Pianos for the people: the manufacture, marketing and sale of pianos as consumer durables, 1850-1914

During the second half of the nineteenth century, British society experienced a rise in real incomes and a change in its composition, with the expansion of the middle classes. These two factors led to a consumer revolution, with a growing, but still segmented, demand for household goods that could express status and aspiration. At the same time technological changes and new ways of marketing and selling goods made these goods more affordable. This paper analyzes these themes and the process of mediation that took place between producers, retailers, and consumers, by looking at the most culturally symbolic of nineteenth century consumer goods, the piano.

Customer experience quality: an exploration in business and consumer contexts using repertory grid technique

This study proposes a conceptual model for customer experience quality and its impact on customer relationship outcomes. Customer experience is conceptualized as the customer’s subjective response to the holistic direct and indirect encounter with the firm, and customer experience quality as its perceived excellence or superiority. Using the repertory grid technique in 40 interviews in B2B and B2C contexts, the authors find that customer experience quality is judged with respect to its contribution to value-in-use, and hence propose that value-in-use mediates between experience quality and relationship outcomes. Experience quality includes evaluations not just of the firm’s products and services but also of peer-to-peer and complementary supplier encounters. In assessing experience quality in B2B contexts, customers place a greater emphasis on firm practices that focus on understanding and delivering value-in-use than is generally the case in B2C contexts. Implications for practitioners’ customer insight processes and future research directions are suggested.

Transfer effects in implicit memory and consumer choice

Two experiments investigated transfer effects in implicit memory and consumer choice, using a preference judgement task. Experiment 1 examined whether it is possible to obtain priming for unfamiliar food labels. Additionally, it investigated whether the experience of seeing a brand name with a particular product type would benefit subsequent processing of the brand name when linked with a different product type. Experiment 2 examined whether changes in modality between study and test would affect priming for unfamiliar brand names. Both questions are theoretically important, as well as pertaining to practical concerns in the consumer choice literature. Experiment 1 demonstrated significant priming for unfamiliar food labels, and established that priming was unaffected by changing the product type with which the brand name was associated. In Experiment 2, priming on both auditory and visual versions of the preference judgement task was reduced by changes in modality. The results and implications are discussed in relation to consumer choice and current theories of implicit memory.

Vitamin E supplementation, cereal feed type and consumer sensory perceptions of poultry meat quality

Lipid oxidation leads to meat spoilage and has been reported to cause adverse changes in the flavour and texture of poultry meat. Vitamin E has been found to be effective in delaying lipid oxidation. The aim of this study was to determine whether the vitamin E supplementation of chicken feed influences the consumers' perception of the quality of chicken meat under normal display and storage conditions. Untrained consumers (n 32) evaluated cooked breast meat from chickens (both corn fed and wheat fed) supplemented with 75 250 or 500 mg/kg vitamin E and after storage at 4° C for 4 and 7 d. Factorial analysis found an interaction between vitamin E treatment and storage day upon the perceived juiciness (P = 0.023) and tenderness (P = 0.041) of the chicken meat. Perceptions of quality relative to vitamin E level were more evident on day 4 than day 7. When the two cereal types were compared, the time-related subgroup effects were observed only in meat from corn-fed chickens supplemented with either 75 or 250 mg/kg, which was perceived to be juicier (P = 0.018) and more tender (P = 0.020) than that supplemented at the 500 mg/kg level. These results imply that the two lower concentrations of vitamin E have some advantages over 500 mg/kg, but for optimal consumer acceptance of corn-fed chicken meat, we suggest that 250 mg/kg vitamin E should be added to corn-fed poultry feed. There was no evidence to suggest any advantages in changing the current amount of vitamin E (75 mg/kg) used to rear wheat-fed birds.

Implicit memory and consumer choice: the mediating role of brand familiarity

Two experiments investigated the influence of implicit memory on consumer choice for brands with varying levels of familiarity. Priming was measured using a consideration-choice task, developed by Coates, Butler and Berry (2004). Experiment 1 employed a coupon-rating task at encoding that required participants to meaningfully process individual brand names, to assess whether priming could affect participants' final (preferred) choices for familiar brands. Experiment 2 used this same method to assess the impact of implicit memory on consideration and choice for unknown and leader brands, presented in conjunction with familiar competitors. Significant priming was obtained in both experiments, and was shown to directly influence final choice in the case of familiar and highly familiar leader brands. Moreover, it was shown that a single prior exposure could lead participants to consider buying an unknown, and indeed fictitious, brand. Copyright (c) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Milk, dairy products and consumer health: a short review

There appears to be a large mis-match between (1) the advice given on milk/dairy foods by various authorities, (2) public perceptions of harm from the consumption of milk and dairy products and, (3) the evidence from long-term prospective cohort studies. These studies provide convincing evidence that increased consumption of milk can lead to reductions in the risk of vascular disease and possibly some cancers and provide an overall survival advantage. The volume of evidence available for milk products such as cheese and butter is however surprisingly limited and too small to come to any clear conclusions as to their effects on health.

Housing densities and consumer choice

From 2001, the construction of flats and high-density developments increased in England and the building of houses declined. Does this indicate a change in taste or is it a result of government planning policies? In this paper, an analysis is made of the long-term effects of the policy of constraint which has existed for the past 50 years but the increase in density is identified as occurring primarily after new, revised, planning guidance was issued in England in 2000 which discouraged low-density development. To substantiate this, it is pointed out that the change which occurred in England did not occur in Scotland where guidance was not changed to encourage high-density residential development. The conclusion that the change is the result of planning policies and not of a change in taste is confirmed by surveys of the occupants of new high-rise developments in Leeds. The new flat-dwellers were predominantly young and childless and expressed the intention, in the near future, when they could, of moving out of the city centre and into houses. From recent changes in guidance by the new coalition government, it is expected that the construction of flats in England will fall back to earlier levels over the next few years.

The relationship between entrepreneurial marketing and the characteristics of Thai hotels and their managers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore empirically whether there are meaningful relationships between key entrepreneurial marketing (EM) variables and the demographic characteristics of the organization and its manager. Design/methodology/approach – The data were gathered from a sample of 369 hotels from all regions of Thailand through the use of a postal survey. Several multiple regression models were used to test the relationships in the study. Interaction terms were added to some models to test the moderating effects of major demographic variables on various EM attributes. Findings – The study shows which types of hotels and which types of managers were associated with EM characteristics. The results indicate that demographic characteristics, such as age, size, location, experience, and gender, significantly explain sets of entrepreneurial marketing variables. It was found, for instance, that both a young hotel and a large hotel are positively associated with entrepreneurial marketing, while owner management is positively associated with market orientation and negatively associated with growth aspirations but has no significant relationship with entrepreneurial orientation. Originality/value – The paper provides a comprehensive overview of selected relationships between key EM dimensions in the existing literature. It is suggested that future research involves a more in-depth exploration of some of the relationships found in this study.

Sensory profiles and consumer acceptability of a range of sugar-reduced products on the UK market

Current UK intake of non-milk extrinsic sugars (NMES) is above recommendations. Reducing the sugar content of processed high sugar foods through reformulation is one option for reducing consumption of NMES at a population level. However, reformulation can alter the sensory attributes of food products and influence consumer liking. This study evaluated consumer acceptance of a selection of products that are commercially-available in the UK; these included regular and sugar-reduced baked beans, strawberry jam, milk chocolate, cola and cranberry & raspberry juice. Sweeteners were present in the reformulated chocolate (maltitol), cola (aspartame and acesulfame-K) and juice (sucralose) samples. Healthy, non-smoking consumers (n = 116; 55 men, 61 women, age: 33 ± 9 years; BMI: 25.7 ± 4.6 kg/m2) rated the products for overall liking and on liking of appearance, flavor and texture using a nine-point hedonic scale. There were significant differences between standard and reduced sugar products in consumers’ overall liking and on liking of each modality (appearance, flavor and texture; all P < 0.0001). For overall liking, only the regular beans and cola were significantly more liked than their reformulated counterparts (P < 0.0001). Cluster analysis identified three consumer clusters that were representative of different patterns of consumer liking. For the largest cluster (cluster 3: 45%), there was a significant difference in mean liking scores across all products, except jam. Differences in liking were predominantly driven by sweet taste in 2 out of 3 clusters. The current research has demonstrated that a high proportion of consumers prefer conventional products over sugar-reduced products across a wide range of product types (45%) or across selected products (27%), when tasted unbranded, and so there is room for further optimization of commercial reduced sugar products that were evaluated in the current study. Future work should evaluate strategies to facilitate compliance to dietary recommendations on NMES and free sugars, such as the impact of sugar-reduced food exposure on their acceptance.

Viral marketing and the new competitive advantage

The role played by viral marketing has received considerable academic and digital media attention recently. Key issues in viral marketing have been examined through the lens of the mode of marketing message transmission, including self-replicating on the basis of quality difference, individuals’ emotional needs, as well as how users are connected across various social networks. This paper presents a review and analysis of viral marketing studies from 2001 to the present day. It investigates how viral marketing facilitate the diffusion of social media products and the relationship between marketers and these product users by taking a look at the implementation of viral marketing in two European online game firms Jagex Games Studio and Rovio Entertainment. The results from this review and analysis indicate that viral marketing plays an important role in accelerating the interaction between marketers and users (as well as the user groups) in the field of digital media and high tech consumption. Therefore, it is evident that firms should understand the social contagion process and target well-connected users purposefully in order to create its competitive advantage.