• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.101-124
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• 2009

According to Wikipedia, virtual reality (VR) is defined as a technology that allows a user to interact with a computer-simulated environment. Due to a rapid growth in information technology (IT), the cost of virtual reality has been decreasing while the utility of virtual reality advertisements has dramatically increased. Nevertheless, only a few studies have investigated the effects of virtual reality advertisement on consumer behaviors. Therefore, the objective of this study is to empirically examine the effects of virtual reality advertisement. Compared to traditional online advertisements, virtual reality advertisement enables consumers to experience products realistically over the Internet by providing high media richness, interactivity, and telepresence (Suh and Lee, 2005). Advertisements with high media richness facilitate consumers' understanding of advertised products by providing them with a large amount and a high variety of information on the products. Interactivity also provides consumers with a high level of control over the computer-simulated environment in terms of their abilities to adjust the information according to their individual interests and concerns and to be active rather than passive in their engagement with the information (Pimentel and Teixera, 1994). Through high media richness and interactivity, virtual reality advertisements can generate compelling feelings of "telepresence" (Suh and Lee, 2005). Telepresence is a sense of being there in an environment by means of a communication medium (Steuer, 1992). Virtual reality advertisements enable consumers to create a perceptual illusion of being present and highly engaged in a simulated environment, while they are in reality physically present in another place (Biocca, 1997). Based on the characteristics of virtual reality advertisements, a research model has been proposed to explain consumer responses to the virtual reality advertisements. The proposed model includes two dimensions of consumer responses. One dimension is consumers' rational response, which is based on the Information Processing Theory. Based on the Information Processing Theory, product knowledge and perceived risk are selected as antecedents of intention to purchase. The other dimension is emotional response of consumers, which is based on the Attitude-Structure Theory. Based on the Attitude-Structure Theory, arousal, flow, and positive affect are selected as antecedents of intention to purchase. Because it has been criticized to have investigated only one of the two dimensions of consumer response in prior studies, our research model has been built so as to incorporate both dimensions. Based on the Attitude-Structure Theory, we hypothesized the path of consumers' emotional responses to a virtual reality advertisement: (H1) Arousal by the virtual reality advertisement increases flow; (H2) Flow increases positive affect; and (H3) Positive affect increases intension to purchase. In addition, we hypothesized the path of consumers' rational responses to the virtual reality advertisement based on the Information Processing Theory: (H4) Increased product knowledge through the virtual reality advertisement decreases perceived risk; and (H5) Perceived risk decreases intension to purchase. Based on literature of flow, we additionally hypothesized the relationship between flow and product knowledge: (H6) Flow increases product knowledge. To test the hypotheses, we conducted a free simulation experiment [Fromkin and Streufert, 1976] with 300 people. Subjects were asked to use the virtual reality advertisement of a cellular phone on the Internet and then answer questions about the variables. To check whether subjects fully experienced the virtual reality advertisement, they were asked to answer a quiz about the virtual reality advertisement itself. Responses of 26 subjects were dropped because of their incomplete answers. Responses of 274 subjects were used to test the hypotheses. It was found that all of six hypotheses are accepted. In addition, we found that consumers' emotional response has stronger impact on their intention to purchase than their rational response does. This study sheds much light into practical implications for both IS researchers and managers. First of all, while most of previous research has analyzed only one of the customers' rational and emotional responses, we theoretically incorporated and empirically examined both of the two sides. Second, we empirically showed that mediators such as arousal, flow, positive affect, product knowledge, and perceived risk play an important role between virtual reality advertisement and customer's intention to purchase. In addition, the findings of this study can provide a basis of practical strategies for managers. It was found that consumers' emotional response is stronger than their rational response. This result indicates that advertisements using virtual reality should focus on the emotional side, and that virtual reality can be served as an appropriate advertisement tool for fancy products that require their online advertisements to give an impetus to customers' emotion. Finally, even if this study examined the effects of virtual reality advertisement of cellular phone, its findings could be applied to other products that are suited for virtual experience. However, this research has some limitations. We were unable to control different kinds of consumers and different attributes of products on consumers' intention to purchase. It is, therefore, deemed important for future research to control the consumer and product types for more reliable results. In addition to the consumer and product attributes, other variables could affect consumers' intention to purchase. Thus, the future research needs to find ways t control other variables.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.456-463
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• 2016

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Setting healthful beverage expectations, making calcium-rich foods and beverages (CRF/B) available, and role modeling are parenting practices promoting calcium intake among early adolescents. This study aimed to evaluate emotion-based messages designed to motivate parents of early adolescents to perform these practices. SUBJECTS/METHODS: Emotion-based messages were developed for each parenting practice and tested in 35 parents from 5 states. Findings were used to modify messages and develop a survey administered via Amazon MechanicalTurk to a convenience sample of Asian (n = 166) and Hispanic (n = 184) parents of children 10-13 years. Main outcome measures were message comprehension, motivation, relevance, acceptability, and novelty. Engagement in the parenting practices was also assessed. RESULTS: Message comprehension was acceptable for the majority of parents. Most also agreed that messages were motivational (setting healthful beverage expectations (69.0%), making CRF/B available (67.4%), and role modeling (80.0%)), relevant and acceptable. About 30-50% indicated they had not seen the information before. Many parents indicated they were already engaging in the practices (> 70%). No racial/ethnic differences were observed for responses to messages or engaging in parenting practices. CONCLUSIONS: Results indicate that emotion-based messages designed to motivate parents to engage in parenting practices that promote calcium intake among early adolescents were motivating, relevant, and acceptable.

• Journal of the Korea Fashion and Costume Design Association
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.61-71
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• 2020

This study looks at 'Corporate Social Responsibility' which is required for the fashion industry and brands in modern times. The American fashion brand known for its corporate social responsibility activities, 'Patagonia' is the case study for this research. The purpose of this study is to make suggestions to eco-friendly, outdoor and casual apparel fashion brands that want to introduce corporate social responsibility programs by considering the case of Patagonia's "Worn Wear" campaign. The method of this study was to review corporate social responsibility, previous studies on Patagonia, and literature, such as domestic and foreign media, Patagonia's official homepage, specialty publications, and media. The study concerning corporate social responsibility is focused on Patagonia's "Worn Wear". Worn Wear is Patagonia's system that repurchases and repairs products from Patagonia's own consumers. The study found that the well known corporate social responsibility led to increased sales. Patagonia's social responsibility activities are thought to be part of the brand identity that goes beyond marketing. In the Worn Ware case, repurchasing products from consumers and reselling them or reprocessing them resulted in increased sales, increased consumer engagement, and higher brand attention. The suggestion for a fashion company or brand in a category similar to Patagonia that is looking to engage in corporate social responsibilbty is to adopt and continue a campaign that 'consists of a successful marketing image, connecting memories and new experiences, separated shopping channels while diversifying the creation of distribution and contact channels'.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.760-770
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• 2016

This study aims to investigate and measure the effectiveness between the value of the reward program and loyalty of the reward program as well as its influential transference effect of the loyalty of the entity (theater or exhibition) via investigating both its behavioral loyalty and attitudinal loyalty effectiveness. As a result, higher value of reward program increases the level of loyalty of the reward program. Key results were found that the behavioral loyalty positively influences the loyalty of the theatre/exhibition -the operator the loyalty program since the behavior loyalty requires participatory engagement, the reward program becoming a stimulator acting as a valuable component to drive consumer's revisit. However the attitudinal loyalty effectiveness was not as effectives as the behavioral loyalty since consumers tend to perceive a reward program as an informative beneficial tool rather than an emotionally engaging platform.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.16 no.11
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• pp.441-446
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to investigate the digital media strategies for small business branding. To understand the effective strategies for promoting small business through digital content marketing, we conducted in-depth interview with small business managers. The results of in-depth interview revealed that it is critical for small businesses to start creating and including video marketing as part of their entire content strategy. Especially, small business managers considered that video that provides rich media content can boost consumer engagement and increase the time spent on a branded contents. From a managerial perspective, this study provides guide on what small businesses should consider when developing and implementing digital strategies. For future research, this study provides the guide to investigate the effects of digital contents on the brand equity of small business.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.68-79
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• 2021

Purpose: This study aimed to analyze the mass and social media contents and structures related to particulate matter before and after the policy enforcement of the comprehensive countermeasures for particulate matter, derive nursing implications, and provide a basis for designing health policies. Methods: After crawling online news articles and posts on social networking sites before and after policy enforcement with particulate matter as keywords, we conducted topic and semantic network analysis using TEXTOM, R, and UCINET 6. Results: In topic analysis, behavior tips was the common main topic in both media before and after the policy enforcement. After the policy enforcement, influence on health disappeared from the main topics due to increased reports about reduction measures and government in mass media, whereas influence on health appeared as the main topic in social media. However semantic network analysis confirmed that social media had much number of nodes and links and lower centrality than mass media, leaving substantial information that was not organically connected and unstructured. Conclusion: Understanding of particulate matter policy and implications influence health, as well as gaps in the needs and use of health information, should be integrated with leadership and supports in the nurses' care of vulnerable patients and public health promotion.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.266-278
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• 2024

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate healthcare consumers' interest in patient safety on social media using structural topic modeling (STM) and to identify changes in interest over time. Methods: Analyzing 105,727 posts from Naver news comments, blogs, internet cafés, and Twitter between 2010 and 2022, this study deployed a Python script for data collection and preprocessing. STM analysis was conducted using R, with the documents' publication years serving as metadata to trace the evolution of discussions on patient safety. Results: The analysis identified a total of 13 distinct topics, organized into three primary communities: (1) "Demand for systemic improvement of medical accidents," underscoring the need for legal and regulatory reform to enhance accountability; (2) "Efforts of the government and organizations for safety management," highlighting proactive risk mitigation strategies; and (3) "Medical accidents exposed in the media," reflecting widespread concerns over medical negligence and its repercussions. These findings indicate pervasive concerns regarding medical accountability and transparency among healthcare consumers. Conclusion: The findings emphasize the importance of transparent healthcare policies and practices that openly address patient safety incidents. There is clear advocacy for policy reforms aimed at increasing the accountability and transparency of healthcare providers. Moreover, this study highlights the significance of educational and engagement initiatives involving healthcare consumers in fostering a culture of patient safety. Integrating consumer perspectives into patient safety strategies is crucial for developing a robust safety culture in healthcare.

• The Transactions of the Korea Information Processing Society
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• v.13 no.8
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• pp.367-373
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• 2024

The growth of mobile devices and network infrastructure has brought significant changes to the music industry. Online streaming services has allowed music consumption without constraints of time and space, leading to increased consumer engagement in music creation and sharing activities, resulting in a vast accumulation of music data. In this study, we define metadata as "song sentences" by using a user's playlist. To calculate similarity, we embedded them into a high-dimensional vector space using skip-gram with negative sampling algorithm. Performance eva luation results indicated that the recommended music algorithm, utilizing singers, genres, composers, lyricists, arrangers, eras, seasons, emotions, and tag lists, exhibited the highest performance. Unlike conventional recommendation methods based on users' behavioral data, our approach relies on the inherent information of the tracks themselves, potentially addressing the cold start problem and minimizing filter bubble phenomena, thus providing a more convenient music listening experience.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.1-14
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• 2016

Consumers have been increasing their interests in firms' ethicality as well as in the features of the firms' products when they decide to purchase a certain product. Recently, fair trade is considered to be a type of ethical marketing in the business-to-consumer market. In this regard, the effects of fair trade-based marketing on firm performance have become the center of academic and managerial concerns. Despite this importance, few studies have investigated whether fair-trade is a source of competitive advantage or just a cost of doing business. The present research attempts to provide evidence of how fair trade-based marketing influences competitive advantage. Two experimental studies were conducted to explore consumers' purchase intention, which can be a proxy of competitive advantage, in a foreign product-consumption context. Drawing on the stakeholder theory, the first study was performed to examine the effects of fair trade marketing on consumers' purchase intention through a within-subjects design. In addition, building on the signal theory, the second study was executed to test the effects of a fair trade mark on consumers' purchase intention. The findings of the current research reveal that consumers prefer fair trade-based products to others and that when it comes to fair trade-certified products, consumers are more likely to purchase products with that certification than otherwise, even when those products are sold at higher costs than rival products. Interestingly, the results of this research present that there is a significant difference of consumers' purchase intention of a fair trade-based product between two different marketers. This implies that fair trade-based products should be differentially distributed and targeted at a certain type of consumers.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.43-66
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• 2024

In an era where digital technology reshapes brand-consumer interactions, this study examines the influence of Nike's Run Club and Adidas' Runtastic apps on loyalty and advocacy. Analyzing 3,715 English reviews from January 2020 to October 2023 through text mining, and conducting a focused sentiment analysis on 155 'recommend' mentions, we explore the nuances of 'hot loyalty'. The findings reveal Nike as a 'companion' with an emphasis on emotional engagement, versus Runtastic's 'tool' focus on reliability. This underscores the varied consumer perceptions across similar platforms, highlighting the necessity for brands to integrate user preferences and address technical flaws to foster loyalty. Demonstrating how customized technology adaptations impact loyalty, this research offers crucial insights for digital brand strategy, suggesting a proactive approach in app development and management for brand loyalty enhancement