In vielen Fällen unternehmen Firmen grosse Anstrengungen, um ihre Marken durch Werbekampagnen, prominente Testimonials und wohltätige Engagements aufzubauen und zu stärken und dadurch ihre Kunden intensiver an die Marke zu binden. Diese Investitionen können jedoch vergebens sein, da "a million dollar advertising campaign can be completely undermined by the inability or indifferent attitude of a minimumwage frontline service help" (Ostrom et al. 2005, S. 193). Die Mitarbeiter, die in ihrer täglichen Arbeit regelmässig mit Kunden interagieren, tragen demzufolge einen wesentlichen Teil zur Erfüllung des Markenversprechens bei und personifizieren aus der Sicht der Kunden oftmals die Marke (vgl. u. a. Henkel et al. 2007; Kernstock/Brexendorf 2006; Bendapudi/Bendapudi 2005; Burmann/Zeplin 2005). So betont beispielsweise Berry (2000), dass "service performers are a powerful medium for building brand meaning and equity. Their actions with customers transform brand vision to brand reality - for better or worse. (…) With their on-the-job performances, service providers turn a marketer-articulated brand into a customer-experienced brand" (S. 135). Wenn das Verhalten eines Mitarbeiters nicht dem angestrebten Markenversprechen entspricht, werden die Kunden enttäuscht sein und unter Umständen sogar die Marke wechseln (vgl. Mitchell 2002, S. 98 ff.). Ein Mitarbeiter, der das Markenversprechen jedoch einlöst, wird das positive Bild einer Marke verstärken und kann dadurch die Markenbindung des Kunden intensivieren.
Service researchers have postulated that ads have an important "second" audience, namely an organization's own service employees. Specifically, ads may depict how employees deliver on the service promise, thereby communicating to other
service employees what kind of behaviors they are expected to perform. This research examines when and to what extent service employees are motivated to live up to such ad models. Two experiments at a Swiss bank demonstrate that the effectiveness of an ad model is determined not only by the challenge presented by the model's behavior but also by an employee's implicit beliefs. Employees who believe that their abilities are fixed (i.e., entity-focused) are more motivated to imitate an ad model if the model's behavior is moderately challenging rather than strongly challenging. In contrast, employees
who believe that their abilities are malleable (i.e., incremental-focused) are not affected by how challenging the model's behavior is. Moreover, the reactions of entity-focused employees to challenging ads may be improved by encouraging them to mentally simulate the process they need to go through to achieve a similar performance as the model.
This research examines how consumers update their brand personality impressions and brand attitudes after interacting with one of the brand's employees. Drawing on stereotyping theory, the author develops a framework that proposes that the impact of an employee's behavior depends on how the employee is categorized. When the employee is considered primarily as an exemplar of the brand's workforce, his or her behavior is generalized more strongly to the brand. When, however, the employee is judged as a relatively unique individual (i.e., when the employee is subtyped), the behavior is not transferred to the brand to the full extent. The results of three studies provide converging evidence and show that the degree to which consumers subtype an employee is determined by the amount of information they possess about the employee, the extent to which they depend on the employee, and their motivation to form an accurate impression. The findings have direct implications for marketers interested in understanding how employees affect the brands they represent.
This research examines how variations in a product display affect consumers’ choice of more novel product alternatives. We integrate prior work on learning behavior and assortment presentation and propose that an unstructured display format (i.e., via a random arrangement of the product assortment or by presenting familiar products in the non-foveal area of search) provokes greater exploratory search behavior of consumers which increases their (objective) product knowledge and makes them ultimately more likely to choose a novel product alternative. We provide large-scale evidence for this theorizing across various field and lab settings. These findings have important implications for research on exploratory product search and the effective design of product assortments―from both a retail and consumer welfare perspective.
Humans tend to own material objects that relate to certain self-defining meanings. They wear clothes that suit their personalities. They own furniture that embodies their lifestyles. They keep souvenirs of vacations they like to remember, and they attach to pictures of moments and people that compose essential parts of their selves. A vast amount of research has dealt with this self-extending nature of possessions. Little theoretical knowledge, however, exists about the processes by which objects do acquire their self-extension function.
The specific aim of this research project is to develop a framework that relates the graspability and physical distance of an object to its self-extending symbolized meaning. Five experimental studies support the presumption that physical proximity to a symbolic object reduces subjects' perceived distance to the object's meaning and in turn increases subjects' perceived self-extension towards the object's meaning. Furthermore, findings indicate that this affiliation positively transfers into subjects' behavior towards the symbolized meaning. This process is moderated by the strength of the symbolic connection between the object and its meaning.
Overall, the results support the notion that the physical graspability of economic goods exerts an essential self-defining use to consumers and a relevant impact on their behavior. This notion is particularly emphasized against a prevailing tendency of research and management to focus on immaterial components and utilities of economic offerings. Regarding management, this project hence promotes an object-dominant logic that accentuates the relevance of the graspability of products and services. Concerning consumer theory, this project proposes a revised understanding of the extended self concept that accounts for the graspability of possessions.
