Marketing is about numbers but not necessarily just a number. From a big crowd to a half empty arena, adjectives carry numerical associations. The research within this dissertation builds on that idea while focusing on markedness, a linguistics theory, which has been called the evaluative superstructure of language. For example, asking "How tall is the person?" is not an indication that the person is tall but merely a neutral way to ask about a person's height. Tall, in this case, is considered an unmarked term given its neutral meaning. Asking "How short is the person?" however, implies the person is actually short in addition to asking for their height. Linguistics literature has touched on the power of language in numerical estimations but has not fully explored it, nor has linguistics literature transitioned to the marketing literature. Study 1 begins to explore markedness in a consumer setting by using Google Trends to show that unmarked terms, such as tall, are searched more frequently than marked terms, such as short. Study 2 shows that using an unmarked term results in significantly higher estimates of crowd size than using a marked term but is not significantly different than using a neutral term. Study 3 incorporates numerical anchors, which reduce the markedness effects. Study 4 illustrates how an unmarked term results in a wider range of crowd size estimates than a marked term. Study 5 shows how markedness effects are largely eliminated based on the source of the message (team) and capacity constraint of the arena. Study 6 incorporates time to show that markedness effects are stronger in a judgment framed as per day than per year. Studies 7, 8 and 10 show how a marked term, such as half empty, results in significantly different numerical estimates over time. This effect is eliminated when reference to a point in time, such as "at halftime", is removed (study 9). These findings highlight the role of markedness in consumer judgment and have important implications for a variety of marketing theories.

My dissertation is a collection of three essays with analytical models at the interface of marketing and operations with a focus on pricing. The common theme in this dissertation is studying the effect of the consumer-driven demand on the optimal operational decisions of a single firm. This dissertation includes co-authored material. In my first essay, I study the role of consumers' opposing perceptions of green quality on the optimal product line decisions, i.e., products, prices and quality by analyzing the firm's optimization problem and incorporating an endogenous demand model that emerges from the consumers' preferences while considering the cost implications of introducing a green product. My second essay is on optimal timing of price discounts. Delaying discounts, i.e., giving discounts on future spending based on current spending is a prevalent retail discounting practice. For a market of rational and forward-looking consumers who repeatedly visit and purchase with the firm, we analyze the relative efficacy of delayed credits vs. a natural alternative of immediate discounts. In my third essay, I explore a firm's optimal pricing strategy when it simultaneously rents and sells a product for which consumers have a priori valuation uncertainty.

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Recent research on corporate social responsibility has focused on the corporate level, whereas limited research has been conducted at the individual level most commonly referred to as socially responsible consumption. Recycling is a kind of socially responsible consumer behaviour because it benefits the society as a whole in the long term but involves a personal cost and does not benefit the individual consumer directly. Previous studies on recycling have used theories such as the theory of interpersonal behaviour, means-end chain theory, theory of planned behaviour or norm activation model. However, these theories have only explained part of recycling behaviour and are inadequate because they have not explained it from a social dilemma perspective. A social dilemma is a situation in which there is conflict between an individual's self-interest and the collective interest of the group. Will consumers pursue their own interests or will they act for the good of the entire society? This study takes an innovative approach to explain recycling behaviour through the lens of social dilemma theory. It uses a mixed methods approach that combines both qualitative and quantitative elements in the research design. A phenomenological approach is used to gain a deeper understanding of the recycling experiences of individuals, and survey data is used for quantitative analyses. In the qualitative study, 142 significant statements and eight themes were identified from 20 in-depth interviews. In the quantitative study, data were collected from 332 respondents. Based on the data analysis, the central relationships in the model are supported. There is a positive relationship between the expectation that others will participate in recycling and the likelihood of personal participation in recycling, and there is also a positive relationship between the likelihood of personal participation and recycling behaviour. Of the four moderators considered, only social value orientation is significant. In the latter part of this thesis, the theoretical and methodological contributions and practical implications of the study are discussed.

The milk industry in the Eastern Cape is very competitive and milk suppliers must use all means, including packaging, to influence buying behaviour. The aim of the study was to investigate customer preferences with regard to milk packaging in the Nelson Mandela Bay (NMB) area. The purpose was to develop a better understanding of customer preferences so that packaging could be designed to satisfy customer expectations and needs. The research design was based on a quantitative approach (non-experimental) and the study was descriptive in nature. The measuring instrument was a self-developed questionnaire, which was developed based on the literature study and previous empirical studies conducted by Adam and Ali (2014a) and Ahmed, Pumar and Amin (2014). The sample consisted of 199 adult shoppers in the Nelson Mandela Bay area, selected through snowball and quota sampling. Data was collected with the help of fieldworkers, coded into Microsoft Excel and processed with statistical software. Descriptive statistics and canonical correlation analysis were used to identify customer preferences and relationships between the different dimensions of milk packaging. The results revealed that size, materials, convenience in handing and product information (expiry date) were important. Colour and design were not regarded as important by the target group.

O entendimento sobre o comportamento do consumidor é essencial para compreender as necessidades e desejos das pessoas, bem como o comportamento da oferta e da demanda. Além disso, é importante saber de que forma o consumidor toma a decisão de compra, quais os fatores externos e internos que influenciam esta geração de imagem. Sendo assim, esta pesquisa objetiva analisar o efeito de diferentes níveis de preço de um produto de vestuário, de marca conhecida e desconhecida sobre a intenção de compra, a percepção da qualidade percebida, o valor percebido, a justiça percebida e os aspectos simbólicos em um produto de vestuário. Dando sequência ao estudo, este foi realizado a partir de um método experimental com o desenho fatorial da ordem 3 (preço alto, preço baixo e sem informação de preço) x 2 (marca conhecida e marca desconhecida), compondo, assim, quatro grupos experimentais e dois grupos de controle. A amostra foi composta por 224 respondentes, que foram divididos em seis cenários, sendo dois deles grupos de controle. Quatro, das cinco hipóteses de pesquisa foram confirmadas, sendo que os achados indicam que os níveis de preço e conhecimento da marca refletem significativamente na dimensão valor percebido, sendo este significativamente maior para baixos níveis de preço, na justiça percebida, sendo significativamente maior para baixos níveis de preço de marcas desconhecidas e nos aspectos simbólicos, sendo significativamente maior para altos níveis de preço e marcas conhecidas, além disso, também exercem influência sobre a intenção de compra do consumidor. / Understanding consumer behavior is essential to understanding people's needs and desires, as well as the behavior of supply and demand. In addition, it is important to know how the consumer makes the purchase decision, what external and internal factors influence this generation of image. Thus, this research aims at analyzing the effect of different price levels of a garment product, from a known and unknown brand on the purchase intention, the perception of the perceived quality, the perceived value, the perceived fairness and the symbolic aspects in a clothing product. Following the study, this was done from an experimental method with the factorial design of order 3 (high price, low price and no price information) x 2 (known brand and unknown brand), thus composing four experimental groups and two control groups. The sample consisted of 224 respondents, who were divided into six scenarios, two of them being control groups. Four of the five research hypotheses were confirmed, with the findings indicating that the price levels and brand knowledge reflect significantly in the perceived value dimension, which is significantly higher for low price levels, in perceived fairness, being significantly higher for low price levels of unknown brands and in symbolism, being significantly higher for high price levels and well-known brands, in addition, also influence consumer's intention to buy.

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Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document / Thesis (DCom)--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Marketing Management / DCom / Unrestricted

Past consumer research on mood has focused mainly on the impact of pre-processing mood on attitude formation, cognitive process, or behaviour. The present study, however, opens a new research direction by investigating the impact of ad characteristics on pre-processing mood. In particular, this research develops a model by combining the mood management and mood disruption mechanisms to answer the following interrelated research questions: (1) How does a consumer's mood interact with an ad's characteristics? (2) What is the effect of this interaction on subsequent mood and ad evaluation? (3) When will the above effect on ad evaluation be more likely to occur? Before the main experiment was conducted, a scale was developed to measure the mood potency of an ad -- a construct developed to capture the dimensions of an ad in eliciting affective responses. Following a systematic psychometric scale-development procedure, a reliable and valid scale with eighteen items was obtained. A 2x2x2 between-subject factorial design was conducted to test the model. The treatments included pre-processing mood pleasure, pre-processing mood arousal, and mood potency of an ad. The experiment involved exposing groups of subjects to one ad after listening to one piece of music, then comparing ad evaluations by music condition. The ad's mood potency was manipulated to elicit either a positive or negative feeling. Music was employed to vary pleasure and arousal prior to ad processing. Altogether two ads and four pieces of music were used. For the dependent measure considered (i.e., ad evaluation), findings were in accordance with a mood management interpretation. It was found that a positive mood potency ad was preferred to a negative mood potency ad either in a good or bad mood condition. Moreover, this effect was more pronounced when the arousal level was high. Regarding predictions on change in pleasure/arousal due to an exposure of an ad, only the change in pleasure yielded marginal support for the mood disruption mechanism. The findings of this study not only contribute to our understanding of research on advertising context and affective responses but also have important implications for managerial decisions on ad placing, design, and copy testing. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

Waiting for service is common in many purchase situations. As such, it is important to understand how consumers react to waiting. Only then can appropriate actions be taken to reduce any aversive aspects of waiting and alleviate any negative consequences that may result from the wait. This research focused on how consumers react to waiting for service. Specifically, three reactions were examined: (1) consumers' perceptions of wait aversiveness, and the circumstances under which consumers found waiting aversive or unpleasant, (2) consumers' perceptions of felt duration, and the circumstances under which waits were felt to be longer than they actually were, and (3) the resulting service evaluations, in particular, the extent to which, and the circumstances under which waits impacted on consumers' evaluations of: (a) punctuality of service, (b) overall service quality and (c) other service attributes. A model of a consumer's wait experience was proposed and used as a framework to examine these three issues. A quasi-experimental setting involving delays in passenger airline travel was chosen for the empirical study. Delayed passengers were questioned regarding their perceptions of wait aversiveness and duration. In addition, their pre-boarding feelings and responses on flight service evaluations were compared to those of nondelayed passengers. The results of the empirical test suggest that perceptions of wait aversiveness were associated with: perceived airline control over the wait, higher perceived consequences of waiting, such as inconvenience and financial costs, and higher levels of affective costs such as annoyance, anger, frustration, uncertainty, boredom, uneasiness and helplessness. Many of these costs increased as the actual wait duration and time pressures increased, and as the degree to which time was "filled" decreased. Longer felt duration was associated with longer actual durations and increased wait aversivenness. The results also suggest that waiting did affect consumers' overall evaluations of service, their evaluations of specific service attributes and the relative importance of these attributes in predicting the overall evaluation. Implications for management and directions for further research were then discussed. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate