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Conference Sessions - Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of ...

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FD12 MARKETING SCIENCE CONFERENCE – 2011<br />

4 - Identifying the Presence and Cause <strong>of</strong> Fashion Cycles in the Choice<br />

<strong>of</strong> Given Names<br />

Hema Yoganarasimhan, <strong>Graduate</strong> <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong> Management, UC Davis,<br />

3204 Gallagher Hall, Davis, 95616, United States <strong>of</strong> America,<br />

hyoganarasimhan@ucdavis.edu<br />

Fashion denotes the changing tastes in conspicuously consumed products and<br />

choices. There are two classic, but competing theories <strong>of</strong> fashion – (1) Veblen’s theory<br />

<strong>of</strong> fashion as a signal <strong>of</strong> wealth, and (2) Bourdieu’s theory <strong>of</strong> fashion as a signal <strong>of</strong><br />

cultural capital. Theoretically, both theories can give rise to fashion cycles, and there<br />

is considerable debate in the literature as to whether fashions are driven by<br />

consumers’ desire to signal wealth or by their need to signal cultural capital.<br />

However, there exists no systematic empirical investigation <strong>of</strong> the phenomenon <strong>of</strong><br />

fashion. So far, even the existence <strong>of</strong> fashion cycles hasn’t been empirically<br />

established. In this paper, we bridge this significant gap in the literature. We examine<br />

the presence and cause <strong>of</strong> fashion cycles in the choice <strong>of</strong> given names. Using a<br />

rigorous set <strong>of</strong> panel unit root tests, we first empirically establish the existence <strong>of</strong><br />

fashion cycles in the choice <strong>of</strong> given names. Second, by exploiting state-level<br />

variation in measures <strong>of</strong> economic and cultural capital, we test the validity <strong>of</strong> the two<br />

competing theories <strong>of</strong> fashion. Our result support Bourdieu’s cultural capital theory.<br />

■ FD12<br />

Champions Center II<br />

Models <strong>of</strong> Word <strong>of</strong> Mouth Processes<br />

Contributed Session<br />

Ingmar Nolte, Assistant Pr<strong>of</strong>essor, Warwick Business <strong>School</strong>, Gibbet Hill<br />

Road, Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom, Ingmar.Nolte@wbs.ac.uk<br />

1 - Modeling Promotional Word-<strong>of</strong>-mouth<br />

Backhun Lee, PhD Candidate, KAIST Business <strong>School</strong>, 87 Hqeiro<br />

Dongdaemoon-Gu, Seoul, 130-722, Korea, Republic <strong>of</strong>,<br />

normalsf@business.kaist.ac.kr, Minhi Hahn<br />

Internet communication websites allow consumers to share usage experiences and<br />

consumer product reviews. They promote word-<strong>of</strong>-mouth (WOM) activities <strong>of</strong><br />

consumers overcoming geographic boundaries. However, firms may take advantage <strong>of</strong><br />

the anonymity <strong>of</strong> the internet to disguise their promotion as consumer reviews. Even<br />

though most marketers and consumers perceive this “promotional” WOM, there are<br />

few studies regarding this issue. Mayzlin (2006) studied this phenomenon based on a<br />

game theory and found interesting results. Yet, there is no empirical evidence <strong>of</strong><br />

promotional WOM so far. Our study contributes to the literature as the first empirical<br />

analysis to study promotional WOM and its effects. We collected online user review<br />

data from three different movie review websites for 732 movies released in South<br />

Korea during a 46-month period. The final data set includes about 2,600,000 user<br />

reviews and 950,000 user IDs for each <strong>of</strong> websites. Individual consumers post a<br />

review after they purchase a product. The valence <strong>of</strong> review depends on the product<br />

quality, consumer preference, and random errors. At the aggregate level, the volume<br />

<strong>of</strong> WOM is the number <strong>of</strong> individual reviews. The valence <strong>of</strong> WOM is the average <strong>of</strong><br />

valences <strong>of</strong> all reviews. Therefore, the volume depends on the previous product sales<br />

and the valence depends on the product quality. On the other hand, the firms<br />

generate promotional WOM to increase both a volume and a valence <strong>of</strong> online WOM<br />

arbitrarily. Therefore the volume and valence <strong>of</strong> online WOM shares correlated error<br />

terms due to promotional WOM. We develop a mathematical model based on<br />

consumer behavior. The estimated results support our model and existence <strong>of</strong><br />

promotional WOM. The effects <strong>of</strong> actual WOM and promotional WOM on product<br />

sales are investigated.<br />

2 - Where Do the <strong>Jones</strong>es Go on Vacation? Social Comparison and the<br />

Weighting <strong>of</strong> Information<br />

Ingmar Nolte, Assistant Pr<strong>of</strong>essor, Warwick Business <strong>School</strong>,<br />

Gibbet Hill Road, Coventry, CV4 7AL, United Kingdom,<br />

Ingmar.Nolte@wbs.ac.uk, Sandra Nolte, Leif Brandes<br />

Does social distance between senders and receivers <strong>of</strong> information impact social<br />

learning? This paper aims to answer this question empirically with data on hotel<br />

bookings and customer reviews. Specifically, we analyze the effect <strong>of</strong> group<br />

membership differences between reviewers and customers on customers’ preferences<br />

for hotels. The data come from the largest travel and holiday booking portal on the<br />

web for German speaking countries, and include five years <strong>of</strong> hotel bookings. Our<br />

empirical analysis uses two distinctive features <strong>of</strong> the data. First, customer reviews<br />

include information on whether the reviewer travelled as single, couple, family, or<br />

with friends. This classifies reviewers into categories. Second, the data includes full<br />

information on each booking, including timestamp, price, travel time, destination,<br />

and travelers’ characteristics. This allows us to classify bookers into the same<br />

categories, and to reconstruct a hotel’s state <strong>of</strong> reviews for the time <strong>of</strong> each booking.<br />

We use bookers’ willingness to spend to measure hotel preference. Our findings are<br />

tw<strong>of</strong>old. First, we show a positive link between reviewer ratings and customers’<br />

willingness to spend. This result extends previous literature on customer reviews and<br />

aggregate product sales. Second, customers from one group weight information from<br />

other groups’ reviewers differently leading to asymmetric effects across groups. We<br />

contribute to the literature on social distance and opinion formation in two ways:<br />

despite the existence <strong>of</strong> a wide range <strong>of</strong> theoretical models, and a number <strong>of</strong><br />

experimental studies, this is the first empirical evidence based on microlevel data.<br />

Moreover, on the basis <strong>of</strong> the documented asymmetry in information weighting we<br />

conclude that further theoretical development is required.<br />

68<br />

■ FD13<br />

Champions Center III<br />

Network Effects<br />

Contributed Session<br />

Chair: Harikesh Nair, Associate Pr<strong>of</strong>essor, Stanford University,<br />

518 Memorial Way, Stanford, CA, 94305, Uganda,<br />

harikesh.nair@stanford.edu<br />

1 - Online Consumer-to-consumer Communication and<br />

Marketing Strategy<br />

Ganesh Iyer, University <strong>of</strong> California-Berkeley, Haas <strong>School</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />

Business, Berkeley, CA, 94720, United States <strong>of</strong> America,<br />

giyer@haas.berkeley.edu, Zsolt Katona<br />

We investigate consumers’ incentives to communicate with their peers in the context<br />

<strong>of</strong> the emergence <strong>of</strong> Internet social media technologies. In particular, we examine the<br />

effects <strong>of</strong> different types <strong>of</strong> communication cost structures through which new<br />

technologies change the way consumers send - potentially product related -<br />

messages. These new social networking technologies make it possible to send the<br />

same message to many receivers for the same fixed cost and for negligible (<strong>of</strong>ten<br />

zero) marginal cost. This is distinct from traditional word-<strong>of</strong>-mouth which involves<br />

additional marginal cost for each intended recipient. Our results show that the new<br />

social networking technologies may reduce incentives <strong>of</strong> some individuals to send<br />

messages leading to less diverse communication. The number <strong>of</strong> senders may shrink<br />

but each sender may potentially send messages to the entire network <strong>of</strong> receivers.<br />

Our results also suggest that the online social communication phenomenon could<br />

lead to reduced consumer heterogeneity if the source <strong>of</strong> messages is a small<br />

homogeneous group. We also study the interaction <strong>of</strong> the decision to send messages<br />

and the choice <strong>of</strong> quality.<br />

2 - Identifying High Value Customers in a Network: Individual<br />

Characteristics Versus Social Influence<br />

Sang-Uk Jung, Doctoral Candidate, University <strong>of</strong> Iowa, 108 Pappajohn<br />

Business Building, Iowa City, IA, 52242, United States <strong>of</strong> America,<br />

sanguk-jung@uiowa.edu, Qin Zhang, Gary J. Russell<br />

Firms are interested in identifying customers who generate the highest revenues.<br />

Typically, customers are regarded as isolated individuals whose buying behavior<br />

depends solely on their own characteristics (e.g., previous purchase behavior,<br />

demographics etc.). In a social network setting, however, customer interactions can<br />

play an important role in purchase behavior. Previous work on social networks has<br />

focused most attention on modeling the interaction between individuals and<br />

understanding the positions <strong>of</strong> individuals in a network (e.g., measuring the influence<br />

<strong>of</strong> an individual based on his/her degree <strong>of</strong> network centrality). Little is known about<br />

how network influence directly translates into the benefits to the firm. In this paper,<br />

we argue that it is important to take into account both individual and network effects<br />

when measuring customer value. Drawing upon the statistics literature, we construct<br />

a conditional autoregressive (CAR) spatial model that explicitly shows how these<br />

effects interact in generating firm revenue. We apply our model to a unique userlevel<br />

dataset from a popular online gaming company in Korea. The data contain<br />

information about individual gamer demographics, interaction between gamers,<br />

behavior within the game environment, and revenues generated by each individual.<br />

Our model outperforms benchmark models in predicting revenues that gamers<br />

generate. It also allows us to quantify the relative impact <strong>of</strong> individual and network<br />

effects on revenues. We show that individuals who are most influential in a network<br />

sense may not necessarily be individuals who have the highest customer value.<br />

Implications <strong>of</strong> the model for targeted marketing policies are discussed.<br />

3 - Brand Value and Indirect Network Effects in a Two-sided Platform<br />

Yutec Sun, University <strong>of</strong> Toronto, 105 St. George St, Toronto, ON,<br />

M4V 1W1, Canada, yutec.sun07@rotman.utoronto.ca<br />

This proposal aims to evaluate the impact <strong>of</strong> endogenous s<strong>of</strong>tware supply on brand<br />

value in the U.S. smartphone market during 2007-2009. With the introduction <strong>of</strong><br />

Apple’s App Store, the smartphone was transformed to a two-sided s<strong>of</strong>tware<br />

platform, where consumers and third-party s<strong>of</strong>tware developers buy and sell<br />

smartphone applications, creating positive indirect network effects to the other sides.<br />

The indirect network effects are found in many studies as a critical factor in<br />

marketing tipping toward one dominant platform, regardless <strong>of</strong> the intrinsic qualities<br />

<strong>of</strong> the platforms. Yet the increasing reliance <strong>of</strong> the smartphones on s<strong>of</strong>tware attributes<br />

implies a bigger role for brands, since s<strong>of</strong>tware qualities are essentially experience<br />

attributes. While the relative strength <strong>of</strong> indirect network effects and brand values<br />

can determine the eventual market structure, their strategic relation has remained<br />

unclear in the relevant empirical literature. I propose to fill this gap by measuring the<br />

contributions <strong>of</strong> s<strong>of</strong>tware and brands to the equilibrium pr<strong>of</strong>its, combining the<br />

approaches <strong>of</strong> Goldfarb, Lu, and Moorthy (2009), and Nair, Chintagunta, and DubÈ<br />

(2004). The preliminary results suggest that without the indirect network effects,<br />

iPhone and Anroid’s brand values will decrease by more than 60%.

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