The increased popularity of personal marketing and printing on demand technology has substantially changed the advertising practice. Taking direct mail (DM) as an example, DM is no longer treated as ¡§junk mail¡¨ but useful marketing tool after combining personal information with interesting advertisement, such as combining customers¡¦ credit card statements with customized advertisement based on their purchasing behavior. Personalized DM has become a brand new approach for advertising that may lead to better communication effect. In this research, we formulated a research framework based on the Advertisement Attitude Mediating Model, which measures the effect of advertisement in three aspects: attitude towards the advertisement, attitude towards the advertised product, and purchase intention. Product category (shopping goods and specialty goods) and need for cognition (high and low) were moderators. Experiment method was utilized in this research to examine the effect of personalized DM. A total of 329 college students participated the experiment and they were divided into six groups with different settings in three different degrees of personalization (personalized, half-personalized, and none-personalized) and two product categories. Among them, 235 eventually completed the experiment to provide valid data for analysis. The results include: (1) personalized information has a positive effect on consumers¡¦ attitude towards DM; (2) personalized product recommendation can improve consumers¡¦ attitude towards product and increase their purchase intention; (3) A higher degree of personalization produce the better advertising effects; (4) The effect of personalization varies in different product category. Specialty goods is more suitable for personalized DM than shopping goods; (5) The consumer¡¦s need for cognition does not affect the effect of personalized DM. Chen, Chih-Hau

Zugl.: Vallendar, Wiss. Hochsch. für Unternehmensführung, Diss., 2004 u.d.T.: Grasmugg, Stefan: Mass Customization als strategische Anwendung des Electronic Business - Status, Determinanten und Erfolgswirksamkeit

Zugl.: Darmstadt, Techn. Universiẗat, Diss., 2008.

Universiẗat, Diss, 2008.

Zugl.: Mannheim, Univ., Diss., 2008

Zugl.: Braunschweig, Techn. Univ., Diss., 2008

Zugl.: Bremen, Univ., Diss., 2008

Universiẗat, Diss., 2002--St. Gallen.

Master-Arbeit Univ. St. Gallen, 2008.

Mass-customization is a form of consumer-centric business practice, which is a hybrid of customization and mass-production (Gilmore & Pine II, 1997). It is the use of flexible processes and organizational structures to produce individually customized apparel products at the low cost of a standardized mass-production system (Hart, 1995). Very limited academic consumer research has been conducted in the area of apparel mass-customization. The purposes of the study were (a) to investigate consumers' purchase intentions of mass-customized apparel, (b) to examine the relationships among consumer characteristics, perceived usefulness, perceived behavioral control, attitude toward using apparel mass-customization, and purchase intention of mass-customized apparel, and (c) to identify the predictors of the overall purchase intentions and those of the purchase intentions of specific types of mass-customized apparel (i.e., design, fit and personalization mass-customized apparel). A conceptual model was developed, and eight hypotheses were generated to test the proposed relationships among the variables. A questionnaire was developed as the instrument of collecting data. A national sample of 474 male adults was recruited by a market research company. Statistics such as descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and stepwise multiple regression analysis were used to analyze the collected data. The results indicated that more than half of the respondents were willing to purchase mass-customized dress shirts. The relationships among consumer characteristics, perceived usefulness, perceived behavioral control, attitude toward using apparel mass-customization, and purchase intention of mass-customized apparel were confirmed, and the predictors of the overall purchase intention and of the purchase intention of specific types of mass-customized apparel were identified. Based on the results, in-depth discussions and related marketing implications were provided. / Ph. D.