nep-mkt New Economics Papers
on Marketing
Issue of 2013‒04‒27
seven papers chosen by
Joao Carlos Correia Leitao
University of Beira Interior and Technical University of Lisbon

  1. Advertising-induced Embarrassment By Puntoni, S.; Hooge, I.E. de; Verbeke, W.J.M.I.
  2. Exploring mobile pricing strategies and innovations in the Thai mobile communications market By Srinuan, Chalita; Srinuan, Pratompong; Bohlin, Erik
  3. Diagnostiquer la proximité perçue en vente directe de produits alimentaires By Catherine Herault; Aurelie Merle; Anne-Hélène Prigent-Simonin
  4. Demand effects of consumers’ stated and revealed preferences By Engström, Per; Forsell, Eskil
  5. On co-opetition between mobile network operators: Why and how competitors cooperate By Markendahl, Jan; Mölleryd, Bengt G.
  6. An analysis of Google entry and positioning in Unified Communications for the business customers market By Vialle, Pierr
  7. Mobile service platform competition By Nikou, Shahrokh; Bouwman, Harry

  1. By: Puntoni, S.; Hooge, I.E. de; Verbeke, W.J.M.I.
    Abstract: Consumer embarrassment is an important concern for marketers. Yet, little is knownabout embarrassment in passive situations like advertising viewing. The authors investigate when and why consumers experience embarrassment as a result of exposure to socially sensitive advertisements. The theory distinguishes between viewing potentially embarrassing ads together with an audience that shares the social identity targeted by the message and viewing the same ads together with an audience that does not share the targeted social identity. Four studies provide support for the theory, demonstrating that advertising targeting and social context jointly determine feelings of embarrassment and advertising effectiveness.
    Keywords: advertising;social identity;embarrassment;self-conscious emotions
    Date: 2013–04–15
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:eureri:1765039630&r=mkt
  2. By: Srinuan, Chalita; Srinuan, Pratompong; Bohlin, Erik
    Abstract: This paper aims to explore the price plans offered by Thai mobile operators and analyse the role of demand characteristics in the development of new price plans. The paper also shows how demand affects a firm's degree of innovativeness in terms of the number of new price plans. The empirical qualitative analysis is based on an original data set from several secondary data sources and includes all the price plans offered in the history of the Thai mobile communications market between 2002 and 2010. The results show that mobile operators have introduced several innovative price plans to attract and retain their consumers. Although a greater number of price plans can increase competition among operators, some have complex combinations that may lead to confusion for consumers. A price comparison programme should therefore be implemented by the telecom regulator to ensure that consumers receive correct and complete information about the price plans. Most studies, by far, have not extensively discussed this mobile communications market in detail and the effect of innovation on competition between firms in the mobile communications industry, in particular the development of innovation in developing countries. --
    Keywords: pricing strategies,mobile communications market,innovation,Thailand
    Date: 2012
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:itsb12:72522&r=mkt
  3. By: Catherine Herault (MOISA - Marchés, Organisations, Institutions et Stratégies d'Acteurs - Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement [CIRAD] : UMR99 - Institut de recherche pour le développement [IRD] - IAMM - Institut national de la recherche agronomique (INRA) : UR1110); Aurelie Merle (MKT - Marketing - Grenoble École de Management (GEM)); Anne-Hélène Prigent-Simonin (CoActis - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Etienne : EA4161)
    Abstract: Dans le prolongement de l'éditorial de Décisions Marketing : " La proximité est-elle une nouvelle mode du marketing ? ", cet article interroge la pertinence managériale du concept de proximité en vente directe de produits alimentaires. Via des études empiriques menées dans trois circuits - l'AMAP, le Point de Vente Collectif et le marché - nous montrons qu'il est pertinent de diagnostiquer la proximité perçue par les consommateurs car elle influence positivement la confiance à l'égard des circuits étudiés et permet de les discriminer. Une fois l'intérêt du concept démontré, des recommandations sont formulées autour de deux interrogations : quels types de proximité encourager et comment développer la proximité perçue en vente directe.
    Keywords: proximité, vente directe, circuits courts alimentaires, marketing agroalimentaire, lien producteur-consommateur.
    Date: 2013–04–18
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:gemwpa:hal-00815506&r=mkt
  4. By: Engström, Per (Department of Economics); Forsell, Eskil (Department of Economics)
    Abstract: Knowledge of how consumers react to different quality signals is fundamental for understanding how markets work. We study the online market- place for Android apps where we compare the causal effects on demand from two quality related signals; other consumers' stated and revealed preferences toward an app. Our main result is that consumers are much more responsive to other consumers' revealed preferences, compared to others' stated preferences. A 10 percentile increase in displayed average rating only increases downloads by about 3 percent, while a 10 percentile increase in displayed number of downloads increases downloads by about 20 percent.
    Keywords: peer effects; observational Learning; stated preferences; revealed preferences; eWOM; Google play; Android apps; regression discontinuity design; instrumental variable analysis
    JEL: C21 C26 D83 M31
    Date: 2013–04–19
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2013_006&r=mkt
  5. By: Markendahl, Jan; Mölleryd, Bengt G.
    Abstract: This paper address issues about cooperation among and competition between mobile network operators. The starting point is to examine why and how operators share infrastructure for mobile communication services, so called network sharing. The paper analyzes drivers, benefits and obstacles of network cooperation. We also analyze how roles and responsibilities are distributed for the network related functions while concurrently operators compete for customers and have separate functionality for service provisioning, marketing, customer relation management, charging and billing. Next, we analyze how network sharing as such and strategies for network sharing have changed in Sweden from the year 2000 when the 3G licenses were awarded and up to the year 2010. Moreover, network sharing in Sweden is compared with India where the market situation is different, as the number of operators is four times more and the cooperation is organized in another way, with separate tower companies, which provides base stations sites where operators are tenants. Finally, we compare the network sharing cases with how mobile operators organize cooperation for mobile payments services. From our empirical data we can identify four different types of co-opetition among mobile operators. 1. A co-operative spirit with focus on working practices and/or principles that will facilitate the common use of resources or solutions. 2. Infrastructure cooperation through a third party, e.g. a tower company or a SMS aggregator with the main objective to reduce costs or to provide a common solution. The operators have agreements with a third party but not with each other. 3. Infrastructure cooperation through a joint venture that is responsible for network deployment and operation. The driver is to achieve cost-savings. The operators have their own service provisioning, billing, customer relations management and compete for end-users. 4. Service and infrastructure cooperation through a joint venture that is fully responsible for providing the end-user service, in our case mobile payments. The main driver is to offer a payment solution common for all operators in order to complement or compete with solutions provided by banks or payment service providers. --
    Date: 2012
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:itsb12:72491&r=mkt
  6. By: Vialle, Pierr
    Abstract: In this paper, we focus on the telecommunications/computing convergence in business market. While the telecommunications/audio-visual convergence has been extensively analysed from an academic perspective, the telecommunications/computing convergence has drawn less attention. This is also the case in general of the business market as opposed to the consumer market. The business communications market has been deeply transformed by technological and product convergence, due to the progressive substitution of traditional TDM-based voice products and services by ToIP (Telephony over IP) based products and services. The adoption of IP and the management of voice applications in the same way as data application has given rise to convergence offerings under the name of Unified Communications, and allowed the entry of data communications vendors, such as Cisco, in a market initially dominated by TDM-based product vendors. The increasing dissociation between hardware and software and the virtualisation of services have induced the entry of new players relying on their initial position in software and web services, among which Microsoft and Google. Firstly, we present the Unified Communications market and products. Secondly, we analyse how Google's has entered this market and built its product portfolio through acquisitions, in order to identify the dimensions of line extensions and the importance of extensions. Thirdly, it leads us to discuss this strategy as an extension of its two-sided market strategy. This strategy is different from its traditional two-sided market strategy, as it aims at generating other revenues than only advertising. It is also not really a two-sided market, but rather a product versioning relying on direct network externalities. This study is based on documentary research, in particular the systematic analysis of Google's press releases, and on information collected from interviews with market incumbents. --
    Keywords: Convergence,resources,two-sided market,unified communications,business,communications,Google
    Date: 2012
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:itsb12:72474&r=mkt
  7. By: Nikou, Shahrokh; Bouwman, Harry
    Abstract: Mobile service platforms are becoming particularly important as play a significant role in consumers' decisions to accept, adopt and use mobile services and applications. Literature on mobile service platforms focuses mainly on strategic issues in managing multi-sided platforms and economic issues of two sided markets, still literature is highly conceptual and empirical research on the awareness and preferences of consumers is lacking. Yet, there is a lack of empirical research on platforms developed by mobile network operators. By making use of conjoint analysis, 62 Finnish respondents participated in an empirical study. The conjoint analysis results show that application costs and type of operating system are the most important criteria to make a decision and the provider of the service platform is not of the concern. However, consumers value issues such as security and privacy arrangement which are often guaranteed by network operators. Our findings have three suggestions to mobile network operators: (1), they settle for becoming a bit-pipe provider, (2), open their platforms, and (3), let other market competitors such as Apple, Google, Facebook be responsible for providing mobile services and applications. --
    Keywords: Mobile Service Platforms,Device Manufacturers,Service Provide-Centric Platform,Operator-Centric Platform,Application Cost
    Date: 2012
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:itsb12:72515&r=mkt

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