경험개치대소비자대전자내용적인지개치적중개영향(经验价值对消费者对电子内容的认知价值的中介影响): 중국살독연건시장(中国杀毒软件市场)

The Mediating Effect of Experiential Value on Customers' Perceived Value of Digital Content: China's Anti-virus Program Market

数字内容在给公司带来机遇和挑战的同时也极大的改变了我们的生活. 创意企业整合视频, 图片, 文本和数据进行数字化过的音频, 开发新产品或服务, 创作数字经验推广自己的品牌. 大多数有关数字内容的文献是关于基本概念或者营销的发展. 其实, 比起普通产品或服务的传统价值链, 数字内容产业似乎有更多的潜在价值. 因为相当多的数字内容是免费的, 价格, 作为信息的质量或价值的指标, 不是必须被感知的(Rowley 2008). 很显然, 当前数字内容的主题是 "价值" 和关于消费者对数字内容的感知价值的研究. 本文讨论了体验价值在消费者评估数字内容时的优势. 本文在对数字内容 "价值" 的理解方面有两个不同但是相关的贡献. 第一, 基于数字内容与普通产品和服务的比较, 本文提出了两个关键特点使得体验战略适合数字内容: 无形和接近于零的再造成本. 最重要的是, 基于对公司的理想化的价值和客户的感知价值之间的差异的讨论, 本文强调了数字内容的价格和定价与普通产品和服务的不同. 无形的结果是, 价格可能并不反映顾客感知价值. 另外, 数字内容的成本处在发展阶段可能非常高但再造会大幅缩水. 而且, 由于前面提到的价值鸿沟, 这个价格政策改变因不同的数字内容而不同. 例如, 平价战略通常用于电影和音乐(Magiera 2001;Netherby 2002), 而有持续的需求的数字内容如在线游戏和杀毒软件的问题牵涉到一个更复杂的效用和极具竞争力的价格水平. 数字内容企业必须探索各种各样的策略来克服这个缺口. 对于广告, 形象, 口碑等常用的市场战略和他们对顾客感知价值的影响的研究变得至关重要. 中国数字内容产业正变得越来越国际化, 并引起了具有各自竞争优势的国家和地区的关注. 2008-2009中国数字内容产业年度发展报告(CCIDConsulting 2009)表明, 在国内需求和政府政策的大力支持下, 中国数字内容产业在2008年保持了大约30%的快速增长, 表明了这个产业在明显的初期扩张阶段. 在中国, 需要更新的杀毒软件和其他软件程序使用季度定价政策. 用户可以免费下载试用版, 用6个月或一年. 如果他们更久的使用, 连续的付款方式是必要的. 他们在试用阶段检测数字内容的优良度, 决定是否要付继续使用. 对于中国的音乐和电影工业的发展战略, 体验最初没有被广泛的应用, 虽然其他国家的公司注意到体验的重要性并探索了相关的战略(如客户在下载前有好几秒可以免费听听音乐). 由于上述原因, 杀毒软件在中国可以代表数字内容产业而且在中国杀毒市场探索了体验价值在顾客的数字内容感知价值中的优势. 为了提高调查数据的可靠性, 该研究集中在那些有使用杀毒软件经验的人群. 实证结果显示, 体验价值对顾客对数字内容的感知价值有积极的影响. 换句话说, 因为数字内容是无形的, 再造成本几乎为零, 客户的评估是根据他们的体验. 另外, 形象和口碑不产生积极的影响, 只对体验价值有影响. 这就是说, 数字内容价值链不同于普通产品或服务. 体验价值有显著的优势并调节形象和口碑对感知价值的作用. 这个研究结果有助于了解为什麽在发展中国家存在免费的数字内容下载. 客户只有通过体验它才可以感知数字内容的价值. 这也是为什么政府如此扶持发展数字内容. 其他发展中国家在起步阶段的数字内容企业可以借鉴这里的建议. 另外, 基于体验战略的优势, 公司应该更努力投资于客户的体验. 由于数字内容的特点和价值鸿沟的存在, 顾客只有经历了他们真正想要的才能感知更多的无形的数字内容的价值. 而且, 因为再造成本近乎为零, 公司可以使用体验战略, 以提高客户对数字内容的理解.

Digital content makes big changes to our daily lives while bringing opportunities and challenges for companies. Creative firms integrate pictures, texts, videos, audios, and data by digitalization to develop new products or services and create digital experiences to promote their brands. Most articles on digital content contribute to the basic concept or development of marketing it in literature. Actually, compared with traditional value chains for common products or services, the digital content industry seems to have more potential value. Because quite a bit of digital content is free to the consumer, price is not necessarily perceived as an indicator of the quality or value of information (Rowley 2008). It becomes evident that a current theme in digital content is the issue of "value," and research on customers' perceived value of digital content is a necessity. This article argues that experiential value has an advantage in customers' evaluations of digital content. Two different but related contributions to the understanding of "value" of digital content are made here. First, based on the comparison of digital content with products and services, the article proposes two key characteristics that make experiential strategy available for digital content: intangibility and near-zero reproduction cost. On top of that, based on the discussion of the gap between company's idealized value and customer's perceived value, this article emphasizes that digital content prices and pricing of digital content is different from products and services. As a result of intangibility, prices may not reflect customer value. Moreover, the cost of digital content in the development stage may be very high while reproduction costs shrink dramatically. Moreover, because of the value gap mentioned before, the pricing polices vary for different digital contents. For example, flat price policy is generally used for movies and music (Magiera 2001; Netherby 2002), while for continuous demand, digital content such as online games and anti-virus programs involves a more complicated matter of utility and competitive price levels. Digital content companies have to explore various kinds of strategies to overcome this gap. Rethinking marketing solutions such as advertisements, images, and word-of-mouth and their effect on customers' perceived value becomes essential. China's digital content industry is becoming more and more globalized and drawing special attention from different countries and regions that have respective competitive advantages. The 2008-2009 Annual Report on the Development of China's Digital Content Industry (CCIDConsulting 2009) indicates that, with the driven power of domestic demand and governmental policy support, the country's digital content industry maintained a fast growth of some 30 percent in 2008, obviously indicating the initial stage of industry expansion. In China, anti-virus programs and other software programs which need to be updated use a quarter-based pricing policy. Customers can download a trial version for free and use it for six months or a year. If they want to use it longer, continuous payment is needed. They examine the excellence of the digital content during this trial period and decide whether to pay for continued usage. For China’s music and movie industries, as a result of initial development, experiential strategy has not been much applied, even though firms in other countries find the trial experience and explore important strategies(such as customers listening to music for several seconds for free before downloading it). For the above reasons, anti-virus program may be a representative for digital content industry in China and an exploratory study of the advantage of experiential value in customer's perceived value of digital content is done in the anti-virus market of China. In order to enhance the reliability of the survey data, this study focused on people who were experienced users of anti-virus programs. The empirical results revealed that experiential value has a positive effect on customers' perceived value of digital content. In other words, because digital content is intangible and the reproduction costs are nearly zero, customers' evaluations are based heavily on their experience. Moreover, image and word-of-mouth do not have a positive effect on perceived value, only on experiential value. That is to say, a digital content value chain is different from that of a general product or service. Experiential value has a notable advantage and mediates the effect of image and word-of-mouth on perceived value. The results of this study help provide an understanding of why free digital content downloads exist in developing countries. Customers can perceive the value of digital content only by using and experiencing it. This is also why such governments support the development of digital content. Other developing countries whose digital content business is also in the beginning stage can make use of the suggestions here. Moreover, based on the advantage of experiential strategy, companies should make more of an effort to invest in customers' experience. As a result of the characteristics and value gap of digital content, customers perceive more value in the intangible digital content only by experiencing what they really want. Moreover, because of the near-zero reproduction costs, companies can perhaps use experiential strategy to enhance customer understanding of digital content.