Browsing by Subject "Marketing"

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Analysis of Marketing Practices Implemented by Value-Added Urban and Reclaimed Wood Firms
(2019-07) Pitti, Anna
In the United States, trees felled in urban areas and wood generated through construction and demolition are typically disposed of in landfills or used for low-value applications, such as energy production or landscaping mulch. In recent years, the urban and reclaimed wood industries have emerged to divert supplies from landfills and provide a higher value-added outlet. Due to the newly established nature of these industries, literature specific to marketing practices adopted by these companies is largely non-existent. The objective of this research was to identify marketing practices implemented by firms operating in the urban and reclaimed wood industries and provide effective marketing strategy recommendations. The resulting recommendations are intended to help increase urban and reclaimed wood utilization, in turn helping to foster local economies, decreasing stress to landfills, and providing more options to environmentally-conscious consumers. HASH(0x3fdc0f8) To accomplish the research objectives, an industry survey and case studies of value-added urban and reclaimed wood firms were conducted. Firms were asked to report on company characteristics, consumer characteristics, marketing practices, opportunities, and barriers. Marketing practices were evaluated using the “marketing mix” framework to evaluate products, pricing, promotion, and distribution. Results from this study indicate that, in general, urban and reclaimed wood firms are small, reported utilizing urban or reclaimed wood for less than 10 years, and leveraged one or more partnerships for effective raw material procurement. Products are primarily made-to-order using highly variable raw materials, where raw material type influences products made and species utilized for production. Firms indicated pricing their products slightly higher than, or in line with their competition. Urban and reclaimed wood firms typically leverage word of mouth, company webpages, and social media to communicate messages of quality, aesthetics, and customizability, largely appealing to consumers with differentiated product attributes. Distribution channels used include primarily direct sales, online sales, and retail sales. Firms identified lack of financial resources, lack of storage space, and under-performing or insufficient marketing efforts as main barriers to growth; however, participating firm responses indicated healthy growth expectations.
Attention modes in consumer decision making: attending to the physical environment makes price more important
(2014-05) Rahinel, Ryan
At every waking moment, one's attention is situated along a continuum from experiencing, where one focuses on their immediate environment, to mind-wandering, where one focuses on environment-independent thoughts, feelings, and daydreams. The framework developed and tested in this research predicts how this spectrum of attention affects the relative weight consumers place on price information in their judgments and decisions. Six studies provide empirical support for the framework, with the core finding being that people in an experiencing (mind-wandering) mode systematically attach more (less) weight to price information. This effect stems from the price attribute's characteristic of changeability, or capability for exhibiting temporal variation. People in an experiencing (versus mind-wandering) mode place a greater importance on noticing change, and therefore subsequently estimate that a changeable stimulus (such as a price) is more likely to change. Such differences in beliefs of change likelihood lead to the observed differences in price weighting effects across the attention modes. These findings shed new light on the underlying psychology of attention as well as the role of price in judgment and decision making.
The buzz or the brand? How consumer perceptions of brand authenticity is influenced by buzzword labels
(2015) Grev, Olivia;
In an industry where big brands used to be better, small companies have contributed two-thirds of food industry growth in 2014. Consumer preferences have shifted, especially among millennials, and trending health-related buzzwords such as gluten free, ancient grains, and 100% natural have contributed to this change. However, among large packaged goods companies the alignment of these labels with the brand’s purpose differs from that of small, niche companies. Through an experimental design and ANOVA analyses, this study aims to determine the difference between millennial and non-millennial consumers in regards to their perceptions of brand authenticity and how it is affected by the presence of buzzword labels and brand type (with either a large multi-national or niche brand story). In addition, this thesis aims to connect consumers’ perceptions of these brand and label conditions to their knowledge of buzzwords and their lifestyle habits.
Can We Determine Our Own Happiness? Core Self-Evaluation as Related to Job and Relationship Satisfaction
(2016) Fendos, Jennifer;
College is a double-edged sword in that it is often seen as a time of newfound freedom and fun, but also described as a core source of stress. Considerable research suggests that one’s tolerance to stress is directly related to personality factors that determine general life satisfaction. However, evidence suggests core self-evaluation, a personality factor consisting of self-esteem, self-efficacy, locus of control, and emotional stability, is linked to not just general life satisfaction, but specific types of life satisfaction, such as one’s job. This study utilizes a survey to examine the relationship between core self-evaluation and college satisfaction, relationship satisfaction, and coping skills among 161 college students. I find statistical significance in between all three relationships - core self-evaluation being positively related to job and relationship satisfaction and coping skills – and discuss the possible reasons behind why. These findings not only help to shed light on a new personality variable that can determine satisfaction, but also offer insight into how internal factors can manifest in one’s everyday life.
Color Theory and Psychological Connections in Marketing to College Students
(2020-12) Pratt, Chloe
There are over 30 million people in the United States that fall into the college-age population demographic (18-24 years old). This accounts for 10% of the total U.S. population (“Status and trends” 2019). Marketing to college students proves to be a challenge at times. Students are not as easily persuaded by advertisements as other demographics are. (Coray, 2020). Marketers face the problem of finding ways to persuade these consumers to purchase their products or services. One of the main ways that consumers are influenced by marketing is through the colors in logos and packaging. Most people, whether they know it or not, have preconceived ideas in their minds of what the different colors represent to them. Although each person has different color associations unique to them, they tend to be consistent between people overall. Marketers must figure out how to use these color associations to form a brand identity for the product or service they are trying to sell. In doing so, they have the ability to persuade consumer decision making. This study was designed to determine how college students perceive each color, and how their color perceptions affect their decision making. The results will be used to determine how to use color to market products or services to college aged Americans.
The Community Speaks out in Support of the U's Aspirations
(University of Minnesota, 2005) University of Minnesota: University Relations
Do We Believe What We Read? Effects of User-Generated Social Media Content on Consumers' Brand Liking
(2015) Kohlmann, Emily;
Social media is a relatively new form of marketing for companies, and its use continues to increase among consumers and companies. Past research has found that businesses use social media marketing primarily to increase brand awareness and communicate their brand online (Structuring a social media team, 2012). However, this existing research does not acknowledge the content on social media posted by users about their experiences with the brand. Companies need to understand how this user-generated content about their brand influences consumers’ attitudes towards the brand. The present research examines the effect of consumers viewing negative social media content on consumer brand liking, and it addresses how social media usage frequency influences consumers’ brand liking after viewing user-generated content. This study uses a survey scenario to present social media content and collects information about brand liking and social media usage. The regression analysis supported that viewing negative user-generated social media content decreases consumer liking for the brand, but it did not support that the degree of influence of the content varied by the participant’s extent of social media usage.
Does Pinning Lead to Purchasing?: An Evaluation of the Impact Social Media Connectedness has on Online Purchase Behavior
(2015) Grange, Ryan;
Internet retailing has become extremely competitive in recent years, and this trend will likely continue. While the online retailing universe develops, social media will play an increasing role in how consumers gain information and interact online. As such, it will become pertinent for marketers to understand how their online customers utilize social media and online interactions to shop. Currently, research in this area focuses primarily on brand liking based off of social sources, but what marketers really care about is how that translates into increased sales. There is a lack of research around how social media interaction and usage leads to purchase intent for online consumers. This study utilizes survey data to measure social media usage, and then examines how usage level affects purchase decision making and intent based on hypothetical scenarios with varying influences. The study finds evidence that online interactions have a higher impact for those that are more heavily engaged online, but that this effect does not transcend all product categories. These findings will help marketers target both heavy and light social media users and cater to their online shopping habits in the future.
Does the public still trust public health? Analyzing the effects of misinformation inoculations by public health institutions on vaccine hesitancy
(2022) Wallin, Deanna;
This thesis aims to study how public health institutions’ debunking of COVID misinformation using inoculation theory affects vaccine hesitancy and misinformation belief in vaccine-hesitant populations. Participants were asked about how they perceive public health institutions (such as the CDC and WHO) in terms of trustworthiness and credibility. Participants were exposed to either misinformation and debunking using inoculation theory, misinformation alone, or a control task. Inoculation and misinformation experimental conditions were then asked to assess believability of vaccine-critical news headlines. After the survey, intention to get the COVID vaccine was measured. Inoculation messaging was found to have a significant positive effect on vaccine acceptance. Misinformation belief was found to have a slight mediating effect, but public health trust was not found to be a significant moderator. This study supports prior findings that inoculation is effective at increasing vaccine acceptance but prompts further research on misinformation’s role and long-term effects of inoculation messaging.
#Explore: Outdoor Retailers, Indigenous Activists, and the Digital Battle for Public Land in the United States
(2020-04) Whitson, Joseph
“#Explore: Outdoor Retailers, Indigenous Activists, and the Digital Battle over Public Land in the United States,” uses digital marketing, activism, and representations of public land to analyze the impacts of the outdoor retail industry on Indigenous sovereignty and Indigenous response to and engagement with the industry. Drawing conceptually and methodologically from Indigenous studies, new media studies, and environmental history, this project interrogates the ramifications of commercially driven conservation and public land policy for American Indian treaty rights, resource sovereignty, and cultural preservation. It positions social media as a space of ambiguity, revealing how Indigenous people challenge these representations and respond to these companies. I pay special attention to how Indigenous people unite western and traditional forms of activism and knowledge production to construct alternative narratives, adapting tools historically used against their communities - including corporation structures, social media, and political lobbying - to work for positive change. I argue that through their digital marketing and advocacy, the outdoor retail industry is complicit in settler colonialism, using social media to claim space in ways that erase Indigenous presence and invalidate their legal, cultural, and historical rights to land, while at the same time creating space for dissent.
From Canoeing to Careers: An Evaluation of Employee Engagement Characterized by After-Work Activities
(2015) Morris, Megan;
The growing importance of employee engagement and its relationship with the success of a company is becoming more apparent to firms worldwide. Yet with only 13% of employees worldwide claiming to be engaged during the workday, firms are looking to fix this issue and finds ways to identify the most engaged employees (Gallup, 2013). Though research exists on the performance and engagement of employees during the workday, little research has focused on the relationship between engagement and activities outside of the workplace. This thesis looks at employee behavior in after-work activities to understand whether there is a relationship between these activities and employee engagement during the workday. Though no conclusive results were found regarding engagement and after-work activities, other patterns such as a relationship between number of hours per week worked and engagement during the workday emerged.
A Guide to Local Food System Planning for Scott County, Minnesota
(Minneapolis: Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, 2009) Aitchison, Kate
HomeLink Marketing and Media Campaign: To Increase Homeownership Rates for People of Color on the East Side of St Paul
(2001) Marcks, Jennifer L.
The Impact of Social Media on College Choice
(2014) DiAna, Kathryn; Rauschenfels, Diane
Social media, defined as a platform for participants to create, share or exchange information and connect with others on a global scale, is emerging as a key marketing component of the college admissions process. The emergence of social media allows universities the ability to communicate in a voice that is familiar to the millennial generation, defined as those born after 1980. Using a quantitative research methodology, this project explored how the use of social media can impact college choice. Results show that 92% of respondents used Facebook one or more times daily and 78.9% of students joined a social network created just for admitted students. The outcome helps to answer the question of how institutions of higher education can best leverage this technology to influence college choice.
The Investor Wears Prada
(2017) Terzic, Sofia;
Luxury clothing items are commonly advertised as in the moment, self-enhancing, indulgence pieces that provide consumers with social and emotional values. These products are rarely seen as items with functional value that could be purchased as investments. There is a lack of empirical data as to whether the marketing of luxury clothing items gives the products their social and emotional values or whether it is the product itself that carries these perceptions. This study researches whether luxury clothing items can be seen as investment pieces if they are marketed in this way, similarly to how cars are viewed as investments. Furthermore, it analyzes if marketing a luxury clothing item as an investment piece will change the views consumers have about the products and increase a luxury clothing company’s customer base. In recent years, trends of purchasing vintage clothing and the increase of consignment stores allow for clothing to be resold, making it easier to realize clothing as an investment. The study uses surveys that portray the luxury clothing items in their current form and as investments and utilizes twosample t-tests and correlation to analyze the results.
Managing Political Candidates as Brands
(2010-04-21) Lieffring, Staci
Political candidates often incorporate marketing strategies in their cam-paigns for office. What is the most effective way to do so from a marketing perspective? How do candidates form a relationship with voters? Research question: Which aspects of brand identity and branding are the most influential in forming a relationship with a voter for political candidates?
Optimal Pricing with New Models of Consumer Behavior
(2015-09) Liu, Yan
Revenue management is a commonly used practice in many industries, such as airlines, hotels, fashion, and car rentals. It takes advantage of customers' different valuations for a product or products and charges different prices to different customers to extract customers' surplus. In revenue management, most literature assumes that customers are myopic and will buy immediately if the price is low and leave otherwise. In recent years there has been much research involving strategic customers who have the ability to predict future prices and thus make a purchase at the price that maximizes their utility. In Chapter 2 and 3, I will study a different type of customer behavior, which we call patient customer behavior. A patient customer will wait up to some fixed number of time periods for the price of the product to fall below his or her valuation at which point the customer will make a purchase. If the price does not fall below a patient customer's valuation at any time during those periods, then that customer will leave without buying. Chapter 4 describes a learning and pricing problem in which the seller does not know the fraction of patient customers. In practice, customers may wish to search for product information before making purchase decisions. That is, they may wish to research the product or products under consideration. This research behavior will introduce costs to customers, which may include time cost, travel cost, and mental processing cost. Since such research costs could be part of a customer's utility, they may affect a customer's purchasing behavior and thus the firm's strategy. However, most literature in revenue management does not consider the existence of customers' search cost. In Chapter 5, I consider a pricing problem in which customers face uncertainty about whether they will like certain products. Those customers can incur research costs to learn product information. In summary, I will focus on deriving optimal pricing decisions for companies that face customer behavior that is more complex than typically assumed in traditional models.
Political Discriminatory Product Differentiation: An Investigation into Airlines’ Route Map Treatment of Taiwan
(2022) Stagg, Lauren;
The discriminatory behavior and actions of firms are commonly viewed through the lens of internal human resource management—such as hiring and payroll practices. Recent research highlights a more discrete form of discrimination that presents itself through product design. Discriminatory product differentiation is a competitive strategy in which a firm will design its product to appeal to certain internal and external stakeholders, even at the expense of losing a subsegment of potential customers and profitability. This paper explores the theory of discriminatory product differentiation by examining international airlines’ responses to the political dispute over Taiwan’s diplomatic status via their airline route map design. This paper also examines how an airline's membership in an international air alliance (i.e., SkyTeam, Oneworld, or Star Alliance) may have a moderating effect on this relationship. The results of this study provide a further understanding of how firms compete abroad alone and in groups. Additionally, it provides a further understanding of how international firms and alliances respond to international political disputes threatening their business interests. The broader impact of this study is to provide further insight into the dynamics surrounding international business practices and public policy.
Prada for Proletariats: How Socioeconomic Status Affects the Purchase of Luxury Products
(2016) Thorburn, Paige;
The luxury goods industry draws in billions of dollars each year and is expanding into new customer segments and markets, especially younger and less affluent consumers. These changes make it increasingly important that luxury brands understand their consumers. In this research, we ask the question: How does a consumer’s socioeconomic status (SES) affect their motivations for purchasing luxury products, and how do these motivations affect preferences for luxury products that are loud (large logos) versus quiet (small or no logos)? Prior research has studied the individual effects of SES, consumer luxury preferences, and motivations for purchasing luxury products. However, there is no one study that incorporates all of these factors and fully explains their connection with one another. This study uses a survey to investigate the relationship between SES, motivations for purchasing luxury products, and preferences for loud versus quiet luxury products. I find that individuals who experience an increase in socioeconomic status over their lifetime are more motivated by social acceptance as a reason to purchase luxury products, and in turn, this motivation results in a preference for louder and more conspicuous luxury products.
Understanding the impact of core product quality on customer satisfaction, team identification, and service quality
(2011-08) Warren, Clinton J.
Customer satisfaction is one of the most important factors in ensuring the long-term financial success of any organization. Previous marketing research suggests that customer satisfaction is influenced by the quality of an organization’s core offerings. Customer satisfaction is developed by ensuring product quality in goods based industries, and it is facilitated by delivering quality services in service based industries. Spectator sport is a unique sector of business that includes both product and service delivery. The game experience is at the core of spectator sport consumption. The core sport product is a unique aspect of the marketing mix that is not controlled by sport managers. However, core product quality is critically important to customer satisfaction. Additionally, team sport consumers develop unique psychological and emotional attachments to the organizations they support. This attachment, team identification, is an important construct that influences the team sport consumer in a variety of ways. Team identification has been shown to influence perceptions of service quality and overall customer satisfaction. This study is one of the first to attempt to develop, and test, a theoretical model that explains customer satisfaction in team sport by including core product quality, team identification, and service quality perceptions. This study utilized a non-experimental survey design to test the proposed team customer satisfaction model (TCSM) in two contexts. Data were collected at a NCAA Division I-FCS football game and men’s basketball game. Participants completed a questionnaire comprised of measurement scales assessing customer satisfaction, core product quality perceptions, team identification, and service quality perceptions. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted in an attempt to examine the fit for the TCSM to each sample. The model was evaluated for overall fit and path coefficients were examined to determine the degree to which independent variables were predictive of the dependent variables in the model. The results indicated that the TCSM did not fit the data collected in either sample. However, analysis of the structural paths within the model indicated that core product quality holds a weak causal influence over customer satisfaction, team identification, and service quality. Additionally, it was found that team identification was only a causal predictor of customer satisfaction and service quality evaluations in one model test. The results of this study suggest the model should be re-specified and further tested with the available data.

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