낸다는 의미다.
줄 세우는 브랜드, ‘한정판’이 만든 열광
드롭 마케팅의 성공 사례는 브랜드 파워가 높고 충성고객이 많은 패션 브랜드에서 주로 관찰된다. 이 개념이 처음 알려진 계기는 스트리트 패션 브랜드인 슈프림(Supreme)이 매주 목요일에 진행한 ‘슈프림 드롭 데이(Supreme Drop Day)’다. 슈프림은 2006년부터 뉴욕의 라파예트 거리 매장에서 목요일 아침 11시에 비정기적으로 한정판 제품을 소개했으며 이에 관한 소식을 2~3일 전에 온라인을 통해서 알렸다. 슈프림 드롭 데이가 진행됐던 당시에는 너무 많은 사람이 매장 바깥에서 줄을 서서 기다리느라 안전상의 이유로 뉴욕 경찰이 출동하 기도 했고, 이후에는 유튜브와 인스타그램 등 소셜미디어에 수많은 관련 영상이 올라왔으며, 매장에서 48달러에 판매된 티셔츠가 300달러에 재판매되기도 했다.
드롭 마케팅의 또 다른 사례를 살펴보겠다. 코로나19가 한창이던 때로 거슬러 올라간다. 2020년 7월에 출시된 운동화 나이키의 에어 조던 1×디올 로우 OG이다. 이 운동화는 총 1만3,000켤레가 한정 생산됐는데 이 중에서 5,000켤레가 디올의 핵심 고객들에게 배정됐기에 일반 고객을 위해 배정 된 것은 8,000켤레뿐이었다. 이 운동화는 2,000달러와 2,200달러 두 개의 가격으로 책정됐고 2020년 6월 25일에 열린 단독 웹사이트에 등록한 사람 중 당첨자가 원하는 디올 매장에서 받을 수 있다고 공지됐다. 해당 드롭 마케팅은 매거진 <GQ>와 미국의 전문 경제 뉴스 방송을 통해 공유됐고 웹사이트가 열린 직후 아일랜드 전체 인구에 맞먹는 500만 명이 웹사이트에 등록했다. 2020년 판매된 모든 럭셔리 제품 중에서 가장 빠른 시간에 완판된 제품으로도 유명하다. 에어 조던 1×디올 로우 OG는 이후 리세일 가격이 약 1만 달러까지 올라갔다.
희소성이 만든 확산의 법칙
드롭 마케팅에 적용된 두 가지 기법인 ‘제품 수량 제한’과 ‘판매 시간 및 장소 제한’은 모두 제품에 대한 희소성을 극대화하고 화제성을 불러일으키는 방법이다. 희소성이란 수요가 공급을 넘어선다는 단순한 의미가 있다. 그런데 무언가가 희소한 상황이 되면 사람들은 그것을 선택할 수 있는 자유가 침해될지 걱정한다. 결국 무언가가 모두 없어지기 전에 찾게 되고, 제품에 관한 관심과 선호도는 순간적으로 급격하게 올라간다.
두 가지 기법 중 ‘제품 수량 제한’ 판매 기법을 먼저 살펴보겠다. 제품 수량이 제한되면 온라인에서 바이럴이 강력해진다. 독일 연구자들이 2015년 론칭 직전의 패션 웹사이트를 통해 초기 가입자에게 특혜를 주는 할인 쿠폰의 희소성을 조작한 뒤 쿠폰이 희소해지면 사람들이 페이스북이나 이메일로 친구들에게 얼마나 추천하는지 조사했다. 실험 결과, 쿠폰 수량에 제한이 없을 때는 7%, 쿠폰 수량이 100개로 제한되면 12.8%, 쿠폰 수량이 15개로 제한되면 29.7%의 참가자가 친구들에게 추천했다. 즉 희소성이 증가할 때마다 주변 사람에게 추천하고 알리는 효과가 순간적으로 증가했다.
다음으로 ‘판매 시간 및 장소 제한’ 판매 기법이다. 마찬가지로 판매 시간과 장소가 제한돼도 온라인의 바이럴이 증가한다. 그 효과는 해외에서 많이 알려진 사례일 때 더욱 강력하다. 브랜드 컨설팅 기업이 론칭한 오프라인 마케팅 플랫폼 ‘프로젝트 렌트’는 2021년 5월에 두 개의 브랜드에 대한 팝업스토어를 서울 성수동에서 진행하면서 각 브랜드의 인스타그램 팔로워가 얼마나 변하는지 추적했다. 소방관의 방화복을 이용해서 가방을 만드는 ‘119 Reo’는 약 3주간, 리옹 지역의 야생 밤을 원료로 만든 밤잼인 ‘크렘드마롱 (Creme de Marron)’은 약 한 달 간 진행됐다. 국내에서 이미 7,280명의 팔로워를 보유했지만 해외에 알려지지 않은 ‘119 Reo’는 판매 시간 및 장소가 제한돼도 인스타그램 팔로워 숫자가 크게 변하지 않고 약 2.5%만 증가했다. 하지만 당시 국내에서 덜 알려졌으나 해외에서 잘 알려진 ‘크렘드마롱’은 같은 기간 인스타그램 팔로워 숫자가 1,685명에서 4,439명까지 총 163% 증가했다.
‘단 한 번의 경험’, 드롭이 만든 특별함
사람들은 왜 제품의 수량이 제한되고 판매 시간과 장소까지 한정된 마케팅에 열광할까? 그 이유는 ‘특별한 경험’을 추구하기 때문이다. 미국 컬럼비아대학교의 마케팅 연구자 선(Sun)과 팜(Pham) 은 2025년 소비자 연구 저널(Journal of Consumer Research)에 ‘소비자가 어떤 경험을 특별하게 인식 하는가?’에 관한 연구 결과를 발표했다. 이들은 식 당 리뷰 앱인 옐프(Yelp)의 리뷰 300만 건을 분석하고 다양한 실험을 통해 다음과 같은 결론에 도달 했다. 어떤 경험이 특별하다고 여겨지려면 세 가지 조건 중 하나를 만족해야 한다는 것이다. 그 조건은 경험이 독특하거나, 의미가 있거나, 진짜여야 한다는 것. 이 중에서 두 번째로 중요한 ‘독특한 경험’의 조건은 특히 흥미롭다. 경험이 독특해지려면 재생산할 수 없거나 일시적이어야 한 다. ‘재생산 불가능’이란 똑같은 방식으로 다시 반복될 수 없음을 의미한다. 예를 들어 재즈 공연의 즉흥연주나 스포츠 경기의 현장 관람이 이에 해당한다. 그리고 ‘일시적’이라는 것은 특정 시간 동안만 경험할 수 있음을 의미한다. 예를 들면 정해진 기간에만 열리는 박람회나 미술품 전시가 있다. 이처럼 독특한 경험을 구성하는 두 가지 요소는 드롭 마케팅이 활용하는 두 가지 핵심 기법과 정확히 일치한다. 한정 수량의 제품은 다시 생산되지 않는 ‘재생산 불가능성’을, 시간과 장소를 제한한 판매는 ‘일시성’을 담고 있다. 결국 드롭 마케팅 에 열광하는 오늘날의 소비자들은 그 자체로 독특하고 특별한 경험을 추구하고 있기 때문이다.
Against the backdrop of consumers being deluged with traditional online advertising, which is increasingly manifesting in inefficient conversion outcomes, viral marketing has become a pivotal component of marketing strategy. However, despite a robust understanding about the impact of viral marketing as well as of factors that drive consumer referral engagement, we know very little about the effect of traditional promotional tactics on consumer referral decisions. Drawing on a randomized field experiment in the context of an online fashion service named StyleCrowd, we investigate the effects of scarcity and personalization, two classical promotional cues that have become ubiquitous on the web and have received only minimal attention hitherto, on actual referral behavior. Our analysis reveals that using these cues in promotional campaigns is a balancing act: While scarcity cues affect referral propensity regardless of whether a campaign is personalized or not, personalization cues are particularly effective when scarcity is absent, yet are cancelled out when scarcity is prevalent. We demonstrate that consumers’ perceptions of offer value drive the impact of scarcity on referral likelihood, while consumer gratitude vis-à-vis the marketer is the underlying mechanism for personalization’s influence on referral decisions.
This article addresses a simple theoretical question of high substantive relevance: What makes a consumption experience special in a consumer’s mind? To answer this question, the authors report an extensive multi-method investigation involving a grounded theory analysis of numerous consumer narratives and in-depth interviews, a field survey, a scale development study, a natural language processing analysis of more than 3 million Yelp reviews, a preregistered multi-factor causal experiment (and its preregistered replication), a blind comparison of hundreds of matched visual Instagram posts by third-party observers, and several small application studies. The findings converge in identifying three major psychological pillars of what makes consumption experiences feel special to consumers, each pillar involving different facets: (a) uniqueness, which arises from the rarity, novelty, irreproducibility, personalization, exclusivity, ephemerality, and surpassing of expectations of the experience; (b) meaningfulness, which pertains to the personal significance of the experience in terms of symbolism, relationships, self-affirmation, and self-transformation; and (c) authenticity, which relates to the perceived genuineness and realness of the experience in terms of its psychological proximity to some original source, iconicity, human sincerity, and connection to nature. As illustrated in the General Discussion, the findings have important substantive implications for the engineering of hedonic consumption experiences.
학우들의 인터뷰에 따르면 데이 마케팅을 바라보는 시선은 ‘기업의 이윤 추구를 위한 상술’이라고 비판하며 기념일의 필요성을 못 느끼겠다는 입장과 ‘서로를 챙기는 긍정적인 문화’라며 옹호하는 입장으로 나뉘고 있다. 또한 <이뉴스투데이>에 따르면 최근 샤넬 등의 명품 브랜드들은 밸런타인데이 전후로 가격을 약 10% 인상했다. 이로 인해 소비자의 소비심리가 위축돼 기념일에도 판매가 크게 늘지 않는 것으로 조사됐다. 이에 대응해 유통업계는 더 큰 규모의 프로모션을 진행하며 소비자들의 구매 욕구를 자극하고자 힘쓰고 있다. 이처럼 여러 요인들에 따라 데이 마케팅은 성공하기도, 실패하기도 한다. 그렇다면 기업의 데이 마케팅 성패가 갈리는 이유는 무엇일까? 이에 대해 자세히 알아보고자 주재우(경영)교수와 인터뷰를 진행했다.
데이 마케팅의 성패를 좌우하는 것은?
성패를 좌우하는 요인은 첫 번째로 독특함과 새로움이며, 두 번째로 날짜와 기념일의 적합성이다. 기념일이 대중화되더라도 소비자가 새로움을 느끼지 못하면 유의미한 효과를 낼 수 없으며 새로움을 주더라도 제품과 날짜의 의미가 잘 맞지 않으면 큰 성과를 기대하기 어렵다. 신선함을 갖추면서도 날짜와 의미가 적합해야 데이 마케팅이 성공할 수 있다.
가래떡데이 등 공익을 위한 기념일이 인기를 끌지 못하는 이유는?
사기업의 마케팅 예산 규모를 충분히 고려하지 않은 채 공공기관에서 비슷한 시기에 기념일을 지정하면 사기업에 밀리기 쉽다. 따라서 공익 목적의 기념일들은 명확한 차별화가 필요하다. 이를 위해서는 소비자의 기호를 충족시키고 구매의 필요성에 공감할 수 있도록 해야 한다. 구매를 유도하는 공급자의 관점을 넘어 소비자의 입장을 고려해 좋은 의도를 알려야 한다. 가래떡을 이용해 수능 응원, 전통문화 등과 결합한 새로운 기념품을 제작하는 등 소비자가 흥미를 느낄 요소를 마련해야 한다.
국내 기업의 데이 마케팅이 성공하기 위해서는?
한국 등 아시아 국가에서는 선물이 지닌 상징적 의미가 크기에 그 가치가 강조돼야 한다. 행사의 취지가 좋고 제품이 좋더라도 소비자가 구매의 필요성을 느끼지 못한다면 결국 그 기념일은 성공할 수 없다. 덧붙여 해외에서도 K-푸드, K-뷰티뿐 아니라 우리 전통문화에도 상당히 많은 관심을 갖고 있어 이와 관련된 기념일이 생긴다면 성공할 수 있을 것 같다.
스타트업, 중소기업에서 데이 마케팅이 가지는 의미는?
데이 마케팅은 스타트업, 중소기업이 선택할 수 있는 거의 유일한 마케팅 방법이라고 생각한다. 대기업의 경우 데이 마케팅 외에도 다른 방식으로 충분한 수익을 창출할 수 있지만 스타트업, 중소기업은 상대적으로 기회가 적다. 따라서 중소기업이 강점을 살리는 적합한 기념일을 선택한다면 성장에 있어서 큰 원동력이 될 수 있다.
결국 데이 마케팅의 성패는 소비자가 얼마나 구매의 필요성을 느끼고 기념일의 취지에 공감하느냐에 달려 있다. 데이 마케팅은 단순히 소비를 자극하는 상술에 머무를 것이 아니라 사회적 가치와 의미를 공유할 수 있는 방향으로 발전해야 한다. 기업은 판매 중심의 이벤트를 넘어 진정성 있는 기념일 문화를 조성해야 하며, 소비자 또한 유행에 휩쓸리기보다 그날의 본래 의미를 되새길 필요가 있다. 빼빼로를 직접 만드는 법을 알려주는 영상이 조회수 100만 회를 돌파한 것은 단순한 제품 구매를 넘어 스스로 만들어 즐기는 주체적 소비문화가 확산되고 있음을 보여준다. 단순한 ‘소비의 날’이 아니라 ‘마음을 나누는 날’로 자리 잡을 때 진정한 기념일 문화가 완성될 것이다.
Many firms now link discounts to “special days”—novel holidays/events not historically associated with promotions (e.g., Pi Day). Using a field study and laboratory studies, we explore consumers’ responses to special day-themed sales promotions. Specifically, we demonstrate that consumers respond more favorably to a discount celebrating a special day compared to the same discount with no link to the special day. Further, we show that consumers’ increased intentions to use special day-themed discounts are driven by their perceptions of the marketer’s creativity (both the originality and appropriateness dimensions) through a marketplace metacognition process. Thus, when a given special day-themed discount becomes commonplace in the marketplace (i.e., originality is low) or when there is low fit between the firm and special day (i.e., appropriateness is low), special day-themed promotions are no more effective than more traditional types of one-day sales. Finally, we develop a typology of special day-themed sales promotions and offer avenues for future research on how consumers respond to such promotional efforts.
Wisdom has long been suggested as a desired goal of development (see e.g. Clayton and Birren, 1980; Erikson, 1959; Hall, 1922; Staudinger and Baltes, 1994). Questions concerning the empirical investigation of wisdom and its ontogeny, however, are largely still open. It is suggested that besides person characteristics, certain types of experience may facilitate wisdom-related performance. A sample of clinical psychologists (n=36) and highly educated control professionals (n=54) ranging in age from 25 to 82 years responded verbally to two wisdom-related tasks involving life planning and completed a psychometric battery of intelligence and personality measures. Three primary findings were obtained. First, training and practice in clinical psychology was the strongest predictor of wisdom-related performance (26%) and, in addition, showed some overlap with personality variables in this predictive relationship. Second, 14% of the variance in wisdom-related performance was accounted for by standard psychometric measures of personality and intelligence. Personality variables were stronger predictors than variables of intelligence. Important personality predictors were Openness to Experience and a middle-range location on the Introversion–Extraversion dimension. Third, wisdom-related performance maintained a sizable degree of measurement independence (uniqueness). Predictive relationships were consistent with research on naive conceptions of wisdom and our own theoretical account of the ontogenesis of wisdom-related performance.
“사전 부검을 (Premortem) 할 수도 있습니다. 사전 부검이란, 일어날지 모르는 사건이 일어났다고 가정한 뒤에 그 사건과 관련된 주변 정보를 구체화하는 것입니다. 즉, 우리가 시간을 앞서가 있다고 가정을 해 보고, 타임머신을 타고 미래에 가서 현재를 되돌아보는 것입니다”
Research conducted in 1989 by Deborah J. Mitchell, of the Wharton School; Jay Russo, of Cornell; and Nancy Pennington, of the University of Colorado, found that prospective hindsight—imagining that an event has already occurred—increases the ability to correctly identify reasons for future outcomes by 30%. We have used prospective hindsight to devise a method called a premortem, which helps project teams identify risks at the outset.
… Although many project teams engage in prelaunch risk analysis, the premortem’s prospective hindsight approach offers benefits that other methods don’t. Indeed, the premortem doesn’t just help teams to identify potential problems early on. It also reduces the kind of damn-the-torpedoes attitude often assumed by people who are overinvested in a project. Moreover, in describing weaknesses that no one else has mentioned, team members feel valued for their intelligence and experience, and others learn from them. The exercise also sensitizes the team to pick up early signs of trouble once the project gets under way. In the end, a premortem may be the best way to circumvent any need for a painful postmortem.
Tested 3 hypotheses concerning people’s predictions of task completion times: (1) people underestimate their own but not others’ completion times, (2) people focus on plan-based scenarios rather than on relevant past experiences while generating their predictions, and (3) people’s attributions diminish the relevance of past experiences. Five studies were conducted with a total of 465 undergraduates. Results support each hypothesis. Ss’ predictions of their completion times were too optimistic for a variety of academic and nonacademic tasks. Think-aloud procedures revealed that Ss focused primarily on future scenarios when predicting their completion times. The optimistic bias was eliminated for Ss instructed to connect relevant past experiences with their predictions. Ss attributed their past prediction failures to external, transient, and specific factors. Observer Ss overestimated others’ completion times and made greater use of relevant past experiences.
“In 1871, the colony of British Columbia agreed to join the new country of Canada on the condition that a transcontinental railway reach the west coast by 1881. In fact, because of the intervention of an economic depression and political changes, the last spike was not driven until 1885, 4 years after the predicted date of completion. Nearly 100 years later, in 1969, the mayor of Montreal proudly announced that the 1976 Olympics would feature a state-of-the-art coliseum covered by the first retractable roof ever built on a stadium. According to mayor Jean Drapeau, the entire Olympic venture would cost $ 120 million and “can no more have a deficit than a man can have a baby” (Colombo, 1987, p. 269). Because of economic problems, strikes, and other construction delays, the stadium roof was not in place until 1989, 13 years after the predicted date of completion—and cost $120 million by itself! Many people consider the Sydney Opera House to be the champion of all planning disasters. According to original estimates in 1957, the opera house would be completed early in 1963 for $7 million. A scaled-down version of the opera house finally opened in 1973 at a cost of $102 million (Hall, 1980).” (pg. 366)
This study provides the first evaluation of a newly engineered type of commitment device—a temptation bundling device. It shows that in the setting explored, where exercise was bundled with tempting audio novels, this new type of commitment device is valued by a significant portion of the population studied. Further, we find that when temptation bundling is imposed on a population, it can increase gym attendance by 51% at low cost when it is initially instituted, although as in most exercise interventions This study provides the first evaluation of a newly engineered type of commitment device—a temptation bundling device. It shows that in the setting explored, where exercise was bundled with tempting audio novels, this new type of commitment device is valued by a significant portion of the population studied. Further, we find that when temptation bundling is imposed on a population, it can increase gym attendance by 51% at low cost when it is initially instituted, although as in most exercise interventions.
Rapid development and adoption of AI, machine learning, and natural language processing applications challenge managers and policy makers to harness these transformative technologies. In this context, the authors provide evidence of a novel “word-of-machine” effect, the phenomenon by which utilitarian/hedonic attribute trade-offs determine preference for, or resistance to, AI-based recommendations compared with traditional word of mouth, or human-based recommendations. The word-of-machine effect stems from a lay belief that AI recommenders are more competent than human recommenders in the utilitarian realm and less competent than human recommenders in the hedonic realm. As a consequence, importance or salience of utilitarian attributes determine preference for AI recommenders over human ones, and importance or salience of hedonic attributes determine resistance to AI recommenders over human ones (Studies 1–4). The word-of machine effect is robust to attribute complexity, number of options considered, and transaction costs. The word-of-machine effect reverses for utilitarian goals if a recommendation needs matching to a person’s unique preferences (Study 5) and is eliminated in the case of human–AI hybrid decision making (i.e., augmented rather than artificial intelligence; Study 6). An intervention based on the consider-the-opposite protocol attenuates the word-of-machine effect (Studies 7a–b).
“We assessed choice on the basis of the proportion of participants who decided to chat with the human versus AI Realtor by using a logistic regression with goal, matching, and their two-way interaction as independent variables (all contrast coded) and choice (0 = human, 1 = AI) as a dependent variable. We found significant effects of goal (B = 1.75, Wald = 95.70, 1 d.f., p < .000) and matching (B = .54, Wald = 24.30, 1 d.f., p < .000). More importantly, goal interacted with matching (B = .25, Wald = 5.33, 1 d.f., p = .021). Results in the control condition (when unique preference matching was not salient) replicated prior results: in the case of an activated utilitarian goal, a greater proportion of participants chose the AI Realtor (76.8%) over the human Realtor (23.2%;z = 8.91, p < .001), and when a hedonic goal was activated, a lower proportion of participants chose the AI (18.8%) over the human Realtor (81.2%;z = 10.35, p < .001). However, making unique preference matching salient reversed the word-of-machine effect in the case of an activated utilitarian goal: choice of the AI Realtor decreased to 40.3% (from 76.8% in the control; z = 6.17, p < .001). That is, making unique preference matching salient turned preference for the AI Realtor into resistance despite the activated utilitarian goal, with most participants choosing the human over the AI Realtor. In the case of an activated hedonic goal, making unique preference matching salient further strengthened participants’ choice of the human Realtor, which increased to 88.5% from 81.2% in the control, although the effect was marginal, possibly due to a ceiling effect (z = 1.66, p = .097).
Overall, whereas the word-of-machine effect replicated in the control condition when unique preference matching was salient, participants preferred the human Realtor over the AI recommender both in the hedonic goal conditions (human = 88.5%,AI = 11.5%;z = 12.40, p < .001) and in the utilitarian goal conditions (human =59.7%,AI = 40.3%;z = 3.24, p = .001; Figure 3), corroborating the notion that people view AI as unfit to perform the task of matching a recommendation to one’s unique preferences.
These results show that preference matching is a boundary condition of the word-of-machine effect, which reversed in the case of a utilitarian goal when people had a salient goal to get recommendations matched to their unique preferences and needs. The next study tests another boundary condition.” (pp. 99-100)
Artificial intelligence (AI) helps companies offer important benefits to consumers, such as health monitoring with wearable devices, advice with recommender systems, peace of mind with smart household products, and convenience with voice-activated virtual assistants. However, although AI can be seen as a neutral tool to be evaluated on efficiency and accuracy, this approach does not consider the social and individual challenges that can occur when AI is deployed. This research aims to bridge these two perspectives: on one side, the authors acknowledge the value that embedding AI technology into products and services can provide to consumers. On the other side, the authors build on and integrate sociological and psychological scholarship to examine some of the costs consumers experience in their interactions with AI. In doing so, the authors identify four types of consumer experiences with AI: (1) data capture, (2) classification, (3) delegation, and (4) social. This approach allows the authors to discuss policy and managerial avenues to address the ways in which consumers may fail to experience value in organizations’ investments into AI and to lay out an agenda for future research.
This article looks at the trade-offs that gift givers and gift receivers make between desirability and feasibility using construal level theory as a framework. Focusing on the asymmetric distance from a gift that exists within giver-receiver dyads, the authors propose that, unlike receivers, givers construe gifts abstractly and therefore weight desirability attributes more than feasibility attributes. Support for this proposition emerges in studies examining giver and receiver mind-sets, as well as giver and receiver evaluations of gifts. Furthermore, givers do not choose gifts that maximize receiver happiness or other relationship goals even though givers believe they are doing so. Finally, the authors demonstrate that while givers are sensitive to their distance from the receiver, receivers are not sensitive to this distance.
We recruited 425 US-based participants from Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk. However, 365 were left after removing those who clicked to enter but did not finish the study, failed the IMC, or incorrectly answered whether they were in the giver or receiver condition. Participants were divided into a 2 (participant role: giver vs. receiver) X 2 (perspective: control vs. own preference) between-subjects design. First, participants imagined a specific friend and wrote down that friend’s initials. Then they imagined either giving that friend a gift or receiving a gift from that friend for a birthday occasion. Each participant was asked to imagine a choice between a highly feasible gift (a photo-editing program with few features that was easy to use) and a highly desirable gift (a high-quality photo-editing program that was hard to learn) and to give their relative preference on a 1–7 bipolar scale anchored at “prefer Gift A” and “prefer Gift B,” where Gift B was the high-desirability option. Right before answering, half of the participants were asked to take a moment to think about which software they would prefer for themselves.
Manufacturers are increasingly producing and promoting sustainable products (i.e., products that have a positive social and/or environmental impact). However, relatively little is known about how product sustainability affects consumers’ preferences. The authors propose that sustainability may not always be an asset, even if most consumers care about social and environmental issues. The degree to which sustainability enhances preference depends on the type of benefit consumers most value for the product category in question. In this research, the authors demonstrate that consumers associate higher product ethicality with gentleness-related attributes and lower product ethicality with strength-related attributes. As a consequence of these associations, the positive effect of product sustainability on consumer preferences is reduced when strength-related attributes are valued, sometimes even resulting in preferences for less sustainable product alternatives (i.e., the “sustainability liability”). Conversely, when gentleness-related attributes are valued, sustainability enhances preference. In addition, the authors show that the potential negative impact of sustainability on product preferences can be attenuated using explicit cues about product strength.
Background Environmentally friendly products are extensively studied and the effect of purchase context on consumers’ preferences for them has been much investigated. However, the effect of product design has been little discussed. Methods In the present work, we conducted two experiments to test whether package color, one component of product design, moderates the effect of purchase context on consumers’ preferences for environmentally friendly products, and obtained two findings. Result First, when purchase context is conspicuous, consumers’ preferences for environmentally friendly products increase. Second, product design moderates the effect of purchase context; when the package color is environmentally friendly (blue), consumers’ preferences for environmentally friendly products increase as the purchase context becomes conspicuous. However, preferences do not increase when the package color is not environmentally friendly (magenta). Conclusions We discuss the academic contribution and managerial implications of our findings to provide insights into product designers as well as marketing practitioners.
“초미세먼지가 증가하면 앱 사용시간은 전반적으로 감소하는데, 휴대폰으로 돈을 버는 캐시 앱 (cash app) 사용 시간은 증가하는 것으로 나타납니다. 공기가 나빠지면 실내에 있는 시간이 늘어나고 시간이 많다고 착각하면서 단위 시간의 금전적 가치를 낮게 계산하기 때문에, 캐시 앱을 평소보다 오래 사용하는 것 같습니다.”
High levels of air pollution in China may contribute to the urban population’s reported low level of happiness 1–3 . To test this claim, we have constructed a daily city-level expressed happiness metric based on the sentiment in the contents of 210 million geotagged tweets on the Chinese largest microblog platform Sina Weibo 4–6 , and studied its dynamics relative to daily local air quality index and PM 2.5 concentrations (fine particulate matter with diameters equal or smaller than 2.5 μm, the most prominent air pollutant in Chinese cities). Using daily data for 144 Chinese cities in 2014, we document that, on average, a one standard deviation increase in the PM 2.5 concentration (or Air Quality Index) is associated with a 0.043 (or 0.046) standard deviation decrease in the happiness index. People suffer more on weekends, holidays and days with extreme weather conditions. The expressed happiness of women and the residents of both the cleanest and dirtiest cities are more sensitive to air pollution. Social media data provides real-time feedback for China’s government about rising quality of life concerns.
Marketing decision support systems (MDSS) incorporate both internal and external data in performing analytics to improve business effectiveness. Weather data have long been considered a crucial external data input in practitioners’ marketing strategy; however, academic research on how weather conditions affect consumer behaviors has been limited. To fill this gap, this research investigates how weather parameters, including sunlight, temperature, and air quality, can be incorporated into MDSS to predict consumers’ variety-seeking in their purchases using public weather data and supermarket panel data for five typical retail products. Our analyses show that weather conditions are associated with greater variety-seeking behavior. The results afford insights into how to exploit weather data for data analytics and employ weather targeting strategies to save promotional expenses and increase profitability.
