Group Marketing: Theory, Mechanisms, and Dynamics

Abstract

Group marketing uses the psychological mechanisms underlying group influence to drive customer behaviors that are beneficial to the firm. It is predicated on the firm's ability to guide two necessary and sufficient conditions: (1) a customer's awareness of an affiliation with the focal group and (2) exposure to group norms. By examining what it means to be affiliated with a group; determining how group norms are inferred, applied, and maintained; and testing a wide variety of ways in which these conditions become manifest, this research demonstrates the theoretical foundations of group marketing. Groups influence purchase behaviors by altering information and identity appraisals during decision making. Time in a purchase domain emerges as a critical determinant of the strength of group influence. Although previous research has suggested that social influence diminishes over time, a longitudinal field study and an experiment reveal that this prediction holds only when information appraisal dominates; an opposite effect arises when identity appraisal dominates. Group efficacy strengthens, but product price weakens, the effects of groups on purchase behaviors.

The copycat CMO: firms’ imitative behavior as an explanation for CMO presence

“…Another avenue for future research involves whether group-oriented behavior (as imitation of industry peers can be) may change with altering conditions (e.g., the decision maker develops knowledge about the topic) (Harmeling et al 2017). Future research might adopt insights from this literature to our topic in order to determine whether experience gained with the CMO position or the firm's growth into a dominant industry player impacts the role of imitation in the decision concerning whether to have a CMO on the TMT.…”

Bridging User Perception and Stickiness in Business Microblog Contexts: A Moderated Mediation Model

“…The findings show the emotional connection factor links between perceived usefulness and stickiness. It indicates that increased perception of usefulness induces users to access information via the microblog and increased sharing behavior of users, which strengthens their emotional connections that also results in stickiness [26,38,66]. Moreover, the study adopts adaptivity as a moderator that affects the mediating effect of emotional connection.…”

“…This feeling of togetherness and belonging is accompanied by the notion of being part of a group, spending time together, companionship, socializing, and networking. According to some social psychology studies, humans need to belong to a group to be affiliated with others [12,26] because groups provide individuals with a source of information and help in achieving goals as well as giving rewards [27].…”

Seeing eye to eye: social augmented reality and shared decision making in the marketplace

“…Extant marketing literature emphasizes that customer decision making is a multi-stage process (Batra and Keller 2016) that oftentimes involves the exchange of information and decision support with others (Harmeling et al 2017;Zhang et al 2018). Apart from online reviews and ratings, many customers consider friends and family as trustworthy advisors (Deloitte 2016).…”

“…We address this need by building on marketing literature that regards customer decision making as a staged and social process (Batra and Keller 2016;Harmeling et al 2017;Zhang et al 2018). To identify relevant mechanisms in this process, we utilize socially situated cognition theory (Semin and Smith 2013), which posits that people commonly rely on each other's support to complete a task.…”