| What
Corporate Writers and Editors are researching ... in the
news:
During disasters, active Twitter users likely to spread
falsehoods. We know that Twitter is littered with
misinformation. But how good are the social media platform's
most active users at detecting these falsehoods, especially
during public emergencies? Not good. Researchers found: 86
to 91 percent of the users spread false news, either by
retweeting or "liking" the original post. 5 to 9 percent
sought to confirm the false news, typically by retweeting
and asking if the information was correct. 1 to 9 percent
expressed doubt, often by saying the original tweet was not
accurate.
"These findings are important because they show how easily
people are deceived during times when they are most
vulnerable and the role social media platforms play in these
deceptions," says Jun Zhuang, PhD, associate professor.
University at Buffalo
Staff
satisfaction affects company performance. Companies
with high levels of staff satisfaction perform better
financially. The study examined the effect of staff
satisfaction on corporate performance using employees'
online reviews of where they work. University of East
Anglia, Norwich Business School. Economic Letters
Strong
friendships in the workplace reduce conflict. When
employers foster an office environment that supports
positive, social relationships between women coworkers,
especially in primarily male dominated organizations, they
are less likely to experience conflict among women
employees. Washington University. Organization Science
Tech
company video ads still dominated by white males. Consumer
tech companies that are serious about attracting more women
and people from minority groups into their workforce might
want to revisit the video advertisements featured on their
websites. Although these ads do not explicitly discourage
women and girls, or people of color, from pursuing the
fields of computer science, they do little to present
technologies as accessible to those who do not fit the
dominant white male idea. Gender Issues
Ethical
business practice can flourish in nations with
serious corruption problems. Investors and the public are
more willing to support and pay for ethical goods and
business trading in places where it is scarce. Companies
operating in this way can stand out if they reject and make
a stand against unethical behaviour, and consumers will
support them. Professor William Harvey said: "It isn't
enough just to behave ethically. Companies also need to get
the support of the public and investors for their actions to
gain a good reputation. University of Exeter Business
School, China Europe International Business School and
Darden Graduate School of Business Administration,
University of Virginia. Harvard Business Review and
Journal of Management Studies
Meaningful
work not created - only destroyed - by bosses: Bosses
play no role in fostering a sense of meaningfulness at work
- but they do have the capacity to destroy it and should
stay out of the way. The research indicates that, rather
than being similar to other work-related attitudes, such as
engagement or commitment, meaningfulness at work tends to be
intensely personal and individual, and is often revealed to
employees as they reflect on their work. Thus what managers
can do to encourage meaningfulness is limited, though what
they can do to introduce meaninglessness is unfortunately of
far greater capacity. Dr Madden adds: "Organizations that
succeed in this are more likely to attract, retain, and
motivate the employees they need to build sustainably for
the future, and to create the kind of workplaces where human
beings can thrive." University of Sussex and the University
of Greenwich. MIT Sloan Management Review
Gaps in advertising and PR - Blurred boundaries
between advertising and public relations professions due to
new roles in social media raise the question of whether
educators can adequately prepare their students for a career
in those growing fields. "Educators need to address the
deficiencies identified in this study and find ways to build
these skills and competencies in their courses," said
Marlene S. Neill, Ph.D., assistant professor of journalism,
public relations and new media. Baylor University.
Journal of Advertising Education
How to make Web advertising more effective - Every
day, users are bombarded with animated ads across the Web,
and companies fight to cut through the clutter. New research
pinpoints one attribute online ads should have to influence
consumers' perceptions of a new product--and their
willingness to pay for it. Consumers who see a Web ad in
which the product changes direction while moving across the
screen are more likely to perceive the product as
innovative. "Psychologically, we don't expect inanimate
objects to be able to change directions," says co-author
Arun Lakshmanan, PhD, assistant professor of marketing in
the UB School of Management. "As a result, when we see
something do that in an advertisement, it stands out as
atypical and causes us to make judgments instantaneously
about the product's novelty, without even thinking about
it." "The majority of new products are brand extensions or
products with incremental changes from previous versions,"
Lakshmanan says. "For marketers, particularly those working
with smaller companies and low-budget brands, kinetic
property offers a robust, subtle and powerful mechanism to
communicate product innovation and influence consumer
attitudes." University at Buffalo School of Management.
Journal of Marketing
Can EEGs predict success better than surveys? A new
study finds that brain activity visible through EEG measures
may be a much cheaper and more accurate way to predict the
commercial success of movies. "Several decades of research
have shown that many important mental processes occur below
the surface of consciousness, leaving people very limited in
their ability to predict their own future behavior," write
authors Maarten A. S. Boksem and Ale Smidts of Erasmus
University. "This study suggests that neuroimaging
technologies such as EEG machines can reveal information
that is not obtainable through conventional marketing
surveys." Journal of Marketing Research
Location-based ads - Location-based advertisements
may pinpoint customers geographically, but often miss the
target because customers may find the ads creepy and
intrusive. To overcome this negativity, the researchers
suggest advertisers invite their customers to help tailor
ads they might receive. While being physically close to a
product or shop improved attitudes about local
advertisements on their mobile devices, customers felt
significantly better about both the advertisement and
location-based advertising when they had a hand in selecting
the ads, said S. Shyam Sundar, Distinguished Professor of
Communications and co-director of the Media Effects Research
Laboratory. Computers in Human Behavior
How to trust what your customers say about your brand
- Marketers would love to get inside the consumer brain. And
now they can. Researchers are using functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI) to see if what people say about
brands matches what they are actually thinking. The
researchers scanned the study's participants in an fMRI
machine while they viewed logos of well-known brands
such as Apple, Disney, Ikea, BMW, and Nestle. After
they finished the scan, the participants then took a survey
that asked about the characteristics that they associated
with each brand. Next, using a set of data mining
algorithms, the researchers used the participants' brain
activity to predict the survey responses. Although
conducting fMRI studies on a routine basis is still likely
to be cost prohibitive for most companies, the current
findings point to a future where marketers can directly
validate customer insights in ways that were not possible
before. University of California Berkeley Haas School of
Business. Journal of Marketing Research
Is quality or cost more essential? The international
market. As businesses move into international markets,
they often do so with a "one size fits all" customer
satisfaction strategy. But factors as basic as how consumers
prioritize pricing and quality can differ sharply across
cultures and economic systems. Success will depend
in part on understanding these perceptions across cultures.
"A company's success abroad will depend in part on
understanding how people of different cultures sometimes
perceive value very differently," write authors Forrest V.
Morgeson III (American Customer Satisfaction Index),
Pratyush Nidhi Sharma (University of Delaware) and G. Tomas
M. Hult (Michigan State University). Journal of
International Marketing
For marketers - A sad TV drama comes to conclusion,
fading to black as music swells, and leaving the audience
emotionally torn about the future of the main characters.
Suddenly, the TV cuts to a peppy commercial and viewers are
faced with the relentless cheer of an insurance spokesperson
pitching their latest money saving product. This is a common
occurrence in today's prime time-driven entertainment
culture, but new research shows that this juxtaposition of
emotions can leave TV viewers puzzled at the swing in
content and emotion, so much so that these potential
consumers may ignore the ad altogether and will be unlikely
to recall the advertiser. Columbia Business School Professor
of marketing Keith Wilcox calls this phenomenon the
"deactivating" emotion and shows why marketers and ad buyers
might want to opt for ads that are only moderately energetic
as opposed to ads with boundless energy and pep. The paper,
titled "Consumers' Response to Commercials: When the Energy
Level in the Commercial Conflicts with the Media Context,"
was co-authored by Nancy M. Puccinelli of Oxford
University's Saďd Business School. Columbia
Business School
Better social media techniques - Due to the
ever-increasing number of people using social media sites
such as Facebook and Twitter, businesses
and organizations, such as professional sports teams, are
expanding their marketing and communication efforts
to engage people with their brands through those
sites. Researchers found that the more individual teams
released original content from their Twitter accounts, such
as score updates or player profiles, the more followers they
gained and engagement they initiated. The researchers say
their findings could provide guidance for many businesses
struggling with how to use social media. University
of Missouri, Louisiana State University. Journal of
Sport Management
Advertising and marketing pros - Not all women will
buy products because the models in the advertisements are
thin. In fact, marketers and advertisers who default to the
"thin ideal" -- the belief that thinner is better -- could
be alienating up to 70 percent of their audience, said James
Roberts, Ph.D., The Ben H. Williams Professor of
Marketing. "The current 'thin sells' fixation is a
gross oversimplification of how women respond to
advertising," the study said, adding that previous research
has shown that only 5 percent of women could possibly
achieve the body size depicted in typical advertisements.
Baylor University. Atlantic Marketing Journal
Do CEOs deserve all the attention they get? Media
interest in CEOs has soared to stratospheric heights in
recent years, with the likes of Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs
becoming household names. But do corporate top dogs deserve
all that attention? New research shows that a CEO does
indeed often have an outsized effect on firm performance.
"We can place the CEO effect at about 25 percent today,
which means that the chief executives typically account for
a little more than a fourth of a firm's overall profit,"
said Tim Quigley, an assistant professor of management.
University of Georgia Terry College of Business.
Strategic Management Journal
Marketing and PR Focus - Corporate communicators and
marketing teams are often in direct competition to be in the
"C-suite" - the coveted boardroom seat. "So few seats are
available that it's often an 'either/or' for PR and
marketing," said study author Marlene Neill, Ph.D.,
assistant professor of journalism, public relations and new
media. The research indicates that both groups' focus on the
C-suite, with members that include chief executive officers
and chief financial officers, is too narrow. "Everybody
wants more power and influence, but "strategic issues arise
at the division level as well as executive-level
committees," Neill said. "The executives' interviews
indicated that corporate communications and marketing do
supply distinct and essential services that justify their
membership in executive-level decision teams," Neill said.
While PR executives in corporate environments generally
manage social media, reputation, internal communications and
government relations, marketing executives had influence due
to their expertise in market research and branding. "PR had
a bigger role with companies handling crises and reputation,
while marketing was more dominant when the company was
focused on branding and sales," Neill said. She suggested
that both groups need to build internal relationships with
their colleagues to educate them on the contributions they
can provide. Baylor University. Journal of
Communication Management
Double-digit growth for firms creating own online
communities. Engaging consumers through online social
networks is an increasingly mission-critical activity for
major brands. While some firms host their own brand-centric
online communities, Facebook has become the dominant host
for online communities of brand enthusiasts, taking over $10
billion and 10% of U.S. digital advertising spending. The
results of the study offer the first hard evidence that
these social dollars exist. Specifically, they account for
almost 20% of all dollars spent by customers after they join
the community. Social Dollars: The Economic Impact of
Customer Participation in a Firm-Sponsored Online Customer
Community, is by professors Puneet Manchanda of the
University of Michigan, Grant Packard of Wilfrid Laurier
University, and Adithya Pattabhiramaiah of the Georgia
Institute of Technology. Marketing Science, a
journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the
Management Sciences
Feedback interactions in a creative setting -
Feedback - the objective response, opinion, or input - is
something most of us experience either at work or amongst
friends to bodies of work or projects that are complete. But
in the world of creative processes - where no one knows what
the finished product should look like - feedback is
inherently different, and more constructive. "Traditionally
when we think about feedback, we think about the manager who
knows what an employee's performance should look like;
they're able to objectively measure how the employee is
doing and kind of agree on how the performance has gone,"
says Spencer Harrison, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of
Management and Organization in the Carroll School of
Management at Boston College. "But when you're doing
something that's inherently creative, the whole point of
creativity is you don't know what the outcome is supposed to
look like when you're starting off. So now all of a sudden,
both worker and feedback provider are in completely
different positions than what a classic feedback situation
entails, and we just didn't know very much about what that
feedback situation should look like. How do people actually
guide others down a path when they don't know what the
outcome should be, when they're kind of both discovering
newness along the way?" Critical to the feedback's success
is a conversation between creative workers who are receptive
to help, and feedback providers who have done their
homework. Boston College. Academy of Management Journal
Careful choice of words increases chances of success
- When negotiating your next pay raise, haggling at the flea
market or selling a used car, attention should be paid to
the choice of words. A recent study revealed that proper
wording can translate into hard cash. Thus, even slight
linguistic nuances may significantly affect the outcome of
negotiations - an effect which can also benefit
non-professional negotiators. This principle applies even if
what is at stake is not money. Psychologist Professor Dr.
Roman Trötschel, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, and Dr.
David Loschelder, Saarland University. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology
Product placement, branding - As branding and
advertising creep into almost every facet of life, a new
study shows it's now making substantial inroads into popular
music. The study found a steep increase in `advertainment'
or the use of product placement, branding and name dropping
among the most popular music in the nation. The study also
showed a direct link between product placement and brand
awareness. University of Colorado Denver
Content creators - It's not much harder or more
expensive to send a tweet or a Facebook post to hundreds or
even thousands of people than to just a handful. So you'd
think that the ease of communicating with lots of people via
social networks would result in more and more people sharing
their thoughts, etc. But that's not the case, says Associate
Professor Zsolt Katona. The flood of tweets and posts
washing across cyberspace has created a huge imbalance in
the number of people creating content and the
number of people who receive it. That imbalance stems from
some content creators giving up on actively contributing to
social networks, while others choose to send out more and
more messages to users in an effort to be noticed. Although
more and more people are participating in social networking,
a smaller percentage of users are actively creating and
sharing content. Industry reports estimate that just 10
percent of Twitter users broadcast 90 percent of the
network's tweets. The research suggests that social
networking is a bit like a market: People who create and
send content are investing effort to win customers--in this
case the "receivers" who will view their content. Co-author
Ganesh Iyer, Edgar F. Kaiser Chair in Business
Administration at Berkeley-Haas. Univeristy of California -
Berkeley Haas School of Business. Management Science
Measuring marketing effectiveness - From "Got Milk?"
to "What's in your wallet?" to "Are you a Mac or a PC?"
promotional phrases consisting of a simple question have
proven to be quite effective, but are they more effective
than a simple statement? That depends. Henrik Hagtvedt,
Ph.D., a Marketing professor at the Carroll School of
Management at Boston College, has just finished
investigating what happens when you replace a period with a
question mark, or vice versa, and how that affects whether a
consumer makes a purchase. Given the takeaway of the
research - aroused consumers appreciate clarity, while calm
consumers appreciate stimuli that peak their interest - the
lesson for marketers is this: Know where your message is
being seen. Journal of Consumer Psychology
Consumer behavior and free trials: What makes a customer
stay? - Free trials are wildly popular, but customers
attracted with these promotions behave very differently from
standard customers. "Because of their higher turnover rate,
free trial customers are, at first glance, worth
considerably less than regular customers. Companies may have
to reduce profit expectations if the customer base includes
a substantial share of free-trial subscribers. But this
study found that free trial customers are also more
"malleable" than regular customers. They have a
less-developed relationship with the firm, and are less
certain about the service benefits. Targeting free trial
customers with marketing communication and information on
their own usage behavior may have a big impact on
encouraging them to retain the service," the authors
conclude. Journal of Marketing Research
Launching a new brand - A new study shows that
partnering with established brands may not always benefit
new brands. "Our findings call into question a cornerstone
of marketing practice. There are times when partnering with
an existing brand can actually be detrimental to a new
brand. Because an established brand gets more attention from
consumers, this can prevent consumers from associating any
benefits of the partnership with the new brand," write
authors Marcus Cunha Jr. (University of Georgia), Mark R.
Forehand (University of Washington), and Justin W. Angle
(University of Montana). "Riding Coattails: When Co-Branding
Helps versus Hurts Less-Known Brands." Journal of
Consumer Research
Twitter chatter and marketplace - An increase in
Twitter sentiment (the positivity or negativity of tweets)
is associated with an increase in state-level enrollment in
health insurance marketplaces - a phenomenon that points to
use of the social media platform as a real-time gauge of
public opinion and provides a way for marketplaces to
quickly identify enrollment changes and emerging issues.
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of
Pennsylvania. Journal of Medical Internet Research
International marketing: Are store brands becoming a
global phenomenon? - Big name brands in the United States
and Western Europe face a serious and growing threat from
successful store brands. A new study explains why store
brands have taken some countries by storm while leaving
other countries relatively untouched. The authors studied
sales information from 46 countries throughout the Americas,
Europe, and the Middle East, looking particularly at
home-care, packaged food, tissue and hygiene, and pet care.
Prior studies had shown that when consumers are willing to
pay more for a big name brand, store brands must be offered
at significantly lower prices in order to compete. The
current study found that countries with modernized marketing
systems containing supermarkets instead of mom-and-pop
stores are in the best position to lower prices on store
brands since only these large stores are able to buy a high
enough volume of the store brand to make this move cost
effective. Journal of International Marketing
Local media have positive slant toward local businesses
- When local news media report about hometown companies,
they use fewer negative words than when reporting about
nonlocal companies. Alex Butler, a professor of finance at
Rice's Jones Graduate School of Business, said this positive
slant is not coincidental; it's the result of local
companies' advertising expenditures in local media outlets.
This positive media bias, or hype, creates a conflict of
interest and can affect firm values, particularly those of
smaller firms. Butler co-authored the study "Don't Believe
the Hype: Local Media Slant, Local Advertising and Firm
Value" with Umit Gurun, an associate professor of accounting
at UT Dallas. Rice University and the University of Texas at
Dallas
Employees become angry when receiving after-hours email,
texts - People who receive electronic correspondence
from work after hours become angry more often than not and
that can interfere with their personal lives. Some of the
recommendations the study makes include training for what to
say and what not to say in an email or text, setting
boundaries for when to send electronic correspondence,
guidelines for proper communication style and topics best
discussed face-to-face rather than electronically. The
University of Texas at Arlington. Academy of Management
Journal
Communication about products and brands-
Communication channels such as Facebook may be leading
consumers to discuss more interesting products. New
technologies have dramatically changed how we communicate.
Instead of talking face-to-face or over the phone, consumers
can now e-mail, text, tweet, or message back and forth on
Facebook. Jonah Berger and Raghuram Iyengar (both Wharton
School of the University of Pennsylvania. "Communication
Channels and Word of Mouth: How the Medium Shapes the
Message." Journal of Consumer Research
Brand loyalty - What would happen to all those
millions of fans if their favorite chocolate bar was
temporarily out of stock? Would they wait for it to be
available again or would they quickly switch allegiance to
another brand? When you can't get your favorite product,
you'll quickly forget about it if you can find a good
replacement. Xianchi Dai (CUHK Business School, Chinese
University of Hong Kong), and Ayelet Fishbach (University of
Chicago Booth School of Business). Journal of Consumer
Research
Traditional forms of media coverage or advertising? -
In an age where digital media is constantly changing, public
relations practitioners and business professionals still see
the benefits of traditional media coverage.
"We have this intuitive idea that getting our messages
covered by the news media makes those messages more credible
than when we put them out there ourselves," said study
co-author Lynne Sallot, a professor of public relations in
the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
"Everyone believes this, but it's been difficult to prove
it."
Independent media coverage is a more traditional form of
news content like a TV broadcast, newspaper article or radio
show, whereas more controlled sources of media are paid
media such as advertisements or an organization's own
website.
"Both types of communication are used by businesspeople, but
an independent source may be viewed by audiences as having
more credibility because it is not controlled or influenced
by the subject of a story," said Pauline Howes, an associate
professor of communications at Kennesaw State
University.
When determining what goes into a business's story, the
editors and producers behind these independent news sources
have no vested interest in the company or its products.
Differing from past experimental studies, this research
looked at real world perceptions by interviewing public
relation practitioners as well as business professionals.
"Most all experimental studies comparing independent and
controlled sources show no significant difference in
perceived credibility," Howes said.
University of Georgia. Public Relations Journal
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