In recent years, AI has received increased attention in the field of marketing and is believed to grow even more in the future. It seems that the use of AI in marketing has a significant impact on consumer value creation. The purpose of this thesis is to explore how consumers experience the role of AI-marketing within the scope of the online customer journey, including how both positive and negative aspects of AI-based decision aids influence their value co-creation. Based on previous research, a conceptual model was created to determine whether consumers co-create or co-destroy value in the interactions with AI-based decision aids, as well as which types of values that are the outcomes. Three focus groups were used as a qualitative method to collect empirical data. Findings resulted in two main insights. Firstly, consumers experience the role of AI-based decision aids positively and can co-create values regarding economic and efficiency benefits, facilitation of information search, and more inspiring, personal and relevant experiences. Secondly, AI-based decision aids are also perceived negatively and contribute to co-destruction of value as well. Consumers experienced negative aspects regarding manipulation, limitations and loss of integrity and autonomy, as well as risks of overspending, being misled and distracted, and having irrelevant experiences. This thesis contributes with new insights into the consumer perspective of AI-marketing. Marketers can use these results to understand consumers’ value creation and avoid the negative aspects to achieve the best possible AI-marketing strategies.

I takt med en ökning av digitalisering i samhället sätter det även press på modevarumärken att fortsatt anses vara relevanta. Detta medför en större press på marknadsförare då konsumenter söker en mer interaktiv relation till varumärken. Varumärken behöver hitta nya sätt att engagera och bygga positiva relationer till konsumenter. Därav ett ökat intresse från modevarumärken att skapa virtuella klädesplagg inom onlinespel för framför allt Generation-Z.  Denna uppsats har undersökt modevarumärkens virtuella klädesplaggs påverkan på spelkonsumenters varumärkesengagemang. Detta för att skapa en bättre förståelse för vad som förväntas av modevarumärken när de väljer att integrera sig inom onlinespel. Genom undersökning av hur virtuella klädesplagg kan påverka engagemang bland konsumenter kan modevarumärken utveckla effektivare och mer lönsamma strategier.  Uppsatsen utgår från en kvalitativ forskningsstrategi där semistrukturerade intervjuer användes för att bilda en djupare förståelse för vad spelkonsumenter värderar angående virtuella klädesplagg inom onlinespel. Information från intervjuerna fokuserade på attityd, lojalitet och statusrelaterade aspekter. Inom denna studie används teorierna konsumentvärde och varumärkesengagemang. Utifrån dessa teorier skapades en intervjuguide som intervjuerna förhöll sig till. Resultatet visade att majoriteten av respondenterna hade kommit i kontakt med modevarumärken i onlinespel. Respondenterna uppvisade ett positivt intresse för virtuella klädesplagg skapade av modevarumärken, om samarbetet mellan modevarumärke och spelutvecklare görs på rätt sätt. Det var något de inte upplevde med de samarbeten de hade kommit i kontakt med i onlinespel hitintills. Slutsatsen av studien är att i dagsläget förekommer ett lågt varumärkesengagemang och konsumentvärde bland respondenterna. Modevarumärken behöver ta bättre hänsyn till vad spelkonsumenter efterfrågar. Då det finns olika konsumentgrupper inom onlinespelens värld där spelkonsumenter inte nödvändigtvis söker eleganta och fina virtuella klädesplagg, utan de söker virtuella klädesplagg som är excentriska. Den främsta egenskapen som eftersträvas är virtuella klädesplagg som är kompatibla med fler karaktärer som gör nytta för den generella spelupplevelsen.

When a company includes a new technology or innovation into their value proposition, customers may perceive it as an enhancement or deterioration. This phenomenon was explored in this study with a case study of a present case in the esports industry. Research have shown that AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology can be used to predict which team is going to win in a match in the esports game DotA 2. A prototype AI called Znipe Sense was developed and analyzed during this study to answer the question: How can a predictive AI affect the value proposition of live esports consumption? Znipe Sense was included into Znipe Esports’ value proposition during a tournament in February 2018. It was observed that Znipe Sense could predict outcomes of professional matches with a higher accuracy than human experts. The observations of Znipe Sense, an interview with experienced players, interviews with business professionals and internal company documents were used as empirical material for the analysis. How Znipe Sense affected the value proposition was analyzed through the factors: Performance, Ease-of-use, Reliability, Flexibility and Affectivity, also known as the PERFA framework. It was concluded that a predictive AI can enhance the value proposition of live esports consumption through the Performance and Ease-of-use factors, and it would not affect the value proposition through Reliability or Flexibility. However, in the analysis of the Affectivity factor it was identified that there is a risk related to negative effects of gambling addiction that could deteriorate the value proposition. / När ett företag inkluderar en ny teknik eller innovation i sitt värdeerbjudande kan kunderna uppleva det som en förbättring eller försämring. Detta fenomen undersöktes i denna studie med en fallstudie av ett aktuellt fall i esportsindustrin. Forskning har visat att AI (Artificiell Intelligens) teknik kan användas för att förutsäga vilket lag som kommer att vinna i en match i esports spelet DotA 2. En AI prototyp, Znipe Sense, utvecklades och analyserades under denna studie för att svara på frågan: Hur kan ett prediktivt AI påverka värdeerbjudandet av live esports konsumtion? Znipe Sense inkluderades i Znipe Esports värdeerbjudande under en turnering i februari 2018. Det observerades att Znipe Sense var bättre än mänskliga experter på att förutse det vinnande laget i professionella matcher. Observationerna av Znipe Sense, en intervju med erfarna spelare, intervjuer med affärsfolk och interna företagsdokument användes som empiriskt material. Hur Znipe Sense påverkade värdeerbjudandet analyserades genom faktorerna: ”Performance”, ”Ease-of-use”, ”Reliability”, ”Flexibility” och ”Affectivity”, även känt som PERFA-ramverket. Slutsatsen visar på att ett prediktivt AI kan öka värdeerbjudandet av live esports konsumtion genom Performance och Ease- of-use faktorerna, och att värdeerbjudandet inte skulle påverkas genom Reliability och Flexibility. I analysen av Affectivity-faktorn identifierades emellertid att det finns en risk i relaterat till negativa effekter av spelberoende som kan försämra värdeerbjudandet.

The hotel industry is characterized by perishability, which means that its services cannot be stored and saved to a later sales opportunity. In that world, a room that is not booked is lost forever. Another thing that also characterizes the industry is that it is seasonally controlled, thus the demand varies between different periods of time and occasions. As hotels tend to have high fixed costs, companies often choose to price their services higher when the opportunity that consumers pay a higher price appears. This can lead to a situation when the consumers feel fooled by the fact that the hotel itself does not create the new conditions that makes the demand rise. As a support for the interviews conducted, a research focused on the real prices has also been conducted where the prices of fifteen hotels in Stockholm were checked for three months on three occasions. To investigate the relationship between these two phenomena, seven hotel employees have been interviewed and shared their experiences of the reality and strategies within hotel industry. In order to get an overall picture, fifty consumers having profiles of potential hotel guests, have been interviewed where they answer questions about different scenarios and estimated prices for hotels of three different classes in Stockholm. The research made it possible to determine some conclusions. It appeared to be important for hotel industry to optimize prices in a way that they reflect the demand. An important tool to achieve this optimization is yield management and it confirms by the driving forces that identifies most often. The result of this reality is that the hotels experience fluctuations of prices over time, with rarely occurring stable pricing curves. Price awareness of customers tend to be raised when their experience of similar purchases is high. It has also been found that high prices do not necessarily have to lower the consumer value and that hotel guests may be willing to pay a higher price due to certain external factors. The relation between pricing and customer value was found to be complex and as there are some factors preventing the customer value to get lowered by price increase, it might be beneficial for hotels to take these factors into account. / Hotellbranschen kännetecknas av förgänglighet, vilket innebär att dess tjänster inte går att spara till ett senare försäljningstillfälle. I den världen går ett rum som inte bokas för alltid förlorad. Något som också kännetecknar branschen är att den är säsongsstyrd och därmed varierar efterfrågan mellan olika tidsperioder och tillfällen. I och med att hotell tenderar att ha höga fasta kostnader, väljer företagen ofta att prissätta sina tjänster högre när möjligheten för att konsumenter betalar ett högre pris uppstår. Detta kan leda till att konsumenterna känner sig lurade i och med att hotellet inte självt skapar de nya förutsättningarna som gör att efterfrågan stiger. Som ett stöd för de genomförda intervjuerna har även en prisundersökning genomförts där priserna på femton hotell i Stockholm under fyra månaders tid kontrollerades vid tre tillfällen. För att utreda hur relationen mellan dessa två fenomen ser ut har sju hotellmedarbetare intervjuats och beskrivit den verkligheten och de strategierna som finns. För att kunna få en helhetsbild har även femtio konsumenter, alltså potentiella hotellgäster, intervjuats där de svarar på frågor om olika scenarier samt uppskatta priser på hotell av olika klasser i Stockholm. Slutsatserna till undersökningen förblev att hotell till en övervägande majoritet använder sig av verktyg som yield management för att hantera dessa fluktuationer i efterfrågan och därmed ser också ett hotells priskurva väldigt sällan stabil ut. De potentiella hotellgästerna ställer sig kluvna i frågan om hur priset på ett hotellrum påverkar det upplevda värdet, vilket också delvis ställer det teoretiska ramverket och det empiriska resultatet emot varandra. Slutsatsen av det är att det finns en komplexitet i detta fenomen, där det finns ett flertal faktorer som erfordras att undersökas vidare för att nå en djupare och bredare förståelse.

目前線上購物網站正面臨著削價競爭、低品質競爭的市場困境，而跨境線上購物卻展現出蓬勃的發展態勢。也由於跨境線上購物的複雜性遠高於傳統的境內線上購物，因此了解跨境消費者之價值是跨境線上購物最重要的成功因素。業者欲開發海外新市場，必須了解該地消費者行為與其決策過程後制定出好的商業策略，才能獲得消費者青睞。 因此本研究以方法目的鏈之「屬性-結果-價值」(attribute-consequence-value)階層分析,建構消費者對跨境線上購物的價值階層圖(hierarchical value map)，探討並分析其中的內涵，並帶入馬斯洛需求層級(hierarchy of needs)，將價值階層元素之重要性加以排序。藉由引取消費者在使用跨境線上購物服務的理由與所帶來的內在價值，預測與分析現在跨境線上購物之的演進與發展、國際貿易之機會等，勾勒線上購物學術界的未來重要研究方向，並供線上購物產業作實務性決策參考。 / While online shopping websites are facing the difficulties of price and low-quality competition, cross-border online shopping is on a vigorous development trend, showing that cross-border online shopping is an important trend of online shopping field. Due to the complexity of cross-border online shopping is much higher than the traditional domestic online shopping, so understanding the value of cross-border online shopping consumers is the most important success factors. Companies want to develop new markets abroad, must understand the local consumer’s behavior and their decision-making process in order to make good business strategies. This study uses means-end chain to construct Taiwanese cross-border online shopping consumers’ hierarchical value map, and also apply to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, then sorting these value elements’ importance by their position in hierarchy of needs. After obtained the reason why consumers use cross-border online shopping service and what values they got in this service. Researcher can predict and analyze the evolution and development of cross-border online shopping, provide reference for future online shopping academic studies and online shopping industry’s decision-making.

2005年4月號The Econonist 經濟學人週刊的封面刊登: 'Power at last - How the internet means the consumer really is king (and queen). ' 沒錯！消費者是國王的時代來臨了！消費者在網際網路上可以隨時隨地取得更多、更有價值的消費訊息，以極低的成本，應用網路中各種透明的消費資訊，任意的改變消費的抉擇，史無前例的表達出有別於過去被動接受產品的主動消費力量，消費利益也確實受到保護，因此以資訊為基礎的行銷策略就是消費者導向策略(Glazer,1997)，呼應了經濟學人週刊的聳動標題；本研究即証明了在獲得充分且有價值的消費資訊，對消費者在進行消費決策與行為時，是具有「主動的」改變力量，因此提供消費者更豐富的消費資訊，也必定能保護更多的消費者利益。 當新的資訊處理技術與傳播媒體出現，或是由某種新工藝的創造與發展，進而改變現存的政治、經濟與文化、風俗產生新的變遷將對消費行為，產生戲劇化影響(Innis, 1951; McLuhan, 1964)，原因在於消費者在面對嶄新而且陌生的消費環境，所採取維護自身消費利益的因應之道；本研究引用學者 Kahneman and . Tversky 提出的「預期理論」（Prospect Theory)，以及Barry Schwatz（2004）提出的「經驗效用」（Experienced Utility）、「期望效用」（）、「記憶效用」（Remembered Utility），因為以人類基於維護自身利益為出發點，方能準確反映出消費者的行為，洞察消費變化的先機；特別是在網際網路平台上對此議題的研究，本研究尚屬先例。 企業經營的成敗可由她與客戶關係的良莠顯現，衡量客戶關係最重要的指標就是：企業是否能由與消費者在消費流程互動中（關係），掌握所留下的足跡（資訊），加以解讀應用並促進消費者再消費，如此資訊的應用就是 Rashi Glazer所稱的企業「關鍵資產」，反映出不斷促進產品、服務交易的要素( Glazer,1997)：如果廠商忽視此變化，影響所及，失去的將不只是企業經營的「關鍵資產」，甚至還會被消費者「主動」的遺棄；因此，在企業經營的研究中，能將劇變如此的消費行為與決策，研究出可遵循與掌握的模式，相信對廠商競爭力的提升有莫大助益。 本研究的貢獻呈現在CORM-PET模式，也就是展現消費者是如何表達他「主動」消費力量的軌跡；試想，當企業發現消費者表示喜歡你的產品卻無消費行動，在過去對企業的影響並不明顯，因為同行也不知道何以如此（無資訊）！但是面對資訊處理能力百倍於過去的今天，能經由對資訊精準處理與應用，知道其中原因的廠商將嶄露頭角；CORM-PET模式就是我們提出能解釋消費行為何以如此的模式，以及能精確應用當前處理資訊的能力，解讀消費行為留下的資料轉為有力的應用資訊，幫助供需雙方在新興「資訊經濟時代」的市場交易中各取所需。 關鍵詞 消費者導向、預期理論、期望效用、記憶效用、經驗效用、稟賦效用、定錨效用、框架效用、消費風險、消費價值、頂端效用、可得性捷思法 / The front cover title of The Econonist magazine (April of 2005) read ' Power at last-How the internet means the consumer really is king (and queen). ' Consumers can obtain more valuable consumption information whenever and wherever in the internet, this shows unprecedentedly consumers’ active consumption strength which is different from their passively accepted the products in the past. Consumers can use the transparent price information in the network with the extremely low cost, and are free to choose any consumption. Consumption interests are also really protected, so the marketing tactics based on information are that consumers lead tactics (Glazer, 1997), which echoed the title of the The Econonist magazine. This research has proved that valuable and sufficient consumption information for consumer while making consumption decision provide active power of change. Therefore, offering more abundant consumption information to consumers can certainly protect more consumers’ interests. Enterprises’ relation with customers can reflect the success or failure of their management. The most important criteria of the relationship are whether both enterprises and consumers can keep enough track in the consumption procedure to facilitate the same consumer to consume again. This is what Glazer (1997) said ' key assets ' of enterprises, which reflect key elements to promote products, service trade constantly. If the owner ignores the fact that information changes consumption decision and behavior, he or she will lose not only ' key assets ' of enterprises, but also can be abandoned by consumers. So if academic research of enterprise management can figure out the model of drastic change of the consumer behavior and decision, which can be followed and grasped, manufacturer's competitiveness will be greatest improved. The change of consumption decision and behavior is because the consumer guided by information in the face of brand-new and strange consumption environment (network market) to adopt and safeguard self-consumption interests. Historian and mass communication scholar (Innis, 1951; McLuhan, 1964) point out such a change, as new materials treatment technology and media appear or new craft created and developed can change extant politics, economy, culture and custom. Other scholars maintain one after another that must extend the value concept of the customer in the past to apply to the business activity in the internet network (Keeney, 1999; Keeney, 1992; Rayport, Sviokla, 1994). All the scholars’ academic researches of mankind’s protect one's own interests over the years, the most excellent theories are 'Prospect Theory' by Kahneman ＆ Tversky. Schwatz’ (2004) 'Experienced Utility ', ' Expected Utility' , ' Remembered Utility '. We adopt the academic research of above-mentioned scholars, as the foundation of developing this research, because the academic research is based on mankind’s safeguarding one's own interests, which is different from others are on roles development. This research based on this kind of research to develop more concrete consumption behavior, especially the consumer behavior on the internet network platform, still belongs to the precedent. The contribution of the study appears in CORM-PET model, which represents how consumers express their initiatively consumption power. Just try to think that when the enterprises find that consumers like your products but not having the consuming action. There was not obvious in the past influence enterprises’ for the counterparts had no idea about the reasons. But information handling ability hundred times to the past today, the manufacturers who can process and apply with information accurately, and know the whys and wherefores will show up prominently. The CORM-PET model we proposed helps to explain how the consumer behavior like this pattern, dealing with information accurately, to understand the materials staying behind in consumer behavior transferring to powerful application information, to help both. Key words: Consumer orientation, Prospect theory, Expected utility, Remembered utility, Experienced utility, Endowment effect, Anchor effect, Framing effect, Consumer risk, Consumer value, Peak effect, Availability heuristics