Algorithmic branding through platform assemblages: core conceptions and research directions for a new era of marketing and service management

PurposeContemporary branding transpires in a complex technological and media environment whose key contextual characteristics remain largely unexplained. The article provides a conceptual understanding of the elements of contemporary branding as they take place using networked platforms and explains them as an increasingly important practice that affects customer and manager experience.Design/methodology/approachThis article draws on a variety of recent sources to synthesize a model that offers a more contextualized, comprehensive and up-to-date understanding of how branding has become and is being altered because of the use of branded service platforms and algorithms.FindingsCore terminology about technoculture, technocultural fields, platform assemblages, affordances, algorithms and networks of desire set the foundation for a deeper conceptual understanding of the novel elements of algorithmic branding. Algorithmic branding transcended the mere attachment of specific “mythic” qualities to a product or experience and has morphed into the multidimensional process of using media to manage communication. The goal of marketers is now to use engagement practices as well as algorithmic activation, amplification, customization and connectivity to drive consumers deeper into the brand spiral, entangling them in networks of brand-related desire.Practical implicationsThe model has a range of important managerial implications for brand management and managerial relations. It promotes a understanding of platform brands as service brands. It underscores and models the interconnected role that consumers, devices and algorithms, as well as technology companies and their own service brands play in corporate branding efforts. It suggests that consumers might unduly trust these service platforms. It points to the growing importance of platforms' service brands and the consequent surrender of branding power to technology companies. And it also provides a range of important ethical and pragmatic questions that curious marketers, researchers and policy-makers may examine.Originality/valueThis model provides a fresh look at the important topic of branding today, updating prior conceptions with a comprehensive and contextually grounded model of service platforms and algorithmic branding.

“Going on a sensory adventure, a touchy subject?”: investigating haptic technology and consumer adventure orientation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it seeks to extend service and retailers understanding of how the inclusion of haptics can gamify digital service experiences. Second, it seeks to understand the moderating role of consumers orientation towards adventure in service experiences.Design/methodology/approachThis research adopts a two-study, 2 (haptic technology: present vs absent) × 2 (adventure orientation: high vs low) to test the proposed hypotheses (Study 1 n = 210, Study 2 n = 452). The data are tested using ANCOVA's and Hayes PROCESS Macro to investigate mean differences and the potential presence of two different moderated mediated relationships.FindingsThe results are consistent across the two experimental studies evidencing that the inclusion of haptics to gamify the service experience leads to significantly improved outcomes for service brands and channels. Further, the results demonstrate that the impact of haptics is greater for consumers with a lower, compared to higher, sense of adventure. Thus, the results demonstrate that whilst haptics improves consumers experiences with technological services overall, this is more prevalent for those who have “less sense of adventure”.Originality/valueThis paper sheds insight into the emerging area of haptic technology and is one of the first to specifically examine the impact of consumers “sense of adventure.”

A Study on the Impact of Personality Traits on Attitudes Towards Social Media Influencers

Companies increasingly collaborate with social media influencers (SMIs) to promote product and service brands (Jin & Muqaddam, 2019). There has so far been limited research examining how the personality traits of consumers may impact the extent to which they are influenced by SMIs. This study aims to understand the relationship between consumers’ personality traits and their attitudes towards SMIs. The study utilised an online questionnaire distributed to a group of millennials (n=221), in order to understand the impact of personality traits on attitudes towards SMIs. The five-factor model of personality (McCrae & Costa, 1987), which employs the neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness labels, was used as a framework for the study, while the questions on attitudes towards SMIs explored four main areas - envy towards SMIs, advertising content value, credibility of SMIs, and perceived trustworthiness of SMIs. The findings highlight the importance of investigating personality traits to better understand how followers/consumers’ perceptions and attitudes towards SMIs and SMI-endorsed advertisements can be influenced. The implications for further research and the study’s limitations are discussed.

Influence of Value Co-Creation on Virtual Community Brand Equity for Unichannel vs. Multichannel Users

Value co-creation by users in a virtual community is a key element to encouraging the community’s brand equity. This study analyzes the effect of the functional value provided by the virtual community on the two value-co-creation behaviors that occur within it: (1) self-value co-creation and (2) communal value co-creation. Through self-value co-creation, participants co-create value to their own benefit by becoming involved in co-designing their experience. By communal value co-creation, participants co-create value through evaluations, recommendations, and ideas that benefit others. This study also asks whether multichannelity—using various channels to access the virtual community (website and mobile app), as opposed to using a single channel (website or mobile app)—has a moderating effect on the relationships proposed between value co-creation and brand equity of the virtual community. The analysis is contrasted empirically for the virtual community Tripadvisor with data collected by a research institute via telephone interview. Confirmatory factor analysis and multi-group structural equation modeling techniques were used to assess the proposed model. The study enriches two significant lines of scholarly research, value co-creation and brand equity. It does so in multi-brand virtual contexts in which variety of service brands coexists with the brand of the virtual community, and with users who access the virtual community through one or various channels. The study also contributes to the formulation of business strategies oriented to increasing the brand equity of virtual communities.

Exploring Service Brand Associations: A Consumers' Perspective in Rising Service Economy

Across the globe, the importance of the service sector is flourishing as a result of which significance of research to understand the characteristics and attributes of services is rising exponentially. Poor understanding of service characteristics has led to an undue reliance on branding models previously designed for tangible products. Although most of the researches have tried to modify their branding models to cater to the requirements of service branding, most of them are largely based on managerial and organizational perspectives. Few researches have attempted to highlight consumer’s perspectives of what they consider important in a service brand. This study focuses on consumers’ perceptions of important service brand associations and aims to be a stepping stone in the process of developing a specialized model for service branding. The qualitative information garnered for this research allowed digging deeper into the consumer’s mind through in-depth personal interviews. The analytical method of coding, sorting, and sifting assisted in discovering the service brand associations. The results indicate salience of brand associations for consumers of service brands. The most frequently identified service brand associations include service environment and facilities, staff behavior, word-of-mouth communication, price, core service quality, experience (of the service provider and consumers), and advertising of the service brands.

Producing Difference

This chapter shows how management structures a socially divided workplace from the back office. Chefs and dining room supervisors at Match, Terroir, and The Neighborhood channel workers into distinct types of service jobs based on socially coded ideals, and subject each group of workers to divergent supervisory practices. I argue that management’s strategic decisions regarding hiring, service protocols, and workplace policies adhere to an overarching logic of upscale service packaged with powerful race, class, and gender assumptions, as well as strategically differentiated service brands that nuance how each workplace is organized. Wilson shows how service brands shape the kinds of social relations and labor prospects that workers encounter.

Conclusion

The conclusion summarizes the key arguments of this book while also emphasizing the key theoretical advances that it makes related to the production of service brands, racialized group boundaries, and in-betweenness. Additionally, Wilson describes several emerging trends in the restaurant industry, such as the movement to eliminate tips, that will shape the kinds of opportunities and barriers that future generations of restaurant workers will face.

Affective commitment, service quality and selected sub-dimensions of customer citizenship behaviour: a study of ride-hailing services

PurposeMarketing literature has made little progress on the connection between service quality and customer citizenship advocacy, helping and feedback sub-dimensions that may promote competitiveness. It is also unclear to what extent service quality may serve as an underlying motivation for explaining the relationship between affective commitment (a primary antecedent of customer citizenship) and the selected sub-dimensions. Consequently, the aim of the current research is to develop a customer citizenship behaviour model and address these matters in a peer-to-peer service context.Design/methodology/approachSurvey data were collected from 610 customers of a ride-hailing peer-to-peer service brand. Data analysis included structural equation modelling and bootstrapping.FindingsAffective commitment influences service quality. Service quality motivates customer citizenship behaviours directed towards the ride-hailing brand (feedback) and other customers (advocacy and helping). Service quality provides an indirect path for connecting affective commitment with the customer citizenship behaviours in varying degrees.Originality/valueThis study is the first to verify the relevance of all three customer citizenship behaviours in a single model as influenced by service quality. The current research is further a step forward in understanding the mediating role of service quality and its potential to ensure customers' feelings of attachment towards the brand are translated in citizenship actions. The findings are noteworthy, considering the varying service levels generally experienced in a peer-to-peer service environment. Peer-to-peer service brands may fall back on their emotional connection with customers to influence service judgements and ultimately benefit from customer citizenship behaviours.