Marketing Bites March 2022

Every month I compile recent insights in marketing. In the following you find my discoveries from March 2022.

They may help you in crafting more effective marketing strategies. I hope you find them as interesting and useful as I do.

Driving online purchases with vicarious touch

Consumers are increasingly making purchases online. The pandemic has accelerated this trend. However, it comes with a considerable disadvantage for brands. Consumers are unable touch products in virtual retail spaces.

In the light of this, a group of researchers has now investigated vicarious touch as a potential solution to this problem. It refers to the observation of a hand in physical contact with a product in a virtual environment.

A series of studies show that digital pictures and videos of hands touching a given product create a sense of psychological ownership in the minds of consumers. This in turn results in more likes on social media as well as increases in product evaluations and purchase intentions in digital retail spaces.

Webb et al. (2022): Observing Product Touch: The Vicarious Haptic Effect in Digital Marketing and Virtual Reality, Journal of Marketing Research.

Effective brand co-appearance in ads

The advertising environment is increasingly competitive, and the co-appearance of branded products in media content is part of a growing trend.

In the light of this, an investigation analyzed how advertisements involving co-appearance of two separate brands affect short and long term brand memory.

The results show co-appearance of two brands from different product categories enhances short term brand memory. This is because such combinations appear more unusual and are more attention grabbing.

By contrast, co-appearance of two brands from the same product categories enhance long term brand memory. This is because brands of the same product category have stronger associations between each other and are thus easier to remember over time.

Chan (2022): Consumer Recall and Recognition Of Co-Appearing Brands in TV Media, Journal of Advertising Research.

How consumers seek authenticity

The concept of authenticity has considerably been gaining interest in marketing practice in recent years.

Marketing researchers now identified three ways in which consumers seek authenticity:

1. Personal authenticity seeking
2. True authenticity seeking
3. Iconic authenticity seeking

Personal authenticity seeking refers to consumers‘ search for market offerings they perceive to be in line with their true selves and intrinsic motivations.

True authenticity seeking refers to consumers’ search for market offerings they perceive to correspond to the actual state of affairs in terms of keeping it real, acting in a genuine way and being truthful.

Iconic authenticity seeking refers to consumers’ search for market offerings they perceive as resembling socially determined standards. Iconic is defined as “resembling an icon,” which is something “widely recognized and well- established”.

By addressing one or more of these dimensions, brands can build an authentic brand image.

Bartsch et al. (2022): Consumer authenticity seeking: conceptualization, measurement, and contingent effects, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.

How sold out options boost sales

Online stores often contain both sold out options and available options.

This raises an important question: How do sold out options influence sales?

Research implies that they can have both positive and negative effects on decision making.

On the one hand, they signal overall quality of products which drives sales. On the other hand, they evoke psychological reactance, as sold out options signal a lack of freedom in choice. This is likely to impede sales.

In the light of this, a series of studies now found that intermediate percentages of sold-out options drive sales of online stores, whereas high percentages of sold-out options undermine sales.

As such this research implies that brands can improve their overall sales performance, by featuring intermediate percentages of sold-out options in their online stores.

Tian et al. (2022): A good way to boost sales? Effects of the proportion of sold-out options on purchase behavior, International Journal of Research in Marketing.

How to engage with opposing viewpoints

We regularly find ourselves confronted with opposing viewpoints of others.

But how should we respond to them?

Recent research shows that we should show a high willingness to thoughtfully engage with opposing viewpoints.

This way people will perceive us as more desirable partners for future collaboration.

In order to express a high willingness to engage with opposing viewpoints, we should follow four crucial steps.

1. We should use positive statements rather than negations.
2. We should explicitly acknowledge understanding.
3. We should find points of agreement.
4. We should apply hedges such as “somewhat“ or “might“ to soften claims.

Yeomans (2019): Conversational receptiveness: Improving engagement with opposing views, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.